The DSR Network

Harvard Kennedy School just released its 52nd Harvard Youth Poll and the results are striking: Americans are increasingly losing faith in the promise of a better future. America is at a crossroads with its youth, who are grappling with political and economic disillusionment yet still striving for meaningful change. What does this polling tell us about America’s future? John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, joins David Rothkopf to discuss the revelations from their latest poll.

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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down reports of a new attack on Iran after the midterms, Meta paying out a historic $25 billion in New Mexico, Trump’s plans to begin construction on his arch soon, and more. 
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Donald Trump just unleashed a panicky string of posts—see here, here, here, and here—in which he frantically urged Republicans to vote by mail early. Amusingly, this comes after he told Republicans for months that mail-balloting is fraudulent to pass his SAVE America Act. Now that his efforts to nix vote-by-mail have flopped, he’s prodding Republicans to adopt it—effectively admitting his attacks on vote-by-mail were a scam to help him rig the election. Mail voting is an essential piece of pre-election-day voting, so his “fraud” nonsense could be discouraging GOP early voting, too. So what does the data say? To find out, we talked to Michael McDonald, who tracks the early vote at the UF Election Lab and on his Substack. He explains why the data suggests Democrats and independents are far more energized than Republicans, what we can extrapolate from it about the election, and how Trump screwed himself on early-vote-by-mail. We also discuss the latest New York Times poll showing Democrats leading by 11 points and Trump at a new low, which suggests the bottom is falling out for him.

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"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Or is it keep your enemies close and kick your friends to the curb? The Trump administration certainly seems to think the latter when it comes to Ukraine. Between a lifeline deal to buy Russian diesel and Steve Witkoff calling Putin a "humanitarian," it is clear this administration has a fondness for Moscow and contempt for just about everyone else. Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS, joins Rosa Brooks and David Rothkopf to discuss why this pivot to Russia is so dangerous—not just for Ukraine, but for the U.S. as well.
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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we cover Steve Witkoff’s praise for Putin, Trump’s approval hitting record lows, Trump’s $8 billion support program for farmers, and more.
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With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Michigan Senate race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics that seems attuned to the information wars of the Trump era. Will it work in a swingy state that’s coming down to the wire? We talked to El-Sayed about the state of the race, the affordability crisis, his high-profile viral battles, and how it all reflects his deeper theory of politics in the Trump-MAGA era.

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss the Justice Department suing California, Trump using an anti-Semitic slur (again), the administration holding up Patriot missiles for Ukraine, and more. 
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Donald Trump’s approval just sank to an abysmal 33-66 in the new Washington Post poll, a record low in Post polling. The survey also finds Democrats leading in the battle for the House by eight points. Meanwhile, the new NBC poll also finds Trump below 35 percent and puts the Democratic lead at 10 points. The polling averages also suggest a Democratic lead pressing double digits. Small wonder that Republicans are leaking to Politico that they blame this debacle squarely on Trump. One says Trump is clueless about what “voters care about,” adding: “It’s insane.” Others are sharply criticizing Trump’s super PAC  operatives, revealing that they’re trying to shift blame onto Republicans and away from Trump himself. That’s deeply embarrassing given Trump’s constant claim that he’s giving Republicans a huge lift. We talked to Madison Andrus of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. She discusses how wide the map is getting, what the role of Trump’s unpopularity is in putting deep red areas in play, and why Democrats are bullish about pulling off a sweep of House districts in South Texas. 

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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we break down the firing of Katie Zacharia, Elon’s pledge to hand out SpaceX shares to kids, the US annual budget gap hitting a five-year high, and more. 
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In recent days, Donald Trump has exploded over James Talarico’s Senate candidacy in Texas. In a long, tortured tirade, Trump repeatedly called him “James TalaFREAKO” and raged at Karl Rove for supposedly wanting Ken Paxton to lose. He even ordered Fox to stop airing Rove. In another tirade, he fumed that Paxton is the “greatest attorney general” in Texas’s history and angrily wondered why Talarico hasn’t been defeated already. Meanwhile, in a striking exchange, a Fox anchor and a GOP Congressman appeared rattled as they wondered aloud why Texans appear prepared to vote for Talarico despite him obviously being a woke leftist whackjob. Translation: Why, oh why, aren’t MAGA-GOP smears working? We talked to Texas-based Democratic strategist Nancy Zdunkewicz. She explains the deeper reasons why attacks on Talarico aren’t sticking, walks through the state of play in the race’s final days, and grapples with whether the tightening polls amid the GOP’s avalanche of home-stretch spending should worry Democrats.

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On the DSR Daily Live for October 16th, founder and CEO of MSW Media Allison Gill joins us to discuss Elon Musk’s huge contributions to Ken Paxton, White House turmoil over disastrous midterm forecasts, the Trump Administration suing California, and more. 
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We are eighteen days away from truly monumental midterm elections. There is reason for optimism - polling looks good, Republican efforts to cheat have been thwarted in the courts, and Donald Trump is starting to lose control over his own party. But we also know that Donald Trump and his cronies in Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, and the rest of his Cabinet will do anything they can to stay in power. Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf discuss the importance of these midterms and how the next two years will be a battle for America’s soul.

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The new national poll from Fox is absolutely awful for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It finds Trump at a record low approval, shows him absolutely cratering with independents and Latinos, and even finds him underwater with noncollege whites and non-MAGA Republicans. It also finds Democrats expanding their lead in the generic ballot matchup to nine points and shows them with commanding leads among many key voter groups. But what if the polls are wrong? Republicans are betting on this, and it’s the topic of a big and serious debate among many observers. So we talked to Natalie Jackson, a polling expert who founded the Centerline firm and wrote well about this debate as a columnist for National Journal. She puts the Fox numbers in historical context, explains why the big question is just how good a night Democrats will have, walks us through the debate over polling accuracy, and details how polling firms are trying to avoid a big miss. 

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The midterms are only a few weeks away and, with any luck, Democrats will ride a blue wave back into power. While there are a great many issues to grapple with, none are more pressing or existential than artificial intelligence. So what exactly is the Democrats’ plan to effectively legislate AI? Congressman Don Beyer, co-chair of Congress’s bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Caucus, joins David Rothkopf to examine what Democrats in Congress must do to rein in the far-reaching effects of the AI revolution.

This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down Trump walking back the live-streaming of the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, new details on the criminal probe into Ilhan Omar, Elon Musk and other donors pouring money into House Republican races, and more. 
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Earlier this week, Donald Trump made some audacious claims. He insisted at length that his rallies are having a “tremendously positive impact” on Republicans’ chances in the midterms, because it causes their support to “go up.” He also insisted costs are plummeting. But on Wednesday, the new Consumer Price Index report demolished that claim by showing inflation getting worse. Meanwhile, numerous Republicans leaked to Politico that the House is all but lost. And critically, they cited Trump as the main overarching reason for this. As one lamented: “Trump has made this election all about himself.” Another griped that “the biggest problem” is Trump’s “unfavorables.” That wrecks his boast about his rallies, too. We talked to MS NOW’s Steve Benen, author of a good piece about the hollowness of Trump’s bragging. We discuss why Trump’s public standing is uniquely bad, look at how the GOP’s latest money moves show Republicans believe the bad polling news, and dig into the true state of the Senate map. 

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The President of the United States decided last week to throw a cash lifeline to Vladimir Putin for diesel that only helps Russia’s war in Ukraine. Donald Trump has no morals or foreign policy ideology other than his admiration for dictators who bend the rule of law at their will... but wait, it gets even worse! David Corn, author of the new book How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and the Fight for America, joins David Rothkopf and Rosa Brooks to analyze US-Russia relations, Trump’s foreign policy betrayals, and how everything may only be getting worse.

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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we cover the surprise resignation of Kimberly Guilfoyle, the disastrous first press briefing by Katie Zacharia, skyrocketing consumer costs, and more. 
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In a remarkable piece, The Atlantic reports that Donald Trump is privately furious over his inability to force Iran to stop the war. As one adviser notes, he is “used to snapping his fingers” to control Republicans and the media, so he is now “losing his mind that Iran won’t listen” to him. This comes as his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, turned in a debut performance that’s drawing serious fire from the right. White House officials are sharply criticizing it as “brutal.” One right-wing media personality harshly mocked her as not “serious,” claiming that “she’s auditioning for a job on Fox News.” These stories are connected: They both reveal Trump as an emperor-has-no-clothes figure who can’t fathom why his control over events is deserting him. We talked to Mark Jacob, who skillfully dissects White House follies in his Stop the Presses newsletter. He explains why having someone like Zacharia as White House press secretary is a deadly serious matter for the country, how institutional cowardice persuaded Trump of his omnipotence, how that’s now cracking up under him, and why all this will make him even more dangerous.

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss the raid of Ilhan Omar’s home by federal officers, Trump’s contentious diesel deal with Russia, the White House’s insane new Press Secretary, and more. 
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Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark recently held a focus group with people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 that took an extraordinary turn. After being shown Trump’s vile taxpayer-funded ad, in which he rages about expelling “globalists” and “Marxists” and the “fake news media,” they were revolted. They called Trump “despicable” and “power hungry” and a “narcissist” who spews  “nothing but lies.” We think this suggests Trump may be alienating right-leaning voters not just over costs, but with his totalitarian-dictator rule as well. So we talked to political theorist Paul Crider about the possibilities this focus group raises. We discuss his new piece arguing for the creation of a broad anti-corruption, anti-authoritarian coalition, dissect new GOP panic about losses in deep red areas, ask whether Trump’s dictator-megalomania is turning even those places against Trump, and examine how Democrats are creating a new politics in response to it all. 

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There is a lot to question when it comes to the future of AI. But what does the AI boom mean for the future of our democracy? David Rothkopf and political scientist Dave Karpf of George Washington University examine how AI, billionaire media ownership, and campaign finance are concentrating power and weakening democracy. They explore the collapse of shared information, the influence of algorithms and personalized news, why political messaging increasingly fails to reach the public, and what some possible solutions might be to all of this. 

This material is distributed by TRG Advisory Services, LLC on behalf of the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in the U.S.. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.
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On the DSR Daily Live for Friday, we’re joined by special guest Wajahat Ali to break down the midterm debates, the protests in France, the blatant racism of the current administration, and more.
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We are living through one of the most irrational chapters of US foreign policy in the Middle East. The recent uptick in the conflict between the United States and Iran is only abetted by the fast-approaching midterm elections next month. How did we get here in the first place? And what is the potential for future conflict between the US, Israel, Iran and its proxies? Middle East expert Kim Ghattas joins David Rothkopf, Rosa Brooks, and Ed Luce to discuss the current geopolitical state of the region, as well as her new book The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East. 

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Donald Trump rages regularly at Fox News. But Axios now reports that there’s more behind this than meets the eye: White House and GOP operatives have privately pressured Fox for months to change how it’s covering Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The problem? By giving El-Sayed airtime and covering him in a somewhat factual way, it’s made it harder for Trump and the GOP to smear him as a crazy radical jihadist. Translation: Don’t let voters learn the truth about this guy; it’ll make it harder for us to beat him! That is so deeply humiliating. But it also gets at a bigger story about how the manly men of MAGA get so whiny when the electoral going gets tough. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian. We discuss her new piece on the flimsiness of MAGA machismo, probe the deeper reasons Trump can’t allow the truth about El-Sayed to be told, and dissect a new Pew poll showing Trump’s approval down to an abysmal 30 percent. 

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Republican crooks across the administration are now trying to distance themselves from Donald Trump ahead of November’s elections. Yet these Republicans like Mike Rogers and Thom Tillis are corrupt to the core themselves, leading to the question: how far will these politicians go to save their reputations despite their own histories of corruption? Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf ponder the gathering storm ahead and whether or not the stains left by this administration may ever truly wash away.

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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down Trump’s pathetic Texas rally, Trump’s $273 million worth of securities transactions, the EPA’s plans to relax methane regulations, and more. 
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In today’s episode, nonpartisan political forecaster Kyle Kondik makes some critical points about Donald Trump’s approval rating. First, it may be so low that he’s even underwater in House districts that he carried by double digits. Second, unlike in 2018, his approval is underwater in red states with big Senate races. Indeed, the latest polling averages have him sinking below 35 percent, a key threshold. And Times polling finds him upside down in five Senate-race states he carried by double digits. Taken together, it’s clear his public standing is unraveling. Meanwhile, GOP leaks are growing deafening. One GOP operative said: “If the bottom continues falling out like it has been, this will be worse than 2006.” Worse than the GOP’s epic 2006 losses under George W. Bush! For the straight story on the state of the House map, we talked to Kondik, managing director at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He explains how Trump’s low approval is expanding the map for Democrats in surprising ways, interprets the latest GOP spending in deep red areas, and why he thinks Democrats might end up with 230 House seats.

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On the DSR Daily for October 7th, we cover Republican nervousness ahead of the midterms, Trump officials ramping up scrutiny of voter registration groups, the Justice Department moving to strip citizenship of 40 naturalized citizens, and more. 
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