Benjy Sarlin: Wake up to Reality

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovny, and Carise Van Houten.

Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny, infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 2 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes. Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 9 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 12 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 5 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 18 Well, it's the morning after the New Hampshire primary. Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast.
I am Charlie Sykes. So you know how it turned out.

Speaker 18 We're joined by Benji Sarlin, Washington Bureau chief for Semaphore, who's previously covered elections and their consequences at NBC News. Kind of an early night, wasn't it, Benji?

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, the call was within minutes from the Associated Press. The networks weren't that far off.

Speaker 14 It wasn't like the same kind of blowout margin of Iowa where, you know, Trump was winning by like 30, but it was clear that Nikki Haley wasn't getting what she needed within the first literally five minutes of returns.

Speaker 14 So, yeah, in that sense, early night. I was, Charlie, we were just talking.

Speaker 14 I was prepared to be up till, you know, two, three in the morning, you know, pouring over exit polls and county numbers and got a great night of sleep.

Speaker 18 Yeah, I mean, spoiler alert here, this is pretty much the end of the primary season. We're now pivoting to the general election.

Speaker 18 Now, you know, Nikki Haley put on a brave face that she's not leaving the race, but she's about to crash into the wall in Nevada and in South Carolina.

Speaker 18 So I suppose if we were calling the NFL game, it's like 56 to 3 and we're in garbage time right now.

Speaker 18 So a lot of the punditing that pretends that there's still a Republican primary, you know, feels like, well, it'll be another mixed metaphor, like riding a bicycle as slowly as possible without falling off.

Speaker 18 But I mean, this thing is done, isn't it? I mean, it's cooked, it's baked, put a fork in it.

Speaker 14 Whenever I've been asked about, like, does anyone have a chance to beat Trump? I've given the same answer for months, which is, well, Nikki Haley looks pretty competitive in New Hampshire.

Speaker 14 If she can get it down to a one-on-one race, which she did, you know, and bring in a bunch of independents and beat him there, then that might provide a shock to the system that gives her a bunch of attention, bust of momentum.

Speaker 14 And so based on that standard that I myself have been saying for months, yeah, she fell short. Now, I was just on a call with her super PAC, SFA.

Speaker 14 Their case is still that, like, look, she might be down 30 in the polls in South Carolina, but it is still her state. It is now finally a one-on-one race, which it's only been for days.

Speaker 14 She's not pulling her punches against Trump. I mean, she's throwing her best material out now.
That was apparent in her non-concession speech yesterday, which, you know, really angered Trump.

Speaker 14 And so their idea is at at least you give it another month to see if there's any appetite for a true one-on-one.

Speaker 14 But it's going to be extremely difficult because there's just no sign of weakness in South Carolina. It's an especially strong state for Trump.
It has been from the start.

Speaker 14 Unlike New Hampshire, we've never

Speaker 14 talked about it as especially competitive.

Speaker 14 There's not the same pool, like large pool of independents, at least effectively, you know, who actively participate in these primaries and are true, true, you know, Trump skeptics the way they are in New Hampshire.

Speaker 14 It's just going to be very difficult. So I don't want to just prematurely say, like, it's over, get out of here, Nikki Haley.

Speaker 14 But yeah, I mean, like, we're in a scenario that no one plausibly argued as recently as a week ago was one that ended in a Haley victory.

Speaker 18 There's two really interesting narratives that I think came out of last night, and they're pretty obvious. I want to get to those in just a moment.

Speaker 18 You know, one, Donald Trump's obvious dominance among Republican voters, but also the obvious evidence of weakness among moderate and independent voters, which is going to become more and more significant.

Speaker 18 Before we do that, though, can we just talk about what happened last night?

Speaker 18 Because maybe we've gotten numb to all of this, but the New York Times described Trump's victory speech as a crude, bitter victory speech.

Speaker 18 He attacked Nikki Haley as delusional for saying that she was still in the race. And then he has this weird kind of veiled, mobster-like threat.

Speaker 18 Let me just play that little soundbite from Donald Trump's typically ungracious victory speech.

Speaker 22 And just a little note to Nikki.

Speaker 22 She's not going to win. Sure.

Speaker 22 But if she did,

Speaker 22 she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. And I could tell you five reasons why already.

Speaker 22 Not big reasons. A little stuff that she doesn't want to talk about.
But she will be under investigation within minutes. And so would Ron have been.

Speaker 22 but he decided to get out. He decided to get out.

Speaker 14 Ha ha ha.

Speaker 18 Okay, so, I mean, it's obviously making reference to the fact that Democrats will investigate anybody, but then he throws in that for like, you know, five little things that she just doesn't want to talk about.

Speaker 18 I mean, what's going on here? I mean, other than the

Speaker 18 sort of, you know, John Gotti like, hey, Nikki, it would be a pity if anything were to happen to you.

Speaker 14 I mean, this is what Trump always does, right? I mean, we go back to the famous Ted Cruz moment when he threatened to spill the beans on his wife. There's always some veiled thing.

Speaker 14 Ah, there's something he doesn't talk about. Gonna have a big problem.
So you could write thousands of words about

Speaker 14 that one passage and the many aspects of Trump and the way he operates and what happened in this primary just off that passage.

Speaker 14 So one is, yes, like Trump is completely shameless and unconstrained about just.

Speaker 14 making things up or alluding to things about his opponent. I mean, it's months ago and he dropped it, but do you remember early on briefly when DeSantis looked slightly competitive? Yeah.

Speaker 14 Like, yeah, Trump was like throwing out groomer references and alluding to like hidden gay sex scandals that were going to come out.

Speaker 14 And, you know, he dropped it pretty early because DeSantis quickly stopped being competitive. So he didn't even really feel the need to do more than just like mock his height.

Speaker 14 This is what he always does. But the other thing that I thought was interesting is Trump was making a substantive point here that his

Speaker 14 rivals really failed to rebut this entire race.

Speaker 14 And I think explains a lot of what happened and the kind of box he put them in, which is Trump's argument was, you have to vote for me because the deep state is indicting me to stop me from, you know, fighting on your behalf and with all this partisan lawfare.

Speaker 14 And none of this is about me or the details of my cases. It's about this conspiracy that stole the last election and is trying to stop me from winning this one.

Speaker 14 And because that conspiracy is the problem, the same thing will happen to Nikki Haley. The same thing would have happened to Tim Scott.
The same thing would have happened to Ron DeSantis. Right.

Speaker 14 Nikki Haley has gone pretty hard at Trump lately. She has never, ever rebutted that.
Never. DeSantis didn't come within a million miles of it.

Speaker 14 Her whole campaign line was chaos follows Trump, but she would not quite explain why chaos follows Trump.

Speaker 14 She would not quite say, yes, Trump has a bunch of legal problems because he's personally corrupt, gets into weird sex stuff, and has a shady business.

Speaker 14 And we knew this before he was even involved in politics when he had the same problems. And lo and behold, you know, that's what's happening now.

Speaker 14 And she never quite, she never brought herself to make that case. Rhonda Sand has actively avoided it.

Speaker 14 You know, he eluded for one little bit when that first indictment was coming, that like, hey, maybe don't, you know, get involved with a porn star and pay hush money.

Speaker 14 He just like indirectly, and then he backed off immediately. Like never back down,

Speaker 18 right?

Speaker 14 May not back down fast enough. Never back down.
Looked pretty silly as a slogan in that moment. And he never came back to it.

Speaker 14 Even in his final days when he was like making this electability case, that you can't elect Trump because the whole election will be about January 6th, legal issues, you know, courtroom dates.

Speaker 14 This was his words. Like Ron DeSantis was saying that.
But even as he was saying it, he was qualifying it. But these charges are all, you know, partisan, cooked up nonsense.

Speaker 14 And even the juries will be partisan, cooked up nonsense. Even if he's convicted by a jury, don't trust it because they're in D.C.
and New York.

Speaker 14 If you accept the premise that Trump is the victim of some deep state conspiracy that stole the last election and is going to steal this one.

Speaker 14 I mean, I don't even know why you're bothering running against him at that point.

Speaker 18 This is so key.

Speaker 18 I mean, you've just nailed this big unknown unknown of this campaign. I mean, here's a known.
The known is that when the indictments rolled around, Republicans rallied around Donald Trump.

Speaker 18 His rise can be traced to the indictments. But the counter narrative is that all of the people allegedly running against Donald Trump then embraced Donald Trump's narrative.

Speaker 18 Now, so the unknown unknown is, what if they would have said, no, I'm sorry, this is disqualifying. I'm sorry, you cannot have a presidential nominee who behaves in this particular way.

Speaker 18 Now, Chris Christie said that sort of thing. Clearly, Ron DeSantis thought that this would be disqualifying if he said it.

Speaker 18 And I think it was Chris Christie who said that the key moment in this campaign took place here in my hometown in Milwaukee during the debate when all the candidates were asked, would you still support Donald Trump for the presidency if he was a convicted felon?

Speaker 18 Do you remember that? And all the hands went up and they all said yes.

Speaker 18 And at that moment, when they're all saying he didn't really do anything wrong, I don't think it's disqualifying to be a felon and I will pardon him, they provided the ultimate cover for Donald Trump.

Speaker 18 This was the people who were running against him. So what a shock that Republican voters would have accepted that Trumpian narrative.
So the

Speaker 18 unknown is what if?

Speaker 18 What if they would have said, I'm sorry, this party, the party of Lincoln, you know, the party of Dwight Eisenhower cannot be run by somebody who is under multiple felony indictments.

Speaker 18 You know, this conduct is disqualified. What would have happened? Would they have been exiled? Would they have been Liz Cheney? What do you think, Benji?

Speaker 14 I mean, the answer is probably. So, like, I want to be clear here.
Like, the reason they did not do that is because they would have been booed in that debate.

Speaker 14 And all the research they had was telling them this is a dead end. They didn't imagine that.
Okay. Like, there's a reason they didn't do it.

Speaker 14 But if you don't have some kind of yeah, I said it moment where you start inserting some kind of counter narrative, the inevitable happens. It just completely runs over you.

Speaker 14 Like you have no possible rebuttal when these indictments, which by the way, everyone knew were coming.

Speaker 14 You might not have known in like, say, November 2022, the exact combination of which ones was going to happen and which circumstances.

Speaker 14 I think a lot of people were surprised, for example, like the degree to which Jack Smith went hard on January 6th and election interference.

Speaker 14 But you knew he had this open and shut classified documents case hanging over him that seemed incredibly troubling at the minimum, even if he wasn't.

Speaker 14 You knew the New York stuff, you knew his business was already facing all this stuff. I think Eugene Carroll's like defamation case had even started at that point.

Speaker 14 You know, we were getting close to a jury verdict. Like, there were, you knew there were going to be legal issues throughout.

Speaker 14 And I do wonder, like, I've been thinking a lot about whether Trump was inevitable. Yeah.

Speaker 18 And that's why so many of these guys got in the race, right? Yeah. This is what they were expecting.

Speaker 18 I mean, I've said this before, and people have kind of looked at me funny and said, no, Ron DeSandis, I think, is as shocked as anyone that Republican republican voters just you know rallied around trump i think he was just assuming i will you know check all the maga boxes then once the indictments come down republicans will look for an exit ramp i'm going to be right there they thought that in fact republican voters would turn against him right i mean so they all made that miscalculation yeah i mean at a minimum they didn't assume that he would get this guaranteed surge

Speaker 14 even though at the time it happened by the way i mean commentators were used to trump i mean like it was actually not such a shock that his poll numbers went up.

Speaker 14 You saw, if you, like, I was going back and reading like the columns from like back with that first indictment, like, yeah, a lot of people were predicting that would happen.

Speaker 14 But again, you got to be prepared for it. There was a sense that maybe he would quote unquote collapse under his weight as like further and further indictments came.

Speaker 14 Like, oh, well, the Manhattan one, that one, like, even a lot of Trump critics don't like, but the other ones will do it. But yeah, it just didn't come.

Speaker 14 I mean, the scenario I always wonder about is by the time the Manhattan indictment came, like, Trump had largely recovered. It had been months since that low point in the midterms.

Speaker 14 It had been four months. His polling had largely recovered.

Speaker 14 He was already on an upward trajectory. DeSantis was already starting to stumble and run into, you know, some problems and questions about his political abilities.

Speaker 14 He had chosen not to engage Trump for months.

Speaker 14 But I wonder what would have happened if he had started laying the groundwork for that attack, like in November, when he could have gotten some buy-in from other Republicans.

Speaker 18 Well, there's timing, but there's also, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately, the herd mentality in politics, you know, collective action.

Speaker 18 So, we're seeing the herd mentality right now that everybody is like, okay, look, everybody else is doing it. We got to get on board.

Speaker 18 But the alternative to that would have been early on, and I don't know whether I'm talking about 2015, 2016, or whether we're talking about 2021, but watching Republicans, you can tell that they're kind of always looking over at their shoulders.

Speaker 18 You know, that moment when they raised their hands on the stage in Milwaukee, remember how Ron DeSantis kind of looked to see whether other people were raising their hands?

Speaker 18 If at some point, any point, there would have been this collective action of of not just Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney over here and Mitt Romney over here, but if a lot of Republicans who had credibility joined hands and said, I'm sorry, this is too much.

Speaker 18 We have to move on. I don't know whether that would have changed it, but it was never tried.
What we do know is the individual voices speaking out. It was easy to pick them off.

Speaker 18 It's easy to pick off a Jeff Flake. It's easy to pick off Liz Cheney.

Speaker 18 But if there had been a critical mass, because you're seeing right now the power of the critical mass, right? That everybody has decided that, you know what, you don't want to be the last person.

Speaker 18 You know, all the cool kids are going into the gymnasium. We have to follow them in there, right?

Speaker 14 Yeah, you only get these rare moments where Trump looks weak enough that you could potentially flip some Republicans against him at once.

Speaker 14 And what usually happens is everyone kind of looks at each other, like you said, and you know, just a handful of people.

Speaker 14 It's only been just like two or three moments throughout his political career at this point, right? Like one of them was obviously January 6th. Right.

Speaker 14 Like it was a serious question whether he would be impeached for a brief moment.

Speaker 14 And a serious question whether Mitch McConnell would lead the effort, you know, and whether there would be a sustained opposition to him, even if impeachment failed, you know, even within a week after January 6th, like you'd missed that moment.

Speaker 14 And already he was recovering through predictable means.

Speaker 14 And in this case, you had another moment.

Speaker 14 Like they were gifted, I think kind of improbably, another moment after the midterms, which is for whatever reason, for like a brief moment, Republican rank and file voters seem to think maybe something is wrong here.

Speaker 14 Maybe we misread something. What else have we been lied to if it turns out there wasn't a red wave? And, you know, this wasn't just me speculating.

Speaker 14 Like there were lots of polls showing DeSantis leading. People were ready.

Speaker 14 Like DeSantis was leading in New Hampshire by the gold standard poll there as of January of last year, one year ago from like today. It's insane to imagine now.

Speaker 14 He dropped out before, but he was polling at like 4% or 5% in some when he dropped out. There was a brief moment where there was at least a sign that they were willing to listen.

Speaker 14 And also separately, that some Republicans were willing to come out and join them. So like I look back at some of the quotes from this period.
It was fascinating.

Speaker 14 I was digging through some of the things senators were saying then. So this is an interesting thing.
Not a single senator endorsed DeSantis during this entire race.

Speaker 14 Not a single one endorsed Haley either.

Speaker 18 Hardly anybody in Washington endorsed Nikki either.

Speaker 14 There were some for Scott, who they all liked. He was their colleague, you know, but it was like not a single one.
I was reading about like Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming.

Speaker 14 You know, she was giving quotes then like Ron DeSantis is the leader of our party now when she was asked about her endorsement. Okay.

Speaker 14 DeSantis announces six months later, did Cynthia Lumis endorse him? No,

Speaker 14 because by then he looked like a loser and everyone was like, why stick my neck out when I'm just going to get killed on a lost cause? Similarly with Fox News, right?

Speaker 14 We reported that Trump was so-called soft banned from Fox News for like, you know, basically through the midterms.

Speaker 14 And Ron DeSantis was like, one of the reasons people thought he was plausible is like, wow, look, conservative media is lining up behind this this guy.

Speaker 14 Once he like gives a signal, they're all going to charge with him. Right.
But you had a brief fleeting moment. It was gone within a month or two.

Speaker 14 And then by the time you announced, it's like, maybe not.

Speaker 14 They were already trying to get back on Trump's good side. You only get these little moments.
If you go individually, you always get mowed down.

Speaker 18 Ron DeSantis made so many mistakes. It's hard to pick out one miscalculation, you know, among all of them.

Speaker 18 But I do think it's interesting that, you know, in terms of the timing, that rather than leap in to the presidential race sort of at the moment when people were ready for him, he made the calculation: no, I'm going to go do some legislating.

Speaker 18 I'm going to spend my time doing government stuff because he thought that's what the MAGA base wanted.

Speaker 4 Get Ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 2 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes. Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 9 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 12 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 5 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 18 You mentioned Tim Scott in passing before Before we get to sort of the bigger picture number crunching, which I want to do with you, and also what's going on with the business community right now, because I was listening to an interview this morning that I wanted to share with you.

Speaker 18 But Tim Scott, who was widely liked, and, you know, again, for five minutes, people thought, huh, he's kind of a plausible guy. He's dropped out of the race, endorsed Donald Trump in the most...

Speaker 18 slavish way possible. He puts the cringing cringe-worthy.
And last night, he was there standing behind Donald Trump. And, you know, Donald Trump is insulting and threatening Nikki Haley.

Speaker 18 Just a reminder to everybody, Tim Scott is a United States Senator because Nikki Haley appointed him to that position.

Speaker 18 He was subsequently elected, but he owes her his seat in the United States and he's a fellow South Carolina Republican.

Speaker 18 But listen to this, this sort of typical Trump, the fact that he just enjoys humiliating his opponents, but he also kind of has a kink about humiliating the people who have come to his side.

Speaker 18 So let's play this little soundbite.

Speaker 22 Did you ever think that

Speaker 22 she actually appointed you, Tim?

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 think of it, appointed, and you're the senator of his state, and she endorsed me.

Speaker 22 You must really hate her.

Speaker 22 No,

Speaker 22 it's a shame. It's a shame.
Uh-oh.

Speaker 14 I just love you. No, that's good.

Speaker 22 That's why he's a great politician.

Speaker 18 Okay, I don't want to say anything bad about Chris Christie, but it's like he's the 2024 Chris Christie without the self-respect.

Speaker 18 You know, it's like, okay, so that picture of Chris Christie, you know, doing the Shinebox thing from 2016 became kind of iconic. And Tim Scott saying, I can top that.

Speaker 18 So what did you make of that exchange? Donald Tomson, you must really hate her.

Speaker 14 And then Scott just slurping it up, like, no, I just love you, you big man daddy it's all recognizable Trump he doesn't just want endorsements he wants surrenders he loves humiliating people after they endorse him it's not a two-way deal it's a one-way you know agreement you know I remember when he uh chose Mike Pence as his running mate and you know reportedly like at the time he was like not happy choosing Mike Pence you know he wanted someone who ironically Chris Christie then was seen as like more loyal and more his type and he spent like this is Mike Pence, the greatest day of his life, right?

Speaker 14 He is like, you know, the pinnacle of his very, very long rise in Republican politics. He's going to be VP.
His family's all there, everything.

Speaker 14 And Trump just like ranted for like 30 minutes about whatever before even letting Pence speak.

Speaker 14 And as part of it, very notable, he started bragging about how he beat Ted Cruz, even though Mike Pence endorsed him.

Speaker 14 And how Mike Pence gave a weak endorsement and it wasn't like a good one and like really wanted me to win. And it was just like, and saying terrible things about Ted Cruz along the way.

Speaker 14 way you know it's like it's the same thing it's not just enough to be in his endorsement or even agree to be his running mate he will humiliate you immediately it's very important to him well this is the price you know you see it in people like lee stefanik who i think like tim scott wants to be vp by the way do you agree i mean this is part of this this audition and and if you're auditioning to be trump's vp you have to go beyond groveling i mean you you have to go you know for the straight snivel but that's what's happening here right yeah at the very least this time i think it raises the stakes because, like, a lot of the appeal of Mike Pence as a VP then was that he was not seen as especially Trumpy.

Speaker 14 Then it was that, like, okay, Trump's weak flank then was ironically now, because they're his biggest supporters, was like religious conservatives and, you know, especially people who doubted him on abortion, say, which is much less an issue now for him after he appointed, you know, a bunch of judges and has an administration.

Speaker 14 And also, the evangelical movement has, you know, changed in certain ways to accommodate his personal style.

Speaker 14 Yeah, this time around, this is after, you know, a bunch of supporters tried to hang Mike Pence that he is now, you know, promising departed and celebrating at his, at his rallies.

Speaker 14 I think it's possible he wants to sort of pre-screen for someone who is more loyal this time.

Speaker 14 And, you know, it's like Mike Pence, the joke about him before January 6th was that he was incredibly loyal. I would never say a bad word about Trump or break from him on anything.

Speaker 14 So someone who is more dependable than even that. And obviously you see the way it's being done.

Speaker 14 Elise Stefanik in her case is, you know, referring to January 6th prisoners as hostages was like the thing that really

Speaker 14 is interesting. You see that and you go, oh, someone must be running for vice president.
But it's a big competition.

Speaker 14 It's the reason why, for example, I mean, like Marjorie Taylor Greene has talked openly about wanting to be considered as a running mate, for example. It's a very open campaign.

Speaker 18 Is it possible to be too crazy for Trump? What do you think? I mean, if you were ranking them, do you have a short list?

Speaker 14 I think it depends what he wants. I mean, like, an obvious one is Tim Scott, you know, in many ways.
Trump has noticeably not said anything bad about Tim Scott this whole time.

Speaker 14 I think he loved that he was in the race just strategically, but also Tim Scott did not say much bad about, you know, he mostly avoided dinging Trump during his presidency.

Speaker 14 You know, he had some appeal to the middle. That's like a rare combination of traits.

Speaker 14 Our own reporter Shelby Talcott reported early on that like Trump had instructed his campaign not to attack Tim Scott. You know, like, don't get into it.

Speaker 14 That's one option if you want to do, say, an outreach play. But if you want, say, a loyalist play, yeah, his long options there, too.
You know, there's Stefanik.

Speaker 14 There's Byron Donalds in the house as another one who's considered, you know, very MAGA in a lot of ways.

Speaker 14 And also as a bonus, you know, chose him over DeSantis, which was like an early big domino to fall endorsement-wise that signaled kind of where the winds were blowing with endorsements in a lot of ways.

Speaker 14 And then there's, you know, some of the governors, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former press secretary. She was a little slow to endorse Trump this time, but still someone who served him well.

Speaker 14 It's like, it's hard to say.

Speaker 14 He has a lot of ways he can go.

Speaker 18 There's somebody in my comment section who said, hey, you know, don't, don't sleep on Alina Haba.

Speaker 18 You know, I mean, this is the, you know, somebody, somebody who he thinks looks good and maybe a terrible lawyer, but might be good on TV. Okay, I'm kidding about that.

Speaker 18 Okay, so, I mean, obviously, I think it almost goes without saying that Nikki Haley is not running for VP. There's no chance, there's zero chance of that.
So why do you think she's in the race?

Speaker 18 Still, I mean, is this just sort of saving face? How long does it go?

Speaker 14 As I mentioned, I I was just on a call with like her super PAC, you know, longtime advisor Mark Harris was on there.

Speaker 14 He was trying to very much address the idea that like speculation about what this means for like Nikki Haley's future, like what if she's compromising being running mate or a cabinet or a 2028 run.

Speaker 14 Like the case he's making is that like, look, drop your cynicism. She thinks she's the best presidential candidate.
She's in this for that.

Speaker 14 You know, sure. I'd say we all have some reason to doubt that.
Namely, the time she warned that Trump was the worst disaster that ever happened and then joined his cabinet.

Speaker 14 And then the other time she warned Trump was the worst disaster that ever happened and then said she wouldn't run against him and then ran against him.

Speaker 14 I'm like, it's like, I'm not going to get on my high horse here and like talk about how, you know, we have no reason to doubt Nikki Haley's calculations and intentions.

Speaker 14 Part of the way she's got this far is that she is a very good strategic politician in many ways, you know, and is very good at tactical, you know, calculations.

Speaker 14 But, you know, Trump only takes Josh Barrows' quote from 2016. He's like, Trump only takes the dignity of people who give it willingly.

Speaker 14 And people talk about how humiliating it might be to lose in South Carolina. I disagree.
I don't think the idea is like her career would suffer because she lost to Trump, who was dominant there.

Speaker 14 I mean, I think it's fine to say, like, rationalize it away, being like, look, the party wasn't ready. I did my best.
And she would be fine. There's a million things she could do after that.

Speaker 14 So it's kind of up to her. I don't know if she would say yes to a VP offer or not, but she's doing her best to look like someone who would not entertain it now.

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carise Van Houten.

Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

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Speaker 18 Okay, so let's talk about, and obviously we're pivoting pretty decisively shortly from the primary season to the general election. And as I mentioned at the top here, there's two narratives.

Speaker 18 I mean, number one, both in Iowa and in New Hampshire, we were reminded about how completely Donald Trump dominates Republican voters. He's got loyal, he's got enthusiastic supporters.

Speaker 18 The entire Republican infrastructure, such as it is, you know, has lined up behind him. That's not breaking story.

Speaker 14 But there are a lot of little warning signs.

Speaker 18 in Iowa and in New Hampshire and in polls elsewhere, which is that we know the story about the hardcore MAGA base, but there's also indications that he's got a real problem with the independent, moderate voters and soft Republican voters who he lost in 2020, who are not coming back to him, and who could be decisive in the general election.

Speaker 18 So let's talk about that because it almost feels like it's old news to say, yeah, okay, the Republican Party is Donald Trump's. All right.
Well, now we're talking about a general election.

Speaker 18 Joe Biden has been very, very weak. There's been a lot of pearl clutching about, you know, his age and about his bad poll numbers.
The economy seems to be turning around.

Speaker 18 And there's a lot of evidence, both anecdotal, but also from the polling data, that there's a pretty substantial body of absolute, I will never ever vote for Donald Trump among independents, moderates, and Republicans.

Speaker 18 So give me your thought about this sort of, you know, changing narrative as we begin to focus on, you know, the weaknesses that Donald Trump has at the moment when he looks so dominant.

Speaker 18 Clearly, this is going to be kind of his high watermark, but there's a lot of evidence of weaknesses, aren't there?

Speaker 14 Well, it depends on how you look at it. I can see multiple ways.
One way to look at it is that problem is totally overblown. Trump is leading Biden in polls now.

Speaker 14 He's significantly improved on his performance since 2020.

Speaker 14 I mean, if anything, the, you know, the shock there that Democrats are dealing with is that they assumed a lot of those independents and Democratic leader voters were, you know, forever got.

Speaker 14 And that's after January 6th.

Speaker 18 You know, that happened after the 2020 election, which is kind of mind-blowing.

Speaker 14 And after the midterms, where Trumpy candidates got killed everywhere. You know, so it's like, yes, it's driving them kind of crazy on the Democratic side to see that.

Speaker 14 So that's one reason I would not read too much into his performance with this or that voter in Iowa or New Hampshire. Now, the reason you might consider otherwise.

Speaker 14 Yeah, independents seemed like they could not wait to vote against Trump in New Hampshire.

Speaker 14 And like, that's a state that often has kind of like true independence, you know, compared to independents in name only, you know, unaffiliated voters as they're called there.

Speaker 14 An interesting thing is that, you know, Trump has looked very strong in some states. He lost in some recent polls.
That's not been true true in New Hampshire.

Speaker 14 There was a poll just this week that had him down seven to Biden. It looking just like 2020, basically, based on exactly what you named.

Speaker 14 And, you know, I've seen some people suggest one way to look at it is like maybe New Hampshire is just kind of unique.

Speaker 14 Another way is that, unlike the rest of the country that has not been thinking about Trump, that has not been assuming he's the nominee even, you know, at the margins, you know, a lot of people are still really waking up to the idea that he's actually going to be officially the nominee.

Speaker 14 In New Hampshire, because it's the first in the nation state, they're well aware of Trump. They've been hearing from him.

Speaker 14 They've been seeing him talk about all the things you've been talking about every week, and they are reverting to 2020 form. And independents are remembering, ooh, I don't like that.

Speaker 14 And even some Republicans at the margins.

Speaker 14 So you might look at that and think, well, that is a warning sign for Trump, possibly, that, yeah, he may look, you know, improved in, say, Georgia or Arizona or Michigan or wherever now, but that's before there's been a whole high-profile campaign where people are seeing Trump's speeches, you know, seeing people react to his truth social posts every day, seeing a billion dollars of advertising reminding them about things they don't like about Trump.

Speaker 14 Maybe it'll look more like that. But the truth is, we just don't know.
I mean, like, we're 10 months out. Polls are not very predictive, partly for this reason.

Speaker 14 And I would say at best, it is ambiguous right now whether Trump should be encouraged or discouraged by these results.

Speaker 18 Well, I mean, obviously, you're going to be encouraged in the short term.

Speaker 18 I mean, the Biden folks, of course, are also noting that it seems like a lot of voters are in denial about whether or not it's going to be Trump versus Biden.

Speaker 18 I mean, that's the conversation that I have all the time. People saying, oh, it's not going to be those two, right? I mean, it's something's going to happen.

Speaker 18 It's, you know, we're not going to have to do this. So there has been a slowness to lock into that binary choice that we're going to face.

Speaker 18 And the Biden people think that that's wheat in the field for them to go and harvest.

Speaker 14 Yeah. And you notice Biden had a statement out last night just straight up saying Trump is going to be the nominee.
Like that was Biden's response to the results.

Speaker 14 And what he's saying is exactly what you're saying. The message to Democrats is like, wake up.
Like this is

Speaker 14 actually happening. There is no outside force.
There is no ballot lawsuit or court case or sudden surge from another candidate that is going to keep Trump from being the nominee.

Speaker 14 You guys have to wake up to the reality. And not only that, like...
You see what he's talking about while he's winning. He's winning while being at peak Trump.

Speaker 14 He's talking about January 6th of more than ever.

Speaker 14 He's talking about his legal issues more than ever. I mean, like his literal closing message, if you went by his social media posts, was like, Eugene Carroll is a liar.

Speaker 14 Like that is, that was his closing message in New Hampshire and Iowa as well.

Speaker 14 You know, so like reminding people that like you are getting like full unfettered Trump, who if anything is on tilt, assuming everything people told him, you know, he couldn't do after 2020 was wrong and now leaning into it.

Speaker 14 We've yet to see what happens. And we've really yet to see what happens when there's money behind it.
So the one last thing I'll add on that, the midterms.

Speaker 14 The Democratic story that they'll tell the groups that actually worked to elect Democrats in the midterms where Democrats had such a good year is that, look, what happened is that in the battleground places where we spent a lot of money reminding people of the choice, Democrats did quite well.

Speaker 14 Democrats got killed in all the other places. Like the, you know, the red wave was in like New York.

Speaker 14 You know, in places that are like relatively safe, Democratic, where they don't have to worry about like MAGA and especially don't have to worry about abortion issues to the same degree and also candidates got more flat-footed because many of them didn't think until very late in the race that they would even have a competitive race there it was a disaster if only they'd done a little bit of oppo research on george santos exactly like something like that and also there was an added thing there like redistricting made it very confusing in new york but in general like that is the places the red wave actually did happen were places where they did not have this infrastructure in place to make that contrast early and and really hammer it home so their argument is that it would be very weird if the message of don't elect this person because they're like Donald Trump worked in every swing state in 2022, but not when literally Donald Trump was on the ballot.

Speaker 14 And, you know, we'll find out, but that is the case they're making, that you have to wait until they see the actual campaign.

Speaker 18 Okay, so I know that we live in a world in which politics is not about the economy stupid anymore, but the economy is not nothing. And it's been a huge sort of albatross around Joe Biden's neck.

Speaker 18 There's always been a lag lag time between when things get better and when people think they're getting better.

Speaker 18 And I think it's been very, very frustrating for Democrats, very energizing for Republicans.

Speaker 18 But I'm looking at this Catherine Rampel column in the Washington Post, which I'm sure you've seen is saying, you know, the economy is getting better and people are seeing it at just the right time.

Speaker 18 So again, we don't know how this plays out. You know, last week, Dow Jones.
ends at 38,000, above 38,000 for the first time. Pretty good.

Speaker 18 You're starting to see more important, I think, consumer confidence begin ticking up. The number of Americans who think that we're in a recession is dropping.

Speaker 18 So the perception is catching up with some of the numbers. How does that play anymore? I mean, we're not in the 1990s anymore, and I completely understand that.

Speaker 18 But this was one of the big headwinds for Joe Biden. Now, how do you see it? What should we be looking at?

Speaker 14 Well, there's been a big debate the whole last year, basically, about why the so-called vibes have been disconnected from, you know, the economic data of like rapidly improving inflation picture, you know, you know, China-like growth, you know, in the last quarter of 5%, you know, this Fed getting increasingly confident that we're in a soft landing where we get the benefits of getting rid of inflation without the bitter medicine of a recession.

Speaker 14 Certainly consumers have been spending as if they think it's a good economy.

Speaker 14 Whatever they tell a pollster, they are not acting like people who are scared they're about to lose their job or worried about their savings the same way.

Speaker 14 So some of what Biden was doing with all the Bidenomics stuff last year that was really kind of pilloried within the party is kind of out of touch. It's terrible, right?

Speaker 14 And it wasn't as much about then. It was about laying the groundwork for a time more like now.

Speaker 14 They were betting that they may not see it yet, but a year from now, the economy is going to be discussed as a positive for Biden.

Speaker 14 And we want to lay the groundwork for explaining that and taking credit for it. So we'll see if that happens, but that is the bet.
It is very future-oriented.

Speaker 14 It's not about just convincing them in real time. That said,

Speaker 14 I'm not sure how much the economy is what the election is about. Things have changed a lot in the Trump era.
I don't think the last several elections have been too economy-focused.

Speaker 14 I mean, like, we were in the middle of like an economic catastrophe during COVID in 2020, but like... I don't see that often discussed as an economy election.
I don't really think, you know, that's

Speaker 14 what the difference was or what the main issue was. You look at the midterms, that was a case where economic perceptions were catastrophic.
And also inflation was at its peak.

Speaker 14 And objectively, there was all sorts of disastrous stuff going on.

Speaker 14 And there was a lot less certainty about whether the economy would pull out of this situation without, say, an extremely deep recession. And what happened?

Speaker 14 The Democrats had a great midterms, like historically good midterms for an incumbent, especially with that improval rating.

Speaker 14 So one thing I would ask is just how much this election is going to even be about that versus a referendum on Trump and Biden. We don't really know yet.

Speaker 14 But at the very least, it is very clear that from measures like consumer sentiment, there are even, by the way,

Speaker 14 statistics that track how positive the news is on the economy that are now flipping upward.

Speaker 14 When people say the vibes versus economic statistics, there are economic statistics for vibes, and they are also trending upwards.

Speaker 14 It certainly would help Biden, obviously, if the perception that the economy is improved took hold.

Speaker 18 The line that I kept hearing over and over again was, well, look at my 401k. Well, I mean, look at your 401k right now.
It's actually pretty good. I want to ask you something about something else.

Speaker 18 I was listening to Andrew Ross Sorkin, who was on Morning Joe today, and they were asking him about the new attitude among the Wall Street elites who appear to be like kind of capitulating to Donald Trump.

Speaker 18 They sort of, maybe it's not so bad.

Speaker 18 You know, the folks in Davos who think that he's going to be elected and they can live with it because they don't really see that much of a difference between Trump and Biden, at least in terms of the economy.

Speaker 18 And a lot of these are the same guys who signed those big open letters. Remember, those big full-page newspaper ads about democracy and everything a few years ago.

Speaker 18 But now we're basically saying, you know, if we speak out about any of this, we don't know what a second Trump term might mean for us. We don't know.

Speaker 18 how he might retaliate against us. So there is a certain intimidation.
There's a certain acquiescence. Does this matter at all? Because there was a moment at which

Speaker 18 economic elites were saying, no, Donald Trump is, he may give us our tax cuts, but X, Y, and Z make him disqualified. They appear to be making their peace with him.
Does that matter?

Speaker 14 It's hard to say. I mean, our editor, Ben Smith, was also at Davos, and he had a funny piece last week about how it's indeed exactly what you're talking about.

Speaker 14 There seems to just be total resignation. They assume Trump would win.
But as he mentions, they're famously terrible pundits. Like, the conventional wisdom there is as bad as anywhere.

Speaker 14 Like, they always are continuously getting everything wrong.

Speaker 18 What was the headline? Something like, why do they always sound so dumb or something?

Speaker 14 Yeah, it's like, I think, yeah, I think he headlined it in our newsletter something, like, good news for Joe Biden, or something like that. It's like,

Speaker 14 it's the parody version of them is not too far off. So, there is that.

Speaker 14 But, yeah, I mean, I think there has been a trend in the business community in a lot of ways from the kind of more activist approach of trying to win over you know more progressive younger voters and especially employees you know because remember like we talk about the college non-college divide which we just saw again in this new hampshire primary right listen there ain't a lot of non-college people working at those institutions

Speaker 14 all right like there's a reason that they are trying to win over their employees and look good for their investors by adopting at least the language of some of these more progressive things but there's been a backlash to that too entirely separate from trump right that's That's more of Ron DeSantis' field.

Speaker 14 They've made, you know, DEI a dirty word.

Speaker 14 They had, you know, there's just like every day there's another story of conservatives mounting some kind of backlash to some kind of involvement in politics or especially social issues from companies.

Speaker 14 So it wouldn't surprise me if there's a broader retrenchment in general from wanting to speak out about this stuff. But I'm also not sure how much it actually matters in the actual race.

Speaker 18 Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But how much is this just really raw and maybe rational fear that if they get on the wrong side of a Trump administration that has made it clear that retribution is at the heart of the agenda, and you have an executive in charge of the vast regulatory apparatus of the federal government, unplugged Donald Trump going after with a long enemies list could do real damage to these folks.

Speaker 18 I mean, and that seems to be at least part of the thinking here.

Speaker 14 Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't shock me.

Speaker 14 One of the most underdiscussed parts of Trump, because no one felt like defending Jeff Bezos, you know, the richest man in the world can, you know, fend for himself.

Speaker 14 But like, a lot of the most shocking things he did was just openly, you know, threatening Bezos because of Washington Post coverage, because of a paper he owns.

Speaker 14 If that wasn't like, you know, 270 on the list of Trump controversies that, you know, had a bunch of finger pointing about democratic norms, it would have gotten more attention, of course.

Speaker 14 But yeah, it's not an unreasonable concern. I mean, Trump takes names, he holds grudges.
And also similarly, while he does hold grudges, we saw it with Tim Scott, right?

Speaker 14 There's nothing he loves more than hearing someone who did, you know, criticize him, turn around and praise him and say they've changed their mind and they love him now and they'll work with him.

Speaker 14 And, you know, I was wrong.

Speaker 14 So it's, there certainly are opportunities if you want to take him to repair those relationships, as long as you're willing to, you know, give up some dignity in the process.

Speaker 18 Well, I think it was always naive to think that big business would somehow be the moral conscience of American society or culture.

Speaker 18 I think that that was rather naive to think that that was ever going to take place. Benji Sarlin is Washington Post chief at Semaphore, previously covered elections for NBC News.

Speaker 18 You can read his work at Semaphore. Benji, thank you so much for coming on the morning after the New Hampshire primary.
It was great. Thank you.

Speaker 14 Charlie, thanks so much for having me. Had a great time.

Speaker 18 And thank you all for listening to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again.

Speaker 18 The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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