Michael Steele

to say, this is part of your history as much as anything else.

Why are you trying to wipe it out?

Let me help you help you, right?

And so the reality of it is that Florida race in Trump's backyard, in his district, legislative district, losing that is a big warning sign for Florida Republicans.

It's a big warning sign for national Republicans.

And they don't want to listen.

They don't want to listen to what the voters are telling them.

And in many respects, it cuts along two grains and you know them well.

One is still Epstein.

Epstein is not just about justice for the victims here, but it's also for a lot of the folks in the Trump orbit.

And I'm not just talking about that MAGA coroner, but the rank and file Republican who believed that

that they were going to get to the bottom of this because they were told that.

The other is the economic, who believed that their lives, as we started this conversation discussing, would not get worse but better.

Their costs would not go up but go down.

Democrats appropriately framed that as affordability, right?

And the American people and Republicans

We're still Americans, right?

Bought that.

They also bought that idea of affordability, which is why Donald Trump stopped making fun of the concept because his own base believed in it.

They thought it was a real thing for them because they're looking not just at this before gas prices.