Well, what a night that was.

The 2025 off-year election came and went, and I don’t think anybody on the Republican side was quite ready for how hard it hit. I expected Virginia to go blue — I didn’t expect it to be a total decimation. Abigail Spanberger didn’t just win, she boat-raced it, besting Winsome Earle-Seares by a whopping 14 points. That momentum was even enough to carry Jay Jones, dogged by scandal after scandal, to a smaller (but no less impressive) six-point win. That’s despite having an opponent with a compelling ad campaign and a story that, in a different climate, might have turned heads. It didn’t matter. The wave swallows all.

What stands out to me the most is how broad this Democratic surge really was. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill handed Jack Ciattarelli a 13-point loss, completely rewriting the expectations I had going in. I thought if Republicans were going to find any traction, it would be in the Garden State. It wasn’t. In Latino-heavy areas like Passaic, New Jersey — areas that just barely swung for Trump in 2024 after 2010s results in the D+50 space — saw a reversion back to near-2020 Democratic margins. Republicans had a shot to build a new working-class coalition in those towns, and right now, it looks like they blew it.

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The real story of the night, though, was New York City. Zohran Mamdani didn’t just win. He crushed. He did it with style, focus, and an eye for narrative. His campaign was slick, and his messaging was clear. He connected with voters who felt left behind — people priced out of housing, worried about jobs, unsure about their future. Mamdani was speaking directly to them. He predicted headlines, embraced viral moments, and even handled scrutiny around some of the more potentially-controversial moments of his name with grace and wit. His vote totals show him cracking 50 percent, a number that Cuomo and Sliwa together couldn’t touch. It’s an out-and-out victory for a campaign that, initially, seemed like a pipe dream for the left.

What we’re seeing now is a Democratic Party that knows how to win and a Republican Party still figuring out how to respond. And with the 2026 midterms now less than a year away, it’s only going to get crazier.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:30 - Virginia

04:50 - New Jersery

09:37 - Prop 50 in California

11:36 - Mamdani in NYC

18:51 - Wrap-up

I’ve seen my fair share of shutdowns over the years. Loud ones, quiet ones, dumb ones, strategic ones. But this one? This is just sad.

I spent the day on Capitol Hill talking to anyone who would meet with me, bouncing between offices, looking to understand how close we are to any kind of resolution, and the mood is absolutely lifeless. Nobody knows what they want, and nobody’s talking to each other. The word I keep hearing is “aimless,” and that’s exactly what it feels like to be here.

I had the opportunity to attend Speaker Mike Johnson’s press conference earlier today, and what stuck out to me was just how defensive it was. Republicans seem genuinely irritated that Democrats have managed to set the tone on this one, especially with their own base. Johnson spent most of his time pushing back against “false narratives,” but in doing so, he basically confirmed that the narratives are working. And I’ll be honest — if I were him, I don’t know that I would’ve spent that much time sounding frustrated.

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What did break through, though, was something more interesting. A change in who the Republicans are pointing fingers at. It used to be Schumer and AOC. But now, it’s Zohran Mamdani, and this — Election Eve 2025 — was the day it shifted. You’re going to hear his name a lot more from Republicans. According to them, he’s now the face of the Democratic Party, at least the one pushing for this shutdown. That’s a big change, and it tells you where they think the real energy on the left is coming from.

This all traces back to March, when Schumer passed a clean CR and got torched for it by the left flank. The idea now is that Schumer and Jeffries are shutting things down not because they want to, but because they’re scared of losing their jobs. That’s the same vibe I got from conversations on the Hill — they’re being pushed around, and they don’t have the political juice to stop it.

Like I said… I’ve seen dumb shutdowns before. But even dumb ones usually make sense if you squint. This one doesn’t. It’s got no internal logic. The Democrats don’t want to own it. The Republicans are scared of their shadows. The base isn’t fully convinced by either side. And while everyone blames everyone else, regular folks — the people running out of ways to pay for groceries, unsure of whether they can afford insurance next year — are the ones dealing with the fallout.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:48 - Shutdown

09:10 - Update

09:42- Nancy Pelosi

10:49- Supreme Court IEEPA Case

12:00 - Thomas Massie

12:49 - 2025 Polls

16:42 - Interview with Andrew Heaton

33:08 - Wrap-up

Trump and Xi finally sat down for the first in-person meeting of this new administration, and I won’t lie — there was a lot of hype going into this one. There were whispers about a grand bargain, even murmurs of a complete game-changer announcement. Maybe China would distance itself from Russia. Maybe there’d be some kind of century-defining move on Taiwan. Earlier this week, anything seemed possible.

What we got was something a lot less dramatic: a truce. Not a full-blown trade deal. A trade truce. And honestly, I was a little disappointed.

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So here’s what went down. China made a few big concessions. They agreed to immediately buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans and promised to keep it going at 25 million tons per year for three years. They also agreed to suspend their new rare earth export controls for a year and curb fentanyl precursor production — a big issue in the U.S. Beyond that, China made a surprise move by signaling interest in American energy and even hinted at joining a natural gas pipeline project in Alaska. That last bit came totally out of nowhere.

In return, the United States is lowering tariffs on Chinese goods by 10 percentage points, which still leaves them at a hefty 45 percent. We’re also postponing an investigation into Chinese shipping practices, which would have imposed new port taxes. There’s a delay on export restrictions for blacklisted Chinese firms for one year. Now, don’t get too excited — Trump made clear that China won’t be getting its hands on Nvidia’s top-shelf Blackwell chips, though some older GPUs will still be allowed to be sold. There was talk about ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, but nothing about China stopping its oil purchases from Russia. And most notably, no mention of Taiwan at all.

Honestly, when I look at this, I think Trump and Xi were made for each other. Normally, trade deals take forever, get wrapped in ceremony, and then quietly fall apart when China decides not to follow through. U.S. leaders usually just shrug and move on, chalking it all up to classic maneuvers on their part. But Trump doesn’t play that game. If he doesn’t like a deal, he changes it. If China doesn’t hold up their end, he goes right back at them. And I have to say, there’s a certain clarity in that approach. It’s not exactly stable, but it’s a little more to-the-point.

I’ll admit, I got a little swept up in the pre-meeting hype. I thought maybe we’d see something big, something that could define this administration’s approach to foreign policy. But now that I’ve had time to let it all sink in, here’s what I’m left with: this matters. Maybe not as much as I hoped it would, but it still matters. Because the American economy — and by extension, our elections — are tied so closely to what happens with China. If this truce brings even a little stability, it could have ripple effects that shape 2025 and beyond.

Chapters

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:18 - US-China Deal

00:09:39 - Interview with Gabe Fleisher

00:31:10 - Update

00:31:27 - Shutdown Progress

00:33:59 - Jasmine Crockett

00:37:02 - Elise Stefanik

00:40:13 - Interview with Gabe Fleisher, con’t

01:08:29 - Wrap-up