Karl Rove

One of the two Johns — John Cornyn and John Thune — is in all likelihood going to be the next leader of the Senate. One may potentially, based on the very favorable map for Republicans this cycle, may be the next majority leader. It’s a massive trade in power, away from the long-tenured Mitch McConnell and his diaspora of consultants and groups, and into the new hands of different Senate staffers and teams. But one thing that Cornyn and Thune represent is not just a generational shift, but a shift in the nature of the leadership and what they represent. Cornyn and Thune were both recruited in 2004 by Karl Rove as part of the effort by George W. Bush to take the Senate.

Welcome to Thunderdome, where the consensus view is that Ronna Romney McDaniel is a disaster. The longest tenured RNC chair in a century, McDaniel has navigated the Republican Party through one disappointing election after another, holding on to power simply because Donald Trump wants her to have the job and no one strongly qualified has chosen to challenge her for it. On the podcast today, we talk about McDaniel’s prospects, whether the RNC should ditch her, Nikki Haley’s social media botch and the rise of third-party threats to make 2024 even more chaotic. Subscribe and listen here! The blame for the off year falls on Ronna Is this the one thing Vivek got right?