Latest / DEEP INSIGHT / Nicolle on embarrassed GOP BEGGING toxic Trump NOT to campaign with them

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Nicolle on embarrassed GOP BEGGING toxic Trump NOT to campaign with them · DEEP INSIGHT

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: A lot of the things he seems like he's doing,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: he's focusing on trying to make him greater, himself greater,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: instead of the American people greater. He ran on make
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: America great again, but he's trying to make Donald Trump.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Great again, I think.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Does America feel great again?
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  Speaker 3: I don't think so, not right now. You don't think so,
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  Speaker 3: not right now. That, importantly, was coming from a three-time
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: Trump voter in a state Donald Trump won three times.
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: realizing the phrase promises kept was a little more than
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  Speaker 3: a slogan to Donald Trump. Despite promising to reduce inflation
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  Speaker 3: and to lower gas prices and to elevate economic prosperity
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  Speaker 3: for all Americans, especially his voters on the campaign trail
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: as a candidate, Donald Trump has instead enriched himself by
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: billions of dollars while his voters and all Americans are
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: left struggling to get by. While a better-than-expected jobs report
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: today showed the U.S. added 162,000 jobs last month, Americans'
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: wage growth remains at a standstill. And oil prices, due
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump's war with Iran, could boost inflation even further.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: As of today, that war has already sent diesel to
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: a new high of nearly $ 6 per gallon. Meanwhile, mortgage
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: rates have climbed to their highest level in more than
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: a year. These struggles aren't on Trump's radar or seemingly
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: on the radar of anyone who works for him. They're
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: not a priority. Instead, he is wholly focused on making
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  Speaker 3: the nation's capital some sort of shrine to his ego
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: and ineptitude. The Trump administration says he will soon break
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  Speaker 3: ground on that 250-foot triumphal arch, despite not having received
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  Speaker 3: approval for its construction. Meanwhile, Republicans fighting for their seats
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: in Congress... seem to be feeling anything but triumphant, and
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Trump's apathy toward the struggles of the American people is
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  Speaker 3: becoming so politically toxic, some candidates are begging him not
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  Speaker 3: to show up on the campaign trail alongside them. A
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: new Politico report that interviewed more than two dozen Republican lawmakers,
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  Speaker 3: candidates and operatives found this, quote, Many of these candidates
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  Speaker 3: privately admit they're stuck in an uncomfortable spot. By running
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: too far from Trump, Republicans risk alienating the MAGA faithful
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  Speaker 3: or the president himself. But if they keep Trump close,
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  Speaker 3: they could be dragged down by the president as the
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  Speaker 3: unpopular war in Iran has increased costs for Americans across
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  Speaker 3: the country. That is where we begin the hour with
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  Speaker 3: some of our favorite reporters and friends. Author of the
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Substack newsletter, To the Contrary, Charlie Sykes is back. Also
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  Speaker 3: joining us, Democratic strategist and former senior aide for Hillary
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: for America, Joel Payne is back. And back with me
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  Speaker 3: at the table, MSNOW political analyst, professor of practice at
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: the School of Professional Studies at Columbia University. Basil Smichels here. Basil,
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  Speaker 3: I start with you. Your thoughts on this moment.
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  Speaker 4: You know, I was thinking a lot because I'm about
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: to start teaching my classes. I teach a class in
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: communications and marketing for the public sector. And I always
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: teach the Reagan Morning in America ad, 1984. It's a
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: brilliant ad for its time. Reagan's not in it, and
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  Speaker 4: you don't hear his voice. But you see these images
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: of America where they talk about inflation getting lower, people
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  Speaker 4: getting their jobs, people moving into their first-time homes. Great images.
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  Speaker 4: If you're a Republican at that time, you can draw
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: down from that and talk about how that relates to
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  Speaker 4: you in your district. What is a Republican to do today?
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  Speaker 4: The arch.
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  Speaker 3: Just on the ad, I'm so glad you mentioned it.
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  Speaker 3: I should have had it.
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  Speaker 1: It's also.
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  Speaker 3: about the future.
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  Speaker 1: That's very aspirational.
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  Speaker 4: Right?
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  Speaker 3: Like, whatever the shrines are, they're not about the future.
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  Speaker 3: And it's very sunny, right? So it's like very, I mean,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: like the actual shots are all very bright and sunny.
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  Speaker 4: And it is literally, they show morning in America, right?
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  Speaker 4: It is incredibly aspirational. But there's nothing about what Donald
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  Speaker 4: Trump is doing now that a Republican could say, this
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  Speaker 4: is meant for you. The arch does not connect. The
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  Speaker 4: ballroom does not connect. And Day after day, what is
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  Speaker 4: connecting are the ICE raids. It's what's happening to my
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: brothers and sisters, my Haitian brothers and sisters in Ohio,
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  Speaker 4: which we will talk about. It's all of those things
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  Speaker 4: that are affecting neighbors and neighborhoods. That's why, you know,
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  Speaker 4: Republicans can't nationalize their election, but Democrats certainly can nationalize
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  Speaker 4: this election. And that's what you're seeing in terms of
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  Speaker 4: the incredible mobilization that we've seen thus far.
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  Speaker 3: Charlie Sykes, what are you seeing in this moment?
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, nothing says I care about the average American
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  Speaker 2: more than building another multimillion dollar monument to your own narcissism.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, this really is a split screen. The only
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  Speaker 2: thing I would quibble with is that Republicans are not
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  Speaker 2: stuck in this situation. They put themselves in this situation.
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  Speaker 2: They signed up for this. And at the very moment
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  Speaker 2: when you would think that they would be trying to
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: have a little bit of daylight, Donald Trump is making
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  Speaker 2: this campaign all about himself. And I was really struck
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  Speaker 2: by Basil saying that 1984 Reagan ad, because can you
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  Speaker 2: even imagine a Trump ad in which Trump does not appear,
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  Speaker 2: in which you simply have the images that make people
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  Speaker 2: feel good about America and where we are going? Everything
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  Speaker 2: that Trump puts out is all about himself. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that's part of the split screen. As Americans are
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  Speaker 2: looking around and going, I'm not actually feeling great about America.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not actually feeling great about myself. And when you
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  Speaker 2: turn on television, you see a Trump ad where you
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: read about the Republican Party. All you hear about is
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  Speaker 2: Donald Trump. And Donald Trump's endless neediness and desire to
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: aggrandize himself. Here's a guy that got elected saying, I
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: will be the voice of the little man. I feel
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  Speaker 2: your pain. I will be your spokesman. But all he
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  Speaker 2: talks about these days is himself. And that's not lost
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  Speaker 2: on voters.
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  Speaker 3: Let me just. Try to deepen this conversation, though. That
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  Speaker 3: has been the case since day one.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 3: So it starts with Elon Musk and the chainsaw with
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  Speaker 3: the belly showing. And they proudly, in their own words, quote,
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  Speaker 3: traumatize the federal workforce. Voters turn out at Republican town
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  Speaker 3: halls immediately. They see what's happening immediately. They have never
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: had a Steve Bannon campaign. voice in the ear of
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  Speaker 3: this West Wing. They have never acted in a way
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  Speaker 3: that is politically beneficial to Trump or any of the Republicans.
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  Speaker 3: What does that say to you, Charlie?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it says to me that Trump 2.0 is different
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  Speaker 2: from Trump 1.0 in many ways, which you have covered extensively.
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  Speaker 2: But one of the ways that it has changed has
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  Speaker 2: been the incredible tone deafness, has been the fact that
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  Speaker 2: he has surrounded himself with a group of toadies and
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  Speaker 2: loyalists who tell him what he wants to hear and
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  Speaker 2: never tell him no.
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  Speaker 1: And as a.
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  Speaker 2: Result of that, I think he's become increasingly disconnected, not
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: just from reality, because we see that every day, but
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: from his own base. I mean, you think about the
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: coalition he put together in 2024. Almost everything that has
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: happened to him since then has been self-inflicted as he
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: has squandered that message and that coalition, which increasingly looks
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: at him and says, this is not what you said
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  Speaker 2: you were going to do. This is not what you promised.
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  Speaker 2: And here we are.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Joel, I wonder sometimes if the.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: No one knows where Mitch McConnell is right now. Donald
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: Trump is so crazy on social media that if he
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  Speaker 3: were at the top of any industry other than politics,
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  Speaker 3: if he were a star athlete, if he were a
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  Speaker 3: famous actor, if he were a famous singer, if he
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: were a famous artist. The press around those institutions, ESPN
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: or sort of the bro-y podcast around sports would be
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: talking about it incessantly. If any athlete posted the kinds
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  Speaker 3: of things Trump posts and the way he posts so
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  Speaker 3: insanely in all caps and weird things and the speech
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  Speaker 3: he's giving. Three times he has now talked about how
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: you spell dumb and said people don't know there's a B.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think like everyone older than five knows
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  Speaker 3: there's a B. Like he says things that are so
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  Speaker 3: crazy now. that there's this gaslighting upside down. I think
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  Speaker 3: this is like a WTF election. I don't actually know
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  Speaker 3: the answer to the question I just asked Charlie Sykes.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe they don't care about the politics of Doge or
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: the politics of, you know, a lot of the jobs
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  Speaker 3: they killed were veterans. I mean, I have never been
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: alive when Republicans didn't even pretend to give a you-know-what
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  Speaker 3: about veterans. I don't know what that is. I don't
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  Speaker 3: know what that ideology is. I don't know what that
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  Speaker 3: principle is. I've never been alive when Republicans haven't cared
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  Speaker 3: about corruption. Even if they didn't care morally, it's a
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  Speaker 3: political loser. And so I wonder how you sort of,
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  Speaker 3: as someone with a finger on the pulse and an
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  Speaker 3: idea of what Democrats are doing, how do you message
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  Speaker 3: in a sort of WTF moment?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm fighting the urge to nerd out here because
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  Speaker 1: both Basil and Charlie went to ads and so did you.
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  Speaker 1: And I'd love to spend the next couple of minutes
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  Speaker 1: talking about that, but I'll resist.
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  Speaker 3: I'll just say this.
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  Speaker 1: The coalition that Trump put together now, this 2024 coalition,
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  Speaker 1: is fundamentally different than the one in 2016. And I
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  Speaker 1: think that that's a part of the story here as well,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: because there are different voters with different interests that have
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: different expectations of this president. The first Trump coalition was, frankly,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit closer to what I would call, like,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Republican classic democracy. And I think maybe some of the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: things that Trump feels like he has license to get
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  Speaker 1: away with, I actually think he was maybe given the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: space to get away with. Combined with the fact, to
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: build off of Charlie's point, he had people around him.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he had the bumpers, like when you go to,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: you know, do bowling and, you know, little three-year-olds are bowling.
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  Speaker 1: He had bumpers on the bowling alley to make sure
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  Speaker 1: that he didn't.
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  Speaker 3: Crap out every time he messed up.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So he had people around him that would fight back
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  Speaker 1: on the worst impulses and prevent the worst possible thing
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  Speaker 1: from happening every single time. And it distorted what the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: American people experienced and Trump won. So that when they
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: got an opportunity to have another shot at voting for Trump,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: They forgot about it. And there's a lot of cultural
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: reasons why that might be the case. But the coalition
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: being different, I think, is central to this conversation and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: central to the failure to meet people's expectations. When you
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: have a more broad working class coalition of people of color,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: they expect different things than that coalition that's a little
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: bit closer to a Republican classic coalition. So you can't
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: spend people out of transferring a trillion dollars of wealth
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: in the big, beautiful bill like you may have been
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: able to do the first time around with that TCJA
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Act you passed back in, I believe it was 2017.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: So the coalition is being different, I think, is central
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: here as well.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: What was the ad you were going to? I promised
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: you to since you went third.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: Well, well, so, you know, I've actually made some ads myself.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I remember one of the things we were trying to
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: counteract was this feeling of people saying, well, what do
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I have to lose? In fact, I remember Trump on
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the campaign trail would talk about what do I have
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: to lose? And we actually made an ad that. that
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: took that sound of him saying, what do you have
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: to lose? And then we pointed out all the things
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: that people could lose. And I think, you know, it's
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: not funny. It's more ironic that every single day, I mean,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: with each passing headline, we are seeing what was at
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: stake for people in that election and obviously in 2024
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: and the price that people are paying for buying into
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the charlatan that is Donald Trump.