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Trump Wins, DeSantis Whines, Haley Withstands · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Jon Lovett.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:23
  Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: The gang's all here.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: We're back. There's no Ion Caucus.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Woo!
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Good disease.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: That's actually true. It's just a mess.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Well, let's get right to the news. Donald Trump is
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the winner of the Iowa caucuses, dominating the field with 51%.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis comes in second with 21%. Nikki Haley third
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: with 19%. Vivek Ramaswamy with 8%. And no one else
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: cracked 1%. Trump narrowly lost the caucuses to Ted Cruz
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: in 2016. Eight years later, the networks called it for
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: him within 30 minutes. He won by the biggest margin
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of any Republican in history. Out of Iowa's 99 counties,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I think he won 98. Nikki Haley won one county
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: by a vote.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: She's up by one in Johnson County. It hasn't been
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: called yet.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, we're recording Monday night here. All right, so
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: big win for Trump, and let's hear a clip from
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: his victory speech.
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to thank everybody. This has been some
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: period of time. And most importantly, we want to thank
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: the great people of Iowa.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: We love you all.
• 1:28
  Speaker 6: What a turnout.
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: What a crowd. And I really think this is time
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: now for everybody, our country, to come together. We want
• 1:36
  Speaker 5: to come together, whether it's Republican or Democrat or liberal
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: or conservative. It would be so nice if we could
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: Come together and straighten out the world and straighten out
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: the problems and straighten out all of the death and
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: destruction that we're witnessing that's practically never been like this.
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: It's just so important. And I want to make that
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: a very big part of our message. We're going to
• 1:57
  Speaker 5: come together.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: We're going to come together. Classic Trump, gracious, subdued.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: Unity candidate.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Unity candidate trying to heal the divides in this country.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: It's about a fight for the soul of the nation.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: He praised Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. He didn't say
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: a bad word about them. He said how much of
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: a fun time they'd all had together.
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: Tonight was the night he became president.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: Clip that.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Wait, don't. Even if I'm right. We'll get back to
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: the speech. Let's talk about the results first. So Donald Trump, 51%,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: blows away the rest of the field. How did he
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: do it? How did he do it?
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: Dan?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I think there's one number in the entrance polls that
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: kind of shows Trump's dominance is that he won voters
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: who supported national abortion ban, but he also won voters
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: who oppose a national abortion ban. It's a very wide coalition.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: He is, he's the dominant figure. He was always going
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: to win of most 64%. I think it was caucus
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: goers made their decision several months ago. Almost all those
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: people pick Trump. It was, it was almost when you
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: look at it that way, this was never a contest.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: He had this thing wrapped up from the very beginning,
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: and all of it was just kind of playing around
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: to see who would come in second, which we will
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: get to eventually.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the big question of the night. I mean, you
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: look through the entrance polls, which, you know, for some
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of the, once you get into the demographics, maybe take
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: with a grain of salt. But clear majority of Republican voters, 60%,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: around 60%, think Trump won in 2020. think he's fit
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to be president, even if he's convicted of a crime.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And to me, that's how Donald Trump won. Most Republican
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: voters love the Trump presidency. They think he won re-election.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They don't think he did anything wrong. And they want
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: him back in the White House, and they think that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: he can beat Joe Biden. I mean, that just sort
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: of explains it.
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: And literally no one competing in the state ran against him.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: They ran against each other. Only Chris Christie, who parked
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: in New Hampshire for most of the time, or a studio,
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: John Lovett, actually made a case against the guy.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: I can't believe that didn't help. But the, uh, yeah,
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: I do think even before you get to the campaign though,
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: you do see the kind of problem that they would
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: be up against, right? Because Nikki Haley competed for, and did,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: did far better among the group of people who, uh,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: believe the election results were, uh, legitimate, but there just
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: aren't enough of those people for her to win against
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Trump with. And then on the other hand, you have
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis, you know, in the, in, in the kind
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: of entrance polls, uh, people who think that, uh, Donald
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Trump is still the president. Donald Trump does incredibly well.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley does far worse, but Ron DeSantis kind of
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: does in the middle. He kind of does like, like,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's like 40% of his voters believed that
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump, uh, won the election, something like that.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And you just see that, like, there wasn't a group
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: of people big enough that are anti-Trump and the people
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: that like Trump, well, there's a great restaurant. It's Trump,
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: you know, they don't need to try.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: A new place.
• 4:49
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, they, they saw him as an incumbent president
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: who's running for a second term and and won the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: last time, at least in their minds, and should be
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: back in the White House. I thought another telling question
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: from the entrance polls, they asked people, are you part
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: of the MAGA movement? 44% of Republican caucus goers said yes.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: 51% said no. Trump got 77% of the people who
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: said yes. No surprise there. But he still got 25%
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of the no's. He got 7% of people who told.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: The pollsters that Trump was unfit for president if he
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: was convicted.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: He's mopping up with them too. Would you guys, uh,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: what'd you guys make of the speech, the speech and
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the message? Tommy, what'd you think?
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: Sort of like a benzodiazepine ad. Um, it's a very
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: sedated Donald Trump. A lot of acknowledgements at the top.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: It's gotta be hard for his opponents to know you're
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: going to lose to the guy who, uh, handed his
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: speech over to a state Senator. And then a guy
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: who was wearing a jacket that looked like a wall.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: That was all part of your like nine minutes where
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: the entire country is watching you. Your big moment after
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: an election win.
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is the lowest bar of expectations to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: trip over. But Donald Trump simply seeming quasi normal on
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: public television is a victory for him.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Was he speaking to his wife's deceased parents? from his grave,
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: was he looking for a mother?
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Melania's mother passed away. He was speaking to her.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: He seemed to suggest the late husband.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: She said she was very lonely.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: But it won't be for long. So I think he
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: was suggesting the husband's getting back on the market. It's
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: not clear.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think he means he's quite old. Is he
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: old or is he getting remarried?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: We don't know. He's either dating or dying.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you did. But he was looking up in the
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: air like he was talking to God. That's what I
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: was thinking.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: But he also thinks that's where the Czech Republic is
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: or wherever she's from.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: Well, in the globe, you're right.
• 6:44
  Speaker 7: But I'm glad that you took us off course here
• 6:49
  Speaker 7: because this is where, like, the tone in the speech
• 6:52
  Speaker 7: at the beginning was a more subdued, like, disciplined tone
• 6:55
  Speaker 7: from Donald Trump.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And at first, I think we were all sitting there
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: watching it. We were a little nervous listening to it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: But.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Once he started getting to the... Melania's father and the lonely...
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And then he did like 20 minutes of acknowledgements before
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: he actually got to his stump speech, which was just
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: his stump speech. And so the message on TV... I
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: guess the message was, I'm a little more normal than
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: you think. Yeah. I want people to come together, which
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: maybe job well done. But then it was just, he
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: sort of rambled on about acknowledgements. It was very subdued,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: kind of low energy.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: It worked because CNN cut him off before he got
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: to his unpopular policy agenda.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: That is true.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: That is true.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: I think like it is... It was strange to see
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: him do that. I mean, it really was. He spoke
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: about his kids in a way he doesn't normally speak
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: about his kids. It was very much like what it
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: felt like was a politician addressing a liability. It felt
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: very purposeful.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. It felt like the advisors were like, hey,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: you might be able to win this thing if people
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: just think you're a little bit less of an asshole.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Right, right. And by the way, I think it's worth
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: comparing the way Donald Trump does those moments to the
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: way another politician does those moments, even like Nikki Haley.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley, who I think had like the strongest speech
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: of the night. Nevertheless, she does acknowledgements the way every
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: politician does. It's like the most sort of like road
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: and like formulaic and kind of inauthentic way of doing it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: He's just better at it. And that was a bit alarming.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: But I do think though, you know, they got him
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: out there. They got him to praise Ron DeSantis and
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley.
• 8:23
  Speaker 6: He seems so, he was so generous towards them. And
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: then Nikki Haley, which we'll get to, goes out and
• 8:27
  Speaker 6: fucking torches him He is fucking rip shit right now.
• 8:31
  Speaker 6: He is thinking about how he's going to tear into
• 8:34
  Speaker 6: her the next. He's so angry that he got convinced
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: to be nice to Nikki Haley.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Well, it is not a new phenomenon that once in
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a while Donald Trump is on message and can show
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a little bit of discipline. And then like a week later,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: usually a day later, usually an hour later or the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: next tweet, then like just loses it and goes back
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: to being.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: I feel like we've had this conversation on primary nights
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: or caucus nights before. Actually, I think this, he's kind
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: of good at this.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: I think we've done all of this before. If we don't,
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: if we stopped having conversations we've had before, we shut
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: this whole place down.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Remember the beginning of COVID too? Remember the first couple
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of COVID press conferences before he got into the bleach stuff?
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: I would put money on the fact that we're waking
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: up to 12 all caps tweets about bird brain. I'm sorry.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Truths.
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: For sure.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: So just before he won Iowa, he got a bunch
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: of endorsements. Big, big endorsement from my boy, Doug Burgum,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: who's out of the race. Marco Rubio, Mike Lee. He's
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: now got 22 Senate endorsements, which he started mentioning this tonight.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It sounds like the Republican establishment, like most of the party,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: has just decided this is it. We're not even going to...
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: They're not even going to wait for New Hampshire. They're
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: not going to wait for South Carolina. They got two
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: other alternatives. They got Nikki Haley. They got Ron DeSantis.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: They don't care. They're all in.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: It's so embarrassing. Marco Rubio feeling like he has to
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: do it before the Iowa caucus is done for some reason.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: So I guess.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: so he's.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that they, that they needed to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: do this or they felt like they needed to do
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: this before Iowa just to get credit so they could
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: get a job from Donald Trump or something?
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: They probably made a political calculation and asked the campaign
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: when they should endorse and the campaign to do it
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: this day. So that when we win Iowa by 30 points,
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: it looks like it's all sewn up in the establishments
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: there and we're inevitable.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they're under pressure from Trump to do
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: it now. And either you do it when Trump tells
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: you to do it or he attacks you until you
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: do it later.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Just to paint a little more detail on the difference
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: in the message today versus yesterday, here's a quote from
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: yesterday's event. These caucuses are your personal chance to score
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: the ultimate victory over all the liars, cheaters, thugs, perverts, frauds, crooks, freaks, creeps,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: and other quite nice people. Trump told a crowd in Indianola,
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: Iowa on Sunday.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: We got to get that guy. We got to get
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that guy. It is a funny thing.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: It's like, it's like Trump is at his most dangerous
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: when he sounds his least dangerous. And he's at his
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: least dangerous when he sounds his most dangerous.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: He still seems pretty dangerous all the time.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: But anyway, but yeah, well, that's Donald Trump. He, I mean,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know how the night could have gone better
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: for him.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: And within the context of the Republican primary, right. Like,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: is there any, because he also got, we're going to
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: talk about this, but like DeSantis and Haley, uh, ended
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: up so close together that neither of them dropped out.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And so they're both going on. And so that continues
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: to be a muddle. He doesn't have like a one-on-one challenger.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And he got over 50%, which was like the imaginary
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: threshold that people made up as like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: Vivek dropped out.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Vivek dropped out.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: The little support Vivek has will go to Trump.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: And as weak, and it's a testament to just how
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: weak and pathetic DeSantis is, that the fact that he
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: did better than Haley is ultimately good for Trump, that
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: everyone's sort of like, oh, that makes it so that
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: like Haley isn't so clearly the only alternative, right? That
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: he gets to stay in. I will say though, like
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: it is a trick that Trump has pulled here, which
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: is if Joe Biden had faced two challengers, both approaching
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: 20 points, he would be seen as incredibly weak as
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: an incumbent president. That Donald Trump gets the benefits of
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: incumbency in so many respects, except in the expectations for
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: how he should be performing in these is quite a move.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I mean, because- You know, he's a former president. He's
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: running like a challenger. He's getting treated politically like a challenger.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: And it belies the kind of weaknesses that he has, right? That, like,
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the fact that this former president who has huge support
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: inside the Republican Party... still faces two people that are
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: able to pull as much as they were able to pull,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: doesn't speak to a strong candidate, speaks to a weak candidate.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I 100% agree with that. I think over the
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: last course of this year, as we've talked about this primary,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: and it's like, can someone beat Trump? Can DeSantis beat Trump?
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Can Haley beat Trump? And all of those ideas that
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: we were not inevitably going to get here were based
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: on this fundamental analytical error where we treated Trump like
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: a normal presidential candidate, not the incumbent president. For this electorate,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: for these voters, he is their president. Almost every single
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: person who caucused tonight, they didn't ask this question in
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: the exit polls, but we should assume it based on Iowa,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: voted for Trump in 2020. And yet, half of them
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: did not vote for him tonight. I don't know what
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: their internal vote goals were, but they dramatically underperformed those.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: Because he got 51%.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Of 100,000 Iowans.
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Right now, so far, the vote is 107,000 votes so far.
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And that we're almost, almost in.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: Which would be underperform the 2012 Iowa caucus. Not let
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: alone the record turnout from the last time Trump was
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: on the ballot. Now it is, there is minus 40
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: wind chill. The outcome was not in doubt. That's only
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: has a, has some impact on that, but it's a
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: 47% drop in turnout from the last time around. And
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: that says something. It says something. What it means in
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the general, I don't know, but it's not What you
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: would want coming out of here is a ringing that
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: he would dramatically overperform, that he would demonstrate his ability
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: to bring new caucus goers out, to bring enthusiasm. That
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: did not show up tonight. And it's a piece of
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: data to put away that suggests that he is a
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: more flawed general election candidate than a lot of the
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: narrative has had to date.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Well, so just for perspective, there's 2.2 million registered voters
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. 752,000 registered Republican voters. And again, so far, 107,000
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: turned out tonight with 95% of the vote in. So
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: it's probably 110,000 maybe when all is said and done.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's hard to extrapolate to a general election
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: based on 107,000 votes out of 2.2 million registered voters
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: in the state and then even 750,000 Republican voters.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: And we should say, the campaigns, when you were reading
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: about strategies and projections a couple weeks ago, they were
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: predicting up to 200,000 participants. So this horrific, you know,
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: the 12 inches of snow, 20 inches of snow, like
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: negative 40 wind chill, it has to have been a
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: big factor. That said, if I were the Biden campaign,
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: I'd be spinning hard that it was a weak turnout.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: One quick housekeeping note. What happens when one of China's
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: most prominent human rights activists escapes house arrest in China,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: lands in America as a hero of freedom and democracy,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: then somehow reemerges a few years later as an avid
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Trump supporter? This is the story of Chen Guangchang. In
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Cricket's newest podcast, Dissident at the Doorstep, Host Allison Klayman,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Colin Jones, and Yangyang Cheng tell the story of how
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: a person can become a symbol for American values and
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: what happens to them next. Listen to new episodes of
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Dissident at the Doorstep each Saturday beginning January 13th in
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Pod Save the World feed, wherever you get your podcasts.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I just listened to the first two episodes. It's really good.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: We were at the White House when this all happened
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: and went down and it was an insane story of
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: like this guy escaping his village and getting to the
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: embassy and Obama negotiating him out and all the diplomacy
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: and then he gets to the U.S. and his Suddenly
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: get an insurrection. Incredible story.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Highly recommend. Well, then let's talk about someone else who's
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: spinning pretty hard. Ron DeSantis. So Ron DeSantis comes in second,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: just edged out Nikki Haley for second place. And here
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: he is, I guess, celebrating that.
• 16:18
  Speaker 8: They threw everything but the kitchen sink at us. They
• 16:22
  Speaker 8: spent almost $ 50 million attacking us. No one's faced that
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: much all the way just through Iowa. The media was
• 16:31
  Speaker 8: against us. They were writing our obituary months ago. They
• 16:38
  Speaker 8: even called the election before people even got a chance
• 16:41
  Speaker 8: to vote. But they were just so excited about the
• 16:49
  Speaker 8: fact that they were predicting that we wouldn't be able
• 16:54
  Speaker 8: to get our ticket punched here out of Iowa. But
• 16:56
  Speaker 8: I can tell you, because of your support, in spite
• 16:59
  Speaker 8: of all of that that they threw at us, everyone
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: against us, we've got our ticket punched out of Iowa.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: He lost by 30 points.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah, great on bus.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump beat him by 30 points. He bet everything.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: On Iowa, how much money did he spend?
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: There were.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Jeb Bush levels of money.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: In terms of advertising spend in Iowa, it was $ 123
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: million total, $ 37 million pro-Haley, $ 35 million pro-DeSantis, $ 18. 3 million pro-Trump.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: The rest was others.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: DeSantis did 154 events and visited all 99 counties.
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: All 99 counties.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: And everyone said, no, thank you. But he got that
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: ticket punched. Like, what happens next to Ron DeSantis? So he,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: in New Hampshire... He's polling at about 5%. If that.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: If that. So the campaign says they're going to go
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: right to South Carolina tomorrow or next week, which makes
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: me think that now he's not going to get a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: lot of attention as it becomes a Trump-Haley race in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. And Ron DeSantis is just going to be
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: hanging out in South Carolina and come in, what, third
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: or fourth in New Hampshire? Maybe, like, Maybe like some
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: people are still going to, I wonder if enough people
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: are still going to be voting for Chris Christie, even
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: though he's out of the race and he could, Chris
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Christie could still beat Ron DeSantis in New Hampshire. I mean, it's,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I just don't understand what his path is now.
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: We'll talk about Haley in a minute, but you watch
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: her speech. She had a message and she has a strategy.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: She's going to New Hampshire with a purpose and with
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: some potential. Ron DeSantis gave a four minute speech that
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: was mostly whining. And then it was some very lame
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: lines from his stump speech. It's this, attempted a stirring
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: close where he talks about the sacred fire of liberty
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: is burning at the following locations. And I heard him
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: do it at a walk in the event in Waukee
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: for 30, 75 year olds. And it landed just as
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: flat tonight as it did then. I mean, like, I
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: don't know what he does next. I think he's gonna
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: have a bunch of advisors around and telling him, if
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: you want to preserve your political future, drop out, endorse Trump,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: get on the Trump train. Maybe you can figure out
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: some path forward so you don't piss him off, but
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: you're not going to win New Hampshire. The Nevada caucuses
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: don't exist. No one knows who you are in South Carolina.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: What are you going to do?
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I will say it was the perfect speech for Ron DeSantis,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: because if you want to know what Ron DeSantis' campaign
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: was like, if you want to years from now look
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: back on it, it was that speech. No message. He
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: never mentioned the guy who just beat him in Iowa
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: by 30 points. Nothing about Donald Trump. Nothing even about
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley. Nothing about anything except for Whining about the media.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Whining about everyone thought we were out. They counted us
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: out and they were right.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Well, it's this idea of like, they're attacking me. They're
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: throwing everything they can at me. The media is trying
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to stop me. They, capital T, they're trying to stop me.
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: Why, Ron? Why?
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: Why you?
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: What, what, what? All these forces are arrayed against you.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: What is this powerful story? What is this? What are
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: you saying that scares them so thoroughly? Never guessed to it.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: I will say, and Ron DeSantis is a defense here. Okay.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: The fact that he.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Clip that.
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: The fact that he spoke for four minutes is the
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: most self-aware thing he's ever done.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: It's taken a year and a half, but he's recognized
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: that more Ron DeSantis is not good.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: Well, yeah. They should figure that out for the 99 counties.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Also, if he really understood that, he would not be
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: going to South Carolina tomorrow. He'd be going back to
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: fucking Florida.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Well, he thinks he's going to improve his position in
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire by not going there.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: He should just do like five more town halls in Iowa.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: See how it goes. This guy, Hal Lambert, who is
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: on DeSantis' National Finance Committee, gave the following quote to Politico.
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: I'll be frank.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: I would say third place is not good. So he
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: got a barely second, so it's a little better, but still,
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: they have no path forward.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: It's also second place. It's like 19% to 21%. Kaylee
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: got 19%, he got 21%. It's barely second place.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: They wanted a close second. They didn't get that.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: What he will probably do is he will go hang
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: out in South Carolina. He will come in third in
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire. If he comes in fourth, it'd be really
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: impressive because there are only three candidates in the race.
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: Did Asa drop it?
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, sure.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: Who cares? Was that the guy's name?
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Binkley?
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Binkley.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I think he's only on in Iowa though, right?
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I think Binkley finished ahead of Asa Hutchinson. Whoever Binkley is.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: The first time I've said that name on this podcast.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: He's going to lose. He could lose to some zombie.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: He can lose to Christie, like to zombie Christie.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: That'd be amazing.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, he is, he's not worried. Dignity has
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: not been something he's been very protective of, right?
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: DeSantis.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: DeSantis. But I do think the only thing he gets
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: by not going to New Hampshire is a little, you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: he gets a, he gets a beat of people not
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: asking him to, like he gets an extra moment to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: decide to stop running.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: And then I guess it depends on what happens in
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire, right? If Trump were to win by a lot,
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: maybe he just gets out then. If it's a close
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: in New Hampshire, you know, who knows? But I think he,
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I would be surprised if he is still campaigning when
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: the South Carolina primary happens in five weeks.
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: Me too.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: Does the outcome in New Hampshire affect Is there any way, look,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: I don't think it does, but is there any story
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: that you could tell Ron DeSantis about how the outcome
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: in New Hampshire, whether let's say Haley surprises or Trump
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: destroys or whatever it is, is there an outcome in
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire that changes what Ron DeSantis can say is
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: his path?
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: There's no outcome in New Hampshire that can change the
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: inevitable reality that Donald Trump's going to be the Republican nominee.
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: Well, right.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: But is there a way in which, let's say, Haley outperforms,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: that leaves more room for him, or Trump outperforms, that
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: leaves less?
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: It is over.
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: When those reporters, when the media wrote the obituary of
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: his campaign months ago, they were correct.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I would dust that off. I would keep that in
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: your dress folder.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: What was the quote from the DeSantis officials of the
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: New York Times and the Post? Basically, we've got him
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: on hospice care. We're trying to keep him comfortable until
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: the inevitable.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's taken a while.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: He'll keep going until the bank account runs dry.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: It is like the Monty Python thing of like it's
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: just a flesh wound. Like the reporters have been like,
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: you're dead, you're done, you're fucking toast. He's like, no, no, no,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I'm fighting.
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: Just a stump in Iowa.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: You can actually, if you look at Ron DeSantis' meager
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: performance here, you could actually see a path or a
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: better version of Ron DeSantis, who was a less awkward,
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: terrible candidate running a smarter campaign. I don't see you
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: would have beaten Trump, but he could have been much
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: more successful because when you look at DeSantis' path to
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: coming in second, what he did was, is he got a,
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: decent amount of the non-Trump vote and some of the
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: Trump vote. So when they asked people if they were
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: members of the MAGA movement or not, DeSantis got 30%
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: of the non-MAGA supporters, but 11% of the MAGA supporters.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Haley got 3% of the MAGA supporters. So if you
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: see a better version of someone who had made an
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: argument against Trump from a position of strength, could have
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: put that together to come close.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I don't want to take anything away from Ron DeSantis
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: being one of the worst candidates I've ever seen. But
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Even if you were a good candidate or a candidate
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: who could figure out how to get more of that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: MAGA vote, which you clearly need, I just think that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: they're trapped, all these candidates. Once you start attacking Trump, you're,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: by definition, not MAGA anymore because that's what Trump... So
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's really... We keep saying, like, oh, they
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: got to go after Trump more. But then when they
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: go after Trump, we're like, well, if we like it,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: then clearly it's not going to work.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: I think that there's... Like, this is all fantasy politics,
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: and we'll get into fantasy politics for Nikki Kelly in
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: a minute here. But it is.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Love it's only fantasy player left in his team. Went
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: through Tim Scott, Chris Christie.
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: My last one.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: I think a better candidate could have gotten to lose
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: to Trump by a more normal amount. That does not
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: mean it's going to change who's going to win the nominee,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: but there was a better path for someone like Ron
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: DeSantis that Nikki Haley could never have had that path.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: Someone could have got 25, 26, 27.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: Before DeSantis launched his campaign, before he spent any money,
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: before anyone knocked the door for him, he was at
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: around 30% in Iowa. He went down to 20%.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: I was just saying a better candidate could have held
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: on to more of that.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: But I think it's even, I actually think it's even more, like,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: I think the dynamic, like they're going to say that
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: it's not just people, all they're going to, they're going
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: to go to like kind of the fundamental structural dynamics.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: And those are true.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: There weren't enough people who were anti-Trump and all the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: pro-Trump people with Trump. Like it's as simple as that,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: except like great politicians have the ability to change that dynamic. Right.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: Like that's, that's what it means. Like they, to like,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Obama is somebody who changed the underlying dynamics in a primary.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump is somebody who could change the dynamics in
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: a primary through like kind of an understanding, a deeper
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: understanding of the electorate and charisma, political talent, which Ron
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: DeSantis doesn't have. And so we don't know what it
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: would be like if we had been watching a primary
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: unfold in which a candidate with those kinds of political
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: strengths was able to kind of shape the story in
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: such a way that like you don't end up with
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: people like Marco Rubio feeling they have but no choice
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: to endorse today. And like you don't see the inevitability
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: kind of coming behind Trump. I mean, the polls were
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: even better. There were polls that showed Ron DeSantis sort
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: of ahead at one point, right? Like, there was a
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: moment where a better politician might have been able to
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: take that momentum and change something that didn't change.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I think that is all true in a normal electorate.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I think the Republican Party's electorate right now, at least
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: a vast majority of the electorate, is not normal in
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: that they really, really like Donald Trump. And the only
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: path to a non-Trump candidate was... Trump's going to lose
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: to Joe Biden. And over the last several months, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: this is when Donald Trump has become dominant in the primary,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: even more so than he was before, Joe Biden has
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: looked very weak in the general election. And we can
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: say that the polls are wrong, the polls are going
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: to change, whatever. But at least in the period of
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the Republican primary, it looked very easy to beat Joe Biden.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And so therefore, if you like Donald Trump and you
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: think he won the last election and you want him
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: back in the White House, and the only thing that
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was stopping you before is you're worried he might lose, well,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: If he's if he's beaten Joe Biden, then why would
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you vote for anyone else?
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: I think that's all true. I just think that when
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: you see what how Ron is, he has got to second.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: You can see what the if you squint hard enough,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: you can see the inklings of a coalition of someone
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: who could have given a stronger challenge.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: All right.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Speaking of a stronger challenge to Trump, let's talk about
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley. So she came in third just by a
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: hair and she gave the last speech of the night
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: after Trump and Ramaswamy and DeSantis all spoke. Let's listen.
• 27:24
  Speaker 9: I can safely say tonight Iowa made this Republican primary
• 27:30
  Speaker 9: a two person race. Trump and Biden are both about
• 27:36
  Speaker 9: 80 years old. Trump and Biden both put our country
• 27:43
  Speaker 9: trillions of dollars deeper in debt and our kids will
• 27:46
  Speaker 9: never forgive them for it. Trump and Biden both lack
• 27:55
  Speaker 9: a vision for our country's future because both are consumed
• 27:59
  Speaker 9: by the past, by investigations, by vendettas, by grievances. America
• 28:05
  Speaker 9: deserves better.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley, what do we think?
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Love it?
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: She going to do it?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she's going to fucking.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's how you do it. When I think
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: a speech is good, that's how you know it's going
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: to really work for some fucking MAGA goon in South Carolina.
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: That's a pretty good general election message.
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: It was a good speech. I mean, it was a message.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: It was a message.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: The bar is so low because DeSantis doesn't have a message.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: It's generational. It's spending. She always hits Trump on spending.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: The debt is the only thing she really hits him on.
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: It's this vision of the future and not getting consumed
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: by investigations and vendettas and grievances. I mean, I think
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: that hits on the things people like least about Trump
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: and also sweeps up Biden in the broad side.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: The other point she makes is if The country does
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: not want a Biden-Trump rematch. A Biden-Trump rematch is a toss-up,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: which was sort of got a little kind of like
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: ooze a little bit in the room. But I win
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: on the line side.
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: And that's what the polls show. And the popular vote argument.
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: Should we keep losing the popular vote in past elections?
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: We want to win bigger.
• 29:12
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: It's all a great message, but to what end?
• 29:15
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, so here's the demographics that Haley won in Iowa. Moderates,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: independent women, college graduate women. People with advanced degrees and
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: people who believe Biden won in 2020.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: So Jews.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: What percentage of the Republican Party do you think those
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: demographics comprise in 2024? Like 30 percent? That's generous.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Not even close.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: Not even close.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And now, in New Hampshire, probably a lot more than
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, right? Which is why, you know, maybe outside shot.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: At winning New Hampshire?
• 29:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: And you have independents and you have Democrats.
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, the New Hampshire thing, she could win New Hampshire.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: That is in the realm of possibility. I still don't
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: think it's.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: Likely, but definitely possible.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: It is possible. And New Hampshire is unlike every other
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: state that's going to vote.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: It's probably one of the most college-educated states in terms
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of a Republican electorate in the primary.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Gallup declared it to be the least religious state in
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: the country in 2016. The evangelical vote was 24% in
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: New Hampshire in 2016. It was 55% in Iowa tonight.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: Nikki Haley won 13% of those voters. When you get
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: to South Carolina, her home state in 2016, the evangelical
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: vote was over 70%. Yeah.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: The last poll out of South Carolina was an Emerson poll,
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: January 2nd and 3rd. It was Trump 54, Haley 25.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: You can't conjure a path that lines up with the
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: profile of voters that Nikki Haley has attracted to date
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: that gets you another win. Like Donald Trump will probably
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: win all 50 primaries if he wins in New Hampshire,
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: as Al Gore did in 2000.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: And again, Nikki Haley started this primary with a message
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: that was, and sort of voters that she was trying
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: to go for, more similar to what DeSantis was doing.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: And then as she did, again, what we've all advised
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: any of these Republican candidates to do, which was actually
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: criticize Donald Trump, she started getting all the never Trump
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: love and, you know, Larry Hogan- Governor of Maryland endorsed
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: her over the weekend and he was like, it's time
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: for the party to come together around Nikki Haley. It's like, dude,
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: what party are you talking about? The party that you're
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: talking about doesn't exist anymore.
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: It's a Cafe Milano.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: A cocktail party.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: And the more that like the never Trump old guard
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Republican establishment starts coalescing around Nikki Haley, the angrier the
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: MAGA base and Donald Trump are going to get and
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: the more they're going to attack her. And so like,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I don't, there's just no, I don't know what the
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: middle ground is.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Well, they're all sleeping in the bed they made, which
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: is spending the last few years indulging the election lie,
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: which renders useless one of her, if not her most
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: compelling arguments, which is that she's much more electable. I
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: believe that's true. I think she's a much more dangerous
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: general election candidate.
• 32:09
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: For sure. The polls have been showed forever. It's indisputable.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: But as you pointed out, this campaign has taken place
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: while Biden is weak. And they've convinced their entire party
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: that Donald Trump won the election. And so, you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: the other part of the problem too, is that like,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: maybe it was a strategy change that maybe she had
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: to figure out that there was no way to kind
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: of compete for the voters the way DeSantis was, or
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: maybe it was more like she was, you know, I
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: don't know, slowly coming to be able to be as
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: critical of Trump as she is, but giving a speech
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: like this now, like what, what is that for? What
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: does that get you?
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Like, I don't know.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I'm sure.
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Just, but just, that's it just gets you in New Hampshire.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: They, they have an ad, uh, I don't know where's
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: Haley's campaigner. I assume it's one of her co-founded super
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: facts has an add up with almost this exact message
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: in New Hampshire. It's been up for, for probably a
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: week or so now.
• 32:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's it.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: That's, that's the only play. So you do it.
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: Um, but just, again, it just, we don't know what
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it would be like if there had been a concerted
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: message against Donald Trump for a year, because there just wasn't,
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: there wasn't, I mean, Nikki Haley slowly tiptoeing up to
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: this Ron DeSantis, occasionally mentioning Trump and, and, in passing,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: refusing to do it when he loses. There was never
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: a concerted case against Trump at any point in this primary.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Vivek Ramaswamy, he was gaining in the polls, a rapid rise,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and then he sat down for an interview with Tommy.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: And now tonight, it's the end of the road for him.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: It was very similar to the Sarah Palin, Katie Couric interview, 2008.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Yes, I was gonna, yeah, that's very good, Dan.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: That's deceitfully edited.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: America's sweetheart, Tommy Vitor. Tommy, what do you think happened?
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Any final thoughts on Vivek's candidacy?
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was trying to Google while we were
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: talking how much he personally spent on the campaign. I
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: feel like I heard him say it was like $ 15 million,
• 33:58
  Speaker 4: but I could be wrong. Listen, viewed one way, coming
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: out of nowhere as a 38-year-old to run this campaign
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: and getting 7% of the vote in Iowa and making
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: this huge name for yourself in conservative circles is a
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: huge win for his personal brand and future in politics,
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera. It's also a huge win for
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: him If his actual goal was to do a ton
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: of marketing for anti woke investment products that he happens
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: to sell or to start a new media business and
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: be the next Ben Shapiro or whatever. So, I mean,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, there's a bit of a Pete
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: Buttigieg feeling. to his campaign, they're in no way similar.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: Don't be fucking dickheads.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: They're not remotely similar, but they both- And I'm the
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: one they don't like?
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: But they both came out of nowhere to launch these
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: insurgent campaigns, and they had a moment, and now people
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: know who they are, and he could have a future
• 34:51
  Speaker 4: in the Republican Party. We'll see.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's transportation secretary.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: I thought commerce.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, yeah, we'll see. Commerce makes sense.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: But which is not going to happen. Why? Because we're
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: going to win.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: Oh, right, yeah.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: So that's good.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Can these results tell us anything about the general election?
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: We already made the point that it's tough to extrapolate,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: at least about Iowa, because it's such a small number
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: of people that actually turned out. But, Dan, what do
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: you think? Because I did hear a lot of Biden
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: surrogates tonight talk about how, well, it shows that Trump
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: is pretty weak, the fact that he only got 50%
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: when he's the incumbent, and... What do you make of that?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: Well, I agree that this is an underwhelming victory for
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Trump in the context of showing general election strength. It
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily mean that he is any weaker than we
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: already thought he was, but he did not outperform our expectations.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: His vaunted campaign, newly organized, newly strategic campaign did not
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: deliver some set of new caucus goers or a big
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: turnout despite the weather or anything like that. So in
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: that sense, I think it is not A positive sign
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: for him in the general election. For the primary, obviously,
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: this is everything he could possibly hope for in his victory.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: But once again, as we point out, it's 107,000 Iowans,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: 63% of them over the age of 50. It does
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: not give us a real picture of the electorate. But
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: I don't think Trump demonstrated unexpected or surprising strength. If anything,
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: it's weaker than I expected he would do.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: So I do think it was interesting that 32% of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Republican caucus goers in the entrance poll said that if
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump is convicted of a crime, he's unfit to
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: be president. Does that matter much in a Republican primary? No,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: because it's 32%. But if those caucus goers in a
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: general election decided not to vote for him, if Donald
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Trump just loses a small percentage of the Republican vote
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: in a very close race, that's a real problem for him.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: The way they asked that question, is he unfit? You
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: could see Republican voters say, yeah, he's unfit, but also
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden's even worse, and so I'm going to go
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: with him anyway. I thought that Ann Seltzer in her poll,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: which ended up being fairly accurate again, asked Haley supporters,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: who would you vote for in a general election? And
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: 43% of Haley's supporters said they'd vote for Biden over Trump.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: If that's right, and we start seeing that pattern, then
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's a problem for Donald Trump.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: When we go back and look at that poll, it's
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: probably going to suggest that Haley, they had Haley having
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: too many, they overrepresented independents as supporters of Haley, because
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: I think half of her supporters were independents in that poll,
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: which independents made up a fraction of the caucus participants.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: That seems highly impossible. But more, I think even more
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: important than that number is 24% of Republican caucus covers
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: said that they would not vote for Trump if he
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: were the nominee. And now this is not, random Republicans.
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: It's not rhinos. It's not passive political participants. These are
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: people who three days before the caucus told a pollster
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: that they were going to brave subzero temperatures to vote,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: would not vote for Trump. And obviously the parties always
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: unite after primaries, even not particularly divisive ones like this one.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: But if that number, if half that number or really
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: a quarter of that number were to not vote for
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Trump in that happened in states across this country, including
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: the battleground states, Joe Biden would win and he'd win
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: by a larger margin than he did in 2020. Trump
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: got 92% of the Republican vote last time. Yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: That was, that 32% is what jumped out at me,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: but also that what, what some, some chunk of them,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: some chunk of those voters still caucus for Trump, even
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: though if he's convicted, they believe he's unfit. And I
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: think it just speaks to, we spent a lot of,
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of tension and time rightly focused on
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: the ways in which Joe Biden is a weaker general
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: election candidate in 2024 than he was in 2020.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: He is older.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: Is all the kind of negatives of incumbency. But there
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: are all these ways in which Donald Trump is going
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: to be a weaker candidate. There was a poll that
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: came out in the last couple of days that showed
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: just how many disengaged and independent voters don't yet actually
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: believe Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. There
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: is a huge percentage of people who have told posters
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: that if Donald Trump is convicted of the crime, they
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: will not vote for him. How does that hold? Is
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: that real? What happens when when a former president is
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: on trial for multiple felonies in multiple cases at the
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: same time.
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: These are all.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: Untested. These are all unprecedented. And I think the question
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: is just how much weaker will Donald Trump be by
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: the time we were to get to November?
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: And just, I don't think we know.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Biden campaign today also released their fourth quarter fundraising totals,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: 97 million, 117 million cash on hand. How much does
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: this matter as a measure of enthusiasm at this point?
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: I think it's a very positive sign that at the
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: darkest moments in the polls in the middle of an internal,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: a very public, very emotionally tortured Democratic Party debate about
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: Joe Biden's candidacy, he raised a record amount of money.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: That speaks to, obviously, some measurement of enthusiasm. And we'll
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: be interested to see what the, I don't know if
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: it was released or not, the small dollar versus big
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: dollar donations in there. But one thing it definitely speaks
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: to is a well-run campaign, because that takes serious serious
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: work and strategy and planning and fundraising. And they pulled that.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: Off quite well.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And whatever it signals about enthusiasm, it certainly signals that
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: they're going to have the money they need to run
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: this race, which is quite important.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Well, we will, we got New Hampshire a week from Tuesday.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: And maybe a debate Thursday. There's supposed to be a
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: debate Thursday between, again, I guess just Nikki Haley and
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, but we don't know if they're both going
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: to do it.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Why would Haley debate someone who she no longer views
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: as being in the race?
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: Good point.
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: Why would you bother?
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: And before this, I think Ron DeSantis hadn't said he
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: was definitely going to show up.
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: I disassume Ron DeSantis. I thought there was a real
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: chance Ron DeSantis would be out of the race by then,
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: but like everyone else, I underestimated him.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: Dan's over there throwing the kitchen sink at the guy.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Me and my friends in the media.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: Everything but the kitchen sink.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: We should say his staff was right that AP calling
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: the race before the caucus voters had voted in some
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: precincts is ridiculous.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: I don't like that. It was ridiculous.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: The upside of that is what? You beat some of
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: the other outlets. The downside is suddenly you're the story
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: in the most unhelpful way possible.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Because if you're sitting there at the caucus site, you
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: show up, they close the doors, and then you see
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: an alert on your phone that says, oh, Donald Trump won.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: Like maybe you're not going to leave it. Like, do
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: you change your vote at that point? Cause you think
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. I mean, it's just not a great
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: thing to do.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Even if it doesn't change, it just, it's so insulting.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: It's so insulting to people who are showing up to vote.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: It sucks.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Look, if there are two things American people trust right now,
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: it's the media and our electoral system. So I don't
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: see what the problem is.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Republican caucus goers love the AP.
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: You know, what a way to restore trust in the
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: media than to call the race before the votes have
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: been cast.
• 41:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: We haven't been down that road before.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Unbelievable.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: All right.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: That's all we got. Uh, Again, we're doing three PSAs
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a week now, three pods every week. So I think
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: we'll have one on Wednesday.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Wednesday and Friday.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: We're going to feed you content like you're foie gras geese.
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: Bye, everyone. We'll talk to you soon.
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Bye.
• 42:19
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• 42:22
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• 42:26
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