Wednesday: Trump Crashed the Knicks Party and the Left Wants the Senate Back

Rush LindellWelcome back to the Rush Lindell Show. We have got a show today.

ReaganRush, honestly, where do we even start?

Rush LindellOh, I know exactly where. Madison Square Garden, Monday night. The President of the United States walks into a Knicks game, becomes the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals,

ReaganYeah.

Rush Lindelland the crowd greets him with a wall of boos.

ReaganAnd then the Knicks lost.

Rush LindellAnd then the Knicks lost. James Dolan's night, everybody. We'll get into that. Plus, AOC had thoughts. The new mayor had thoughts. New York is a whole ecosystem right now.

ReaganAnd speaking of the new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Self-described Democratic Socialist, was at 1% in polls not that long ago. Now he's the mayor of New York City.

Rush LindellSo here's the question nobody wants to answer. Is that a New York oddity or is it a preview?

ReaganThat's exactly the debate, and I want to actually dig into it honestly. Because the easy answer for conservatives is New York anomaly, move on. I'm not sure that's right.

Rush LindellYou know what nobody wants to say? The 2026 map is genuinely dangerous for us. We're going to say it.

ReaganCory Booker is out there barnstorming the country with $22 million. His opponent has negative cash on hand. That's not a metaphor.

Rush LindellNegative, as in they owe money.

ReaganAs in they owe money. We'll walk through the four states that could flip the Senate, including one match. A match up in Texas that should not be competitive.

Rush LindellBut here's the thing: we're not here to panic; we're here to think clearly. That's how you actually win.

ReaganThat's the whole point.

Rush LindellAll right, let's get into it: Game Three, Trump, MSG, the booze heard round New York City, right after this. Before we dive in, a quick reminder: we love hearing from you. If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover, head to the link in the description and submit your question. We read every single one. So here's what's going on Monday night, Madison Square Garden, Game three of the NBA Finals and walking into the building the first sitting President to ever attend an NBA Finals game, Donald Trump, guest of Knicks owner James Dolan, up in the suite,

ReaganWow!

Rush Lindellfirst time in American history.

ReaganHistoric, no question-and New York let him know exactly how they felt.

Rush LindellThey serenaded him during the National Anthem jumbotron hits. Crowd Sees the President's Thunderous Boos!" According to ESPN, the first sitting President at a Finals game. According to Trump afterward, it was "mostly cheers" and "very enthusiastic."

ReaganHe said that.

Rush LindellHe said that. The NBA, he told reporters, is a little left wing but great, classic. The man hears boos and files them under standing ovation.

ReaganLook, the boos were real, but here's the thing: the security footprint The footprint was also a genuine problem for regular fans: two-hour waits to get inside, the outdoor watch parties canceled entirely.

Rush LindellAnd that's where AOC comes in with the best line of the week. She called Trump's attendance, I want you to hear this, a vibe killer. On Instagram, a sitting congresswoman, vibe killer.

ReaganI mean, she's not wrong on the logistics.

Rush LindellReagan. She posted it before the game. She said the MSG watch party's out. These outside were getting shut down; and, I'm quoting the Hill here, sometimes the accommodations required for the security just for you to show up are not worth shutting down for other people. I agree with AOC—Fair's time for everything.

ReaganMark the calendar!

Rush LindellBut then there's Mayor Zohran Mamdani—Fortune covered his statement—he said, quote, 'We're excited to welcome anyone and everyone who's rooting for the Knicks. Next—sounds gracious—read it again.

ReaganIt's a knife wrapped in a bow. He's welcoming Trump only to the extent that Trump is rooting for New York. He's not welcoming the President; he's welcoming a fan, conditionally.

Rush LindellExactly right; and that tells you something about this guy. So who is Zohran Mamdani? And what does a self-described socialist mayor welcoming the President like that say about where New York's politics actually are?

Speaker 3R

Rush LindellSo the man doing the welcoming is Zohran Mamdani, and if you don't know who that is, you need to.

ReaganHe beat Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, then beat him again in the general, a Democratic Socialist who was polling at one percent a year before winning the biggest mayoral race in the country.

Rush LindellOne percent to running New York City. That's not a comeback story. That's a warning shot.

ReaganAnd his welcome anyone rooting for the Knicks line? Fine, genuinely clever, crunches on the surface, pointed underneath," he bought a standing room ticket for around one thousand dollars himself (according to Fortune), showed up as a fan, stole the narrative.

Rush LindellThat's a political move dressed as sportsmanship, and it worked.

ReaganIt absolutely worked, but here's where I push back on the larger story people want to tell about it: Mamdani wins New York City, where registered Democrats outnumber

Speaker 4Republicans six to one.

ReaganRats outnumber Republicans by something like five to one. Political scientists have already flagged that his blueprint doesn't translate to Ohio or Iowa.

Rush LindellHold on, hold on-I hear that argument every time the left wins somewhere big. Oh, it's just New York. But the energy is real-he knocked off Cuomo, that name was supposed to be untouchable.

ReaganThe energy is real in New York; I'm not dismissing the energy. I'm saying there's a difference. The difference between winning Brooklyn and winning a Senate seat in North Carolina, free city buses and rent freezes don't play the same everywhere.

Rush LindellFair.

ReaganMm-hmm.

Rush LindellSo the question is, is Mom Donnie a preview of where the Democratic Party goes nationally in twenty twenty six, or is he the New York anomaly they point to while running someone completely different in the swing states?

ReaganThat's exactly the tension. The activist left wants him to be the model. The Senate strategists are probably hoping nobody looks too closely.

Rush LindellAnd that tension is about to get a lot louder. Speaking of Democrats with national ambitions, Cory Booker has been on a different kind of tour.

ReaganA very long one.

Rush LindellNow flip that frame on its head; Mamdani wins New York on Socialist energy, but there's a guy touring the country right now who thinks that same energy can flip the entire Senate: Cory Booker. The Speechmaker, twenty-five hours on the Senate floor last March, breaks Strom Thurmond's record and the donations just pour in.

ReaganThe fundraising numbers are real, Rush. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Booker pulled over $22 million cash on hand, second highest among all Senate candidates, and roughly 80 percent of those donations were $25 or less, 200,000 small-dollar donors. That model actually worked. works.

Rush LindellAnd here's the thing-his Republican opponent, Justin Murphy, won his primary with negative twenty four dollars on hand-negative twenty four dollars! I've lost more than that in a couch cushion.

ReaganI mean, New Jersey hasn't sent a Republican to the Senate since nineteen seventy two. That race is not the story.

Rush LindellExactly right: the Booker race is a foregone conclusion; his value is as a national surrogate; prediction markets put his re-election somewhere around ninety

Speaker 4nine.

Rush LindellAbout ninety five per cent. The question is whether he can move the needle somewhere that actually matters.

ReaganAnd that's where I pump the brakes a little. I get why people believe a celebrity surrogate shifts votes, but the states Democrats actually need-Ohio, North Carolina, Maine-those aren't New Jersey. A twenty five hour Senate speech lands differently in Akron than it does in Newark.

Rush LindellShocker: a fund-raising megaphone doesn't automatically automatically become a vote machine-you know what nobody wants to say-there is a difference between building a national donor email list and actually winning Trump-won states.

ReaganThat said, the money is real, and it moves to other races. That's his actual job here, not winning New Jersey: using that twenty two million dollar war chest as a transfer mechanism to candidates who need it.

Rush LindellSo the Booker Roadshow is worth watching, just not for the reasons his supporters think. Think. The real test is the map itself, and that map is where we're going next, because some of those Senate targets are a lot more vulnerable than Republicans want to admit. So the money matters if the map actually has targets. Let's count them.

ReaganFour seats: that's the number Democrats need for a majority. According to NPR's race-by-race breakdown, North Carolina is their best shot: open seat, Roy Cooper on the ballot. NPR rates it Lean D right now.

Rush LindellRoy Cooper is a good get.

ReaganMm-hmm.

Rush LindellFormer governor, won statewide twice, hard to argue otherwise.

ReaganThen Ohio. Sherrod Brown is back running against... Against appointed Senator Jon Husted, Wikipedia's 2026 Senate elections page has that as a toss-up.

Rush LindellSherrod Brown lost Ohio by four in 2024, and Democrats brought him back. That is either genius or stubbornness. I haven't decided.

ReaganProbably both: Maine is toss up; Collins defending a state Harris won by seven points; and Alaska, per NPR, is the majority maker; whoever wins that one likely controls the chamber.

Rush LindellOkay, and then there's Texas, which nobody was supposed to say out loud.

ReaganRight: Talarico versus Ken Paxton. Democrats got exactly the match up they wanted. According to Ballotpedia, Paxton beat John Cornyn in the runoff. off with about sixty four percent, and Talarico has outraised him massively-forty million dollars to Paxton's seven point six million dollars as of May.

Rush LindellPaxton called him Talarico. Talarico responded that he's been eating barbecue since before Ken Paxton's first indictment. I mean, that's a good line.

ReaganIt is a good line, and here's what I won't pretend otherwise: the DSCC's own numbers show Democrats That's overperformed 2024 margins by an average of 17 points across five 2025 special elections. Generic ballot has them up six. That's a real environment.

Rush LindellYes, it is. You know what nobody wants to say? The GOP needs to take this seriously. Structural advantages don't survive a 17-point environment shift.

ReaganThat said, the path is still narrow. They have to run the table on all... on offense while holding Georgia and Michigan on defense. One slip and the map collapses.

Rush LindellHere's the question, though: if the environment is this good, and the candidate recruitment broke their way in multiple states, why is the Democratic messaging meeting still six consultants arguing about which slogan to run with? All right, so the map is brutal for Republicans. Favorable environment, contested states, the whole thing. And yet the Democrats cannot decide what they're actually running on.

ReaganI mean, Newsweek literally ran a piece recently with the headline, Democrats Still Don't Know What Their Message Is, a party framing its own platform.

Rush LindellSix consultants, four slogans, three focus groups, zero answer for why they lost working class voters in the first place. I want you to picture that meeting.

ReaganOkay, but to be fair, they do have some message now. Affordability, health care costs, housing. That's more coherent than pure resistance.

Rush LindellSure. And also democracy and also tariffs and also Booker's thing, which chaos, corruption and cruelty, according to Newsweek, is literally 2018 resistance language recycled for 2026.

ReaganRight, and here's where I push back on that frame. That slogan motivates the base, but Newsweek quoted a strategist saying voters don't reward anti-Trump posturing, they reward parties that make their lives feel more secure. That's a real tension.

Rush LindellIt is a real tension. And get this: Booker's own campaign sent out two messages in one week, chaos, corruption and cruelty, and then in the very next breath, are you better off than you were in January 2025? Which one is it? Resistance theater or kitchen table economics?

ReaganThey're not mutually exclusive, technically.

Rush LindellTechnically—that's the word—technically not exclusive—that's consultant speak for we have no

Reaganidea. You see, look, the honest reader's this; a party running six different frames isn't messaging, it's hoping one sticks; and against a genuinely bad environment for Republicans that might actually work, which is almost more alarming.

Rush LindellExactly right-incoherent message, favorable map-so what happened? What happens when conservatives just assume it won't be enough? That's the question I want to sit with.

ReaganAnd that's precisely what we need to talk about next, because dismissing and disorganized opponent is how you wake up on November 4th asking what happened.

Rush LindellSo here's what gets me: the instinct on the right is to look at Democratic chaos, laugh at the messaging malpractice, and assume Assume disorganization equals defeat. We did that in 2017. We did it in 2018. How'd that work out?

ReaganExactly. Dismissing their energy as performative is intellectually lazy. Booker's tour, the candidate recruitment in Texas and Iowa, the small dollar donor machine, those are signals worth taking seriously.

Rush LindellNot fake signals.

ReaganKnowing your opponent's strengths is not a concession. It's what serious people do before an election. The conservative case for holding the Senate requires better candidates. It's in a sharper economic message: confidence built on dismissal is not a strategy.

Rush LindellIt's a feeling. Feelings lose Senate races.

ReaganThey do. Look, the environment is the environment. Approval in the high 30s, a war 53% of Americans oppose per YouGov, and consumers who say the economy is getting worse by a two-to-one margin, according to Brookings. You can't mock your way past those numbers.

Rush LindellHere's the thing, and I mean this. The right answer is not... Not panic. It's not hand-wringing. It's sobriety. You have to look at what's actually in front of you.

ReaganAnd what's in front of Republicans is a map that leans their way on paper, but a climate that doesn't. The party that takes that seriously has a chance.

Rush LindellThe party that doesn't deserves what it gets. So where should listeners actually be watching? We'll tell you exactly which races to track.

Speaker 3So here's what to watch: not the noise, the signal.

ReaganMaine and North Carolina-those are your two early reads.

Speaker 3Exactly. Maine is Susan Collins against a political newcomer, Platner, backed by Bernie Sanders. Harris won that state by seven points. If Collins holds, Democrats have a ceiling problem.

ReaganAnd North Carolina is the open seat. Thom Tillis retiring, Roy Cooper running for Democrats-Trump won it by a single digit margin. That race tells you whether the map is expanding or staying tight.

Speaker 3Two races,

ReaganUh-huh.

Speaker 3two answers. You don't need a spreadsheet.

ReaganThe spreadsheet helps, but fair point.

Speaker 3Now here's the other thing I want you watching: Cory Booker's travel schedule. Seriously.

ReaganIf he's landing in Ohio and Iowa, the DSCC has made a decision: real resources, real targets.

Speaker 3Right. Surrogates don't fly commercial to states nobody thinks are competitive. When the speechmaker shows up somewhere unexpected, that's the tell.

ReaganIt's an honest signal. The money follows the belief.

Speaker 3Here's what it comes down to. You want to know if this is a wave or a ripple. Don't watch the polls in June. Watch where the surrogates are in September.

ReaganAnd watch the candidate quality. NPR has been tracking that the North Carolina race hinges on whether Republicans nominate someone who can win a purple state. Not just a primary,

Speaker 3Novel concept.

Reaganright? Turns out voters outside your base exist.

Speaker 3Look, I'll say it plainly: The environment we laid out today is not friendly to the party in power. Maine, North Carolina, the Booker travel map, those are your gauges. Watch them.

ReaganAnd stay clear-eyed. That's the whole point.

Speaker 3All right, that's a wrap on today's episode. Trump at MSG, Mamdani going from 1% to running New York City, Cory Booker barnstorming the country on $22 million, and Reagan walking us through the four Senate seats that could flip the whole chamber.

ReaganThe through line today was simple. Dismissing your opposition because you don't like them is a losing habit. The environment is genuinely dangerous for Republicans right now. right now, and the evidence is sitting right there if you're willing to look at it.

Speaker 3ESPN confirmed it: first sitting president in an NBA Finals game. The crowd had, let's say, thoughts. He called it mostly cheers. We'll let you decide.

ReaganWatch Maine and North Carolina; track where Booker's travel schedule goes; those are your real time indicators.

Speaker 3If today sharpened something for you, subscribe, drop a five star review and send this to someone who needs it. New episodes every week. Every weekday.

ReaganThanks for being here.

Speaker 3We'll see you tomorrow. Rush Lindell and Reagan signing off.