Democrats 'cheating' in Alaska will save the Senate for the Republicans, predicts Trump ally

There's never been such excitement for a midterm. Shut up. Shut up. Dope. Shut up. Loser. What a loser. Get him out of here. Do you think he is still a positive for those candidates on the ballot on Tuesday? I think he is because the key to the Republicans holding control of Congress is to get his core supporters, his MAGA supporters, to the polls. They tend to show up if he's on the ballot. He's trying to make the case. Pretend that I'm on the ballot. It is essential to the success of my administration. Something we've been looking at is early voting, and you'll know better than I, but this research that's come on, I think, funnily enough, from the University of Florida, has found that 50.5 million people have voted already, or certainly by Saturday, actually, so there'll be more now. And that's 5 million up on the previous midterms of 2022. Do you read anything into that in terms of what the result could be or in some of those key states? Well, we know Democrats tend to vote early more than Republicans, but there's been a big change over the past four years when Republicans actually discouraged voters from voting early, wanted them to vote on election day because they thought early voting was corrupt or wasn't the way things should be done. That has changed. Now, Republicans are encouraging their voters to vote early, and in many states, the early voting shows an advantage for the Republicans. The polling, if we look ahead to Tuesday, certainly points towards the Democrats having a very good night, certainly winning the House, if not the Senate. Thank Do you trust those polls? Because I was listening to one pollster from the US earlier on saying that it's actually, they are having to ask a lot more people you to be participants in their poll for the same sample size, very i.e. it's proving to be difficult to get people to actually take part in polls because of scepticism. Have you heard about that? much. Well, first of all, we know in the American system, incumbent presidents tend to lose seats and it's going to be hard to hold the House. The Republicans are doing their best to keep it. But I will tell you that we've seen over the last few elections that Republicans are undermeasured by these polls. I don't talk to pollsters. I don't trust them. And I think that leads to a significant undercount of Republican voters. And there's also this shy Trump voter syndrome where people don't want to say they're going to vote for Trump or vote for Trump associate candidates. So I think you can safely say that these polls are underestimating Republican support. And obviously you want President Trump or the Republicans to do well, even though he's not on the ballot, but the Republican Party to do well. I understand that. Let's imagine, though, and you said yourself the House is going to be difficult. Let's imagine it is a difficult night for the Republicans. Not saying that's going to happen, but if it is. um How will that impact the last two years of President Trump, bearing in mind we are just 10 years on from when he won his first term all that time ago in 2016? Will he be a lame duck, to use that hackneyed expression? Well, presidents have been successful with divided government before. you. His foreign policy isn't going to change. It will be a little harder for him in some ways. He'll have trouble getting things funded late next year when the 2027 budget runs out. We may have the government closing down because the Democrats and Republicans won't be able to agree on a budget. But in the end, they have to pass something so Social Security checks get out. The biggest problem is that if the Republicans lose control of the Senate, Trump no longer can get nominees appointed and confirmed, and that could be a problem for his agenda across the board. There may be a rush to confirm nominees before the current Republican Senate is adjourned in January. The problem is after some of these Republicans are defeated, they have to come back to Washington, and sometimes that doesn't happen. Is he going to push it, though? And by that, I mean, I mean, there are reports in The Telegraph today, you know, very much a conservative newspaper here. Reporting that Stephen Miller, to remind people, the deputy chief of staff, he's one of a number of individuals who've spent months drawing up a plan that would allow President Trump to continue to pass laws without congressional approval. Will Schaaf, the White House counsel, said they're looking at what he can do on his own, i.e. without Congress. I mean, is he just going to look to bypass Congress at this point? Well, we've seen Democrats do that, too. Joe Biden did that. Barack Obama was notorious for doing that. And I think we're going to see a lot of that. Trump will use the powers he has. As presidents who have executive authority to get things done, the problem is that when you do things like that, they are not laws and they can be easily undone by the next president. But I think we'll see a lot of that if the Republicans lose one or both houses of Congress. People here, as you know, Fred, whenever you appear on LBC, are interested in terms, obviously, of U.S. politics. Not only is it fascinating, it's important to people listening. And... Most directly has been the impact of the war in Iran on people. You would call them pocketbooks, but on people's wallets here as well and their bills. Thank you. Where does that go if we imagine that scenario that the Republicans don't do well? Will we see a more bullish Trump, as has been widely reported over the pond where you are? I think it's fair to say that the election is a referendum on many things. And one of them is the war, which has not been well received by the American people. And we see Democrats and Republicans running away from it. I'm concerned about reports that the administration may be planning to accelerate the war and conduct major attacks after the election. I don't think that makes any sense. I want the war wound down. I think the president's strategy of economic strangulation will work in forcing the Iranians to agree to a genuine offer or will drive this radical Islamist regime out of power. And I think the whole world is waiting to see what happens. But I don't see the point. of another round of massive airstrikes against Iran, but I hear reports that may be coming. And agreeing with what you say about the regime of Mr. Khamenei there, who we haven't really seen still, have we? We haven't seen. Would it be best for a withdrawal then from President Trump at this point? Well, I will say... Right now, there are intensive negotiations in Tehran because the prospect of a major U.S. attack has led to new negotiations. I don't think this regime is going to agree to anything. I think that that's good. I think that the U.S. can withdraw if Iran stops attacking its neighbors and leaves the Strait of Hormuz free and clear without any attempt to harass ship traffic or enact tolls. I think the nuclear weapons program has been destroyed. I don't see any need to bomb further on that. But it's the attacks and threats by Iran on its neighbors and the Strait, which is keeping the conflict going. There are so many fascinating races involved in the midterms this time around. But if I pick one and something which your old boss, the president, has commented on is this curious race in Alaska where you have two candidates named Dan Sullivan. I noticed President Trump has already claimed voter fraud because they share the same name. Why? Why is he getting out there early and saying it's voter fraud when we clearly don't know at this point? Yeah, I think we do. There was a pretty conclusive New York Times article, hardly an ally of the Republican Party, that explained the substantial efforts by the Patola campaign and the Democratic Party to go through Alaska to recruit other people named Dan Sullivan to run. Now, that's not illegal. It's the kind of... unethical but legal thing that can be done but apparently in the investigations of this there were people who made statements under oath claiming that they did not do this. That's why there are investigations. That's why I think people will go to prison over this. This isn't just a dirty trick. This is a violation of the law to fool the people of Alaska and probably multiple instances of perjury by people who were involved. So when you hear Democrats saying well Politics is dirty. This goes on all the time. Maybe it does go on all the time, but this case is an exception in its illegality. But does it not happen? I take your point and I read that reporting in the New York Times. But regardless, I mean, it's not like one is prevented from being on the ballot. They just happen to have the same name. Voters can still vote for whoever they like. There was an investigation of this, and the state of Alaska wanted to take this person off the ballot because it seemed to be a dirty trick. And the various Democratic parties involved, Democratic officials involved, and this fake Dan Sullivan made sworn statements that they were not up to a dirty trick. So we can argue that this is the kind of thing that may be unethical but legal, but the legal line was crossed here by these instances of perjury. Fred, it's always good to speak with you. Lastly, I'm not going to ask you for a direct prediction, but you made an interesting point earlier on about the shy Trump voters, shy Republicans, which we've known about for many years. Um Do you think there's a chance President Trump comes out stronger as a result of Tuesday, or is it going to be a blow no matter what the results? Trump will remain a strong president through the end of his presidency. I think the House will be hard to hold. I think the Republicans will hold the Senate because there are just terrible, terrible you. candidates in Maine and Texas. And then we have this blatant cheating in Alaska. I think that's going to save the Republican Senate.