James Carville on Politics Today, 2026, and 2028

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

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Summary

“It’s hard for me to imagine a voter that votes in 2026 that doesn’t have Trump on their mind.” According to veteran Democratic strategist James Carville, Trump "keeps jacking the stakes up, every day” and remains the focal point of American politics as we head towards the midterms next year. As he puts it, the Republican Party has become a “personality cult” while the Democratic Party is "a coalition in search of itself." As he explains: “I don’t think Democrats can know who they are until Democratic primary voters weigh in and decide. It’s not up to me to say what the Democratic Party should be. It’s for eight people to run for president and then have Democratic primary voters pick one, and then that’s what the party becomes.” In a wide-ranging Conversation, Carville shares his distinctive perspective and characteristically shrewd insights on where our politics might be headed as we look toward the midterms and 2028.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, Bill Crystal here. Welcome back to conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined again today by my friend James Carville,
0:22.4	who's going out of his way to join us here on October 1st,
0:25.3	I believe he's in Rome right now,
0:27.1	and despite the time difference,
0:28.8	is here to discuss the state of our politics.
0:31.3	So I hate to detract from your vacation for an hour
0:35.6	to get into a more depressing topic, but whatever. Maybe you'll cheer us all up, James. I don't know. Well, you can't get away from it. Okay. I mean, you're still only going to put up. You're sitting alive at a hotel with people. You can't escape this. There's no such thing, so it doesn't do any good. Well, that's a, I don't know if it's reassuring or the opposite, but that's interesting
0:55.6	to hear.
0:56.9	The, let's begin, it's October 1st.
0:58.7	Yesterday, we'll talk about the Republican Party, Democratic Party, how things look for
1:03.6	26, 28, but I thought I just get your quick reaction as a former Marine to the president's
1:09.0	and Pete Excess, President Trump's and Peteete excess uh president trumps and ptaxas
1:11.8	speeches yesterday at quantico uh what did you watch any of it what you make of that
1:17.1	i obviously didn't watch the whole thing i mean some i don't have a total tolerance of pain i
1:25.6	was actually more aghast at what has been said.
1:31.1	And I'll tell you what was really,
1:34.1	so everybody goes through, you're right,
1:36.0	I was similarly 60 years ago, whatever,
1:40.2	your son, okay?
1:42.3	Everybody thinks, well, you know, I had it hard.
1:46.7	And basically, and we, by the way, my wife and I had Paris Island in 2022, you know, for
1:51.8	behind the curtain tour.
	...

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