Latest / Pod Save America / On the Ground in Iowa: The Race for Second Place

Transcript

On the Ground in Iowa: The Race for Second Place · Pod Save America

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: We're in Des Moines.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: It's great here. We're excited.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: We're driving to a Ron DeSantis event where we may
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: or may not get let in. We're heading to Waukee,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: which is kind of a western suburb of Des Moines.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: We're going to go see if Ron DeSantis will let
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: us into his little caucus event.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: What do you predict will happen?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I predict that a stuffy Republican staffer in khakis who
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: looks uncomfortably like me will deny us.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Entry once we tell them we're from the crooked.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Media, which in hindsight was not, you know, the smartest
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: name for a company if you want to go to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: events like this. I'm Tommy Vitor, and I'm on the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: ground in Iowa. This is episode two, the race for
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: second place. In the first episode of this series, we
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: talked about the inevitability problem. The polls have Donald Trump
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: so far ahead of everyone else that it feels like
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: it's not a question of if, but when he's going
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: to win the nomination. The other candidates seem to have
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: all but given up on the idea of winning Iowa,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and instead of taking on Trump directly, have spent the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: bulk of the campaign attacking each other, battling it out
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: for silver. On January 15th, we will find out for sure.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: But I wanted to get a firsthand look at the
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: campaign frenzy that happens in the last few weeks before
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Caucus Day, when many of Iowa's voters are finally making
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: up their minds. So last week, I spent three days
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: on the campaign trail, along with two producers, Caroline and Lacey.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: While we were there, Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and Donald Trump were crisscrossing Iowa, making their case to
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: anyone who would listen. We went to as many events
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: as we could to see if the traditional strategy of
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: holding town hall meetings, taking questions, And shaking as many
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: hands as possible could still move the needle. It was
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: kind of a bizarro homecoming for me. Iowa is a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: place I spent a lot of time and I really love.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Our hotel was walking distance from my old apartment where
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I lived back in 2007 when I was working for
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the Obama campaign. It was kind of a time warp,
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: an unsettling one. We went to a lot of the
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: same communities I visited with Obama. We saw a bunch
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of familiar faces. But this time, instead of hearing about
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: hope and change, the candidates were offering a much darker
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: vision of the country. Our first stop on our first
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: day was a community center in Waukee, Iowa, in Dallas County.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: There was a little coffee shop somewhere.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: This was the first of 12 events DeSantis had planned
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: over the next five days. He was one of the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: candidates who'd completed a full Grassley, which is when you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: go to all 99 counties in the state. It's a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: classic example of what insiders call retail politics. That is,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: face-to-face campaigning, where you're really selling your own candidacy voter
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: by voter. The traditional view is that doing retail politics
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: is how you win in the early states, especially in Iowa.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: When I was with Obama in 2007, 2008 in Iowa,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: by the end of the caucuses, we were doing four, five,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: six events a day, crisscrossing the state. I think we
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: went to 73 counties total out of 99. It's tough.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how these candidates keep their
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: energy up for five events. I mean, imagine giving five
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: speeches— doing five Q & As, and then having to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: be nice to every single.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Person that talked to you. In the nicest state in America.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: In the nicest state on the planet.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: So you have to be nice. You have to be nice.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That element of it, that, like, interpersonal political element, has
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: certainly proven to be Ron DeSantis' great weakness. You know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the man can't seem to smile normally, let alone, like,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: have a normal interaction. So, you know, maybe doing five
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: events a day is a bad idea if you're Ron
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: DeSantis and you have kind of a repellent personality.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: We'll find out.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: The Waukee Community Center was a small, stuffy room with
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: about 30 or 40 mostly retirees packed in at tables
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and a couple dozen press. We walked in as concerned
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: citizens because DeSantis' campaign never responded to our request for
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: media credentials.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Our governor from Florida, Ron DeSantis, is here to make
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: sure my district is held accountable.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Thanks, boss.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: DeSantis spoke for about 40 minutes straight in his signature monotone.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: We need to reverse the decline of this country.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: We need a new birth of freedom all throughout the land,
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: and we need to usher in a revival of the
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: American spirit.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: To borrow a Trump insult, DeSantis' speech was pretty low energy.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Even his attempt at a stirring close fell flat. But
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the most interesting part of these things is usually the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Q & A. And at this event, an older gentleman,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: using a walker, raised his hand.
• 5:03
  Speaker 6: Yes, sir.
• 5:04
  Speaker 7: Can I be honest with you?
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 5:07
  Speaker 7: Okay, so I think a lot of us voted for Trump.
• 5:11
  Speaker 7: And I have a couple questions. For one, why haven't
• 5:15
  Speaker 7: you gone directly after him?
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Polls are down.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: If you couldn't hear that, he said, a lot of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: us voted for Trump. Why haven't you gone directly after him?
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: What do you mean by going directly after him?
• 5:27
  Speaker 7: I mean, you're, in my viewpoint, you're going pretty soft
• 5:34
  Speaker 7: on him.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: But what do you think?
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: So, you know, because we, I've articulated all the differences
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: time and time again on the campaign trail.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: I know, that's just not how I roll.
• 5:43
  Speaker 8: Okay, good.
• 5:44
  Speaker 9: But look at the last vote. If Trump had kept
• 5:49
  Speaker 9: his mouth shut for the four years that he was president,
• 5:53
  Speaker 9: he would have won in a landslide. I mean, the
• 5:55
  Speaker 9: guy has no class in a lot of different ways.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: This DeSantis supporter was asking a question that we've asked
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: countless times on Pod Save America. Ron DeSantis is losing
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to Donald Trump in Iowa by about 30 points. How
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: is he going to close that gap if he won't
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: attack Trump or draw any kind of real contrast? For months,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: DeSantis has refused to give Republicans a reason to walk
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: away from the former president. And he ends up looking
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: paralyzed by his fear of upsetting the MAGA base. The
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: result is a campaign that just hasn't been able to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: get off the ground. We went to two DeSantis events
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, and we talked to a handful of people
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: who had come out to see him. A few of
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: them genuinely liked what he had to say.
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: Have you made up your mind? I absolutely have. I
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: am a Ron DeSantis fan. Yeah, through and through.
• 6:42
  Speaker 10: You know that he's going to... take some of his
• 6:44
  Speaker 10: Florida experience and take it to the White House and
• 6:48
  Speaker 10: get it done. And that's what we're lacking. We're just
• 6:52
  Speaker 10: floundering a lot. So I like what he said.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: We also talked with several who were still unconvinced. It
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: was interesting.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 7:02
  Speaker 6: My wife and I are going to have a long
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: talk about it and figure it out from there.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Can I ask you what you thought of the meeting?
• 7:08
  Speaker 11: Good meeting, yeah.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Is the governor someone you're going to caucus for?
• 7:11
  Speaker 11: Undecided yet, so.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It's still up in the air for you.
• 7:16
  Speaker 12: I want to win.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: But there was one conversation we had that really summed
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it all up. We spoke with a father and son
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: outside DeSantis' event in Cumming, Iowa, next to a loud
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: idling bus.
• 7:27
  Speaker 13: DeSantis has better policy, a lot better things, but I
• 7:30
  Speaker 13: just don't think he's as charismatic as Trump. And Trump
• 7:33
  Speaker 13: can just come to a place like Iowa and just really,
• 7:36
  Speaker 13: really rile it up, and here it just seemed it
• 7:38
  Speaker 13: was kind of just... slow talk and slow burner and
• 7:42
  Speaker 13: he has good things to say but it's just it's
• 7:45
  Speaker 13: not as captivating as trump can be you know trump
• 7:47
  Speaker 13: has just viral moments every time he's anywhere yeah and
• 7:51
  Speaker 13: i just don't get the same.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: A little low energy huh yep but.
• 7:55
  Speaker 12: But i'll tell you i'm a lifelong republican seen with
• 7:59
  Speaker 12: ronald reagan in the bushes i will never vote for
• 8:03
  Speaker 12: donald trump i haven't the last two times really And
• 8:09
  Speaker 12: I won't this time.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: What did he do that turned you off?
• 8:12
  Speaker 12: I will never do business with or vote with somebody
• 8:16
  Speaker 12: I don't trust.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Good rule of thumb, if you ask me. Do you
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: feel the same way?
• 8:22
  Speaker 12: No.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: Are we going to split in the family?
• 8:24
  Speaker 12: It's the way it goes.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: No one we talked to had an issue with DeSantis' policies.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: They liked what he was saying. But DeSantis' events are
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: just boring. He's not firing people up. He's not inspiring
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the audience with his vision for the future. No one
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: seems to be having fun, Ron DeSantis included. So that
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: leaves DeSantis with the Republican voters who refuse to vote
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: for Trump and haven't yet decided on one of the
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: other candidates. And it's unclear how big that pool of
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: voters is. The narrative around DeSantis' campaign has been pretty
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: grim lately. There was one story a few weeks ago
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that quoted a staffer saying they were at the point
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in the campaign... where they were just trying to, quote,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: make the patient comfortable while they waited for the end
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to come. Never back down, the super PAC running DeSantis'
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: field operation has also been in chaos. Tons of infighting,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: firings and resignations, tens of millions of dollars spent on
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: door knocking, and yet DeSantis' poll numbers have been stuck
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: between 15 to 20 percent for months. I even heard
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: stories about paid canvassers knocking on doors and telling people
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: they were actually planning to vote for Trump. It's been
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: that bad. At the Iowa event I went to, DeSantis
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: looked like he didn't want to be there. As the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: kids say, the guy's got no riz. So, if DeSantis
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: isn't breaking through, is anyone else? After the break, we
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: board Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign bus to find out. After watching DeSantis,
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: we drove back to Des Moines for a Vivek Ramaswamy event.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy is running, as far as I can tell, a
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: completely unprecedented Iowa caucus campaign. He's done a double Grassley.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: meaning he's visited every county in Iowa at least twice.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: I heard him tell a crowd that he will have
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: done 330 events in Iowa in the last year, more
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: than all the other candidates combined. I was really interested
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: to see who showed up to a Ramaswamy event. His
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: campaign had a moment back in the summer. He started
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: placing third in some national polls. He was omnipresent in
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the media. But that boomlet seems to have died down
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: after some Frankly, obnoxious debate performances.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: While her own daughter was actually using the app for
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: a long time, so you might want to take care
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: of your family first. Leave my daughter out of your voice.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: And lately, Ramaswamy's campaign has taken on an even more
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: conspiratorial tone. We'd reached out to the campaigns before our
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: trip out to Iowa, and almost all of them ignored us.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: But Ramaswamy's people were nice, responsive, and open to an interview.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: We met up with the campaign at a holiday inn
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: near the Des Moines airport. They rented out a hotel
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: ballroom with a loud scarlet and black carpet for a
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: midday town hall meeting. About a hundred or so people
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: came out to see him, and the crowd skewed quite
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: a bit younger than the folks who came to DeSantis'
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Waukee event.
• 11:27
  Speaker 8: How many of y'all believe our country needs saving?
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yes!
• 11:34
  Speaker 6: Yes!
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Ramaswamy and his family walked through the crowd to the stage. Apoorva,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: his wife, said a few words, and then he made
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: his case.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: The top question I got yesterday is, we have to
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: make a choice. Why you, not Trump?
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: That's a fair question to ask.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: The slogan of this campaign is truth, so I'm not
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: going to sugarcoat this for you, and I don't enjoy
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: saying it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: If you think they're going to.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: Let this man get anywhere near that White House again,
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: I'm going to.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Ask you to open your eyes.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: His speech was filled with oblique references to stuff you'd
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: find on alt-right message boards. And he hit on some
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: of his favorite talking points. The climate hoax, the fact
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that we're a nation of sheep, government corruption. During the
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: Q & A, one woman in the audience actually apologized
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: to Ramaswamy for asking a question about climate change at
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: a previous event.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And I went home and I did my research. So
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: I do owe you an apology because you absolutely is
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: a hoax.
• 12:38
  Speaker 7: I appreciate you for that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I'll take an apology from the media.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: After the event, we stopped one young voter.
• 12:47
  Speaker 13: I'm still a little bit tied on him versus Kennedy
• 12:50
  Speaker 13: because I've been a longtime Kennedy supporter.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: So it's a little bit tough.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Is vaccine safety your primary issue?
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: That and communist China. Those are my top two.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: She was trying to decide whether to caucus for Ramaswamy
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: or to back renowned anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: who is running as an independent and not competing in Iowa,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: by the way. So this woman was not your typical
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: Republican caucus goer. Ramaswamy calls himself a free speech absolutist,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and the backdrop at all of his events says truth
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: in big, bold lettering. I watched his interview with Alex
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: Jones on my flight out to Iowa, and I wanted
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: to ask Ramaswamy about the tension between giving a liar
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: like Alex Jones a platform while also saying you value
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the truth. After the Des Moines event, They brought us
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: onto Ramaswamy's bus for the ride over to Newton, Iowa.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: His staff couldn't have been nicer. The candidate, however, seemed
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: less than thrilled that he had to talk with me.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: But to his credit, he gave us about 20 minutes,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: so we dove right in.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: So anybody who tells you that they know what's going
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: to happen this year, I think is probably deluding themselves.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: So I heard you say that at the event today, too,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: like they are going to try to prevent Trump.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: They're not going to let Trump gets the election day.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: Who is they there?
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Look at the collective they of the people who have
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: taken whatever steps they are. Talking about state-level prosecutors, federal prosecutors,
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Supreme Courts comprised of elected judges in places like Colorado,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: secretaries of state in places like Maine, and I think
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: all of whom are part of a broader establishment in
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: this country, a mega-donor class in both parties, the same
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: people paying for lawsuits to keep Donald Trump off the
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: ballot and lawsuits against Trump. are the same ones among
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: the largest super PAC donors to Nikki Haley. I think
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: that this is a broader, bipartisan establishment that has an
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: anaphylactic reaction to this man.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Are they working together? Is this some grand conspiracy to
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: keep him off? I think it is.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I think what sometimes folks like yourself, we don't know
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: each other that well, but maybe folks in the media
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: broadly will like to term a conspiracy theory, I better
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: describe as the sum total of incentives in a system.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: collective incentives that are hiding in plain sight. So I
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: don't think you have to be Inspector Crusoe to believe
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: that the system is inventing legal theories on the fly
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: for five simultaneous cases combined with extra constitutional means of
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: removing somebody from a ballot outside of the judicial system itself.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, do you think it's a novel legal
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: theory to say you can't take classified information and keep
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: it in the bathroom at your private club?
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: That's not a novel legal theory if you're not the
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: President of the United States. If you're the President of
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the United States, there's a law called the Presidential Records Act.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: It doesn't govern classified information.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Actually, just do your homework. The Presidential Records Act absolutely...
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: The Presidential Records Act literally... The Presidential Records Act, just
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: for a second for the sake of your audience, literally
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: covers classified documents. It is literally within the scope of
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: what the Presidential Records Act encompasses.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I don't want to believe it. I mean, I worked
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: on the National Security Staff. I had security clearance. The
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Presidential Record Act does not allow you to take classified
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: information as an ex-president to your golf club stored in
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: an unsecured place.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: No, but it does allow the president to declassify. The sole,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: and the Supreme Court's held this in the Clint Sock
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: drawer case and otherwise.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: There's no evidence that he declassified anything.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I'm jumping around a little bit because I know you
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: are pressed for time and I appreciate you making time
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: for us. I'm very worried about polarization in this country
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and what feels like the ratcheting up of rhetoric that
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you hear in political discourse.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: People talking about enemies and we're at war, etc.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I know I've heard you talk about similar concerns, but
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: then I was watching your event on December 23rd.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: You said, we're in the middle of a war in
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: this country. It's not some foreign war.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: It's a war right here on our own soil between
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: those of us who love the United States of America
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: and those of us who hate this country and want
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it to cease to exist.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I think a fringe minority is what I've described that as.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: I think it's a fringe minority.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I think it's less than about 10% of this country.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: And so, I share your concerns about polarizations. I think
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the path to national unity, though, is not going to
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: come from some fake, superficial, surface-level rhetorical shift.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think so.
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's going to come by actually all of
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: us re-embracing, or at least 90% of us re-embracing, the
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: radical ideals of the American Revolution, actually.
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: By telling people they're at war with their fellow countrymen,
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: does that help?
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: I think it helps to see with clarity. And yes,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: I do think it's a kind of cold, cultural civil
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: war in this country. I think it's not between Republicans
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: and Democrats. I think it is between those who love
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: this country and a fringe minority who wishes to apologize
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: for the existence of our nation. I think we're ceasing
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: to exist by the day.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do, actually.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're kicking ass and taking names all
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: over the world.
• 17:42
  Speaker 14: Are we, though?
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: What do you think George Washington would say if we
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: had a candidate for U.S.
• 17:46
  Speaker 11: President?
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Who a given Secretary of State on a given day
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: woke up and just decided was eliminated from the ballot.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: I think he'd say, why do you guys all have
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: teeth and I have these weird wooden things?
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he might say that too. He might say that first.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he would say.
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: I think that we are slowly on a path to
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: ceasing to exist right now unless we turn the tide
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: we're on. And by ceasing to exist, I mean, sure,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: we have a geographic space where we have our, as
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I said at the last speech, different shades of melanin
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: and walk into geographic spaces and calling ourselves a country
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: and doing what our smartphones tell us to do on
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: a given day.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: It's a dark vision of future.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: Well, it's not a vision of the future. It's an
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: indictment of the present. But I think that my vision
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: for the future is we still can be a country
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: that's bound by that common purpose. That's what the United
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: States of America was founded on. It was founded on
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: our essential humanity. The things that makes us different than
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: those two-legged or four-legged or any eight-legged higher mammals is
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: that we can believe in something bigger than ourselves, that
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: we can believe in those shared ideals of 1776. And
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: those are radical ideals. Those are not soft, moderate, papered over, friendly, sounding, pleasant,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: landing on the ear ideals. The idea that you get
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: to speak your mind as long as I get to
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: in return. That is a radical idea that for most
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: of American history, most of global history was laughable. And
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: here's the thing. I think many of the managerial class
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: in the United States now find that idea laughable too.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: So in some sense, they're not the anomaly. They're the
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: norm for most of human history.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm trying to figure out is where
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and when that overlaps with the other word on your placards,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: which is truth. And when I hear you say January
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: 6th was an inside job, I don't think.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: That's the truth.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Have you heard me say that the realities of.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about why there's federal agents outside
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: and some people might have.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Been in caps. I said it's looking increasingly like January
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: 6th was the product of entrapment.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: But I'm not trying to follow.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're right to question, like to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: talk about Watergate or the Iraq war, but that still
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean that thousands of people traipse through the Capitol
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: because the FBI led them in there.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: No, but I didn't say the FBI led them in there.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: That's not how entrapment plays out. That's why I said
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: read G-Man. This is not how the FBI does it.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: What we actually need to do is take off the
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: partisan goggles and just ask ourselves what is, yes, this
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: campaign slogan of ours.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: What is the truth? And the path to truth.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: And that they suppressed the Hunter Biden laptop story on
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: the eve of that election.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, what does that do? They look at polling
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: data afterwards.
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: It's truth.
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: That said, many independents would have changed their mind on
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: the eve of an election. Hunter Biden wasn't running I mean,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: are you somebody who's saying the things you're going to say?
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I think it was a mistake. It was a damning
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: indictment of the health of our republic that that was
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: allowed to happen.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: I can tell you're a smart guy.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I can tell that we should have had a longer
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: conversation than we were planning for right now. I was
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: expecting something a little bit more disappointing than we had.
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: I'm saying that in a good way. We have more
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: in common than you think.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: We're both relatively young.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: At least you're thoughtful, which I appreciate.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Puppets, you know.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: That joke is sort of... I don't know what I'm
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: talking about. No, no, it's fine. I've got to go
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: into this event.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: The interview ended when we arrived at the next stop
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: in Newton, about 40 minutes east of Des Moines. Ramaswamy
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: spoke in the small dining room of a roadside restaurant
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: where about 20 people were waiting for. Classic retail politics.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: We stayed to listen. It was mostly the same stump,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: except a few minutes in when Ramaswamy pointed us out
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: to the crowd.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I was talking to, you know, some.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Left-of-center podcast people who were with me on the bus
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: on the way here.
• 21:04
  Speaker 6: Oh, he's right here.
• 21:05
  Speaker 15: What did you do for some podcasting?
• 21:08
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: You guys should subscribe. It's great.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: You'll enjoy it.
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: You'll probably hate it.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Any cover we had was now blown. The whole room
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: knew we were a bunch of libs. And not surprisingly,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: voters seemed less than eager to talk to us afterwards.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So we headed back to Des Moines.
• 21:29
  Speaker 9: All right.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So what did you think about the vibe of the events?
• 21:33
  Speaker 16: At this point in the campaign, what you want to
• 21:36
  Speaker 16: see is crowds that are growing and are more enthusiastic
• 21:41
  Speaker 16: and people showing up who are not just going to
• 21:42
  Speaker 16: caucus for you, but also want.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: To volunteer for you and knock on doors for you
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: and tell their friends about you. And so I think
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: what we saw.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Today were some people who were enthusiastic for either candidate
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: or deciding, but There wasn't some insurgent energy that made
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: me think that either of those guys were going to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: surprise us on caucus night.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong. Vivek is betting on turning out
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: a whole.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Bunch of people that aren't on anyone's radar screen, that
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: have never caucused before. They're not necessarily even Republicans. And
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that's how he's going to do better than expectations. DeSantis
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and Ramaswamy are the only candidates in the race who
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: have gone all in on Iowa. They're running TV ads.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: They visited all 99 counties. They even made a bunch
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: of their staffers move from the campaign headquarters out to Iowa.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: That used to be the recipe for success. But this
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: time around, based on the polls and the sparsely attended
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: events we saw, it doesn't seem to be working.
• 22:45
  Speaker 15: I've been asked by a lot of other folks about
• 22:48
  Speaker 15: why aren't the normal rules of campaigning in Iowa working
• 22:52
  Speaker 15: this time.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: That's political scientist and pollster Dave Peterson at Iowa State University.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: who you also heard from in episode one.
• 22:59
  Speaker 15: I think it's because Iowans don't treat support in the
• 23:03
  Speaker 15: caucuses like a participation trophy, right? You go to all
• 23:06
  Speaker 15: 99 counties, you campaign with people, you show up, you
• 23:09
  Speaker 15: go to these events, you shake hands, you answer questions,
• 23:13
  Speaker 15: and Iowans like that and they respect that and they
• 23:15
  Speaker 15: demand that, but not because we just want people to
• 23:19
  Speaker 15: show up and things, right? It's because we want to
• 23:22
  Speaker 15: make a well-informed decision and we do that because We
• 23:26
  Speaker 15: demand that and we reward that because we learn about
• 23:29
  Speaker 15: the candidates, right? I mean, that's how campaigns work. People
• 23:31
  Speaker 15: learn about the candidates. And even if you learn something
• 23:34
  Speaker 15: about Haley or DeSantis, you already know you like Trump better.
• 23:37
  Speaker 15: And they're not able to persuade you away from that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: After the break, we find out if Republicans are passionate
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: enough about Donald Trump that they'll even go watch his
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: son Eric speak. Then we sneak into a private event
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: with Dickie Haley. I mean, so right now we're 11
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: days out from the caucus. And like, I don't know,
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: maybe it was because I was inside the bubble. But
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: my memory of what it was like 11 days out.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: In 2008 and 2007 was.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Frenetic pace, huge events, growing momentum, like pitched battle with
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of suspense. And the events we've been at
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: have felt like a little small, a little sleepy, just
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: not like a lot of energy. We went to events
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the day during the week. But,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, to catch up to Donald Trump in Iowa,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you need a massive groundswell of support that has not
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: shown up in any polls yet.
• 24:54
  Speaker 15: Right.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: But anyway, so we're going to see Eric Trump in Ankeny.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It's a suburb about 20 minutes north of Des Moines.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Now, if Eric Trump has bigger crowds in Des Moines than,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: you know, Vivek Ramaswamy or Ron DeSantis, that does not
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: bode well for those two. It was a big room,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: maybe 150 people inside, and lots of press. We must
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: have been next to a livestock exhibition hall because it
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: smelled distinctly like a barnyard. We stood on the sidelines
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and got asked twice if we'd signed a commit to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: caucus card yet.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: You guys had a chance to fill out a commit
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: to caucus? No, we were going to watch Eric first
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: and then check it out. Are you on the campaign? Yeah.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Are you guys worried about any of these others?
• 25:37
  Speaker 13: No.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Eric delivered a surprisingly good speech. I know. No one
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: is more shocked than I am that I just said that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: but he made an authentic pitch about his father's record
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: while also humanizing the guy.
• 25:49
  Speaker 5: And as we went to school every morning, I'd always
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: go give him a kiss, and he'd always say, you know,
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: three things. No drinking, no drugs, and no smoking. Every
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: single morning, and I'm sitting there, I'm a five-year-old kid, Dad,
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: what the.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Hell is drinking? He's amazing, truly an amazing dad. We
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: need a lot more of that.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: But the climax of the event was definitely when Eric
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: called his dad.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Say hi to the entire crowd.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Well, I just want to thank everybody. And always remember,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: we got the farmers of Iowa.
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: $ 28 billion.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: And I can't think about Joe Biden doing that.
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: He wouldn't even think about it, and.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't know how to do it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 9: But I just want to say I look forward to
• 26:32
  Speaker 9: seeing you on Friday.
• 26:33
  Speaker 11: We love you all, and I hope my son is
• 26:35
  Speaker 11: doing a great job because he always has done a
• 26:38
  Speaker 11: great job.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: After the event, with Toby Keith's Courtesy of the Red, White,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: and Blue blaring in the background, we chatted up some voters.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: The first person we talked to was a woman named Debra.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: She was totally decked out in Trump gear and was
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: holding a bottle of Trump-branded wine for some reason.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: Sorry, what's your name? My name is Debra. Debra, thank
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: you so much.
• 27:02
  Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Do you mind if we use this on a podcast?
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: We're just talking to a show about the Congress.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's fine.
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: We love Trump. We need a warrior, and we love
• 27:09
  Speaker 8: how his family is so tightly knit.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: Like, that's beautiful.
• 27:13
  Speaker 8: That's what our country is founded on, like togetherness and
• 27:17
  Speaker 8: to be close and to be family and what it.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Means to be an American.
• 27:20
  Speaker 8: And that's a family that has proven and shown that
• 27:23
  Speaker 8: to us, and we love it. They're great.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's really an actual race going on,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: or is this thing over?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: OK, you're the news person.
• 27:31
  Speaker 8: You're asking me this. I can honestly tell you I'm
• 27:34
  Speaker 8: the top Trump volunteer in the state of Iowa. So
• 27:37
  Speaker 8: I've made almost 200,000 calls and door knocked. Yeah, I've
• 27:41
  Speaker 8: done a lot.
• 27:42
  Speaker 7: It's 24-7.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 27:44
  Speaker 8: So I can honestly tell you that this is Trump country.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: We also spoke with two pastors who told us they
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: were 100 percent Trump fans.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Do you think that there's any contest happening here? Did
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you consider any other candidates? Do you think any of
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: them have a chance? Well, I'll tell you. Yes, yes, ma'am.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: No way. No way. Trump proved himself. And it really,
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: it kind of infuriates me, really, that these people are
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: coming up and running. What are they running for? Wait
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: your turn. He was a Republican president.
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: He was a Republican president that proved himself.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: It angers me.
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: Every day I go to the mailbox and we've got
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: four or five big pieces of paper, the thick paper.
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: They're wasting Republican money. We should be fighting the demon crabs.
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: And that's what I call them, demon crabs. Because everything
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: about their policy is.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Totally from hell.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: They're just demonic.
• 28:45
  Speaker 12: It's just showing itself.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: And we haven't seen the fruit of all what they've
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: sown yet. I'm really... Unless our country turns around, unless
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump can get back in and really fight to
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: bring back sanity, we're going to just be in terrible trouble.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's path to the nomination seems almost assured. But
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: there's one candidate that probably has the best shot at
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: competing with the ex-president in the months to come. That's
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Nikki Haley. Haley's been surging in the polls in New Hampshire,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and she's betting that her home state of South Carolina
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: will turn out for her. For the last year, the
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Trump campaign spent most of its time hammering Ron DeSantis.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: But recently, they've refocused on Haley, spending $ 4. 5 million on
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: attack ads this past week. Nikki Haley refused to call
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: illegals criminals.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: We don't need... to talk about them as criminals. They're not.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Illegals are criminals, Nikki.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: That's what illegal means.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Haley was campaigning in New Hampshire for the first few
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: days of our trip, but now she was back in Iowa.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: We knew she had two events on her schedule, but
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: neither were open to the public. And her campaign had
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: been ignoring our emails, which, look, I get it. We're
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the liberal media. But it was our last day, so
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: we had to try.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: It's technically a Rotary Club meeting. We barely know what
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: that is.
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: We think it has to do with volunteering of some sort,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: since Lacey is a Rotary expert.
• 30:11
  Speaker 11: I got a scholarship in high school.
• 30:13
  Speaker 14: See, that's what I said.
• 30:14
  Speaker 7: She's an expert.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: More importantly, though, what time is it? Oh, it's dark out.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: It's 7.05 in the morning on Friday. We parked the
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: car and rode an elevator to the Holiday Inn lobby.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: where we found a couple of very nice young guys
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: manning a folding table. So we helped ourselves to the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: lobby coffee and waited for it to be over, in
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: hopes that we could talk with some voters on their
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: way out of the event. Nikki Haley's surge has been
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the story of the campaign for the last several weeks.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: She received a major influx of cash from the Koch-funded
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: super PAC, Americans for Prosperity. But recently, she had a
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: string of gaffes. ones that I'm sure were creating headaches
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: for the staffers we met outside of the Rotary Club meeting. First,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: at a town hall in New Hampshire, she was asked
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: what she thought caused the Civil War. And somehow, she
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: failed to mention slavery. Then, she pointedly declined to change
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: her answer.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: What do you want me to say about slavery? Next question.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Later, she told a group of New Hampshire voters that
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: they would correct Iowa's vote.
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: I trust every single one of you.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: You know how to do this.
• 31:21
  Speaker 9: You know Iowa starts it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: You know that you correct it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: You know that you continue to go.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: And my sweet state of South Carolina brings them home.
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: That's what we do.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: That's what we do.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: Haley said she was just kidding around and everyone was
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: overreacting to a little good-natured early state trash talk from
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: a South Carolinian. But DeSantis and Eric Trump made a
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: meal out of that one. This dumb little fight fed
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the media narrative for a couple of days, but it
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: felt like a relic from a different era in politics.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump's lawyer is in court literally arguing that the
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: president can order the U.S. military to kill his political rival.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Does anyone actually care about some dumb joke about Iowa?
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to hear what the Rotary Club members
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: thought about Haley's speech. After about an hour of crappy
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: holiday and coffee, the event let out. The first folks
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: we met were a younger couple. The wife was actually
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: a Democrat, and the husband told us he didn't remember
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: how long it's been since he voted Republican.
• 32:28
  Speaker 6: Hearing her and what she has to say is enlightening
• 32:32
  Speaker 6: and refreshing. And she speaks from more of a middle perspective,
• 32:38
  Speaker 6: and it's.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: Great to hear. I really liked what she said. I
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: think I can just... out of curiosity and as a woman.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: So I'm really open.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I think she's really polished.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I think she's going to get a lot of traction
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: here in Iowa, especially.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: If people can see her live.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: We also spoke with another Rotary Club member named Joe.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I was wondering what you.
• 33:00
  Speaker 14: Folks thought, how she did. So, yeah, I thought she
• 33:05
  Speaker 14: did really well. I actually am an undecided caucus member.
• 33:09
  Speaker 14: participant and i thought she did hellers off really well
• 33:11
  Speaker 14: i thought she does a good job of explaining why
• 33:13
  Speaker 14: she's where she is in the various issues so i
• 33:15
  Speaker 14: was actually really impressed did she help you decide i'm
• 33:18
  Speaker 14: still like unbelievably undecided usually by this point i'm like
• 33:22
  Speaker 14: i've never missed a caucus in my life never was
• 33:23
  Speaker 14: a vote in my life and i've i'm i am
• 33:26
  Speaker 14: totally undecided outside of one decision i know i'm not
• 33:29
  Speaker 14: making is that donald trump that would be him what.
• 33:33
  Speaker 11: What's preventing you from making the decision like what's what's.
• 33:35
  Speaker 14: Still the question in your mind So I'll use the
• 33:37
  Speaker 14: example of when Obama was doing it, and people would
• 33:40
  Speaker 14: sleep in tents to go for Obama. I don't have
• 33:43
  Speaker 14: that feeling for any of these candidates yet. Maybe it's
• 33:45
  Speaker 14: because I'm 38 now, and I don't want to sleep
• 33:47
  Speaker 14: in a tent for a candidate. But I don't have
• 33:49
  Speaker 14: that jump out of bed, tell everyone about the candidate
• 33:52
  Speaker 14: feeling yet. I think a fake gives you the best
• 33:55
  Speaker 14: version of that, but there's also a lot of things
• 33:57
  Speaker 14: that come with that.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: So, I don't know.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Finally, we talked with Dave and Mary, who told us
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: they liked that Nikki Haley served up policy solutions rather
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: than platitudes.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Questions about what you thought?
• 34:09
  Speaker 11: It was probably a record-breaking number of people who were
• 34:12
  Speaker 11: up there today, and many of us to hear her
• 34:15
  Speaker 11: for the first time, you know, face-to-face, and to hear
• 34:17
  Speaker 11: some of her solutions. Very strong on national defense, very
• 34:22
  Speaker 11: strong on the economy, very strong on the border, and
• 34:29
  Speaker 11: she seems to be somebody that should be given strong
• 34:34
  Speaker 11: consideration to.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: She's still undecided?
• 34:36
  Speaker 11: For sure.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:38
  Speaker 11: We have until next week. I want someone who's going
• 34:40
  Speaker 11: to be able to beat Joe Biden. What scares the
• 34:43
  Speaker 11: hell out of me is say these words. President Kamala Harris.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: Okay. So is electability kind of a big consideration for you? Yeah,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 34:53
  Speaker 11: You know, in this time, I think Donald Trump did
• 34:56
  Speaker 11: a great service to this country, but I think it's
• 35:00
  Speaker 11: time to move beyond the chaos. And she stressed that,
• 35:02
  Speaker 11: by the way. Let's don't trade Republican... chaos for the
• 35:08
  Speaker 11: Democratic chaos that we're now experiencing. And that's probably what
• 35:12
  Speaker 11: four more years of Trump would do.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: So who are you folks deciding between at this point?
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: Nikki Haley is very high in my regard.
• 35:19
  Speaker 11: And then probably DeSantis would be the other one.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm after I'm leaning very heavily toward Nikki very much.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Based on the people we talked to, Nikki Haley would
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: kick ass in a Rotary Club caucus. civic-minded moderates to
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: conservatives who, by and large, were pretty skeptical of Donald Trump. Still,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: we wanted to hear Haley for ourselves, and we learned
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: that we'd have one more chance, exactly 12 hours later
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that day, at an event hosted by an organization that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: encourages Gen Z Republicans to run for office. The event
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: was at a members-only club in a skyscraper in downtown
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Des Moines. And while it was open to credentialed media,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: they told us our request had come in too late.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: But We showed up anyway, perhaps a little underdressed, and
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: walked in. It was kind of an odd event. The
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, was there to moderate,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: even though it's not his home state. And the questions
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: were just softballs, ranging from, do you like to cook, Nikki?
• 36:18
  Speaker 7: If Michael didn't cook, we wouldn't eat.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: To, and this is a quote, how did you become
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: the ambassador.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Of the UN?
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: I went in with the mindset that I wanted countries
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: to know what America was for and what America was against.
• 36:31
  Speaker 7: I didn't care if they didn't like me.
• 36:33
  Speaker 15: But I wanted them to respect Americans.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: Governor Sununu even compared Haley to his favorite diplomat of
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: all time.
• 36:39
  Speaker 7: I think you're the best foreign policy leader we've had
• 36:43
  Speaker 7: since Henry.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: That would be Henry Kissinger, of course, the one who
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: did all the genocides. After about 45 minutes or so,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: the campaign kicked us and all the rest of the
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: press corps out of the event. Meanwhile, two hours north,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump held a rally in Mason City. to a
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: packed room.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, we're going to take our country back.
• 37:06
  Speaker 11: We're going to take it back.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Trump seemed more worried about his voters not turning out
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: to caucus than he did about any of his rivals.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: And, boy, I tell you, the biggest risk, as you say,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: you know, we're winning by so much, darling.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Let's stay home and watch television.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Let's watch this great victory.
• 37:24
  Speaker 16: And if enough people do that, it's.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Not going to be pretty. But we're not going to
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: let that happen.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: We headed back to the hotel.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Tommy, that was the last event.
• 37:36
  Speaker 12: How are you feeling?
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: So tired. We've been doing this for what? We've been
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: doing this for 13, 14 hours today.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: It's been a long day. I mean, one thing that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I took away from this that surprises me every year,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: it happened in 2007 and 8, it happened in 2016,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: it happened in 2020, it happened this year, is the
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: number of people who tell you they're still undecided, like
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: 10 or 11 days out from the caucuses, is shocking.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: because we're all obsessed and we're focused on this and
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we're worried about it all the time, but they're not,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: because they're normal human beings. So things break late all
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: the time in Iowa. Iowa can surprise you, but it
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: still feels like Trump is well in the lead. Wednesday
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: night was the final debate before caucus night. Only Trump, Haley,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and DeSantis qualified, but Trump refused to participate, just as
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: he had in every prior debate this cycle. It was
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: the first time Haley and DeSantis went head-to-head without any
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: other candidates on the stage.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: Live from Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, this is
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: the CNN Republican presidential debate.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis went after Nikki Haley, as he has for
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: the past several weeks, attacking her conservative bona fides.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: You know, I debated the governor of California, Gavin Newsom.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: You know, I thought he lied a lot.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Man, Nikki Haley gives him a run for his money,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and she may even be more liberal than Gavin Newsom is.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: And Nikki Haley shot back.
• 39:00
  Speaker 8: Every time he lies, Drake University, don't turn this into
• 39:04
  Speaker 8: a drinking game because you will be over-served by the end.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Of the night.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It was a last-ditch effort to distinguish themselves as the
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: best candidate to Iowa voters. But without the frontrunner on
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the debate stage, we'll see if any of this ends
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: up mattering. On January 15th, Iowa Republicans will head to
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: about 1,500 caucus locations to vote. If Trump can pull
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: off a victory in Iowa after barely visiting the states
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: it does make me wonder about the future of retail
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: politics and the early state process itself. At a time
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: when partisan news and social media algorithms are pushing us
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: further into our bubbles, maybe future candidates will decide that
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: they don't need to drive around Iowa to win. I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: think the death of retail politics would be a terrible
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: thing for the country. and bad for nostalgia-chasing political hacks
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: like me who know that the early states are the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: best part of the campaign. That's when you can just
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: walk into an event, shake a candidate's hand, and ask
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: them a question. In a few months, all that will change.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Town halls will be replaced by massive rallies, and the
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: public will be separated from the politicians by Secret Service
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: and officious campaign staffers. Our presidential primary process is weird
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and flawed and has on occasion delivered us disastrous results.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: But at least people in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: Carolina show up and take the process seriously. That seems
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: far better than a future where the biggest celebrity in
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: the race just posts their way to the nomination. On
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the Ground in Iowa is an original series from Pod
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Save America and Crooked Media. I'm your host, Tommy Vitor.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Lacey Roberts is our senior producer. Ilona Minkowski is our producer.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: with production help from Ashley Mizuo and Evan Walton. Our
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: executive producers are Reed Cherlin and Katie Long. Original music
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: by Hannes Brown. Sarah Gibbel-Laska from Chapter 4 is our
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: sound designer and engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and Charlotte Landis. Madeline Herringer is our head of news
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: and programming. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. Thanks
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Caroline Dunphy, Dylan Villanueva, and Molly Lobel. Special thanks to
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Andy Taft, Alex Hernandez, Kayla Moriarty, and the Pod Save
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: America team. If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: community at crooked.com slash friends. And if you're already doom scrolling,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: a review.