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The GOP Plan to Kill Your Vote

·25 min·5 clips

The episode starts from a simple question about how Republicans are feeling heading into the midterms. The answer is not good. That mood gets tied to sour economic sentiment, rising prices, the war in Iran, and a wider sense of chaos around the White House. Ari Berman comes on to talk about the Senate's effort to advance the SAVE Act. The bill is treated as a voting measure, not a response to cost of living or foreign policy. Its supporters want a long, high-profile floor debate. Rob Gunther keeps pushing on whether the measure really matches what voters care about. Berman argues that support can look stronger when the question is asked in the abstract. A driver's-license-style requirement sounds simple until the practical burdens show up. That gap between surface approval and real-world inconvenience becomes one of the episode's main points. The conversation keeps circling back to the idea that Americans may not want the Senate spending its time here. There are other urgent issues, and the show names them plainly. It also points to the partisan opening a drawn-out Senate fight could give Democrats. The episode is especially interested in the politics of delay and spectacle. It treats the bill as a sign of where Republican strategy may be headed rather than a simple yes-or-no vote. The ending turns more ominous. Berman says his bigger fear is not that the bill passes. The bigger fear is that its failure could push Trump toward something more extreme. That could mean trying to use emergency power to interfere with the midterms. The episode closes on the possibility of a widening split between Trump and Republicans who know, privately if not yet publicly, that he is driving them into a ditch.

As heard by us

A skeptical look at the SAVE Act, Senate theater, and the risk of Trump pushing beyond his party's comfort zone.

This episode frames the SAVE Act as a measure of how far Republicans are willing to go on voting rules as they head into a rough midterm stretch.

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Why you'd press play

You want the voting fight behind the midterms, not just the headline.

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