The Final 5: October 29, 2026

Don't miss, don't miss, don't miss. Not yet. Last night, still my turn, Jim Lokey. But last night we told you about a wedding at a Philadelphia Eagles tailgate. Tonight is Orlando International Airport serving as the inspiration for one couple's big day in Florida. The ceremony wasn't actually at OIA, but guests still had to pass through security. There were ring bearers that were flight attendants, airplane seats at the reception. And we hope that the happy couple had a happy honeymoon a mile high. Here's the final five with Jim Lokey. And I told the people, they didn't know this, he has a great ass, very powerful ass, his shoulders, his hands, his arms. Kenneth Moten, everybody. Hey, buddy. Right now on The Final Five, nobody knows how to sell a candidate and appreciates some man candy quite like our commander-in-chief. Tonight on The Final Five, the president stumps in the Palmetto State for a granny with some sass. Plus, Speaker Mike Johnson's job is on the line. Will he keep the gavel? And we look beyond that and see what's really at stake in the midterms. That's your Final Five. Let's do this. We'll be right back. Welcome in. It is Thursday night here on The Final Five. We're going to get to all of that in a moment. But I want to start with something because all politics are truly local. And nowhere has there been more of a political story that has had national ramifications involving... The East Potomac Links Golf Course. There was a major announcement today for two of D.C.'s historic golf courses. The National Links Trust has signed a 50-year lease to manage and renovate the Rock Creek Park Golf Course and the Langston Golf Course. The group's 50-year lease with the National Park Service allows it to start improvements at both courses. But the days of it running the East Potomac Golf Links are ending. And this news comes as the trust management of East Potomac continues to be that ongoing court battle between historic preservational groups. And the Trump administration, the president wants to renovate East Potomac and turn it into a championship level course. He said this the other day, quote, golf balls soar through the holes at high speed and hit unsuspecting golfers, including a White House staffer who was sadly hit violently in the chest. The driving range should not be a threat to life and limb. The current condition of the golf course is a national disgrace, but we will make it a world class public golf course. The president doubled down on this claim of a dangerous course when he was asked about it today. Many people, it's very dangerous because the holes are too close. It's a very obsolete course. And we're doing very well. We're going to have something great for the country. Mr. President, we'll have top tournaments here. One of our reporters spoke with many people at the golf course. He said actually the removal of those trees had made it more dangerous with golf balls flying through the air. But another story for another day. You notice the president was cordial with that reporter. However, he blew his gasket on a Reuters journalist today. He was asking about Trump canceling his upcoming rally this Saturday in Kansas, where Senator Roger Marshall is apparently in a race for his political life. He's running against Democrat Adam Hamilton in a race drawing national attention to a state that has been red, red, red through the years. So with the race so tight, the reporter said, why cancel the rally? And wondered if it had anything to do with the president maybe being sick of his recent travel. And the president got triggered. Look at this guy. He's way out of shape. I'm not going to Kansas because he's doing very well. I'm going to do a tele-rally. Tomorrow I'm doing Florida. He said, what's the reason? After doing, what, 28? He says, what's the reason for this, sir, that you're not going to Kansas? You know what the reason is? I don't feel I have to go to Kansas. I'm going to Florida tomorrow, and I'll do if something else comes up. But he said, you're not going to Kansas, sir. Are you feeling well? You've been following me for two weeks. I feel perfect. You are disgusting. Put yourself in shape. You look like hell. Trump, by the way, has also canceled an upcoming rally in Iowa, opting for something called a tele-rally, as you heard, in Kansas. But that tarmac episode happened after a rally in South Carolina as the president continues his campaign blitz. This time around, he's rallying for Republican Senator Darlene Graham, who was appointed to fill the seat of her late brother, Lindsey. And we'll get to what was said during the rally in a bit, but first, let's take a moment to talk about what happened beforehand. Fox's Lucas Tomlinson tried to speak with an attendee about why he supports the president. This is what happened. Tom, why are you here this morning? Well, in the late 70s, I was a little too young to get involved and go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I'll ever get. So that's why I'm here. Wait, the Jonestown Massacre? That's right. See, it's nothing like being a cult right up front, man. All right. Maybe this is not a Trump supporter right now. Live TV, folks. But Tomlinson did have some success speaking with legit Trump supporters. But I'll take this one here. I'm here because I serve a God that created America. I don't really know Darlene Graham, but I know Trump endorsed her. What do you think about Annie Andrews? I don't know her either. All right, well, Linda, that lady's name is Linda, by the way. Annie Andrews is Graham's Democratic opponent who is making things tough for Republicans. Polls show she and Graham are neck and neck. Fox News' power rankings even put this race as a potential toss-up. Andrews says people are actually moved by her plans to fix the economic woes, but to hear the president and Senator Graham tell it, everything is fine, as long as they keep voting Republican. But if you want to keep this growth going, you must vote Republican and you must vote for really an amazing person, Darlene Graham. I will not allow the liberals and socialists to turn South Carolina blue. You know what? They can just kiss my ass. OK, another person telling Democrats to bugger off is Speaker Mike Johnson. He continues to reassure Americans he'll accept the election results and step aside if Democrats win. But Johnson said he's confident that won't happen because the polls are fake and Republicans will come out on top. But not everybody in his party seems to share his confidence. So they keep dangling a Trump promise in front of voters. Hakeem Jeffries will not have a race for speaker because Republicans are going to win. I'll be the speaker in the next Congress. I'll be administering the oath to some of these people who ran for Congress as Marxist, sadly. And I think we're going to win because it's a contrast again between common sense and absolute crazy. That's why the people got to show up, Mr. Speaker. All the Republican voters, everyone that is at the president's rallies, big numbers, they got to show up and vote no matter what tricks that the Democrats may play in this election. And if you're right, if Republicans win the House and the Senate, everyone gets $5,000. One of the people with the most to win or lose next week is House Speaker Mike Johnson. In recent days, he said he's optimistic about the Republicans' chances of holding on to the House and him keeping the gavel. So let's talk about that and more. Reese Gorman from the Washington Sun, up late with me tonight here on The Final Five. Good to see you, my friend. All right, talk to me here. You have had a great, it seemed a great working relationship with the speaker. You've covered him extensively. You're going to be with him next week. What are you hearing on the Hill and what's going to be the, are Republicans as optimistic as the speaker puts himself out to be? No, not at all. Not in the slightest. Mike Johnson is definitely the most optimistic person right now about it. He doesn't let anything on privately to us. He kind Kind of remains extremely optimistic. But his colleagues and other people kind of around him are very pessimistic. They believe that they will be in the minority. All It's not if, it's when and by how much. And so people are not as optimistic as the speaker is right now. And yeah, I mean, to your point, he has the most to lose. right. I mean, his leadership life is on the line. I mean, he will, as he said, he expects people to ask him to run for minority leader. My reporting proves that that's very likely. People don't necessarily want him to run for minority leader. It does not appear that even if he were to run, which I think is likely just based on reporting, it wouldn't necessarily prove out great for him. Like, I do not believe from my conversations that there's an appetite to keep him on as minority leader. So he does have a significant amount to lose. But he's he's he's it's not for a lack of trying. He is barge storming the country right now, really trying to pull Republicans over the finish line. But unlike the previous Republican speakers that we've seen, you don't have large members of the Republican conference saying that, or at least they're not outwardly saying, if we lose seats, it is Johnson's fault. It seems as though they're not pointing the fingers directly at him with the potential of losing the majority on the line, or are they? Some people are, but I think that this goes deeper. I think this is different because this is a thing that a lot of people blame Trump for. They blame Trump for getting into Iran. They blame Trump for kind of all this grift that they're seeing happening. That is a big issue with voters. They were seeing kind of be reported out in the past couple of weeks. So yeah, you're seeing that this is a lot of issues that people are taking with the president, not necessarily with House Speaker Johnson running the House. So as we look forward, look ahead to next week, I know that we've seen all sorts of projections about how many seats could be won by one side lost by the other. What does it come down to? Are there gonna be any, is there a potential for anything that would change these fortunes in the next couple of days or with early voting? Are their fates locked in? Most Republicans that I talk to believe that they're going to be in the minority, and that's just the reality of it. I think that's just kind of midterms. That's how midterms go. That's how midterms have historically gone. And that's what a lot of people suspect, is that they're going to be in the minority. Now, you have different kind of predictions on how deep in the minority they're going to be, but ultimately they believe that they will be in the minority come November 3rd. Are you hearing any names, any potential challenges to Johnson's leadership if he decides to run for minority leader? Yes, for sure. I mean, I've been reporting on the fact that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise has intentions on running for minority leader. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan also has kind of plans to run for minority leader as well. So I think you will see probably a three-way race. For this position, and it will be Jordan versus Scalise versus Johnson, which is just gonna be a bloodbath. It's gonna be a brutal, brutal race. They'll have less than a week to run it and kind of gear up for it. And it's gonna be a sprint and a really tough battle for all three involved. So this is not like the Democrats after they lost the majority and they sort And they sort of paved the way for Nancy Pelosi to become minority leader, right? No, no, not at all. This is the exact opposite, actually. There's going to be just a brutal fight between the three. All right, Reese Gorman joining us tonight from the Washington Sun. Good to see you, as always. Thanks, Jim. Appreciate you. We're back after this. Stay ahead. We are five days away from the midterm, so let's talk about what's at stake and what's to come with my panel tonight. Nicole Brenner-Schmitz, the political director at the Save America Movement. She's on the left. Neil Chatterjee, the former head of the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission under President Trump. They are both up late with me tonight here on The Final Five. Good to see you both. Hello. Thanks for having me. Love having you both on. We get you both on together tonight. I'm going to start with you, Neil, because we are here five days away. Everybody's looking for the closing message here. For the Republicans, what is the closing message going into the midterms? It's like the NCAA tournament. survive and advance if you can. The fundamentals are terrible. President's overall approval rating is very low. Energy is clearly on the Dem side. I'd, uh... Momentum is there. Folks want to send a message and make a change. The one saving grace for Republicans right now, or I guess it's two, it's the map and the money. In the Senate, the path to the majority. Runs through red states, states that Trump carried by 12, 13 points in 2024. And while I'm opposed to mid-cycle redistricting, the reality is it happened and you have a redistricted House. So the map favors Republicans and they have a huge advantage structurally in that they've got all of this outside money that can help them with voter turnout. Will it be enough? I'm skeptical, but they're going to try. Okay, Nicole, so as the Democrats look at it, the history is on the Democrat side. As midterms are, you know, it's party and power in the White House always seems to lose seats. It's happened all but twice in recent memory. But here's the thing. If the Democrats win the House and if they win the Senate, do the problems, do these concerns about affordability, does it fall on the Democrats' plate now to figure out a solution? Yeah, I mean, look, we feel really good about the House. As you said, the Senate map, the fact that we're even talking about the Democrats being able to do this when it is through these red states and we're talking about competitive seats is a testament to how angry the country is, how frustrated they are on problems that weren't delivered, that were made in 2024, and really the candidates that we're running. But the thing is, if we have the House and not the Senate, I think you're going to see a lot of big messaging bills. If we have both, I think you're going to see more bills that they're going to try and push to a desk for a veto. Because even... And so the focus becomes on 2028 and the Democrats need to show, look. We are focused on you being able to live your best life. We need you to be able to afford it. But at the same time, they've got a base that wants them to address the corruption. So you're going to see a lot of subpoenas and you're going to see a lot of oversight happening. They need to balance these things for the American public and set us up to have a good partner in the White House. Did Democrats go too far in 2018 when they won the majority during President Trump's first term? Because they did that. They impeached him once, obviously, and then twice. They're not going to impeach him. I know Republicans are running around saying that. They're going to have oversight and they're going to issue subpoenas. But it's not going to be impeach Trump. It's going to be about players in the administration. Here's where it gets interesting. I actually think, as we saw, quite frankly, and I was there. I was chairman of FERC from, you know, 2018 to 2020 when Dems had oversight. Honestly, I didn't see a big shift in scrutiny on my agency. It was the same as when, you know, Republicans had the majority in 17 and 18. The big difference this time, I don't think members of the administration... are going to show up. I think they're going to ignore congressional Democrats. The people that have to worry. All these companies that bent the knee to the president and to the administration over the last couple of years, folks who funded the ballroom, folks who are supporting some of these initiatives, who are investing in some of these family businesses, they can't avoid congressional subpoenas. That's where I think the focus and the oversight will be, is all of these entities, all these outside folks that poured money into the administration in the last couple of years. The American people are going to want to see, hey, what did you get for all that? Yeah, and that's the big question, obviously, moving ahead. You know, I think as I'm watching this, and maybe I'm not digging down deep enough here, but I hear the affordability issues here, and I often wonder. I wonder. The problem that the Democrats ran into, especially in 2024 with Joe Biden, was this idea they were saying inflation is transitory inflation. And you could talk about it in all these bureaucratic terms. The reality is people are going to look at the bottom line. That's what they're going to pay attention to. That was the same way in 2024. In 2026, it's the same thing. But again, the pendulum swings both ways here, Nicole. Well, we've talked about this. I mean, I think Republicans are doing what I've said the error of the Biden administration was, which is let me give you some facts and figures. And people know they're making decisions at their kitchen table. And by the way, it's not about getting to a place we're getting by. That should be unacceptable. No one's talking about living a life of massive luxury, but they should be able to sign up for Little League and go to the grocery store and fill up their car and not have any of that stress them out. Have a vacation once a year. Like, this is okay for the goals of the American... American public, safe communities, an ability to afford this. That's what the Democrats need to show that they're going to do for the American public. And that's why they're frustrated. They voted for Trump, even though they had a lot of qualms about certain issues for him because they thought he was going to keep us out of foreign wars and adjust inflation and address the economy. And it hasn't happened. All right. We're in our last minute here. What's your prediction? What are we going to see? If you had to make a prediction here. House 230 to 240. I actually think the Senate development in Alaska the last couple of days where we found out that the challenger there was involved in the multiple Dan Sullivans, I think that could be indicative. Too many Dan's. I think Susan Collins is a fighter. I think she survives in Maine. So House, 230, 240 Dems. Senate? 50-50 or 51-49, and if it's 51-49 Dems, Fetterman flips, 50-50 Vance breaks the tie, Dem, Republican majority. I don't think Fetterman flips. I think he likes the attention of being there. He likes the Joe Manchin factor, but that's just me. Having known Senator Fetterman for a long time, any last predictions, Nicole? I go with that. I mean, look, I'm hopeful that the House is going to take it by a real margin. I think we really need that. We don't need our own Freedom Caucus situation happening to our new speaker. And look, I'm going to be the optimistic Democrat. I have high hopes for places like Ohio, the original populace of Sherrod Brown. This is what the country needs. I think the people of Alaska, is there some dirty tricks at play? Maybe, but do they care? I don't know. One final point. This is a weird one for Republicans. The best outcome for us, quite frankly, would be if we're to lose our majority, would be to have a big damn majority in the House, because then that weakens the DSA. It weakens some of the radical progressives, and you'll have more of a moderate agenda. Very antithetical to kind of wrap my brain around that. It's like, I don't want to lose the House, but if we're going to lose it, I'd rather lose it big than small. Neil and Nicole, good to see you both. Thank you very much. Great to see you. And we're back after this here on The Final Five. All right, time for the third block. It is Halloween weekend, and tonight the president and first lady took part in their annual White House Halloween event, meeting with trick-or-treaters and their families on the South Lawn. This is an annual White House tradition, and you might remember back in 2019, this is the video from 2019. The Trumps got confused about how to give a minion a candy bar, so they just decided to put it on the noggin, and they laughed about it, and the candy went by the wayside. All the candy was placed in bags this year, and to amp up the spooky, the White House arranged for this. Yeah, the Qatari-donated Air Force One circled back around for another low-altitude stunt. Still not clear if the Trump administration gave any warning before doing this. Meanwhile, in Armenia today, a massive brawl breaking out between lawmakers and the National Assembly. A chair was tossed, people were trying to flip tables, water poured on others' heads. It makes me miss the Jerry Springer show. The bout left an opposition leader with a bloody nose and people were seen leaving the building with torn clothes. As with most fights, this all started with an exchange of words. To be exact, one member said the opposition was steeped in corruption. And as we can see, they did not appreciate that. The session later resumed with the prime minister condemning the violence, but not bothering to call it his own party. Further evidence, politics is also toxic in other countries and staying overseas. A court in South Korea has upheld a two month suspension imposed on an army officer. It all stems from the officer leaving his post to go take care of his lizard. That's not a euphemism. He has a literal reptile. The Korea Herald reports gate records show over the span of 10 months, the officer drove off the base 64 times during work hours without requesting to leave. But we're not just talking lizard things. The officer admitted to washing his car as well. Guess he won't be scaling up the Army ranks anytime soon. Get it? Back after this. Let's bring it home tonight. Marco Rubio is in speculation he's running for president in 2028, but he sure looks presidential these days. Rubio joining President Trump on the campaign trail in Texas, which is rather unusual for a sitting secretary of state. The timing, though, is interesting because Vice President J.D. Vance said he expects Trump's endorsement if he runs in 2028. Trump's still refusing to give it. Vance may be the heir apparent, but the president's clearly not ready to crown him that just yet. And every time Rubio shows up center stage, that 2028 field looks a little more open. Meanwhile, for weeks, Vivek Ramaswamy has been playing offense, but with Amy Acton now leading in several polls in the race for Ohio governor, his campaign is changing course. That controversial ad featuring Acton's estranged mother is off the air after Ramaswamy only spent about a quarter of the $4 million he planned to spend. Acton has not debated. He would like to see that change. The race is far from over. Polls are mixed. Ohio is still deeply Republican, but it does say something about the race is evolving. Ramaswamy isn't running like the guy with the lead anymore. And that's your final five. We thank you so much for watching. Sidney Persing will be here tomorrow night. I'll see you next week as we get ready for the midterms. Hope you have a great night. Go to bed. University of Michigan. The main speaker was Bill Clinton. And look, I gave my speech. President Clinton gives his speech. He comes up to me afterwards. He said, son, why are you going to medical school? I'm like, I'm brown and Muslim, so we do. But I love people and I love science. He said, that's great, but you've got a gift for communicating. Maybe someday you'll run for office. I laughed in his face. I was like, Mr. President, people like me don't get to run for office. Do you see my name? It's very long. He kind of thought about it for a second, and he chuckled and walked away. That was 2007. Seven. Two. 2008, I watched Barack Hussein Obama run for and win the presidency. I got to spend some time with President Obama on Saturday. He was here supporting our campaign. I got to tell him what it meant to see him do what he did. But in some respects, he had the same, confirmed the same understanding that I've always had. When you got a name that's uncommon, your family comes from a place that's uncommon. You're not taking a bet on you and your name. That's not the bet I've ever taken. The bet I'm taking is on Michigan.