Off The Record With Paul Hodes

We work very hard on this show to get out of our bubble and challenge our perceptions about what is happening, so that we don't end up just living in a political echo chamber. There’s no better way to do that for Democrat than to hear from one the very top Republican pollsters working today. Right now, the big question is whether there is a real shift going on in politics...is it just a case of Democrats over tilting on a bit of good news, or is it based on real, tangible signs that voters' fundamental views and drivers of politics are changing? We've heard from Democratic analysts, and now, we get insights from Whit Ayres, a leading Washington, D.C. political consultant with over 30 years of experience in polling and survey research for high profile political campaigns and associations. He’s the Founder and President of North Star Opinion Research, a national public opinion and public affairs research firm where he provides message development and strategic insights to high level political clients including

This week, we're focusing on the question of the big vibe shift in politics: is it just a hazy feeling among Democrats, or a real reflection of a significant change in their favor?  Aliza Astrow is a senior political analyst at Third Way who conducts public opinion research and analysis on voter views, and she walks through whether, how much, and why voters may be warming to keeping Democrats in power. 

Numerous data points are suggesting that there may be some positive trends for Democrats, along with some troubling signs for Republicans.  Dems have been acting downright giddy about what they see as the recent turn.  But is it mostly in their mind?  Is it going to be enough? Or are they getting meaningful traction at just the right time? The panel weighs what we're seeing out there and separates what's real from what's not. 

Since the FBI search on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home more than a week ago, the response from Republican office holders has been to demonize the Department of Justice, FBI, and law-enforcement in general. Republican firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the FBI to be "destroyed and defunded," and the echoes of that exact sentiment have sounded throughout Republican Party leadership. Our guest today  identifies a growing pattern of opposing the rule of law and celebrating lawlessness at the heart of the Republican Party. Caroline Fredrickson is a Senior Fellow at the Brennen Center for Justice at NYU Law. She’s served as the President of the American Constitution Society and she’s a frequent guest on television and radio, including serving as a regular on-air commentator during Donald Trump’s impeachments. She regularly contributes opinion pieces for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other news outlets, the most recent of which was “The Lawless G.O.P. Response to the Raid at Mar-a-Lago”

Chris Hill, host of the country's #1 stock investing radio show, joins Matt to dive into the question of whether we are actually in a recession, and whether that question really matters.  There are confusing, contradictory market signs, promising indications, and warnings that could spell trouble ahead.  Chris and Matt try to untangle the indications from jobs, retailer's earnings, stock market performance, GDP growth, and hiring to understand what the big picture really is. 

A new, highly-regarded poll from the St. Anselm's Institute of Politics is providing the best understanding yet of the politics of abortion after the Supreme Court's historic ruling ending Roe v. Wade. Neil Levesque, Executive Director at the IOP, takes us inside what they found, including how they are differentiating between people's personal views and how they will behave politically, and why this issue really could provide a winning edge for Democrats in some of the nation's most closely contested races this November.  Also, the poll provides new data on the overall political environment and helps fill in the story of what's happened in politics over the past year, and where things may go next.  Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Our panel of former US Congressman Paul Hodes, conservative columnist Alicia Preston, and former staffer/campaign manager Matt Robison unpacks what we've learned in recent days about Donald Trump's hidden stash of top secret files, and identifies the one big question that no Republican Trump defender seems able to answer.  Also, are things truly turning in Dem's direction politically?

On April 14 2021, President Biden announced that a full withdrawal from Afghanistan -- one that President Trump had previously promised would  happen by May -- would go forward by September 11.  The withdrawal turned out to be chaotic and deadly.  By August 15, Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, and 13 US service-members were subsequently killed. Now, as we approach the one year anniversary of that date, how should we think about the withdrawal decision? Was the price too high?  Or does the recent killing of the world's top terrorist there help show that it was the best decision in the long run? Sean Carberry is a foreign affairs expert, consultant, and an award winning journalist and media producer with unique experience reporting on conflict. He served as NPR’s international correspondent based in Kabul, Afghanistan after reporting for NPR from more than two dozen war torn middle eastern and African countries. He worked for the US department of Defense as the lead on Department of Defense

Former Democratic Congressman and prosecutor Paul Hodes, conservative consultant Alicia Preston, and host Matt Robison break down the early legal and political fallout from the surprise FBI raid on former President Trump.  Paul explains from a prosecutor's standpoint what the behind-the-scenes mechanics are of getting a warrant like this, Alicia analyzes the Republican reaction, and Matt runs through the short and longer term political implications. 

The Senate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act caps a surprisingly successful summer for President Biden and Congressional Democrats in which they passed major legislation to help veterans exposed to toxins, to increase manufacturing competitiveness against China, a bipartisan deal to rein in gun violence...not to mention President Biden holding together the western alliance against Vladimir Putin‘s war in Ukraine, adding two new members to NATO, and taking out the world's number one terrorist. So have Democrats turned around what seemed to be a disastrous trajectory.  And has the picture now changed for the 2022 midterms? Our guest is Navin Nayak, President of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, one of the major organizations that focuses on how policy impacts politics. He previously served as the director of opinion research for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, and you may recognize him from his numerous television program appearances including CNN’s “Crossfire” and MSNBC’s “Hardba

Recently, legendary West Virginia broadcaster Howard Monroe has been wondering: has something deeply changed about the 2024 picture?  It seems like both Donald Trump and Joe Biden's position has been softening in measurable ways. So what is the trajectory of the next presidential race?  Matt Robison joins him to walk through what the indicators are -- and aren't -- telling us. 

The day before Joe Manchin made his thunderbolt announcement of the new Inflation Reduction Act, I had a conversation with one of the Democratic Party's top communications strategists. Jim Manley - who served as senior communications advisor and spokesman for then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - walked me through the question of whether all this wrangling over President Biden's economic agenda had been all negative, or whether Senator Manchin had actually helped steer Democrats ultimately to a better place.  In the interview, you can hear Jim hint that there's some news coming, and his analysis of what's happened over the past year sounds even more prescient and on-point now that we know what's emerged in recent days. A fascinating discussion about negotiating, finding compromise, and trying to create a coherent message for a party that is frequently all over the place. 

In this crossover edition of Great Ideas and Beyond Politics, we take a closer look at Christian nationalism. Recently, controversial Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene said that she’s a Christian nationalist...and the Republican party should be too. In fact, increasing numbers of candidates have embraced the language of Christian nationalism, if not the outright label, in the past year. But what does it actually mean? Is Christian nationalism an extreme religious and political ideology as practiced by Viktor Orbán of Hungary, or simply an expression of patriotic fervor combined with religious identity that fits into long-standing American traditions? Our guest today, Dr. Paul Miller, is a political scientist and a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a devout Christian, a fervent patriot and military veteran, a conservative Republican, and the author of The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong With Christian Nationalism. And he explains why Christian nati

Late last week, a blockbuster report from Jonathan Swan of Axios detailed how former President Trump’s top allies are prepping a plan to purge the federal government. They want to remove thousands of key decision-makers and replace them with MAGA loyalists, all through an Executive Order called "Schedule F."  The report shows that even beyond the usual targets like EPA and the IRS, the Trump shadow team is targeting our entire law enforcement, intelligence, and defense apparatus. The end result? If Donald Trump were re-elected, there would no longer be any guardrail between the American people and Trump’s whims, once the core of the federal service is replaced with a new army of rabid MAGA foot soldiers. The Congressman who has been leading the fight against this threat is Gerry Connolly (D-Va.). He successfully passed an amendment in the House of Representatives to this year’s defense bill to prevent any future president from executing the Schedule F maneuver, but Republicans hope to block it in the Sen

Chris Hill, host of Motley Fool Money, explains what the low earnings reports and downward guidance from major retailers really reflects about the economy.  Does it mean that the biggest sellers see troubled times ahead, or is something else going on?  Also, why is Google forever?  And is now a good time to buy...grills?!?

Did last week mark a major crumbling in Donald Trump's pillars of support? Today, we bring you another episode of our in-depth roundtable analysis show "Balance of Power" in which we look at a not-so-subtle turn in conservative media around the former President.  Also, is it time for both parties to turn the page to a new generation? Why is one of the biggest Senate races in the country swinging toward the Democrat? And do recent revelations show that the media has been messing up the Hunter Biden story all along, or that they mostly got it right? Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

If you’re like us and most of the Internet, you spent last week goggling at the very first, and absolutely stunning, images from the James Webb Space Telescope. These images lead us right into the most profound questions about the cosmos, and our own existence...and they help to put some of our fights, disagreements, and problems here on this pale blue dot (the kinds of things we normally cover on this show) into some proper perspective.  To give us that perspective, our guest is Dr. John Mather, Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. In 2006, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE) which helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe. According to the Nobel Prize committee, "the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science." In 2007, Mather was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.  ***Note: we had low audio quality on Matt's portion of

Also, have the January 6 hearings been valuable? Are in-party challengers emerging for Trump and Biden? And will the horrifying Ohio case and similar tragedies that are surely coming change the impact of the Dobbs decision for voters?

Mark Bergman has advised some of America's best-known political leaders on effective messaging...and he's worried. We need to do better among non-college educated voters, but he says that "the Democratic Party is not giving them an option and an economic alternative. They agree with us on all these other issues, but the Democratic party needs an economic message. Can you tell me what it is? I couldn't."  Mark and Matt run through how things are shaping up not just for the midterms but beyond, and how Democrats can start to make more inroads with the voters that they desperately need. Photo by Max LaRochelle on Unsplash

Chris Hill of Motley Fool Money explains what's going on with the Elon-Twitter deal meltdown.  Also, the economy is looking up, and expectations are super low, so could we be in for a market surge on even meh earnings reports? And a huge summer movie benchmark for Hollywood.