On Tuesday, Graham Platner could become the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine. That has many in his party worried. This week on “The Opinions,” the political writer Michelle Cottle and the columnists David French and Jamelle Bouie discuss the controversial Platner, what his rise can tell us about the role of morality and authenticity in American politics today and how President Trump’s terrible poll numbers are motivating some in Congress to start pushing back.
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The transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Michelle Cottle: I’m Michelle Cottle. I cover national politics for New York Times Opinion, and this week I’m here with the usual suspects, my fabulous colleagues and columnists David French and Jamelle Bouie. Guys, how’s it going?
David French: Hey, Michelle.
Jamelle Bouie: Hello, hello.
Cottle: Hello, hello. All right. This week I want us to talk about Graham Platner, the headline-grabbing Democratic Senate candidate at the center of Tuesday’s Maine primary elections. What does his rise say about where Dems are placing their bets on the future leadership of the party? And bigger picture, what is the role of morality and authenticity in politics today?
But first, I want to talk about the Republicans in Congress, which is one of, I know, everybody’s favorite topics on the show. They’re starting to show a wee bit of spine. This past week, the House voted for a resolution demanding that Donald Trump withdraw forces from Iran. To make this possible, four Republicans had to cross the aisle and join with Democrats. Now, two weeks ago, after Trump announced his $1.8 billion political slush fund, there was also serious pushback from his own party. Why are we seeing this pulse now, and what do you think it means going forward? David?
French: Yeah, it’s a great question. I would say there’s a couple of things happening: One is I think it’s actually true that, believe it or not, Trump is getting even more brazen. So, when you’re talking about the slush fund, for example, we had a good time talking about that as, is this one of the most monarchical things that he’s done? You know, he subverted Congress, he subverted the judiciary. It was a remarkable power grab, just a breathtaking act of corruption. And so I do think there is a difference in degree in some of what Trump has been doing. Also, launching a war without preparing the American people, without going to Congress — I mean, you’re going to chip away.
And then also, I actually think this internal purge that Trump has been mounting is backfiring on him, at least in the short term. He’s gotten rid of Senator Bill Cassidy, he’s gotten rid of John Cornyn. He’s gone down to the state legislative level and intervened to endorse primary candidates at the state level. And I’m not sure that it’s actually doing what he wants it to do, because he’s obviously seriously alienated the Republicans in the Senate.
And a number of Republicans can see the polling, just like everyone else, and see the results of elections before the midterms — between the general election and the midterms. So, all of these things together are not adding up to what you would call normal political accountability, because normal political accountability, we’d be far down the road ——
Cottle: Yeah.
French: To impeaching Trump. But it’s an opening to some form of political accountability.
Cottle: Jamelle? How are you feeling about it?
Bouie: I see all of this as very much downstream; the fact that the president’s — I wouldn’t say in a polling collapse, but it’s clearly very unpopular and trending downward. The most recent New York Times/Siena poll had him at 37 percent, and the disapproval numbers are all in the high 50s and the low 60s. And those are just terrible numbers. And I think Republican congresspeople are approaching the situation where the primary season is just about over, and they’ll have to deal with the general electorate. And it is a general electorate that is quite unhappy with the state of things across all the big issues that Trump was elected to deal with, mainly inflation and the cost of living.
And so I just think this is Republican lawmakers beginning to recognize that, yeah, they have to actually run in elections, and Trump is not going to be on the ballot.
Cottle: Well, this does remind me of when I talked to Thomas Massie, who was one of the four Republicans that sided with Democrats this week on the war vote. When I talked to him, back in January, about all this, he predicted that once the midterm primary elections were passed, more of his Republican colleagues would feel comfortable stepping forward and showing a little life.
And, in part, it was just a question of timing. In addition to being wildly unpopular, the president is a lame duck. People are starting to realize, in Congress, that they may have ambitions to continue on beyond this guy, who clearly cares nothing for the party and has no intention of doing anything other than his pet projects.
It also does help that, if you’re talking about the members that he has targeted specifically, Thom Tillis, who was already on his way out because of clashes with Trump, has been pretty harsh about Trump’s attempt to stick in Bill Pulte — wildly unqualified — as the director of national intelligence.
And they’re starting to see a little bit of the limits of Trump’s political power. His candidate for governor went down in Iowa this week. And, of course, I should clarify that we’re taping on Thursday, so by Saturday it may have all gone sideways again. But, for now at least — oh my God, alert the media — the Republican Congress is at least breathing.
And with that, let’s just forget about Republicans altogether and go on to the chaos of Democrats in Maine. So, Graham Platner. We’ve talked about Graham Platner a little bit. What his pros and cons are. David, I know you have very strong feelings on this. But first I want Jamelle to walk us through how we wound up here.
Jamelle, you want to unpack his rise and his appeal in the Democratic political world of late?
Bouie: So last year, or prior to last year, as this Maine Senate race was approaching, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was trying to recruit incumbent Gov. Janet Mills to be the party-endorsed nominee for the seats. Mills — incumbent governor, won statewide — seems basically well matched for Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican senator, except for the fact that Mills is in her late 70s. And so there’s strong uneasiness with the attempt to get Mills in, just because the public seems to have grown quite tired of elderly politicians, to put it ——
Cottle: You’re trying to be so gentle about this whole thing.
Bouie: I’m being very diplomatic.
Cottle: Trying to avoid those old, ageist complaints from the listenership, I’m sure, but continue.
Bouie: But it is the case that, especially in the wake of Joe Biden, there’s a lot more reticence about older candidates. Last year, there was another effort to find a different, alternative candidate, who might embody some of the economic populism and whatnot that has gained a lot of currency in Democratic politics.
And my understanding is that Platner is a recruit among a group of Democratic consultants and the like, who were looking for someone who would have that kind of aesthetic, but also seem to have, at least, political talent to be able to carry a Senate race.
He is an oyster farmer, and has this not-quite-blue-collar background. He comes from a relatively privileged background, but he served in the Marines, served in the Army, and this was the guy that they found to try to, as I would describe it, pilot an approach, sort of use this as an attempt to see if a different kind of approach to candidate recruitment might be successful.
Last summer, Platner did take off among Democratic primary voters in Maine, in part because I think he’s just young — he’s the youngest person in the race — and in part because he speaks to a lot of the frustrations a lot of voters feel.
He’s, in this funny way, very reminiscent of a median voter. He looks and sounds just sort of like a guy, and he just happens to be running for the Senate. And he was very vocally opposed to the Israeli war in Gaza. He condemned it as a genocide early on, and that is a really important issue for Democratic primary voters.
But the thing about recruiting just a guy to run is that you don’t necessarily know everything about his background. And so there’s been a steady stream of revelations, scandals that range from being, I would say, quite serious — which is the question of his tattoo — to things that are not great. But I think, for a lot of voters, no longer disqualifying.
Cottle: Yeah.
Bouie: So the most recent one that I saw is his texting with other women — not his wife — which, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, would have been a candidacy-destroying scandal ——
Cottle: Wait, now, did you say texting? Because as I understand it, it was sexting.
Bouie: Point still stands. A decade ago: a candidacy-destroying scandal. These days, I think ——
Cottle: With Trump in the White House and the family values party having gone all in with, you know, caddish men ——
Bouie: There’s a level of, “OK, so what?” There’s also this question of, you know, he’s still polling quite well against Susan Collins — and there’s a real desperation to beat Susan Collins.
So I think there’s two points I want to make here. The first is that there’s probably more to drop about Platner. Earlier in the year, or late last year, there was stuff about his internet conduct, things he posted on Reddit in particular. And this is the second point, which is that it is precisely because his whole political persona is just kind of a guy, unless these scandals or these revelations, or whatever you want to call them, tip into actual illegality or something extremely unethical, I’m actually pretty confident he’ll weather all of them, because they are the kind of scandal that reinforces the political persona. You know what I mean?
Cottle: All right, David, I wanted you to jump in here because I know you have some fairly harsh views about some of Platner’s behavior or history. You want to get a little bit into that?
French: Yeah. The guy is waving red flags everywhere. It’s like he’s waving flags, “Abort, abort. No, don’t do this.” Because it’s not just that he has a number of scandals. The nature of them, though, and the way that he’s responded to them, raises the possibility that he’s not the kind of person you would want in the United States Senate, to put it mildly.
So, here you have a guy who’s had an S.S. tattoo. So it’s not just Nazi; it’s super Nazi, involving a unit that — one of its jobs was guarding concentration camps. This is the insignia of the unit, and he has a ——
Cottle: And you’re not buying that he didn’t know?
French: No, the guy’s a history buff. The story has been that he’s gone through a tough time. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing. He’s come out of the tough time. He’s better now. And then we get the sexting scandal. Well, the sexting scandal takes place after he’s married, relatively recently.
He had a profile on an app, I think called Kik, that is known to be extremely — let’s just say it’s not the home of the best people in America, Michelle. And in his profile, he’s not wearing clothes. He’s just wearing a towel, and he’s taking the mirror picture. And guess what he’s conveniently covering up in the mirror selfie? You’ve got it: the Nazi tattoo.
And so you look at this stuff, and I know I hear the word “authenticity.” “Well, he’s authentic.” Here’s what I get about the authenticity point: We’ve all seen people who are Political Bot 9000, that just walk out there and they deliver talking points, and they’ve got the right gestures, and everyone’s just sick of that — just sick of it. But authenticity by itself isn’t a virtue. You can go into prison, and there’s a lot of authenticity in prison.
Cottle: You could be authentically horrible.
French: You could be authentically horrible. So I would prize virtues over authenticity. And you’re going to walk into this, and as Jamelle said, you cannot open social media without the rumor mill of: “Just you wait. There is more to come.” And I’m getting this feeling that a lot of Democrats are walking pretty far out on a limb that is going to just get chopped right out from under them as more comes out about this guy.
Cottle: Yeah, I know they’re really nervous. And the question I’ve always had is: If this is what we know, what do we not know? Because it’s not like this stuff tends to hit all at once. And I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but that campaign doesn’t seem the kind to go ahead and drop everything early so that you can get it over with. They’re going to let it drip, drip, drip. But I do think that this whole authenticity thing — and let me just say, the whole authenticity thing, aside from Platner, has always driven me crazy.
French: Oh, yeah.
Cottle: Because what it is clear is, it’s not that people want somebody who’s authentic; they want somebody who’s kind of charming and folksy or whatever. If you’re authentically awkward, they have no use for you.
If you are authentically anything other than what you can fake, if you’re a professional. So I have no sympathy for that, to the degree that it allows you to embrace complete jackasses or horrible people. Not that I’m saying he is; I’m just saying that that whole excuse drives me nuts, and I get your point about robots and things like that. But voters don’t want authentic. They want authentically charming and folksy and looking regular guy-y.
Bouie: They want someone who can perform a certain kind of ——
Cottle: Perform, yes!
Bouie: I’m going to sound like an academic here — perform a certain kind of legible authenticity, right?
Cottle: Thank you.
Bouie: Something that the capital-“A” authentic refers to is a set of traits that are politically advantageous, and if you can perform them well, then you get labeled authentic, right? So, as per your point, Michelle, if you are authentically a patrician — like, say, Mitt Romney, authentic patrician — that’s sort of a hard thing to get past. That reads to voters as being awkward and robotic, even if it’s not. Even if it’s just, he’s a guy being who he is. And that’s why you see candidates doing all kinds of often very silly things at state fairs, at all kinds of places, to try to perform this particular kind of authenticity.
Cottle: Oh, the meat-on-stick parade. Yeah.
Bouie: And I wanted to say, real quick, that setting aside the questions of authenticity and ethical behavior from Mr. Platner, I do think that if I were a Democratic Party insider, the thing that would make me worry is the fact that they haven’t released this stuff early on. Like, the time to drop all of these scandals was last summer. Just get it over with.
Cottle: Just get it all out there. How do we feel, more broadly, about the fact that his team reportedly knew about the sexting history at least months ago, and chose to keep pushing forward? Is that concerning? As you’ve noted, with the morality question, Trump has basically blown that up. When we talk about leadership and character, that’s almost laughable these days.
When I would be talking to people — for instance, one of David’s favorite candidates, Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate now in Texas, when I would mention his long string of personal — how do we even put this gently? — degeneracy, you would get laughs. I mean, people would be like, “Oh, that doesn’t matter anymore. Like, look at Trump.”
So, have we reached the point where that sort of thing just doesn’t factor in? And honestly, is it even fair to compare Platner to somebody like Paxton or Trump?
Bouie: You know, I don’t think it’s fair. And I say that because, so far, what we’ve learned about Platner is that, for lack of a better term, he’s kind of a dirtbag. Just a dirtbaggy kind of guy.
Cottle: But you mean that in the nicest way possible.
Bouie: I mean that in the nicest way possible. That’s versus Trump, who isn’t just a reprehensible person, but is actively engaged in harming other people in his private life, right? And I’d say the same for Paxton: not just a slimy guy, but a guy whose modus operandi, as a human being, is to try to dominate the people around him in really ugly ways. And so, I think Platner is more on the John Fetterman continuum than he is on the Trump continuum, which is just, eh, kind of dirtbaggy.
Cottle: OK, so I want to drill down just a little bit more. As you guys probably know, our colleague Ross Douthat recently wrote about the subjective view of morality in politics these days. He was comparing Platner, or contrasting him, with someone like the Democrats’ Senate pick in Texas, James Talarico. Seminarian, very strait-laced. As Ross sees it, sometimes voters view the “sinner” as more reassuring, because they think that his vices are doubling as the promise that he won’t be too fanatical or self-righteous. So, in politics, have sins and shortcomings, to some degree, become a political asset in some cases?
French: You know, I kind of had the opposite instinct — that actually the vice that you’re seeing in politicians is an appeal, precisely because it demonstrates that they are fanatical.
Cottle: Oh!
French: That, in other words, they are not restrained by the norms and the rules. And in a moment of extreme negative polarization — at a time when there is an enormous amount of raw hatred — the presence of this vice says, and broadcasts to partisan voters, “I have no walls. I have no rules.” And you can see this mirrored in the talk around Platner, because you keep hearing: “I want a fighter. I want a fighter.” And I think if Talarico loses — and let’s be clear, I mean, the odds are against him.
I think there’s this burst of optimism, but the reminder is that Texas is the Lucy with the football for Democrats, and it has been for some time. He’s got an enormous structural deficit to overcome. Not to say that he can’t do it, but it’s a tough race. But I guarantee you, if he loses, one of the knocks against him will be, “Well, he wasn’t a fighter.” What do they mean by that? I guarantee you that Talarico will campaign his heart out, that his staff will exert themselves to the limit of their endurance to try to win this race, but he will not be a fighter because he’s not cruel, he’s not belligerent.
He is leading and leaning into the race in a way that is trying to emphasize this sort of, even if you disagree with me, I’m going to treat you with decency. And that is not fighting right now. That’s not fighting.
And that’s why, I think, that the Platner situation is dangerous. Obviously, he’s not Donald Trump. I mean, he is the gateway drug to Trumpism. Let’s put it this way: If he wins and Talarico loses, the cry across the land, in that Democratic consultant class, will be: “Find me more Platners. We need more Platners. These are the guys who know how to win.” And where have I heard this before?
And so I do think that we’re at this really interesting moment where I do think we’re in this thermostatic reaction against Trump, but it’s not clear to me yet the exact nature of it.
Is the thermostatic reaction against Trump and for decency, or is the thermostatic reaction against Trump and to pummel the other side? I don’t know how we’re going to go, and I think that who wins, who loses, who overperforms, who underperforms in the midterms is going to be an indicator of all of this.
Bouie: The extent to which how Platner and Talarico in particular do this year, I do think is going to shape how Democratic consultants go about doing the recruitment, thinking about the candidates they want to try to find. I know my frustration about any kind of conclusion drawn from electoral performance is that this year it’s clear — as David was suggesting — that the most important factor is just how unpopular Trump is. And so I wouldn’t say the candidates are immaterial. Like, you can have candidates that fit their states, fit their districts, but I’m not sure how many lessons you can draw.
But people are going to want to draw the lessons in part because, I think Platner in particular — and this is a point I meant to get to earlier — is not just a candidate, but he’s a position in an intra-Democratic Party factional battle, right? It stands with how you view the kinds of people that Democrats tend to recruit to run for office. Should they be polished, with the right credentials, and that sort of thing? Or should there be a bit of a looser and more open approach to candidate recruitment?
So there are all these things tied up in Platner that, I think, don’t actually have that much to do with Graham Platner, and have much more to do with these factional battles that are happening, right? They have a lot to do with the particular constellation of consultants, who are behind Platner and who are looking for, perhaps, a greater say in the direction of Democratic Party strategy. I mean, to me, that’s one of the interesting things about this entire dynamic about observing the arguments about Platner online — that everything feels like a proxy fight and not so much dealing with the particular candidate in the particular race, in a particular circumstance.
Cottle: Like, when Janet Mills suspended her campaign, everybody was like, “Oh my God, this proves that Chuck Schumer was hideous in his recruiting!” I’m sorry, Janet Mills is 78 years old and would have been the oldest freshman senator ever. That enough was a problem for her, beyond whatever kind of issues. But if you look at who else Schumer has recruited, you’ve got Mary Peltola in Alaska and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and Roy Cooper in North Carolina — and Josh Turek just won in Iowa, which was a race that was, basically internally, heavily about whether or not you supported Chuck Schumer. Not that Chuck is the greatest thing since sliced cheese. Nobody’s going to go there. And my position is that it may be time for him to publicly come up with a succession plan. But just the overlearning from one race makes me mental on these things.
Maine is not the only show in town. With this primary season, we’re seeing this whole range of options for new leadership in the party. Jamelle, give us your basic take on how the party should be trying to expand its tent. I mean, you can break it down any way you like, but are we talking about more moderates? How much should we be paying attention to anti-establishment disruptors? That sort of thing.
Bouie: I mean, when you look at the landscape of candidates this cycle, I’m not sure you can draw an actual through line between any of them since Trump got into office. So, obviously, last year you had Abigail Spanberger, a centrist Democrat; Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, who is a center-left Democrat; Zohran Mamdani identifies with the democratic socialists. When you look at Talarico, he seems to be a standard Texas liberal, in terms of his views.
We’re not looking at a situation where it’s like, oh, look, the moderates are doing so much better than the progressives, or the progressives are doing so much better than the moderates. A lot of it, again, as I said earlier, is shaped by the overall national environment. Trump is very unpopular, and if you seem like a basically capable, reasonable person, voters are going to give you a hearing right now.
My sense of, when you’re thinking about how to stitch together a large political coalition, a majority coalition, you have to have something that your party believes in, and it has to be broad enough that it can include a lot of people, and specific enough that it’s distinctive. So I think the classic example of American political history is the Republican Party in the 1850s, which was antislavery. That’s what it was. Now, there was no particular litmus test centered around this.
To be antislavery in the 1850s could mean that you were an abolitionist; it could mean that you were a free-soiler, meaning that you just didn’t want slavery to expand, but otherwise didn’t really care where it was; it could mean that you didn’t even care about it all that much, and you didn’t like Black people all that much. You just didn’t like the fact that all of the Southern slaveholders controlled the government, right? It meant a lot of different things. And the hat trick of that iteration of the Republican Party is that they were basically like, “Yeah, sure. OK. Whatever it wants to mean to you, it can mean to you. But as long as we can agree on this one thing, that we’re against slavery, we can figure out the details later.”
And I think something like that is important. I’ll say the Democrats struggle with this now — have always struggled with this, by virtue of the fact that the Democratic Party has always been, from its very inception, this stitched together brokerage party of lots of different groups. But I think we’re in an age where a political party that will succeed, and that can bring people over — that can expand the tent, as the language goes — is one that can voice some kind of broad principle that, again, is big enough to include a lot of people. People can make of it what they want, but it’s still specific enough that it’s identifiable, right?
That, like, if you believe this, then this is the party that you ought to support. Versus how I think Democrats often go when it comes to trying to appeal to people, which is to say, “Hey, listen, I’m totally inoffensive. I don’t trigger anything you dislike, so you should vote for me.”
French: Looking at it from the outside, I’m struck by something our colleague Ezra Klein said in a podcast not long ago, where I think it was something along the lines of: It’s easier to imagine the end of the Republic than a Democrat winning a Senate seat in Arkansas.
It’s one of those, as they say, tough but fair assessments. And when I hear things like, what does the Democratic Party need to do to win? One of my first questions is: Where? So, if you’re talking about in Arkansas, where the Democratic Party has been in retreat for a very long time, you have Republican supermajorities, you have extreme difficulty breaking through.
Well, if I’m the Democrats, there’s going to be a degree of, say, moderation or ideological malleability that’s going to be necessary, that would be political suicide if you’re running in a Brooklyn congressional district. And there’s just going to have to be comfort with that stitched-together coalition.
And I think, actually, one of the problems that emerged for the Democrats is that they were starting to move away from that very stitched-together coalition, toward a much more narrow ideological litmus test. And just as Jamelle was saying, the one thing, the one test, if you wanted to be a Republican in 1860, was you had to have at least some degree of discomfort with slavery. The test in 2024 was far less virtuous. It was, “Can you put on the red hat?” “Are you pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine?” Doesn’t matter. “Pro-Ukraine, anti-Ukraine?” Doesn’t matter. “Pro-life, pro-choice?” Doesn’t matter. “Can you put on the red hat?” And anyone who could put on the red hat was welcome into this constituency.
The Democrats could use a bit more of that, I’d have to say; this ability to say, “Hey, I disagree with you on X or Y or Z. Welcome to the party, my friend, because you agree with me on A, B, C, D and E.”
Cottle: Yeah. They don’t really do that. So, I think it’s exactly the opposite situation of what Jamelle was talking about, with the Civil War-era Republicans. The Democratic Party isn’t great for big, shared values that they talk about, but they’ve got a ton of litmus tests, and if you mess up those, you’re in a heap of trouble. By the time the next presidential election rolls around, they are going to need to have a better message about who they are and what they stand for.
OK, Jamelle, we’re going to bring this back again to the kind of future vision and leadership. You recently wrote about what a Democratic response to Project 2025 would look like, and by that, I’m referring to the Heritage Foundation’s conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration.
So you are not just exploring the question of how to rebuild American democracy, but the importance of choosing leadership that can do that. Who are the leaders that you think would be good to help execute a so-called Project 2029 vision of what America could be?
Bouie: I honestly do not have an answer to this. Like, I really don’t.
Cottle: Really? That’s depressing, actually. That’s sort of sad, right?
Bouie: Part of what I was writing was — in relation to what I just said a little earlier — that I think the thing that Project 2025 was truly successful at was actually communicating a broad vision of what they want the country to be. And I think Democrats have a lot of policies they hope to pass, but I don’t think they have a broad vision of what they want the country to be, what they think the Constitution is. Not what they think it allows them to do, but what values they think it instantiates.
I’ll say that I want to go to something David said a little earlier, and something you said, too, Michelle. I am also anti-litmus test. I just don’t think it’s very politically useful. When I think of the importance of principle, it very much is actually not about a litmus test, because people understand principles in all kinds of different ways. But I do think that it is important to be able to articulate a set of principles and values, and not vague ones about, you know, we all want security and that kind of thing. But something that is substantive, right?
If I think about my own values, I am an egalitarian, and I believe very deeply in the promise of a multiracial democracy, where all people are welcome in this country to participate in self-governance. That’s what I believe in. And are there Democrats who talk like that? Who can say: “This is what I believe in. This is what I want the country to be. And if you also want the country to be like this, you should vote for me.”
Cottle: How are we going to fit that on a hat, Jamelle?
Bouie: We can disagree about all kinds of issues, right? This isn’t about issues. We can disagree about the proper role of the level of taxation. We can disagree about even tough ones, like abortion. But what do you want the country to be? And it’s fully stipulated. What do I know? I’ve never run an election.
Cottle: No, no, but I’m serious about the hat thing. You’ve got to figure out a way; this is your mission. You’ve got to figure out a way to boil that down, so that it can be sold on the campaign trail, because, you know, politics is no place for nuance.
Bouie: No place for nuance, yeah.
Cottle: If you can come up with a way to take your vision and come up with a bumper sticker, you probably ——
Bouie: A hat, a bumper sticker, a pin.
Cottle: Like, yeah, whatever.
French: One of the challenges with that is you’ve got a kind of bifurcated electorate, because you’ve got a lot of people in the electorate who are really focused, very much, on the kitchen-table issues: I want lower prices, I want no crime.
You’ve got a whole other part of the electorate — it’s not that they’re not focused on that, but they recognize that we are in an extraordinary time, just an extraordinary time where what is being fought over isn’t just what’s the best policy for reducing the price of eggs, but what’s being fought over is the nature of the American experiment itself. And so, if I was thinking about what political party I would be drawn to, I would be drawn to one that is the party of the American creed; that is, you know, that all men are created equal, we’re endowed by our creator with inalienable rights. Among them are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I want to be a member of that party. And the reason why I double down on it is because, on the right in particular, it’s a very live argument. Is this a creedal nation or is this a nation that is rooted in your identity? Your racial identity, your religious identity. And so, that is a very much of a big battle on the right, and it’s about liberalism — small-“l” liberalism itself. But I’m not naïve. I know that if you put something like that out, millions of people would be like, “What?”
Cottle: Your challenge, then, again, is still that you have to tie that to how it will make life better for the people who don’t have time to think about big-picture issues and are trying to put eggs on the table. So, again, if you can figure that one out, I will come — I will come run both your campaigns. I mean, Jamelle Bouie, David French, 2028.
Cottle: OK. We’re going to end with that and move on to everyone’s favorite: recommendations. All right. Got anything to get us in the summer mood, David?
French: This is going to be published on Saturday, so we’re still going to be in the middle of my recommendation. If you are not an N.B.A. basketball fan, if you’ve not watched the Finals — you need to be watching the Finals. OK, so two things are happening at once: No. 1, you have the emergence of, potentially, a generational talent — not just the greatest basketball player of all time but one of the most unique athletes of all time in Victor Wembanyama. Just an incredibly compelling figure on and off the court.
And then, on the other side, you have the New York Knicks, which are on this incredible run that hasn’t been seen for a long time, and, by some measures, in basketball ever. But here’s what’s so fun about it: I’m enjoying the Knicks because I’m enjoying Knicks fans. They’re losing their minds. It is hilarious.
And just the level of hysteria is so fun to watch. In this moment, you feel like life kind of beats you down. Just being around a group of people who are in the middle of this most exquisite joy is so much fun. So tune in.
Cottle: I’m all about the joy. Jamelle?
Bouie: I don’t have any sports recommendations, but it’s summer movie season, summer blockbuster season, and I have a little ritual, where the one thing that I do watch every summer is the entire “Mission: Impossible” series.
It’s what? Eight movies at this point. And they’re all terrific. So, I would highly recommend picking up a film in the “Mission: Impossible” series and giving it a spin.
And if there’s any one of these you should watch, on a big TV with a nice sound system, it’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.” That movie is incredible. It’s sort of like a theater-shaking film. It came out when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and we went like a couple of days before my wife gave birth, and we were almost hoping that the movie would jostle something. It didn’t, but it was a great time.
Cottle: OK, I probably have the stamina for two of these, but other than that, that sounds like a very big commitment. But I will take your recs and watch a couple of these. I want to go in a musical direction and invite people to check out Stephen Wilson Jr.
He’s kind of country, indie rock, with a big dollop of grunge in it, which I know sounds weird, but it’s fabulous. The best way I know to describe his voice is that he just sounds haunted. And that really kind of fits with my mood a lot of the time these days. So, Stephen Wilson Jr., check him out.
And with that, I want to sneak in, before we go, an extra in-house rec of sorts. And by that, I want to urge everyone out there to check out “Popcast,” which is The New York Times’s now-weekly pop culture video podcast and chat show.
The hosts are Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, and they are our culture critic and culture reporter, and on Thursdays you can watch them, or just listen to them, as they sit down and chat with the hottest musicians, actors, internet celebrities and cultural influencers. You can get everybody from ASAP Rocky to Anne Hathaway. I think they have a recent episode out, where they sit down with Olivia Rodrigo, ahead of her new album coming out. Check it out, nytimes.com/popcast, or you can go to youtube.com/popcast — I highly recommend. It’s great fun. And with that, we’re going to land this plane.
Guys, thank you. As always, we’ve solved the world’s problems, and I hope the rest of your week is fantastic. Let’s do it again.
Bouie: Yep. Problems solved.
Cottle: All solved.
Bouie: That’s what we do here: We solve the problems.
Cottle: We’re here to offer answers and slogans for hats.
Thoughts? Email us at [email protected].
This episode of “The Opinions” was produced by Derek Arthur. It was edited by Kaari Pitkin. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Video editing by Kristen Williamson and Ben Wright. The postproduction manager is Mike Puretz. Original music by Carole Sabouraud and Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta and Kristina Samulewski. The director of Opinion Video is Jonah M. Kessel. The deputy director of Opinion Shows is Alison Bruzek. The director of Opinion Shows is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Aaron Retica.
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