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Who won the first Republican debate? · Pod Save America

0:20
Speaker 1: Welcome to Pot Tape America, I'm Tommy Vitor.
0:21
Speaker 2: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
0:22
Speaker 1: And we will never get those two hours of our
0:24
Speaker 1: lives back, Dan. We just watched the Republican primary debate,
0:28
Speaker 1: the kids table debate.
0:30
Speaker 2: Consolation bracket.
0:31
Speaker 1: The consolation prize debate. It was a doozy, but we'll
0:34
Speaker 1: tell you about all of it. We also watched most
0:36
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's insane interview with Tucker Carlson on X,
0:41
Speaker 1: which is Twitter now.
0:42
Speaker 2: Do we say that?
0:43
Speaker 1: No, we don't.
0:44
Speaker 2: I say Twitter.
0:45
Speaker 1: I don't say meta either. I don't say any of
0:46
Speaker 1: these things. And then because we know that our opinions
0:51
Speaker 1: or our gut instincts about what Republicans want are not
0:54
Speaker 1: always attuned to where the MAGA base is, we bring
0:57
Speaker 1: in Sarah Longwell. who has done hundreds and hundreds and
1:00
Speaker 1: hundreds of focus groups with Trump voters to help us
1:04
Speaker 1: understand what tonight, if anything, might have changed the dynamics
1:07
Speaker 1: of this race.
1:08
Speaker 2: Did you get the sense that we did not fully
1:10
Speaker 2: understand the Republican base when Pod Save America guest Chris
1:12
Speaker 2: Christie was ruthlessly booed offstage?
1:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like people chasing him with pitchforks. And Lovett's like,
1:19
Speaker 1: I like that guy.
1:20
Speaker 2: I do too.
1:20
Speaker 1: He seems great. I'd like to have a beer with him.
1:23
Speaker 1: What are you going to do, Dan?
1:24
Speaker 2: Well, listen.
1:26
Speaker 1: The best part about the debate, I think, was for
1:28
Speaker 1: you being in the Crooked Media Discord, which all the
1:31
Speaker 1: listeners can join at crooked.com slash friends if you want
1:33
Speaker 1: to be in the Discord next time. So you don't
1:34
Speaker 1: have to watch this alone or on Elon Musk's site. X.
1:39
Speaker 2: You get to be with friends. You get commentary. It's
1:42
Speaker 2: a communal experience. You should all do it together.
1:44
Speaker 1: And you get first access to upcoming live shows in
1:47
Speaker 1: places like Cleveland, Louisville, San Diego, and San Jose. End
1:50
Speaker 1: of plugs. Dan, let's talk about the debate. Nine people
1:54
Speaker 1: on the stage. Fox News hosted. What was your general takeaway?
1:58
Speaker 2: I kept thinking the entire debate about the scene in
2:03
Speaker 2: Billy Madison after Billy Madison gives his speech. And the
2:08
Speaker 2: principal judging it says, we are all dumber for having
2:11
Speaker 2: heard that. And may God have mercy on your soul.
2:16
Speaker 1: That is part of the quote that gets left out
2:18
Speaker 1: a lot.
2:18
Speaker 2: I mean, it was... terrible. It was stupid. It was scary.
2:23
Speaker 2: The things that were cheered or should make us all
2:26
Speaker 2: worry about the future of our country, or at least
2:29
Speaker 2: segments of our country. From a perspective of just pure
2:34
Speaker 2: political strategy, it was idiocy run amok. I mean, it
2:38
Speaker 2: was terrible. It was a terrible experience. And it had
2:40
Speaker 2: the feel of, I used the term consolation bracket before,
2:43
Speaker 2: but that's what it felt like, where No one, it's,
2:48
Speaker 2: it felt like the consolation bracket, like in the World Cup,
2:50
Speaker 2: like after you've lost, people kind of want to win.
2:53
Speaker 2: They don't try that hard and the stakes feel pretty low.
2:56
Speaker 2: And that's what this felt like. Yeah.
2:57
Speaker 1: Playing for third, it just doesn't have that kind of
2:59
Speaker 1: same joy to it. Getting the bronze.
3:02
Speaker 3: Yeah.
3:02
Speaker 1: I think the story of the debate, and we're going
3:04
Speaker 1: to go through all the candidates individually to the extent
3:06
Speaker 1: that they warrant it. The story of the debate was
3:09
Speaker 1: the Vivek Ramaswamy show. He made the entire thing about himself.
3:13
Speaker 1: He managed to get attacked. He was attacking others. He
3:16
Speaker 1: sucked up a lot of airtime. Although I did see
3:18
Speaker 1: someone just tweeted, you know how the reporters will do
3:20
Speaker 1: a summary of everyone's aggregate talking time? It does sound
3:23
Speaker 1: like Mike Pence had the most, but I think that's
3:26
Speaker 1: just because he talks like a slow motion Westworld robot
3:29
Speaker 1: programmed to be Ronald Reagan.
3:30
Speaker 2: There's nothing that explains Mike Pence's struggles in politics more
3:34
Speaker 2: than the fact that he spoke the most when we
3:35
Speaker 2: thought he spoke the least.
3:36
Speaker 1: I really did think he spoke the least.
3:38
Speaker 2: No one remembers a single word he said.
3:40
Speaker 1: Not a single word. It was the.
3:43
Speaker 1: I'm just going to whine for a minute. The stupid
3:45
Speaker 1: like extended drone shot and voiceover by Brit Hume for
3:48
Speaker 1: the first six minutes was bizarre. Starting the debate off
3:52
Speaker 1: with a bunch of questions about the Richmond, North of
3:54
Speaker 1: Richmond song was like the Fox News' new Joe the
3:59
Speaker 1: Plumber moment, which for you old heads out there, you
4:02
Speaker 1: might remember the 2009 campaign and Barack Obama got in
4:04
Speaker 1: a repartee with a guy named Joe the Plumber and
4:06
Speaker 1: it became this little cause salad. But yeah, I mean,
4:08
Speaker 1: I think everyone was watching to see if Chris Christie
4:11
Speaker 1: was going to land some haymaker on Donald Trump I
4:14
Speaker 1: don't think that happened. A lot of people were watching
4:16
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis to see if he would manage to catch
4:18
Speaker 1: up to Donald Trump in any way. I don't know
4:21
Speaker 1: that that happened. So yeah, I mean, Vivek was kind
4:23
Speaker 1: of my big takeaway and not a lot else.
4:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think somewhere in Bedminster, New Jersey, Donald Trump
4:30
Speaker 2: is sitting at home feeling very happy about his decision
4:33
Speaker 2: not to go to the debate because there was no
4:35
Speaker 2: one on that stage did anything to make him think
4:38
Speaker 2: twice about skipping the next one or the one after
4:40
Speaker 2: that because they didn't put pressure on him. They didn't
4:43
Speaker 2: attack him for not being there. They didn't do anything
4:45
Speaker 2: to try to alter the shape of the race. They
4:46
Speaker 2: just tried to come in first among the people who
4:51
Speaker 2: were fighting for second. It didn't really make sense to me.
4:53
Speaker 4: Yeah.
4:53
Speaker 1: Somewhere in Bedminster, the, uh, The ketchup and burgers are
4:56
Speaker 1: in his belly, not against the wall because he's a
4:58
Speaker 1: happy camper.
4:59
Speaker 2: He's so mad because there's nothing that he can TiVo
5:01
Speaker 2: to watch on Fox because it was all of his
5:03
Speaker 2: favorite shows were preempted by this.
5:05
Speaker 1: Although all the Fox hosts, they felt like it was
5:07
Speaker 1: like they were the section about Trump that we'll get
5:09
Speaker 1: into and whether, you know, he should be prosecuted. Fox
5:13
Speaker 1: was so apologetic for even raising the question or asking
5:17
Speaker 1: about the issue. They were like apologizing to the audience,
5:19
Speaker 1: to the candidates. They couldn't move on fast enough.
5:21
Speaker 2: No, I mean, he is, for all intents and purposes,
5:23
Speaker 2: their boss.
5:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is their boss, the assignment editor. So we've
5:26
Speaker 1: mentioned how Vivek Ramaswamy dominated the night and was the
5:30
Speaker 1: story of the debate. Here's a super cut of some
5:32
Speaker 1: of the things he said that might help explain why.
5:35
Speaker 3: Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny
5:37
Speaker 3: last name and what the heck is he doing in
5:39
Speaker 3: the middle of this debate stage? President Trump, I believe,
5:43
Speaker 3: was the best president of the 21st century.
5:45
Speaker 2: It's a fact.
5:47
Speaker 3: And Chris Christie, honest to God, your claim that Donald
5:51
Speaker 3: Trump is motivated by vengeance and grievance would be a
5:54
Speaker 3: lot more credible if your entire campaign were not based
5:58
Speaker 3: on vengeance and grievance against one man. And if people
6:02
Speaker 3: at home want to see a bunch of people blindly
6:05
Speaker 3: bashing Donald Trump without an iota of vision for this country,
6:10
Speaker 3: they could just change the channel to MSNBC right now.
6:12
Speaker 3: But I'm not running for president of MSNBC. I am
6:15
Speaker 3: running for president of the United States. And the reality is,
6:19
Speaker 3: you have a bunch of people, professional politicians, super PAC puppets,
6:23
Speaker 3: following slogans handed over to them by their 400-page super
6:26
Speaker 3: PACs last week. The real choice we face in this
6:29
Speaker 3: primary is this. Do you want a super PAC puppet,
6:32
Speaker 3: or do you want a patriot who speaks the truth?
6:35
Speaker 1: Skinny guy with a funny name, Dan? That's a pretty
6:37
Speaker 1: good line. Felt familiar, though.
6:38
Speaker 2: It does feel mildly familiar.
6:40
Speaker 1: It's interesting to kind of rip off the incredibly popular...
6:46
Speaker 1: former Democratic president, Barack Obama, in your kind of opening
6:49
Speaker 1: salvo in the campaign. I wonder why he did that.
6:52
Speaker 2: It worked for Obama?
6:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it did. If it ain't broke. What do you
6:56
Speaker 1: think of those clips? What jumped out at you there?
6:59
Speaker 2: It's very hard to know how voters will interpret this performance.
7:04
Speaker 4: Yeah.
7:04
Speaker 2: But the thing about being on a stage with a
7:07
Speaker 2: lot of candidates is you have to have a plan
7:09
Speaker 2: to get noticed.
7:10
Speaker 1: Yes.
7:11
Speaker 2: Because if you just speak, if you just answer the
7:13
Speaker 2: questions you're asked, you're not going to have a moment.
7:17
Speaker 2: You're going to fade into the background. And we'll talk
7:19
Speaker 2: about some of them. Many of these candidates faded into
7:21
Speaker 2: the background.
7:22
Speaker 1: Not Doug Burgum's eyebrows. They were there all night long
7:25
Speaker 1: staring into my soul.
7:27
Speaker 2: They actually went up three points.
7:28
Speaker 1: Caterpillars falling high in Iowa.
7:29
Speaker 2: I mean, in credit to him, he did attend the
7:32
Speaker 2: debate with a torn Achilles.
7:34
Speaker 1: That must be so painful.
7:35
Speaker 2: He seemed like he might have been on some painkillers.
7:37
Speaker 1: He definitely seemed happy to be there.
7:38
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't have anything to judge me because
7:40
Speaker 2: I've never seen the man speak before. So I don't
7:42
Speaker 2: know what he's normally like.
7:43
Speaker 1: I can't remember his name.
7:44
Speaker 2: But Vivek came in with a plan to dominate the
7:48
Speaker 2: conversation and he did that quite well. He owned the debate.
7:53
Speaker 2: He picked fights. He had lines. He was well prepared.
7:56
Speaker 2: He knew the attacks were coming for him and he
7:58
Speaker 2: had a response to every one of them. And he
8:01
Speaker 2: might've sounded like a slightly deranged carnival barker, but he
8:05
Speaker 2: didn't sound like a politician. And everyone else on that
8:07
Speaker 2: stage sounded like a typical politician. So he stood out
8:11
Speaker 2: and they're, You know, I think the likely thing here
8:14
Speaker 2: is that he at least has given himself an opening
8:17
Speaker 2: to make a move in this race. What does that
8:19
Speaker 2: mean in a place where Donald Trump has 60% of
8:20
Speaker 2: the vote? Who knows? But the stories will be about him.
8:24
Speaker 2: Most people won't watch this debate, but they will see
8:26
Speaker 2: clips of him. They'll just hear just that, hey, do
8:30
Speaker 2: you hear about this guy? Because most people have never
8:32
Speaker 2: seen him speak, don't know what he looks like, don't
8:34
Speaker 2: know who he is. All of a sudden he's sitting
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Speaker 2: center stage and he's dominating the former vice president of
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Speaker 2: the United States, the former president. co-frontrunner in Ron DeSantis,
8:40
Speaker 2: a bunch of senators you've heard of, and he's sort
8:42
Speaker 2: of kind of kicking their ass left and right. And
8:44
Speaker 2: so that at least will give him an opening with
8:46
Speaker 2: some number of voters.
8:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, he'll dominate all the coverage tomorrow until Donald Trump
8:50
Speaker 1: turns himself in.
8:52
Speaker 2: That is the small problem that we'll get to. At
8:53
Speaker 2: Fulton County. He might go to Fulton County.
8:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, and break Attica, like wave a cup against the bars. Yeah,
9:01
Speaker 1: I think your campaign is all about vengeance and grievance
9:05
Speaker 1: lined against Chris Christie was pretty damn good. And I
9:08
Speaker 1: thought defanged Christie in that moment. I think, like you said,
9:12
Speaker 1: Vivek benefited so much from getting attacked by Mike Pence,
9:17
Speaker 1: the most wooden, robotic, phony, typical politician sounding goober I've
9:23
Speaker 1: ever heard. Like the way he pauses, he's like, I
9:25
Speaker 1: want to talk about the oath I made on January 6th, 2017.
9:30
Speaker 1: And then I said a prayer.
9:32
Speaker 2: I put my hand on the Bible of Ronald Reagan.
9:35
Speaker 5: Oh my God.
9:35
Speaker 1: God the way he paused like the the place was
9:38
Speaker 1: basically groaning but yeah i mean like he also the
9:41
Speaker 1: i'm not running to be president of msnbc line from
9:44
Speaker 1: vick wasn't bad and like hey buddy you're not qualified
9:46
Speaker 1: for that job either but like probably played in the
9:48
Speaker 1: room um the super pack puppet was a hit i
9:53
Speaker 1: thought was coming it would have been a good one
9:56
Speaker 1: if Vivek had remembered to name who he was talking about.
9:59
Speaker 1: You have to be a broken brain weirdo like us
10:02
Speaker 1: to know that there was a New York Times story
10:05
Speaker 1: about Ron DeSantis' Super PAC releasing a memo for him
10:08
Speaker 1: about debate strategy.
10:10
Speaker 2: Which is interesting. We go back to that memo for
10:12
Speaker 2: the non-broken brain people who may be listening to this.
10:15
Speaker 2: The memo from the Super PAC that was leaked online
10:19
Speaker 2: through as far as I can tell, the strategy proposed
10:23
Speaker 2: to DeSantis was defend Trump and hammer Vivek. He was
10:28
Speaker 2: sort of prohibited from doing that because the second he
10:30
Speaker 2: did that, he was going to come back with that line.
10:33
Speaker 2: And I think because DeSantis had not done it, he
10:35
Speaker 2: just tried to get it.
10:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, he pre-butted him.
10:37
Speaker 2: Well, Vivek came in with a list of moments, which
10:40
Speaker 2: is how you're supposed to prepare for a debate. And
10:42
Speaker 2: he realized that the clock was ticking. He hadn't done
10:44
Speaker 2: the 400-page super PAC memo, so he just swerved out
10:46
Speaker 2: of his lane to do it. But I think the
10:48
Speaker 2: big takeaway from him is he is an interesting experiment.
10:52
Speaker 2: He believes none of this. He didn't even vote in
10:56
Speaker 2: 2016 or 2012. He voted for the libertarian candidate in 2004.
11:01
Speaker 2: This is some sort of experiment in reverse engineering a
11:05
Speaker 2: candidacy where you go see what the voters want and
11:08
Speaker 2: then you build a campaign platform to fit that. Identity.
11:13
Speaker 5: Yeah.
11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, you build an entire identity around what you think
11:15
Speaker 1: people want to hear.
11:16
Speaker 2: It is, you know, Usually because politicians enter presidential races
11:21
Speaker 2: at a point at which they have a record, what
11:23
Speaker 2: they're really doing is taking, you know, to sort of
11:26
Speaker 2: use a bad business metaphor, they take a product and
11:29
Speaker 2: see if it fits with the market. What Vivek did
11:31
Speaker 2: was he looked at the market and they built a
11:33
Speaker 2: product that fit the market. And that's what all of
11:34
Speaker 2: this is. He knew there was a constituency for America first,
11:39
Speaker 2: anti-Ukraine aid, pardoning Donald Trump, the fracking, the anti-climate change stuff.
11:46
Speaker 2: And he says it. in a way that doesn't sound
11:48
Speaker 2: like a politician, which the last time someone did that,
11:52
Speaker 2: that was Donald Trump. I'm not saying he's going to
11:53
Speaker 2: have that level of success, but he understands what better
11:57
Speaker 2: than I think the rest of these people, other than
11:58
Speaker 2: maybe Trump, what the electorate wants, which is an outsider
12:02
Speaker 2: who's not a politician who wants to burn the system down.
12:04
Speaker 2: And that's what he sounds like.
12:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
12:05
Speaker 1: It's hard to remember how different Trump sounded from everybody
12:09
Speaker 1: else when he first emerged on the scene in 2015.
12:12
Speaker 1: But I think Vivek was trying to recreate a bit
12:15
Speaker 1: of that. that kind of feeling and magic for the
12:18
Speaker 1: Republican electorate. Not that I agree with it. Like you
12:21
Speaker 1: said at the top, I don't know that he's going
12:22
Speaker 1: to come close to defeating Donald Trump in this election.
12:25
Speaker 1: In fact, I would bet big money against him, but
12:27
Speaker 1: I do think he drastically improved his name ID, his
12:31
Speaker 1: standing amongst the base by defending Trump and probably did
12:35
Speaker 1: himself a lot of good in this campaign.
12:36
Speaker 2: It's not a strategy to win. You're not going to
12:38
Speaker 2: beat Trump by being a mini Trump. You could possibly
12:40
Speaker 2: win if Trump were to go away somehow, but I
12:42
Speaker 2: don't think that's going to happen. But it is a
12:44
Speaker 2: strategy to make yourself a star in the Republican Party,
12:47
Speaker 2: which will allow you to either become sort of some
12:49
Speaker 2: sort of mega media personality and then run in 2028,
12:51
Speaker 2: which I think is probably how he's thinking about this.
12:54
Speaker 1: So everyone's watching Ron DeSantis at this debate. It was
12:56
Speaker 1: seen as kind of a make or break moment for him.
12:58
Speaker 1: If he did not do well enough, people wondered, well,
13:01
Speaker 1: will a donor stop giving him money? Will his supporters
13:05
Speaker 1: just fully turn away and look elsewhere? I don't know
13:08
Speaker 1: that I buy the donor piece of this that much.
13:10
Speaker 1: He's sitting on $ 100 million in a super PAC. But,
13:12
Speaker 1: you know, look, he's not had the best run. What
13:14
Speaker 1: did you think about Ron DeSantis in this debate?
13:17
Speaker 2: I didn't really think about Ron DeSantis.
13:18
Speaker 4: Yeah.
13:19
Speaker 2: I mean, he had– he didn't– here's the nice, kindest
13:22
Speaker 2: thing I can say about him, which is he exceeded
13:25
Speaker 2: the exceedingly low expectations everyone had from this debate. He didn't, like,
13:29
Speaker 2: have one of those sort of, like, moments where his, like,
13:32
Speaker 2: brain snaps and he just laughs awkwardly in a random moment.
13:35
Speaker 5: Mm-hmm.
13:35
Speaker 2: He didn't make any mistakes, but he didn't demonstrate anything
13:39
Speaker 2: that would make you think that he was a guy
13:41
Speaker 2: who could beat Trump or beat Biden. Like his whole
13:45
Speaker 2: pitch was he was a better, more disciplined, more talented
13:49
Speaker 2: Trump without the baggage. And he didn't really show that.
13:52
Speaker 2: He just sort of seemed like a politician who had
13:55
Speaker 2: some views that probably have some appeal in the MAGA base.
13:59
Speaker 2: And that was sort of it. And I don't feel
14:01
Speaker 2: like he probably survives another day because I do think
14:03
Speaker 2: that this is There's been a lot of reporting that
14:05
Speaker 2: some of the big SuperPAC donors who gave some of
14:08
Speaker 2: that initial money were not going to keep funding a SuperPAC.
14:10
Speaker 2: They're the ones who were calling Glenn Youngkin and Brian
14:12
Speaker 2: Kemp trying to get them in the race. So if
14:14
Speaker 2: he had had a really bad debate, I think, or
14:16
Speaker 2: made some real mistake or been sort of memed coming
14:19
Speaker 2: out of it, that would have been a huge problem
14:21
Speaker 2: for him. And I think He probably did nothing to
14:24
Speaker 2: help himself, but I'm not sure he hurt himself either.
14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he muddled through. He did have one moment.
14:29
Speaker 1: He tried to manufacture a moment. Actually, Tim Miller recommended
14:32
Speaker 1: he do this, where he like- Good job, Tim. Jump
14:34
Speaker 1: on the moderator, kind of push back against the question
14:37
Speaker 1: when there was a show of hands question asked. And
14:38
Speaker 1: he was like, we're not children. We can talk about
14:40
Speaker 1: the issues. But then he just got big footed by Vivek,
14:43
Speaker 1: who was like, I think climate change is a hoax.
14:45
Speaker 2: He raised his hand. That moment just explained the differences
14:50
Speaker 2: between those two candidates, which is, Ron DeSantis seems like
14:53
Speaker 2: a politician because he doesn't want to answer the question.
14:55
Speaker 2: He doesn't want to put his hand up because he's
14:56
Speaker 2: thinking about the general election and he knows that putting
14:57
Speaker 2: his hand up there is going to look really, really bad.
15:00
Speaker 2: And not to mention, climate change is literally drowning his state.
15:03
Speaker 2: Like parts of it are going away every day because
15:05
Speaker 2: of climate change. And so he tries to do this
15:07
Speaker 2: thing and then Vivek just puts his hand up and says, no,
15:10
Speaker 2: why don't you just raise your hand like a normal
15:11
Speaker 2: person instead of trying to be a politician? And it
15:13
Speaker 2: stepped on him.
15:14
Speaker 1: It didn't look good. I think all of us think
15:16
Speaker 1: that were Ron DeSantis to win the nomination in The
15:19
Speaker 1: issue that would be the most likely to defeat him
15:22
Speaker 1: would be his position on abortion. He signed into law
15:26
Speaker 1: a six-week abortion ban in Florida. He got asked about
15:29
Speaker 1: that tonight. Here's a clip.
15:31
Speaker 6: I'm going to stand on the side of life. Look,
15:33
Speaker 6: I understand Wisconsin is going to do it different than Texas.
15:36
Speaker 6: I understand Iowa and New Hampshire are going to do different.
15:39
Speaker 6: But I will support the cause of life as governor
15:43
Speaker 6: and as president.
15:44
Speaker 1: So I view that answer, Dan, as... him continuing to
15:49
Speaker 1: refuse to sort of take a real position on whether
15:51
Speaker 1: he supports a national abortion ban, you had a different
15:53
Speaker 1: view of what you might do if you were running
15:55
Speaker 1: against him.
15:55
Speaker 2: Yeah. As the self-appointed fact checker of Crooked Media, I
15:58
Speaker 2: declare that what Ron DeSantis said there when he said,
16:02
Speaker 2: I will defend life as president, is he endorsed signing
16:07
Speaker 2: a national law similar to the abortion ban in Florida?
16:09
Speaker 2: I think that is, we know that's what he's going
16:11
Speaker 2: to do.
16:12
Speaker 1: Are you giving me Pinocchios for my position here?
16:14
Speaker 2: I'm just, I'm trying, that's not how we do it here.
16:17
Speaker 2: We're not trying to judge all lies on a four
16:20
Speaker 2: cartoon character scale.
16:21
Speaker 1: Thank you.
16:22
Speaker 2: I want to persuade you as to why he, why
16:25
Speaker 2: I think what he did is essentially was trying to
16:27
Speaker 2: send a signal to the evangelical voters, particularly in Iowa,
16:31
Speaker 2: and the groups that have been pushing Republicans to be
16:33
Speaker 2: more aggressive on abortion bans, the ones who pushed him
16:35
Speaker 2: to sign this ban, which he did, I think, pretty gleefully,
16:38
Speaker 2: in Florida to do the same thing nationally. And Nikki
16:41
Speaker 2: Haley had this whole thing in here. She tried to
16:42
Speaker 2: adopt the moderate position where her thing was, Well, we
16:45
Speaker 2: need 60 votes. We've never had 60 anti-choice votes in
16:49
Speaker 2: the Senate. We, that is, you don't need 60 votes
16:52
Speaker 2: because I can promise you this, that if the Republicans
16:56
Speaker 2: have a trifecta, they will end the filibuster to sign
17:00
Speaker 2: a national abortion. They will not be able to sustain
17:02
Speaker 2: the pressure from the base to avoid that.
17:05
Speaker 1: Nor will they try. Nor will they try. I totally agree.
17:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
17:07
Speaker 1: Like I think regardless of how you interpret his, um,
17:11
Speaker 1: his comments about abortion tonight at this debate, I agree
17:14
Speaker 1: with you that if he were to win the nomination,
17:16
Speaker 1: I would tie his views on abortion around his neck
17:18
Speaker 1: and do it every single day and make that the
17:19
Speaker 1: primary thing I ran against. I did think the one
17:22
Speaker 1: moment where he did seem to get the crowd going
17:25
Speaker 1: was he was asked about crime in Florida and he
17:27
Speaker 1: sort of fact-checked Brett Baer, whoever had asked him the question,
17:30
Speaker 1: and then said, you know, I'm the one who's done
17:33
Speaker 1: something about these George Soros-funded radical left-wing prosecutors. We had
17:37
Speaker 1: the Soros- We had some Soros DAs elected. I removed
17:40
Speaker 1: them from their office. Now they're gone. And he got
17:42
Speaker 1: like big applause for that. And, you know, it's sort
17:43
Speaker 1: of a corny canned thing. But I think, you know, look,
17:48
Speaker 1: I think that talking to Republican primary voters about crime and,
17:52
Speaker 1: you know, the Soros boogaboo is probably working better for
17:55
Speaker 1: him than like picking another fight with Disney. But low bar.
17:58
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you could.
17:58
Speaker 2: He seemed DeSantis, who seemed somewhat uncomfortable throughout the whole debate,
18:02
Speaker 2: which is kind of his natural vibe. but he seemed
18:06
Speaker 2: his least uncomfortable talking about crime. And then in the
18:09
Speaker 2: education section where he started going off about banning critical
18:12
Speaker 2: race theory and quote unquote, gender ideology and all like
18:14
Speaker 2: that's his comfort zone are things that are.
18:17
Speaker 1: The shittiest culture wars.
18:18
Speaker 2: That are bigoted, right? That, that is where he is
18:21
Speaker 2: most comfortable. If you're, if he's, if you're picking on
18:23
Speaker 2: gay kids and trans kids and you're, and you're making
18:26
Speaker 2: racist accusations against teachers and all that, that that's where
18:29
Speaker 2: he is. That's his happy place.
18:31
Speaker 5: Yeah.
18:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.
18:31
Speaker 1: He is, uh, There was some very weird, there's some
18:35
Speaker 1: clips worth checking out on Twitter of him attempting to
18:37
Speaker 1: smile after answers that just show how unbelievably awkward he
18:40
Speaker 1: is as a human being that are worth watching. Obviously,
18:42
Speaker 1: it doesn't work in an audio medium. Mike Pence, this
18:45
Speaker 1: is becoming a theme, Dan. Mike Pence was a little,
18:48
Speaker 1: like he was the Reagan Westworld robot, but he was
18:51
Speaker 1: also like a feistier Mike Pence than I think we've
18:53
Speaker 1: seen previously. He went after Vivek Ramaswamy, too. Here's a
18:56
Speaker 1: clip of that.
18:57
Speaker 2: Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don't
19:00
Speaker 2: need to bring in a rookie.
19:02
Speaker 1: We don't need to bring in people without experience.
19:10
Speaker 2: We need to bring.
19:11
Speaker 1: So, I mean, maybe a compelling argument against Vivek Ramaswamy,
19:16
Speaker 1: but from Donald Trump's vice president? Does that work? I
19:19
Speaker 1: don't know.
19:20
Speaker 2: The whole Pence thing is.
19:22
Speaker 5: was.
19:23
Speaker 2: it was Mike Pence. It was totally not memorable. He's
19:27
Speaker 2: just mayonnaise.
19:29
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:29
Speaker 5: Right.
19:30
Speaker 2: You kind of know he's there. You don't really pay
19:31
Speaker 2: that much attention to it. People who hate it really,
19:33
Speaker 2: really hate it. No one really loves it. It's just,
19:34
Speaker 2: it's not it. Even the crowd, like there was some,
19:39
Speaker 2: it was unclear what they were cheering or booing, whether
19:41
Speaker 2: this was a very bizarre crowd and sort of the reactions.
19:44
Speaker 2: But for most of the debate, even in his canned
19:46
Speaker 2: applause lines, no one clapped.
19:47
Speaker 5: No one.
19:48
Speaker 2: The main time people laughed is when he and Jesus's name.
19:50
Speaker 4: Yeah.
19:51
Speaker 2: And the rest of the time they sort of just
19:52
Speaker 2: ignored Mike Pence.
19:53
Speaker 1: Jesus got tepid applause.
19:54
Speaker 2: They're either ignoring Mike Pence or they're trying to murder him.
19:55
Speaker 2: Those are the two ends of the spectrum in the
19:57
Speaker 2: Republican party.
19:58
Speaker 1: I would love to know who the audience was because
20:00
Speaker 1: sometimes it's a bunch of donors and the campaigns buy tickets.
20:02
Speaker 1: That might've been the case here.
20:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what I think. It almost certainly is. Donors,
20:06
Speaker 2: political leaders. It's not base voters.
20:08
Speaker 5: Yeah.
20:08
Speaker 1: There was one moment where the candidates were all asked
20:11
Speaker 1: about Mike Pence's conduct on January 6th and Chris Christie
20:14
Speaker 1: jumped in to defend him and say, Mike Pence stood
20:16
Speaker 1: for the constitution. He deserves not grudging credit, but our thanks, blah, blah, blah.
20:20
Speaker 1: And it was just notable that, uh, Christie defending Pence
20:23
Speaker 1: gets you a combined 113 unfavorability rating in Iowa. So
20:29
Speaker 1: I think tells you about all you need about that moment.
20:31
Speaker 2: The last thing Mike Pence needs is Chris Christie defending him.
20:34
Speaker 1: He's like, Oh, this fucking guy.
20:35
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me? All right.
20:50
Speaker 1: Our next sort of bucket of folks are, you know,
20:53
Speaker 1: Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, and Tim Scott. We kind of
20:56
Speaker 1: bucketed them together because they didn't do that much. Chris
21:01
Speaker 1: Christie in particular, I think, you know, He's been feeling
21:04
Speaker 1: himself when people talk about his performance against Marco Rubio
21:07
Speaker 1: in the 2016 primary. He really kicked the shit out
21:10
Speaker 1: of Rubio in that debate when Rubio was kind of
21:12
Speaker 1: glitching like a robot, repeating the same line against Obama
21:15
Speaker 1: over and over again. But Christie, instead of going after
21:17
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the person we all thought he was going
21:19
Speaker 1: to go after, decided, like everybody else, to go after
21:22
Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy. Here's a clip.
21:24
Speaker 5: I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds
21:28
Speaker 5: like ChatGPT standing up here. And the last person in
21:35
Speaker 5: one of these debates, Brett, who stood in the middle
21:37
Speaker 5: of the stage and said, what's a skinny guy with
21:40
Speaker 5: an odd last name doing up here, was Barack Obama.
21:44
Speaker 5: And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of
21:46
Speaker 5: amateur standing on stage tonight.
21:50
Speaker 1: Give me a hug just like you did to Obama.
21:52
Speaker 2: The same type of amateur.
21:53
Speaker 3: And you'll help elect me just like you did to Obama, too.
21:55
Speaker 2: Give me that bad hug, bro. The same type of amateur.
21:58
Speaker 1: I don't totally get what it means to sound like ChatGPT.
22:02
Speaker 2: It means nothing.
22:03
Speaker 1: Groundbreaking new technology?
22:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what it means.
22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a kid cheating on his homework?
22:08
Speaker 2: It's a line written by a middling debate advisor.
22:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
22:13
Speaker 1: I assume what he meant was someone who is learning
22:15
Speaker 1: about all the issues in the world for the first
22:17
Speaker 1: time in the last six months, which, by the way—
22:20
Speaker 1: is something Vivek said on Hugh Hewitt's podcast. You would
22:22
Speaker 1: know that, Chris Christie, if you listen to Pod Save
22:25
Speaker 1: the World and not this Pod Save America bullshit that
22:27
Speaker 1: you come on. But yeah, he just seemed like he
22:31
Speaker 1: got annoyed with Vivek. That was sort of the theme
22:33
Speaker 1: of the night. It seemed like all of them were
22:35
Speaker 1: genuinely very annoyed at Vivek Ramaswamy in kind of like a,
22:39
Speaker 1: who is this kid attacking us tone.
22:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And just for some context for people
22:45
Speaker 2: who may not be nerds of a certain generation like us,
22:49
Speaker 2: What Vivek is referring to with the hug is that
22:53
Speaker 2: in 2012, in the waning days of that campaign, Hurricane
22:57
Speaker 2: Sandy hit New York, New Jersey, the East Coast. Obama
23:01
Speaker 2: visited New Jersey during the campaign, came off the campaign trail,
23:05
Speaker 2: started dealing with the response of the hurricane, visited New Jersey.
23:09
Speaker 2: And Chris Christie hugged Obama right as they were getting
23:14
Speaker 2: on the plane to thank him for all the work
23:16
Speaker 2: the federal government had done to help New Jersey. That
23:19
Speaker 2: was the moment that Chris Christie's 2024 presidential campaign died.
23:24
Speaker 1: Sadly, yes.
23:25
Speaker 2: His approval rating among Republicans went in the toilet after
23:28
Speaker 2: that because the Republicans blamed him for electing Obama. Obama
23:32
Speaker 2: would have won without the Chris Christie hug. And so
23:35
Speaker 2: this goes to why Chris Christie can't win because Republicans
23:40
Speaker 2: hate him and why Vivek was quite well prepared because
23:43
Speaker 2: he knew someone, but probably Christie, was going to do
23:46
Speaker 2: the Obama line because Christie's probably done it somewhere because
23:48
Speaker 2: he does– all media and was prepared to do it
23:51
Speaker 2: and nailed them.
23:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, he really did. Yeah. I mean, come on, Chris,
23:55
Speaker 1: you're like, your whole promise was you're going to get
23:56
Speaker 1: up there and you're going to take the Donald Trump
23:58
Speaker 1: and that's why we need you on that stage. And
23:59
Speaker 1: you just didn't even try.
24:00
Speaker 2: He didn't know how to operate. Two things I think happened. One,
24:03
Speaker 2: he had no plan for what to do without Trump
24:06
Speaker 2: on stage.
24:07
Speaker 4: Yeah.
24:07
Speaker 2: And second, I think he really reacted. You could see
24:10
Speaker 2: in his face when he got booed the first time
24:12
Speaker 2: he went after Trump and said, whether you think it's
24:14
Speaker 2: criminal or not, his conduct is beneath the office of
24:16
Speaker 2: the president. And the crowd just basically booed him into silence.
24:19
Speaker 2: He backed off then. And they all backed off then.
24:21
Speaker 2: There was never a critique of Trump after that. And
24:24
Speaker 2: he did nothing to help himself and probably hurt himself.
24:28
Speaker 2: And he may owe all the Democrats who gave him
24:31
Speaker 2: money to get him on that stage a refund.
24:34
Speaker 1: Who would have recommended the Democrats give him a dollar
24:37
Speaker 1: to get on that stage? I don't know anyone that
24:38
Speaker 1: would do that. Yeah, in his defense, it is kind
24:40
Speaker 1: of hard to figure out how to pivot from a Richmond,
24:43
Speaker 1: north of Richmond question into a Trump hit. But we digress.
24:47
Speaker 1: So Nikki Haley was also up there, former ambassador to
24:50
Speaker 1: the UN. She fancies herself a foreign policy expert and
24:54
Speaker 1: is really focused on foreign policy in this campaign. She
24:57
Speaker 1: also went on the attack against Vivek Ramaswamy. Here is
25:00
Speaker 1: a clip.
25:01
Speaker 5: Putin has said.
25:02
Speaker 7: If Russia— once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next.
25:07
Speaker 7: That's a world war.
25:08
Speaker 4: We're trying to prevent war.
25:10
Speaker 8: Look at what Putin did today.
25:11
Speaker 3: He killed Pergozin.
25:13
Speaker 7: When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died.
25:17
Speaker 7: This guy is a murderer, and you are choosing a
25:20
Speaker 7: murderer over a pro-American country. First of all, first of all, Mr.
25:29
Speaker 3: Ramaswamy, you have 30 seconds. Mr. DeSantis, I wish you
25:32
Speaker 3: well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed
25:34
Speaker 3: and Raytheon.
25:35
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good hit and one that his staff
25:37
Speaker 1: previewed in Politico today, I believe. By the way, Haley's
25:40
Speaker 1: referencing Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is a Russian oligarch slash head
25:46
Speaker 1: of the Wagner mercenary group who was killed when a
25:51
Speaker 1: Russian air defense missile hit his plane today and killed
25:54
Speaker 1: everyone on board.
25:55
Speaker 2: Do you know of any place tomorrow morning you'll be
25:57
Speaker 2: able to learn more about that?
25:58
Speaker 1: I do, Dan. Pod Save the World. It's a great podcast.
26:00
Speaker 1: It comes out on Wednesdays. Someone tell my wife she
26:02
Speaker 1: only listens to Keep It. Look, Haley, I respect her
26:09
Speaker 1: for waving the flag here and fighting for supporting Ukraine
26:14
Speaker 1: because I do think it's the right thing to do.
26:16
Speaker 1: And I do think I'm really concerned about where the
26:17
Speaker 1: Republican Party is going in terms of general isolationism, but
26:20
Speaker 1: also on this issue. But, you know, it's an electoral loser.
26:25
Speaker 1: It's got to be really challenging. And to make this
26:28
Speaker 1: the thing you focus on in the debate against a rival.
26:32
Speaker 1: I mean, she really went after Vivek on him saying
26:35
Speaker 1: that he would essentially get rid of U.S. aid to
26:39
Speaker 1: Israel by 2028. He has a whole bunch of conditions
26:42
Speaker 1: for how he would do that. But that was the
26:44
Speaker 1: attack she wanted to go after here. But he didn't
26:46
Speaker 1: back down on that front. He just went right back
26:47
Speaker 1: at her.
26:48
Speaker 2: She did not do a very good job of explaining
26:50
Speaker 2: that attack.
26:50
Speaker 1: Not at all.
26:50
Speaker 2: No one really got it. And it is a potentially
26:52
Speaker 2: potent attack because there's obviously a lot of support for
26:55
Speaker 2: Israel in the Republican Party, but particularly among the evangelical
26:58
Speaker 2: community that dominates the Iowa caucuses.
27:00
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
27:01
Speaker 2: And so you're going to see a lot more about
27:04
Speaker 2: that in the coming days if, as we suspect, Vivek
27:06
Speaker 2: has a little bit of a moment here. It's going
27:09
Speaker 2: to get pretty nasty pretty quick on some of those things.
27:10
Speaker 2: A lot of it's going to be racist and religiously
27:15
Speaker 2: bigoted and all the above.
27:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dan and I were talking about this before the show.
27:19
Speaker 1: What these candidates say on the air at a debate
27:23
Speaker 1: or what they say in interviews is usually a highly
27:26
Speaker 1: sanitized version of what shows up in people's mailboxes in
27:28
Speaker 1: the form of direct mail pieces. That's where these campaigns
27:31
Speaker 1: get really, really, really nasty.
27:33
Speaker 2: The other thing about Haley, and this is true of
27:38
Speaker 2: a lot of the candidates who try to run on
27:42
Speaker 2: their foreign policy experience and knowledge, is twofold. One, they
27:46
Speaker 2: assume a base of knowledge about foreign policy from voters
27:49
Speaker 2: that greatly exceeds. Yes. What does killed Pergozan mean to anyone?
27:54
Speaker 1: Anyone.
27:54
Speaker 2: Who has not yet listened to the forthcoming episode of
27:57
Speaker 2: Posse of the World. That's one. And then two, they try,
28:00
Speaker 2: they explain why these things are good for the world
28:03
Speaker 2: and not why it's good for American families.
28:04
Speaker 4: Yeah.
28:05
Speaker 2: And so there's, there is a, there is a very
28:07
Speaker 2: strong argument. The Biden folks have actually made this on
28:09
Speaker 2: multiple occasions about why supporting Ukraine is good for American
28:12
Speaker 2: security and how it protects the interests of American families.
28:15
Speaker 2: But none of the Republicans did that last night. It's very,
28:19
Speaker 2: it's all like Mike Pence did. It's all Reagan-esque short version.
28:24
Speaker 2: It doesn't connect with anyone's lives.
28:26
Speaker 3: Yeah.
28:27
Speaker 1: Pence tried to make the case that, look, we want
28:29
Speaker 1: to arm Ukrainians so they can fight the Russians and
28:33
Speaker 1: not allow Russia to steamroll through Ukraine and then go
28:36
Speaker 1: next to a NATO country like Poland, which means Article 5,
28:39
Speaker 1: part of the NATO charter, means that we, the United States,
28:41
Speaker 1: has to respond militarily. That's a compelling case, but boy,
28:44
Speaker 1: is it complicated.
28:45
Speaker 2: It's also going to be hard to explain to people
28:46
Speaker 2: why we'd have to stop the invasion of Poland.
28:48
Speaker 1: Yeah.
28:49
Speaker 2: We should, obviously, but not a lot of people know
28:51
Speaker 2: what Article 5 is or why that would be a thing.
28:53
Speaker 1: And Donald Trump famously flirted with not supporting it. Senator
28:57
Speaker 1: Tim Scott, South Carolina, also on the stage tonight. You know,
29:00
Speaker 1: Scott is in some polls, he's in second place or
29:03
Speaker 1: third place in Iowa. He's at 9% in Iowa in
29:05
Speaker 1: the Des Moines Register poll. He's got a ton of
29:08
Speaker 1: money because he's, you know, a lot of the donor
29:10
Speaker 1: class like him He's an incredibly conservative voting record, deeply
29:15
Speaker 1: religious individual, but I think has sort of a kindler,
29:19
Speaker 1: gentler presentation on some issues. But I don't know. It
29:22
Speaker 1: just seemed like he kind of disappeared up there tonight.
29:25
Speaker 2: He did not have a plan to get attention. And
29:27
Speaker 2: he missed a moment. And the clock is taking on
29:30
Speaker 2: all of these people. They are not making progress. Trump
29:33
Speaker 2: is gaining ground on them as a collective. Individually, they're
29:36
Speaker 2: swapping around the 40%. that exists for the non-Trump vote.
29:42
Speaker 2: And it's, you can't pass these moments up. You have to,
29:47
Speaker 2: and there aren't enough debates. Like when Obama struggled a
29:50
Speaker 2: little bit early on in 2008, Being one of 10
29:54
Speaker 2: people on stage, he, as he would say, he's Midwestern polite.
29:56
Speaker 2: And so he'd really struggled to interrupt or speak when
29:59
Speaker 2: it was not his turn. And really, we really had
30:01
Speaker 2: to beat him up to be able to get him
30:03
Speaker 2: to do that. Scott suffered, Scott and Haley, I think
30:06
Speaker 2: suffered from a similar thing, which is they just didn't
30:09
Speaker 2: seize the moment at any point. And so they spoke,
30:12
Speaker 2: they got there a lot of amount of time. None
30:15
Speaker 2: of it was that memorable. They didn't do anything to
30:17
Speaker 2: help themselves. And, and that's a loss for them.
30:20
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:20
Speaker 1: Uh, finally we get kind of our also ran category, our,
30:23
Speaker 1: our Burghams, Doug, our Hutchinson's Asa or Ada. If you're
30:28
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, we'll get to that in a second. I like,
30:30
Speaker 1: I don't remember a word they said to you.
30:32
Speaker 2: I think that their presence on that stage is a
30:35
Speaker 2: full on indictment of the Republicans debate requirements because they
30:38
Speaker 2: should not be there.
30:39
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:39
Speaker 1: You got really just, it, it makes the whole thing
30:41
Speaker 1: worse when you have eight people up there, nine people
30:43
Speaker 1: or whatever it was.
30:44
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, usually you're like, well, you know,
30:47
Speaker 2: Only six of the people on that stage got a
30:48
Speaker 2: chance to be president. Why are we wasting time with
30:51
Speaker 2: other people? I'm just really sure you can say that.
30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. Okay, so the person who wasn't there
30:57
Speaker 1: tonight was Donald Trump. He obviously no-showed at the debate
31:01
Speaker 1: because his view on this was basically, I'm kicking everybody's ass.
31:04
Speaker 1: Why would I bother to show up? And he hates
31:05
Speaker 1: Fox News. Fair points. Instead, he did an interview with
31:10
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson on his new show on Twitter. Here is
31:14
Speaker 1: a supercut of some of the things they talked about.
31:17
Speaker 4: Do you think Epstein killed himself sincerely? A case could
31:19
Speaker 4: be made. Look, I'm not going to get involved in it.
31:22
Speaker 4: The Panama Canal, we built it, and we gave it
31:25
Speaker 4: away for $ 1. Think of that. How stupid are we?
31:28
Speaker 4: We have done the stupidest things in this country. You
31:31
Speaker 4: have states, many states, most of the states have so
31:34
Speaker 4: much water. You know, it comes out of heaven, right?
31:35
Speaker 4: The water pours down, and you have it. It's not
31:38
Speaker 4: like a big problem. Now, in some states, they have
31:40
Speaker 4: a problem. You know, you have some desert areas and all,
31:43
Speaker 4: and for that, it's okay. But they have sinks. where
31:48
Speaker 4: no water comes out. You turn it on, no water
31:50
Speaker 4: comes out. I call him Ada Hutchinson. It's Asa, but
31:55
Speaker 4: I call him Ada.
31:56
Speaker 1: Why do you call him Ada?
31:57
Speaker 4: You know, I could tell you, but I don't want
31:59
Speaker 4: to get myself in a little trouble. Probably not a
32:02
Speaker 4: friend of yours, Chris Wallace. He was the moderator.
32:04
Speaker 2: Not a friend.
32:05
Speaker 4: I said, why is it he wants to be Mike,
32:07
Speaker 4: but he doesn't have the talent?
32:09
Speaker 5: He's a bitchy little man.
32:10
Speaker 4: He wanted to be his father, but he didn't have
32:12
Speaker 4: the talent of his father.
32:13
Speaker 2: His father was great.
32:14
Speaker 1: He's a little fussy man. I, it was just a
32:17
Speaker 1: weird 45 minutes. Like Tucker Carlson, he just asked really
32:21
Speaker 1: strange questions. Like did Epstein kill himself? He followed up
32:24
Speaker 1: three or four times. He suggested that the attorney general
32:27
Speaker 1: Bill Barr covered up Epstein's murder. Trump was like, I
32:32
Speaker 1: think he probably committed suicide, man. Like, I don't know
32:33
Speaker 1: what to tell you. Tucker asked Trump if he's worried
32:36
Speaker 1: that the Democrats are trying to kill him. They asked
32:39
Speaker 1: if Joe Biden was going to make it to election day.
32:42
Speaker 1: Tucker suggested that Kamala seems senile also. Yeah, it was
32:48
Speaker 1: just weird.
32:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ostensible purpose of this, I guess there were
32:54
Speaker 2: two purposes of the interview. One was to try to,
32:57
Speaker 2: quote unquote, take viewers away from the debate, to step
33:01
Speaker 2: on the debate. I don't think that worked.
33:03
Speaker 1: It's not a live broadcast.
33:05
Speaker 5: Yeah.
33:05
Speaker 1: I mean, but it, you can just pause it.
33:07
Speaker 2: But they, yeah, right.
33:07
Speaker 8: It's true.
33:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. They have invented the capacity to pause television and
33:12
Speaker 2: record things and watch them later. Or Twitter.
33:14
Speaker 7: Yeah.
33:15
Speaker 1: It is.
33:16
Speaker 2: So that part didn't really make sense. The other reason
33:17
Speaker 2: was pure spite.
33:18
Speaker 3: Yeah.
33:18
Speaker 2: Like, it is just a giant fuck you to Fox
33:21
Speaker 2: News to do this with Tucker Carlson, who they fired,
33:25
Speaker 2: who is in violation of his non-compete agreement doing this
33:30
Speaker 2: other show where he just shits on Fox News all
33:32
Speaker 2: the time. I don't know what was gained from it.
33:35
Speaker 2: I don't think it... There's just... nothing big enough happened
33:38
Speaker 2: in the debate that it's stepping on it. The bigger
33:40
Speaker 2: thing that's going to happen is when Trump surrenders to
33:43
Speaker 2: the authorities and is arraigned and has his mugshot taken tomorrow.
33:47
Speaker 1: Tomorrow's the news.
33:48
Speaker 2: That will step on the, I don't even know what
33:51
Speaker 2: it's stepping on. What is it like coverage of Vivek Ramaswamy?
33:54
Speaker 2: I don't even think that matters to Trump. Yeah.
33:56
Speaker 1: And Vivek will probably do a hundred Sunday shows tomorrow.
33:59
Speaker 5: Yeah.
33:59
Speaker 1: That's what you do to seize these moments.
34:00
Speaker 2: And he'll do more importantly, but he'll do the morning shows,
34:04
Speaker 2: but more importantly, he will just, Do every right wing podcast,
34:08
Speaker 2: YouTube show there is.
34:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be co-hosting Jordan Peterson's show for six months.
34:12
Speaker 2: Politico had a really, a couple months ago, weeks, I
34:15
Speaker 2: don't know, time means nothing, a really smart story about
34:17
Speaker 2: his media strategy and how he is everywhere all the
34:20
Speaker 2: time doing everything he possibly can. It's very, I hesitate
34:24
Speaker 2: to make this comparison, but it's very reminiscent of how
34:26
Speaker 2: Pete Buttigieg built Name ID to give himself the opportunity
34:30
Speaker 2: to take off. He had a press strategy to go everywhere.
34:34
Speaker 2: do everything, introduce himself, go bottom up, and even around
34:37
Speaker 2: the media who were, the traditional media who weren't paying
34:39
Speaker 2: attention to him. And so we'll see how Rahm Oswami
34:41
Speaker 2: takes advantage of this, but he's going to be, and
34:44
Speaker 2: he's in a good position because he's running as mini
34:46
Speaker 2: Trump who wants to pardon him. So he actually has
34:49
Speaker 2: something that is on his message to say about this
34:51
Speaker 2: tomorrow that is helpful to him. Yeah, I know.
34:53
Speaker 1: There was another piece in Politico. Adam Wren wrote a
34:55
Speaker 1: profile of Vivek today. That's basically about how his campaign
34:57
Speaker 1: office is just, they built a studio. They built a
34:59
Speaker 1: TV and podcast and media studio for 80 grand in
35:03
Speaker 1: the campaign office. He has another podcast studio in his basement.
35:06
Speaker 1: He says yes to everything, 11 p.m., 6 a.m., doesn't matter.
35:10
Speaker 1: He's also got no job. He's got a private plane
35:12
Speaker 1: so he can get everywhere he needs to go whenever
35:14
Speaker 1: he needs to get there. So like, yes, he's super
35:18
Speaker 1: energetic and active and out there. But back to this
35:20
Speaker 1: Tucker thing, like even Trump was kind of like, kind
35:25
Speaker 1: of was like, I don't really know what this format,
35:27
Speaker 1: I don't even really know what this show is, but
35:28
Speaker 1: we're going to get better ratings. Uh, but my favorite
35:31
Speaker 1: part of the night was you and I were watching
35:32
Speaker 1: some of the pre debate coverage and Sean Hannity was
35:35
Speaker 1: on and he just had that like scorned jilted lover
35:39
Speaker 1: kind of vibe. You know, he like had to suck
35:41
Speaker 1: up to Trump for like six years, take his calls
35:44
Speaker 1: late at night, do every softball interview. And then Tucker Carlson,
35:48
Speaker 1: you know, gets the, gets the big bracket interview tonight
35:51
Speaker 1: and screws him over. Like he looked genuinely hurt by
35:53
Speaker 1: the whole thing.
35:53
Speaker 2: I mean, Sean Hannity was an active participant in trying
35:56
Speaker 2: to overthrow the government while Tucker Carlson was texting his
35:58
Speaker 2: producers how much he hated Donald Trump. It's like, I
35:59
Speaker 2: hate this guy.
36:01
Speaker 4: Yeah.
36:02
Speaker 2: And maybe Hannity got lucky and scored a Pence interview tonight.
36:04
Speaker 4: Who knows?
36:05
Speaker 1: Good for you, Sean. Yeah, I don't think this interview
36:08
Speaker 1: did anything for anyone. Like, by the way, Twitter is
36:11
Speaker 1: such bullshit. The little ticker under the interview claimed it
36:15
Speaker 1: had 80 million views. I don't believe that for one second.
36:19
Speaker 2: Yes, more people watched it than the Super Bowl.
36:21
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
36:22
Speaker 1: Just like, whatever, Elon's bullshit. Okay, we are going to
36:26
Speaker 1: take a quick break. When we come back, you'll hear
36:28
Speaker 1: from Sarah Longwell from The Bulwark. She has done hundreds
36:31
Speaker 1: and hundreds of focus groups of Republican voters. She knows
36:34
Speaker 1: what they think, for better, for worse. So stick around
36:36
Speaker 1: for that to get her reaction to the debate. We
36:51
Speaker 1: are so excited to welcome to the show the co-host
36:54
Speaker 1: of the Next Level podcast and the Focus Group podcast,
36:57
Speaker 1: Sarah Longwell. Sarah, it's great to see you.
36:59
Speaker 7: Hey, guys. Thanks for having me.
37:01
Speaker 1: So we, you might not know this, but Dan and
37:04
Speaker 1: I are giant libs. And what we think about Republican
37:08
Speaker 1: primary debates probably doesn't matter. So I wanted to name
37:12
Speaker 1: this segment Check Your Lib Bridge, but Dan told me
37:15
Speaker 1: it was bad. So we just really want to know
37:16
Speaker 1: what you thought of the debate. If anybody, based on
37:18
Speaker 1: the hundreds and hundreds of focus groups, you have done
37:22
Speaker 1: move the needle tonight in terms of the Republican primary electorate?
37:26
Speaker 7: Yeah, so I watch this stuff with two parts of
37:28
Speaker 7: my brain. There's the me part. And so my reaction
37:33
Speaker 7: as Sarah Longwell is that was terrible. That was very stupid.
37:37
Speaker 7: I can't believe I was ever a member of that
37:39
Speaker 7: political party. Anybody who said something sane got booed. Anybody
37:44
Speaker 7: who said something insane got cheered for. But then there's
37:48
Speaker 7: the other part of my brain that watches it through
37:49
Speaker 7: the eyes of voters that I listen to week in,
37:52
Speaker 7: week out, these two-time Trump voters. And I don't know.
37:56
Speaker 7: I mean, it was such a weird debate. DeSantis was
38:02
Speaker 7: left almost no impression. I was, you know, just the
38:06
Speaker 7: sheer number of them on stage and the way that
38:08
Speaker 7: Vivek was just chewing up time cost DeSantis a lot.
38:12
Speaker 7: He wasn't fighting to get in. And so it was
38:14
Speaker 7: easy to forget he was there. And so I'm not
38:17
Speaker 7: sure he did himself any favors with voters. I'm not
38:21
Speaker 7: quite sure how to assess Vivek's performance, because on one hand,
38:25
Speaker 7: he got himself a lot of time. He just was
38:27
Speaker 7: on camera a ton. He was fighting with Mike Pence.
38:31
Speaker 7: But he was equal parts. The crowd was with him cheering,
38:35
Speaker 7: and then the crowd was getting pretty annoyed with him.
38:37
Speaker 7: He was a foil for some of the other people's
38:40
Speaker 7: best moments, like Nikki Haley, when she was beating up
38:43
Speaker 7: on him. But Whenever I find somebody deeply repellent, I
38:48
Speaker 7: know now that I need to adjust and assume that
38:51
Speaker 7: them being repellent to me means they're probably going to
38:53
Speaker 7: get a five point bump in the polls from base voters.
38:57
Speaker 7: And so Vivek, probably people who didn't know who he was,
39:02
Speaker 7: probably there's people out there who like him, like how
39:05
Speaker 7: hard he defended Trump. He really took the air out.
39:08
Speaker 7: out of DeSantis being the one to defend Trump. I mean,
39:11
Speaker 7: every canned line that DeSantis had that he really wanted
39:14
Speaker 7: to hit hard, Vivek had said like five minutes prior,
39:18
Speaker 7: and it was just really like, yeah, taking the wind
39:22
Speaker 7: out of DeSantis' sails. It was like, there's a little
39:25
Speaker 7: bit of a weird crowd there. I couldn't get a bead. on,
39:30
Speaker 7: I think maybe like half the room was cheering sometimes
39:33
Speaker 7: while the other half was booing. Like Nikki Haley was
39:36
Speaker 7: getting these big applause lines when she's going to bat
39:39
Speaker 7: for Ukraine. But I know that Republican-based voters are not
39:44
Speaker 7: excited about sending more money to Ukraine. So I couldn't
39:47
Speaker 7: quite understand that. exactly where everybody was. But I do
39:52
Speaker 7: know that the Asa Hutchinson's, the Chris Christie's, the people
39:57
Speaker 7: who were explicitly expressing anti-Trump sentiments, Pence, when he did it,
40:02
Speaker 7: they were getting booed and shouted down. The crowd did
40:05
Speaker 7: not like that. So those are sort of my, that's
40:08
Speaker 7: my top line thought.
40:10
Speaker 2: No one in the room other than Christie and Hutchinson
40:13
Speaker 2: that you met in made any sort of argument against Trump.
40:16
Speaker 2: Last I checked, Trump is winning by a lot of points. he,
40:20
Speaker 2: and if we stay on this trajectory, all those people
40:21
Speaker 2: are going to get their ass kicked. Based on what
40:24
Speaker 2: you've seen with voters, what is the size of the
40:28
Speaker 2: anti-Trump lane? And what's the best way to get there
40:30
Speaker 2: if you're going to get shouted down for making a
40:32
Speaker 2: case against Trump? Is there some other better way than
40:35
Speaker 2: Christy Hutchinson tried to do it? Or do you just
40:37
Speaker 2: have to hope Trump collapses under his own weight?
40:39
Speaker 7: Yeah, so the way that I break up the Republican
40:41
Speaker 7: Party right now is sort of There's 30% always Trumpers,
40:45
Speaker 7: 30% maybe Trumpers, 30% move on from Trumpers, and then
40:49
Speaker 7: like 10% never Trumpers. And so Chris Christie and Asa
40:52
Speaker 7: Hutchinson have like a 10, you know, a ceiling of
40:55
Speaker 7: 10% from the never Trumpers because the move on from Trumpers,
40:59
Speaker 7: those are DeSantis people or Vivek people. Those are people
41:02
Speaker 7: who worry that Trump can't win. They have electability concerns,
41:06
Speaker 7: but they're not anti-Trump. There's just not that. And that's
41:09
Speaker 7: the thing. They're, there's a difference between the always Trump
41:12
Speaker 7: base and then being anti-Trump. And I would say 90%
41:16
Speaker 7: of the party is open to Trump in some way.
41:19
Speaker 7: Like they will, the move on from Trumpers who prefer
41:22
Speaker 7: a DeSantis, let's say, they'll still vote for Trump in
41:25
Speaker 7: a general election. And so they're not anti-Trump per se.
41:29
Speaker 7: They're just don't think he's the best person to go
41:32
Speaker 7: forward with. The problem is, is they're not consolidated around anybody.
41:36
Speaker 7: And I'm not sure there was anyone tonight who made
41:39
Speaker 7: them say, oh, let's all consolidate around this person. They're
41:42
Speaker 7: the obvious person jumping off the stage.
41:48
Speaker 1: So I was watching old debate clips from 2015 and 2016,
41:53
Speaker 1: and it took me back to just how different Trump
41:56
Speaker 1: felt on that debate stage. Everyone else was kind of
41:59
Speaker 1: black and white. He was showing up in color. He
42:01
Speaker 1: was dominating the stage. And he was sort of loving
42:05
Speaker 1: the chaos. And I felt a bit of that tonight
42:07
Speaker 1: with Vivek, the way he made the entire debate about himself.
42:11
Speaker 1: But I was a little bit surprised. Like I kind
42:14
Speaker 1: of thought that he knew he was going to get attacked.
42:16
Speaker 1: Everyone was telegraphing, like Haley was telegraphing that she was
42:19
Speaker 1: going to go after him on, you know, funding for
42:21
Speaker 1: Israel and that he would respond, but kind of do
42:25
Speaker 1: it with a smile. Instead, he got hit that first
42:27
Speaker 1: time he got called chat GBT or whatever it was
42:29
Speaker 1: by Chris Christie. And then he just started lobbing attacks
42:33
Speaker 1: at everybody. And I'm just wondering, do you think that plays?
42:36
Speaker 1: Because we always hear from all swaths of the electorate.
42:40
Speaker 1: They don't like the negativity in politics. They don't like
42:43
Speaker 1: the attack, but they do like Trump. So I'm just
42:45
Speaker 1: kind of trying to sort out my own mind, like
42:48
Speaker 1: what to make of what we watched.
42:49
Speaker 7: Yeah, they're lying about not liking the attack or the negativity.
42:54
Speaker 7: They mean, that's just the thing everybody says. Like they are,
42:58
Speaker 7: it's a revealed preference, the Trump stuff. Uh, that, that
43:03
Speaker 7: they actually do want. And some of it is that they,
43:06
Speaker 7: they want people to signal that they are the fighter
43:09
Speaker 7: for them. Uh, right. And so they want somebody that
43:12
Speaker 7: they think is going to go really hard. Uh, the
43:15
Speaker 7: Vivek stuff though, I was also trying to figure out,
43:18
Speaker 7: cause there's some of the time it felt like, oh,
43:21
Speaker 7: this guy's stealing the show. He's jumping off the page. Um,
43:25
Speaker 7: but then there were other times where people, the crowd
43:27
Speaker 7: seemed actively annoyed with him. Some of the other candidates
43:31
Speaker 7: certainly seemed really annoyed with him. And so I couldn't
43:36
Speaker 7: quite figure out how people were reacting to him. I
43:39
Speaker 7: will say, as I've done focus groups, especially in Iowa,
43:43
Speaker 7: where he is showing up a lot, there are a
43:46
Speaker 7: lot of voters that are very Vivek curious. And the
43:49
Speaker 7: way that they talk about him is the way that
43:50
Speaker 7: they used to talk about DeSantis like eight, nine months ago,
43:53
Speaker 7: where like, oh, he's got really good ideas. I really
43:56
Speaker 7: like him. I'm really interested in hearing more from him.
43:59
Speaker 7: But he was a chaos agent tonight. And I guess
44:03
Speaker 7: I've seen Trump be a chaos agent and that worked
44:05
Speaker 7: for him. I'm not sure if it works for Vivek,
44:08
Speaker 7: but it might. I mean, just the sheer volume of time,
44:14
Speaker 7: like the sheer amount of time that he got tonight
44:17
Speaker 7: to showcase himself versus I mean, the two other the
44:20
Speaker 7: two people who are, you know, even remotely in contention,
44:26
Speaker 7: Tim Scott for the donors and Ron DeSantis for the donors.
44:29
Speaker 7: for the move on Trumpers, they were both surprisingly just
44:34
Speaker 7: in the back. Like he overshadowed them.
44:36
Speaker 2: Tim Scott in particular.
44:38
Speaker 7: Tim Scott, he just was gone. And even now, right,
44:41
Speaker 7: we're talking about Vivek. We're not talking, other than talking
44:45
Speaker 7: about how DeSantis didn't really pop. I think that Vivek's
44:49
Speaker 7: the one who tomorrow is the name that everybody hears
44:52
Speaker 7: for better or worse, right? And I think we know
44:55
Speaker 7: that when you're trying to just get your name and
44:58
Speaker 7: your brand idea up, that that kind of thing can
45:00
Speaker 7: work for you.
45:01
Speaker 2: Another argument that was not made really on stage at
45:04
Speaker 2: all was any sort of argument about electability as relates
45:07
Speaker 2: to Trump. It was no one has brought it up.
45:11
Speaker 2: There's been sort of conflicting anecdotal accounts of how important
45:16
Speaker 2: electability may be to Republican voters. Some, you know, in
45:20
Speaker 2: some polls, they'll say it's the beating Biden's the most
45:22
Speaker 2: important thing. I think that's kind of a dumb question,
45:23
Speaker 2: because why would you pick a candidate who couldn't win?
45:26
Speaker 2: But also those polls showed that a lot of people
45:28
Speaker 2: think Trump can win. Then there was this New York
45:30
Speaker 2: Times story the other day which basically tried to undermine
45:33
Speaker 2: the electability argument by saying, and this was really anecdotal,
45:37
Speaker 2: so I'm curious if you've seen this in your focus groups,
45:39
Speaker 2: that people who watch Fox News or sort of in
45:42
Speaker 2: the right-wing media ecosystem have been fed so many clips
45:47
Speaker 2: and stories about Joe Biden being too old or not
45:51
Speaker 2: mentally competent that they think he can't win. Is that
45:55
Speaker 2: a real are people concerned about electability? Do they think
45:57
Speaker 2: that about Joe Biden? Is that giving Trump more permission?
45:59
Speaker 7: Yeah, the reason I like to break the party up
46:02
Speaker 7: into those buckets is because the move on Trumpers, they
46:05
Speaker 7: do care about electability. That was their whole thing about
46:08
Speaker 7: DeSantis to begin with. You know, he's Trump without the baggage.
46:10
Speaker 7: He's Trump, you know, not on steroids. And so they
46:14
Speaker 7: still saw they liked the Trumpiness of him, but they
46:16
Speaker 7: thought he was electable. The problem is, is that for
46:20
Speaker 7: the Trump base and even the maybe Trumpers, those are
46:22
Speaker 7: the people who are really deep in it. And they
46:24
Speaker 7: think that Joe Biden sits in the Oval Office drooling
46:27
Speaker 7: on himself while somebody spoon feeds him, you know, oatmeal.
46:30
Speaker 7: And so why wouldn't they think that Donald Trump could
46:33
Speaker 7: be him? Also, especially the always Trumpers, but by a
46:37
Speaker 7: lot of measures, up to 70 percent of the Republican Party,
46:40
Speaker 7: they believe that Donald Trump won last time. And so,
46:43
Speaker 7: you know, they think that he didn't lose to Joe Biden.
46:47
Speaker 7: It was rigged against him. And so revenge tour, another shot.
46:50
Speaker 7: He deserves it. And the other thing voters say all
46:53
Speaker 7: the time, and this includes the move on from Trumpers,
46:57
Speaker 7: they think he was a great president. They think he
47:00
Speaker 7: did a great job. And I think that's one of
47:03
Speaker 7: the difficulties these candidates are having is that they don't
47:07
Speaker 7: want to go after Trump's record. Because the voters like
47:10
Speaker 7: Trump's record and they think he did a good job.
47:12
Speaker 7: But the fact that nobody went after him, period, tonight,
47:16
Speaker 7: the moderators had to set up a segment in which
47:20
Speaker 7: to talk about Trump and the indictments. And then it
47:24
Speaker 7: broke wide open with a rousing defense from Vivek. I
47:29
Speaker 7: don't know what these guys are thinking. I just don't
47:32
Speaker 7: know what... Donald Trump is beating DeSantis by 30 or
47:35
Speaker 7: 40 points in most of these polls.
47:37
Speaker 4: And.
47:38
Speaker 7: Everybody decided to not say, including Chris Christie. Like they
47:42
Speaker 7: had to be set up to say anything. Pence was
47:44
Speaker 7: kind of waffling. Where was Chris Christie's big attack? I mean,
47:47
Speaker 7: I've been a kind of a defender of him ready
47:50
Speaker 7: to say, like, let's unleash this guy. He was nowhere
47:53
Speaker 7: on Trump. And so anyway, back to your question. I
47:57
Speaker 7: do think that the electability matters to a portion. I
47:59
Speaker 7: don't think it matters to a big enough portion. And
48:03
Speaker 7: I also think that it is true that, yeah, people
48:05
Speaker 7: think Trump is perfectly electable against senile Joe Biden.
48:10
Speaker 2: Which is so funny since he lost to quote unquote
48:13
Speaker 2: senile Joe Biden two years ago.
48:16
Speaker 7: Again, again, a big chunk are not so sure.
48:19
Speaker 2: Right. Which is why Rhonda, I can't understand why Rhonda
48:21
Speaker 2: says we refuse to take my advice where he should
48:23
Speaker 2: say that Donald Trump let sleepy Joe steal the election
48:26
Speaker 2: from him. Problem solved.
48:29
Speaker 1: That place. I hate to keep bringing up Vivek, but
48:33
Speaker 1: he said the most interesting things. He said, the climate
48:36
Speaker 1: change agenda is a hoax. The anti-carbon agenda is the
48:39
Speaker 1: wet blanket on our economy. More people are dying because
48:41
Speaker 1: of bad policies than because of climate change. I'm wondering
48:44
Speaker 1: if A, you hear views that extreme reflected in the
48:49
Speaker 1: voters you talk to, or B, whether I'm overthinking this
48:54
Speaker 1: and voters might like that because it tells annoying libs
48:57
Speaker 1: like me who care about climate change. where they can
48:59
Speaker 1: shove their electric vehicle charger or whatever.
49:02
Speaker 2: And your paper straws.
49:03
Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah.
49:05
Speaker 7: Again, it's a little bit of both. There's going to
49:09
Speaker 7: be an audience for the climate change is a hoax
49:12
Speaker 7: stuff because he's just, this is the thing that Vivek
49:15
Speaker 7: was doing, right? DeSantis, when he was asked to raise
49:19
Speaker 7: hands or whatever, give a straight answer, he let, you know,
49:23
Speaker 7: worked himself into a pitch. Vivek just comes out with
49:26
Speaker 7: climate change is a hoax. Now, the crowd seemed to
49:30
Speaker 7: boo him, unless I'm mistaken for that. And there are
49:33
Speaker 7: a lot of voters in the Republican Party that will
49:36
Speaker 7: think that that's ridiculous. It's actually the environment is one
49:39
Speaker 7: of those things that you get a lot of voters,
49:41
Speaker 7: including Trump voters, that are real squishy. You know, they want...
49:45
Speaker 7: Nikki Haley was closer, actually, to where a lot of
49:47
Speaker 7: people are. We want clean air. We want clean water.
49:50
Speaker 7: We just, you know... And Republicans can do this. That
49:53
Speaker 7: being said, you know, there's definitely... 35% of the party
49:58
Speaker 7: who will be like, hell yeah, he just got up
50:00
Speaker 7: and said it straightforward and it'll be memorable. And so
50:04
Speaker 7: that's why I just think when it comes to this undercard,
50:08
Speaker 7: you know, how do we shuffle things around for second place?
50:11
Speaker 7: Vivek probably did himself the most favors, uh, by just
50:17
Speaker 7: being an insane person that appeals to the section of
50:21
Speaker 7: the party that likes insane people. Yeah.
50:24
Speaker 2: Are we just wasting our time here? Is there a
50:26
Speaker 2: path for anyone to be Trump?
50:30
Speaker 7: There's a slim, like, here's the thing. It would take
50:34
Speaker 7: a bunch of things to happen. One, the big exogenous
50:38
Speaker 7: event of something happening to Trump or something happening that
50:43
Speaker 7: like really kneecapped him going into the general that people
50:46
Speaker 7: believed was a real deficit. I don't exactly know what
50:49
Speaker 7: that would be, but it would have to be that
50:51
Speaker 7: the problem is, and it has been the problem all along,
50:55
Speaker 7: You can't beat something with nothing. And these guys are
50:59
Speaker 7: showing us nothing, right? There's nobody, if you, the problem
51:02
Speaker 7: that you can, you can talk yourself into, well, this
51:05
Speaker 7: could happen to Trump. This could happen with the legal stuff,
51:07
Speaker 7: but can you talk yourself into boy, what I just
51:11
Speaker 7: saw from DeSantis shows me that he can consolidate 40%
51:14
Speaker 7: of the party around him, 50% of the party. I
51:19
Speaker 7: don't think so. Did we see Tim Scott? Did we
51:22
Speaker 7: see Nikki Haley? Nikki Haley did herself some real favors
51:27
Speaker 7: with the donor class. I think that people who are
51:30
Speaker 7: writing Tim Scott checks are going to start writing her checks.
51:32
Speaker 7: But like, yeah, which one of those people on the
51:37
Speaker 7: stage looked like they were going to beat Trump?
51:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see either.
51:45
Speaker 7: I will say, though, what is Trump? Did he do
51:47
Speaker 7: his Tucker thing? I saw people were, at least are,
51:51
Speaker 7: Our people, the tweeters, were watching the debate.
51:54
Speaker 1: Dan and I watched 30 minutes of 45 on 2x speed,
51:58
Speaker 1: and it's just weird. There's like a rant about the
52:00
Speaker 1: Panama Canal and Epstein being dead. And I don't know
52:03
Speaker 1: that it did him any solids. We turned it off.
52:06
Speaker 7: Well, you would, Libs. I mean, don't you know how
52:11
Speaker 7: important the Panama Canal is to Facebookers?
52:14
Speaker 1: Listen, Jimmy Carter gave it away, and I've celebrated that
52:17
Speaker 1: decision ever since. Sarah, thank you for staying up late
52:21
Speaker 1: to help us better understand an electorate that is challenging
52:25
Speaker 1: to understand, let's be honest. We really appreciate your time
52:28
Speaker 1: and hope to see you soon.
52:29
Speaker 5: Yeah.
52:30
Speaker 7: Thanks, guys.
52:36
Speaker 1: Thanks again to Sarah for joining the show. Thanks to
52:38
Speaker 1: everyone here on the Crooked Media team who's sitting in
52:41
Speaker 1: a studio that's about 105 degrees.
52:43
Speaker 2: It's so hot.
52:44
Speaker 1: There's not one Drop of breeze.
52:46
Speaker 2: I'm so tired. We've been awake for so long.
52:48
Speaker 1: My daughter was teething and woke me up at 4.30
52:50
Speaker 1: in the morning.
52:51
Speaker 2: I've been up since 4.30 myself.
52:52
Speaker 1: Because we're weirdos.
52:53
Speaker 7: Yeah.
52:54
Speaker 2: I have to beat my children up.
52:56
Speaker 1: What? Sorry.
52:57
Speaker 2: Let's say that again. Rephrase that. That's right.
52:59
Speaker 4: Leave it in.
53:00
Speaker 2: I've been up since 4.30. I have to beat my
53:02
Speaker 2: children to who gets to be awake first.
53:05
Speaker 1: To the breakfast table.
53:06
Speaker 5: Okay.
53:06
Speaker 1: We probably shouldn't talk anymore on a microphone where it's recorded. Thanks, everyone,
53:10
Speaker 1: for listening. Talk to you next week.
53:11
Speaker 2: Bye, everyone.
53:13
Speaker 8: Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. The executive
53:16
Speaker 8: producer is Michael Martinez. Our producers are Andy Gardner Bernstein
53:21
Speaker 8: and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
53:25
Speaker 8: Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from
53:28
Speaker 8: Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to Hallie Kiefer, Madeline Herringer,
53:32
Speaker 8: Ari Schwartz, Andy Taft, and Justine Howe for production support.
53:35
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