Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.

So, if we were living in ancient Rome and Senator Houston was in charge, we would undoubtedly be referring to him by now as Emperor Glutius Maximus.

Okay, that's it.

That's the only joke I'm going to make on the subject.

I'm sure that's not true.

Actually, uh the interesting thing here is that President Trump's discourse in the Ohio Senate race is not nearly as disconcerning as his discourse in the Ohio governor's race.

In that race, Trump is pushing the Republican Vivec Ramaswami to double down in his attacks on his Democratic opponent Amy Actton.

Ramaswami's campaign has employed Actton's aranged mother as part of his campaign.

Even Republicans are denouncing Ramaswami's ad for crossing previously sacrianked lines.

Vice President JD Vance, however, has told Republicans to quote, "Stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race."

End quote.

The question is, will this kind of brutality help the Republicans any more than Trump's shenanigans will?

To discuss all of this, I'm joined tonight by Leanne Caldwell, the chief Washington correspondent for Puck.

Steven Hayes is the editor and CEO of The Dispatch.

Zolan Keno Youngs is a White House correspondent for the New York Times.

And Nancy Ysef is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Okay, no, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not making all the jokes that could be made.

Um, but I do want to start with this behavior which we've never before seen in a president, at least since Millard Filmore, who couldn't stop making butt jokes.

We all know that, um, from our history books.

Um, I mean, what are we to make of the president's fixations with physical attributes of of male senators and and other males as well?

Before you answer, here he is riffing on on this subject.

I want you to listen to this.

I'm studying his body.

I've never studied the body of a man before.

It's not my thing.

But I looked at his ass and then I looked at his legs and my I said, "His ass is shit."

It's like it's like a pile of muscle.

Then I looked at his legs and I said, "Man, his feet are big."

So Zolan, yeah, you cover the White House.

Yeah.

Um, is this just the president having the impulses of a stand-up comedian, which is to say he's testing lines in front of audiences?

He obviously doesn't have um guard rails or or the sort of thing that politicians have, but he's testing lines.

He's getting reaction.

He loves the reaction and it sort of feeds this cycle.

Yeah, I I think so.

I mean, man, didn't expect to be doing analysis on this topic, you know, at the start of this of this, but you're Hey, hey, I'm I'm with it.

Um I This is now a trend for the president.

We've heard him talk uh about the appearances of males Jackson Dart, New York Giants quarterback.

Uh it's not always complimentary like it was in the case of Houston.

Uh just ask Ken Paxton as well.

Um which he spent time during rallies as well kind of uh poking and teasing him.

I think this is about playing to the crowd.

I think he sees that it gets attention.

Uh he sees that it gets a reaction from these rallies.

Um but also I I I'm going to draw a through line here between the design of the administration.

Uh I have reported at times on trying to find out, oh, there's an opening in this cabinet.

Oh, the president is trying to find a new homeland security secretary in term one.

Hey, the who's the president going to bring in?

You often do hear the term, we all heard it, central casting come up.

And yes, he he tosses that out maybe for laughs, but also I know this does say something about how much the president watches TV, how he assesses people based off of how they not only fight for him on TV, but also how they look, right?

I mean, Nancy, you cover the Pentagon, and there might be a case in point.

There might be a case in point.

I mean this has actually played out on the international stage as well because he commented on the appearance of Ahmed Shah to the president of Syria and has cited that as one of the reasons that he likes working with them and there's actually been an extraordinary alliance between Syria and the United States.

Now, how much of that is based on appearance is one of the first things he brought up when this former um member of al-Qaeda took control of Syria that all the sort of talk we heard about not wanting to be aligned with such parties, he moved to very quickly and said um that he sided with him.

And of course, Pete Hgsth, the defense secretary, focuses on appearance and it's become a central focus of of his tenure.

Uh how service members look, how fit they are, how often they work out.

his whole uh personality has been rooted in this idea that a strong service member, a masculine service member is the ideal, right?

Uh look, he said is among the most controversial and uh among many swaths of American politics disliked cabinet secretary.

Um do you think that that career longevity has helped in this administration by just being fit?

I I think it's helped by looking a certain way as the president sees it.

Remember this is a president who came um up through beauty pages through the apprentice in which appearance was a key part of um how he assessed people and you can imagine at some place like the Pentagon where he he's talked about how generals look in uniforms and the physical appearance of the force that has been a topic that he has brought up over and over again.

So you can imagine that extending to the top civilian in charge of it who's representing his administration in that building.

Right, Leanne?

So the the the we understand that he's having a good old time breaking norms left and right.

Um does he have a systematic plan to help the Republicans maintain control of Congress?

Um uh I would say no.

Uh he traveling he is on the campaign trail and he has a very rigorous campaign schedule.

He's traveling almost every single day to a new state, a new city to rally for Republicans.

Um it started 30 days about 32 days before the election.

Um the money that he has agreed to spend which is over $300 million now from his political groups.

Uh that started just after Labor Day.

Um a lot of this came very late actually.

Um the cake has already been baked in many instances.

His poll ratings are at an all-time low.

they were low then and there's some concern among Republicans while they are grateful for these things that it was it took too long to get there.

And there is a widespread belief on the Hill and even some um people close to the administration who wonder if the president even cares if he's in if Republicans are in the minority.

Um he likes a foil.

Uh he doesn't really care, I'm told, about being investigated or being impeached.

She's already been impeached twice.

He's gone through investigations.

It has emboldened him and helped him reach the presidency again.

Um it's the people around him who are more concerned.

Steve, is there something to this idea as um out of the norm as it seems that the president doesn't care if his own party keeps control of Congress?

Do you think that's something?

Yeah.

And I don't think it's particularly new.

I mean, look at what he did in Georgia in 2020.

I mean, this was somebody who demonstrated that he didn't carry advice that, you know, he should do certain things and not do other things and he did everything he just as as he wanted to.

I do think there's also, and this is I think it's sometimes hard to communicate this when we're reporting these stories.

We're talking about it in this context.

The president just likes to do what the president likes to do.

So, some of the reasons he's going to these red states is because he loves to go to the red states and he loves the agilation and he loves the feedback he gets from the crowd.

He said this, I believe it was in Tennessee last week.

There was this moment where he said, "I can say anything and you're going to applaud and you love me."

Oh, that's sort of the theme of this discussion is that he can say anything.

That's right.

Yeah.

I mean, he he he says this out loud because I think he believes it.

He thinks it.

And I think it is hard to communicate that to to folks as we're you know doing our work reporting that the president act when we say that the president is picking people because they looked good on Fox News or they came from central casting the reaction I get when I talk about that with friends or folks from back in Wisconsin is no like not really you say no no actually that's how you talk to people around him that's how he makes decisions Right.