Megan Messerly

That's one of his top legislative priorities.

There's this housing bill that includes this institutional investor ban that he wants to see across the finish line.

And then, of course, he wants to see security funding for his ballroom slash bunker.

Yes, it definitely feels like those two things are at odds with one another.

I think the way that White House allies view it is, you know, he needs to—the president needs to be able to say, I don't care about the midterms, I don't care about high gas prices, because that language is for Iran, right?

He's saying, like, I'm willing to take this gamble because—

he needs Iran to believe that he will take the maximalist position, that he will let gas prices rise however high they need to rise in order to notch a deal with them, right?

So White House allies would say that that's a negotiating tactic.

On the flip side, those are now soundbites that Democrats can run in every single ad across the country.

So, you know, what might be helpful rhetorically with Iran is not helpful rhetorically with Republicans as, you know, they're fighting it out in these really key midterm races.

Yeah, it's been really fascinating to actually see even conservative commentators come out and say, like, first of all, the folks that were slated for this lineup, to your point, Milli Vanilli and others, you know, these are not like, you know, the pop culture stars of today.

These are pop culture stars of, you know, three decades ago.

So there was that to begin with.

Right, exactly, exactly.

And what we're seeing is even some of those folks now pulling out and saying, hey, you know, we were interested in sort of celebrating America's 250th anniversary, but this is far too political for us.

This is not what we wanted.

This is not what we signed up for.

And to me and many of the folks that I spoke with, this is just such a deviation from where we were at the beginning of the president's term last year, when he was just really taking the culture by storm.

He was, you think about, he was just, you know, steamrolling these law firms and Ivy League institutions and, you know,

You've seen other pop culture figures come on board to the president's agenda, like Nicki Minaj.