The Daily Blast: Angry Trump Unravels over 2026 Woes as GOP Panic Grows: “Flashing Red”

The DSR Network

Chris Cotnoir

Government

4.5 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

Democrats have signaled that they’re running in the 2026 midterms on “affordability.” This week, Trump unleashed several angry, wild-eyed rants about their “affordability” message. In one, he raged that this message is a “con job.” In another, he seethed that it’s a “Democrat scam.” He’s angry because these attacks are working, and because he knows it means the GOP’s midterm woes are getting much worse. And right on cue, in this week’s special election in Tennessee that Republicans won, the vote shifted 13 points to the left relative to 2024. That shocked Republicans into a panic: Representative Elise Stefanik openly fretted that Republicans are “underperforming.” Senator Ted Cruz urged Republicans to sound the “alarm.” And a senior GOP strategist called the result a “flashing red warning.” We talked to Amanda Litman, the president of Run for Something, which is recruiting candidates across the country. She digs into the special election results to explain why they’re good news, details how Democrats can keep the momentum going through 2026, and reflects on what could still go wrong. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:16.4	I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
0:31.8	On Tuesday night, in a special House election in Tennessee, the Republican candidate won by nine points in a district that Donald Trump carried last year by 22 points.
0:37.5	That's a huge swing to the left.
0:40.3	Trump is in deep denial about the meaning of these results.
0:43.7	He called this a great victory.
0:45.6	He's also been raging wildly that the Democrats' affordability message is a scam.
0:50.6	But his allies aren't in denial about what happened.
0:53.7	They're out there warning that Republicans
0:55.3	are underperforming badly, that it's time to sound the alarm, and that there are flashing red warning
1:00.7	signs for the GOP. Amanda Littman, president of the Progressive Group Run for Something, has been
1:07.1	heavily involved in many state and local elections, so she's going to walk us through all the results, what we can learn from them,
1:13.4	and why Republicans are right to panic.
1:16.1	Amanda, good to have you on.
1:17.8	Thanks for having me, Greg.
1:19.6	So the Republican, Matt Van Epps, beat Afton Bain, the Democrat, by 54% to 45%, again, nine points. But that's a swing of 13 points in the Democrats' favor
1:31.7	relative to 2024 according to Nate Cohn, Republicans have underperformed Trump by an average
1:37.4	of 13 points in many state and federal special elections that happened again here.
1:42.9	Amanda, what's your overall reaction to these results?
1:45.4	What drove that swing? People are pissed to Trump. He is not a good president. They do not like him.
1:50.8	They do not like his policies around the economy. They do not like what is going on.
1:54.9	They are looking for any possible way to communicate that. And I think this election was a
	...

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