Hi everyone.
Welcome to this week’s Daly Weekly, where I answer whatever questions you throw my way.
Before we get started this week, I’d like to invite you all to Reagan Caucus Action’s Substack. I co-host their weekly podcast, on which we feature a different guest every week to discuss numerous issues from a Reaganite perspective.
It’s totally free, and you can sign up here (I hope you do):
Now, let’s get to your questions…
Sir John — Since there’s still some time left, wouldn’t it be a good idea for the Republicans to finally pass legislation to solidify into Federal Law the following things?
The Filibuster
Only nine Supreme Court Justices permanently
Crimes against ICE Agents
Ending Sanctuary Cities & States permanently
Also, suggest to Justice Roberts, Thomas, and Alito to retire so that Trump can pack the Court with conservatives.
Your thoughts? —“Friday The 13th 2026: Jason Thwarts The Left” regards from The Emperor
I hate to poke your ideas full of holes, Emperor, but the U.S. Congress can’t vote to permanently preserve (or kill) the filibuster, because a future congressional vote could just reverse the measure. The same goes for changing the number of Supreme Court justices, or stiffening the penalties for committing a crime against an ICE agent. The sanctuary city stuff is decided at the state level.
On your next point, there’s nothing stopping anyone from “suggesting” that a Supreme Court justice retire, but that’s all that members of Congress, or a U.S. president, can really do.
Lastly, I’m not convinced that Trump, if given the opportunity, would actually nominate conservative justices to replace to the current ones. In my view, the three conservatives he nominated in his first term were/are very good. But Trump himself disagrees agrees with me on that. He’s outright said that he regrets nominating all three of them, because of how often they vote against him. He believes they should basically ignore their Constitutional duty, and always rule in his favor, to be loyal to him… because he did them the favor of nominating them (likely at the recommendation of people like Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence). So, if one or more of the current conservative justices retired on Trump’s watch, I think there’s a good possibility he would instead nominate a Trump sycophant like Mike Lee, who hasn’t been a conservative in quite some time, and has already proven he’s more loyal to Trump than he is the Constitution.
A Friday question: Will some of the ridiculous tariffs be rescinded and an attempt to repair relations with our allies be a reality as Vance gains more input, or is he on board with Trump's game plan? We, the people, don't know where VP Vance stands, other than his anti-war verbiage. He seems aloof. — Sharon H.
Hi Sharon. Yes, I think the Democratic congress will indeed start repealing tariffs, starting with the ones Trump put on Canada. Hopefully they’ll repeal more after that. Republicans in Congress should absolutely join them, to be on the right side of this issue, but I’m not counting on that happening.
Regarding Vance, he is indeed on Trump’s side when it comes to tariffs. Sadly, Vance is on the wrong side of most issues, and his economic sensibilities largely line up with those of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
I’ve seen a number of people on this website praise the wisdom of Victor Davis Hanson (a Trump fawner), and suggest that you should be more like him. Since the midterms however, Hanson seems to have moved much closer to you. He’s now acknowledging the bigotry problem on the Right, going after people who try to label Trump’s critics “neocons,” and is even calling on Trump to clean up the corruption within his own administration and family members. What happened? — Alex D.
The midterms happened, Alex. And now that Trump is an even a lamer duck than people were expecting (because of the enormous Democratic gains), some prominent Trump fawners — though still kind of testing the waters — are becoming more comfortable with criticizing the president and the New Right.
As I’ve said in the past, I don’t pay much attention to Hanson, so you picked up on more than I have. (When I do happen to catch a video clip of him, he’s usually trying to twist and shape Trump’s clearly instinctive or compulsive decisions into artificial alignment with an ideological or intellectual framework, which I think is nonsense).
Just a quick anecdote on Hanson: Stephen Hayes (of The Dispatch) recently told a story about how he ran into Hanson somewhere, at the beginning of the first Trump administration. In casual conversation, Hanson told Hayes that he largely agreed with Hayes’s very critical assessments of Trump, but that whenever Hanson wrote columns favorable to Trump, those columns would prove to be very popular with readers… and so he (Hanson) planned to keep writing them.
It was the same professional calculation most commentators on the Right took in the era of Trump, and I think it says something about the changing political environment that some of those people are now feeling comfortable slowly reverting back to their former selves.
What do you think of the argument that BECAUSE Democrats took such a big majority in both the House and Senate, the most radical DSA representatives will actually have LESS power and influence within the Democratic party? — Ben G.
I think it’s a solid point, Ben, and one that a lot of people probably haven’t considered. If the Democrats had only won a thin majority, they probably would have had to make concessions to their most radical members in order to get them to support more reasonable or moderate legislation. Now they can afford to lose those people’s votes. That said, I don’t have a lot of confidence that the Democrats will use their newfound power to pass much reasonable or moderate legislation. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but I think the specific concern people have had that the DSA will actually take over the Democratic Party now has less meat behind it… at least for now.
John: I have a few random observations about last week’s monumental midterms. I’d like to know your thoughts on any or all of these:
It took a special talent for Trump and the Republican candidates to lose a landslide election to a party with a 29% approval rating.
I am glad to see that corruption was identified as a leading issue for voters in the midterms. I was beginning to think that, like budget and entitlement reform, neither party cared about this anymore.
Candidate choice matters more than money and gerrymandered congressional districts.
Trump is now the emperor who wears no clothes, and even he knows it. With the appointment of Stephen Miller as Chief of Staff and the suggestion of Dana White as Press Secretary, Trump isn’t even trying to look like he is seriously governing anymore.
Republicanism and conservatism will take on a new look over the next 2 – 10 years. I do not think we are going back to traditional Goldwater/Reagan conservatism, but rather something more consequential in terms of generational change and a handoff to Millennials and Gen Z, signaling an end to the gerontocracy. — Steve R.
Hi Steve. I’ll take your topics one at a time:
Yes, the Republicans suffered enormous losses to a political party that’s nearly as unpopular as they are. As I covered in my column earlier this week, being the opposition party to Donald Trump is really all it took. It truly is a testament to how poorly Trump has performed as president, and how badly he has damaged the GOP.
I too worried that Americans had largely grown immune to the Trump administration’s glaring corruption. Polling over the last few months, however, revealed that the issue did indeed strike a nerve (as well it should have in a system of representative democracy).
In a wave election, like the one we just witnessed, gerrymandering can end up backfiring for the party behind it. But not every election is a wave election. And yes, candidate quality always matters, though it too loses a little significance in a wave election. In competitive races, it absolutely makes a difference.
In response to Stephen Miller being named Chief of Staff, I saw someone online remark, “[Trump] doesn't care anymore. He's going to spend the next two years working on his ballroom and playing with action figures in the Oval Office.” That would go to your point, which I think is valid. I’ve been saying for years that Trump ran for president this last time to escape the legal trouble he was in. Once he accomplished that by becoming president again, I think it’s pretty clear he took on a YOLO posture of doing whatever he wants… including issuing mass pardons for criminals who committed violence in his name, making billions of dollars off the presidency, and accepting lots of expensive gifts from foreign entities. Like every other president, he’s had to make serious, consequential decisions, but it’s clear he’s primarily focused on reaping the personal benefits of the presidency.
I don’t know what the future holds for the Republican Party. Seeing how easily it was taken over by a cult of personality a decade ago, and what it’s done to itself since then, I can’t confidently make any kind of prediction. But I do hope for a return to some semblance of small-government conservatism.
Thanks everyone! You can send me questions for next week by leaving a comment in the comment section.