Latest / Pod Save America / Iowa Caucus Countdown with Steve Kornacki

Transcript

Iowa Caucus Countdown with Steve Kornacki · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I'm Tommy Vitor.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: John is out for the next couple of weeks because
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: on December 22nd, Teddy Favreau was born. Everyone is happy
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and healthy and was home for Christmas. By all reports,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Charlie is enthusiastically embracing his role as a big brother,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and Leo is adjusting to yet another child invading his house.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: That is true.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: I can confirm that.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: A lot happened while we were off for a couple
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of weeks. Believe it or not, the 2024 election is here.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The Biden campaign is ramping up their attacks on Trump.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Trump is desperately trying to stay on the ballot in
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: two key states. And later on, NBC News election analyst
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Steve Kornacki will join me to break down the Iowa
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: caucus in the upcoming primaries. Tommy, you're actually on the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: ground in Iowa right now doing some reporting for a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: special mini-series that is going to air on this feed
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: next week. Tell us what it's been like in Iowa
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and what you're working on.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Well, so I've been here for a couple of days.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Some folks might remember that back in 2020, I did
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: a limited series on the Iowa caucuses on the Democratic side,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: spent some time with some organizers, went to a bunch
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: of events, got to talk to a bunch of candidates,
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: explained how the caucus process worked, and it was very fun.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: We're doing a smaller version of that this year. where
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: we're digging into the Republican caucuses. We're talking about, frankly, like,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: what are we all doing here? It's kind of the question.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Is there really a race? Does Iowa really matter this year?
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Is Trump running away with it? So we went to
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: a bunch of events yesterday. We saw Vivek. We saw DeSantis.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: We're going to try to see Trump. And those episodes
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: will start to appear in the Pod Save America feed
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: on January 10th. So check them out.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: But first... Every four years, the political media circus turns
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: its eyes to one particular state. So now the Iowa
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: caucuses come on fast right around the corner.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: We are entering that final stretch. The Republican candidates will
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: be flooding this state, making their final pitch to voters,
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: and that includes the frontrunner in this race.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump dominating the polls, good 30 points ahead of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: his nearest rivals.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Reminder that, of course, Donald Trump lost Iowa to Ted
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: Cruz back in 2016. The rest of the.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Field still hoping for a breakthrough. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: has bet big on Iowa. He's visited all 99 counties
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: in the state, even holding a New Year's Eve rally.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: But he's been losing ground to former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: That's right. The Iowa caucuses are less than two weeks away.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: According to the 538 average of Iowa polls, Trump is
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: above 50 percent in leading his rivals by more than
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: 30 points. Tommy, you are a man on the ground
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. You are in Des Moines right now.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Sure am.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Tell me what you've been doing back in Iowa, the
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: place where your political career really took off.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Where my political personality was born. So we got in
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: on Tuesday. We went to a bunch of events yesterday.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: We saw Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy twice, and Dan Asa Hutchinson.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: We went to one of his events. This man has
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: been shot out of a cannon. So I'd love to
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: tell you about everything we've been doing here.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you got to go to an Asa
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Hutchinson event. I feel like that opportunity is going to
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: go away pretty quickly. And it's also, I think, breaking
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: news for people listening to this podcast that Asa Hutchinson
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: is still running for president.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: That was the primary reaction to the photo I tweeted
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: of his event. It's like, look, he seems very nice.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: His staff seemed very nice. The event was so small
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: that it was hard to be mean about it, but
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I think there were 20 people there and 15 of
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: them were students from California on a class trip. So
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: I don't think he's going to have a surprise upset,
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: but we can get into more of that later.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Based on what you've seen at these events, is
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: there anything stick out to you? Do you see any
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: signs of momentum for anyone? What are you seeing?
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: So we'll sort of walk you through what we did.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: So We went to see Ron DeSantis Wednesday morning in
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Dallas County, which is a western suburb. It's a county
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: a little bit west of the Des Moines area. It
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: was a typical town hall meeting with Ron DeSantis. I
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: think there were probably like 60 people there, which, you know,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: 10 a.m. on a Wednesday isn't bad, but it's also
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: not great. The most interesting moment was this voter who
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: pressed Ron DeSantis on why he wasn't going after Trump
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: hard enough. I think we actually have a clip of
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: that that we could play for you guys.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: And I have a couple of questions.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: For one, why haven't you gone directly after?
• 4:32
  Speaker 6: Polls are down. He's, you know, up really high.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by going directly after?
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, you're, in my viewpoint, you're going pretty soft
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: on it.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: But what do you think?
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: So, you know, because we... I've articulated all the differences
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: time and time again on the campaign trail.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: I know.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: I just, I think that there's just a narrative that,
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: I think the narrative is this.
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: I think what the media wants is, is they want
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: Republican candidates to just kind of like.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Smear him personally and kind of do that. That's just
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: not how I roll.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: Okay, good.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: So.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So that was the first 45 seconds of what turned
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: into a quite long exchange. Again, Dan, this is a
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: man named Chris Garcia, older guy, was moving around with
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: a walker, who supports Ron DeSantis. He likes Ron DeSantis.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: He wants to caucus for him. He intends to caucus
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: for him. He wants to vote for him in the
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: general election because he doesn't think Trump can win. But
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: as you heard there, DeSantis' response is... To like, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: think a pretty fair observation or question was to get
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: mad about it. Like it didn't seem, didn't go very well.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very, I was struck by just how
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: defensive he was. Clearly this is a question he gets
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: from donors and others all the time. Like it was
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: like brimming over with frustration about it. It just, on
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: top of his general awkward, seemingly odious personality, it really,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it isn't exactly how, what they sort of message you
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: would want to be closing with at the caucuses, right?
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, attacking your own voters. I mean, my takeaway from
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: going to a DeSantis event was that the guy you
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: see on TV is the guy you see in person.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: He is bad at interacting with human beings. Some woman
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: asked him a question. He said, what's your name? She said,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Gloria. I'm the one who prays for you. And
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: his reaction was like, well, good. And then he just
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: like plowed forward with whatever talking point he wanted to say.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: He seems to step on his own applause lines all
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: the time. Like he'll say some shitty thing about protecting
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: women's sports or whatever. And the audience, unfortunately, gets into
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: it and he just steps on them. The one sort
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: of surprising hit was DeSantis criticized Trump for coming out
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: in support of a new FBI building in Washington, D.C.,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: which people were surprisingly exercised about. But nothing at that
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: event made me think that there was some growing sense
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: of momentum for Ron DeSantis.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Why were people exercised about the FBI building? I don't know.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: I think they've been conditioned to hate the FBI. And
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: it is just sort of weird that Trump waited on
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: this parochial matter about where this building should be, whether
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: it's DC, Virginia, or Maryland.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I guess the context here is that a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: Washington Post poll out this morning shows that 25% of
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: Republicans think the FBI was involved in making January 6th happen.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: So maybe that's why they're upset about it. Yeah. Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's right. I think they're hearing from
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: all of these candidates that the FBI is entrapping Trump
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: or entrapping January 6th protesters. So there's a lot of
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: A lot of skepticism of government.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Now, you also, if I understand your Instagram stories correctly,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: you got on Vivek's campaign bus and spoke to him?
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I did.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I did. How does that happen?
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: Well, listen, first of all, shout out to Vivek's press
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: team or campaign team.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, just clip that social team.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: You know how it is. They're just super nice and
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: helpful and responsive. And frankly, that's a huge contrast to
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the other campaigns. DeSantis' folks won't write us back. Haley's
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: folks won't write us back. Asa Hutchinson's folks are great, surprisingly.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: No surprise. But Trump won't credential us for events or
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: let us into anything. Trump's people won't let us into
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: a coffee with Eric Trump at some point.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Do you think part of the challenge could be that
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: you work for a company called Crooked Media?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. In hindsight, that wasn't good.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: If we were working on the Obama campaign and someone
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: applied for credentials with a right-wing propaganda machine, would we
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: allow them in?
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And that's sort of my point. 2007 me would have said,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: get out of here. Like, go fuck yourself, crooked media.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: So my takeaway from Vivek, we went to two of
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: his events. We saw him in Des Moines, and then
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: we saw him in Newton, Iowa, which, Dan, you remember, Newton,
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Iowa was the place where there was a Maytag plant
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: that got shut down.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And it became kind of the poster child for talking
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: about trade policy and NAFTA and everything. So my takeaway
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was Vivek is– far less obnoxious in the room with
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: voters than he is on television or at debates. You know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: he is energetic, but he's not combative. He is doing
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: an unbelievable number of events. So people always talk about
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: doing the full Grassley. You remember this, Dan?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: The full Grassley?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: The full Grassley. You go into all 99 counties is
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the full Grassley.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought I
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was thinking full Ginsburg in my head.
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: The Sunday shows under one day.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just sort of regurgitating terrible D.C., terms of art.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: But so the Vake has done the full Grassley twice,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: which means he's gone to all 99 counties twice. His
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: staff told me that he will do, or Vake actually
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: said this, he'll do something like 330 events by the
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: time the caucuses are over, which is just like, I
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: think more than all of his opponents combined. He's traveling
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: around with his wife and kids, which, you know, would
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: humanize anyone. I think he is much better at interacting
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: with voters than Ron DeSantis. Like he smiles like a
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: normal person he says thank you when people compliment him
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: he's really nice to their kids I know all of
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: that sounds very basic, but when you go from a
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Ron DeSantis event to a Vivek Ramaswamy event, you notice
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: the contrast. You really do. And so the Des Moines
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: event was like 100 people in the middle of the day.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: It was sort of not that interesting. But yeah, they
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: let us jump on his tour bus from Des Moines
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: to Newton, Iowa and spend some time interviewing him.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Were you worried you were being kidnapped?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I was worried that there was a chance I might
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: get let out onto the side of the highway at
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: some point halfway there.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know how much time our
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: listeners still spend on Twitter. You spend less time, but
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I would say of the time you spend, much of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: it is just attacking Vivek.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: I actually think we have a brief clip of my
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: conversation with Vivek where I was trying to press him
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: on his comment that January 6th was an inside job.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I think you're right to question, like, to talk about
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: Watergate or the Iraq War times the FBI.
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: Of course, because that's Nixon and Bush. But I will,
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: and I do talk about those things. I mean, the
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: Iraq War was based on lies.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: But it still doesn't mean that thousands of people traipsed
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: through the Capitol because the FBI let them in there.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: No, but I didn't say the FBI let them in there.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: So, you know.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: That was how a lot of it went.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Great job, Tommy. Great job.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Listen, the conversation built. We started with some Iowa stuff.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: We got into some foreign policy stuff, where frankly, he's
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: a lot more interesting to talk to. And then we
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: got into some of the kind of conspiratorial sounding things
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: he's been tweeting. And so, look, the vibe in the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: interview was different. He is like on edge. He's very intense.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I could tell he seemed annoyed maybe that his staff
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: had booked this because he said something like, I'm sure
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: your podcast is listened to by lots of Iowa caucus goers.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, totally.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: And actually, he.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Name checked me and the show at his Newton event.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And he was in front of the crowd. And he's like,
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: what's your show called again? I was like, Pod Save America.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: You guys should subscribe.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: You had to speak in the show? Yeah, I was
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like- You had to speak at the event?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, subscribe to Pod Save America. You
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: guys will hate it. But he was prepared to go
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: to war with me, right? I think he probably wanted
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: a screaming batch or at least expected that. That was
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: not my goal. I wanted to understand the guy. It's
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: hard to shout at someone on their campaign bus with
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: their kids there. My takeaway- from the conversation and from
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: watching him is that the Vigs team, they obviously want
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: to get votes from traditional caucus goers, but they're also
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: going after this demographic of people that just seem to
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: distrust government that are more in the like RFK Jr.,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Joe Rogan, InfoWars worlds. And that's interesting strategically because maybe
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: those people aren't showing up in polls, but I don't
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: know that that's going to, you know, get you to
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: 50% of the vote. The thing I was pressing him
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: on there was he keeps saying that January 6th was
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: an inside job. He keeps saying they kind of scare quotes,
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: aren't going to let Trump or Biden get to the
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: finish line. He's tweeting about Jeffrey Epstein. So I was
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: just trying to get him to help me understand his
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: worldview because all his events have backdrops that say the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: word truth on them. And truth is different than anti-censorship, right?
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Like if you want to have Alex Jones on your show,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: He had Alex Jones on his podcast, but they did.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: If you want to have that conversation to make a
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: point about not censoring anyone in freedom of speech, sure,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: that's fine. But Alex Jones is not someone who's known
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: for speaking the truth. So I was trying to suss
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: that out with him, but basically he just talked over
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: me whenever I pushed back.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: That seems about right. Let's take a step back a
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: little bit and think about what's going to happen on
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: January 15th on caucus night. I mean, it's worth noting
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that Iowa awards only 40 of the 1,200 or so
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: delegates you need to become the Republican nominee. And therefore,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: winning and getting all those delegates is often less important
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: than simply just beating expectations. What do you think Haley, DeSantis,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: or Vivek need to do to build some momentum or
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: have something that they can attribute as success?
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: Well, it's funny. It's like there's what they think they
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: need to do and what they probably need to do.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And those are different things, right? I mean, they all
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: think they need to exceed expectations, which is a nebulous
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: way that all of us who have ever worked on
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: a campaign, especially in Iowa, define success. So for Vivek,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: the last Des Moines Register poll had him at about 5%.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: That was a month ago. If he can bring in
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: some of those sort of off-the-radar screen folks and turn
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: them out and double that number and get 10%, that
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: could surprise people. That could give them a little bounce, right?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: The same is true for DeSantis. I think he had
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: 19% in the register poll. Trump had 51% in that poll,
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: by the way. If he can cut that margin to
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: like 50-30, maybe that helps. I mean, DeSantis is going
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: hard in Iowa too. He's gone to all 99 counties.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: Tell me what you think, Dan. I mean, I think
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: Haley seems to be more focused on New Hampshire. She's
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: coming back to Iowa for a couple events. And this
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Americans for Prosperity PAC says that they're now going to
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: rev up some ground game field operation for her. for
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: the last three weeks, but I'm very skeptical that that
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: will be effective.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she seems, Haley, I talked about this a little
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: bit in my conversation with Steve Kornacki, which you will
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: hear after this, but Haley seems a little betwixt and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: between strategy-wise.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And on one hand, there is an argument, and part
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: of the problem is that most of her money is
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: coming through her super PAC by which she has only
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: limited influence over, and actually multiple super PACs. There is
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: an argument for trying to, to take out DeSantis in Iowa.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: So she could be somehow beat DeSantis in Iowa. They're
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: basically tied in the average, uh, the five 38 average
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: right now. And to come in second to Trump, that
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: would be the expectations. Give her some additional momentum going into, uh,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. DeSantis, I don't really know what happens unless
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: he somehow in the polls are all wrong or they
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: have shifted dramatically since the Des Moines register poll right
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: before the holidays. Um, And he is somehow north of 30.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Trump has bled. And when DeSantis gains a voter, he's
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: usually gaining it from Trump, not someone else, because he's
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: the second choice of most Trump voters. So if somehow
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: he gets it really close and just shocks the world
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: by losing by 15 as opposed to 30, maybe that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: gives him something. He is a lot like, to use
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: an analogy that is a little, unfortunately, close to your heart,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: which is He's a little like John Edwards in 2004,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: which is even if he does well in Iowa, he
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a next– he's not strong in New Hampshire.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So it's hard to get momentum out of Iowa, go
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to a state where you're pretty weak, and then maintain
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: that momentum heading to the next state after that. Because
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: you have a week to drive in New Hampshire, then
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you have a month between New Hampshire and South Carolina.
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: And that is– so if you do not have a–
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: if you cannot get a second bounce out of New
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: Hampshire– you can't really, no candidates ever really made it
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to South Carolina that way, right? Where you fail in
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, other than Joe Biden is the exception to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: that rule, who got no bounce out of Iowa, no
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: bounce out of New Hampshire, maybe a little bounce out
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: of the Nevada caucus. And then obviously won South Carolina
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and was the nominee like 16 seconds later.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I mean, Trump's coming back
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: to Iowa. He's doing a bunch of big events over
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: the next few days, including a couple of fun ones
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: on January 6th. Who isn't excited for that anniversary celebration?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've been on the ground for a couple
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of days. All this is like anecdotal information. But did
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: we see some groundswell support for DeSantis or Vivek? Absolutely not.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: And I'm with you. I mean, I think if DeSantis
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: gets third or even fourth in Iowa, like everyone on
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: his staff is going to tell him you need to
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: drop out. You need to endorse Trump. You need to
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: preserve your political future such as it is. I do
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: think you're right that Haley has a path, a limited,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: not a likely one, but as a path both to
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: do well in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Vivek said
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: something to me like, you know, I'm sticking in this
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: for the long haul. I mean, I do think it's
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: a question of sort of what his goal is here.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: The taking him literally version of it is he thinks
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: that there's some chance that Trump gets arrested, indicted, taken
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: off the ballot. You know, he's literally saying these things.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: And maybe then he emerges. The more cynical view of
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: his future is he has used this entire campaign to
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: as a way to build name ID and a base
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: of support in these conservative circles, which could then vault
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: him to some future job, whether it's in the administration
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: or being, you know, the next sort of conservative media
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: darling Ben Shapiro type, who knows. But, you know, all
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of them are saying we need to just exceed expectations
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: and then we'll take on Trump. But if Trump wins Iowa,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: he will have beat his performance in 2016 when he
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: lost to Ted Cruz. And then he's got eight days
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: to New Hampshire. So I'm as skeptical as you are
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: that there's really time to catch up to him, especially
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: when you consider that a lot of the Super Tuesday
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: states have been tweaked so that if someone gets 50%
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: or more of the vote, it's basically winner take all.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: And Trump can just lock this thing up super fast.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: So while Iowa may be looking good for Trump, he's
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: got some other problems, specifically Maine and Colorado, where the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: state officials are attempting to remove him from the presidential ballot.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which is also
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: known as the Insurrection Clause. Trump has appealed both those decisions,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: which will almost certainly be in front of the Supreme
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Court before long. Tommy, neither of us are qualified to
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: weigh on the constitutional merits of that question, although you
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: should feel free to do so if you would like.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: But what do you think of the politics? Does this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: help or hurt Trump? What do you make of the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: whole idea of kicking Trump off the ballot?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think in the primary, it almost certainly
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: helps him that we're having this conversation because it's just
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: like another part of his case that the system is
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: rigged and everyone's trying to go after him. And it
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: means that everyone competing against him gets asked this question
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: and that becomes their headline.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: Of the day.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: And you've got Vivek out there leading the charge saying
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: that he, Vivek, will pull himself off the Colorado ballot
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: if Trump is pulled off, right? So that's kind of
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: a funny way to compete with someone. I also saw
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: in the Times this morning, there's now formal challenges to
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Trump's candidacy in at least 33 states. You know, my
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: fear is that we see some red states try to
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: do the same thing to Biden, get him thrown off
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: the ballot for some trumped up reasons. So, you know,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: like a year ago, Dan, I probably would have thought
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: that the indictments, an issue like this would be good
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: fodder for all of these Republican opponents to Trump to
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: make an electability argument against him. But so far, the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: opposite has has been the case. So we'll see what
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: the Supreme Court does.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know that the politics... matter that much
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: beyond the primary. You are absolutely correct that the dynamic
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that has existed throughout this primary repeated itself here, which
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: is someone does something to Trump. Some, quote unquote, unfriendly
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: anti-MAGA entity, a district attorney, the Department of Justice, a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Democratic Secretary of State, a liberal court does something to Trump.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: The MAGA media machine rallies to his defense and every candidate,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: all of his opponents are asked, what do you think
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: about this? Then they defend Trump. And so you end
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: up in all kinds of situations where his opponents are
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: amplifying his message. It's an opportunity cost for his opponents
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: because they're not talking about it. Now, none of them
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: are deft enough to actually use this to their advantage
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: by saying, using this as example of the chaos that
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: surrounds Trump, that's an argument for maybe why he's not
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: our best bet to actually beat Biden because they're just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: one-dimensional checkers players. But once again, it's helping there. In
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the long run, we're talking about two states. The Supreme
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Court is going to weigh in here. Other states may
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: do it, but this isn't how– and I don't think
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: anyone is making this argument, but this is not how
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: we're going to beat Trump, right? It's not going to–
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: even if it– like I can't speak to the constitutionality
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of it, but if the simple question is people who
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: engage in insurrection cannot run for president, well, guess what
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump did and guess what he's trying to do?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: under that view of it, yeah, he probably should not
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: be on the ballot anywhere. And there are multiple ways
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: in which he could have been stopped from being on
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: the ballot, dating back to the Republicans refusing to convict
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: him at his second impeachment for engineering an insurrection. But
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: in terms of the general election, he's going to be–
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: maybe he ends up not on the Colorado ballot, maybe
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: not on the Maine ballot, maybe another place. And that
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: We'll probably have some consequences for down ballot Republicans there
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: if Trump is not pulling voters out. Like if I
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was like Lauren Boebert or some other Republican in Colorado,
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I'd be pretty nervous about my turnout without Trump on
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the ballot. But it's all sort of, I think, small
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: potatoes related, politically small potatoes related to the larger forces
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: that are going to decide this election.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, to the extent that any of these candidates
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: are making a contrast with Trump, like you're seeing some specifics.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: I think Haley is out with an ad today about
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: a gas tax campaign. critique of Trump or something like that.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: It's a Trump attack on Haley for the gas.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sorry. Haley attacks him about the national debt, right?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: They'll all point out that the wall didn't get finished
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: and that Mexico didn't pay for it. But they don't
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: really make an argument besides sort of alluding to the
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: fact that maybe you want someone younger, maybe you want
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: someone without the baggage. And even Ron DeSantis, when he
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: has a voter begging him to make that case because
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: that's what that voter believes kind of whiffs on the opportunity.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I imagine this will just help him.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: One more thing on Trump. He told Maggie Haberman in
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: the New York Times that he's going to spend a
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: lot of time in the coming weeks at his various
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: trials and even plans to testify in the Jean Carroll
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: defamation case. Now, let's presume he's not actually going to testify.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: He said he's going to testify in every trial. He
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: never does. But what do you think about Trump taking
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the time during this critical period in the primary? and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sitting in a courtroom again all across the country.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, I sort of feel like the strategy is
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I mean, he's like, well,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: my numbers are only going up. His political ethos seems
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to be no matter what, be the center of attention,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: be the story. And there's reports, I think it was
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: in Maggie's story in the Times, that Trump and his
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: aides loved the OJ Chase style attention that his drive
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: to the courtroom got. And they know that Republican primary
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: voters have rallied around him when he was prosecuted and
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: that his opponents have tied themselves up in knots and
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: refused to exploit what seemed like a very easy advantage
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: for them. Even like Ron DeSantis, I think, over the
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Christmas break was whining that he wished Trump never got indicted,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: which is just an incredible thing to say about your
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: political opponent.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, that is sort of the metaphor of Republican
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: politics in this current era right there.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like what a thing to whine about. You know,
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: we also have Trump trying to argue that, you know,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: because the Senate didn't convict him in his impeachment case,
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: he is now immune to all prosecution, which is an
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: interesting and rather novel legal argument. So I think like
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: long term, the Trump folks know that a conviction would
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: be a real problem for him in the general election.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: They've seen the same numbers we have. They'll try to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: prevent that from happening in any way they can. But
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: I think until then, they're just going to message this
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: and try to win these sort of like day to
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: day PR fights in any way possible. And if the
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: easiest way to do that is from a courtroom, I
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: guess so be it. Consider me as skeptical as you
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: are though, Dan, that he will ever testify.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would be a truly insane choice given
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: just how he speaks generally. I was just like, as
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a general rule as a lawyer, do not let him
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: be under oath at any point. I have a sort
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of a I agree that on the margins, this is
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: probably helpful in the primary. It will suck up attention.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: It'll have that dynamic we just talked about, about his
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: forcing discussion of these elite liberal forces trying to take
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: down Trump because he's a threat to the system, which
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is good for him in Republican politics and maybe good
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: for him with even a larger swath of voters than
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: we really would be comfortable with. But my take on
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's rise in the polls– is that he is
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: rising in 2024 for the exact opposite reasons he rose
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in 2016. He rose in 2016 by dominating attention. Everything
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: was about Trump. He became our national monoculture. You couldn't,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: he was on TV all the time. He was the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: topic of every conversation. It was, it was a pop
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: culture conversation. It was a, the dominant story. 2024, he's
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: actually risen in my view because he's not the center
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of attention. He's not on Twitter. He's not really on
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: TV that much. There's a lot of TV coverage of Trump.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Fewer people are paying attention to news and they're not,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: most people, people always think this is crazy when we
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: say this, but most people have no idea that Donald
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Trump is about a month from being the Republican nominee.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Like that is going to blow away a large swath
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: of Americans. And so he is deciding to highlight his
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: greatest vulnerability. It's not the E. Jean Carroll trial is
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: an example of just what a disgusting human being he is. Um,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: But talking about the January 6th case and all of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: those things, he's shining a light on his greatest general
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: election vulnerability at the exact moment when voters are beginning
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: to pay attention. And that could be a mistake in
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the long run, right? I don't think Trump's not known
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: as a long-term thinker, but I do think there is
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: real risk in what he's doing. And for only what
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: are likely to be marginal gains in a primary that
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: he is winning by 35 points, right?
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: No, I think that's right. I mean, I think it's
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: The argument that probably works very well for them is, hey,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: remember when Trump was in office, the tweets were annoying,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: but gas prices were low. I mean, I think that's
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: kind of like simple but effective. But if you're making
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: people relive every moment of impeachment or January 6th or
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: all these sort of really dark events that were part
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: of the Trump first term, I don't I'm with you
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: that I don't think that helps you in a general election.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Speaking of 2024, President Biden is kicking off the new
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: year by ramping up his campaign with a focus on
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the threat Trump poses to democracy. On Friday, he's giving
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a speech in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania to mark the third
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. And on Monday, Biden
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: heads to Charleston to speak at the historically black church
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: where nine parishioners were killed by a white supremacist in 2015.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: They also launched this ad.
• 28:19
  Speaker 6: I've made the preservation of American democracy the central issue
• 28:21
  Speaker 6: of my presidency.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I believe in free and fair elections.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: And the right to vote fairly and have your vote counted.
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: There's something dangerous happening in America. There's an extremist movement
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.
• 28:37
  Speaker 6: All of us are being asked right now, what will
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: we do to maintain our democracy? History's watching.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: The world is watching.
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: Most important, our children and grandchildren will hold us responsible.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: What do you think of the Biden campaign strategy of
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: focusing so much attention on January 6th and the threat
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to democracy as opposed to issues like inflation, the economy,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the border, that sort of stuff?
• 29:02
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, my gut on this is, as we learned
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: at the White House, Dan, choosing your message of the
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: day is the easy part. Getting it covered is the
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: really hard part. So the White House is smart. They
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: know that everyone is going to be focused on the
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: January 6th anniversary of They know that the Washington Post
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: just had a poll out that found 55% of Americans
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: believe that storming the Capitol was, quote, an attack on
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: democracy that should not be forgotten. And that includes a
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: majority of independents who feel that way. So I do
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: think it's smart to give a big speech that day.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: It's smart to fold it into a broader narrative about democracy.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they anticipate that Trump will do or say
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: something stupid or crazy at one of his events that
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: will help sort of add some fuel to their fire.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if they announced how much or
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: if any money is behind that ad, but you put
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: out an ad as a press release half the time.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: So it could just be that. But I think it's
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: smart to package this all up.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. It would be, I think,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: somewhat naive to think that this is the full– here
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we are here on January 4th getting the full view
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of how Joe Biden is going to run against Donald
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Trump who's not yet the nominee. Will democracy and freedom
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: be part of the campaign? Absolutely. Is the anniversary of
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: January 6th the exact right time to highlight that message
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: because you might get it covered?
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: Absolutely.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And to your point on the ad, whether– where
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it will run, where it will run, I don't– if
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: they put that out, that information, I don't know. But
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: they gave it exclusively to Morning Joe this morning. So
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: at least it was a– I'm sure it will play
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: on the cable channel all day and probably part of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the audience of that is just Biden supporters, just to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: show that he's out there fighting. And I think that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: is probably even more important than what he says and
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: does on January 6th. And I should note actually the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: speech was supposed to be on Saturday, which is the
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: anniversary of January 6th, but there is– apparently a blizzard
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: coming to the East coast. And so they moved it
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: up a day so they could make sure they actually
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: got to give the speech, which is another example of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: just how hard it is to get your message covered
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: in the white house. Sometimes even weather gets.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: In the way.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Too bad there wasn't a blizzard a couple of years ago.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: It could have saved us a lot of trouble.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: That is, do you think those people were going to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: stop because of snow? Yeah.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe their flights wouldn't land. They're all
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: their private jets that they flew it on these economically
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: anxious people.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: That's right. Um, I just think Joe Biden fighting is good.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Just the image of him. He gave a very good
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: speech on the one year anniversary of January 6th. Uh,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that was very powerful. I did it from the Capitol,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: something like that, that just shows energy and vigor and a,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: you know, that he's taking on this very real threat, um,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: is good politics for him. So I think this is the,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: this is the right thing to do. It doesn't mean
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: he's not going to talk about inflation and that his
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: accomplishments and all the other things are going to be
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: part of this. Um, But I guess the question is,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: what else do you think Biden needs to be doing
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: on top of this? CNN reports, you're going to be
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: shocked by this, that congressional Democrats want him to spend
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: more time laying out a second term agenda. What do
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: you think the right balance is here?
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: One top House aide told CNN, what's our bumper sticker?
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: What's our making America great again? Of course, Joe Biden
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: needs to lay out a vision for his re-elect. I
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: don't know that that has to happen urgently. Like, you're
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: not going to send out a PDF and be like,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: here it is on, you know, January 8th. Here's our
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: here's our reelect message. I mean, Dan, you would have
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: a much better sense of this and memory of it
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: than I would for the reelect because you were working
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: on that. And I was a full time NSC nerd
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: at that point, just like not solving the whole Benghazi problem.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: But I suspect that Biden will kickstart this process during
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: the State of the Union. And over the coming months,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: you'll do a series of policy speeches and events to
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: highlight kind of pieces of the platform, things you're fighting for,
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: what you want to do with the second term, what
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: you would do with a democratic Congress. And then I
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: suspect you'd want that platform and the narrative to be
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: fully baked by his convention speech. And then you're just
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: kind of hammering away from there. But, you know, that
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: vision has to include a contrast with your opponent, which
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: he doesn't have yet. And if you're talking about all
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: these things too early, you won't get it covered. You
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: won't get the attention and it will just be be
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: a waste of time. So I suspect sort of in
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the more immediate term, they're thinking about getting back the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: Democratic voters that they lost, making sure the party is unified.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: That could come from a second term agenda. That could
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: come from highlighting the threat from Trump. It could come
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: from course correcting on current policy, like the handling of Gaza.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I imagine it will require a mix of all of it.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, those congressional leaders are not wrong,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: but maybe just a little premature.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean... Yes. Of course, you need to say
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: something about what you're going to do if you're reelected.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: That's table stakes. The State of the Union will be
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: for Biden, as it was for Obama, the first place
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to begin to lay that out. There will be specific
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: policies involved. In some of these stories, there are some
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: ideas previewed around taxes on stock buybacks, additional efforts to
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: protect the Affordable Care Act, which are obviously specific contrasts
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: against Republican economics, against Trump's pledge to repeal the ACA.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: That will sort of ladder up to the convention speech,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: which will be the next biggest audience the president will have,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: or hopefully that will be the biggest audience the president has,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: even bigger than, say, the union, to lay out his vision.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: The vision is more important than the details of the vision,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: and the details need to be essentially proof points for
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the kind of president Biden will be in a second term.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: what's the details of the white paper is not really
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: going to matter. And it's going to matter, I think,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: even less than before, because people are just so... As
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: cynical as people were when we were trying to get
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: Barack Obama reelected, they're even way more cynical now. So
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: if Joe Biden stands up and says, I'm going to
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: do this big, huge thing for the voters that he
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: most needs to win over, they're going to be pretty
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: skeptical that he can get that done. That's not even
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: really about Joe Biden. It's just about a broken political system.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And so you'd Along with that, he'll need a theory
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of change. Like what can he do that– what can
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: he get done? Is he going to get a trifecta
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: without a– with enough senators to not be bedeviled by
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: the filibuster? It's going to be hard to sell that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: to the press given the Senate map. But yes, you're
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: going to need some things to say. You're going to
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: want– because people are going to have to answer– he's
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: going to have to answer questions and canvassers are going
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: to have to answer questions at the door. Like what
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: does it mean for me? And what does it mean
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: can be protecting the progress we've made? It could mean
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: ensuring the ACA is not repealed. It could mean he
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: will be the bulwark against the federal abortion ban that
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: a Republican Congress wants to pass. All of those things
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: like that. But congressional Democrats always want this. And it matters,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: but it is not decisive, in my opinion.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: And look, I mean, part of it is they're probably
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: feeling like they're going on TV and they're constantly on
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: their back foot and they're getting asked about his age
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: and they're getting asked about his polling. And they want
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: to talk about what he would do and bring it
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: back to substance and go on offense again, which I
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: appreciate and respect. But I just think it's something you
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: can do with broader sets of contrasts and ideas and
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: values and vision versus, you know, laying out a full
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: second term agenda.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: The Biden campaign has been getting much more aggressive with
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Trump in recent weeks. Um, in a CNN report, it
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: said that they often, the Biden campaign jokes about going
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: quote full Hitler for the moments in which they feel
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: they can compare Trump to the Nazi leader. Uh, Are
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: you surprised we've gotten to the Hitler comparisons by January
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of 2024?
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: What is the old saying? The first rule of comparing
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: someone to Hitler is don't, I think.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I think that rule has apparently changed because they've been
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: doing it for months and it seems fine, I guess.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: I mean, well, just to be a little more nuanced,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: I do think it's important to talk about the dangers
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: of incitement and political rhetoric. I mean, we know that
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: the great replacement theory, for example, has inspired white nationalists
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: and mass shooters in the US and New Zealand, all
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: over the place. We know that language like talking about
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: immigrants having tainted blood or dehumanizing language like calling people
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: rodents or vermin can be precursors to real violence. But
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: I think you have to make sure you make those
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: arguments in a way where you don't sound hyperbolic because
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: I just think you're less convincing. So you can say
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: that's the kind of language that was used by the
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Nazis and explain the context. But if you say this
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: person is like Hitler, I think a lot of folks
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: kind of tune you out.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is the hard part with all of these
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: comparisons of Trump to authoritarians and dictators and white supremacists
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: is they are substantively correct or spiritually correct in what
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: he is pushing for. But the challenge is Donald Trump
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: was just president three years ago. And so when you
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: say Donald Trump's going to be a dictator, people didn't
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: see the right or wrong. People did not see the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: original Trump presidency as a dictatorship. They may have found
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of things problematic about it, it being overly chaotic,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it being overly corporatist, it being ineffective in a lot
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: of ways, but they didn't think it was a dictatorship.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: And so you're going to have to make the case
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in a pretty relentless and specific and easily understood way
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: if you want to do that. That does not mean
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: that the Biden folks can't post some threads with pictures
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: of Trump and Hitler to make a point. you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: like that's fine. That's not really, that's just sort of
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: inside baseball, but on the larger argument about Trump as
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: an authoritarian, Trump as a Nazi, Trump as a dictator,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: it's a, I think it is a more challenging case
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to make than a lot of us would like it
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to be. Yeah.
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: I mean, right.
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: I think you just have to be specific, you know,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: and I think part of this, this always gets broken
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: down into a debate about, are we talking about culture war?
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: Are we talking about values or are we talking about
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: kitchen table issues? And the, much more boring reality is
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: you have to do both. And I do think he'll
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: talk about all the things that, you know, show up
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: most in polls, inflation, healthcare, et cetera. But I do
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: think he has to make a case about Donald Trump,
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: his character and reminding people about all the bad parts
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: of his four years in charge that they didn't like that,
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: you know, didn't include, um, being a full on fascist,
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: but included being a pretty God awful human being. It
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: was a terrible leader.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he was fascist adjacent, would be the way to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: put it, I guess.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Yes, there you go.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Before the break, two big Positive America schedule updates. First,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: starting January 16th, we have a new three-day-a-week schedule with
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: episodes dropping Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, because let's face it,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: there's too much going on to cover in just two
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: episodes each week. The takes overfloweth, as they say. Second,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: tune into the two-episode special of On the Ground in
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Iowa for Tommy's on-site analysis of of the GOP caucus
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: and what it means for the pivotal election year ahead.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Listen to it on the Pod Save America feed starting
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: January 10th. When we come back, Steve Kornacki. Joining us
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: now is someone who needs no introduction to political junkies,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: the man behind the magic wall, NBC national political correspondent,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Steve Kornacki. Steve, welcome to the pod.
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: Thanks for having me on, Dan. Good to be here.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: We are two weeks away from Iowa. We are about
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: to head on to a quick succession of New Hampshire,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, Super Tuesday, and then basically every Tuesday for
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a while is going to be an election night. How
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: are you preparing? Have you been doing cardio? Are you
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: standing in front of a board to train for a
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: long period of time? What are you doing to get ready?
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: Um, yeah, I mean, the focus, you know, right now
• 40:42
  Speaker 5: is is Iowa, obviously. And just, you know, if you
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: ever looked at a map of Iowa, you got ninety
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: nine counties. They a lot of them look geographically just
• 40:50
  Speaker 5: their their squares. They look very similar. So trying to
• 40:54
  Speaker 5: to make sure I kind of know where where they
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: all are, especially where the biggies are, what the I
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: think the most important thing for our coverage right now
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: is just the point of comparison that we're going to stress, obviously,
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: for for all these Republican primaries, as long as they go.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: is just 2016, the last open Republican primary, Trump's first
• 41:12
  Speaker 5: time running. How was he doing with certain groups then?
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: How is he doing now? Where has there been growth?
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: Has there been any slippage? Obviously, the question everybody's looking
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: for still is, is there any room, is there any
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: scenario where a DeSantis or a Haley still could make
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: this a game with him?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I know you've been digging into the data in Iowa.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: What's your sense of where the race stands in the
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Hawkeye State?
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: Um, yeah, well, I'll give a good plug here to our, uh, the,
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: the polling partnership that we started this year. And I love,
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: we have a partnership with the Des Moines register and Seltzer,
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: who is the, you know, kind of acknowledged as the,
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: this is a, it's great to have this partnership because
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: I know this is the one everybody waits for and
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: sort of on caucus Eve, she'll release her final numbers.
• 41:56
  Speaker 5: So we'll have that, you know, right before the caucuses.
• 41:59
  Speaker 5: So that'll give us the best sense of it. But
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: We've been in a bit of a lull here in
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: terms of, you know, polling out of Iowa and New
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: Hampshire for that matter. But our most recent one, you know, now,
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: you know, a couple of weeks old, but our most
• 42:12
  Speaker 5: recent one had Trump over 50 percent. We had him
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: growing his support from September to December. We had met
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: 51 percent, DeSantis 19, Haley 16 in Iowa. And, you know,
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: that's the last time you had a Republican candidate. With
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: a lead that big this close to the caucuses, you
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: got to go back to George W. Bush in the
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: 2000 cycle. Bush won Iowa fairly comfortably in 2000. He
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: did get a scare by losing New Hampshire to John McCain,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: but was basically able to win South Carolina and put
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: that one to bed. So that's the kind of historical
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: comparison I got in my mind. And yeah, I think, look,
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: Trump is obviously favored to win Iowa. The question is,
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: does he actually win it? How big does he win it?
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: And does somebody... get a second place showing that allows
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: them to claim a moral victory and some momentum.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I think that's a very important point because, and maybe
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: you can help explain this to our listeners, because so
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: many of whom may have tuned in, started paying close
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: attention to politics, listening to Patsy America, watching election nights
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: with Steve Kornacki after 2016, after Trump won. The Iowa
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: caucus has not picked a Republican nominee for nearly a
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: quarter century now. So why should people care about what's
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: happening on the 15th?
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was. It was George W. Bush in 2000
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: was the last time he had the Iowa winner go
• 43:30
  Speaker 5: on to win the nomination. I think the key is
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: what's happened in the primaries or caucuses since 2000 is
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: that a candidate squarely of the Christian right has won.
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: So in 2008, that was Mike Huckabee. He won Iowa,
• 43:46
  Speaker 5: powered by Christian conservatives. You know, in 2012, it was
• 43:50
  Speaker 5: Rick Santorum and a squeaker over Mitt Romney, but powered
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: by evangelical Christians. And in 2016, Ted Cruz beat Donald Trump,
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: powered by evangelical Christians. They make up, you know, almost
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: in 2016, two thirds of the caucus electorate. I think
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: you're looking at about 60 percent, 65 percent of the
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: caucus electorate roughly is going to identify as a born
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: again or evangelical Christian. And so that group holds tremendous
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: sway there. And you've seen the last candidate who was
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: able to get a win among evangelical Christians in Iowa,
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: but also have broad support among non-evangelical Christians in later
• 44:33
  Speaker 5: states was George W. Bush in 2000. And at least
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: in the polling right now, we're seeing Donald Trump fits
• 44:41
  Speaker 5: that basic pattern that we saw with Bush in 2000,
• 44:44
  Speaker 5: which is to say he leads right now. He finished
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: a very distant second, Trump did, among evangelicals in Iowa
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: in 2016. He now leads by, in our poll, almost
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: 30 points among evangelicals in Iowa. But then you test
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: him in New Hampshire, and again, it's been a while
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: since we've had a really good poll come out of there,
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: but it's, you know, he's got, it's not as dominant,
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: but he's got a lead there. And he's got a
• 45:06
  Speaker 5: lead in every other state poll that we've seen, including
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: South Carolina, Nikki Haley's home state. So there's a breadth
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: of support across the sort of Republican spectrum that you
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: never had with Huckabee, you never had with Santorum, and
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: you never had with Cruz that right now, at least
• 45:22
  Speaker 5: in the polling, Trump has.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is wild, you know, if you were
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: someone sitting back in 2016 to hear that you would
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: be able to likely pick the states where Trump would
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: do best in the primary based on the higher percentage
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: of the voters are evangelical Christians for the thrice-deforced Donald Trump.
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: It's a truly, truly stunning shift, I think, in politics
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: because the ones you mentioned before, Santorum and Huckabee, were
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: true soldiers in the Christian right movement for years beforehand.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: And now they're picking someone who really has been unable
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: to quote a Bible verse for his entire time in
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: public life.
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: It's no, it really is. I mean, we, the numbers
• 46:04
  Speaker 5: are just so stark on it. Like I said, you know,
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: he was at 21%, uh, 22%, I should say in,
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: in 2016, Trump was among evangelicals in Iowa. 22% is
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: what he got in the caucuses. And in our polling
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: now he's at 47%. Um, I thought one thing before
• 46:19
  Speaker 5: Mike Pence dropped out of the race, it was, it
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: was really striking to me. Um, evangelicals were going to
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: be Pence's bedrock. That was the theory of his candidacy.
• 46:28
  Speaker 5: He fits when you talk about like a Huckabee, a Santorum, um,
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: He absolutely fit that profile. He was going to make
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: his stand in Iowa. And the final poll that was
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: taken that we took, literally as Pence was dropping out
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: of the race, had Trump in the high 40s and
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: had Pence at 1% in Iowa among evangelicals. So I
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: think it's a huge story in Iowa and it's a
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: huge story nationally that since the beginning of that 2016 campaign,
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: when there was a lot of skepticism and some plenty
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: of resistance among evangelicals to Donald Trump, it's gone completely different.
• 47:01
  Speaker 5: in the opposite direction now where not only are they
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: supportive of him, but they're one of his core constituencies now.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It seems like based on the ad traffic and what
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: people are saying on the stump that DeSantis and Haley
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: are basically competing against each other for second. And the
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: goal for either one of them is to leave there
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: with some measure, something they can hang on to that says,
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: I have momentum heading into what comes next. What do
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you think success looks for either one of them coming
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: out of Iowa?
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, my sense is the pressure is more on DeSantis
• 47:32
  Speaker 5: because he is simply put more into making a stand
• 47:36
  Speaker 5: in Iowa. He's locked up the endorsement of the governor,
• 47:39
  Speaker 5: Kim Reynolds, who's very popular, although that has not shown
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: any evidence of rubbing off on him. Bob Vander Plaats,
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: who is sort of acknowledged as one of the key
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: leaders of the evangelical movement in Iowa. Again, he got
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: that endorsement. No evidence yet that it's really uh, down
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: to do his benefit. But yeah, I think, look, just
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: the profile of the, the electorate in Iowa, what, uh,
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: what DeSantis has been aiming for in terms of the, the,
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: the groups he, he would like to build a coalition around, uh,
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: Iowa is a state that he should be doing well
• 48:10
  Speaker 5: in if he's, if he's, um, if he's going to
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: be competitive for the nomination and he spent a lot
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: more time in Iowa than, uh, than Nikki Haley has.
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: So I, I, I think there's more pressure on him
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: to get second, but even if he gets second, if it's,
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: if it's a second, like we're seeing in our poll
• 48:24
  Speaker 5: right now, where he's more than 30 points behind Trump,
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure what that, what that gets him. You know,
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: my sense is it would really have to be a second,
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: a surprisingly strong second. And I don't know quite where you,
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: we'll have to see the final numbers to see where you,
• 48:38
  Speaker 5: where you kind of set the bar. It can be
• 48:39
  Speaker 5: funny in Iowa. You know, I mean, the famous story
• 48:42
  Speaker 5: back in 1984, we're going way back in time here.
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: Gary Hart lost Iowa by 34 points to Walter Mondale.
• 48:48
  Speaker 5: But Gary Hart basically won Iowa because somehow he got
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: momentum and he won New Hampshire and it became this
• 48:53
  Speaker 5: political phenomenon. So these weird benchmarks can kind of emerge.
• 48:57
  Speaker 5: But I think DeSantis has got to do something, not
• 49:01
  Speaker 5: just second, but kind of a significant second. Haley is
• 49:04
  Speaker 5: a little different. I think if she gets second for
• 49:06
  Speaker 5: her campaign, it's a big boost because she is much
• 49:11
  Speaker 5: better positioned in New Hampshire than Ron DeSantis is. Haley
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: has some real strengths in New Hampshire. She's running, you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: depending on the polls, she's running fairly competitively with Trump
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: there right now. The big difference is, the two big
• 49:23
  Speaker 5: differences between Iowa and New Hampshire are, we're talking about
• 49:26
  Speaker 5: evangelical Christians, about two-thirds, as I said, of the electorate
• 49:29
  Speaker 5: in Iowa, maybe a quarter in New Hampshire, 20 to
• 49:32
  Speaker 5: 25 percent. So it's one of the most secular Republican
• 49:36
  Speaker 5: electorates you're going to get. And also, the participation of
• 49:40
  Speaker 5: independent voters in the New Hampshire primary, it's basically as
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: high as you're going to find anywhere. In 2012, when
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: Obama was running for re-election and there was really no
• 49:50
  Speaker 5: Democratic primary in New Hampshire, which is similar to what
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: we're going to have this year, 45% of the New
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: Hampshire Republican primary electorate said they were independents who were
• 50:01
  Speaker 5: choosing to participate in the Republican primary that day. And
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: independents is the group that Haley is doing the best
• 50:06
  Speaker 5: among right now. So if she can come out of
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: Iowa with anything that looks like momentum, I do see
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: a potential for her to roll that into New Hampshire
• 50:14
  Speaker 5: and potentially make it interesting there.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: You drew the parallel between this race in 2000. And
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: in that parallel, Trump is George W. Bush, something he
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: would probably not take very kindly to. Or maybe George W.
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Bush probably wouldn't either.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: It's probably mutual, yeah.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And Haley is McCain. Given that and
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: given Haley's strength in New Hampshire, are you surprised that
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Haley's even competing in Iowa? Because Trump, because McCain famously
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: did not compete in Iowa, did not compete again in
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Iowa in 2008 and put all of his chips in
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: New Hampshire. It helped him at least stay alive in
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: 2000 and it helped him become the nominee in 2008.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Have you been surprised by that strategic decision from the
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: Haley folks?
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah, a little bit. Honestly, when I was looking at
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: some of those New Hampshire numbers, I thought she might
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: just kind of just toss Iowa's side. But I think
• 51:05
  Speaker 5: they see an opportunity to beat DeSantis to get second.
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: And whether that would drive DeSantis out of the race
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: on the spot or it would effectively end his candidacy
• 51:16
  Speaker 5: if they were able to pull it off, I think
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: they see that opportunity and potentially to get closer to
• 51:21
  Speaker 5: a one-on-one race with Trump, which is what everybody's goal is.
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: And I think there has to be some recognition in
• 51:26
  Speaker 5: the Haley campaign that if you're relying, if your campaign
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: is disproportionately driven by the support of basically non-Republicans, whether
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: that's independents, whether that's the small number of Democrats who
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: can participate in some of these states, or Republicans who
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: don't like Donald Trump, they're a distinct minority of the
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: Republican electorate, but those who don't like Donald Trump disproportionately
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: like Haley, that is what's driving her support in a
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: lot of ways. And that's not, I think they know
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: that's not enough. to win the Republican nomination. They've got
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: to expand on that. So I think from that standpoint,
• 52:03
  Speaker 5: there's some importance in Iowa in showing that they can
• 52:06
  Speaker 5: win over some of those, some voters who don't fit
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: the profile I was just talking about.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: The challenge, I think, for Haley in that scenario is
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: that in most of the polling that I've seen to date,
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: the second choice of DeSantis voters is not Nikki Haley.
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: It's Donald Trump. And in some senses, if I was
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: seeing the Haley campaign, what I want is DeSantis to
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: grow stronger because the second choice of Trump voters is
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: not Nikki Haley, it's Ron DeSantis. And so I guess
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: ultimately you're going to get to the one-on-one point at
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: some point, and therefore you're going to need a bigger
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: available universe than she currently has. Will you talk a
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: little bit about the role that second choice plays in
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: sort of how people game out these strategies? Yeah.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: No, just in terms of second place in Iowa? Yeah. Yeah, no, right. Look,
• 52:53
  Speaker 5: the problem, Haley, I think, sees the potential of momentum.
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: Second place being momentum, rolling that into New Hampshire. I
• 53:02
  Speaker 5: think they're, you know, Sununu is talking about her, the
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, who endorsed Haley, is
• 53:07
  Speaker 5: talking about winning New Hampshire. But I think they're, you know,
• 53:09
  Speaker 5: they're trying to keep the expectations a bit under wraps.
• 53:12
  Speaker 5: But I think that her campaign would, you know, very
• 53:15
  Speaker 5: much has it on their minds to win New Hampshire.
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: And what that would then set up is you do
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: have Nevada in between New Hampshire and South Carolina. Nevada,
• 53:22
  Speaker 5: it's a very weird situation this year. There's going to
• 53:24
  Speaker 5: be a primary. No delegates are at stake. Haley will
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: be on the primary ballot. There's going to be a
• 53:29
  Speaker 5: caucus two days later. Haley will not be part of that.
• 53:32
  Speaker 5: The delegates will be awarded there. So Nevada is a
• 53:35
  Speaker 5: very weird one. I don't know that it's going to
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: carry much weight this time around. So I think what really,
• 53:39
  Speaker 5: if Haley were to get a strong second or a
• 53:42
  Speaker 5: meaningful second out of Iowa, if this is a huge if,
• 53:45
  Speaker 5: but if she were able to win New Hampshire, you know,
• 53:49
  Speaker 5: she would get, obviously, there'd be a flood of attention,
• 53:51
  Speaker 5: the media spotlight, you know, and there'd be, you know,
• 53:54
  Speaker 5: could she actually knock off Donald Trump? And I think
• 53:56
  Speaker 5: the state then, this would be like that parallel to
• 53:58
  Speaker 5: 2000 with Bush and McCain. The Bush and McCain race
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: went to South Carolina. The Trump and Haley race would
• 54:03
  Speaker 5: go to South Carolina. South Carolina, in this case, her
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: home state, too. And so, you know, she would then
• 54:09
  Speaker 5: need to win. Obviously, she would need to win South Carolina,
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: I think, to make a plausible claim. And, The problem
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: she gets into, she's polling right now much better in
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: New Hampshire than she is in her home state. In
• 54:21
  Speaker 5: South Carolina, again, we talk about New Hampshire being the
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: most secular Republican electorate. South Carolina, I think in 2016,
• 54:28
  Speaker 5: was 72% evangelical. And it's Republican, you know, even more
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: than Iowa. And Trump, of course, you know, swept it
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: in 2016. So, you know, right away, you know, if
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: she gets the huge win out of New Hampshire, you know,
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: she's going to a state that demographically, is a huge
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: challenge for her given, given the nature of her support
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: right now, but it's also her home state. And so I,
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: it'd be awfully tough if she didn't win South Carolina
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: or come awfully close. I think it'd be tough to,
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: to make the case that she's got momentum to continue
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: because there's, there's a lot more states in the, in
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: the Republican primary mix that, that resemble Iowa and South
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: Carolina demographically than that resemble New Hampshire. So from her standpoint,
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: you know, it's, it's get to South Carolina. And I,
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: you know, I don't think they would say this, but
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: I think realistically she would then need to win, South Carolina.
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: And I think for DeSantis, it's to get a strong
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: second out of Iowa, show there's some life there. And
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: then I think he's not pulling that well in New Hampshire.
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: And I think he might run into some of those
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: problems you talk about, like a Huckabee, a Cruz, a
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: Santorum having in New Hampshire. I think he might then
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: look down South, look more to make a stand in
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: South Carolina and some of those Super Tuesday states and say, hey, look,
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: I'm a viable alternative. And I don't know, maybe on
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: some level they're hoping that, you know, this has been
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: the hope of all of Trump's opponents on the Republican
• 55:49
  Speaker 5: side for eight years. Something happens that kind of, you know,
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: marginalizes him or takes him out, but nothing has yet.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: On caucus night, when those first results start to come in,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: are there specific counties or voter groups or turnout numbers
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: you'll be looking for that could possibly suggest that something
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: is upsetting the apple cart of what we all expect,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: a huge Trump win?
• 56:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, there's a couple places I would look,
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: and obviously this just, sometimes these counties don't report until
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: the end of the night, so they end up, you
• 56:18
  Speaker 5: only know it after the fact. But a big one
• 56:21
  Speaker 5: I would look at is in northwest Iowa, Sioux County.
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: Because Sioux County, northwest Iowa, is the most conservative and
• 56:28
  Speaker 5: the most evangelical region in Iowa. It was Trump's worst
• 56:34
  Speaker 5: region in 2016. It was Cruz's best. And Sioux County,
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: of the 99 counties in Iowa, Sioux County is, was
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: the worst one for Donald Trump in 2016. He got
• 56:43
  Speaker 5: 11 percent out of Sioux. So, you know, an overwhelmingly
• 56:47
  Speaker 5: conservative and evangelical county, pretty good size, too. You know,
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: it's not where the big population center in Iowa is,
• 56:54
  Speaker 5: but for that region, it's a good size. So, you know,
• 56:59
  Speaker 5: is he is he winning there? I mean, the polls
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: right now suggest if he's getting 47 percent with evangelicals,
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: he's winning in a place like Sioux. Is he is
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: he just rolling up massive margins? If he is, if
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: we were to get Sue early in the night and
• 57:11
  Speaker 5: Trump were to be up, you know, you know, 20,
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: 30 points, something like that, I think it'd be very
• 57:17
  Speaker 5: hard to see how DeSantis is having a good night.
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: If you were to get Sue and DeSantis were, you know,
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: within single digits, you might say, oh, this might be
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: a little more interesting than we thought. So on the
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: one end, it's that. On the other end, you know,
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: you look at some of these suburban areas. You could
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: look at Polk County where Des Moines is. You could
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: look right outside at Dallas County. suburbs of Des Moines.
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: This is another place where Trump struggled in 2016. It's,
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: it's not here. The evangelical presence is a lot lower,
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: but what you're going to get more are college educated suburban. Uh,
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: these are the types of Republicans who traditionally vote more
• 57:53
  Speaker 5: on pocketbook issues. And they were very uncomfortable with Trump
• 57:58
  Speaker 5: in Iowa and in other States have been since 2016. Obviously, um,
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: this is an area where Haley in the polling, you know,
• 58:04
  Speaker 5: we're seeing it suggests she do very well. Um, How
• 58:07
  Speaker 5: well is she doing here? How poorly is Trump doing
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: in these suburban areas? Because, again, if Haley were suddenly
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: rolling up huge numbers here or if Trump were just
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: lagging badly, maybe even DeSantis was running up huge numbers here, again,
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: you could say, well, this might be interesting here for
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: the night. But if Trump's holding his own there and
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: running up big numbers with evangelicals, then you're going to
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: get a result that looks like the polls do right now.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: Are Haley and DeSantis competing for those college-educated Republican voters
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: in Polk and Dallas County?
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: You know, it seems Haley, it seems has much more
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: appeal to them, at least just based on the polling
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: right now. The DeSantis strategy really from the beginning has been,
• 58:49
  Speaker 5: it seems to sort of sell Trumpism without Trump. But
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: it's complicated by the fact that he's he's very reluctant
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: to make that explicit case of why You should want
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: him and not want Trump. And that's because of Trump's overwhelming.
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: The thing that's complicated this for everybody is just Trump
• 59:07
  Speaker 5: is overwhelmingly popular with Republican voters. So you look at
• 59:11
  Speaker 5: our poll in Iowa and you just ask among Republicans, favorable, unfavorable,
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: and you tick through the candidates. We had Trump at
• 59:19
  Speaker 5: 72% favorable in our last poll. DeSantis, we had at
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: 66% favorable. And so I think that gets to the
• 59:26
  Speaker 5: dilemma here that he's faced and I don't think has
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: found a way to resolve all year, which is that
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: like he's, it's not that Republicans are looking at DeSantis
• 59:34
  Speaker 5: and saying, Oh no, I don't like this guy. They
• 59:36
  Speaker 5: like him. They like him. Um, but I think a
• 59:39
  Speaker 5: big reason they like him is that he has not
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: gone head on against Trump because the people who have
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: gone head on against Trump, you just look in the poll,
• 59:50
  Speaker 5: Chris Christie, no one has been more aggressively out there
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: against Trump in the, in, uh, in this campaign than Christie.
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: Christie's number is like, 15, 20% favorable among Republicans. We're
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: looking at 60, 65, 70% unfavorable for Christie. That's what
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: squarely aligning yourself against Trump will do to you. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: I think that DeSantis recognized that from early in the campaign.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: And I think his belief, his campaign's belief and assumption
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: from the start of the campaign was that the 2022
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 5: midterms where Republicans underperformed and where the Trump aligned candidates
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: cost Republicans the Senate and cost them some key statewide races,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: that in the wake of that, there was a growing
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: consensus among the Republican electorate that, hey, yeah, we like Trump,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: but it's time to move on. And DeSantis would be
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: there to fill that void. And in fact, the early,
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 5: early polling, I mean, I'm talking about like December 2022,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: January 2023, showed, seemed to show that DeSantis was very
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 5: competitive in those polls. If you did a line graph
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 5: of 2023 in the polling, where the Trump and DeSantis
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: lines diverge and Trump just takes off like a rocket
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: and DeSantis begins this slow descent. It was early March 2023.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 5: And that's when that first Trump indictment, you know, in
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 5: Manhattan over the Stormy Daniels matter came out. And it
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 5: was almost like that was the rally around Trump moment.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 5: And Republicans did that and they have stayed behind him.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 5: And in fact, in the polling, at least even grown
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 5: in their support for him since then.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: It's interesting you raise how popular DeSantis is with Republicans
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: because I think people who are just not looking at
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: the polling, just following the news coverage, we're sort of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: shocked about that. Trump has been relentless in his mocking
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: and frankly bullying of DeSantis. There have been a bunch
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: of negative ads about DeSantis. He's been memefied on social
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: media and cable news for his awkwardness and his weird
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: encounters with people. The narrative of the race is Trump
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: is strong and if anyone is surging, it is Haley.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: And I think it is true that Haley has, albeit
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: a narrow one, a clearer path to possibly winning. But
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: DeSantis is 20 points more popular in a lot of
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: these polls. And one of the most interesting dynamics is
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: that as Haley has, quote unquote, surged, mainly in New Hampshire,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: the number of Republicans in the polling who are open
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: to voting for her has gone down. nationally and the,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: and her approval rating has gone down. Can you talk
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit about that dynamic?
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: And that's that I, you know, that's what did in
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: going back in time here. That's what did in John
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 5: McCain against George W. Bush, because the dynamic then was Bush,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: as we said, one Iowa, uh, McCain didn't really contest it.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: McCain said, I'm all in on New Hampshire. Remember the
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: straight talk express, the bus, the reporters, everything's on the record.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 5: And he, you know, he was kind of, he was the,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: be honest, the candidate of the media, uh, um, in 2000.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: And it was so, so attractive to, uh, independent voters
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 5: who play such a huge role in New Hampshire. And
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 5: so he swamped Bush in New Hampshire. It was a
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: 20 point win. It was the magnitude nobody saw coming.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 5: And it was like, holy cow, is this guy actually
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 5: going to beat Bush? And what the Bush campaign immediately
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: turned around and did was it made the race Bush
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 5: versus McCain, a referendum on, are you a real Republican
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: or are you, you know, uh, are you, um, what
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: was the word Bush used? A mischievous Democrat, a mischievous
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 5: independent who's taking their cues from the media and, you know,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: trying to cause trouble in the Republican primary. It was like,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: if you're loyal to the party, you're voting Bush. You know,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 5: a vote for McCain is a disloyal vote for a Republican.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 5: That's what the Bush campaign message was post New Hampshire.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And it worked.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 5: And McCain did have some success after New Hampshire, but
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: it was all, it was directly related to like, could
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: independents vote in the state? How big was the presence
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: of independence in the state? You know, McCain won Michigan.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 5: You know, it had enough of an independent, even Democratic
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: presence there. But, you know, a state like South Carolina,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: Bush was able to win easily. And so that's the
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: problem that Haley, I think, faces. Again, to the extent
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 5: that her success is seen as coming from either non-Republicans
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 5: or from Trump hostile Republicans, I think it's going to,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: it risks, and we're seeing already, it engenders the same
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: reaction from core Republican voters that McCain's strength among independents
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 5: and Bush skeptical Republicans did in 2000. And that is like, nope,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: this is the media's candidate. This is the Democrats' candidate.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 5: We're not doing this. We want the real Republican. And,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: you know, I think that's how Trump is viewed by
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 5: a lot of these Republicans when it comes down to it.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: And that's a very different Republican party than what we're
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: talking about now. And also notable is in that period
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: between there's a... Iowa and New Hampshire happen in quick succession,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: and then there's a gap between New Hampshire and South Carolina.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: How these candidates navigate that gap will determine their success.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: McCain made some mistakes, but also the Bush folks launched
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: a vicious assault against him. Now, that likely seems like
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: beanbag compared to Republican politics in the Trump era. Some
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: of the things they did, although there were some pretty
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: nasty rumor campaigns and phone and mail campaigns about McCain
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: that were pretty scurrilous. But I mean, I assume that's
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: the period you'll be watching if Haley has any successes.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: Can she survive that assault from Trump?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because we haven't seen Trump. That's the wild card
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 5: with her, too. We haven't seen Trump really take after
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 5: her what happens if and when he does. And again,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: like I said, it's just the fact that it's her
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 5: home state, too, just raises the stakes that much more.
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 5: If she's you were saying it's like seeing a path
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: more for Haley than, than DeSantis. I tend to agree
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 5: in the sense that I can see potentially a Haley
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 5: win in New Hampshire from where we're standing right now. Um,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 5: it's hard to see a DeSantis win in Iowa or
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 5: any of these early States from where we're standing right now.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 5: This can change overnight in politics, but yeah, if she
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: gets that win in New Hampshire, it's also, it, it's
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 5: hard to see, It's weird to say it's hard to
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 5: see her turning around and winning her home state, just
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 5: given given these dynamics and then given that Trump will
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: be coming after her, you know, with full force and fury, presumably. But, yeah,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: it's a month. I mean, it's, you know, New Hampshire
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 5: is going to vote January 23rd. South Carolina is going
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: to vote February 24th. So you've got a month in between. And,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: you know, it would be we'd be obviously looking closely
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: at all those polls in between. Is she showing confidence?
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: Is she showing growth? Is she showing growth with Republicans,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: with evangelicals, with these groups that right now seem resistant
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 5: to her? If she were to start showing, if she
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 5: were to come off a New Hampshire win and start
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: showing that, then you'd be talking about a different race.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: But she'd have to show that, which right now we
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 5: haven't seen.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: We haven't seen it very much polling since Nikki Haley's
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: comment on the Civil War that got so much attention.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: But from folks you've talked to or some of the,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: maybe the NBC reporters on the ground, have you heard
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: anything about that stalling her momentum at all?
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: Well, it'll be interesting to look at the next round
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: of polling because I think the type of voter that
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 5: is most likely to be put off by that, first
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 5: to have absorbed the coverage of it and to have
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 5: a negative reaction to Haley based on it, probably is
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: the type of voter she's doing best among right now,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 5: which is the Trump hostile slash Trump skeptical, independent, more moderate, suburbanite.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: That's the type of voter who I think isn't going
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 5: to look at a necessarily going to look at that, um,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: that incident and say, Oh, this is just the media.
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 5: She's not appealing to that voter right now. She's, she's
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 5: appealing to a voter. Um, you know, I, I, as
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: I said, she's appealing to a voter that I think
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 5: is more likely to, to kind of see that, hear
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 5: about that and, and maybe, uh, maybe adjust their view
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 5: of her because of it. So I, yeah, I am
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: looking like in the wake of that, does her, does
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: she stall with independence? Does she move backward with independence? Um,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 5: She's doing well with college educated women. Does that change
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 5: at all? You know, I think these are groups that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 5: in some you could see in polling might be more
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 5: swayed by a story like that.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: All right. Steve, last question for you. I'll let you
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: get back to your data. You know, we've talked a
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: lot about the 2000 parallel for this Republican primary. If
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: this ends up being Biden-Trump, do you have a general
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: election historical parallel you're looking at as a potential equivalent
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: to this general election? Or is anything in the Trump
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: era a black swan event?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the short answer is no. I mean, just think
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 5: of the dynamic. It's the sitting president running against a
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 5: former president who the sitting president defeated, you know, four
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: years earlier. Um, I mean, this is, this is, it's
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: rare for a former one-term president to run again. Um,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 5: it has not happened in the modern era at all.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 5: The closest, you know, Gerald Ford looked at it in
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: 1980 and almost ran. That's, that's, that's the closest thing
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 5: there is to a parallel and that's not a parallel
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: in any meaningful way. Um, so no, we, we don't
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: have a good parallel for it. Um, and you know,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 5: I just, people ask me how I look at that race.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 5: And from this vantage point, at least I, you know, it's,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 5: it's striking that the polling, uh, the Trump Biden polling
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: right now is quantitatively different than it was at any
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: point in the 2019, 2020, um, cycle. Every, uh, major
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 5: national poll in 2019 and 2020 had Biden ahead. The
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: question was by how much, um, And I looked at
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: our NBC polling 2019, 2020. Everyone had Biden up. The
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 5: smallest margin was six. The biggest margin was 12. And
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 5: now we consistently have reputable national polls that show a
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: tide race. Biden by one, Trump by one, Trump by two,
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: right in that range. So it's interesting to me that
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 5: we're seeing polling that looks very different this time around
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 5: than it did in 2020. And it raises some questions
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: that we'll have nine months potentially to hash out here.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 5: But it makes me look at it and say, it's
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: a cop out to say, but it looks like a toss.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: From this vantage point, it looks like a toss up race.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And it's also different underneath the top line numbers, right?
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: There's been shifts in some of the groups that Biden
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: was strong with. Trump has lost some with some other voters,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: but it's just the coalitions are potentially shifting, presuming these
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: numbers are giving us an accurate portray off what's happened.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: And then it gets even more complicated when you add
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: in potentially extremely well-funded, well-known third-party candidates like an RFK Jr.,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a Joe Manchin, or some other no-labels candidate. These folks
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: on the ballot lowers that number where someone could win
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: a state with 37% of the vote as opposed to
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: the 49 or 50 you would need to win like
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: there was in 2020.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah. And I tend to think right now that's something
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: we're probably not I mean, let's get through the primaries,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 5: but I don't think we're following that as much as
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: maybe we should because the numbers... I don't know what
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: RFK is going to do in terms of actually making ballots.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: I mean, that's a big question. But when you throw
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 5: him in a poll right now, he's registering at levels
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: that you haven't really seen a third-party name in polling
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: register at since Ross Perot 30 years ago, 32 years ago, 1992.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: And like you said, there's the potential for others... to
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 5: get in as well. There's the extremely high negatives that
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 5: both Trump and Biden have. And yeah, I know in 2016,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 5: there was a lot of, I don't like Trump, I
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: don't like Hillary, and the Libertarians got 3%. I mean,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 5: there was a little bit of that in 2016. But
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: I look at these polls, and there's potential for a
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 5: lot more in 2024. And that looms to me as
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 5: a huge potential wildcard, at least. Again, it's pending how
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 5: serious RFK ends up being about putting an organization together,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 5: getting on ballots. Does Manchin take the bait, go with
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 5: no labels? Do they get in all the battle? I mean,
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: there's all those questions around it, but boy, if they did, yeah,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, it could be, we could be talking third-party impact. We've,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 5: 1992 is the last time we saw the level of.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: No.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: Steve Kornacki, thank you so much. Good luck as election
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: season begins. It was great to talk to you.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 5: You too. Thanks a lot.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Tommy, for filling in for John. Thank you
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: to Steve Kornacki, and we'll talk to everyone next week.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 4: If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 4: slash friends. And if you're already doom-scrolling, don't forget to
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter, and
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 4: a review.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: Give us your own takes. Hey, give us a review.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Give us your takes on our takes. Pod Save America
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: and David Toledo. Our associate producer is Farrah Safari, writing
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: support from Hallie Kiefer. Reid Cherlin is our executive producer.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 4: Cantor is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 4: Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: news and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Tolles, Kirill Pelleviv,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 4: and Molly Lobel.