Full Episode: Washington Week with The Atlantic full episode, 10/9/26

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: In 1932, FDR defeated Herbert Hoover for the presidency, Amelia Earhart made her historic nonstop flight across the Atlantic, and the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped. 1932 also saw the rise of George McGill, a Democrat sent to the United States Senate by Kansas. He is notable because he was also the last Democrat Kansas sent to the U.S. Senate.

Somehow, though, Kansas, ruby red Kansas, stoplight red Kansas, blood red Kansas, might just decide to send a Democrat to the Senate this year. How is this even happening?

Tonight, we'll take a close look at the ever-expanding battleground map and examine what President Trump is doing to prevent a blue wave, next.

Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

Right now, election forecaster Nate Silver is giving the Democrats a 93 percent chance of winning the House and a 74 percent chance of winning the Senate. It is not just Kansas that is in play. Alaska, Iowa, Texas, and possibly other red state seats are up for grabs. Assuming that the polls are actually correct, which is a dangerous assumption these days, but one we will make with hesitation, Donald Trump's last two years in office could be very difficult.

Tonight, I'll discuss the Democrats' chances and the president's limited understanding of his own unpopularity with my guests, Carrie Dann, the managing editor of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, Adam Harris, co-host, Radio Atlantic, the flagship Atlantic Magazine podcast, Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News, and Annie Linskey is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Thank you all for being here.

Jon, you're just back from Kansas.

JONATHAN KARL, Chief Washington Correspondent, ABC News: Indeed.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Tell us about Kansas. What did you find?

JONATHAN KARL: Well, look, this is a real race. I was there.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Crazy. That's crazy.

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, look, 94 years since they elected a Democrat to the Senate. But there is no -- there's a reason that this race is now considered a toss-up. There's a reason that it is now quite possible that the Democrats have a better chance of winning in Kansas than they do in Maine.

They've got -- I spent time with Pastor Adam Hamilton, who is the Democratic candidate. If you'd gone into a lab to try to create the perfect candidate for the Democrats to run in Kansas, you might come out with somebody who looks like Adam Hamilton. He is somebody with no political, you know, background. He's -- most of his life, he was a registered Republican. He is a pastor who is the pastor at the largest church in the state of Kansas, and he is a deeply moderate guy. He will tell you that the middle point of the lower 48 is there in Kansas, and he calls himself -- I'm a liberal and I'm a conservative.

But the guy's --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Wait, wait, and that works?

JONATHAN KARL: He does this. He does. Well --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And that works?

JONATHAN KARL: But he is deeply thoughtful. And he does you know, speak to the issues. And he's up against Roger Marshall who is the -- you know, the Republican incumbent who you may remember earlier, about a year-and-a-half ago after the big beautiful bill passed, he did a town hall meeting where he got heckled and got angry with the crowd and stormed out, saying that they were being rude.

He has basically not done publicly scheduled events since then, except he did one today. It was the first thing in a long time.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Did they just realize -- I mean, are their internal polling is showing bad things for Senator Marshall?

JONATHAN KARL: It undoubtedly is. I mean, the Republicans are spending money in Kansas. By the way, so now are the Democrats. And there --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right, both sides of that coin are interesting.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Republicans don't have to spend money in Kansas, and Democrats don't bother spending money.

JONATHAN KARL: Which is what it would be. This was not on anybody's list, but there's a reason that the Cook Political Report moved the Kansas Senate race to a toss-up just this week.

Look, I don't know. Are Republicans going to lose in Kansas? I mean, that would be a pretty extraordinary thing. But there's no doubt that this is a real race.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes. Carrie, tell us the truth. It's just your chicken entrails and tarot cards, right? It's -- when you move a race to Tulsa --

CARRIE DANN, Managing Editor, The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter: Well, we climb a mountain and we get the tablets. It's stone tablets that --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Oh, no, I didn't realize it was so elaborate. So, tell us about what you're -- tell us about the polling and the decision to move Kansas into Tulsa.

CARRIE DANN: You know, almost every cycle, there is an incumbent senator who kind of gets caught napping a little bit and wakes up to the reality that, oh, I actually have a competitive race. We were starting to hear months ago that there was a little bit of concern that Marshall wasn't taking this threat seriously enough. And --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: From the -- his --

CARRIE DANN: From the Republican side.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: From his caucus?

CARRIE DANN: Yes, from the Republican side. That it is a state that, to your point, Jon, yes, they haven't elected a Democrat to the Senate in almost 100 years, but they do have a sitting Democratic governor. So, it is a state where a D next to your name is not necessarily a death knell, even though it is a very heavily red state.

And then Adam Hamilton, you don't get to be a pastor of a mega church unless you are a very, very good communicator and a very earnest communicator. And, you know, follow the money, right? There is money being spent here, real American dollars that are being spent to prevent Adam Hamilton from winning. And, by the way, the money that went there came out of North Carolina, which should have been an intensely competitive race for Republicans. They're basically forfeiting there, which really shows the urgency of trying to bail Roger Marshall out.

Now, they're -- Adam Hamilton thinks that he has a very good line of attack against Marshall. As an OB-GYN, Marshall's practice sued over 700 patients for outstanding debts. 81 of those individuals faced arrest. And I think in an era when there's a lot of people who are struggling with healthcare costs and everyday costs, that kind of story really resonates.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Annie, they're really banging on that one in particular, right?

ANNIE LINSKEY, White House Reporter, The Wall Street Journal: Oh, yes. When you watch the ads in that race, you have these very compelling stories where you have real Kansas residents who are saying direct to camera, this is my story. I was sick. I had a bill. It was $50 and I faced arrest. And so I feel like those ads have broken through in a way that -- you know, that could move the needle.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. Adam, diesel fuel.

ADAM HARRIS, Host, Radio Atlantic: Yes. I mean, honestly, all of these things are connected, right? If you're thinking about affordability, you're thinking about people who are getting sued over their medical bills, right, the idea of having a better medical system, Medicare system, has been in the American sort of water for the longest time.

And so -- but if you think about some of these races that Republicans are functionally looking away from now, right? Thinking about North Carolina, where Democrats really just feel like they've had -- it was a godsend, right? In, in the recruiting of the candidate for the office, because it's somebody who had won office before, was a strong candidate. And they're moving that money to places like Kansas because, you know, you -- they're having to play defense where they didn't think they would.

Now, Democrats are also sort of feeling some of that some of that pinch because as the sort of blocks are moving around the board, because you look at Maine, now a state where, you know, Susan Collins has been dogged by the sort of question about abortion, where she says, well, you know, she ends up voting for a Supreme Court candidate who said, oh, he told me that he wasn't going to do anything about Roe v. Wade, and then of course, Roe v. Wade was --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes. But Susan Collins is always going to Penelope Pitstop her way out of like a danger, though. She always does, right?

ADAM HARRIS: She's sort of like the Democrats' white knight.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Is that an antiquated reference?

ADAM HARRIS: It might be.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes. I'm just checking.

ADAM HARRIS: But it might work for the audience.

ANNIE LINSKEY: It works in Maine, I think.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes. Does it work in Maine? All right, maybe it works in Maine.

ADAM HARRIS: It works in Maine.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But, no, I mean, she caught -- look, she always gets out of a jam. She caught a lucky break when Graham Platner turned out to be Graham Platner. And she's up against a second tier candidate.

I mean, Maine is --

ADAM HARRIS: Maine is Maine, and she won by nine points in a year where Joe Biden won by nine points in Maine.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: You know, and the other thing, she's just did her second debate in a week. And she's doing four debates. And she's not, you know, running and hiding. I mean, this is a contrast with some of these other candidates.

I mean, Roger Marshall, absolutely, I mean, very few public events.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

JONATHAN KARL: Very few interviews that aren't with extremely friendly outlets, and not many of those either. And, you know, Susan Collins is out there, and I think you see a different result.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

CARRIE DANN: My favorite --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Carrie?

CARRIE DANN: Oh, I was just going to say, my favorite result in, there was a Washington Post poll of the Maine race. That poll, by the way, did show Collins behind. But one of the questions they asked is, of Maine likely voters, have you voted for Susan Collins before? And 70 percent of Maine voters have voted for her before.

So, not only does she have universal name I.D. in the state, and some fairly, you know, high goodwill from her constituent work, but people have voted for her. And now Troy Jackson has to ask them, hey, I know you voted for her before, but you got to vote for me now.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That is an amazing stat.

JONATHAN KARL: And, you know, she's still running in a state that Kamala Harris won convincingly.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying she always polls -- she always manages to pull it out.

But, Carrie, let me stay with you for a second. But tell us about the polls in other deep red states. Alaska is an obvious one, Nebraska, so on.

CARRIE DANN: Right. And if we'd a had this conversation a year and a half ago, I would've thought I had been dropped from Mars that we're talking about any of these races, or that we're even talking really plausibly about Democrats perhaps losing Maine and having a path to a Senate majority.

But the way that it stands now, Democrats have expanded the map so that they're looking at very plausible competitive races in Alaska, as you mentioned, in Ohio, in Texas, in Kansas, and as you mentioned, in Nebraska.

Now, this is a really unique situation because the candidate who's running is running as an independent. It's clear from all of the Republican advertising that they're trying to drop on the state, they want to remind everybody Dan Osborne is running as an independent, but he's going to caucus with Democrats.

Now, this is not the first time that Dan Osborne has run in Nebraska in the last even two years. He ran two years ago, came up as an independent, came up six points short, which was sort of a shock at the time in that cycle. Deb Fischer, by the way, was probably the equivalent of a candidate who got caught napping and didn't take that threat seriously.

The real question is, does that trick play work two times in a row?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

JONATHAN KARL: But it's interesting. I mean, the Democratic brand is so toxic in some of these, you know, western states, that you have, not just in Nebraska, but also in Idaho, in South Dakota, in Montana independent candidates running. And in the cases of Nebraska, Montana, and Idaho, they've actually -- the Democrats actually withdrew their candidate.

So, the only candidate -- the only major candidate on the ballot against the Republican is an independent, and that's done because they know. Now, I don't know if in any of those independents, I mean, Idaho -- I mean, you know, Nebraska's the best chance. They're all long shots. But the only way you have even a long shot is if you don't have a D next to your name.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes. By law, we're mandated to talk about Michigan, even though it's actually not the most interesting, one of these. But how do you --

ANNIE LINSKEY: It's pretty interesting.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: No, just not as interesting as Alaska, which shouldn't be discussed at all.

CARRIE DANN: I mean, that debate was certainly compelling.

ANNIE LINSKEY: Yes. And if you look at the landscape in Michigan, I mean, Michigan is a state that has been hit hardest by the Trump tariffs. I think the tariff burden in Michigan is over $5,000 a household.

So, this is a place that was, you know, a swing state that Trump won just, you know, two years ago. But this is where Trump's policies have, you know, bled out of Washington and are really hitting home. And so if you are paying, if you can imagine a 5,000 -- and this is on average, $5,000 burden per household in Michigan, suddenly it becomes quite -- you know, it opens the door for a Democrat, even a Democrat whose, you know, views are outside of the mainstream. I mean, in these other cases, we're talking about --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He's a much more natural politician, I think, no?

ANNIE LINSKEY: He's pulling it off certainly. I mean --

JONATHAN KARL: Also, I mean, he's been on Fox a bunch of times.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Which is a great move for very, very -- for highly articulate Democratic candidates and Democratic figures. Pete Buttigieg is obviously the trailblazer on that. But it's not a bad move.

JONATHAN KARL: But especially if you're being portrayed by the right as this kind of jihadist, this extremist, this dangerous. Then you come on, you're like, you're getting along and you're joking along with Jesse Watters, you know, and everything is fine.

But I thought the key moment in Michigan was seeing Mike Rogers doing an ad drinking a Labatt's, which as you know is a great Canadian beer.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: And saying, you know, we can't have a trade war with Canada. Canada's our friends. It's a wreck shot.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. He has to break on that one.

ANNIE LINSKEY: And the war. He's broken on the war as well.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And he broke on the war, and he's a hawk usually. I mean, it's not -- that's a little bit surprising.

Just one more state, Carrie, Ohio, Husted not looking so great for him.

CARRIE DANN: I mean, this is a state that's so interesting to me because I think voters may -- would be forgiven for being a little bit confused about who the incumbent is because Sherrod Brown served for so long and Jon Husted has been pretty low profile, and would very much like voters to think that Sherrod Brown is the incumbent. There's a lot of ads that he and his allies are airing reminding folks, well, Sherrod Brown has represented the state for 50 years, like it's sort of time for someone new. Well, you're the actual --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And the incumbent --

(CROSSTALKS)

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

CARRIE DANN: But one of the big animating issues there, aside from the fact that Sherrod Brown is -- also has sort of universal name I.D. in the state has been data centers. Data centers have been really resonant in a lot of different races, but this is a place where Sherrod Brown, I think, recognized early that the politics of this were going to be on the more populous side.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Let's talk about the undergirding issues. Every state has its own preoccupations, but, diesel fuel, gasoline prices, data centers --

ANNIE LINSKEY: And corruption.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And -- no, go ahead.

ANNIE LINSKEY: Yes.

ADAM HARRIS: Well, yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: There's time for both, if you can. Go ahead.

ANNIE LINSKEY: Okay, we can both do corruption.

ADAM HARRIS: I think, yes, we can both do corruption. I think it's just indicative of the ways that all of the things that we're talking about now, in the same way that, you know, any midterm election's going to be a referendum on the president's policies, what we're seeing right now is a referendum on the president's policies over the last two years, right?

You have the war in Iran that he can't tether to Joe Biden and say, oh, your prices are up because of Joe Biden, because that's fuel as a result of something that nobody -- most Americans wouldn't have known about last year, which is the Strait of Hormuz, right?

If you ran a poll from January of 2025 or 2020, even this year, and said, you know, have you ever heard of the Strait of Hormuz? Most people would say no. But now they can tether the president's policies specifically from the war on down.

It's why you see folks, like Husted, sort of trying to walk away, or Mike Rogers walking away from the president and trying to sever that tie, and the administration sort of letting them do that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. If -- alternate history here, if he hadn't gone to war with Iran and then, I don't want to say lose because it's not a loss yet, but it's not a win, and the Iranians hadn't discovered for themselves that, oh, we can stop oil from moving through the Strait of Hormuz, they knew that a long time ago actually, would we even be having this conversation about the Republicans on the defensive?

ANNIE LINSKEY: I think that's such a good question, and it's a topic that comes up repeatedly when I talk to my Republican sources, who -- some of whom are very close to Trump, very close to the administration. And they have been saying candidly since -- really since March, this war is going to kill us. This war is killing us.

And they point -- they say that they could have overcome the tariffs, even some of the immigration roundups, which have become very unpopular, which we haven't talked about. But, you know, surprisingly, immigration has been an area where Trump has lost.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, he's certainly losing what he -- whatever he gained in Hispanic votes, obviously.

ANNIE LINSKEY: Yes. But they really feel that the war and the increase in prices, and the increase specifically to your point in diesel prices, because that is what drives up the food costs and is hitting so hard in these farm states.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes, the farm states, it's -- I mean, heard it over and over again --

ANNIE LINSKEY: And you see it this week with Trump.

JONATHAN KAR: -- in Kansas, you see it in Iowa.

ANNIE LINSKEY: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

ANNIE LINSKEY: He took two major moves this week. One, you know, just today to lift sanctions on Russia, to allow Russian diesel fuel to come and sort of come to the aid. And also his E.O. on the red dye diesel --

JONATHAN KARL: Which the farmers will tell you does nothing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. Jon, I wanted to ask you about that. I mean, he's now importing diesel, small amount of diesel, from Russia, which I should point out imports soldiers from North Korea to fight the U.S.-backed Ukrainian government. It's quite a move.

Is it going to make any difference in diesel prices? And even if you can move diesel prices in two or three weeks, is it too late? Is this thing fixed?

JONATHAN KARL: Look I think that the Russia deal actually is going to make a big difference, not with diesel prices, but it's going to help Russia. You know, it's a lifeline to the Russian economy. It'll have a much greater impact there, which is why you saw the reaction you saw from Zelenskyy today. I mean, about as, you know, strong a reaction back on this. This is not something that's going to move the needle in the United States on diesel prices.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: But it does move the needle perhaps in Ukraine.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Carrie, I have a question about, and this is sort of like political, like fantasy football kind of thing, but -- and it's nobody's -- I'm not saying it's any of our fantasies. It's just interesting. The Senate could be 51-49, right? We could come out of this at 51-49. Does Fetterman of Pennsylvania jump the Republican Party, which would, of course, make the Senate 51-50, because Vance would be the tie-breaking vote? Is that a possibility that Fetterman would actually jump if the Republicans promised him enough?

CARRIE DANN: I mean, I will say I have -- John Fetterman has been asked this question probably five dozen times, right? It is not a recent development.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

CARRIE DANN: Whether it was in the context of it being the control of the Senate or just generally because of some of the votes that he's taken and because of the way that he's -- specifically that he's talked about the Israel issue. He has said absolutely not every single time that I have seen him been asked.

I don't want to speculate what happens when all of that pressure is on him because there will be an immense --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It's pressure and it's inducement.

CARRIE DANN: An immense amount of pressure on him. We can just point to the record in the past of him saying --

ANNIE LINSKEY: Well, I mean, you can see from his perspective he, because of these votes that he's taken, he has, has very little, and if you could probably say no path to get through a Democratic primary if he were to run again. You do -- you have seen polling that shows he is more popular in his home state among Republicans than Democrats.

And also if you just watch him on the Hill, you know, you see him hanging out with Republicans, whether it's Katie Britt or Dave McCormick. I mean, he seems to have more of a natural affinity there. So, you can understand why, you know, the ingredients are so certainly there.

JONATHAN KARL: And there's a reason he's been asked the question five dozen times. I mean, he is friendly with Republicans, sure. He spoke at the Republican convention, midterm convention in Dallas. I mean, this is --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You're like Sherlock Holmes.

JONATHAN KARL: I think there's a possibility he's going to switch parties.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Noticing a pattern now, aren't we?

JONATHAN KARL: You know, I mean, we all saw this happen. We'll say because we're old enough to, you know, in 2001 when Jim Jeffords, who was the Republican senator from the state of Vermont, it was a 50/50 Senate.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You broke that story.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yes.

JONATHAN KARL: And --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I remember that, since you reminded me. Yes, I remember that, yes, big story.

JONATHAN KARL: You know, but the pressure and the reward can be quite high.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. I want to talk about the president in our remaining few minutes. I just want to note that the president posted on Truth Social the following message on Thursday. The White House considers anyone that uses the term artificial intelligence, as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term super intelligence, the enemy. So, he's clearly focused on the midterm elections as a consequent. I mean, he's really getting right at the heart of the matter.

I mean, this is on -- I mean, you two are in the White House all the time. What are they saying about the president's attention to this, and does he even care?

ANNIE LINSKEY: Yes. I mean, look, yes, he does care. I mean, he does care. And I think there is a little bit more -- you know, there's a little bit more kind of deeper under the surface here.

I mean, you know, one thing I would say -- I mean, first of all, he's going to spend a lot of the next month on the road, and he is traveling to these states.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He's going to Alaska.

ANNIE LINSKEY: He's going to Alaska, and there's a reason for that. He knows that he is the best person at turning out this MAGA coalition, and the Republicans are right about that.

And if you talk to people at the White House, they will say to you, look, we have heard these naysayers before. We have heard Washington write us off in 2016, and, you know, I can go through -- we're all familiar with the elections. They say that we are on -- we're playing on a red playing field, that these are Republican voters. These races are going to narrow. The polling will narrow.

You talk to Democrats, and they will tell you the same thing, that these races are going to come closer together towards the end.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

ANNIE LINSKEY: And they have the money. They have a lot more money.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: If he loses Congress, Adam, this is a large essay question that I'd like you to answer in 60 seconds, but what does it mean for him and his party?

ADAM HARRIS: I mean, as a lame duck, right? I think it means investigations. I think what we saw right before the House broke for recess, where you had Pete Hegseth brought up for, you know, impeachment, right?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

ADAM HARRIS: I think what we will see is several investigations, potential impeachment inquiries into both cabinet members and the president. And, effectively, it's jamming up any semblance of an agenda or success in an agenda that he would see for the next two years.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. Jon, last word to you on this because you've obviously covered the man himself.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: How would he react to the loss of Congress?

JONATHAN KARL: I mean, I think that's the big question, is how does Trump -- what are the last two years of a Trump presidency look like with his back against his wall, looking at a Democratic Congress that is gunning for him? And we've seen what he's like with a back against the wall and I think most dramatically we saw that after he lost the 2020 election. And he drove that fight further than anybody could have imagined he would drive it to January 6th.

And I don't know. There's going to be two paths he can take. He can take that path. God knows what that means.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You mean just sort of self-radicalizing kind of way?

JONATHAN KARL: Yes. And just dig in and war with -- remember, the Congress and the president have to actually work together to like make the government function. They have to pass --

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I've read books about that, yes.

JONATHAN KARL: Yes. So, I mean, the last time this happened, we saw the longest shutdown in American history.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

JONATHAN KARL: So, does he go in that direction, or is it the dealmaker? Does he feel like, you know, just like I can get a deal with the Iranians, which he hasn't quite pulled off yet? But he loves to, you know, to deal with the people you can't deal with. Does he make a deal with Democrats?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. Well, we'll find out soon enough. I mean, we are going to have to leave it there, though. I want to thank our guests for joining me, and thank you at home for watching us.

Be sure to join us next week for a special hour-long Washington Week on the fight to control Congress. We'll be broadcasting from the battleground state of Texas, the home of one of the country's most expensive and closely watched Senate races.

I'm Jeffrey Goldberg. Good night from Washington.