The election that could derail US politics | Simon Marks' American Week

We are in the closing stretches of America's midterm election campaign, and so, as they say here in the United States, the rubber is hitting the road. On the line, one third of the Senate, the entire House of Representatives, 36 gubernatorial positions to lead individual states, and of course, the future of the Trump administration. So, as you can imagine, serious conversation is taking place about the future all over the country. Let's start with Thursday night's Fox News Town Hall in Texas, featuring Vice President J.D. Vance. Kate White, a young Republican voter from Fort Worth. Had this question for the man who is a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. A constant message that my generation hears from the right is to get married young, have kids young, have as many kids as possible. And I think what the right doesn't acknowledge most of the time is how disincentivized we are currently because of the cost of owning a home and the general expenses of raising a family. And so my question is, how does the right and yourself expect us to start families young when, you know, the average price of a home in America now costs more than $415,000? Come for the substantive question from the young voter clearly doubting the Trump administration's claims that America's economy is soaring. Stay for the disdain of the vice president. Well, first of all, again, thank you for the question and thanks for the support. I want to point out that I think that I've been asked four or maybe five questions by my count. I've only been asked one question about John Husted's ass and it was by Jesse Water. Now, look, there's a time and a place for everything. And yes, J.D. Vance did eventually get around to answering her question just as soon as his horseplay with the Fox News anchor came to an end. But while voters in some cases are begging President Trump and his deputy to give them some reason, any reason, to stand by the Republican Party next Tuesday, instead, the leader of the free world is invariably doling out this. I'm right now heading to Ohio to campaign for a great senator who nobody knew this, one of the best football players around, All-American. And I told the people, they didn't know this, he has a great ass, very powerful ass. His shoulders, his hands, his arms. And you know what happened? He went up 12 points in the ratings. Ohio loves strong football players. Vote for John Husted. Trump's obsession with the rear end of the Republican incumbent senator from Ohio, John Husted, has not, you will be stunned to discover, ...actually improved the senators' polling by 12 points. He remains deadlocked in a neck-and-neck race with his Democratic Party challenger. And while it is possible that some Ohio voters might be motivated by the focus on Senator Husted's backside, because after all, there is no accounting for folk, in reality, voters in Ohio and all over the country are looking for answers they are not getting from the Trump administration. Except when the president slips and accidentally tells the truth, as he did in Texas last weekend. While oil prices are temporarily high and will be falling dramatically in a short period of time, as soon as that war is over, because there's so much oil. The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars. So, I said, I wonder if I should say this. We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars. My people said, please don't mention that, sir, because people are paying a little higher. So I said, let me say it very gingerly, very softly, because somebody would say the fake news. President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That'll be the headline. I said, I don't give a damn, I'm going to say it. We'll make it a freaking fortune. Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time. So just to be clear, President Trump was absolutely talking there about all the money America's big oil companies are making while Americans are suffering at the pump. And worse than that, he was telling voters that I don't give a damn. So you don't have to be Nostradamus to foresee the likelihood that next Tuesday, the Republicans are going to lose control of the House of Representatives, and quite possibly also the Senate. And they certainly will, if former President Barack Obama has got anything to do with it. I don't know if you've noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV. Guys building a ballroom that's bigger than the White House. Paved over the Rose Garden, put a helicopter pad on the South Lawn and there's gold everywhere. What's up with the gold? Everything, more gold. He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. Now, for the uninitiated, if you imagine a Wetherspoons with even more food, a bit less booze, and an unbelievably golden, gaudy interior, that's pretty much the Cheesecake Factory. A chain restaurant very popular with American families from coast to coast. If Vladimir Putin plays Donald Trump like a violin, Barack Obama plays him like a virtuoso. So the response from the president was absolutely baked in. You have to remember, the White House, we have to explain that to Obama because he doesn't understand it, because he's not a smart guy, let me tell you. In my opinion, he's not smart at all. But we have to explain to Obama that the White House is a symbol of America. And it has to be maintained properly. It has to be painted. And the exterior plaster can't be falling off the walls. And the decorations and ornaments around the windows that are magnificent can't be on one side of the window and falling off on the other side. To President Obama is a symbol of America. It has to be clean. The columns can't be broken. The bricks can't be falling off from under the plaster. For you to say it's a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you're a lousy president. Not one word of that, and it was repeated multiple times at campaign rallies aboard Air Force One. Not a syllable helped a single Republican candidate to win next Tuesday. But instead of hunkering down and focusing on the single most important thing right now, getting Republican votes out next week, The president called for reinforcements. He ordered his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, immediately to go to the Cheesecake Factory in Washington for lunch and on the way out to speak to a waiting Fox Business crew. Interesting lunch choice today. What did you order for the Cheesecake Factory? Oh, I have what I always have, the... Now, I've got to stop him there, because tempting though it is to challenge Scott Bessent's actual knowledge of the Cheesecake Factory menu, it is important to underscore that literally nobody goes into one of those restaurants wearing a tailored business suit. And if they do, they definitely do not order the French Dip Cheeseburger and come out without wearing most of it down their front. But I digress. Back to the very expensively clothed Mr. Bessent. on the restaurant's forecourt. I eat a great meal, always have a great meal, and I would tell the Martha's Vineyard set to give it a try. Says the man of the people whose net worth is estimated north of $500 million. Inevitably, sensing that he'd got them all on the run, Barack Obama couldn't resist taking another crack at an administration that had given him a wide-open goal. They did not dispute what I said about them being directly responsible for rising prices. They did not argue with that. They did not deny terrorists were contributing to higher costs for families. They didn't say anything about that. I accused this administration based on the facts that they were engaging in unprecedented levels of corruption. They didn't say anything about that. The president wasn't even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison. That part didn't bother him, but he was very upset. About the cheesecake, Patrick Connors. Bang to rights. When Trump has not been engaged in efforts to defend his obsession with gilding the White House, he has once again been engaged in open racism on the campaign trail, much of it targeting Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrats' candidate in Michigan, who, if he wins on Tuesday, will become the first Muslim elected to the Senate. Here's Trump on Tuesday race-baiting his crowd. He goes by Abdul. Abdul Ramadan. I called him Mohammed then I found out his name was actually his middle name is Mohammed. But we can't have these people in the United States. We have people that should not be running for politics in this country and we're never going to allow Sharia law in this country. They just want to point to me and be like he's Muslim. Y'all let me just tell you I am Muslim. And I'm an American who believes in the Constitution and that that shouldn't matter. On the stump in Michigan, the candidate, an epidemiologist who does not believe in Sharia law, is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, is not a supporter of terrorism, and is not called Abdul Ramadan, with this very carefully targeted response to Trump's white supremacist hate. You might have heard just recently, He called me Abdul Ramadan. Now, if you don't know this, Ramadan is the month in which Muslims fast from dawn to sunset. I mean, the thing about it is groceries under his leadership have gotten so expensive, I wouldn't be surprised if he's like, listen, we could just do Ramadan for all. That's Donald Trump's approach to groceries. Groceries got too expensive. Listen, just fast all day. I'm trying to bring your groceries down. Abdul Ramadan. It's about to be Trump Ramadan soon. It isn't only Trump. This week we heard unconcealed racism from J.D. Vance, from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and campaigning in Michigan from Texas Senator Ted Cruz, with this shameless slander based on the possibility that Abdul El-Sayed may one day be appointed to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The Senate Intelligence Committee has access to our most closely guarded secrets. And if I'm correct that he is a passionate supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, there is a very real risk that Americans will die as a result. We have American servicemen and women in harm's way fighting Muslim Brotherhood terrorists right now. We have every reason to believe that Abdul Al-Sayed, if he found out, okay, they're about to apprehend these terrorists, would let those terrorists go. Now let me tell you why this matters, apart from the obvious shame of it all. This week, the editorial board of the New York Times, which takes itself very seriously, told voters that if they back Democrats next Tuesday, then the country can, quote, move back to normalcy, as though normalcy is a possible destination for a nation whose entire political system has been upended for over a decade. Normalcy would require J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ted Cruz and the entire Trump family to disappear and crawl back under a rock. Normalcy would also require Democrats to stop engaging in the kind of electoral jiggery-pokery they've been up to in Alaska, planting a bloke with the same name as the Republican senator seeking re-election on the state's ballot. In an underhand effort to split the Republican vote. It isn't illegal, but it isn't democratic either. The normalcy train in America has departed, and it's not coming back next Wednesday morning. For grins, I'm going to leave the final word this week with Tom, a man in the crowd when Donald Trump was campaigning in Rock Hill, South Carolina on Thursday. He looked like a Trump supporter, so Fox News reporter Lucas Tomlinson decided to put him live on air. It did not go according to plan. 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? There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front, man. All right. If you're not familiar with the Jonestown Massacre, look it up, because I'm out of time. But I do have time to tell you that we will be bringing you Continuing live coverage of the midterm elections from Washington, starting at 10pm London time, that's 5pm here on America's Eastern Seaboard, on Tuesday. I'll be in the chair for the first three hours, then from 1am London time on Wednesday, join Emily Maitlis, John Sopel, Lewis Goodall and myself for all the results, debate and analysis as the outcomes of the midterm flood in. And from six, there's a special edition of Nick Ferrari at breakfast. America Decides on LBC, live on the radio or find us live on the LBC YouTube channel, Global Player and the LBC app. It is going to be a very big night and I very much hope you will join us.