Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of The Atlantic was the star of the latest episode of the journalist roundtable Washington Week. After moderator (and Sanchez boss) Jeffrey Goldberg introduced the program with the dubious claim that “Iran is in the driver’s seat in the Gulf,” among other debatable anti-Trump declarations, he pivoted to Sanchez, a Phoenix-based reporter making her Washington Week debut, made the most of it by taking people’s legitimate economic worries up to 11:
Much of her rhetoric was familiar from her recent story from Arizona for The Atlantic, "Trump Voters Are Over It."
YVONNE WINGETT SANCHEZ: It is terrifying to a lot of people. They -- for a lot of people, this just came out of nowhere. They have no idea what we're doing, why we're there. This is a president who promised that he would not do this. He would only bring peace. They're paying more at the pump. They're canceling their summer vacations. They can't afford to take their wives and families out for dinner. I mean, there's a huge disconnect between what is happening out in the real world and how people are absorbing this moment in his decisions and how they may view this playing out by the time the midterms actually roll around.
Gas going up a dollar means no restaurant meals? No summer vacations?
Yvonne Wingett Sanchez made a dramatic debut at the PBS Washington Week roundtable talking Trump, Iraq, and prices: "It is terrifying to a lot of people. They -- for a lot of people, this just came out of nowhere. They have no idea what we're doing, why we're there." pic.twitter.com/JwTrhfBiPa
— Clay Waters (@claywaters44) April 27, 2026
Host Goldberg returned to her later for more hyped-up talk of Democratic optimism on the midterms
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: …. Yvonne, you've spent a lot of time crisscrossing Arizona and other states talking to Trump supporters. And what you've heard has really surprised you. Let me read this one observation you made in The Atlantic early this week. “Midterm elections are typically rough for an incumbent president's party, but this year threatens to be brutal. Trump's approval is lower right now than it was at this point ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.” What are you -- what have you been hearing in the last couple of weeks, last few weeks from MAGA voters?
YVONNE WINGETT SANCHEZ: Yes. I mean, it is the sacrifices that they are having to make within their own homes and within their own households to be able to afford this environment. And this is very much -- to a lot of people, this feels like COVID era prices. It feels like, psychologically, they feel like they are in a really bad economic spot. They're pre-buying electronics. They are cutting back on, like I said, like the family vacations. Like they feel like they are having to make sacrifices for someone that they didn`t want to.
Asked about Democrat chances in Arizona in the midterms, Sanchez was giddy with favorable predictions.
SANCHEZ: I do. There are two toss-up House seats, one held by representative David Schweikert, Scottsdale-based, wealthy voters there are livid. They are very tuned in. This is a lot of independent voters, centrist Republicans who have just had it. Down south in the Tucson-based Congressional district held by Representative Juan Ciscomani, a Republican that has narrowly flipped back and forth over the last several cycles, and that is a seat that Democrats think that they can flip. They can pick up two seats in Arizona easily, possibly a third.
Both of these districts were tight victories last time, so we’ll see how those optimistic Democratic predictions pan out for Sanchez. But you can't miss that PBS is your channel for giddy Democrat talk.
