The JV Republican Debate (Preview)

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Speaker 2 Welcome back to Pod Save America. I'm Tommy Vitor, and we have a great show for you today.
The first Republican primary debate is finally happening this week on Wednesday in in Milwaukee.

Speaker 2 And no surprise, the opposition research stories are flying around. They're hitting newspapers everywhere, and they are signaling how these candidates are attacking and going to be attacked.

Speaker 2 Also, we have a brand new poll of Republicans in Iowa that helps us set the stage and help us divine whether any candidate has a chance of unseating Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses and the primary itself.

Speaker 2 And if so, what the right strategy is to do it. Here to talk through all of it is the one and only Tim Miller.
Tim is the co-host of the excellent podcast, The Next Level.

Speaker 2 He writes for The Bulwark, and in a previous life, he worked on campaigns, including for Jeb Bush back in 2016. Tim, it is great to see you.

Speaker 5 Thomas, thank you. It's good to see you.
I noticed Lovett's gone again. Every time I'm here, he's faking a cold.

Speaker 2 You noticed that, did you?

Speaker 5 Whatever. It's fine.
You know, I'm just going to try not to get my feelings hurt about it. But I'm happy to be here with you.

Speaker 2 I can't think of anyone better to help us understand how to prepare for one of these debates, how to try to win one of these primaries.

Speaker 2 As you mentioned, Favreau and Lovett, they're on vacation this week. So we are going to do this whole program together.

Speaker 2 We're going to go behind the scenes into debate prep and strategy and what the hell success looks like in a debate where there's 400 goobers on stage, where there's bergames, Doug, et cetera.

Speaker 2 I'll talk about super PACs, how they're playing a role in this cycle, brutal reporting about Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 2 And then Tim and I are, we're unhealthily obsessed with Vivek Ramaswamy and how he's gaining traction.

Speaker 2 We'll cover that.

Speaker 5 Vivek, if we're going to do 20 minutes on Vivek, you better be pronouncing his name right.

Speaker 2 You know why? Because Vivek the fake, as we learned

Speaker 2 from Jeff Rowe.

Speaker 2 And then Tim, we got to do some donor fan fiction because you tweet a lot about how you want to provide a service to donors that I'm hoping to get into.

Speaker 5 And I know a lot of Republican donors listen to this podcast. This will be a good way to get my message out to them.

Speaker 2 Well, Chris Christie asked at least two or three of his friends to start. But let's start with this new Iowa poll.

Speaker 2 Because what everyone needs to know about this poll was done for NBC News and the Dwayne Register by a pollster named Ann Seltzer, who is the best in the business. No one questions that.

Speaker 2 So we really trust these numbers, though, of course, they're a snapshot in time, the time being August. So here's the top line numbers, Tim.

Speaker 2 42% Donald Trump, 19% Ron DeSantis, 9% Tim Scott, 6% Nikki Haley, 6% Mike Pence, 5% Chris Christie, 4% Vivek Ramaswamy.

Speaker 2 The good news for everyone not named Trump is 52% of caucus goers say their mind is not made up. 40% say their mind is made up.
But two-thirds of Trump supporters say their mind is made up.

Speaker 2 So most of the persuadables are with other people. So Tim, this largely tracks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so great. I would say, look, I think it largely tracks other polls.
We've seen Trump is way ahead, but DeSantis is doing a little better in Iowa than other places.

Speaker 2 I guess I'm surprised to see Pence and Christie ahead of Vivek. That could just be statistical noise, though.
What's your takeaway from this poll?

Speaker 2 Is the DeSantis Cup half full because 58% of Iowans are not supporting Trump?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I was expecting a little more Vivek mentum as well out of this poll. And it's good.

Speaker 5 The Seltzer thing always triggers me because, you know, back in our Iowa days, when we were in Iowa together, Tom, you know, people would like wait at night for the Seltzer poll to come out, like outside the register.

Speaker 5 And then in 20, it was the seltzer poll that made us all realize that the Biden election was gonna be a little bit closer than we wanted it to be.

Speaker 5 You know, like that was the one that uh queued off a lot of panic

Speaker 5 last time. So, you know, it always is pretty, pretty much in the ballpark, and they just put the resources into it.
And

Speaker 5 I don't see this as good news for DeSantis.

Speaker 5 I could see how DeSantis people could try to spin it as good news for him, you know, because it's not as just devastating as all the other information and all the other polling that's been out there about him lately.

Speaker 5 But, you know, he's still down nearly 20

Speaker 5 points. And then even when you are, excuse me, over.
And then when you look at the first plus the second ballot, you know, first choice plus second choice, you got Trump at 52. Now DeSantis at 39.

Speaker 5 So, right, so you're like, oh, you know, we're only down 13.

Speaker 5 But the whole premise of the case for being able to beat Trump is that you could consolidate, you know, the Viveks and the Haleys and the Tim Scotts behind one person.

Speaker 5 And then that person could maybe, you know, have enough to beat Trump. Trump's at 52 with people's first and second choice.

Speaker 5 And as you uh mentioned, I just think the most devastating number in this whole thing is that two-thirds of Trump's ballot number at 42%,

Speaker 5 uh, two-thirds of them have said that they're not looking at anybody else. Yeah.
And so he's got, you know, just a little quick math here, 28%

Speaker 5 locked in based on this Seltzer poll. 28% has been enough to win the Iowa caucus most years on the Republican side, right? You know, because it's always the first one, big field.
It's very divided.

Speaker 5 At 42%,

Speaker 5 Trump, Trump, if that's what he ended up getting in the caucus, he would have the biggest vote share since Gerald Ford on the Republican side. So, you know, you can kind of spin this and say, hey,

Speaker 5 it's not like there's a, I moved down to New Orleans. You guys are coming to New Orleans.
So maybe we're going to, maybe we're going to be seeing you.

Speaker 5 But in Louisiana, a poll, a poll came out that had

Speaker 5 Trump at 75 and DeSantis at 10. Okay.
So, you know, it's looking better than in Louisiana,

Speaker 5 but still not great.

Speaker 2 Could be worse is what you're saying. For First IV D.

Speaker 5 Still not great.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so I definitely agree with you, Tim. I guess you can spin this positive maybe if you're Ron DeSantis, but you're right.

Speaker 2 This show is like a 28% kind of hardcore floor for Donald Trump, like a hell or high water vote that's not going anywhere. And unless everyone else could consolidate, I don't know how you beat that.

Speaker 2 The other person I think has got to be a little disappointed is Tim Scott. He's been spending real money on TV in Iowa.
9% is fine, but I mean, it's not going to get you anything. I don't know.

Speaker 2 That can't be. No.

Speaker 5 And here's the big problem, right? Is that there's no other option besides DeSantis. And I think that's actually the best thing DeSantis has going for him, right? You can't beat somebody with nobody.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 the anti-Trump,

Speaker 5 you know, 48%, let's say, if Trump's a 52 with

Speaker 5 people being, you know, having him as the first choice or second choice, that other 48%

Speaker 5 is split right down the middle.

Speaker 5 right it's it's 24 are people that are super MAGA they're just maybe ready to give him the gold watch but also could be persuaded to vote for him you know if nobody else emerges and then the the other 24%

Speaker 5 have begun to dislike him. Like, maybe they're not Tim Miller, Bulwark triggered, right? But they're really looking for somebody else.
And so Tim Scott can pull from that 24%,

Speaker 5 but it's tough for him to get into the MAGA 24. Yeah.
And DeSantis, the one advantage he had is he was kind of pulling from both and

Speaker 5 is now struggling with both, right? Because the Nor Normie Republicans think he went too far right on culture war issues.

Speaker 5 And the MAGA Republicans are starting not to trust him because Donald Trump's up there every day, you know, calling him desanctimonious and saying he's part of the deep state and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 5 Right. So he's like losing an altitude with both groups.
But those are the two groups that you need to figure out how to unite. And it's just hard to see how Tim Scott does it.

Speaker 5 And these like gauzy ads, it's just, I just don't get it. You know, this is a presidential race, Tommy.
You know, and it's like, people get, people know the candidates, right?

Speaker 5 Like the 32nd, meet this candidate. They're a nice guy.
They have a positive vision. Like that shit works in house races because you don't know right who the people are.

Speaker 5 But at a presidential level, like, they're just, these people are just burning their money.

Speaker 2 Especially Iowa caucus goers who are like super engaged. Um, but you know, Tim, the cliche about Iowa, right, is there's two or three tickets out of Iowa.

Speaker 2 That means you don't have to win the Iowa caucuses. You have to exceed expectations.
Then you'll get a bounce in the form of a bunch of press coverage and some online fundraising.

Speaker 2 And maybe, you know, that takes you into New Hampshire. Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016.
Rick Santorum won Iowa in 2012. Mike Huckabee won in 2008.

Speaker 2 None of them went on to be president or won the nomination either, right? So maybe that makes you feel better if you're a candidate who's struggling right now.

Speaker 2 But do you think that cliché holds up this year if Trump wins Iowa and exceeds what he did last time?

Speaker 5 No, if Trump wins Iowa, there's one and a half tickets out of Iowa. Trump and friend of the pod, Chris Christie, that will go to New Hampshire and try to beat him in New Hampshire.

Speaker 5 It's a very different electorate, very unique electorate. But the Christie thing is just, you know, God love him, I guess.

Speaker 5 I kind of hate him actually, but also God love him for, you know, speaking the truth about Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 You know, did you see his fave on faith in the Iowa?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's real bad.

Speaker 5 2860. So 28% of Republicans like him.
60% don't like him. I bet his numbers might be better among the Democratic electorate in Iowa, or at least close to that, 2860.

Speaker 5 And those are just, that's a horrible number. So Chris D will go to New Hampshire no matter what.
But if Trump wins. What path is there for anybody else?

Speaker 5 Iowa is his weakest state because it's a caucus, you know, because it's

Speaker 5 only these super engaged people turn out.

Speaker 5 Like Trump does very well among the most casual kind of republicans people that only vote you know only generally turn turn out to vote in general elections like that that is a core trump base so i he his numbers in iowa are are worse than they are in new hampshire south carolina nevada well we already did louisiana so i just if trump wins iowa you could this thing is over and so you see this whole mitt romney convo that's like we got to consolidate after new hampshire it's like no no guys i love you got to consolidate now

Speaker 5 or this thing could be basically functionally over January 16th.

Speaker 2 And Trump's got like 50% in polls in South Carolina right now. By the way, Pence was at 42.53, fave on fave.
So Christie doing worse than the guy people wanted to hang.

Speaker 2 But we're getting ahead of ourselves, Tim. We're talking about the winner of the Iowa caucuses.
We have some debates coming first. In a past life, you did opposition research.

Speaker 2 You did communications for candidates, including as Jeb's communications director in 2016. How did you guys prepare him for these cluster fucks? Was there like debate camp?

Speaker 2 Did you have half of your staff playing different candidates? Like, how does that go?

Speaker 5 Yeah, we did have a debate camp.

Speaker 5 And,

Speaker 5 you know, Jeb, I just, just right off, I just have a deep affection for him on a personal level. He's my favorite candidate I ever worked for.
Like, this was not his wheelhouse.

Speaker 5 You know, I'm not exactly speaking out of school to anybody that watched the debates saying like that was not, you know, him being on a stage with nine other people and trying to be performative.

Speaker 5 Like that was tough for him.

Speaker 5 And so probably more so, you know, we wanted him to be able to be himself and to be able to speak extemporaneously because you want to be natural when you're talking about issues.

Speaker 5 But we really kind of focused on the attacks.

Speaker 5 Like, okay, if Marco says this and you're going to say that, like, let's practice, not, not, not let's script you, but like, let's practice and get comfortable with like what the critiques are going to be of the other main competitors on stage.

Speaker 5 And so, yeah, you know, and we had somebody that tried to be, that was Trump.

Speaker 5 We just basically had one other person up there and they would be Trump and then they would be Marco and you kind of go through the different

Speaker 5 types of people and what their likely critiques of Jeb were.

Speaker 5 It is, it's extremely hard to prep for. It's not exactly, Tommy, I don't know if you know this, but

Speaker 5 I've been basically excommunicated from two debate prep teams.

Speaker 5 John Huntsman asked me to leave because I was too negative.

Speaker 5 And I had removed myself from the Jeb debate prep because I was too negative. And I was traveling with Jeb and I was like, I got to save my, you know, just any human interaction, right?

Speaker 5 Like just with a child or parent or anything, you, you know, you want to do the compliment sandwich.

Speaker 5 And I wasn't that good at the compliment sandwich. You know, the compliment sandwich is nice job on this.
Ooh, you could do better on that, but oh, also, this is good.

Speaker 5 And I was, I was more of a criticism sandwich. And so I had to kind of save my, you know, my chips for for the, for the road.

Speaker 5 And so I removed myself from Jeb's debate prep.

Speaker 2 But um, but like, that's not an easy job. Listen, giving bad news to anyone sucks, but like

Speaker 2 playing a realistic Donald Trump in a debate where he will literally say anything, the meanest thing you can imagine, he will say to you, Hillary Clinton, what about your husband and his, you know, affairs with interns?

Speaker 2 Like you have to turn to your boss and replicate that. That is, that's a nearly impossible task.

Speaker 5 Really hard. Yeah.
And Trump attacked Jeb's wife. Right.
Before one of the debates. And I think just in retrospect, we probably didn't do a good enough job.

Speaker 5 Now you have to kind of put your brain in this time of oh this is the summer of 2015 so the trump craziness is just coming on online and you're like is he really going to do this on stage and like do people even like this should maybe we should ignore him right like that theory is is viable at that time and so i think that from a staff perspective we did not do a good enough job prepping for that you know because you don't want like who is going to be the staffer that goes up there and is like you know kalumba is an illegal immigrant right and and to see you know like like somebody might get punched by the candidate during debate prep, right?

Speaker 5 And so like I that I think that in retrospect, had we kind of known that Trump's durability and how unhinged he was going to be, we maybe could have done a better job prepping.

Speaker 5 But again, I think that you have to have a certain type of demeanor to even be in the in the game with Trump on stage because he's just such a different animal than anything else.

Speaker 2 I think the different animal thing, it's hard to remember now how different he felt then. I went back and I watched a bunch of old clips.

Speaker 2 Here is one clip I thought of Trump and Jeb going back and forth that I thought was illustrative. I didn't want to trigger you, but it might also do that.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 6 What Donald Trump did was use him in a domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City. That is not public purpose.

Speaker 8 That is downright wrong.

Speaker 8 Here's the problem with that.

Speaker 9 The problem was it was to tear down. It was to turn it off.

Speaker 8 He wants to be a tough guy. He wants to be a tough guy.
As tough as it is,

Speaker 2 let me talk. Quiet.

Speaker 8 A lot of times,

Speaker 8 a lot of times.

Speaker 9 That's all of his donors and special interests out there.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 that's what it is.

Speaker 9 And by the way, let me just tell you, we needed tickets. You can't get them.
You know who has the tickets?

Speaker 9 I'm talking about to the television audience. Donors, special interests, the people that are putting up the money.

Speaker 8 money. Here it is.

Speaker 9 The RNC told us we have all donors in the audience and the reason they're not loving me,

Speaker 9 the reason they're not, excuse me, the reason they're not loving me is I don't want their money. I'm going to do the right thing for the American public.
I don't want their money.

Speaker 9 I don't need their money. And I'm the only one up here that can say that.

Speaker 2 Listen, that's a brilliant response to an entire auditorium of people booing you, right? I don't think most people would think to do that. Instead, he breaks the fourth wall.

Speaker 2 He's like, let me tell you how it really works. Special interests are flocking to this place.
They're buying up tickets. They're, they're trying to rig how it sounds in here.
I don't need them.

Speaker 2 I don't care about them. I'm for you.
I mean, that's an incredible debate moment.

Speaker 5 And you can hear Jeb, you know, trying to get on the, you know, kind of the attack that he had prepared, right?

Speaker 5 Like, like, as, and Trump's talking over him and he's trying to say, that's not tough to steal an old lady's house, right? You know, like, cause that's the bit, right?

Speaker 5 Like, that's like, he's trying to say, you know, Trump acts like he's a tough guy, he acts like he's man of people, but actually, you know, he's a weakling and he's, and he's screwing over regular people, right?

Speaker 5 And his, in his business life. And so, like, that's the core of the attack.
But like, Jeb can't even spit it, get it out, right? Because Trump is just bowling over him.

Speaker 5 And then there's crosstalk, and then the people are cheering. And then it's Trump that jumps in again, right? Now we're at a free-for-all.
This is not anything you prepped.

Speaker 5 Now we're at a free-for-all, but Trump like instinctually jumps in again and then starts loving the special interest hit.

Speaker 5 And so, you know, in future debates, like really, I think I was in the next round of debate prep set up for this before I removed myself. Like the main thing we practice is like talking back over him.

Speaker 5 Right. Again, like this is like not something that you had to do in a, you know, in a, in his debate with Lawton Childs in the Florida governor's race in 1998, right?

Speaker 5 Like, like, like, you know, this notion that this guy is just going to start talking over you, you know, telling you to shut up, and then he's going to not even at all try to engage on the issue.

Speaker 5 Like, he didn't talk about eminent domain at all, right? Like he then starts shouting about how your donors are in the crowd. I mean, like, we didn't prep him for that.

Speaker 5 And so, so that element, I think, is just, you know, was tough, was tough to prep for. And Trump, and that's just right in Trump's, like, what, you know, I hate, I don't want to compliment Trump, but

Speaker 2 he's good in the house. He's good in that moment.
And so this debate will be different. I mean, the following candidates qualified, or we think they qualified for the debate.

Speaker 2 It'll be Trump, DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Pence, Haley, Tim Scott, Christy, Bergham, Asa Hutchinson, probably Perry Johnson. But obviously, Trump is not going to attend.

Speaker 2 Perry Jay.

Speaker 2 So, no Trump. So, that's probably nine candidates on the stage.

Speaker 2 This time, candidates will not give opening statements, but they will have 45 seconds for closing remarks, which is the dumbest use of time you could possibly have, but whatever.

Speaker 2 You get one minute to answer questions, 30 seconds for follow-ups. The moderators are Brett Baer and Martha McCallum from Fox News.

Speaker 2 Apparently, the moderators will be playing clips, including of Trump. This is a quote: He'll even be there, even if he's not there, said jilted lovers/slash/moderator Brett Baer.

Speaker 2 So, Tim, let's kind of figure out what people need to do, the candidates need to do in this debate.

Speaker 2 And let's start with meatball Ron DeSantis and what he needs to accomplish on Wednesday night, because he is the biggest boy at the kids' table.

Speaker 2 The New York Times reported on a memo that his super PAC, Ron DeSantis' super PAC released maybe accidentally, kind of not accidentally.

Speaker 2 Here's a clip of DeSantis getting asked about this memo and his debate strategy.

Speaker 10 Your campaign said the other day that the knives are out for you at that debate. I got to ask you about that.

Speaker 10 Plus, I got to ask you, I know it's not your campaign, but never back down, put out a memo that people are talking about. So I'd like to get your reaction to both.

Speaker 7 Well, on the memo, it's not mine. I haven't read it.
And it's just, I think it's something that we haven't

Speaker 7 put off to the side. But in terms of the debate, look, when you're, I know from the military, when you're over the target, that's when you're taking flack.

Speaker 7 And if you look, really, in the last six to nine months, I've been more attacked than anybody else, Biden, Harris, the media, the left, other Republican candidates, and there's a reason for that because people know that I'm the biggest threat.

Speaker 7 So we view it as positive feedback. We'll be ready to do what we need to do to deliver our message, but we absolutely expect that and we'll be ready for it.

Speaker 10 And that means punching back.

Speaker 7 It means, yes. It means defending ourselves, but more importantly, showing why we are the leader to get this country turned around.

Speaker 2 So according to this brilliant memo, DeSantis needs to, one, attack Joe Biden in the media, two, state his positive vision three to five times, three, hammer the vape Ramaswamy at some point, four, defend Trump when Chris Christie attacks Trump.

Speaker 2 Tim, do you do you agree that the Ron's key to success here is defending the guy, beating him by double digits?

Speaker 5 I don't.

Speaker 5 I don't concur with that.

Speaker 5 Just listening to that answer, man, I mean, he just sounds like a politician.

Speaker 5 This is the thing. This is what Republicans liked about that Trump freak show.
We listened to the Jeb exchange, right?

Speaker 5 It's like the Republican base wants somebody that is that does not sound at all like anything from the pre-Trump world.

Speaker 5 Like, even the people that might be ready to move on from Trump like Trump, like this change, you know, like the bare knuckles, like being an outsider.

Speaker 5 And DeSantis is just kind of like weasly response. Oh, we put that memo off to the side.

Speaker 5 It's like part of me would say, if I was, if I had to put my head on and be like, I'm a Ron, you know, Tiny T's, you know, comms person, I've been like, if you get asked about that memo, you should say, fuck those donors, like, and the, and the super PAC.

Speaker 5 Like, I don't know where that came from, and I'm not going to listen to them. And frankly, I thought their advice was stupid.

Speaker 5 And that's why they're giving me money and they're not the governor of Florida like me. Like something like that, right? Like he needs to demonstrate that he is an alpha.

Speaker 5 Like when he was doing well with the Republican base, what was he doing? He was yelling at 24-year-old local news reporters. Okay, that they like that.

Speaker 5 He was sending defenseless, helpless migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard for no reason other than to troll like the librarian at the Martha's Vineyard Library, right? Like that's I can't.

Speaker 2 Yelling at kids for wearing masks.

Speaker 5 Yelling at kids for wearing masks. Like that's what Republican voters liked.

Speaker 5 When I went to Arizona for the circus, like Blake Masters and those guys were getting their biggest applause lines were talking about DeSantis's migrant deal. So like that was his strength.

Speaker 5 He seemed tough. He seemed like a guy that was going to be a middle finger to the establishment, to the to the media.
And since, and he hasn't been able to be the big guy

Speaker 5 since he's gotten in because Trump has big-footed him every step of the way and he seems weaseling and and and whiny and so at the debate he's got to figure out a way to to to fix that it's all like it's less about the substance of what he's talking about and more about like his carriage and i i is he capable of that i just i'm not sure he is yeah i mean trump just sounded so different he was so much more entertaining the the analogy i think about sometimes is like the entire electorate was raised watching america's funniest home videos with my man bob zagger remember that show good show hilarious cute videos funny bloopers, lots of nutshots.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden, Trump gets up there and plays Jackass the Movie for us.

Speaker 2 And you're like, oh my God, I didn't know it could be this intense and crazy and so different and like, you know, counterculture.

Speaker 2 And now like Dron DeSantis is going back to this like old school pollen. Who wants that? It's boring.
They don't like it.

Speaker 5 They don't want it. I mean, there's a certain amount of people that want it, but not enough, right? Like, and so how does he get back that mega crowd that was happy about turning the page?

Speaker 5 Like, that would be all I would be thinking about if I was their team when I'm out there.

Speaker 5 And then he's got Chris Christie, who's better at him than this, who's been on these stages, who's more natural.

Speaker 5 At some way,

Speaker 5 I would, you know, one thing that would keep me up at night if I was a DeSantis person is I'd be like, maybe the best way to kind of get my, you know, chutzpah back would be to go right at Christie, right?

Speaker 5 And, but, but maybe my man isn't capable of doing that, right? So, so we might have to coach him and come up with something else.

Speaker 5 We might have to, you know, attack, you know, some marginalized group that's offstage in an offensive way.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Or the moderator.

Speaker 2 By the way, Tim, for folks listening, if you don't want to watch this Republican debate alone or on Elon Musk's Twitter, join the crooked media Friends of the Pod community.

Speaker 2 We'll be watching it together. We're making jokes so we don't cry on the Discord.
For you folks like me who are a little older, Discord is basically a chat room.

Speaker 2 You also get access to bonus content at free episodes, Pot Save of America, first access to tickets to live shows in places like Louisville, San Diego, San Jose.

Speaker 2 So go to crooked.com/slash friends to join now.

Speaker 2 Tim, the other weird thing about that whole clip was the super PAC element. Like I know in 2016, Jeb's campaign leaned hard on his super PAC for fundraising to pay for TV ads, basically.

Speaker 2 But you and I have talked about this a number of times. Like I just don't get how DeSantis can basically run his entire campaign through the super PAC.

Speaker 2 They're paying canvassers to knock on doors in early states. The super PAC is setting up events.
DeSantis himself attends in Iowa.

Speaker 2 It's doing polling, research, strategy memos, as we all read, thanks to them getting released to Maggie Haberman somehow.

Speaker 2 Like, again, I get that this is all about raising money and that super PACs can raise big money easily. But do you think it's worth it when you like can't coordinate your activities?

Speaker 5 Are they not coordinating?

Speaker 5 It is weird. The whole thing is weird.

Speaker 5 So when I went to that event and I went to a DeSantis event in Tama, Iowa, I got into a little bit of trouble because I took a picture of how empty it was that ended up on Drudge and then also that Trump bleeded out on True Social, which made a narrative.

Speaker 5 I felt good. I felt good.
I was like, Yeah, I was like, sorry, Ron. I've owned you.
And then Trump put it out and I was like, wait a minute, am I kind of helping Trump? Now, this is now making me sad.

Speaker 5 You just, you know, we can't have joy anymore, Tommy. Nothing is pure.
But

Speaker 5 anyway, I walk out as we were waiting for him to come in.

Speaker 5 his uh i'm in the press section which is still kind of weird and his little press flat comes over and he's like um and that actually works on a campaign and and this guy's like oh yeah the governor will be here in five minutes and then and then he rolls up in an in the super PAC's bus on like a very large motorcade, by the way.

Speaker 5 Um, I thought that they were pinching pennies, but not on the super PAC side. Um, and and then he gets off.
It's like, how do you know that he's on? I like the whole thing is very strange.

Speaker 5 Like, why, how did he get on the supervised bus? How did you time this?

Speaker 5 Like, if you can't coordinate, it's like, did they publish the schedule on Jeff Rose Consulting Firm's website, the same place that they published this debate memo?

Speaker 5 Like, how do you know where to meet? You know, when do you know when lunch break is? The whole thing is very strange. Um, and the non-coordination is very challenging.
We got frustrated.

Speaker 5 So back when this was, you mentioned this with Jeb, you know, I think that those guys on the super PAC side rightly saw Rubio as a bigger threat than Trump because they were like, yeah, if we can't get past Rubio, you can't win.

Speaker 5 And then maybe you win a mano-mano with Trump. And they did a lot of negative Rubio ads.

Speaker 5 At a certain point, as Trump tried to gain more and more momentum, that felt a little sad kind of, you know, it felt a little off key, right?

Speaker 5 And it was like, and we on the campaign were wishing that they would do anti-Trump ads, you know, if, if not, not necessarily because that would help hurt Trump, but because it would boost Jeb, right?

Speaker 5 It would like boost him vis-a-vis vis-a-vis Trump and, you know, kind of give us a little bit, you know, give him a little more backbone behind his attacks on Trump.

Speaker 5 And so, but we couldn't do anything about it, right?

Speaker 5 It doesn't, I'm not sure that's true of the DeSantis campaign. It sure seems like they're coordinating, but the whole thing, I think, gives, makes you feel,

Speaker 5 you know, in a strange way, it's like, all these fucking, that's one thing, one of the other things Trump is white about. It's my second Trump compliment of this podcast, No More After This.

Speaker 5 It's that all these strategists were full of shit and we're kind of wimped over it. Right.
And it's like Trump had his plane. It was the golf caddy.
It was Hope Hicks.

Speaker 5 It was like Stab Ye Eyes Lewandowski. And like, that was it.
And it was just Trump, right? Like, that was it.

Speaker 5 And DeSantis now, it makes him look weak that it's like these super PAC guys are writing a memo about him and they're writing a screen.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And he's on their bus.

Speaker 2 Vivek, our boy vivek um was like was docking him about this at a different event i went to in iowa so anyway i the whole thing i just think doesn't work yeah and it speaks to how broken our campaign finance system is speaking of which the washington post had a big story about ron de santis raising money in florida that basically outlines the legalized corruption that's okay because you know florida is the wild wild west and has no campaign finance rules they the post reported that after getting elected desantis had his staff make a list of 40 lobbyists and 100 their top clients to basically target target to shake down for cash.

Speaker 2 DeSantis wanted nine of these lobbyists to raise him a million bucks each. He was personally calling them.

Speaker 2 One DeSantis aide named Heather Barker actually wrote in an email, quote, I could sell golf for 50K this morning. Apparently, golf was a big part of this strategy.

Speaker 2 Ron went to one course so often that the club called his staff and said, please tell him to join the club or to stop showing up, but we just can't have him every other day, which is amazing.

Speaker 2 So Tim, I read this story and I thought, one, like, how is this not illegal? Two, boy, does Ron DeSantis probably regret firing Susie Wiles, who was his former top advisor, who now works for Trump.

Speaker 2 And I'm guessing is a source for this story and many others because she was probably has all these emails somewhere.

Speaker 2 And then three, like, you know, probably not a coincidence that the story lands right before the debate.

Speaker 2 So Trump's drain the swamp rhetoric was obviously, you know, bullshit, but it was quite effective. Do you think Ron DeSantis is worried that this is going to come at him? Will it matter? Yeah.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 again, I think it all plays into this narrative that he's just the same old politician. You know, in one of Sarah Lano's focus groups at the bulwarks, somebody, this one stuck with me.

Speaker 5 Some person said like they think DeSantis is deep state or might be deep state. And it's like, this is the kind of shit that makes people think of that.
Right.

Speaker 5 And by the way, I just, and this might be somewhere that I get crossways with some of the progressive folks on the, on the pod, you might disagree with me on this, Tommy, but like, I just don't,

Speaker 5 I think that money, corruption or related to money is a problem, you know, at the gubernatorial level, right? That like maybe he's doing favors, backscratching for real estate developers or whatever.

Speaker 5 But in presidential politics, I just don't think money matters that much anymore. I think all of the campaigns spend way too much time raising money and caring about money.

Speaker 5 Ron DeSantis's TV ads, like

Speaker 5 TV ads do not matter in presidential politics. Like, unless it's really, really good and breaks through on social, on TikTok, and they're playing it on the news.

Speaker 5 It's like people don't watch commercials that much. They're used as introductory tools in House and Senate races, local races, where people get to learn about the candidates.

Speaker 5 People are learning about Ron DeSantis on sports talk radio, on news talk radio, on podcasts, on Facebook, on TikTok, on cable, like the presidential news is everywhere. People can't escape it.

Speaker 5 And so he's giving away, you know, he's making himself seem like a tool of the donors in exchange for 50 grand that's going to buy you four more ads that I think have diminishing returns in the first place.

Speaker 5 I just don't think money is that big of a deal at the presidential level. And I think the Trump campaign showed that.

Speaker 5 Biden showed that, really. Bidens have come back in the Democratic primary.
It was not based on money. It was like based on a Jim Clyburn endorsement and then a bunch of momentum.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, I think at some point, you know, if you don't have enough money, you'll have to make hard decisions. Like, do I run ads in North Carolina or not?

Speaker 2 Do we compete in Florida at all or do we just concede this? Like there's decisions like that. But I agree with you in general.

Speaker 2 Like there is such a diminishing return in the next campaign ad, especially especially if it's not backed by some sort of earned media narrative.

Speaker 2 Um, or, or, you know, and most of these controversies are manufactured at some point.

Speaker 2 And speaking of which, Tim, for some reason, DeSantis did an interview with an outlet called the Florida Standard, which is some like brand new news site that was created by a 26-year-old kid who I think used to work for Trump or was a Trump fan, who manages to somehow now get access to DeSantis because basically he kisses Ron's ass.

Speaker 2 So, during this interview, DeSantis suggested that Republicans shouldn't mindlessly follow Trump. Here's a clip.

Speaker 2 The movement has got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people? And that's got to be based in principle.

Speaker 2 Because if you're not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that's just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on Truth Social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement.

Speaker 2 Setting aside why he's talking to the, quote, Florida standard when you need to be winning in Iowa, Trump's team is calling this Ron's basket of deplorables momentum, which is how Hillary described the kind of hardcore MAGA base in 2016.

Speaker 2 Channeling.

Speaker 5 She had some points with that.

Speaker 2 Do you think they're going to make this one work?

Speaker 2 Channel my inner James Carville. You're a Louisiana guy.
Will this dog hunt?

Speaker 5 Do anybody know what a listless nestle is?

Speaker 5 I don't know.

Speaker 5 I don't think that

Speaker 5 doesn't make any sense. I don't think.

Speaker 5 I think it goes to show that you know how tough of a situation Ron DeSantis is in, right?

Speaker 5 Like you can't, if you offer any criticism that kind of sounds like a criticism of the MAGA movement, all of a sudden, like people start clutching their pearls and, you know, like they, they get triggered, the MAGAs get triggered and they start attacking you.

Speaker 5 So I don't know that this, that this dog is going to hunt, but

Speaker 5 he is making a good point kind of awkwardly. Right.

Speaker 5 And so it's almost like, right, like, can our party, can our movement, can the MAGA movement move beyond like whatever the latest obsession of Donald Trump's personal life is?

Speaker 5 But the problem is I think he gets himself in these awkward situations because he's trying to decide what he can say. He can't say the truth.

Speaker 5 Like, he can't come out and say, Donald Trump is obsessed with himself and himself only, and he's always been that way. And he's a narcissistic egomaniac.

Speaker 5 And maybe we should care about other people and other issues besides that. You can't say that, right? So he's trying to delicately say it, and he accidentally makes fun of MAGA voters.
Tough break.

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Speaker 11 Hey, welcome into Walgreens. Hi there.

Speaker 13 All right, hon.

Speaker 14 I'll grab the gift wrap,

Speaker 13 cards, and oh, those stuffed animals the girls want.

Speaker 15 Great. And I'll grab the string lights and some.

Speaker 16 How about I grab some cough drops?

Speaker 17 This is not just a quick trip to Walgreens.

Speaker 18 I'm fine, honey.

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Tis the season.

Speaker 2 This is Help Staying Healthy Through the Holidays. Walgreens.

Speaker 2 So there are other candidates on the stage. Donald Trump is not on the stage, again, but he will be featured by the Fox News hosts.
Tim Scott and Nikki Haley are candidates who will be up there.

Speaker 2 They are. You know, they have solid name ID, right? They have like pretty good establishment resumes.
Tim Scott has a ton of money because of some big donors. Neither have gotten much traction.

Speaker 2 What do you think a Nikki Haley or Tim Scott needs to to get done at this debate?

Speaker 5 What are they trying? Can I ask you a question first? Sure. What are they trying to do?

Speaker 5 Are they trying to be the president? I think

Speaker 2 that's the president. Yeah.
That would be my guess.

Speaker 5 I don't know about Tim Scott, though. If they're trying to be the vice president, I guess I would spin up some nonsense about how the deep state is targeting Mr.
Trump for Mr. Trump.

Speaker 5 I don't understand what they're doing. They don't have any chance.
I went at one of the other IO events I was at. It was this cattle call.

Speaker 5 A bunch of the candidates spoke, and Nikki Haley gave this speech that appeals to me.

Speaker 5 It was mostly about how we should be more serious about foreign policy. And she's criticized the Biden administration for not giving enough money to Ukraine and like giving more resources to Ukraine.

Speaker 5 And this room, it was like,

Speaker 5 if I wasn't a journalist and I was allowed to clap, I would have been the only one clapping at that, at that observation. So I just, I don't understand what she's doing.

Speaker 5 She doesn't have any appeal in this party. I mean, they like her fine.
Like, like she, you know, she's not Chris Christie.

Speaker 5 You know, they don't hate her but they're they're never going to nominate somebody from the before times you know who does not offer them the culture war lib owning

Speaker 5 you know stuff that they like and so i i don't i don't i don't know what advice to give them because i don't know what their purpose is if somebody would be honest uh tim scotts claims that he's running for president it doesn't seem like it to me maybe he'll just pull out his phone and just show all the tinder matches he's gotten to sort of put that to rest be like look these ladies love me you shut up everyone okay the ladies love me we don't know

Speaker 2 i was a virgin until 32.

Speaker 5 okay that's it, though. We don't know.

Speaker 5 You're a 32 version out there, your old version out there. It's going to happen for you.
It happened for Tim Scott. There's nothing to be ashamed of.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's an American story. All right.
So, in terms of debating ability, you mentioned this earlier. Expectations are probably the highest for Chris Christie.

Speaker 2 Here's a clip from 2016 that helps explain why. The first voice you're going to hear is Marco Rubio.
This is edited down from multiple moments at this debate.

Speaker 2 And then Chris Christie swoops in and punches him in the mouth.

Speaker 20 And let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.

Speaker 20 Barack Obama is undertaking a systematic effort to change this country, to make America more like the rest of the world.

Speaker 20 But I would add this: let's dispel with this fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.
He is trying to change this country.

Speaker 20 He wants America to become more like the rest of the world. Here's the bottom line.
This notion that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing is just not true.

Speaker 21 He knows exactly what he's doing.

Speaker 21 The memorized 25-second speech is the same.

Speaker 20 Oh, that's the reason why this campaign is so important.

Speaker 21 Marco, the thing is this: when you're president of the United States, when you're a governor of a state,

Speaker 21 the memorized 30-second speech where you talk about how great America is at the end of it doesn't solve one problem for one person. They expect you to plow the snow.

Speaker 21 They expect you to get the schools open. And when the worst natural disaster in your state's history hits you, they expect you to rebuild their state, which is what I've done.

Speaker 21 None of that stuff happens on the floor of the United States Senate. It's a fine job.
I'm glad you ran for it, but it does not prepare you for President of the United States.

Speaker 2 So that clip was a cut down.

Speaker 5 That's good as I remember it.

Speaker 2 Oh, it's pretty good. That was a cut down from the WMUR debate in New Hampshire in 2016.
As you heard, Marco Rubio, we edited this down.

Speaker 2 Marco Rubio keeps repeating the same odd line over and over again about how Obama knows what he's doing. I don't even understand the value of that line done, delivered once well.

Speaker 2 But he sounds like a glitching robot. Christie pounces on him, makes him into a national joke.
Unfortunately for Christie, Trump's not at this debate, right?

Speaker 2 So he can't show his chops and defeat Trump at the debate. There's no direct combat opportunity.
Do you think Christie needs to humiliate someone else again to like show that he's there?

Speaker 2 And then also like Mike Pence is going to be there. Does anyone notice?

Speaker 5 I'm a rare lonely hate, Chris Christie hater in Never Trump world. I just, I think that, A, what he did at that debate.
only served to help Donald Trump. Then he went and endorsed Donald Trump.

Speaker 5 He's a tough guy. He never actually took on Donald Trump.
He had like eight tries. Maybe he's full of tries.
I don't know. We had a bunch of debates.

Speaker 5 So anyway, and I said when he he got in this time, it's like, it's nice. I agree.

Speaker 5 It's nice when he goes on Fox and it's satisfying when he says the truth about Donald Trump and he says the truth about his criminality.

Speaker 5 He had a good interview where he attacked some of the other candidates about trans issues and how conservatives, I thought conservatives didn't want government making decisions for parents.

Speaker 5 And why are we doing it on trans issues? I liked that. But, like, I think the most likely thing is that he goes out there and just defenistrates, shout out to Pac, the other candidates on stage,

Speaker 5 despite only having 28% approval rating.

Speaker 5 And like, then what? It's like, he didn't take out Trump. I think he might take out Ron DeSantis and Tim Scott.
And then it's like, what was the point of this again?

Speaker 5 I thought the point of this was to stop the guy that tried to coup.

Speaker 5 And I don't know that you can do that when only 28% of the party likes you. So anyway, I think that's what's most likely to happen.

Speaker 5 If I was, if I was Chris Christie's advisor, I'd tell him, just attack Trump. Leave these other poor people on stage alone.
But I don't think he's going to do that. Mike Pence,

Speaker 5 I think, is just trying to get his dignity back. And

Speaker 5 he's doing a little bit. He's doing okay on that, I guess.

Speaker 5 But I don't understand the point of his campaign either, really, except for maybe it's just to get his dignity back, which is, I guess, a good reason to run.

Speaker 2 Mike Pence was 3% in the New York Times Iowa poll, 6% in this most recent one. Don't call it a comeback.
He's

Speaker 5 my favorite stat from the New York Times Iowa poll is that Kennedy, RFK Jr.'s favorability was like 3x better than Mike Pence.

Speaker 5 Like the last Republican vice president, now, because he didn't go along with the coup for that one reason, is less popular than like a lifetime lefty who now Republicans like because he thinks vaccines are bad and like goes on Steve Bannon's podcast.

Speaker 5 Okay. All right.
Strange

Speaker 2 living again.

Speaker 2 Not ideal. It doesn't make me feel good about the country.
All right, Tim. So we got to the main course here, which is Vivek, our guy.
He's 38 years old. He wrote Woke Inc.

Speaker 2 He got rich off this biotech company that he started. Now he's spending all his cash running for president.

Speaker 2 He seems to be trying to be kind of a happy culture warrior, if that can, those things can coexist. Vivek's team tweeted out a clip of his debate prep.
Here it is.

Speaker 2 That was Vivek playing shirtless tennis somewhere.

Speaker 5 Family podcast.

Speaker 2 I wish you guys could see how red picks.

Speaker 5 My mom was going to listen to this podcast on the drive, on her drives.

Speaker 2 Tim, you've been to Vivek's events.

Speaker 2 You've seen his Ten Commandments. What do you think the appeal is?

Speaker 5 Here's the appeal.

Speaker 5 It might be phony. I don't know.
He might be the Vake the Fake.

Speaker 5 I'm not sure.

Speaker 5 Or he might have just gotten red-pilled and this is all real. But

Speaker 5 he is good at

Speaker 5 making the argument for the new nationalist MAGA GOP in a way that sounds intelligent. And that's very hard.

Speaker 5 And I'm not comparing these people on the merits of their policies or whatever, but in the same way that I think Pete appealed to people in Iowa because they showed up to his events and they could ask him questions and he would sound really, really smart.

Speaker 5 I think Pete's answers were genuine. Vivek, when you go to these things, people ask him questions and he sounds smart.

Speaker 5 I suffered through his valedictorian speech on YouTube. That's how obsessed I am

Speaker 5 with him. He's very smart.

Speaker 5 He went to all these schools. He is a skilled speaker.
I think he has schooled himself in the Daily Wire world and talking points.

Speaker 5 And he kind of sounds like Candace Owens and he sounds like Matt Walsh and he sounds like Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 5 And that's what a lot of Republican voters want now.

Speaker 5 And so I think that unlike DeSantis, who feels like a real politician who's trying to do some mega culture war stuff, Viveg kind of seems like he's of the Trump movement.

Speaker 5 And it might be phony, but he is

Speaker 5 speaking like he's a, like he might be, you know, how a MAGA person in the crowd wishes they could speak if they had Vivek's level of education, right?

Speaker 5 And so they see him and they're like, yes, I do think that we're spending too much money in Ukraine. And I do think we should spend the military to the border.

Speaker 5 And I do have a couple of questions about 9-11, right? Like he is, he is hitting that nerve. And so, you know, he's also a 38-year-old Hindu.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 so I think that's not really probably great for Iowa. And so I think that I think that if he was like a 43-year-old evangelical, my guess is that he'd be in second place right now.

Speaker 5 But I think that he at least recognizes something that, you know, the Nikki Haley, the Tim Scott, the consultants that these people don't, which is like what the Republican Party voters, not all of them, but like 75% of them, a significant majority, what they're looking for.

Speaker 5 And they're looking for MAGA.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I agree with that.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think to the question of whether he's the vaccine, the fake or real, I talked to someone the other day who worked with him back in the day when he was a tech bro and they suggested that this is certainly a lot of performance happening here.

Speaker 2 Look, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 I think there's a few parts of this. Like, I think

Speaker 2 conservative white audiences love it when a person of color confirm their feelings about race, right?

Speaker 2 In this long piece in The Atlantic, Vivek says he didn't mind being racially profiled on a flight to Israel right after 9-11 because he said, quote, it was data-driven.

Speaker 2 I don't know what that means, but it's, you know, a pretty weird, gross thing to say. I agree with you.

Speaker 2 I think he's kind of pulling on the Joe Rogan, Russell brand conspiracy theory heartstrings, talking about, you know, the 9-11 Commission lying to us.

Speaker 2 He's doing isolationism on steroids. He doesn't like supporting Ukraine.

Speaker 2 He said, you know, let's let China take Taiwan after 2028. You know, to his credit, I agree with you.

Speaker 2 You know, he is young. He's campaigning really hard.

Speaker 2 There is a lot of that mayor pete strategy and he's saying things that do make him sound genuinely different from others the thing i think that's going to be hard for him is everyone's clearly coming for him now they view him as a threat to consolidating the anti-trump vote and like part of what got released from ron de santis' super pack was opo research on vivek it wasn't like you know private investigators following around it was you know quotes and votes and you know sort of yeah of his failure to vote and present his failure to vote presidential campaigns, things he said in the past.

Speaker 2 But also, I think I made you listen to this, Tim. Vivek did a long interview with Hugh Hewitt, who is this kind of like Trump supporter, but guy who fancies himself sort of a foreign policy thinker.

Speaker 2 And Vivek was unraveling his like 4G chess, kind of watched me logic my way through international affairs, answers about China and Ukraine, et cetera.

Speaker 2 And at the end, he says to Hugh, you know, I didn't know much of this stuff until six months ago. And like.
That's an honest answer, but, you know, it certainly doesn't provide him any,

Speaker 2 you know, it doesn't shake his hubris, which I think, you know, will be a problem down the road.

Speaker 5 Maybe, yeah, it could be a problem down the road. I don't know about, I think people coming at him on the debate stage is a mistake, man.

Speaker 5 I just, just, just looking at performance ability, nothing else. He was much, the Vivek I saw was much better than all the other candidates in that cattle call.
Chris Christie wasn't there.

Speaker 5 Trump wasn't there. But

Speaker 5 everyone else on stage, I think he's going to be better. And I think going after him would be.
Going after Vivek, the fake would be a mistake in Dr.

Speaker 5 Soucian terms, if I was these guys, because even if the hit is good, just like you saw with Jeb, the hit hit was good on Init Domain, but performance is like

Speaker 5 80% of the battle on

Speaker 2 all sorts of things. Yeah.
I also noticed that Vivek is saying that he was talking to Chris Ruddy, the head of the Newsmax network, about covers.

Speaker 2 He's complaining that he's only getting covered in the middle of the day. And Ruddy basically said to him, Well, one way to fix that is to buy some ads.

Speaker 2 So it's sort of nice when people tell you who they are. I noticed this in The Atlantic.
The Atlantic did a long profile of Vivek, Tim,

Speaker 2 where the author wrote, the reporter wrote, After the Cuomo interview, we drove to Ramaswamy's house. It's bright and white with giant ceilings, suburban palatial.

Speaker 2 One of the family's two nannies appeared and started putting together a spread, chili kale, watermelon salad, tofu tacos. Tim, do you think the MAGA base wants watermelon salad and tofu tacos?

Speaker 2 They want burned steak. They want ketchup on the wall.
I just, I don't know. I don't think this is going to be.

Speaker 5 There's only so much phoniness. He might have the talking points down, but nah, man, they want McDonald's and ketchup on the wall for sure.

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Speaker 2 Okay, Tims, let's get to our frontrunner. Trump is a no-show in Milwaukee, as we discussed.
He sent a truth yesterday, I believe, Sunday, where he said he will be skipping debates plural.

Speaker 2 NBC News reported that that comment means Trump is going to skip the first two debates, which are both hosted by Fox.

Speaker 2 It's Fox News and then Fox Business, which makes me feel good inside about their blood feud still going. Instead, Trump is going to do an interview with Tucker Carlson.

Speaker 2 Sadly for us, he canceled the big press conference that was supposed to happen on Monday, where Trump had promised to detect the details.

Speaker 2 detail how the election was stolen, which might have been used in court against him. Tim, do you think skipping the debate is the right move?

Speaker 2 And does, will a Tucker interview have the juice to kind of get him into coverage the way he wants?

Speaker 5 Have you heard that the Tucker interview has already been taped?

Speaker 2 It's already, it's a pre-taped interview.

Speaker 5 It's like pre-taped. Yeah, I just saw this before we come on.
So, I mean, it's not even, it doesn't even have the za-za-za, you know, the excitement of who knows what these two jokes are going to say.

Speaker 5 Like, what kind of, you know, racist jokes are they going to put out there to distract attention? No, but I mean, I guess it allows Tucker to choose the most inflammatory stuff. I don't know.

Speaker 5 No, I think it probably will. There is now

Speaker 5 some percentage of the Republican Party that is not insignificant that has decided that Fox is,

Speaker 5 you know, too corporate, too establishment, and are mad about Tucker leaving. And these people will, just despite Fox, watch Trump and Tucker.

Speaker 5 The thing is, though, that is a clean overlap, I think, with the people that are already not considering any other candidates in this primary, right? And so does losing those viewers matter?

Speaker 5 Probably not that. Probably not that much.

Speaker 5 The thing I would look out for for whether it could work is if there is enough outrageous stuff or if he has to surrender to Phony Willis the next day,

Speaker 5 the day after coverage could be blunted, especially if that

Speaker 5 undercard debate is as boring as I think it could be.

Speaker 5 You know, I went back and looked because I had to refresh my memory. The one debate that Trump skipped, which was ahead of the Iowa caucuses last time,

Speaker 5 it was an Iowa debate. It just wasn't wasn't that interesting.
I re-watched some of the coverage of it. I was like, what did, what was Jeb's angle in that debate? Like, I couldn't even remember.

Speaker 5 You know, that's just the nature of the world that we're living in now. I mean, the Trump

Speaker 5 persona is just so different.

Speaker 5 And so I don't, it's possible that this debate ends up being kind of boring, but the Tucker thing, I don't think is the strongest counter program he could have come up with.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I should note that on Monday, we learned that Trump's bond in the Fulton County case has been set at 200 grand. So not nothing, but not much for him.

Speaker 2 He also has all these substantial restrictions against witness intimidation. Trump can't threaten co-defendants or witnesses or victims or the community at large in Georgia.

Speaker 2 That includes social media posts.

Speaker 5 How is that going to be enforced?

Speaker 2 I have no idea.

Speaker 5 I would like for that to be enforced. That's,

Speaker 2 you know, just

Speaker 5 like that's kind of like just an average threatening witnesses is kind of like how he wakes up in the morning.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's parfa for the course.

Speaker 5 I, I did wonder if, you know, maybe the message of the end of the day was going to be surrendering to Fonnie Willis and, you know, taking over everything that way but you're right it still could happen it could happen on Thursday right Thursday or Friday so I yeah I mean the the the whole this whole thing is so fucking bizarre and it's just like I in what world are you living in where Donald Trump surrendering for trying to overthrow the last election to a to Fonnie Willis in Georgia would be like a positive piece of distraction news for him but but it just is like it just is and and a big part of the reason why that is by the way is that all of his supposed opponents, most of the big personalities on Fox, most of the big Republican personalities outside of Fox are echoing his talking points about this, right?

Speaker 5 Like if everyone else is telling the voters, yeah, Donald Trump is being persecuted by a two-tier system of justice, they're going to believe it.

Speaker 5 I mean, certainly many, many Republicans would still believe it if it was only Trump saying it, but it certainly helps him that everybody else is echoing his talking points.

Speaker 5 And I think that is like creates this environment where bizarrely, you know, his 92nd indictment or whatever it is, felony indictment is helping him on the margins in the primary. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, certainly we've seen it in all the polling. It's helping him consolidate the vote, including in this latest Iowa poll.

Speaker 2 So speaking of like the polling and how you beat Trump, Tim, so the New York Times reported that Republicans now think Joe Biden is so weakened politically that electability arguments are not working with them.

Speaker 2 Basically, they've been convinced by, you know, edited clips of Joe Biden stuttering or falling on stage when he tripped over a sandbag or whatever it is that anyone can beat Joe Biden, especially Trump.

Speaker 2 And I guess my question is, do we really believe that?

Speaker 2 I feel like voters are a little bit trained to say that the answer to a question about whether you care more about issues or electability is to say issues because that's pure and that makes you, that's the right answer, that's the good answer.

Speaker 2 And winning ultimately is everything.

Speaker 2 But if it is true and electability is kind of not on the table to make an argument against Trump, like what is left besides the the plan I know you subscribe to, which is drafting Virginia governor Glenn Yunken into the race?

Speaker 5 All right. All right.
Let's table my Glenn Young plan.

Speaker 5 A couple of listeners are going to tune out of this podcast and not hear the end, and they're going to think I really am a Glenn Yunkin stan. Okay.
Whatever.

Speaker 5 The,

Speaker 5 I thought that it was Shane Goldmacher with that piece. I thought it was super insightful.
And I think that there are two categories of voters here that we're talking about.

Speaker 5 Just going back to the beginning of the pod, right?

Speaker 5 Like they're the mega types that live in the MAGA media world that are watching Newsmax, you know, that are listening to daily wire pods, that are on their Facebook feeds with all kinds of weird shit coming at them.

Speaker 5 And I do think that in that world, if you are deeply ensconced in the MAGA media bubble, you are convinced that Joe Biden is riddled with dementia and can barely stand, and that it's a weekend for Ed Bernie's situation.

Speaker 2 Kamala is running the show. And there's, yeah.

Speaker 5 And by the way, you're also convinced that Trump won last time and that it was stolen. Right.
So there is a very significant,

Speaker 5 maybe majority or very strong minority within the Republican Party that lives in that world, right? Where Trump actually won last time and Joe Biden is weakened at Bernie's. And so

Speaker 5 why would they have to think about electability?

Speaker 5 That's there. Then I think that there's another more rational group that

Speaker 5 was part of the reason why they were looking at Ron DeSantis, right?

Speaker 5 Because he won by 19 in Florida in the year where a lot of the Trump candidates went that, did poorly and I think that he's really harmed his electability argument with that group by his performance in this primary and going so far right on abortion on the on gay stuff on cultural issues and a lot of people look at him and I think that you could make a rational case looking at Trump and DeSantis and say I'm not really convinced that DeSantis is more electable.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I agree. Like Trump is actually a little chiller on cultural issues.
Like, yeah, sure, he might have done a coup and like he might be a racist, but like he's a little bit chiller on abortion.

Speaker 5 And he won already.

Speaker 2 He won in 2016.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and he won already. Right.
So I think that that is right.

Speaker 5 I think the electability argument has been neutralized by the big lie, by the MAGA media's coverage of Joe Biden, and by DeSantis' weak performance.

Speaker 2 That's depressing. I still think, I'm hopeful that as we get closer to the election, voters will start to think back to 2020.
They'll think about 2022 and the midterms.

Speaker 2 And you can make an argument that's like, this guy is toxic. Look at all the people he endorsed.
He's going to lose. We can't afford another four years of Joe Biden.

Speaker 5 I agree.

Speaker 5 This is why. Why didn't they just stick with, like,

Speaker 5 had DeSantis gotten in the race at Thanksgiving or had somebody else and had the whole Republican Party apparatus just stuck with that message? That was resonating. I mean, like,

Speaker 5 Trump was tied with DeSantis. And that was, this was the sole reason why was the poor midterm performance.
They blamed him.

Speaker 5 And yet, I think that for some reason, DeSantis decided the right thing to do was stall six months, you know, enact the most extreme far-right

Speaker 5 social issue legislative session in

Speaker 5 the history of Florida, an Alabama-style legislative session, and then launch your campaign on Elon Musk's, whatever they're calling Twitter now, right? Like,

Speaker 5 that I think was very poor decisions that happened over the period of six months that neutralized this argument that was working with Republican voters last Christmas, which is why you and Rupert Murdoch are trying to get Glenn Young into this race.

Speaker 2 Two men of equal stature and influence in the Republican.

Speaker 5 All the people, there's this one. It wasn't the Axius guy that was reporting this like big donors are getting a little bit nervous about the players on the field.

Speaker 5 And they're looking at Brian Kemp and Glenn Young. And it's like, nobody wants these guys.

Speaker 5 Meet a Republican voter. Meet some Republican voters, please.
Like, I am begging these people to actually leave Manhattan, leave the Hamptons, you know, fly down here.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go to the Lafayette, Louisiana, Louisiana for the Louisiana GOP convention this Friday. They can come with me.
We can talk to some of these people.

Speaker 5 And if you think that they want a former hedge fund manager in a fleece vest to come off the sidelines and talk about comedy and family values, like you're, you're too fucking delusional.

Speaker 5 Like, it's been a decade. This is one of those things where this was an understandable thing to be confused about.
in 2018.

Speaker 5 It's 2023, right? Isn't it? I think so. Yeah.
I don't know. Time is hard to keep track.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 these guys, the whole thing is fucking enraging. And

Speaker 5 they just haven't accepted the reality. The only person that could come off the sidelines and challenge Trump is the guy that's doing the interview with him on

Speaker 2 Wednesday. Yeah, that's my big fear.
That is my biggest fear.

Speaker 5 I mean, I think it's too late for that, but that's the only guy that could come off the sidelines and actually shake this up. It's sure shit not going to be Glenn Youngkin.

Speaker 2 No, no. Give me a break.

Speaker 2 Finally, on today's show, Crooked Media's Hallie Kiefer Kiefer has joined us for a new segment, a new game, a new something that I know nothing about, but I've been prompt to ask, how much am I going to hate doing this?

Speaker 3 You know, it's hard to know. I think you're going to excel, which I think will thrill you, but the fact you'll know so much will also make you sad that this is what you've chosen.

Speaker 3 You have to know all the dirty details about a bunch of dirty dogs. Okay.
Because, of course, this is about the Georgia indictment. There are a few dirtier dogs than those guys in America.

Speaker 3 Timmy and Tom.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 3 You know as well as anyone that recently, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. He was looking for a soul to steal.
I'm sorry. I'm sitting here.
Those are the lyrics to a song.

Speaker 3 The Charlie Daniels band's classic, The Devil Went Down to Georgia.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure how this got in here, but on related news, recently Donald Trump and 18 of his cronies were indicted for their attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

Speaker 3 They have until Friday to turn themselves into the authorities, which gives us five full days of laughs.

Speaker 3 Now, I assume by now you've both had time to read all 96 pages of the indictment, which is why we're playing a little game. I'm calling, I'm so indicted.

Speaker 3 Now, Tommy, could you repeat back to me what the name of the game is?

Speaker 2 I'm so indicted.

Speaker 3 No, you have to sing it. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 I'm so indicted.

Speaker 3 Thank you. All right.

Speaker 5 And I just can't fight it.

Speaker 3 Oh, and God knows we're going to watch him.

Speaker 3 Gentlemen, are you ready?

Speaker 2 Yes. Okay.

Speaker 3 Which of the following is not a real person charged in the Georgia indictment? I'm going to read four names. Okay.
And one of them is not real. Not someone who's really indicted.

Speaker 2 Are you ready? Should we let our does Tim get to guess first? So, or do you want me to guess first?

Speaker 3 Tim, I'll, yeah, I'll let you go first. How about that?

Speaker 5 Okay, that's pressure.

Speaker 2 But I'll go ahead.

Speaker 3 A, Sean Micah Tresher Still.

Speaker 3 B, Harrison William Prescott Floyd.

Speaker 3 C. William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus.

Speaker 3 And D, Ray Stalling Smith, the third.

Speaker 3 So again, those are three real people who were indicted and one that is a fictional person.

Speaker 5 B and D were definitely real. Okay, great.
Stalling Smith is real. So I'm down to, I'm at a 50-50.
And I think it's the George Rufus. I think George Rufus, the third name.
I think that was.

Speaker 2 I'm picking C. Okay, great.
I'm going to take the one Tim didn't take.

Speaker 3 Okay, great. Tim, you nailed it.
That over C is fictional. Those are actually Kiefer Sutherland's middle names.
That's too many middle names, Kiefer. Don't know what happened there.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't have got, I honestly, if you hadn't gone first, I would have been O for unknowing any of those.

Speaker 5 So, Kiefer, George Rufus, Sutherland, on something.

Speaker 3 Yes, it was Kiefer, William Frederick, Dempsey, George, Rufus, Sutherland. Don't know why.

Speaker 2 Simply,

Speaker 5 I didn't even catch the Kiefer. There were so many names there.
All right.

Speaker 3 Okay, true or false, aside from Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani was the only other defendant to rack up 13 counts. Ooh,

Speaker 2 True.

Speaker 2 Tim?

Speaker 3 Tim, how you feeling?

Speaker 5 I was going to go with false. I don't think he, I don't think, did Rudy get 13?

Speaker 3 It is true. He's the only one who also got 13.
And you know, he's just drenched in hair dye right now. Just sweating over that baker's dozen.

Speaker 3 Oh, the man's barely human at this point, Tim.

Speaker 2 And he has no money to pay for any of the bills.

Speaker 5 Incontinent.

Speaker 3 He's a David Cronenberg creature, and he's just walking around in society right now.

Speaker 5 Think how cheap the bourbon is that he's drinking now. That's scotch.
Like, he's just down to the bottom of the, you know, bottom shelf, Maxin.

Speaker 2 He doesn't have any money anymore.

Speaker 3 Oh, well, he's sold. He was seeing he was selling his New York apartment.
It looks nice. Just writing a bourbon.

Speaker 2 You're going to make a bid? No, but I mean,

Speaker 2 maybe it can be tour it.

Speaker 3 I can't see why he wouldn't. Kenneth Chesbro.

Speaker 3 Why can't you want to call it Cheesebro? It is Cheesebro?

Speaker 5 Cheesebro. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Again, that's a fictional name. Kenneth Cheesebro, a human being who faces seven felony counts for his role in developing the fake electors plot, was a registered Democrat as recently as 2016.

Speaker 3 And in 2004, said Barack Obama would, quote, make a pretty good Supreme Court justice. Is that true or is that false?

Speaker 5 That's true. I know a lot about Kenneth Cheesebrough.

Speaker 2 I think that's true. And I think it's also true that he was with Alex Jones at the Capitol on January 6th.
And both those things are true.

Speaker 5 He was a Democrat, and then

Speaker 5 he got rich off Bitcoin, and then he got red.

Speaker 3 And that'll do it, unfortunately.

Speaker 2 I would watch a documentary on that.

Speaker 3 Stephen Lee, an Illinois handyman, was indicted for his efforts to intimidate Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman. True or false?

Speaker 5 True?

Speaker 5 I think I was false. I was pretty sure.
Wasn't it Kanye West's spokesperson that was indicted for that? And I don't believe that he is a handyman from Illinois, but I could be wrong.

Speaker 3 Now, Stephen Lee was indicted, but technically this is false because he's not an Illinois handyman. He's a Lutheran pastor because that's how corrupt Republicans have become.

Speaker 3 They've invented an evil Lutheran.

Speaker 3 Prairie Home Companion would be ashamed. Okay.

Speaker 3 Indicted former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows told the Wall Street Journal, I believe that the charges that were filed on me are, for lack of better words, baloney.

Speaker 3 Is that true or is that false?

Speaker 2 Did he call it baloney?

Speaker 2 I don't think I've read him calling it baloney. I'm going to say false.
Tim?

Speaker 5 I also feel like I would have heard baloney, but I let my Wall Street Journal subscription lapse when I left the Republican Party. So it's possible I just didn't see it behind the paywall.

Speaker 5 But I'm going to say false.

Speaker 3 You're both right. It is false.
And the person who did say it was, of course, the person you just mentioned. Cuddy has indicted former publicist Trevion Cuddy.

Speaker 3 One of the lesser-known inditees is Trump's former lawyer, Lionel Hutz, who previously worked as an ambulance chaser and once ran a shoe repair business out of his legal office. True or false?

Speaker 3 Tommy.

Speaker 2 true. Tommy, I'm embarrassed.
I don't know this one.

Speaker 1 I just thought our

Speaker 5 false. Lionel Hutz was the Simpsons lawyer.

Speaker 3 He's a lawyer for the Simpsons. I only did that because I was like, we're all the same age.
You'll get a Simpsons.

Speaker 2 Oh, that's so embarrassing.

Speaker 5 Tommy's older than me.

Speaker 2 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 3 I'm assuming two left, if you can believe it. I'm assuming you guys probably covered this, but on Monday, Donald Trump agreed to a $100,000 bond as well as other terms of his release.
True or false?

Speaker 2 False, $200,000.

Speaker 3 False? Yes, agreed. He agreed to a $200,000 bond, to which I say,

Speaker 3 and finally, if convicted, Trump would have to serve five years before a pardon could even be possible.

Speaker 3 It would have to be issued by the state's board of pardon because in Georgia, the governor does not have pardon power. Is that true or is that false?

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 5 That's true.

Speaker 3 It's blissfully, wonderfully true, gentlemen.

Speaker 2 Wonderful, wonderful.

Speaker 3 Thank you for having me. See, like, are you glad?

Speaker 2 Are you happy? Oh, Hallie, that was great. Although I do feel like I am slipping if I got the old Simpsons lawyer.
I think this is a question.

Speaker 5 That was a bad miss.

Speaker 2 This is worse than when I went on your show and you asked me who the prime minister of Pakistan was, and I can only name the former one. And Tim roasted me

Speaker 5 to his many memo. That was really bad.

Speaker 2 You compared me to a quiz given to George Bush, who was running for president.

Speaker 5 My God. It was vengeance for George Bush.
It was vengeance for poor George Bush. How is he supposed to know Benazir Busho or whoever was the prime minister?

Speaker 2 He's supposed to know the name of countries he might invade.

Speaker 3 That was, I'm so indited.

Speaker 2 Thank you for having me, gentlemen. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 That's it for us today. Thank you, Tim Miller, for coming on a very long broadcast.

Speaker 2 Everyone has been saying how you outshined both Favreau and Lovett. So thank you again for doing the show.
Yeah, total duds.

Speaker 3 I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 Absolute duds.

Speaker 2 Pod Save America is a crooked media production. The executive producer is Michael Martinez.
Our producers are Andy Gardner-Bernstein and Olivia Martinez. It's mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick.

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