Beyond Politics

Republicans are trying to buy the midterms with a $1 billion war chest. Can they spend their way out of midterm disaster? Matt Robison (Democratic insider) and Matt Wylie (Republican consultant) break down the Republican midterm strategy, the cash behind it, and the panic moves coming out of the White House, then run the numbers on the House and Senate. Subscribe to Worth Knowing for more midterm...

If Republicans get wiped out in the midterms, will they finally break with Trump? An anti-Trump Republican campaign strategist answers, axplains why a cornered Trump could be even more dangerous for the next two years. ALSO, what will happen to Democrats if they win majorities by winning in red territory? Will the party civil war get bigger, or will they row in the same direction? Matt Wylie, Repu...

Republicans are spending hundreds of millions to save the 2026 midterms — so why are they suddenly fighting for states they should win easily? Democrat Matt Robison and Republican strategist Matt Wylie break down why Kansas is now a Senate toss-up, Trump is campaigning in deep-red states, Republican voters are having second thoughts, and GOP insiders are already pointing fingers before Election Da...

Which of Trump's threats to the midterms are real, which are the most dangerous, and what happens if the worst comes true? Two democracy experts on the front lines answer, and both say the biggest danger may come after the polls close. Colin Cole, Director of Policy, Outreach and Communications at More Equitable Democracy and host of the award-winning podcast The Future of Our Former Democracy...

Republicans stayed in Washington an extra week to give vulnerable senators something to run on, then left with almost nothing. The stock trading ban failed, the data center bill failed, and the Senate did nothing about Trump's $810 million pocket rescission. Republican strategist Matt Wylie and Democrat Matt Robison break down a week of politicians chasing obsessions voters don't care abou...

What happens if Republicans get crushed in November? Political scientist Seth Masket joins me to game out where the GOP goes after a midterm wipeout, and where it could take the rest of us. The polls suggest a blue wave is building, and Republicans have started putting a little distance between themselves and an unpopular president. But Seth's research shows that Democrats over-correct after t...

Republicans are abandoning Trump over the Iran war and gas prices — six weeks before the 2026 midterms, is it too late? Democrat Matt Robison and Republican strategist Matt Wylie break down GOP candidates scrubbing Trump from their websites and breaking with him on the Iran war, Trump's UN speech, Xi Jinping's state visit, the Trump TV flop, the AI arms race, and why the 2026 midterm map i...

Bill Scher of the Washington Monthly joins Matt Robison to argue about the three stories driving the 2026 midterms: what campaign spending actually reveals about the battlefield, whether the Supreme Court is breaking the republic or quietly saving it, and what happens when the White House bans three news organizations and the networks respond by turning the cameras off. Republicans have booked mor...

Eight weeks out from the midterms, Republican strategist Matt Wylie says his own party is in serious trouble. The Fed defied Trump, the courts blocked him twice, and House Republicans went home for six weeks rather than take a vote. And all the polling is getting worse for the GOP.This week on Political Rehab, our mashup of PTI and The Daily Show: Kevin Warsh — Trump’s handpicked Fed chair — led a...

Can anyone actually stop AI right now? This week: a viral resignation warning AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade," a rogue AI agent cyberattack, Dario Amodei calling on the industry to slow down, and the President of the United States calling the whole thing a "hoax."I sat down with Bruce Mehlman — Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy under George W...

A Republican strategist just called his own party's midterm convention "the worst plan I have ever seen in the history of politics." Then Trump promised every American $5,000 — but only if Republicans keep the House and Senate. Democratic strategist Matt Robison and Republican political consultant Matt Wylie break down the GOP's first-ever midterm convention, Trump's $5,000 &...

Trump is trying to break vote-by-mail before the 2026 midterms — and it isn't about stopping Democrats from voting. Study after study shows mail ballots don't favor either party, and the professionals around Trump know it. So what are the executive order, the USPS rule, the DOJ voter-file lawsuits, and the DHS "citizenship lists" actually for? The answer isn't November 3. It&...

A Republican strategist just put a clock on the Secretary of Defense. This week Army Secretary Dan Driscoll — JD Vance's closest ally in the administration, the man Trump sent to Kyiv to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war — resigned after months of losing fights with Pete Hegseth over Hegseth firing Army generals. Republican consultant Matt Wylie's read: "I don't even think he ma...

Trump promised the Reflecting Pool would be fixed in two weeks for $2 million. It took months, cost $14.7 million on a no-bid contract to a company that lines highway culverts, turned Kermit-green, and ended with a 67-year-old Olympic canoeist arrested for touching the water. Matt Robison is joined by Shane Almgren — writer of The Trumpland Diary and a former Donald Trump employee who worked the p...

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order yesterday to “immediately” change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” it seemed like a parody, like he was telling  Andy Borowitz  “hold my beer…and charred steak” But no, it was real, and it begs the question: why is he making such an empty, impotent gesture, practically shouting that America is losing a trade war that he started and e...

Trump’s election power grab just got a boost from the Supreme Court. But can Democrats hold together long enough to stop him? The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to move forward, for now, with its effort to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the 2026 midterms. What does the ruling actually mean for voters — and is the bigger danger the immediate restriction of voting rights, or th...

A joke about Trump's closest aide broke MAGA world this week — Senator Jon Ossoff mentioned executive assistant Natalie Harp by name, and Google searches for her spiked 5,000% overnight. Matt Robison and Republican strategist Matt Wylie dig into why the reaction was so outsized, and what it reveals about who actually shapes Trump's view of reality. Plus: Disney and ABC sue the FCC and figh...

The DSA platform wants to abolish the military, the Supreme Court, and the presidency — and almost no one has actually read it. Washington Monthly politics editor Bill Scher joins Matt Robison to break down the document tearing the Democratic Party in half, and why the polls that keep telling us who's winning have been wrong about nearly everything. Bill published a column this morning on the...

Trump secretly evacuated Air Force One through a catering container while his own staff flew into a live missile threat as decoys. Karoline Leavitt is out as White House Press Secretary after a scandal-plagued tenure. AOC walks back "Woke 1.0." Matt Robison makes the case that the Supreme Court — not just Trump — is the most broken branch of government. Plus: Paramount offers to sell CNN...

Our in-house Republican strategist just said MAGA is "breaking and being exposed for the fraud that it was." This week, on Political Rehab, all five stories were the same story: Republicans at war with Republicans. Trump's cabinet turned on itself in public — Jeanine Pirro's office dropped every reflecting pool vandalism case after admitting the damage was botched no-bid contract...

Todd Blanche gave up $1.8 billion to get confirmed as Attorney General. He kept the part that shields Donald Trump's tax returns — and the part that lets him decide what you see of the Epstein files. Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner and Epstein files investigator Ellie Leonard joined me live the morning the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Blanche's nomination. What they laid o...

Republicans spent the week chasing Anthony Fauci while their 2026 battlefield caught fire. Todd Blanche’s nomination stalled, Trump’s lawyers admitted the administration targeted blue states for political payback, the Iran war moved into a more dangerous phase—and nearly every major midterm indicator shifted toward Democrats. In this episode of Political Rehab, Republican strategist Matt Wylie and...

**What will decide the battle for the U.S. Senate in 2026?** Just months ago, most political analysts thought Democrats had almost no realistic path to winning back the Senate. Today, the map looks dramatically different. In this episode of **Worth Knowing**, Matt Robison is joined by **Lauren French**, Communications Director for Senate Majority PAC, for an inside look at how Democrats believe th...

Why would Donald Trump want Democrats to win? Because losing Congress could give him exactly what he needs: an enemy to blame, a new fundraising target and freedom from responsibility for what happens next. In this episode of Political Rehab, Republican strategist Matt Wylie and Democratic insider Matt Robison examine the growing argument that Trump is sacrificing the Republican Party’s 2026 midte...

Republican strategist Matt Wylie looks at the new midterm fundraising numbers and says it out loud: "We're getting our butt kicked out there." This week on Political Rehab: Trump's primetime election bombshell, JD Vance's explosive Joe Rogan interview, the DSA platform that has Fox News thrilled, the GOP civil war over ICE, and the fundraising numbers turning Texas, Georgia,...