former was part of the biden 2020 team, he said it s clear the mar-a-largo raid winners are donald trump and democratic prospects in november. you agree? i think that that is mostly accurate. i mean, i think what facts are facts here. the democratic vote held up in the special elections. one where the democrat did better than expected. the other where the republican did two or three points worse than expected. so it s pretty clear that the republicans at this point don t have their act together, don t have a message that is working despite really the low approval ratings of president biden, despite the issues of inflation, immigration and crime. democrats are saying, you know, i may not like joe biden but i m more afraid of what the republican party will do a split with trump within the party. trump coming back. and i think that that is creating another stalemate rather than the anticipated
new york 19. democrat pat ryan held on to a house seat in new york and topped president biden s 2020 election result in that district by two points. ryan campaigned in a big way on protecting abortion rights after the supreme court overturned roe v. wade. it s one of four special elections since that ruling came down where democrats have outperformed what now president biden did in the 2020 race. either by winning by bigger margins or fewer points. with that we bring in mercedes schlapp, senior fellow for the cpac foundation and mark penn, former clinton adviser and pollster. great to have you with us. mercedes, what is your take on what happened last night? for the most part, when you re looking at the fact that that race was very close, a race up in upstate new york, it s
they shake hands and say oh, we need the national guard to get up here fast. we re a sanctuary city. we welcome illegals until they come. and governor abbott showing the hypocrisy of cities like washington and new york showing how open they are about illegals until they show up. finally the chicken is coming home to roost. we should be in washington every minute calling on the biden administration to stop this inhumane policy. people are dying trying to cross the border. drugs and criminals are coming across. there s terrorists. there s people coming here intentionally to harm america crossing the border. i fear the next couple years what that could mean to a city like new york. martha: as they re publicly settling in right now and potentially plotting. there s no reason to think that that isn t happening given what
republican landslide. at least at this point. martha: it s very interesting, mark, staying with you for a moment, we ve talked about this a lot the last several months. you ve been pushing the president really hard, president biden, to change course and to course correct and very concerned about where this the mid-terms were headed and what might happen after that. but ground shifted maybe that had nothing to do with him changing course, right? i think abortion, i think guns. i think also strangely democratic voters seem to have reconciled that hey, i still don t like biden but i like the democratic party values and the republican party has seemed more extreme to them rather than crossing over and being able to move to the center. that s why i think we have pretty much a dead lock election right now. martha: mercedes, you re cracking a smile there. with all due respect, mark, when you look at the democrat party, they re the ones that are
the wall street journal. so the cost of the inflation reduction bill is 120 billion. then you have debt forgiveness, $330. so this basically overshadows all of the deficit reduction that the president has given himself kudos for and his administration kudos for. it s all erased anthem some into negative territory by this student loan bailout. and for all the people that look at washington and say it s a giant shell game, this fits in. you have multiple nonpartisan organizations looking at the inflation reduction act. now you add on top of this right now, this is no deficit reduction. in fact, it s increaing the deficit. martha: thanks, bret. see you at 6:00. critics of president biden s