The Culture War - Tim Pool - September 28, 2026


Trump Unleashes SECRET WEAPON To Secure GOP Midterm Win

Hosted by
Tim Pool Phil Labonte Hannah Claire Brimelow
Mentioned
Donald Trump Joe Biden Frank Luntz Hillary Clinton Sam Harris Andrew Yang Harry Enten Matt Gaetz JD Vance Johnson Shopify Yaoi
Political Groups PAY For FAKE Influencers, The Internet IS DEAD Jack Smith Testifies, Says Trump BROKE THE LAW, This man Is EVIL

Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

176.56

Word count

3,892

Sentence count

366

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Your sales order says one thing, your inventory says another, your spreadsheet says good luck.
00:00:05 Odoo brings your business together on a single platform, from sales and accounting to inventory
00:00:09 and marketing. Visit odoo.com to book a demo. It's odoo.com. The midterms are not looking good
00:00:17 right now for the Republicans. So Donald Trump is unleashing his secret weapon,
00:00:23 giving the voters the opposite of what they want, or so that's what the media says.
00:00:29 Donald Trump's strategy right now with the GOP is it's multifaceted, but the two principal moves are
00:00:36 he is on the ballot. Donald Trump will be deployed to key conservative areas to rally the troops
00:00:43 and try and stave off a Democrat blue wave. And the GOP is putting tons of money into campaign
00:00:51 issues that seem to be outside the mainstream conversation. Now, it may seem stupid, maybe, 0.99
00:01:00 but I think the real strategy is they need to reframe things. So it's actually quite smart. 0.97
00:01:04 It doesn't mean it's going to work. But when you have a bad economy, an unpopular war,
00:01:11 you need to shift the debate into a different space. And this is exactly what Trump and the
00:01:17 GOP have been doing. And it could actually work. Now, I think based on the polls, based on the
00:01:24 way the Republicans are acting, I mean, they bailed on Congress and they're not coming back
00:01:28 until after the election. It seems that Republicans are convinced they're likely not going to win
00:01:35 this one. I think the reason the Republicans announced they're not going to be doing any
00:01:38 votes and they're going on recess until after the election is because they want every single
00:01:43 member of Congress to be in the battlefield. Go to your home district. Start making phone calls.
00:01:49 You must win. At the same time, let's not forget, Donald Trump still has his procedural options.
00:01:56 The post office, of course, facing tremendous pressure, despite the fact the Supreme Court
00:02:00 basically said Trump can't make the Supreme Court do nothing. They know they're not going to be able
00:02:06 to deliver mail-in ballots to illegal aliens or people who are not registered to vote.
00:02:13 So even if the Supreme Court says Trump can't do this, there is still a risk.
00:02:18 The argument here from people on the right is that Donald Trump's post office play creates
00:02:23 a sort of legal knowledge.
00:02:26 That is, there will be no plausible deniability when you hand a mail-in vote to someone you
00:02:31 know is not registered.
00:02:33 when you deliver ballots to houses where, you know, those people do not live anymore.
00:02:38 And thus, they want to make sure that in the event they find mail-in ballots going out to
00:02:43 homes where the person doesn't live anymore, they can say, you knew. Now, the Supreme Court said we
00:02:49 couldn't enforce this, but we can enforce voter fraud. Put the pressure on the postal workers
00:02:54 so they're too scared to actually hand mail-in votes to illegal aliens or otherwise.
00:03:00 The play is now, my friends, and the latest polls are not particularly good.
00:03:04 So let's jump into the news and break down what to expect just about one month from now.
00:03:11 By the way, we're going to be having an awesome party.
00:03:14 We're having our all-day midterm live election hangout for TimCast.
00:03:20 It's going to be an all-day thing with a bunch of different friends, guests.
00:03:23 We're going to have a lot of fun.
00:03:24 It's the midterms.
00:03:25 It's our Winter Olympics, everybody, not our Summer Olympics.
00:03:28 But let's grab the news. Before we do, my friends, go to TimCast.com and click Join Now. Support and join the TimCast Discord community. Community is our strength, ladies and gentlemen. When we come together, we can do anything. Many hands makes light work.
00:03:49 And the reason why they've pushed so hard for diversity is to keep all of us fractured and fighting and confused and ignorant.
00:03:59 Don't just sit there idly watching the world pass you by.
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00:04:22 We have a we have a monster truck.
00:04:24 We bought it from Richie and the Daily Caller.
00:04:26 It's just sitting there.
00:04:26 So I'm like, let's just do a giveaway.
00:04:28 Got to check to see if we're allowed to do it.
00:04:30 But we're working on that.
00:04:31 So maybe we can.
00:04:33 I'm not sure.
00:04:33 But anyway, join us.
00:04:35 Smash the like button.
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00:04:37 Let's get the news.
00:04:38 CNN says Trump's odd midterm strategy.
00:04:42 Give voters the opposite of what they want.
00:04:45 I'm going to say outright.
00:04:46 It's not odd.
00:04:46 Again, when the economy is not doing well and people are concerned about diesel shortages and gas prices, the last thing you want to do is come out and say, hey, look at the gas prices.
00:04:54 We did that.
00:04:55 You want to shift the conversation somewhere else.
00:04:58 They said there's a simple way to understand Republicans apparent plight ahead of the midterm elections.
00:05:03 A new CNN SSRS poll shows that voters are increasingly clear about what they want.
00:05:08 And President Donald Trump can't or won't give it to them.
00:05:11 The country craves economic relief.
00:05:13 People think groceries and the roofs over their heads are too expensive.
00:05:17 The vice tightened Thursday when mortgage rates rose above 7%. 0.98
00:05:22 Holy crap. 0.89
00:05:24 Good luck selling property now. 0.95
00:05:26 With their wages disappearing more quickly, Americans are even more angry about one of
00:05:31 the top causes, the Iran war.
00:05:33 Even GOP voters are increasingly losing confidence in the conflict amid soaring gasoline and
00:05:39 diesel prices.
00:05:40 The citizens are increasingly fearful about advances in AI.
00:05:43 That's no wonder after recent warnings from tech chiefs that their brainchild could threaten
00:05:47 humanity. Yet on this trio of issues and many others, Trump is offering a program that is
00:05:52 exactly opposite of what most Americans want. He's evoking an economic golden age, which only
00:05:57 he can see. He insists, you know, falsely. Why are you putting in that? That he's brought food
00:06:04 prices way down. Technically, that's true. I mean, prices were stupid during COVID,
00:06:10 but they are up still now after a few years. As for inflation, it's the fault of Joe Biden, 0.98
00:06:16 who left the presidency 19 months ago. Guys, that's the argument made by every president ever.
00:06:22 If somebody comes in and things improve, they immediately take credit. When things go bad,
00:06:27 they say the actions of the previous administration are still rippling through.
00:06:31 So if a Democrat gets in and they do bad, they say the policies take years to ripple through
00:06:37 the system. It's not our fault. We're fixing them. But if things are good, that's because we took
00:06:42 action decisively. We get it. The CNN poll shows that three quarters of Americans don't think the
00:06:48 president has a plan to exit the war that's about to enter its eight month. On Wednesday in a speech
00:06:54 at the UN General Assembly, he proved them right. He revealed that he was hovering between an effort
00:06:58 to annihilate Iran or to make a deal with it. His woolly prediction, the conflict will somehow end 0.97
00:07:03 after the midterms won't reassure two thirds of Americans who think the U.S. is winning.
00:07:08 Now, I've seen a lot of people, a lot of libertarians, to be honest, saying that this
00:07:12 is one of the most important issues. Guys, foreign policy has never been a big issue for Americans.
00:07:15 It just hasn't. Now, the war is bad, but it's only the immediate after after effects. So you
00:07:21 go to the average person and say war and they're going to say it's bad. I don't know, I guess
00:07:25 you say gas prices and they're going to slam their fist on the table and say the gas is too
00:07:30 damn high. Diesel shortages. It's 650 for diesel out by me. This is insane. But this is Trump's
00:07:38 secret plan. It's a couple of things. The GOP wants to talk about crime, immigration and trans
00:07:44 issues. Voters don't. Therein lies the point. The play is shift the conversation. This is why we've
00:07:51 seen a massive uptick in the trans debate, which Democrats and liberals have latched on to hook,
00:07:56 line and sinker. The Republicans are launching the trans debate issue again and their influencers
00:08:03 because they need to get people to think about something that they know they'll win on.
00:08:09 This was a major victory for Republicans back in 24. They know it. They're going to try and play
00:08:15 it again. CNN says Republican former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz summed up a large portion
00:08:22 of the GOP's midterm message this week when he responded to a man who said he was voting
00:08:27 Democrat for the first time ever. I hate the war, too, Gates told the man an expert. The
00:08:31 Democrats want to trans your kids. There it is. The trans issue seemed to be a potent one in the 0.99
00:08:36 election. President Trump's team cut an effective ad that professed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris
00:08:42 was for they them. Trump is for you. But a new CNN poll this week suggests that playbook won't
00:08:48 be as effective this time. Now, I'm going to go ahead and roll my eyes at CNN. It is an issue
00:08:54 that people are attached to. But can you reignite the debate? That's a bit more difficult. So when
00:09:01 they say it won't be as effective, what they're really saying is, yes, people hate this. Can Trump
00:09:06 center the conversation? Probably not. They say that seems to be the case for several other red
00:09:11 meat GOP issues as well. Republicans have well-established topics that voters favor them on
00:09:15 and that they've sought to focus on.
00:09:17 But right now, polls show those aren't voters' top priorities.
00:09:21 Perhaps more than in any other recent midterm,
00:09:23 other issues are simply being swamped by the economy. 0.89
00:09:27 The GOP focus on transgender policies
00:09:30 focused extensively in 24.
00:09:33 It was a fixture in its 26th campaign.
00:09:35 The new poll shows registered voters
00:09:37 only prefer the GOP by a small margin on that issue, 37 to 32.
00:09:42 And perhaps most strikingly,
00:09:43 just 25% called the issue extremely important for their vote. That was the lowest of 11 issues
00:09:49 tested behind abortion, tariffs, and crime. You know, and I want to say this too. It's one of
00:09:55 the most insane things imaginable that the tariff issue is brought up so often by liberals. Guys,
00:10:03 you, you, you, okay. I'm going to give advice to my liberal friends. Gas, gas prices. Thank you
00:10:09 and goodbye. Tariffs don't mean anything to anybody. They don't know what you're talking
00:10:13 about. Foreign policy war doesn't mean anything. They don't. This is why Trump is trying to
00:10:17 recenter things, because you have to talk about something that affects a person's daily life.
00:10:22 And you can argue tariffs, too. No, the after effects of tariffs do in the immediate. The
00:10:27 average person's not buying foreign goods. They're buying gas. They're buying milk, bread and eggs.
00:10:33 I mean, personally, we here at Timcast, we have the boonies HQ, our skate company. We've seen
00:10:39 our third factory go out of business. Insane. I'm getting ads on Instagram for Chinese made
00:10:45 skateboards. I don't know how we sustain this. I really don't. I really, really don't. It's bad.
00:10:52 The skateboard industry, guys, if you don't care about skateboarding, I know I'm talking about
00:10:56 manufacturing in general. It's been given away. So I'm with Trump on the tariffs. I'm with him.
00:11:02 Well, Frank Luntz, a man who has never sought to use Google, says that Trump's strategy is
00:11:07 very dangerous. He says, I'm looking at a turnout differential that advantages the Democrats by a
00:11:12 couple of points, which means that there are more people who oppose Trump who are planning to vote
00:11:18 than who support him. I don't know if this is the video. Pretend, please, that I'm on the ballot.
00:11:23 Pretend I'm on the ballot. I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot.
00:11:30 That's the president's pitch to Republican voters this November. It raises a big political
00:11:35 question? If Americans really do treat these midterms like Trump is running again, does that
00:11:40 help or hurt Republicans? Pollster and political consultant Frank Luntz joins me now. As we talked
00:11:47 about, the president has been seeing a historic low when it comes to his approval ratings. For
00:11:52 instance, in our own poll, his approval rating was down to 33%. You've also said, however, that he's
00:12:00 been down before and not to count him out. So how are you actually looking at the polling numbers
00:12:05 that are out there? I'm looking at a turnout differential that advantages the Democrats by
00:12:12 a couple of points, which means that there are more people who oppose Donald Trump who are planning
00:12:18 to vote than those who support him. There's always been a historical advantage to the party out of
00:12:24 power in the midterms, particularly in the first midterms. And we see that now, that there's an
00:12:32 energy effort, energy challenge for GOP voters. And that's what the president's trying to address.
00:12:41 Now, here's the issue. When he is on the ballot, his people come out. They participate.
00:12:46 They did in the on-year elections, 2016 and 2024, and they did not in 2018, and they did not as much even when Joe Biden was the president in 2020 for the 2022 election.
00:13:00 So that's what he's trying to do.
00:13:02 His numbers, his support is not as strong today as it has been in the past, so it's a very dangerous strategy, but he needs his people to vote in a place like Texas.
00:13:13 If the Trump voters participate, the Republican nominee in Texas is elected.
00:13:19 If the Trump voters don't participate, the Democrats will achieve an upset.
00:13:24 It's the same thing in states as small as Iowa, Alaska.
00:13:30 It even matters in a state like Ohio.
00:13:32 So I understand the strategy, but it has multiple impacts that we need to take.
00:13:38 Yeah, he's calling it dangerous, but I would actually say it's substantially more dangerous to not do this.
00:13:45 CNN reporting where Republicans are playing offense ahead of the midterms.
00:13:49 OK, so they just booted me from it.
00:13:50 Well, let's let's let's let's move on.
00:13:54 This is basically what the other story was inside the Trump campaign strategy to reverse Republicans dwindling hopes of winning the midterms.
00:14:02 The gist of it is, Donald Trump is heading down to places like Texas, to Florida, potentially Alaska, probably not, maybe far.
00:14:09 He is going to personally put himself out there to try and win this midterm.
00:14:15 That's his secret strategy.
00:14:17 It's the correct move.
00:14:19 Back in 2018, you know, Trump was enjoying this great 2016 victory, this upset against Hillary Clinton.
00:14:25 The Republicans had everything and nothing got done.
00:14:28 Trump was accused of being a Russian.
00:14:30 Investigations were launched against him.
00:14:32 It was insane. In 2018. Oh, boy, in 2018. I remember making videos about it. There was no
00:14:39 blue wave. The Democrats won by a thin margin. And it was like no blue wave, though. No blue wave.
00:14:46 However, over the coming weeks, Democrats started winning magically with mail in votes that just
00:14:51 started to come in. Republicans were so late to the party. They had no idea what's happening or
00:14:54 they did. And they're in on it. Whatever you want to believe. The truth is the simple truth.
00:15:00 Donald Trump wasn't on the ballot. 1.00
00:15:03 And so regular people, they look at a Republican Party that is pathetic, that is weak, that is ineffective, that is lazy. 1.00
00:15:12 And they won't vote for it. 1.00
00:15:13 I won't vote for it either.
00:15:15 I did not vote for any of these people in 16 or 18.
00:15:18 2020, that was the first time.
00:15:20 2020, I said, I can't let Joe Biden win because I was in favor of Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard.
00:15:26 I said, no, no, I want a good Democrat to win.
00:15:29 I was that middle of the road, moderate liberal that was like the Democrats cannot go insane.
00:15:36 And then what happened? 0.95
00:15:37 Every single Democrat raised their hand, give free health care to non-citizens. 0.52
00:15:41 And I'm just like, what is what is this? 0.85
00:15:44 And then they all drop out.
00:15:45 So Joe Biden get the nomination.
00:15:47 And I'm like, I am not supporting that man.
00:15:50 So I vote a Republican.
00:15:52 Donald Trump is the person.
00:15:55 But without him, I don't know what Republicans have.
00:15:57 To be fair, Democrats don't have anything either.
00:16:00 Trump is the last vestige of this bygone era where there is a central figure.
00:16:06 I don't know what's going to happen after Trump.
00:16:07 I think most people are going to check out of politics because they already are starting to do so.
00:16:11 Trump's play right now.
00:16:13 He's got to go out personally.
00:16:15 That's the move, ladies and gentlemen.
00:16:17 That's the move.
00:16:18 Well, here we go.
00:16:19 The levy has been breached.
00:16:21 Here it is.
00:16:23 There's new reporting into CNN today that President Trump's advisers are essentially bracing for impact when it comes to November.
00:16:31 One telling CNN the best case scenario now is that Republicans can hold on to the Senate and likely still definitely lose the House.
00:16:41 Here's a quote for you from an adviser.
00:16:43 It's obviously going to be effing rough, end quote.
00:16:47 CNN's Harry Anton running the numbers on maybe what is driving that.
00:16:51 National polls is often what the focus is.
00:16:53 But you are looking at how the president is doing
00:16:56 in House battleground districts, and what are you seeing?
00:16:59 Yeah, I will tell you, they're right.
00:17:01 It's going to be effing rough
00:17:02 because the levy has been breached.
00:17:05 The blue wave is coming over the wall,
00:17:06 Speaker Johnson and President Trump,
00:17:08 and you can see it here.
00:17:09 You can just look at President Trump's approval ratings.
00:17:11 Isn't that approval ratings in the year's key House district?
00:17:13 You know, back in September of 2018,
00:17:15 when Democrats easily won back the House,
00:17:17 President Trump was at minus eight points.
00:17:18 not very good. His disapproval rating was
00:17:20 eight points higher than his approval rating. But look at this
00:17:23 year. Look at the key districts this year.
00:17:25 President Trump is even worse. He's
00:17:26 twice as unpopular in this year's
00:17:29 key races in the key districts this year
00:17:31 than he was back in 2018 when Democrats
00:17:33 easy got back majority. He's now
00:17:35 16 points underwater in
00:17:37 the key House districts. Simply put,
00:17:39 mathematically, this equals
00:17:40 a Democratic majority for the House of Representatives.
00:17:43 What's driving this? What are you seeing
00:17:45 is why it's worse than eight years
00:17:47 ago. It might be on purpose. Why is it worse than eight years ago? Why are you twice as underwater
00:17:50 as you were eight years ago, President Trump? Well, it comes to this. It's the economy. Given
00:17:55 your key House districts in September, look right now. Look at where President Trump's economic
00:18:00 approval rating is. It's just 37 percent. It is way, way under 50 percent. We're talking about a
00:18:06 net approval rating of about minus 26 points in the key House districts in terms of Trump's
00:18:11 economic net approval rating. But look back in 2018, a positive view of the economy. 77% in that
00:18:18 year's key House districts said they had a positive view of the economy. This, of course, is about a
00:18:22 40-point difference. Now, these are slightly different metrics, but they really tell you
00:18:26 that back in 2018, the clear majority of those in the key House districts viewed the economy
00:18:32 positively. Now, you see, when it comes to President Trump, the clear majority disapprove
00:18:37 of the job that President Trump is doing in the economy. Just 37 percent. We get it. So the
00:18:42 question is, how can the Republicans possibly win underwater this much? Well, I'll give you
00:18:48 one theory. I'm not saying I know it's true, but Republicans have been doing poorly. The polls
00:18:52 were slipping. One strategy may be stop resisting. That's it. Don't waste your resources trying to
00:19:00 swim against the current. You're being washed away. Let it happen. Why? We're gonna have to
00:19:05 come back after the fact. If Democrats take Congress, it gives Republicans the opportunity
00:19:11 to play victim, to say Democrats have gone mad with power to try and win in twenty twenty eight
00:19:17 again. Actually, I saw a funny video from Destiny. He was asked if Trump should be impeached and he
00:19:25 says that's his worst case scenario. Why? Imagine this. Democrats win. Small handful of Republicans
00:19:32 join Democrats to impeach Donald Trump. They actually somehow get a 60, 63 vote in the Senate
00:19:40 to convict and remove Trump. J.D. Vance becomes president. Those two years will not count against
00:19:46 him, and he could get 10 years as the president. More importantly, I don't think Trump will be
00:19:53 convicted if he's impeached. Impeached is like the indictment. Conviction is the removal.
00:19:57 It's going to be impossible to get two thirds of the Senate. 0.56
00:20:01 But let's imagine the Democrats take the House.
00:20:04 Now, what happens?
00:20:06 They'll they'll impeach Trump.
00:20:07 Some Republicans will join in.
00:20:09 Trump will then say, is this the point?
00:20:12 Voters are not voting for Democrats to impeach Trump.
00:20:16 They're voting for a better economy.
00:20:18 That's been the whole point of this segment.
00:20:21 So what happens when Democrats get in and they just impeach Trump or
00:20:27 Whatever it is they do, impeaching Trump is right on top.
00:20:30 The Republicans can come out and say, this is what the Democrats do when you give them power.
00:20:34 They don't seek to find solutions.
00:20:36 They didn't try to get your prices down.
00:20:37 They blocked us from the job that would have got the prices down and just yelled Trump bad.
00:20:44 And maybe that's the play.
00:20:46 They know they're going to lose anyway.
00:20:48 So let's just put the blame as much as possible on the Democrats.
00:20:53 We are one month out, my friends.
00:20:55 one month, about a month and a week, five weeks, is it? It's going to get wild. And if Democrats
00:21:02 win, it is going to get crazy because right now they're not really doing all that much. They don't
00:21:07 want to rock the boat. But if they get power, you better damn well believe they're going to drop
00:21:11 nuclear bombs on everybody. We will see. Smash the like button, my friends. Share the show with
00:21:17 everyone. You know, we got more coming up for you throughout the day. Thanks for hanging out.
00:21:20 We will see you tonight at 8 p.m. for Timcast IRL. Don't miss it.
00:21:25 My name is Shannon Maldonado. I'm the founder of Yaoi, a gift shop from the lens of artists and
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