S6E54 The President’s Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Today, another Beach Talk with Betsey Newenhuyse — writer, thinker, and all-around truth-teller. Together, we dig into the week’s headlines with insight, humor, and a touch of coastal calm.

This week, we’re calling it “The Democrats’ Week” — because, let’s face it, it’s been a rough stretch for the President and his MAGA allies. Speaker Mike Johnson can’t get his team together, government shutdown threats kept swirling, and the so-called “Hate America Rally” has proven to be effective. The President’s ranting about Nancy Pelosi being “an evil person,” but the real story is how Democrats are quietly winning — big.

From Virginia to California, blue victories keep stacking up: Abigail Spanberger makes history, Mikie Sherrill and Zohran Mamdani extend a progressive streak, and Democrats hold the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Even in Mississippi and Georgia, new seats are flipping. And those Moms for Liberty losses? A huge crack in the MAGA culture war machine.

We’ll talk about the President’s latest distractions — from Mar-a-Lago’s Halloween bash to his strange foreign policy obsessions — and why Americans still clearly prefer democracy and a working economy over chaos and grievance.

Betsey brings reflections from her Substack. I’ll share a filmmaker’s angle from my current dive into Leni Riefenstahl and then the new film Nuremberg. Together, we connect the dots between history and today’s headlines.

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