Trump Goes Birther on Haley

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Speaker 2 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Favreau.

Speaker 1 I'm Dan Pfeiffer. We're back, Dan, for our first

Speaker 2 Friday show.

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Speaker 1 I guess they'll be back? It's a great question. It's confusing.

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Speaker 2 On today's show, Ron DeSantis says he's staying in the race, but his campaign doesn't seem so sure. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris kick their re-elect into high gear.

Speaker 2 Donald Trump orders MAGA Mike Johnson not to cut a deal on border security. And later, we'll be joined by New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers for a preview of Tuesday's primary.

Speaker 2 And first, let's talk about the state of the race in New Hampshire, where Nikki Haley is looking to score a major upset against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, a man who's been judged a rapist by a jury of his peers and is still facing 91 felony counts for committing fraud, stealing classified secrets, and trying to overturn the last election so he could remain in power.

Speaker 2 Charges he's fighting with the legal defense that presidents are allowed to commit as many crimes as they'd like, even if they, quote, cross the line. According to the five,

Speaker 2 this is the guy who's in the lead. Nikki Haley is just trying to score major upset against this guy, the adjudicated rapist.
91 felony counts he's facing.

Speaker 2 According to the 538 polling average, Trump is at 47% in New Hampshire. But with Nikki Haley just 13 points behind, nipping at his heels with 34%,

Speaker 2 it's no more Mr. Nice Guy.
In Portsmouth on Wednesday, Trump let loose a few bird brains, his favorite name for Nikki Haley.

Speaker 2 He called attention to her Indian first name, Nimirata, photoshopped a picture of her face on Hillary Clinton's body, and delivered another gracious, disciplined speech like the one we saw in Iowa on Monday night.

Speaker 7 A vote for Nikki Haley this Tuesday Tuesday is a vote for Joe Biden and a Democrat Congress. The people behind Nikki Haley are pro-amnesty.
They're pro-China. They're pro-open borders.

Speaker 7 You know, she wants open borders. Non-liquid gold.
You know where it was? Iowa. It's called corn.
They have, it's non-liquid. That's my day.
You have more non-liquid gold.

Speaker 7 That's a nickname in its own way, but we came up with a new word for a new couple of words for corn. I said, whoa, is that a hard test? It can be hard.

Speaker 7 I said, look, I got to take it because I got to shut it up. And I took it and I aced it.

Speaker 7 And let me tell you, you know, they always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, or this, or that, a whale. Which one is the whale? Okay.

Speaker 7 And that goes on for three or four, and then it gets harder and harder and harder.

Speaker 2 Of course, that's Trump talking about taking a dementia test, which I think he should ask for a refund.

Speaker 1 Personally.

Speaker 2 That is just.

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 2 that's the guy that,

Speaker 2 you know, half the country says says they want at the helm uh you know that's the those are the that's the kind of mental acumen that uh allows him to just make sure that the economy is humming on all cylinders that's what we love about him so dan color me skeptical that uh nikki haley is going to be able to pull off an upset now that trump's going all in on the attack that she's a uh hillary loving globalist establishment rhino shill uh with a funny name who wink wink uh might not have even been born here.

Speaker 2 But what do you think?

Speaker 1 I feel like you're leading the witness with this question.

Speaker 1 I share your skepticism. I'm not entirely sure that Nikki Haley is trying to win at this point.
I am mystified by what she is doing. She's doing one event or so a day in New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 She's really not taking questions. She's not barnstorming.
She has five days left in her presidential campaign if she does not win New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 And she's not doing any of the things that someone in that position would do. She's not really fighting back.
She's not laying out the stakes.

Speaker 1 She's not, I mean, you would, this would be the time in a campaign where you would campaign around the clock. Maybe you would sleep for four hours a night.
You'd be up.

Speaker 1 You'd be at diners in the morning. Then you would go here.
You'd be on a bus tour. You do all these things.
She's doing like one event a day. It is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen.

Speaker 2 Did you see that she flew back to South Carolina Tuesday night to, because because her father is 90 and was in the hospital, so she wanted to visit her father. I guess he's okay.

Speaker 2 He was having cancer treatments in the hospital. So she loses that night day.
I guess she was back on the trail Wednesday. She's been going everywhere with Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 She did have this to say about Trump's latest attack on Nikki Haley. Just, you know, a vote for Nikki Haley is a vote for Democrats.
Let's listen.

Speaker 8 Trump says things. Americans aren't stupid to just believe what he says.
The reality is who lost the House for us? Who lost the Senate? Who lost the White House?

Speaker 8 Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. Nikki Haley will win every single one of those back for us.
I've proven that.

Speaker 1 Has she? Yeah, I was going to say, when did she prove that?

Speaker 2 She knows me, she's not wrong about Trump, that's for sure. But yeah, I don't, even there, I don't, I don't sense the urgency.
I'm not sure what she's trying to do here.

Speaker 1 I think she's trying to land the plane where she can end this campaign with some measure of dignity without upsetting Trump to the point at which she has been completely affected from the party going forward.

Speaker 2 I have a different take, which is that she is trying to win, but she is at her core a cautious politician who is

Speaker 2 very afraid to rock the boat. And so she's like, I don't want to take questions because then I had the, I had the,

Speaker 2 you know, what was the cause of the civil war? They really stumped me with that one. So I don't want another situation where I get a tough question and it takes me off my message.

Speaker 2 But also, I don't know if I should hit Trump. I don't know what my message is.
I don't want to piss off the right. I don't want to piss off the moderate.

Speaker 2 So maybe I'll just crouch down in my position and that'll be enough to win.

Speaker 1 But I mean, that's insane. Yes, I think she is an overly cautious politician.

Speaker 1 And Eve, let's even say she has decided that because she was stumped by the most basic question on a sixth grade history exam, that she's decided that maybe she shouldn't take questions anymore.

Speaker 1 So do 15 events a day not taking questions. Don't do one.
I mean,

Speaker 1 there is just the electability message that she is offering now

Speaker 1 maybe could have worked if she was building a case for it over time. But she has not done that.
She has not leaned into it.

Speaker 1 And even then, she does not say the thing you have to say if you want to deliver an electability message, which is if you nominate Donald Trump, he will lose to Joe Biden.

Speaker 1 That's the thing you have to say, but she won't say that because that will anger.

Speaker 1 I don't know if she cares if it angers Trump personally, but it'll anger some people in the the party she thinks donald trump's probably going to beat her she doesn't want that hanging over her and here's the problem with waiting on the selectability message for

Speaker 1 you and i have been talking about republicans offering electability message on trump for a year maybe we it's possible we were always wrong

Speaker 1 and republicans made it including nikki hilly made it worse for themselves by never really being able to admit that donald that joe biden legitimately won the election but right now she's doing this message she decided this is what she's going to use in the yougov poll that came out this week they asked people regardless of who you support who do you think will win the election?

Speaker 1 84% of Republicans think Donald Trump's going to win the election.

Speaker 1 They are not afraid he's going to lose. And so you need a different message.

Speaker 1 I think that she may.

Speaker 2 What do you think that message would be? Like, I don't even know what that would be. If I didn't go with the electability one, I don't know what I would do.

Speaker 1 There's no message you can come up with today that is going to solve this problem. You needed this message for a year.
If she had done, I'm not saying she could have won.

Speaker 1 I'm not, that's not the argument I'm making, but you build an argument up over time, particularly for someone like Donald Trump, who is incredibly well known and incredibly well liked by the voters you need.

Speaker 1 The change message that she was offering in her concession slash victory slash I got third place, but it wasn't a terrible third place speech in Iowa was a message that could have been at the foundation of a more successful campaign than the one she's running.

Speaker 1 But she didn't really do that. And I do think there was one massive strategic blunder she made, and that was she should never have gone to Iowa.

Speaker 1 All the chips are in New Hampshire. She wins New Hampshire.
She has a shot. The world can debate if it's a 2% shot or a 20% shot, but she stays alive to fight another day.

Speaker 1 So instead of staying in New Hampshire and competing where she had to win, she went to Iowa, took time to going to Iowa, and

Speaker 1 tried to possibly beat Ron DeSantis for second. And even if she had done that, she still would have lost by 30 points.

Speaker 1 Like the idea that that was going to somehow give her momentum, it was just a, it was a fundamental blunder when she should have just stayed in New Hampshire and given herself a shot to actually win that.

Speaker 1 And look, we've only seen a couple polls. Maybe she will win New Hampshire.

Speaker 1 I would be surprised by that outcome, but

Speaker 1 she has not maximized her chances by running a good campaign or being a particularly good candidate, frankly.

Speaker 2 I don't have a strong opinion on this. I'm not sure it would have mattered if she had skipped Iowa and stayed in New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 There would have just been more pressure on her to win New Hampshire, but she needed to win it anyway.

Speaker 2 And then, you know, she would have maybe gotten even lower in Iowa if she wouldn't campaigned there, or maybe she wouldn't have. I don't think it fucking matters either way.

Speaker 1 She was coming in third in Iowa under all scenarios, right?

Speaker 2 I was going to say, I don't, yeah, I just don't know that it would have mattered.

Speaker 2 I do think

Speaker 2 I looked into the New Hampshire polls. It does seem like she's, even these polls where she's down by like double digits to Donald Trump, 10 points, 13 points, whatever.

Speaker 2 She's definitely gaining in these polls. The challenge for her is that Trump is gaining as well.
And that with Vivek out and

Speaker 2 DeSantis fading, like those voters, as we've been saying for a while, are going to, they're not going to Haley, they're going to Trump. And so he's gaining just like she's gaining.

Speaker 2 She is winning moderates, winning the undeclared vote, which is a big portion of, or could be a big portion of the electorate on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 She's winning liberals, obviously, winning college-educated voters.

Speaker 2 It just doesn't seem like in the polls that she's winning those groups by enough or that there are enough of them to counteract Trump's strength with conservatives, Republicans, and non-college voters.

Speaker 2 And she could expand the electorate and there are enough undeclared voters in New Hampshire for her to win, but that would require giving people a reason to come out to vote for her.

Speaker 1 Or going to meet them by doing events. Right.
I mean,

Speaker 1 there are enough independent voters.

Speaker 1 In 2012, it's kind of hard. You need to pick to try to give yourself a baseline of this.
You have to pick a year in which there was only a Republican primary.

Speaker 1 But in 2012, 49, I think it was 49% of the electorate was independent.

Speaker 1 And one of the things that's interesting, we look at all these polls, is she down seven, down 20, is what the estimate of the independent share of the electorate is in that poll, right?

Speaker 1 The CNN poll, when she was down seven, it was about half. It was probably like 44%, I think.
So there are enough voters there, but you can't get there on independence alone.

Speaker 1 You have to win a slice of Republicans and then overwhelmingly with the independents. And she's kind of doing neither right now.

Speaker 2 And the Trump people, of course, know that she's trying to appeal to undeclared voters, moderates, and dependents.

Speaker 2 And so they have an ad that they are running on MSNBC of all places about Nikki Haley. Let's take a listen.

Speaker 1 Social Security, Medicare, how would you manage the entitlements?

Speaker 8 We say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy.
What we do know is 65 is way too low, and we need to increase that. Increase that.

Speaker 1 Haley's plan cuts Social Security benefits for 82% of Americans. Trump will never let that happen.
I'm Donald J. Trump, and I approve this message.

Speaker 2 Ouch.

Speaker 2 It's really a twofer because, you know, you run that out on MSNBC. Liberals and moderates don't like that.
There's probably a bunch of conservatives that don't like that either.

Speaker 2 Because in this Republican Party,

Speaker 2 you have the working-class voters who get really excited about sort of the cultural racial issues and not as much about economics and actually probably like their social security benefits.

Speaker 1 I mean, outside of Paul Ryan's living room, you probably can't find a person who thinks that cutting social security Medicare is a great idea politically or personally. So yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's, I think, ironic the MSNBC wouldn't air Trump's victory speech, but we'll take his money for his ads. But that's a conversation for another day.
It's air the speeches.

Speaker 2 CNN, MSNBC, air the fucking speeches.

Speaker 1 Driving me nuts. Just us furiously trying to find C-SPAN on the cable box on Monday night so we can get it.

Speaker 2 Well, it's not for us even. It's just like Americans need to be reminded of why they hated Donald Trump so much.
What are we doing?

Speaker 1 Anyway,

Speaker 1 it's crazy. But yeah, it's smart.
They recognize that they can drive down her vote share, even a tiny bit with independence.

Speaker 1 You know, how many New Hampshire independents watch MSNBC if you do the math based on a national basis? You know, it's not that many, but not that many also matters.

Speaker 2 A couple of my aunts. It's just, it is their MSNBC viewer.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 Were they heading out to catch Haley at

Speaker 1 the Puritan diary?

Speaker 2 That's right. There you go.
Yeah, they're going to have some chicken fingers in the business.

Speaker 1 Chicken fingers in the business.

Speaker 2 It does seem like that the Trump people don't just want to beat her in New Hampshire. They want to beat her so badly that she drops out before South Carolina.
It seems like

Speaker 2 they're going for the kill here on her and DeSantis. They want to end this thing after New Hampshire, which they might.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw a story today somewhere that said,

Speaker 1 Trump people targeting Super Tuesday to end the primary. I was like,

Speaker 1 really? That seems like the worst case scenario for him at current trajectory, right? Like, how is this thing still going after South Carolina?

Speaker 1 Unless somehow Haley beats him in South Carolina, which seems quite hard to imagine given her performance in Iowa, which is moderate compared to South Carolina in terms of the electorate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's going to get that boost coming in. A close second in New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 You see that like Chris Sununu, governor of New Hampshire, last month, was saying, like, guarantee that Nikki Haley is going to win New Hampshire. And like this week, he was like,

Speaker 2 I mean, a strong second is all we ever really hope for here.

Speaker 1 Yeah, which tells you everything about their internal polling.

Speaker 2 I know.

Speaker 2 So we also got to talk about our boy Tiny D, who finished 30 points behind Trump and Iowa, didn't win a single county.

Speaker 2 DeSantis is now apparently skipping New Hampshire, where he's only at 5% in the polls. And his never back down super PAC is, in fact, backing down by laying off a bunch of staff.

Speaker 2 So DeSantis is telling reporters he's staying in the race through March. I don't actually see that happening to you.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's really an existential question. Is he still in the race right now?

Speaker 1 I mean, no one's thinking about him. His obituary has been written.
He's not in debates. No one's really talking about him.
So, yeah, I mean, I guess.

Speaker 2 It's really a sixth sense ending here. Yeah, I was.

Speaker 1 You know, I've thought really long and hard about bringing the sixth sense up because

Speaker 2 you didn't want to spoiler. Is that what it was? Or is you just think it's dating the references? I don't mind.

Speaker 1 Look,

Speaker 1 I know my age. I don't mind dating my references at all, but I was sort of like, what is the

Speaker 1 statute of limitations on spoiling a movie? And there's no way to make the joke without spoiling the one of the greatest twists. Well, you know what?

Speaker 2 We did it. That was not a spoil.

Speaker 2 We just sort of

Speaker 2 did it.

Speaker 2 So, did you read Mark Caputo's story in The Messenger about how Trump crushed DeSantis? It's this great, like,

Speaker 2 it's the type of story that's written after this candidate drops out, but it's sort of a pre-obituary.

Speaker 2 And it's just got, I have rarely seen so many consultants and campaign staff throw the candidate under the bus before the campaign has even ended.

Speaker 1 I have some thoughts on the story. Okay.
One, I have rarely seen a reporter

Speaker 1 write a piece with more obvious, dripping disdain for the subject than Mark Caputo clearly has for Ronde Santis. That's true.

Speaker 1 It was not subtle in any way, shape, or form how he felt about him.

Speaker 1 And one of the tells was that in this piece where he quotes, he basically talks to anyone who has ever worked for or known Ron DeSantis to get them to crap on Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 1 But then the lead quote in the story is just from Chris Lasavita, Trump's campaign guy now, just dumping on Ron DeSantis. Like totally unnecessary.
Did not need it to be done.

Speaker 1 It just like lead the story with him just. basically

Speaker 1 destroying DeSantis in print. It was just, it was a wild story.
Second thing I'd say about the story is fascinating story, very well written, you know, full of interesting things.

Speaker 1 And while the details were new, I was surprised by none of it, which shows what a horrendous campaign that DeSantis ran. That we, his campaign was leaking all this stuff.

Speaker 1 He had obituaries written about his campaign every two months for a year. And so when we got to this, I was not at all surprised by it.
I was like, yeah,

Speaker 1 none of that's shocking.

Speaker 1 It makes complete sense.

Speaker 1 Some of those anecdotes we kind of knew, you know, various versions of, because his, the only people who hated Ron DeSantis DeSantis more than the people of Iowa and New Hampshire were his staff who have been crapping on him to reporters the whole time.

Speaker 2 And the consultants who were at least being paid well. But we have one consultant that said no one tells him he's wrong.

Speaker 2 Another consultant said, you know, he ignored calls early to stay more focused on the economy and sound more positive.

Speaker 2 He was told by advisors, DeSantis was told by his advisors that interactions with voters were crucial and that he needed to seem more relatable to voters.

Speaker 2 DeSantis' response, quote, people don't care about that stuff.

Speaker 2 He was told by his pollster that the six-week ban, abortion ban, would be quite bad and not popular. He disagreed.

Speaker 2 One consultant said the Twitter launch was a disaster. Remember the Twitter launch? Remember with his ex-launch with Elon Musk and the

Speaker 2 besties and the all-in pod?

Speaker 2 Remember that? That was fun.

Speaker 2 It's going to be the podcast election, Dan.

Speaker 1 That's what that's what they think.

Speaker 2 They told him to stop talking about Florida so much. And then then the consultant said, whoever advised him to go on Christian TV and say he wanted to have dinner with Jesus should be fired.

Speaker 2 This campaign is like an Irish wake waiting for the body to drop.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's the best line. That's my favorite.

Speaker 2 I love that line.

Speaker 1 I love that line.

Speaker 2 I have heard rumors that he's actually having conversations about whether to stay in, despite what he's doing.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, pause.

Speaker 1 Pause. You've heard rumors?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 are you doing reporting now?

Speaker 2 I am doing reporting. Yeah, just accidentally.

Speaker 1 Accidental reporting.

Speaker 1 Accidental reporting from text conversations.

Speaker 1 I'm sure he's thinking of how to wind this thing down. Right.
Yeah. I mean, absolutely.

Speaker 2 I just don't, I think it seems like they don't, they're not going to have the money. There was apparently an MDC had a story.

Speaker 2 There was a call with donors where they said, we think we'll probably be able to raise the money to stay until South Carolina.

Speaker 1 Not a chance. There's not a

Speaker 2 history. When you're saying that

Speaker 2 you think you might be able to raise the money to stay into South Carolina, you probably can't raise the money to stay into South Carolina.

Speaker 2 Who's going to give that campaign money right now that is the one

Speaker 1 thing you always know when a campaign ever says i think we can raise the money they definitely cannot right it's it's it's over it has been over for months it probably never started to be fair

Speaker 1 and everyone has known it it has been it's just the only person even ron desantis seems to have known it because he he had such joy at coming in second and i'm using joy in the most Ron DeSantis version of that, which is it just seemed to briefly stop hating himself.

Speaker 2 And the smile just turned the corners of his mouth just

Speaker 2 a little.

Speaker 2 It was just like

Speaker 1 a relief that something not absolutely horrendous happened on the way out. And it just says everything that that not horrendous thing was losing by 30 points, not more.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I mean, it is a, there are, there are probably some object lessons that we can talk about about why this was, his campaign was such a disaster and what it says about politics.

Speaker 1 But there's no question it was an absolute disaster.

Speaker 2 Some of you might be wondering why did we just spend so long talking about Ryan DeSantis? And look, it's going to be a long and brutal campaign. There's going to be a lot of tough days.

Speaker 2 I wanted to dance on his grave for a little bit.

Speaker 2 I had fun. I don't know about you.

Speaker 1 I think we deserve that, Dan. The listeners deserve that.
Absolutely. Yeah, they do.
Yeah, this is fan service. Yeah, there's not.
I don't think there's anyone out there complaining about this.

Speaker 2 A few quick housekeeping notes.

Speaker 2 dan great second episode of the polar coaster i uh i listened this week i was catching up on all my podcasts from when i was on parental leave you talked to sarah longwell one of our favorites to answer the question can any republican beat trump

Speaker 1 listen listen spoiler listen before tuesday

Speaker 2 But you should be listening to all the Polar Coaster episodes. You should be subscribing to Friends of the Pod so you can get this fantastic content.

Speaker 2 It's Dan talking to some of the smartest people in polling, some of the smartest strategists. It's a fantastic show.

Speaker 2 It's a subscriber exclusive series, so make sure to head to cricket.com slash friends to get first access to new episodes and more. Anything else you'd like to add, Dan, or

Speaker 2 did I plug that?

Speaker 1 I thought you did a great job. But as we always say,

Speaker 1 if you're someone like us who is going to live and die with every one of these polls, you want to know what's happening, you want to dig deep, You're a junkie.

Speaker 1 If you're a polling junkie, this show's for you.

Speaker 2 There you go.

Speaker 1 There you go.

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Speaker 2 Before we move on, it looks like the Biden campaign is finally kicking into high gear.

Speaker 2 They're running their first ads in South Carolina ahead of the primary there on February 3rd, the first primary that counts for Democrats.

Speaker 2 And the campaign also announced that President Biden, the first lady, Vice President Harris, and the second gentleman will be holding a rally focused on abortion rights in Northern Virginia on Tuesday, the day of the New Hampshire primary and the day after the anniversary of Roe v.

Speaker 2 Wade.

Speaker 2 What's your take on the thinking behind the timing, location, and focus of this event?

Speaker 1 I think it is smart to have a display of political strength and enthusiasm on the day of the New Hampshire primary. There are no delegates at stake.

Speaker 1 Biden is not on the ballot, but there are Democrats organizing a write-in Joe Biden write-in campaign.

Speaker 1 Dean Phillips is a person who still exists and he's running up there.

Speaker 1 Marion Williamson, believe it or not, is still, well, she's on the ballot up there.

Speaker 2 And usually mostly polling ahead of Dean Phillips, wherever they do polling.

Speaker 1 Yes, that is true. I'm not entirely sure she's campaigning.
I haven't heard anything about that, but she is on the ballot. So there is going to be some coverage of how Joe Biden does in that primary.

Speaker 1 And so let's get some, and Trump's also going to likely have a triumphant New Hampshire rally.

Speaker 1 And so it's time to start getting images of Biden out there at the same time to deliver his message and have a contrast message to Trump and the Republicans that goes along there.

Speaker 1 I'm assuming the location is because it's in Virginia and close to the White House.

Speaker 2 So, uh, but what do you think about all four of them doing it together?

Speaker 1 It looks they, there is nothing harder than getting attention.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 It is, and so they're, they are out there doing everything they possibly can to get this very challenging media environment, this diminished press corps to turn around and cover them and give it attention.

Speaker 1 And so this is one of those tools in the, in the toolbox that you can use is get them all together.

Speaker 1 It makes it seem different than just the normal Joe Biden rally that does not get the attention that a Trump rally does for reasons that are entirely unfair

Speaker 1 and very troubling, but that but are a fact.

Speaker 1 And so this, like the word, we would, if they just announced that Joe Biden was going to be speaking on abortion in Virginia on Tuesday, I'm not sure we would spend as much time talking about it as them saying all four.

Speaker 1 Like they are sending a signal to us in the press and everyone else that this is a big deal. So pay attention.
And we will.

Speaker 2 You think they're going to do it at night to like counter-program whatever happens with the New Hampshire results? Should they do it at night?

Speaker 1 Does it matter? I don't know. I don't think it matters that much.

Speaker 2 I would hope that they would try to. I mean, it's the president of the United States.

Speaker 2 So if he holds a big rally with, you know, the vice president and their partners at night, the night of the New Hampshire primary, you would hope that all the networks would cut to that and show some footage from it.

Speaker 1 I mean, you would, but man, those, the Iowa ratings for the cable networks were so depressingly low that I'm not entirely sure it's worth it.

Speaker 2 No, I think it's I totally agree with focusing on kicking off the general election, focusing on abortion, especially around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
I think that's really smart.

Speaker 2 I do have a question for you.

Speaker 2 I mentioned earlier that Trump said today that presidents must have complete and total immunity from prosecution for any crime they commit in office, which is an even more extreme version of the argument his lawyers have made in court.

Speaker 2 They said presidents can be prosecuted if they've been impeached, which also seems silly.

Speaker 2 I feel like it's important for voters to know that the guy they may elect thinks he has the legal right to have them all killed. Or is that just crazy? Or is that not kitchen table enough for voters?

Speaker 1 Until you get the price of eggs below a certain level, you cannot discuss this.

Speaker 1 No, I think it, I think it is a it is part of the argument. And yes, I agree.
And there's a, how you make the argument matters. I was looking at this

Speaker 1 when Trump's lawyers suggested that he could send SEAL Team 6 to kill his political opponent and not be prosecuted for it in court.

Speaker 2 It's classic already.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 And I might.

Speaker 1 And so I went back and looked at polling message testing on it. And there was some message testing that our friends at Navigator did about Trump's first original indictment.
And

Speaker 1 saying that no one should be above the law, even presidents, is a very, very powerful argument.

Speaker 1 And so Trump arguing that he should be above the law is, I think, an argument that Ken and should be made in this campaign. And maybe Biden will make it on Tuesday.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 You know what? I bet another powerful argument is? I bet people don't like the idea of the person they elect president being able to kill them.

Speaker 2 I don't know. I throw that one in a poll.
I bet it would go. I would bet it would test pretty high.

Speaker 1 I mean, the thing is, it's definitely not popular to want the president to kill you, but it's going to be more popular you think.

Speaker 2 Well, here's the thing is I'm sure people are going to test like, do you care about the president or

Speaker 2 the politicians in general arresting or indicting political opponents? And because no one really likes politicians anyway, I'm sure that would not be that popular.

Speaker 2 But I do think that the way to frame this is Donald Trump is basically out there saying, I can do anything I want to people who disagree with me.

Speaker 2 Can be Joe Biden, can be Joe Schmo. You know, like he thinks he is above the law and can use the powers of the presidency to do anything he wants.

Speaker 2 And if you do not agree with him, even if you did work, look at the way Donald Trump has treated the people who work for him, the people who are his loyalists.

Speaker 2 It's not even like he loves Republicans and hates Democrats. If you cross Donald Trump at all,

Speaker 2 he's coming for you. And now he thinks he is completely above the law and can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Infinite crimes. That's what Donald Trump thinks he deserves.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 I would make that case.

Speaker 1 He tried to murder his vice president. Just this one example.
He did all of that. Just one relevant example.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I would get on that. And I realize it's tough, too, because I'm sure the Biden folks don't want to comment on the cases.
I know they have to be careful of that.

Speaker 2 But I think when Donald Trump is truthing all kinds of crazy shit, that is outside

Speaker 2 what's happening in the courtroom. And I think that's very much fair game.

Speaker 1 Can I say one more thing about this? Before you go on Louisiana.

Speaker 1 We had our New Year's resolution episode a few weeks ago, and one of my New Year's resolutions was to improve my attention span.

Speaker 1 And then about 10 days after that, I set up Twitter alerts for this bot that sends you, that posts on Twitter Trump's truth social posts.

Speaker 10 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 Are you set up an alert for that?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, John,

Speaker 1 this is my job, and I take it seriously.

Speaker 2 I follow that account. I'm so glad someone finally did it because trying to find the truths on Truth Social is a pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 Well, it's what my takeaway from that other than the possible damage I'm doing to my brain from it, is people need to know what's happening on there.

Speaker 1 It's wild.

Speaker 2 Yeah. MSNBC, CNN.
This is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 It's not being covered. They do it.

Speaker 2 No, it's not being covered.

Speaker 1 Now that Trump is the presumptive, essentially the presumptive, after Tuesday, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, every one of those true socials should be covered as his tweets were covered in

Speaker 1 20 from 2015 till the day he was kicked off Twitter the first time.

Speaker 1 we're gonna be sleepwalking into a second trump term because no one wanted to platform him we all we are all sleepwalking on it it was just you know it was like jamie dimon the other day talking about how trump's probably gonna win and yeah i mean just like all the

Speaker 1 he's gonna get a huge tax cut so i'm sure he wants that yeah i mean it's it's just people should follow should i'm not saying people you don't have to go on true social check out this twitter account See what's happening there.

Speaker 1 If you're a reporter, report on it because voters should know that he is crazier than ever. And that is not coming through in the coverage.

Speaker 2 Believe it or not, there's still a loose attempt at governing happening in Washington right now.

Speaker 2 It looks like Congress just barely avoided a government shutdown by passing yet another temporary funding bill that's going to give them until March 1st and March 8th to fully fund the government.

Speaker 2 That's going to be a fun week. State of the Union, March 7th, and then a government funding deadline on March 8th.
Good times.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, all four congressional leaders met with Biden on Wednesday to see if they could agree on an aid package to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan in exchange for stricter border and immigration policies.

Speaker 2 Woof, win-win all around. Democrats left the meeting saying they were optimistic about a deal.
Some of the reporting was a little less positive.

Speaker 2 And this is what we heard from Speaker Mike Johnson on Laura Ingram's show.

Speaker 9 The president actually

Speaker 9 just got off the phone with me right before the show, and he said he has spoken to you about this deal and that he is against it. And he urged you to be against this deal.

Speaker 9 He was extremely, President Trump was extremely adamant about that.

Speaker 9 Your reaction to that, given the fact that, look, he already, he knows how to do this enforcement stuff. You don't need some new bill coming out of the Senate to get the border enforced.

Speaker 14 Yeah, President Trump is not wrong. He and I have been talking about this pretty frequently.
I talked to him the night before last about the same subject.

Speaker 14 We don't have the text of whatever the Senate has cooked up yet. And so we have to reserve judgment, I think, to see what comes out of it.

Speaker 2 Dad says no. Sorry.
Boss says I can't do it.

Speaker 2 And you know what? He doesn't, bills out of Congress. He doesn't need any laws.

Speaker 2 He's got total and complete immunity. These guys is a dictator.

Speaker 2 He's going to come into office. He's going to fix the border.
He didn't need Congress. Probably going to dissolve Congress by the time he gets there.
Trump followed up with a... I'm sure you know.

Speaker 2 I don't know who am I telling. I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
You got the alert.

Speaker 2 Trump followed up with a truth where he did say he admitted that he told Mike Johnson not to not to cut a deal unless it was perfect.

Speaker 2 We haven't talked about this in a while, but what do you think the chances are something gets done at this point? And

Speaker 2 then how do you think Biden and the Democrats should handle the politics around this?

Speaker 1 I mean, there is always a chance that Trump and Mike Johnson's statement simply just creates more negotiating leverage for the Republicans. So I think this is going to work in two steps.

Speaker 1 I think that the Senate Republicans and the White House and the Senate Democrats are thinking about this separate and apart from the House.

Speaker 1 They're going to get the best deal they can from both people's perspective. And then they're just going to hope something good happens in the House.

Speaker 1 That seems unlikely, I would say, that that happens. It doesn't seem great.

Speaker 1 And, you know, someone once said to me that there are two kinds of politics in the Congress. There's micropolitics and macro politics.

Speaker 1 And the micropolitics are the politics of how you keep your speakership, how you move up in leadership, how you keep the caucus happy.

Speaker 1 And then the macro politics are how you win, control of the House, what's going to happen in the midterms, elections, national political trends.

Speaker 1 This is both micro and macro politics for Mike Johnson because the micro politics are he's already, he's got a,

Speaker 1 he just passed the CR, which he said he was not going to do. He stuck with the Senate, the, with the dealy couple with Chuck Schumer, which he said he was not going to do.
He has a...

Speaker 1 majority of basically zero right now. He's got no margin for error.
Only one person can knock him out.

Speaker 1 And so he's obviously going to have to, it seems impossible in that scenario, he's going to cut some sort of border deal that does not make the Freedom Caucus happy. Like you can,

Speaker 1 you can upset the border caucus, the Freedom Caucus on government funding or debt ceiling of these things, maybe once or twice, but you can never upset them on immigration.

Speaker 1 That's the one thing that you cannot do. And so that seems unlikely.

Speaker 1 From a macro perspective, it seems very clear that what the Republicans would rather have a crisis at the border for the election than solve the problem. And that's definitely what Trump is thinking.

Speaker 1 If Trump is thinking in terms of being a president, then it would be great to get this off his plate. He doesn't have to deal with it.
Right.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 be confident that he and Fox News could lie enough about the crisis at the border to keep all the politics of it and then have a solution waiting for him.

Speaker 1 But he plans on running on a crisis at the border and he doesn't want to give Biden any chance to cut a deal that he could then say he did something good for the border.

Speaker 1 And so with that in mind, it seems unlikely that something's going to happen.

Speaker 2 And some of the Senate Republicans that have been negotiating this deal have said that they'll never get a deal like this under Trump because even if Trump wins and Republicans have the Senate, they're not going to have 60 votes in the Senate.

Speaker 2 And so why would Democrats ever decide to do a deal on the border when Trump is president and Republicans control Congress?

Speaker 2 And so that you got a lot of Republicans, Jon Thune, Lindsey Graham, all the people saying like, hey, take this deal. This is the best deal we're going to get.

Speaker 2 But like you said, Trump and Mike Johnson and the MAGA folks, they want the issue.

Speaker 2 And if I were Biden and this thing falls apart in the House, I might go out there and say, look, I want to fix the border. I think it's a problem.

Speaker 2 But the Speaker and Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the party have basically forbid Republicans from working with us to fix the problem because they care more about winning the next election.

Speaker 2 They don't care about fixing the problem.

Speaker 2 And that's exactly the problem with the Republican Party right now is that there is an extreme faction that doesn't want to solve problems, that just wants to play games.

Speaker 1 That is 100% right. Get this deal, help get this deal across the finish line.

Speaker 1 Talk about the deal, announce the deal, talk about the deal and the state of the union, and then hammer, if the Republicans are really not going going to, if the House of Republicans are really not going to do anything, hammer the living shit out of them for refusing to solve the problem.

Speaker 1 And do that from now until November. And then when you're on a debate stage with Donald Trump, a moment that gives me, makes my blood pressure spike.

Speaker 1 That's a moment, right?

Speaker 1 We had a deal to deal with this problem.

Speaker 1 And then you, because you were cared more about winning this election than helping America, the American people, you called up the House Republicans and told them not to do the deal, even though it was a bipartisan deal with the support of blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 You know, like there was a, there's a way to do this. It's a, this would be a, the best thing for everyone would be to get a deal and get it done.

Speaker 1 And because you get to saw, you get to help on the border, Ukraine funding, Israel funding, the natural disaster funding, all of those things.

Speaker 1 But if the House Republicans block it, make them pay for it because it will help you against Trump.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think, and look, Biden, it's the issue he pulls the worst on is immigration and the border.

Speaker 2 And this, I don't think it solves the problem for him, but this is what he can say about immigration for now for an entire campaign, which is one of the great vulnerabilities.

Speaker 2 And it happens to be not only the truth, but what Republicans have been doing for decades, which is every time we get close to comprehensive immigration reform that would give a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and

Speaker 2 strengthen border security, it's Republicans that end up tanking the deal because they would rather demagogue the issue. And I think voters will get that.

Speaker 1 We should stipulate. We don't know exactly what's going to end up in this deal.

Speaker 1 I'm positive it's going to have a lot of things that we don't like in it and are probably not great policy and would very much in a different world with a different Senate, if we a different House have a much better deal.

Speaker 1 But also Biden is

Speaker 1 operating in divided government, right? With a 50, with a Senate with no margin of error and ability and he's trying to do a whole bunch of things. So the deal is going to not be awesome.

Speaker 1 But if the Republicans are going, if it's going to be a bipartisan, the Republicans are going to block it, we should make them pay for doing that.

Speaker 2 Well, and this is why I think it's even less likely that something gets done because this is one where even if Mike Johnson, for some reason, decided to put the deal on the floor, unlike some of these government funding bills, I don't know that their Democratic votes are there to save him because I think there's going to be a lot of stuff in this bill that progressives don't like.

Speaker 2 I think Jayapal said that like 100 members of the Progressive Caucus are going to vote against what their deal.

Speaker 2 They don't know the details yet of what the deals would be, but at least the outlines of what they're hearing. And, you know, I'm not sure they should vote for it, right?

Speaker 2 Though I'd have to see what the final details are. But so like, I don't, that's, it just seems very unlikely that this gets done.

Speaker 2 Another big win for Washington. Okay, when we come back, Dan talks to New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers about what the primary is looking like on the ground in the Granite State.

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Speaker 1 The New Hampshire primary is this coming Tuesday, and there are now just three Republicans left standing. Joining us to talk all things granted state is New Hampshire Public Radio.

Speaker 1 Senior political reporter Josh Rogers, he's one of the smartest, most experienced reporters in the state. Welcome to the pod, Josh.

Speaker 10 Good to be here.

Speaker 1 Give us a little picture of what it's like on the ground. The folks who were in Iowa told me that it didn't really feel like a typical Iowa caucus.
It felt more subdued.

Speaker 1 They saw less activity from the campaigns. What's it like in New Hampshire? Does this feel like a normal New Hampshire primary or something different?

Speaker 10 It definitely is more subdued. I mean, today, five days before the primary,

Speaker 10 one campaign event involving a significant candidate, Nikki Haley, had a morning event. That's it.
Dean Phillips is going to be at Dartmouth this evening with Andrew Yang, but it's kind of sleepy.

Speaker 10 And,

Speaker 10 you know, it's been that way for some time. I mean, Haley's been trying to marshal support and not

Speaker 10 doing terribly many events and not taking questions from crowds, not really engaging with the media in the way that people in New Hampshire say is important, whether or not it still is.

Speaker 10 You know, who's to know?

Speaker 1 Is there anything you attribute that to? I mean, this is do or die for Nikki Haley. if she doesn't beat Trump here, it's hard to see another place where she does it.

Speaker 1 So, why are people not campaigning at the same level?

Speaker 10 I don't know. I mean, she has been obviously trying to build a coalition

Speaker 10 that could beat former President Trump here. And it's a tough go when you are not the most popular candidate within your own party.
And so, you know, the fact that President Biden's not running

Speaker 10 means that independent voters, undeclareders are called here who can vote in either primary are, you know, probably likely to vote in higher numbers

Speaker 10 on the Republican side.

Speaker 10 But building your campaign around appealing to those people, and that's kind of what she has to do by necessity in New Hampshire, given Trump's continued apparent grip on the party base, it's hard.

Speaker 10 And she's had Governor Sununu by her side, and he had been for weeks saying, oh, Trump is done. New Hampshire is going to, we'll take him out.

Speaker 10 I mean, now he's indicating that a second place would be good here. So it's, you know, we'll see.
I mean, the, you know, voters can surprise you, but you don't feel a huge amount of momentum.

Speaker 10 I mean, Haley certainly had been building momentum.

Speaker 10 You know, I was out talking to voters yesterday, and, and, you know, there are plenty of people who will vote for her, but whether or not she can catch Trump, we'll see.

Speaker 1 When you go to a Nikki Haley event, who do you see there? Because I know anyone who covers New Hampshire politics, you see a lot of the same faces all these events.

Speaker 1 Are these established Republican activists? Are they independents you don't normally see? Like, what is that attendance like?

Speaker 10 It's a mix. I mean, there certainly are a fair number of Republicans, kind of of the card-carrying variety, who are not necessarily wild about Donald Trump returning to the White House.

Speaker 10 You see some of those people at her events. You see some curiosity seekers.

Speaker 10 You see some Democrats even who don't want Trump to get reelected and are checking out his strongest rival in New Hampshire, at least.

Speaker 10 But again, in order for her to catch Trump, it does seem that she's going to have to mobilize people who are atypical primary voters. And, you know, that's tough.
I mean,

Speaker 10 they've got

Speaker 10 AFP action out knocking doors. I mean, they believe that the turnout for the Republican primary is going to be record-setting.

Speaker 10 They ought to hope it is if they want Nikki Haley to keep this tight and maybe even win.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 there are people checking Nikki Haley out, but she gives a very disciplined, almost rote campaign speech at this point.

Speaker 10 So if you have seen her before and you're not totally on board, you're not going to see much new.

Speaker 10 And so, you know, I do personally wonder where, where she may have, whether she may have kind of crested in terms of her popularity some time ago.

Speaker 10 And the fact that you've had Trump here every other day,

Speaker 10 you know, really going after her at this point probably doesn't help her with the sort of Republican activists.

Speaker 1 Now, DeSantis has been a little

Speaker 1 it's not been entirely clear what his plan is. He said he was going to South Carolina after Iowa, but then has

Speaker 1 he's down. I think he's off the air in Iowa.

Speaker 10 At least to santa's allies are but he's been there a couple times is he like what is the nature is he trying to compete there what's he doing i mean i don't you know he yeah i don't i don't get the sense he is i mean he doesn't have a lot of he's not spending any money here his trajectory has been downward for some time i mean when you know when when the this race first started there were some polls in new hampshire that that showed him beating trump and it's just you know he's just sort of deflated he he hasn't really connected with voters here there are some conservatives who like him but he's not good on the campaign trail.

Speaker 10 You know, there have been management issues with his campaign and his finances.

Speaker 10 But, you know, the case he's been making that I'm a Trump-like candidate who has actually delivered is not something that's galvanized the voters he needs.

Speaker 1 In Iowa, there was a lot of talk, at least before the caucus, that unlike 2016, Trump had professionalized his operation. He had precinct captains in every precinct.

Speaker 1 They're all wearing these gold MAGA hats to stand out. How does his 2024 New Hampshire campaign compare to the 2016 version?

Speaker 10 I mean, that remains a little opaque to me personally.

Speaker 10 I mean, I've been assured by the campaign that this is really a top-notch improvement and that they were, you know, really just running on, like, as the state campaign chairman told me the other day, raw energy.

Speaker 10 And now they believe they've channeled it and they do have a more granular organization and that there are town chairs and county chairs. And, you know, they're all in communication.

Speaker 10 You know, that's remained largely opaque to me. I mean,

Speaker 10 Trump is campaigning here a lot in the closing days, but he hasn't been here a heck of a lot. He has these massive rallies.
It draws fans from across New England.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 10 it does, I am told that they are more organized.

Speaker 10 They have the resources. They've had more time.
I mean, whether or not he needs to be organized is another question.

Speaker 10 I mean, I'm not seeing any indications that it's going to be really about flipping the switch on some sort of turnout operation for him. Yeah, I guess he supports that organization to get there.
The

Speaker 10 support seems to be there. And more than simply the support seems to be there.
There is not

Speaker 10 kind of the autoimmune response that his rivals hoped would kind of trigger activists to

Speaker 10 ditch him. That's just not happened.

Speaker 1 You said the Haley folks are claiming there's going to be, quote-unquote, record turnout. Is that what you expect?

Speaker 10 If you hear anything from state officials about what they're thinking, I mean, I think they're thinking that the Republican turnout could be high given the nature of this election.

Speaker 10 And it is weird with Trump running. I mean, there is, you know, he attracts people and he repels people.
And some of that repulsion will actually attract participation in the Republican primary.

Speaker 10 So I don't know for sure. I mean, the

Speaker 10 you know, I was out there talking to voters in Rockingham County, which is a place where Republicans, you know, tend to rack up a lot of votes yesterday.

Speaker 10 And, you know, I heard as much sort of dyspepsia about the coming general election that people see between Trump and Biden as much as engagement in this primary.

Speaker 10 I mean, I did talk to a fellow who said, you know, he was on the fence whether he was going to vote to Santos or Trump.

Speaker 10 And, you know, I talked to plenty of people who complained about their mailboxes being clogged with Nikki Haley mailers

Speaker 10 and some enthusiasm for her as well. But

Speaker 10 there is a sense, and we'll see if it's true, that, you know, there's not going to be much suspense in this on Tuesday. I mean, maybe Haley gets close.

Speaker 10 I mean, maybe, I mean, it's not impossible that she wins, I mean, given the electorate, but it seems like a stretch. It feels like a stretch.
And

Speaker 10 she doesn't really seem to be going for it. I mean, this is a New Hampshire primary where there will not have been a debate in the entire week between Iowa and New Hampshire.

Speaker 10 And, you know, you don't feel it out there on the streets.

Speaker 10 Whether or not you need to feel it on the streets, I don't know. There may be ways to mobilize voters

Speaker 10 that are happening and will be effective. Um, you know, there should be a decent turnout.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was the big question in Iowa. There a lot of people were saying, we're not feeling it in the streets.
It doesn't feel like 2020 or 2016 or 2008 or whatever.

Speaker 1 But, and the thought was maybe we are, maybe there, it's happened, happening digitally, but then turnout was, you know, down 40%.

Speaker 10 I mean, the weather was pretty rough too. But yeah, so hard to, right.

Speaker 1 This will be a little test of whether the New Hampshire turnout will be an interesting test of whether that was the weather or there was really a sort of a disengagement for whatever reason, because Trump's going to win or, you know, that'll be a question.

Speaker 1 Let's talk a little bit about the Democratic side.

Speaker 1 I want to ask you about, there was a lot of thought when the DNC changed the New Hampshire primary and took its delegates away that that would have a real impact on President Biden in the general election.

Speaker 1 Are you hearing a lot of blowback towards President Biden over that?

Speaker 10 I mean, some in the most kind of parochial manner imaginable that, you know, he took away our primary. How could we possibly support him? But, you know, it's hard to know.

Speaker 10 I mean, I think that, you know, the Biden folks perhaps rightfully make the calculation that

Speaker 10 the specter of Trump will motivate people to turn out in a way that might be more pronounced than anything they could gin up on their own. But they have,

Speaker 10 regardless of the fact that he's not on the ballot here, they have

Speaker 10 coincidentally, clearly, sent up a number of cabinet officials in the last few weeks to sort of tout things that have happened in New Hampshire on Biden's watch.

Speaker 10 The Write-in-Biden campaign is bringing in people from across the country, either via Zoom and Skype and the like, or with real events. I attended

Speaker 10 an organizing event with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy, and I will say I was surprised at the number of people who were there, as were party officials who were there.

Speaker 10 But

Speaker 10 we'll see.

Speaker 10 New Hampshire is not,

Speaker 10 it's been a good state for Democrats in general elections. I mean, the last Republican to win here was George W.
Bush the first time.

Speaker 10 And so it's a state that Democrats have done pretty well in. But there are some people who are worried that the trickle-down effect of a lack of organization early,

Speaker 10 that's one of the motivations of the right-in Biden people.

Speaker 10 And they also have this motivation that if New Hampshire folks prove that they are really dedicated to President Biden and to participation and to doing their civic duty, that perhaps the TNC might end up reversing course in the future, which

Speaker 10 strikes me as far-fetched, but like that's what they're telling themselves. And they're saying, like, you know, New Hampshire, you know, we'll have a story to tell about what happened here.
So

Speaker 10 we'll see. I mean, a lot of these folks, you know, the New Hampshire primary is kind of a baby boomer thing in some ways.

Speaker 10 Like you think about the politicians who, their families, you know, the Sununus, you know, Gene Shaheen, you know, those people in some ways made by their participation in the New Hampshire primary.

Speaker 10 And for people of that generation,

Speaker 10 you know, this this is a very big deal.

Speaker 10 One thing I've been trying to figure out whether people who aren't really intimately involved and may even have a financial stake in the primary being first here, how much they care.

Speaker 10 And it's unclear to me how many people who aren't really involved in politics much care about this.

Speaker 1 Talk to me a little bit about what Dean Phillips is trying to accomplish up in New Hampshire, even though there are no delegates that he can win there.

Speaker 10 Well, I mean, he said he's trying to, you know, send a message. And when he first, and, you know, he, I mean, his name does come up.
He's been campaigning. I mean, sometimes it's a little pathetic,

Speaker 10 the lack of response he's getting. I mean,

Speaker 10 but,

Speaker 10 and, you know, maybe that, maybe he'd be getting more of a response if he was, you know, arguing more on a more policy grounds or some sort of like ideological basis why he should be running.

Speaker 10 I mean, just like arguing about the, citing polls that suggest that, you know, President Biden could be weak in November, you know, doesn't seem to be moving people. I mean, you know, I don't know.

Speaker 10 I mean, you know, Dean Phelps' personal story, I mean, he seems, I don't know. Like when I first met him, I was like, oh, he would be a fine board member for New Hampshire Public Radio.

Speaker 10 I didn't say, oh, there's a, there's a president kind of thing. And, you know, he's out there trying, but it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it was, it's odd.

Speaker 1 There's been this, there have been some national stories about an effort among some liberal donors and activists to try to get people to write ceasefire on the ballot in protest of what's happening in Gaza.

Speaker 1 Have you heard anything about that on the ground in New Hampshire?

Speaker 10 Well, I mean, I've heard about it. I have not spoken with enough people to know how much.
I mean, the person behind this is a man named Andrew Vilinsky. He ran for governor a couple of years ago.

Speaker 10 He's a sort of liberal lawyer and activist. And, you know, he was a Sanders supporter.
He's trying to do this.

Speaker 10 I haven't done reporting to know how much there is there, but, you know, it is an interesting wrinkle.

Speaker 10 I mean, one thing that our election officials are gearing up for is like how to count the projected number of write-in ballots in a timely fashion.

Speaker 10 And the Secretary of State has said, oh, you know, Republican

Speaker 10 results will be allowed to be announced before Democrat results

Speaker 10 if the counting goes long. I mean, they believe they can count all these things, and I don't know whether, you know, the ceasefire thing will complicate that in any way.

Speaker 10 But, you know, and it's also hard to know what the perception needs to be for what sort of number does Biden need to get.

Speaker 10 I mean, you know, obviously people like to invoke LBJ and Eugene McCarthy, but the write-in Biden people say, oh, you know, all he needs to do is win.

Speaker 10 And this is about pointing us towards November as much as it is what happens here, particularly given that there will be no delegates awarded per the DNC.

Speaker 1 Well, as someone who is scheduled to record a podcast after the race is called, I'm glad to know that there's a chance they're not going to let the write-in campaign slow down the calling of the Republican results.

Speaker 1 Josh, thanks so much for joining us, and we hope to talk to you again soon.

Speaker 10 All right, good luck.

Speaker 2 Thanks to Josh Rogers for joining us today. Everyone, have a fantastic weekend, and we'll talk to you next week.

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