Did Trump's Iowa win change anything?

Transcript

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Speaker 23 Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Lovett.

Speaker 24 I'm Tommy Vitor.

Speaker 23 This is a new Wednesday edition of Pod Save America. We'll be releasing three episodes a week as the campaign season begins in earnest with a rotating crew of hosts and friends of the pod.

Speaker 23 Today on the show, Nikki Haley finishes third, declares a two-person race, and refuses to debate anyone but Trump or Biden.

Speaker 23 Trump, fresh off his Iowa blowout, is back in court, and the reality of Trump being on track to win the nomination could finally set in for Biden's coalition.

Speaker 23 And Ron DeSantis defines the media by continuing to exist. Joining Tommy and me to break down what's next in this campaign from the Bulwark, host of the next level podcast, A Man Without a Party.

Speaker 23 It's Tim Miller.

Speaker 21 Hey, y'all, I've got some really bad news for you about this new three-day-a-week podcast. What? The Republican primary is already out there.

Speaker 23 Dude, we're not saying that.

Speaker 21 Shut the fuck out of there.

Speaker 21 Like, you're adding more content, but we're not, you know, my former party's not giving you

Speaker 21 any more material.

Speaker 24 We'll be the judge of that, Tim.

Speaker 23 So let's get into that. All right.

Speaker 23 I'm not ready to face it.

Speaker 23 I'm a low-information voter who doesn't yet accept that Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. Let's do it.

Speaker 23 We talked about the IO results with John and Dan earlier this week, but we'd we'd like to get your overall reaction.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I listened.

Speaker 21 I thought that you guys were pretty right. There were some of you that

Speaker 21 somebody had a positive DeSantis take that

Speaker 21 I didn't share. It was Dan.
Not Dan. It was Dan.

Speaker 23 Dan's in DeSantis' defense.

Speaker 21 Dan was spinning for old Tiny D.

Speaker 21 Look,

Speaker 21 I just want to look at Polk County.

Speaker 21 In Polk County, Donald Trump had 38% of the vote.

Speaker 21 Ron DeSantis finished second with 27%. Nikali's below that.

Speaker 24 This is where Des Moines is, the most urban part of the state.

Speaker 21 This is Des Moines. Yeah, so yeah, Tommy's been there.
You can have a nice Italian dinner at Luca. Okay.
You can get an avocado toast there.

Speaker 23 I've been to Iowa dick measuring contests.

Speaker 21 I know there are millennials that went to college that live in Des Moines. I mean, like, Des Moines, this is not, we're not out there in rural northwestern Iowa and Steve King country.

Speaker 21 You know, like, this is not places where people are consuming Bannon's war room. Like, this is just metropolitan Iowa.
Donald Trump wins there by 11 points.

Speaker 21 11 points was previously the biggest win in Iowa caucus history.

Speaker 21 So if the whole fucking state of Iowa was Des Moines, Trump still would have won the biggest landslide in the history of the Iowa caucuses. So

Speaker 21 it's not like there was a demographic group out there he did poorly with. It's not like that Iowa, that Iowa, you know, was not as non-representative.

Speaker 21 It is, Iowa is non-representative, but even in the representative elements of Iowa, he dominated.

Speaker 21 So sure, there are ways you could spin it and squint and say, well, you know, he only got 51 or whatever when he was a quasi-incumbent and was it quite as good as Gore versus Bradley in 99.

Speaker 21 You can spin it all you want, but like Donald Trump won an overwhelming landslide in every demographic group. And like the Republican Party is

Speaker 21 almost united. We have one good silver lining that I can get to, but the Republican Party is almost united behind a wannabe autocrat.
And that's pretty fucking maddening and disturbing and sad for me.

Speaker 23 Tommy, do you have anything you've seen in the last 48 hours as you've digested?

Speaker 24 Yeah, it's all passing through me. The Polk County numbers jumped out of me, Tim, where Des Moines is.
But, you know, that was repeated in Cedar Rapids, which is Lynn County. Trump had 43% there.

Speaker 24 Davenport, another city, Trump at 49%. Dallas County, one of the sort of fast-growing suburbs, a little west of Des Moines.
Yeah, he really, he just dominated everywhere.

Speaker 24 There is no spinning this result. The only spin I have, Tim, is, or at least a piece of context, is yes, Trump won Polk County, but he won it with 6,600 votes.

Speaker 24 So we're still tiny, talking about a tiny group of people, like 110,000 people turned out in this.

Speaker 21 High school basketball game level turnout.

Speaker 21 Yeah, no, so there are two positives. Okay, so here are my two silver linings

Speaker 21 as I assess the carcass of the party that I used to work for.

Speaker 21 And it's this. One is barely anybody showed up at all.
Okay, not just, so 100, there were 56, something like this, thousand fewer voters in Iowa than in 2016.

Speaker 21 So like this whole notion that Trump brought is bringing in these new low-info voters and, you know, people who just like listened to Joe Rogan and they were never Republicans before, and now Trump's bringing them in.

Speaker 21 Like, that there is no evidence that that happened. The turnout was down across the board.
So, I think that could speak to a lack of excitement. It could speak to the fact that it was cold.

Speaker 21 So, I guess we'll learn a little more in New Hampshire.

Speaker 21 But there's not like an influx of, you know, red-hatted, excited, you know, MAGA loyalists that showed up. So, that's

Speaker 24 a caucus, too. Oh, by the way, Ron DeSantis spent $4,200 per vote in Iowa.

Speaker 21 Okay, I'd like to talk to about Ron DeSantis' strategy in a second, but there are one other positive really quick.

Speaker 21 The Nikki Haley voters, both anecdotally and quantitatively, seem to really hate Donald Trump, like really hate him, and be open to voting for Joe Biden.

Speaker 21 If you just talk to reporters on the ground who are

Speaker 21 talking to Haley voters at the caucus, if you look at the Ann Selzer numbers, if you look at the entrance poll numbers,

Speaker 21 the people that were there for Haley do not like Donald Trump, are open to voting for Joe Biden. And I think that is also very encouraging.

Speaker 21 And I think that speaks to potentially a lag in the Biden number when you look at the national election polls, that there are some of these people who are Haley voters who just haven't come to terms with reality yet, like Lovett.

Speaker 21 And maybe they, like, you know, maybe once they do, that might tick Biden up a point or two. And so those are my silver linings for you.

Speaker 23 Yeah, it was interesting in the Haley victory speech in Iowa, or her third place victory, how the crowd was, there was a kind of like anti-Trump energy even in the crowd, like kind of like an amen chorus that I think was like, it made it, it gave it more of a feel of a real campaign, like a real campaign with an enthusiasm that you hadn't seen before.

Speaker 23 I have one more, I have one more.

Speaker 23 I went looking, I went hunting, I went squinting. So Politico did this analysis.
Trump made big gains with older voters.

Speaker 23 All right, you look at 20, turnouts down, fine, but you look at the change from 2016 to 2024, huge consolidation, right? Across the board.

Speaker 23 Trump made big gains with older voters over 2016, roughly 30 points better among voters over 45. But he was flat with voters under 30, which may not be a sign of a weakness.

Speaker 21 Tommy and the older voters.

Speaker 21 I'm sorry. I just was trying to count.
I was like, I was interested in your question.

Speaker 23 Wow, what a swerve.

Speaker 21 What a swerve. Hey, hey, hey, hey,

Speaker 23 three millennials having great time.

Speaker 21 Unbelievable.

Speaker 24 Your hat doesn't make you younger.

Speaker 21 Okay, under 30. Thanks, Carrie.

Speaker 21 Under 30 and over 45 for what we're talking about here. Sorry, which when you said older in my head, I was thinking like elderly.

Speaker 23 So it roughly the same. So from voters 45 to say 65, he improved by about 30%.
Voters over 65, he also improved by about 30%. I mean, he did a little bit better with the older voters.

Speaker 23 But regardless, the younger voters, flat, 3%. So

Speaker 23 the number of young voters turning out for him did not improve, even though he's consolidated the rest of the party.

Speaker 21 I'm calling that.

Speaker 21 hey, come on. Come on,

Speaker 21 I don't know about that. Uh, love it.
I mean, hey, like,

Speaker 21 there aren't that many people under 30 in Iowa.

Speaker 21 So I don't know. I was, um, I got to spend uh caucus night partially with the New York Young Republicans Club

Speaker 21 in

Speaker 21 New York City. And I got to tell you, the under-30s there were very excited about Mr.
Trump and

Speaker 21 very enjoying the defeat defeat of the DeSimps and Nikki Haley.

Speaker 21 And I just, I don't know. I mean, sure, I guess like on the margins, like Donald Trump's not bringing in excited new young people.
So I guess that's a positive.

Speaker 21 But I would say on the negative side is that the young people who are showing up now to Republican events, like they are opting in because they like Donald Trump, with the exception of like a handful of super nerds, you know, who are still like reading God and Man at Yale.

Speaker 21 And I love those super nerds. I love them.
And I'm just, I'm happy. And I like, you know, and I can pick them out of a lineup as soon as I walk into a Republican event.

Speaker 21 But

Speaker 21 that's not what the party is. So, you know, that's not that encouraging for me.
But I'm happy that it made you happy.

Speaker 23 Has the demographics of New York young Republicans shifted from a bunch of anxious, closeted, gay libertarians? Has MAGA fully taken over? Is it over?

Speaker 23 Is the era of the gay, closeted New York Republican done?

Speaker 21 Yeah, the demographic of the anxious, closetly gay libertarians meeting up with the

Speaker 21 kind of Wall Street guy, you know,

Speaker 21 who is just excited about his carried interest tax cut.

Speaker 21 You know, that little, those kind of meetups that we used to have, you know, on the on the Upper East Side, yeah, that has changed. A lot of a lot of Queens, a lot of Staten Island,

Speaker 21 you know, a lot of accents were in the room, and they had a very different attitude than the types of parties I used to attend.

Speaker 24 Yeah, sounds like cocaine is the one constant here.

Speaker 21 Some pullment

Speaker 21 cocaine

Speaker 21 at the party, but I don't know that they would have invited me. I was a clear interloper.
Yeah.

Speaker 23 I think there's a lot of people listening and only halfway through realized you were talking about people from Queens, not drag queens, which is what I think.

Speaker 24 I got that wrong.

Speaker 21 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I think there's just

Speaker 21 North Jersey. It's different.

Speaker 23 Long Island City, not Stonewall. I think it's sort of the

Speaker 21 right, right, right.

Speaker 23 DeSantis went to every county. Trump won every county except the commies in Johnson County.

Speaker 23 Does the nationalization of politics mean that the kind of campaigning that used to allow, as Tommy pointed out in his Iowa specials, would allow like social conservatives to make their mark to kind of use Iowa as a place to push back against an establishment candidate or a national figure?

Speaker 23 Are those days over? Is that just not possible anymore?

Speaker 24 I mean, Tim, I thought your old colleague David Coshel had a good line, which was: DeSantis had to go to all 99 counties to meet Iowa voters, but Iowans from all 99 counties would travel to events to see Trump.

Speaker 24 And I think that gets to the unique figure that he is in our politics because of his celebrity and the cult-like attachment from the base. So maybe this is a one-off.

Speaker 24 That said, I mean, I'd like to know what you think. If I was advising a 2028 candidate, let's say,

Speaker 24 running in the 2028 primary, I would probably advise them to spend a whole lot of time on MSNBC and other progressive outlets.

Speaker 24 And because Because what I've heard in the last two cycles is that the national narrative was far more important than anything these candidates were saying in like the town hall meeting in Waukee.

Speaker 21 Yeah. And I'm not, I'm, I start to wonder if it's ever true.

Speaker 21 You know, like Donald Trump, I do think upended a lot of, you know, conventional wisdom that was never really challenged about these sorts of things.

Speaker 21 Like, did Iowins ever really need to see somebody in their living room or were they just looking for somebody to give them a thrill up their leg? And, you know, Donald Trump did that.

Speaker 21 And other people could have done that Donald Trump's way had they tried. I guess we won't really know.
But I don't, I think that a lot of that, you know, sort of.

Speaker 21 early state narrative, you know, kind of nostalgia that we have for that kind of campaigning.

Speaker 21 I just, I don't know that it ever was really mattered that much.

Speaker 21 And I think that now, if you look ahead to 2028 in a presidential race, the way people are consuming news and information these days, like people know these candidates so well now, right?

Speaker 21 I mean, you know, you know, the types of uh uh supporters they have, you know, you know, the social influence media influencers that support them, you know, you get to listen to your favorite fucking podcasts about it, right?

Speaker 21 Like, the way that people consume information about the presidential primary is just not unlike

Speaker 21 the way that they consume information about other political campaigns.

Speaker 21 And so, I just think that, like, if you look at the DeSantis campaign, they ran a campaign that like might have worked if it was for a state senate race or maybe even a senate race in a state like Florida where you don't.

Speaker 21 you know, have an expectation of knowing a lot about the various candidates.

Speaker 21 Like that was not going to be the case when you're running against Donald Trump, who these people like have shrines to him in their home, right? Like they've been following him for a decade now.

Speaker 21 And to think that like if you were going to put one door hanger on somebody's door, or you're going to run a 30-second ad about how great of a job you did keeping the beaches open during COVID,

Speaker 21 and then people are going to be like, okay, I'm for you now. I just think it totally misunderstands how people consume like information about a presidential race now, particularly one.

Speaker 21 where you have somebody like Trump in it. So to me, I don't, yeah, I think that all of that was just a waste.
And like Ron DeSantis was just totally,

Speaker 21 you know, Ron DeSantis' donors like just lit seven figures on fire. I mean, what? It was 35 million on TV, but then all of the ground game, like all of that was for nothing.

Speaker 24 Yeah, but his big consultant, Jeff Rowe, got paid. And that's what's important.
Yeah.

Speaker 23 The, yeah, my God.

Speaker 23 I don't know. I don't know how, it's hard to tell, right? It's an overdetermined situation because you have Donald Trump as a unique figure.
Ron DeSantis was, I think, shockingly inept.

Speaker 23 I remember we, you know, when

Speaker 23 Dan on the pod, one of the very early pods when Ron DeSantis was just announcing and, you know, all these conservatives were lining up behind DeSantis as like the one true hope.

Speaker 23 And Dan was like, nobody's heard him speak.

Speaker 23 No one ever has heard him give a speech. Let's see what happens.
And if he gives a speech and it's like, oh, it's, it's fucking terrible.

Speaker 24 Yeah, I don't know if retail politics is dead, but I do think that when your candidate can't communicate with voters or give a speech, you should rethink whether that person should go to 99 counties and do a lot of town halls.

Speaker 21 I guess, but look at look at the Democratic side in 2020. I mean, Joe Biden did win because of retail politics.
No, he won solely because of electability. Yeah, and electability and narrative.

Speaker 21 Like, all of those voters, and you guys know it's better than you, but all those voters, they jumped from it's the same people.

Speaker 21 Like, they're for Warren, then they're for Pete, and then they're for, like, obviously each candidate had their super fans.

Speaker 21 But if you just look at the numbers, like people are just very educated about a primary race now, and they're making decisions like in a very nuanced way that 30-second TV ads and door knocks are just not, it's not the same.

Speaker 23 But Biden doesn't win Iowa, right? It's what makes possible for someone like Pete or Bernie to win Iowa. It's what makes possible for someone like Obama to win Iowa.

Speaker 23 I think like when you have someone like Trump whose support is wide and deep, it doesn't make sense. If you reverse it, right?

Speaker 23 If you have someone who has, if you have someone like DeSantis as the presumed national figure, but whose support is shallow because people haven't really gotten to know him, then you have an insurgent candidate with political talent in a place like Iowa.

Speaker 23 I just don't know. I don't know whether to learn the lesson or make sure we don't overlearn the lesson.
I don't know.

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Speaker 23 All right, let's talk about New Hampshire. Tomorrow night's ABC GOP debate was canceled due to a lack of interest.

Speaker 23 On Tuesday, Nikki Haley said she wouldn't debate unless Donald Trump or Joe Biden would join her. Trump continues to demur.
DeSantis is willing to participate.

Speaker 23 He said Haley was too afraid to debate him. DeSantis then doubled down on this at a CNN town hall where he said this.

Speaker 26 I'm the only candidate that actually agreed to come to New Hampshire to debate. And what does that say? We have four candidates for president now: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and me.

Speaker 26 I'm the only one who's not running a basement campaign at this point.

Speaker 23 Tommy,

Speaker 23 what do you think of this argument?

Speaker 24 I think he sounds like a whiny loser, first and foremost. I'm a little bit bit torn on the skipping the debate question.

Speaker 24 I watched the last debate on Cena, unfortunately, the Haley versus DeSantis one-on-one. I think that, yeah, I think the takeaway from anyone who watched it was I disliked both of them by the end.

Speaker 24 It was constant accusations of lying. Haley was dropping her stupid, like, Ron lies website at all the time.

Speaker 24 Like, my, my, um, my bellwether on a lot of these things is when Hannah walks through the room to the kitchen to get something before walking back into the bedroom so she doesn't have to listen to this crap that I consume all day, every day, if she comments on it or not.

Speaker 24 And she was just like, this is horrible. So I don't know that that debate being repeated would have benefited anyone.

Speaker 21 I don't know if Hannah is a target New Hampshire primary voter.

Speaker 24 Yeah, well, listen, you know, we'll see. We might move.
So that said, the debate was going to be broadcast on WMUR, which is far and away the biggest TV station in the state.

Speaker 24 It is an opportunity to reach a lot of people and do it in a high-profile way at this moment when people are making up their minds.

Speaker 24 So if you went in and had a great debate, it would be an excellent strategic choice. But would I want to debate a guy at 4%

Speaker 24 when I'm actually trying to beat Donald Trump? No.

Speaker 23 Tim, what do you think? I mean, I just want to,

Speaker 23 DeSantis is just always casting about. for some kind of line, some kind of hit, but it never fits into any kind of broader message he's trying to deliver.
Now Nikki Haley's a basement candidate.

Speaker 23 Like, who is that for? Who finds that plausible? Especially because she says no to this debate. And what does she get instead?

Speaker 23 She gets a CNN town hall, which, you know, I don't, who, who in New Hampshire is going to be turning on a CNN town hall to make this decision? I don't know. But

Speaker 23 she's not the basement people.

Speaker 21 Yeah, I know I'm brought on to give my expertise with Republicans, but I got to tell you, I don't understand why Ron DeSantis is running, and I don't know that Ron does.

Speaker 21 So I just, I can't answer that. Like, I just, he has, he's not given a rationale, and I don't know what the, well, he didn't give a rationale before Iowa, and I, and he certainly doesn't have one now.

Speaker 21 So it's kind kind of unclear what his motivations are. Nikki Haley, on the other hand, not debating.
Like, I'm of two minds of it.

Speaker 21 On the one hand, it's like, okay, I don't care if you're not debating Ron DeSandis and giving him oxygen when you're trying to make this a mono-a-womano thing in New Hampshire.

Speaker 21 That's fine strategically. But like, do you have to do something?

Speaker 21 What is she doing instead?

Speaker 21 And if the answer is, going back to kind of the last question, well, oh, I'm going to do some town halls in Peterborough, and I'm just going to say the same talking points I've been saying since October.

Speaker 21 Well, it's like, well, you lost by 32 in the first contest. Okay.
So you have to do something to change it up. And while her speech, I agree, Lovett, there was some energy in the room.

Speaker 21 Again, she didn't make any new news. She didn't, she didn't break any new ground.

Speaker 21 You know, your old boss Tommy Pluff was like ranting

Speaker 21 the other night.

Speaker 21 in MSNBC about how like she leaves Iowa and then doesn't land in New Hampshire and do an event that weird to like create news. She doesn't do any.
So it's like, like, where is the fucking urgency?

Speaker 21 Like, you don't have to debate around santis if you don't want but like give me some this is it like it's all over in six days right so like give me something punch Trump in the mouth either rhetorically or physically or I don't you know I don't know what exactly it is but but she has to do something to change things up because she's not winning New Hampshire right now I think that Christy obviously gives her a boost but but you know Trump is still in the high 40s and and she's got to win Haley didn't event yesterday Dave Weigel a great reporter at 7 Before, tweeted this.

Speaker 24 It lasted 23 minutes and she did no QA. It's just like a bizarre way to spend your finals.
Obama's schedule between Iowa and New Hampshire was a frenetic pace. It was a bus tour.

Speaker 24 It was tons of events in the North Country or in southern New Hampshire or in the Boston media markets and the coast.

Speaker 21 What'd he do in New Hampshire? I don't.

Speaker 24 You know,

Speaker 21 I don't remember.

Speaker 23 It was closer than Iowa.

Speaker 23 It was closer than what we've been seeing this time.

Speaker 24 He should have skipped the debate. That's the answer here.

Speaker 21 He should have skipped the debate. Or maybe Nikki Haley Haley should cry.

Speaker 21 And I'm kind of like, I'm kind of being snarky, but I'm kind of serious.

Speaker 21 Crying would maybe, well, probably

Speaker 21 different. I might cry.
Different electorates. I don't know.
Listen, I cry.

Speaker 23 I cry every night, and I'd like to see politicians cry more.

Speaker 24 I'd like to see Kristen Nunu cry, too.

Speaker 23 Well, Kristen Nunu, Chris Anunu, who is the governor of New Hampshire and endorsed Nikki Haley, was doing like a round of interviews saying, like, Nikki Haley's here. She's answering questions.

Speaker 23 She's showing up.

Speaker 23 Trump's still just dropping in on his plane, which A, is deja vu, the argument that didn't work in Iowa, but B, is a shitty thing to introduce a candidate who then leaves without taking any fucking questions.

Speaker 23 Yeah, stupid. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 23 So a poll by American Research Group showed that Haley and Trump are both at 40, which was a rise from 37 for Trump and 33 for Haley as the race consolidated, the Christie Bump, as you said.

Speaker 23 Though a new poll out this morning from Suffolk and the Boston Globe had Trump at 50 and Haley at 36. Ron's still cruising in the Sinky Digis.

Speaker 23 Haley has spent $26 million on ads, Haley plus her PACs, and to Trump's 12 million. She's doing this electability argument.
Uh, Tim, it does seem like she's sharpened her rhetoric a bit.

Speaker 23 She's been, she's, I, I, I'm not, I'm not a voter, I'm not a Nikki Haley voter. I'm just saying, like, let's, let's, I, she had, she went, she made the age argument.

Speaker 23 She called them both nearly 80. Trump does not like to be referred to as being nearly 80.
Tommy hates it, too.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 21 Love it.

Speaker 21 I had, she's sharpened, I guess. I don't know, like, from what? And it's like, she had a dull spoon and like, you know.
It's a spork. It's approaching spork, territory.

Speaker 21 It's just, she spent the ad thing is what drives me crazy. She spent 26 million on ads and like nothing to provide no meaningful contrast to Donald Trump.

Speaker 21 Look,

Speaker 21 I'm not asking Nikki Haley to go full bulwark Trump derangement syndrome and start crying about the state of the democracy. Even though that's, I mean, I would love that.

Speaker 21 I might go up and volunteer for her if she did that. I don't think that would help her.
In the end, you could look at Chris Christie's number.

Speaker 21 But you do have to offer a contrast with Donald Trump that is meaningful, that tries to get people to change, or you have to change the electorate. Or you have to bring new people into the electorate.

Speaker 21 Like my colleague, Sarah Longwell's focus group, I was just watching focus groups of these people in New Hampshire, which are the undeclareds, and they don't even like her.

Speaker 21 And it's like, she's got to either motivate those people to turn out to vote, undeclared types that would have been for Christie, and change the makeup of the electorate, or she's got to win over some of the soft Trump voters, some of the DeSantis voters by offering a legitimate legitimate contrast with them.

Speaker 21 She's doing neither of those things. She's doing nothing.

Speaker 24 She's betting on the demographic change, right? Independent voters account for more than 343,000 of all registered voters in New Hampshire.

Speaker 24 There's about 268,000 registered Republican voters in the state.

Speaker 21 What is her message for them, the undeclared voters?

Speaker 24 I'm not dying.

Speaker 23 She's making an electability argument.

Speaker 23 She does this thing where chaos follows Trump around, which is obviously embarrassing.

Speaker 23 But

Speaker 23 she made this argument in her speech. She's making it in her ads that

Speaker 23 these are both candidates of the past. They're both focused on grievance, which is her way of saying Trump is focused on grievance because whatever.

Speaker 23 And then she makes this

Speaker 23 electability argument, which is a strong argument, right? That like between Trump and Trump and Biden is a toss-up, but I win in a landslide, right?

Speaker 21 That is an argument.

Speaker 21 Yeah, sure. It's an argument.
Here's why it's not a strong argument. There are two groups of people that are voting in New Hampshire.

Speaker 21 One is the undeclared voters, like we're talking about, and the moderates, my people. Okay.
They don't, most of them aren't even sure they want her over Biden.

Speaker 21 So like electability isn't that strong of an argument for them. Most of them are kind of toss-up voters in a Haley Biden thing.
All right.

Speaker 21 And then the other group of people, the Republicans, as we saw from the entrance polls in Iowa, they think Trump won. Okay.
They think Trump is still the president.

Speaker 21 So you can't make an electability argument against somebody that

Speaker 21 has deluded the entire voting base into thinking that he is an invincible winner that was robbed by the deep state.

Speaker 21 So, you know, again, if we had a time machine, if we went back to the end of the midterms

Speaker 21 in 2022, and if her and DeSantis had actually run a campaign and spent those $50 million they've spent on TV, $100 million

Speaker 21 on TV, reminding people that Donald Trump's a loser and that he lost in 2020 and that he cost them the 2022 midterms and that they are both winners because Ron won in Florida and because whatever, she polls show that people like her, then, okay, then yeah, sure, I think that would have been a good argument in December of 2022, but it's January of 2024.

Speaker 24 The Suffolk poll only has her up six on Trump among independents, so not great.

Speaker 23 Trump,

Speaker 23 well aware of the divide between the independents and Republicans,

Speaker 23 had this to say about Nikki Haley.

Speaker 23 The era of gracious Trump didn't even last 12 hours.

Speaker 21 Shocking.

Speaker 21 I thought that when he wrote Brickman on stage, I knew it was made

Speaker 21 gracious. Trump will be going to say that.

Speaker 23 But

Speaker 23 let's see what he said about Haley now that he's seen her speech in Iowa.

Speaker 28 As you know, Nikki Haley, in particular,

Speaker 28 is counting on the Democrats and liberals to infiltrate your Republican primary. You know that.

Speaker 28 That's what's happening. You have a group of people coming in that are not Republicans, and

Speaker 28 it's artificially boosting her numbers here, although we're still leading her by a lot. You know, as you know, I watched her speech last night.
I thought it was inappropriate.

Speaker 28 But because it's bad for unity, it's bad for the party, what she said. But you'd almost think she won.
She came in third, and she lost to not a particularly great candidate, obviously, as you've seen.

Speaker 28 She lost to somebody that beat her by about two and a half points, Rhonda Sanctimonius.

Speaker 23 Tim,

Speaker 23 too subtle, or do you think voters are going to understand what he's trying to say?

Speaker 21 I fucking hate him so much, guys. I don't know if you know that.
I just, I really hate him.

Speaker 21 And so I have to say that before I say the next thing, which is like, he had a point. Every once in a while, the fucking asshole has a point.
And, you know, he's, he's right.

Speaker 21 On both points, Ron DeSantis was a terrible candidate, and she still lost to him. She needed to beat him to get the momentum going into New Hampshire.

Speaker 21 And it is also true that in order to beat Trump in New Hampshire, she's going to need undeclared voters and Democrats to cross over and vote for her.

Speaker 21 And this is what gets us to the broader point about why this is all so frustrating. It's like

Speaker 21 undeclared voters and Democrats aren't a path to winning the Republican nomination, right?

Speaker 21 So even if that does happen, even if Nikki Haley does win because there's a surge of undeclareds in New Hampshire, and it's like, then what? Great. Congrats.
South Carolina is going to be tough.

Speaker 23 Yeah, let's talk about the then what. All right.
So you're Nikki Haley. What is the story you're telling yourself about how winning New Hampshire creates a path to winning the nomination?

Speaker 23 Because there is a story. They are telling that story, at the very least, to each other.

Speaker 21 Yes. Okay, here's the story.
I can tell you.

Speaker 21 It goes something like this. It goes, I win New Hampshire and I have a glorious victory.
And I get to bask in the lights of all the cameras. And people around the world will get to see me.

Speaker 21 And I will feel very great about myself. And then immediately when I give that speech, Donald Trump's...
armor of invisibility and winningness will be punctured.

Speaker 21 People will take another look at this race and people will start to say, wow, maybe Donald Trump is not invincible after all. And the whole dynamic will change.

Speaker 21 And then there'll be a month to South Carolina and Donald Trump will be going to court.

Speaker 21 And people will say, well, man, did you know that Donald Trump's been indicted four times and has 91 felony counts? And he's not a winner anymore. Maybe I should reconsider Nikki Haley.

Speaker 21 And then we'll get to South Carolina. And

Speaker 21 like, that's what they're telling themselves, which

Speaker 21 is a preposterous fantasy. Or maybe they're hoping for, you know, the hamburger from heaven.

Speaker 21 That is Donald Trump, is the end of the day.

Speaker 24 That's Tim's code for death for the listeners who don't know.

Speaker 21 Or maybe,

Speaker 21 or the other thing is, maybe it's like, well,

Speaker 21 if I win, that allows me to stay in long enough to accrue some delegates.

Speaker 21 And, you know, if Donald Trump goes to jail and Jack Smith saves us, then this summer in Milwaukee, I'll have some delegates to horse trade with.

Speaker 21 But I think all of that is very secondary. I think the main thing is just this kind of fanciful theory of the case that if Donald Trump is defeated, then that will somehow change.

Speaker 23 If it becomes a two-person race and she sticks around and some sort of larger dynamic shift happens around electability plus conviction that she'll be the person standing there.

Speaker 23 You know the Seinfeld that, you know, being after a breakup, like first you go, you go from being there for you to just being there?

Speaker 23 It's like, that's a, it's a, it's like the Seinfeld breakup strategy. Like you just got to be there when the breakup happens.

Speaker 23 So Tommy, the DeSantis team is now saying they're hoping for a Haley loss in New Hampshire so that he has a narrow chance of staying in the race through South Carolina.

Speaker 23 I guess that involves Haley dropping out.

Speaker 23 If she does and she gets out, does it matter for Ron?

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 24 Like, he secretly wants her to win New Hampshire so he can get out and end his baton death march of humiliation across South Carolina for a month.

Speaker 24 There's nothing, like, Tim, you probably experienced this in a visceral way with Jeb or other candidates. I mean, there is nothing worse than continuing a campaign once you know it is over.

Speaker 21 It's horrible, which is why it's kind of a question about why he's still doing it. You know, I don't know.
I think there's some inertia in this, having people around him, but it's brutal.

Speaker 21 It's a brutal long slog. And the time between New Hampshire and South Carolina is long.
Like

Speaker 21 a month is forever

Speaker 21 in a death march campaign like because every hour is painful you know um i had an old boss i used to work for that was like he signed up for boot camp and he was like i didn't didn't realize how long boot camp could be until i i was i i had to experience it one second at a time and that's kind of like how it is on a losing campaign it's just every second is painful so i i don't know exactly why they would want to stay around for a month uh jvl at the poll work you he talked about uh he wrote about it how they've achieved catastrophic success.

Speaker 21 It seems like

Speaker 21 they're doing well enough that they have to stay in.

Speaker 21 And so, you know, I don't know if he's necessarily rooting for Nikki, but

Speaker 21 he has no rationale. I mean, you know, all the great and good supporters of him on the internet, Clay Travis, Tommy Larin, you know, all your favorites,

Speaker 21 they're all telling him to get out.

Speaker 21 Even his troll posters have abandoned him.

Speaker 24 His donors will too soon. His staff will tell him, preserve your dignity, preserve your political future, endorse Trump as soon as possible.
The pressure is going to be just enormous.

Speaker 23 Yeah, there was

Speaker 23 some donor after

Speaker 23 DeSantis said that his ticket to New Hampshire had been punched, some donor told a reporter that, yeah,

Speaker 23 it's in the back of the plane and it is definitely next to the bathroom at best.

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Speaker 23 All right, let's talk about what this could mean

Speaker 23 for Biden, for a lot of Americans, not our dear listeners,

Speaker 23 but for a lot of other people. It hasn't actually sunk in that a Trump-Biden rematch is on the horizon.

Speaker 23 An AP poll from mid-December found that just 20% of respondents were paying attention to politics.

Speaker 23 And according to recent reporting, internal polling from the Biden camp showed that around 75% of the campaign's targeted undecided voters do not believe Trump will be Biden's opponent in November.

Speaker 23 So, you know, boy, we got a surprise for them.

Speaker 21 All right, they're not going to like it, but 50% of your listeners still holding out hope for that for jail.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I guess I'm one of them.

Speaker 21 Yeah, there's that part of it.

Speaker 24 Jail thing would be cool. Yeah.

Speaker 23 Tommy, Biden's weaknesses exist in the present. He is old.
He is the incumbent. People have frustrations that exist right now.

Speaker 23 Trump's weaknesses are more perspective: the danger he poses to democracy, the possibility he might be convicted of federal crimes, the damage his policies might do.

Speaker 23 Does Trump's emergence as the nominee change this dynamic?

Speaker 24 I mean, we all better hope so. I mean, Trump is his favorability in the 538 average is still 10 points underwater.
And that's having been sort of off the stage for a while. Now, Biden's is worse.

Speaker 24 Biden is 15 points underwater, but he's been in the shit actually running the country.

Speaker 24 So the hope is that the return of Trump will wake up Democrats in particular, bring back folks who maybe drifted away for Biden for whatever policy reason. Maybe it's Gaza, maybe it's something else,

Speaker 24 and steady the ship. I know I think Sarah Longwell, your co-host over there at the bulwark, thinks that we might be at the nadir of the Biden polling era.

Speaker 23 Is that a fair characterization?

Speaker 21 Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 21 she's an optimist, though, you know, bringing a little bit more of the rain to

Speaker 21 the discussion.

Speaker 23 We'll make it rain, Tim.

Speaker 21 But, well,

Speaker 21 to me, I think the most optimistic case is kind of like that maybe a low Biden approval rating isn't that it doesn't actually matter if the Trump approval rating continues to get lower, right?

Speaker 21 Like that, that would be my optimist case. I always compare it to the Macron-Le Pen race in France.
Like Macron's popularity was just as low as Biden's even worse.

Speaker 21 We, Tommy, knows about this on podcast. He does also in his other highly rated podcast, Pod Save the World.

Speaker 21 He discusses the Uruguay, the upcoming Uruguay elections.

Speaker 21 What the fuck is that all about?

Speaker 21 In Ecuador and Guatemala.

Speaker 23 And he looks good doing it.

Speaker 21 Make your point, Tim.

Speaker 21 I love I'm a world though.

Speaker 21 Anyway, Le Pen and Macron, I think, is the Biden model, right? Macron is unpopular, but they're like, we don't want the crazy person.

Speaker 21 The problem that I have is I worry about Trump seeming not as insane as we all know him to be.

Speaker 21 I think that there's a big checkout factor right now, another race between these two guys. A lot of,

Speaker 21 you know, more casual voters are just, I think, for good reason, going to want to not fucking pay attention to the rerun.

Speaker 21 And Trump, when you see him, while Tommy was suffering through Nikki and DeSantis's low-rated debate,

Speaker 21 I watched Trump on Fox and like,

Speaker 21 I know.

Speaker 21 You know, the listeners know, that he is a total lunatic that has lost his mind and has dictatorial aspirations. But like, he can kind of, he's still a reality TV host, right?

Speaker 21 He can still kind of fake it. And if you're only half paying attention and you kind kind of think that he's joke, that is the part that worries me the most.

Speaker 21 That I think that if the theory of the case for Biden rests on the fact that people change their views of the economy because the economy is getting better, fingers crossed, and that people

Speaker 21 come to terms with Trump's lunacy, I think those are rational things, but I don't know that necessarily that everyone's going to have a rational reaction.

Speaker 23 Yeah, we're sort of counting.

Speaker 23 I do like, you know, like Tim, if I like whispered in your ear,

Speaker 23 you have to be a Bernie bro for the next 45 minutes or you're going to be in jail for the rest of your life. And I pushed you out on stage, I think, I think you'd be convincing.

Speaker 23 You know, I think you could get it done.

Speaker 21 But I do think it's like millionaires and billionaires.

Speaker 21 It's like, if you ever hung out with a rich guy, I could just channel all my rage against Bill Ackman into a little 30-minute thing. I'd listen to that.

Speaker 24 That's Tommy Connor. I didn't know he did voice work.

Speaker 23 But yeah, so it's like, there's the parts that we can't control. One of which is, does Donald Trump understand

Speaker 23 and can he maintain enough discipline to be normal enough to lower the way in which he is sort of unacceptable to the majority of Americans when they're paying attention?

Speaker 23 I think the other part that's hard to know and hard to control for is are Biden's liabilities surmountable, right? Like we're we're assuming like we go into we go into this thing.

Speaker 23 We know that if we if it's assuming it's Biden Trump, these are two candidates that come to the table with new weaknesses.

Speaker 23 And we're betting on the fact that Biden's weaknesses are surmountable and Trump's aren't. And I do think like that is just an uncertainty, right? Our job is to make the Biden weaknesses surmountable.

Speaker 23 Our job is to make sure that Trump seeming less crazy and more energetic does not make Biden's age

Speaker 23 an insurmountable problem. And on the other hand, our job is to make sure that Trump's efforts to seem normal does not allow for voters the fact that he did an insurrection, overturned Roe v.

Speaker 23 Wade, would be far worse than he was in the first term.

Speaker 23 And in the first term, he caused incalculable damage to the country that that does not fade enough for people to get over it and view them both as sort of unfit

Speaker 21 and this will be my rant throughout the year but since you're saying that it's your job it kind of is and i appreciate that and it's my job and it's our job to bully but the people whose job it's really going to be to to just get in the face of all those folks and make them know how unacceptable trump is is mike pence and chris christie and john kelly and jim mattis like all these people that have let us down before and fucking bill barr and his jowls, like all these people that I like, like I, that, they're, I think they're going to play an absolutely crucial role here

Speaker 21 because, you know, you just can't like,

Speaker 21 I think that in the same way that the primary campaign, I said that the TV ads were totally worthless, I just think that there's going to be a cap on the ability of TV ads to get the job done.

Speaker 21 And hopefully the Biden people can break, break through.

Speaker 21 And I do think that there are a lot of things people don't know about Trump or that they've forgotten that can be pushed through paid, but it's going to take people that can be surprising and can break through and can

Speaker 21 shake the Wall Street Journal reader from their torpor and be like,

Speaker 21 really, if you're worried about the stock market,

Speaker 21 really

Speaker 21 an autocracy is not the way to go.

Speaker 23 I think, yeah, one more optimistic point, too, is I think in the same way that, you know,

Speaker 23 so the normies, they don't believe that

Speaker 23 they're not on board with Donald Trump really won the election.

Speaker 23 But I also think sometimes we may undercount that like if you, in a country that does not trust its institutions,

Speaker 23 institutions that have incredible amounts of trust are like the military, law enforcement.

Speaker 23 And that for people that aren't paying attention, the idea of a president being elected after being on trial and convicted, I do think may be even more anathema to people than we're currently understanding, especially because like we are, we are people that pay attention.

Speaker 23 We believe that, but I think we've been so knocked around by the way in which Donald Trump defies gravity that maybe we're not seeing that like that actually is, and we see it in the polling, right?

Speaker 23 There are plenty of voters, including Republicans, who say being convicted makes you unfit, being convicted makes you unacceptable.

Speaker 23 But I think we've been so kind of bullied by reality that we're not, we're not, we're not sure we can trust it.

Speaker 21 Yeah, that number was surprisingly high at the Iowa entrance poll. That was like another silver lining.

Speaker 21 And that spoke to like the silver lining I gave about like the Nikki Haley voter seems to really not like this guy. And if 30% of them,

Speaker 21 even if it's not 30%, let's say that that's double the reality and it's 15% right of people who, if Donald Trump is on trial and he's convicted or he looks to be convicted, they would not vote for him.

Speaker 21 I mean, that's a death knell, right? So I do think for Trump,

Speaker 21 I do think that that is, you know, maybe some optimism.

Speaker 21 I can see a little light in the cloud for you a little bit.

Speaker 23 Tommy, last night, Ron DeSantis

Speaker 23 said this in his town hall.

Speaker 27 If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trial and loses there, and about things like January 6th.

Speaker 27 We're going to lose if that's the decision that voters are making based on that.

Speaker 23 From his lips to God's ears, a lot of conversation about the legal jeopardy Trump is in and what a threat it poses to his political viability.

Speaker 23 Why is he spending so much time in court when he doesn't have to? It's so strange.

Speaker 23 He went to the jury selection for his second defamation trial, time he could be spending in New Hampshire.

Speaker 24 And nearly got thrown out, I believe. He was threatened with expulsion from the civil trial because he repeatedly ignored warnings to keep quiet while Eugene Carroll was testifying.
I mean,

Speaker 24 he has one speed, right? This man just attacks everyone all the time. That includes political opponents.
It includes disabled journalists. It includes gold star families.

Speaker 24 Remember the Kazir Khan fight?

Speaker 21 Playing the hits.

Speaker 24 Yeah, playing the hits in 2016. So I guess I'm not surprised he's in court.
I don't think that makes it smart or savvy.

Speaker 24 I don't know how what people will think of it.

Speaker 24 I mean, I think Trump also intuitively knows that we live in a misogynistic country where victims are often blamed and he's going to try to bludgeon her in the court of public opinion as part of a political strategy.

Speaker 24 So that's, I assume, what he's doing.

Speaker 21 Yeah. I mean, I do, I think part of this is pathological Trump and there's no sense kind of getting inside his brain.

Speaker 21 It's not a healthy place to be, but I think that as a strategy, I do think that he, and hopefully this is a mistake, and hopefully for once around, DeSantis is right.

Speaker 21 And I do think he sees himself, despite the fact that he's the former president, still as like, I'm an outsider against all of these pencil-headed elites that you don't like.

Speaker 21 And so for him, some of the court thing is like his own animus against Gene Carroll or against the guy that's saying that he wasn't as rich as he was.

Speaker 21 But some of it, I do think, is this show that he's he's putting on. Like, I am the outsider, I am the businessman, I'm taking on all these people that you hate.

Speaker 21 And so I think that is like the logical side of it for him.

Speaker 21 And that is obviously working in the Republican Party to tremendous effect. I think

Speaker 21 it's probably unlikely to work in the general election, but I'm not ready to be absolutely 100% sure about that.

Speaker 23 Yeah, I think it's more feral than genius, but it is part of also making all these different cases a kind of like miasma of I'm under attack.

Speaker 23 A potential juror in in the defamation case said they were a Pon Save America listener, Tim.

Speaker 21 Oh, really?

Speaker 23 Yeah. The judge seemed not to have ever heard of it and wondered if she said, God save America.

Speaker 23 We got to fix the fucking judiciary.

Speaker 24 We got to find this person.

Speaker 21 I got to tell you the my favorite fact about the was it the Gene Carroll, the previous Gene Carroll jury, was that there was a Tim Poole listener.

Speaker 21 And so every time anybody, all, and any of the right-wingers and the MAGA folks bring up that like, oh, these liberal juries in New York and D.C.

Speaker 21 and they're coming, you know, obviously like the the deep states were going to go.

Speaker 21 It's like, no, a fucking Tim Poole listener listened to the evidence and they came away with the view that Donald Trump was liable. I like that.

Speaker 24 Super right-wing

Speaker 24 YouTuber, former kind of lefty guy, got famous covering Occupy Wall Street, went full horseshoe and now just wears his little beanie and does events.

Speaker 21 And that person said that one.

Speaker 21 That's where they came. He's a Vivek Ramaswana.
And that's where

Speaker 21 this person. So, you know, have faith in your fellow Americans, you know?

Speaker 23 Speaking of last question, because I did not want you to leave before you had a chance to address this.

Speaker 23 Marco Rubio endorsed the morning of the Iowa caucus. Ted Cruz last night.
Sean Hannity

Speaker 23 endorses Donald Trump. Couldn't wait any longer.
What do you make of it?

Speaker 21 These people are such.

Speaker 21 little fucking bitches. I just hate these people so much.
They are so cowardly. And I just, I had to tell you, it wouldn't have made me any happier.

Speaker 21 And you could have had me on in April after the primary is over and after Marco endorsed him.

Speaker 21 And I would have done the same rant about how he's, you know, a coward and a supplicant and how embarrassed he and his family should be of him. But like, it's especially embarrassing now, right?

Speaker 21 Like, we know that Marco Rubio would rather have Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis be president. We all know that.

Speaker 21 Like the fact that none of these people had the cajones to actually try to challenge him is so maddening and is so enraging. And like get to the point that I will never forgive any of them for it.

Speaker 21 And, like, that Nikki Haley, who I don't really like, as you could tell from this podcast, but would obviously be better than Donald Trump, the fact that her endorsers are just Chris Sununo and Larry Hogan, two kinds of Tim Miller, squishy, moderate Northeastern Republicans.

Speaker 21 That's all she has. Like, none of these other people have at least tried to try to beat Donald Trump.
Like,

Speaker 21 just pisses me off. And it really, it really sucks.

Speaker 24 Imagine having been in the Capitol on on January 6th, personally under siege, and then going out a couple of years later and endorsing the man who sent that riot to try to kill you.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 21 For now, when you don't even have to yet. It's not even a binary choice.
And Mike Lee's out there going, well, it's a binary choice. It's like, it's not a binary choice yet.

Speaker 21 You could have been an Asa Hutchinson supporter up until two days ago.

Speaker 24 There was some reporting, I can't remember what it was, that I think it was Puck, that Trump's team is telling donors, like, you need to get on board now before this big event I have coming up at Mar-a-Lago.

Speaker 24 I'm sure there's a similar call going out from his political staff saying, you need to endorse before New Hampshire or else you will be on some, you know, sort of shit list.

Speaker 24 Now, I'm not saying that's compelling. I find that pathetic, but I assume that's why these are all kind of.

Speaker 21 Nobody's going to primary Marco Rubio. All these people, I'm not saying you're excuse making for him, Tommy, but that is the excuse making the people do.

Speaker 21 They're like, oh, like if I called Marco Rubio's consultant, I was like, why is he doing this? They're like, well, it's inevitable. He's got to.
And I'm like, or what? Or what?

Speaker 21 Somebody's going to primary him? Matt Gates is going to primary him? Like, is that what he's worried about? I mean, Marco Ruby's fine. He has six-year Senate terms.
He gets to do whatever he wants.

Speaker 21 Also,

Speaker 23 God doesn't care if you faced a primary challenger, you know, at the very end.

Speaker 21 You know? That's a great point, John.

Speaker 23 I just think, you know.

Speaker 21 God doesn't care at the Pearly Gates.

Speaker 23 No, doesn't care. Not a good reason.
But God cares about.

Speaker 23 Ending this podcast.

Speaker 21 Doing the

Speaker 21 masterful pivot.

Speaker 23 Well, Tim, because Tim's got to go. Tim, thank you so much for joining us.
This was great. We will be back.
John and Dan will be back.

Speaker 23 And yeah,

Speaker 23 they're going to be back.

Speaker 21 What are we going to kill them?

Speaker 21 What do you worry about?

Speaker 23 John and Dan will be back with an episode in your feeds on Friday morning.

Speaker 23 We're here now Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday.

Speaker 23 That classic rotation.

Speaker 21 People can't miss it. It's three days.
It was just so much good material. This was great.

Speaker 23 We filled a fucking podcast and we'll do it again. We'll do it again week after week.
Republicans may be cowards who give up, but not us. Thank you.

Speaker 21 That's right. Thank you for having me, good gentleman.
Always a pleasure.

Speaker 24 Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 21 Thanks, Tim.

Speaker 29 If you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community at crooked.com/slash friends.

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Speaker 29 Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Give us your own takes.
And give us a review. Give us your takes on our takes.

Speaker 29 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are Olivia Martinez and David Toledo.
Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Writing support from Hallie Kiefer.

Speaker 29 Reed Sherlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.
Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglu and Charlotte Landis.

Speaker 29 Madeleine Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt DeGroote is our head of production.
Andy Taft is our executive assistant.

Speaker 29 Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Mia Kelman, David Toles, Kirill Pelaviev, and Molly Lobel.

Speaker 6 And with SiriusXM, every drive comes alive, bringing you closer to the music, sports, talk, and podcasts you love right in your vehicle or on the Sirius XM app.

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