Best of the Program | Guest: Rep. Chip Roy | 1/8/24

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All right, it's Monday.

We're up against the ropes with all kinds of things, including this president losing his mind about January 6th and Iowa.

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You're listening to

the best of the Glenbeck program.

Hello, America.

Welcome to the Glendeck program.

We also welcome the one, the only Pat Gray to the program now and my executive producer, Steve Breguer.

Hello, Stu and Pat.

How are you?

Hello.

I'm actually not the only one.

There's a realtor named Pat Gray that if you Google him, he'll pop up there too.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

I'm not the only one.

Wow.

Yeah.

So

that's good.

I'm in West Palm.

Thanks to the whole staff at 1290 WJNO

for putting up with me for the next couple of days.

I'm here on some business, and I will be back on Wednesday, Wednesday morning show.

So,

Pat, you think it's a big deal at all that Lloyd Austin was

in intensive care, right?

No.

There's nothing.

Why should the President of the United States know about that?

I mean, there's no reason for him to know that the guy's in intensive care for four days.

Why would you need to know that?

Hang on just a second.

It's, you know, the president doesn't need to know.

No.

You know, because he's not making the decisions.

Let's be.

You know, we just have.

Was Barack Obama informed?

That's what we need to find out.

Amen.

Amen.

Now, we have two theaters of war that we're fighting simultaneously in right now.

Ukraine

and

in the Persian Gulf, where I believe

the

Iranians are still launching rockets at our ships.

Was there no time in the last seven days where somebody was like, you know what?

Let's call the Pentagon.

Let's see if we have permission to do this.

Was there no time?

Really?

Yeah.

No.

Huh.

Huh, that's.

And we still don't even, at least I haven't heard the reason behind the hospitalization.

He went in for elective surgery.

Correct.

And then had complications.

What was the elective surgery?

What are the complications?

Well, it's his privacy.

No, I'm sorry.

When you're the defense secretary, you don't get medical

privacy like that.

Oh, hang on just a sec.

You could say he went in for an elective surgery.

You know, having his hemorrhoids removed.

I don't need to know about the hemorrhoids.

So he's going in for elective surgery.

It's no big deal.

He should be fine.

Then complications happened.

Okay, wait, what complications?

Is he okay?

How out of it is he?

When's he going to be returning?

And of course, the president needs to know.

No one at the White House was informed when he was brought into ICU.

And I love this.

The deputy secretary of defense who was to assume the responsibilities, she was in Puerto Rico on vacation.

So for days, she was the acting secretary of defense, but she didn't even know it.

They're like,

I'm here in Puerto Rico.

I mean, do we have phones here?

I mean, what could I possibly do about it?

And they're like, oh, well, you know, Austin approved this before he had the surgery.

And it's like, okay, well, sometimes things change.

Like, what if they had surrendered in the interim?

Like, what would have happened?

And honestly,

what's happening in the Red Sea with the Navy, and, you know, we're shooting drones out of the sky like skeet,

and no one needed to get permission to do it that just didn't happen in a week i mean you want to talk about a sock puppet regime it must be this who's making the decisions yeah you know glenn i talked to two people about this randomly as as it was developing and you know both of their reactions were the same Well, I mean, you almost understand that they wouldn't tell Biden because, you know, he's out of it.

But like, well, how do people in the Pentagon not know?

And it's like, how are we not recognizing that statement is a massive problem?

That the American people are actually in a position where they think it's normal that the president of the United States just is so out of it, they wouldn't tell him that the Secretary of Defense was an ICU.

Yeah.

With two fronts being fought right now.

Two.

This is a major problem that's been going on, though, for a while.

I mean, look what happened to Mitch McConnell, and we were never told what his deal is either.

I mean, the American people have no right to know anything about our leadership.

It's amazing.

I mean, we're told that was dehydration.

He freezes twice on two separate occasions, and that's dehydration.

I've been dehydrated before.

How many times did you freeze?

A total of.

Carry the one.

None.

Zero.

Zero times.

Zero times.

Zero times.

What?

Because you carry the one and everything.

I mean,

where are we now as a nation?

It's

what we're seeing is a show.

Yeah.

And it's becoming more and more obvious when the president just doesn't have to

doesn't have to be aware, notified, when our leadership can be wildly impaired, when

what's her name from California, when they were whispering into her ear, just vote yes.

Yeah.

We're not being represented by the people

we are putting into office.

Somebody else is representing themselves, not us, themselves.

How does this happen?

There's no chain of command.

None.

I mean, shouldn't that bother

everybody?

Yeah.

You know, Democrats.

Democrats, too.

You know, just

hello.

Yeah.

I mean, and look, we were honest to bring up Pat's example.

All of us called out the Mitch McConnell thing as completely unacceptable.

When it happened,

he should not be in the Senate.

I stand by that.

It should not.

He should be gone.

Yes.

They need to put somebody else in there.

You can't have two of those moments and continue in that job.

It's totally separate from whether you think he's doing a good job or not, or whether you think he's passing bills that you like or not.

It doesn't matter.

This is, it's the country we're talking about.

And watching the way this is going down is not only like disturbing and makes you question all sorts of things.

It's also just utterly embarrassing.

It's embarrassing that we have a president who can't find the jet he's

supposed to go on.

He can't figure out which side of the stage to walk off.

No, his wife has to come out and escort him off stage.

It's embarrassing.

It's

embarrassing.

This is supposed to be

the world's superpower we're talking about, not like a sketch comedy troop.

And that's what it seems like we're sitting in the middle of right now.

Here's something from the Wall Street Journal, because this is very, very important.

The world's wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, plastic,

psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world where the attendees sign non-disclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to the people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it.

Well, then you're in, I mean, I believe you would be in violation of your non-disclosure agreement, but maybe that's just me.

Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic ketamine.

So, what they're talking about in this article is illegal drug use.

That's a violation of federal policies.

And NASA is very concerned about it.

Okay, that could jeopardize SpaceX billions of dollars in government contracts.

Oh, no.

They are coming after this guy

again.

Now, by the way, so you know, when Elon Musk went on to Joe Rogan a few years ago and was smoking pot,

the

NASA came and said, hey, we're a little concerned.

You know, are you doing illegal drugs?

And he's like, You know what?

You can test me anytime.

So he does random drug screening for, I think he had to do it for three or four years because NASA said, We want to make sure that you're not on drugs when we're launching things.

So, this isn't even an issue.

Why is the Wall Street Journal making it?

We don't care that the president is so

lost on stage.

He's the guy that has to make the decision, or is is he?

If we go to war, and the second guy who is in that chain of command, the Secretary of Defense, he's in ICU for a week and nobody knows it.

And you're worried about the drug use that you're already testing Elon Musk for.

Otherwise, he might, maybe he should lose his federal funding.

My gosh, this, everything is upside down.

Yeah.

And we have people in office who don't even understand what kind of government they have been elected to.

You know, the Gene Shaheen quote over the weekend, the tweet that she sent out about Ben Franklin saying that he said, we've got a democracy if you can keep it.

Oh, my gosh.

She did not.

Yeah, she did.

I mean, that just shows.

You can center in the U.S.

Senate, a democracy if you can keep it.

That's not what he said.

That's not what we are.

No.

No.

That just shows you are either so stupid or you know exactly what you're doing.

That's what I think it is.

And I think that too.

You can't know that quote and think it was democracy.

No, you can't.

I mean, the whole point of that quote is it's a republic, and those are hard to keep.

It's incredible.

Again, it's embarrassing, and it's incredible, but there is a concerted effort to make this into a democracy.

They've been trying to get us used to that phrase for years now.

I mean,

they are really pushing it hard, really pushing it.

So tell me,

both of you,

there is a story here.

Yeah, J.P.

Morgan, one of the big guys at J.P.

Morgan Chase, has just come out.

He's a strategist, come out, and he's predicted

the presidential race.

And it goes to Joe Biden.

He says, no, no, no.

His prediction goes to Joe Biden pulling out of the presidential race.

He says he's going to drop out after Super Tuesday and cite health reasons as he faces dismal poll numbers.

You buy that?

I don't think that's going to happen, but I hope it does.

I mean,

it should.

Who do you want?

Who do you want?

Who do you want?

Who do they want to give it to?

Yeah, who are they?

Not want, but who do you think they're going to give it to?

I think they'd turn to

Gavin Newsome.

They'll try to get Michelle Obama,

but I don't know that she wants it.

I don't think she does.

And so they'll have to turn to Gavin Newsom if that happens.

And I don't think Gavin Newsom wins.

I don't think there's any way.

California is in too bad a shape, and he's overseen it all.

So

I don't even know why you would consider him as an option, but that's it's so weird.

It's like it's not like they, I mean, there are hards, you could find Democrats that maybe have untouched resumes and maybe think that they're good candidates.

I mean, Newsom's been terrible on everything.

His entire city is falling apart, or his entire country is falling apart.

The city fell apart when he was mayor of San Francisco.

Yeah.

You know, he and he got caught.

He did a horrible job with COVID.

He got caught, by the way, having dinner when everyone else was supposed to be locked in their homes.

The other part about this that no one remembers is that he had

an infectious disease expert as the head of their medical establishment ready to go.

And instead of giving the job to her, this is right before COVID, he gave it to some woman who was completely unqualified because she happened to have a different skin tone.

It was a total DEI higher, according to multiple people inside the California government, government, to the point that she was so embarrassing when COVID started, they had to start hiding her

from the media and eventually had to basically walk her out the door because she was a catastrophe.

All of this happened in front of her eyes.

Everyone saw it go on, and then he's like, oh, he's the leader.

Like, that's how bad their bench is.

You know what?

I have to tell you, I would hope that that is the case, that they could get Gavin Newsom to run.

And it kind of, I can make a case.

Let me do a commercial and then we'll make the case that maybe this is what they've been doing all along.

But I'd rather have that than Michelle Obama.

Oh, yeah, because I think Gavin Newsom could be beaten.

Michelle Obama, I don't think, could be beaten.

And it would be a nightmare.

Notice how you guys are all walking right past Kamala Harris.

You don't even care.

You don't even care enough to bring her up.

No, we don't.

Oh.

This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.

All right.

Hello, Chip Roy.

How are you, sir?

Chip, are you there?

How are you, both?

Well, you know, I'm, you know,

I would be better if I thought you were bringing happy news to the table.

But the House and Senate have put together a budget

that they say is going to cut spending.

Whew, boy, is it ever.

And

really has nothing to do with the border, does it?

Yeah, Glenn, look, I mean, first of all, greetings from West Des Moines, Iowa, where it's balmy 20 degrees outside, but

and a snowstorm coming in.

But the real snowstorm coming in is coming into D.C.

that's going to hammer the American people.

Republicans doing exactly what they always do, which is be the party of excuses, the party that will never find a way to not capitulate and spend more money that we don't have and rack up more debt.

So what are we doing now under Speaker Johnson, right?

New Speaker, more the same garbage.

We're going to have a bill that's $1.66 trillion.

That is almost, I think that's about $58 billion

more than the disastrous Nancy Pelosi omnibus bill that Republicans opposed a year ago.

It is $100 billion

more than what we would get if Republicans had the spine to walk onto the House floor.

and send a simple year-long continuing resolution over to the Senate that would trigger the cuts,

albeit meager in the debt deal last summer, it would trigger cuts that we could get $1.562 trillion in spending.

They won't do that because they're all in the hip pocket of all the lobbyists and they hide behind our military.

And now we're not going to get the border secure.

We're going to spend $100 billion more than we have to.

We're going to increase spending over the Nancy Pelosi spending deal.

And Republicans are going to go try to sell you and the American people that that's somehow a win.

Don't believe them.

This is what the American people people are tired of.

And I'm look, I'm going to call balls and strikes.

I call balls and strikes on Kevin.

I'm going to call balls and strikes on Mike as speaker.

People should call balls and strikes on me.

That's the way it works.

So, Chip, we're running out of time and options here.

I don't know if anybody in Washington has

seen that,

but

the Republicans, they don't care about, I mean, they are not in touch with the average American.

They're just not, at least in the ruling class of

Republican circles.

They're, I don't know, in it for themselves or just completely delusional on what the country is facing now.

The border alone is such a major stress on absolutely everything from national security to the economy to our social fabric to our social services.

What is the average person supposed to do at this point?

Well,

I think what Republican leadership will tell you in the House and the Senate is that they're trying to negotiate a border deal right now on the back of a Ukraine spending fight.

Now, here's my problem with that.

Yet again, I'm being asked to accept in October and November, I was asked to accept twice continuing resolutions of Nancy Beloissy's spending level.

Then I was asked to eat a National Defense Authorization Act, which got rid of almost all of our policy changes we put in our version and then extended FIS over 16 months so we can have a government continue to spy on the American people.

And now I'm being asked to accept this ridiculous spending deal with no real border security measures in it.

There'll be token so that I'll get a promise.

Trust me, right?

Trust me, Chip, we will do border security on a Ukraine deal when half of the American people don't even want to give another dollar to Ukraine anyway, irrespective of whether you actually got a border deal, which neither you nor I nor your listeners believe will actually materialize.

So, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Chip, chip, help me out.

Which one, I mean, I think they're both a gun to the head dangerous, but which one is more pressing right now?

The financial, the budget deal, or the border?

In my view, they're actually both important, but I will take border security first.

Me too.

Here's the problem.

Here's the problem.

We can do both.

We have in our hands because of the work we did last year, through all the speaker fights and negotiations.

I don't want to set aside.

I don't want people to totally give up hope.

We fought last year and we did what we've never done before.

We passed a border security bill in HR2 that would actually do the job.

It is so good that the Wall Street Journal today was editorializing against it, saying it was too hard, that it had things in there about building the wall, that it had e-verify in there.

So if the Wall Street Journal is editorializing against your border bill, it's probably a good border bill.

So you've got our border bill, which was effective.

We passed it.

We got it done.

I know you're chuckling.

You know I'm right.

I know.

Look, hey, look, side note.

It is the Chamber of Commerce Wall Street Drug Republicans who have totally screwed our country for two decades because they want their cheap labor.

They want to sit down at the Rio Grande.

They want to have a sign that says no trespassing while they're going wink, wink, nod, nod with another sign saying help wanted.

Come on in.

We don't give a crap whether our border's wide open.

We don't give a crap if terrorists are coming again.

We don't give a crap if cartels are empowered.

We don't give a crap if our kids are dying from fentanyl.

That's what's happening right now.

So, we've got a bill that we passed that was good.

Bird in hand.

We should use it to negotiate and get border security.

We have a bird in hand, which is caps on spending.

They weren't the caps that Glenn Beck and Chip Roy would negotiate, but they were caps that actually now, if we were to pass a continuing resolution for the rest of this year, they would trigger 1.562 trillion, which would mean we would cut spending between 40 and 70 billion

rather than

which is an additional $100 billion.

Can I just point out?

That's not a lot of money when you're spending $4 trillion.

I mean,

honestly, it's like

it's going to Bill Gates and saying, Bill, your spending is out of control.

And

I noticed you bought four new cars last year.

We got to stop spending the four new cars.

Four new cars.

He's got a Boeing business jet he's running around in.

I mean, this is so ridiculous to talk about these small numbers as being so substantial because they're not.

We lost, what was it, $200 and $250 billion?

We just lost last year.

Just lost.

Send it out to the wrong people, overpaid.

What are you talking about?

Yeah, I mean, Glenn, it's absolutely ridiculous, the amount of waste and the spending.

But more importantly, we're funding the bureaucrats that are targeting you and me and undermining our freedom.

We're targeting IRS.

We're funding IRS agents.

We're funding DOJ bureaucrats that go after the former president, go after you and me, go after Mark Howe in Philadelphia.

We're funding a DHS to not secure the border and that smug Alejandro Mayorkus to sit up there on the stage and laugh at us and blame it on Texas.

We're funding the lawyers to go to the Supreme Court and challenge Texas in court, saying we can't cut razor wire.

I mean, you can't even put it into words.

I got to to be honest with you.

I'm on the ground in Iowa, okay?

I'm meeting with voters every day, very focused voters, and they are ready to rumble.

They are ready for a change.

They are sick and tired of what's going on in the swamp.

They want somebody new.

They want a new direction.

They want some change.

You know, not to get into the political side, I'm out here stumping for Governor DeSantis, obviously, but they want.

somebody who will actually do what they friggin' said they would do like governor deSantis did in Florida.

And look, he's never flip-flopped.

And I heard on your show earlier, you asked about Vivek.

I like Vivek.

He says a lot of great things, but he's flip-flopped a million times on vaccines, on Trump, COVID generally.

I could go down a list.

Governor DeSantis has delivered up and down.

And so Governor DeSantis cut spending.

Governor DeSantis took on Fauci.

Governor DeSantis took on COVID Tierney.

He took on Disney and one.

He's now got Miami-Dade

teachers' unions on the run.

He got Universal School Joyce Pass.

He's got an economy booming.

That guy is actually a machine.

I've never seen anything like it.

And I've worked for some good people.

You know that.

He's crushing it.

And he's a big man here in Iowa.

I am a big fan of Ron DeSantis.

I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

Big, big fan of Ron DeSantis.

And again,

I think the only reason why Ron DeSantis is not doing real well is because people are saying, well, I'll take Donald Trump because it's Ron DeSantis.

I don't think it is the same thing, but that I think is what people are thinking.

Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis.

Well, hold on, let's just compare apples to oranges there, right?

If you want to talk about the border, Governor DeSantis has stood up.

He's fought to get bills passed there.

When he was in the House, he's stood up to fight for good border security bills.

In 2018, Governor DeSantis was against Paul Ryan's amnesty bill.

Donald Trump was for it.

Governor DeSantis will actually fight birthright citizenship.

President Trump said in 2016 he would sign an executive order on birthright citizenship.

He didn't do it.

Donald Trump said he would build the wall and have Mexico pay for it.

He then got up and gave excuses on why we have no mechanism to make them pay for it.

We never, we didn't get it built.

They didn't pay for it.

Ron DeSantis stood up against Fauci, shut down COVID tyranny.

Frickin' President Trump gave Fauci a commendation on his way out of office in January of

2021.

Look, I can go down the list even further, but there's no comparison.

I mean,

Governor DeSantis is the guy we've been waiting for who will deliver and he can serve for eight years.

I love President Trump for what he did to shake up the swamp.

But let's just be clear.

He did not deliver.

He didn't repeal Obamacare.

He let Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell wag him around town.

We didn't get Obamacare repealed.

Now you and I are screwed sitting here with high health care costs, letting insurance companies run our health care system.

And instead of actually having a health care freedom, we empowered Anthony Fauci to screw Americans.

Like,

how many things do you have to fail on to then go around and say what a great president you were compared to a governor who's literally delivered on every single measure on the report card?

This is why President Trump will not debate Governor DeSantis.

Because Governor DeSantis would actually clean his clock if he compared his batting record with the former president.

So let me go back to the

budget, the border, everything that is happening in America now.

Americans are starting to cancel all of their streaming services.

There's a great story in my show prep today about the restaurant owner that has

broke down the math that causes him to charge $16 for a BLT sandwich.

And when you read it, at first you're like, $16 for a BLT.

Come on, man.

And then when you read it, you're like, okay, I'm surprised he's only charging $16 for that BLT.

Americans feel it.

They know their country is being taken.

They know the Justice Department is completely out of control.

The Pentagon didn't even have a leader for a week.

And we're starting to feel like, wow, we're at the end of this thing.

What do we do if the people in Washington don't listen to the people?

What do we do?

Well, there's a, well, there's a number of things.

One, we got to elect somebody good.

I've already said my piece on that.

We got to get a president who will do it.

Number two, we in Congress have to keep holding ourselves accountable and the people need to keep holding us accountable to do what we said we would do in Washington.

I'm going to go back and fight this week.

I'm going to keep shining the light on it.

That's actually new.

Take hope.

We actually have a group of us there who are actually doing the hard work of exposing all the garbage in these bills and making it harder for these guys to capitulate.

We'll get there.

Have hope that people like Riley Gaines or stood up to the woke establishment and people like Scott Smith stood up to all of the abuses in Virginia.

Take hope that Chloe Cole stood up and said, you know what, these forced transition surgeries are garbage or Mark Houch stood up to the DOJ in Philadelphia.

We should follow their lead.

The American people should stand up and reclaim their inheritance and keep pushing.

Get people elected this year who will fight.

Pay attention to who they are.

Get out there and have a difference, make a difference, and keep holding us accountable.

But also, remember, if we want to save this country, you talk about inflation, talk about how much it's how everybody's suffering.

We have got to open up American energy.

We don't talk about that enough.

The Democrats are jamming through all of their subsidies for EVs.

I don't think the American people know there is a rule they're about to embrace that will mandate two-thirds of EVs by 2032.

That will destroy the internal combustion engine.

It will destroy our ability to automobiles.

It will crush the economy, drive the cost of goods and services up.

And I just want Republicans for one frigging moment to fight Democrats with half of the energy, half of the energy that Democrats fight our country and our freedom.

That's when I'm going to go back to Washington.

When I fly back tomorrow, I'm going to absolutely rip into my Republican colleagues for this debacle of a spending bill, and we're going to just keep keep trying to force their hand.

There's another story about the Supreme Court taking on the Donald Trump ballot case.

They're taking their own sweet time to do it.

But this is something that is sweeping America.

If they take Donald Trump off the ballot,

again,

what do people do?

Well, it's a great question.

First of all, what they're doing, and look, obviously,

I supported Donald Trump in 2016, supported him in 2020.

If he's a nominee, I'll support him.

What they're doing against him in Colorado is an absolute travesty.

It's politicizing the entire process.

There is no conviction for insurrection.

It's all a joke.

They're doing it purposely and politically.

We're going to have to start responding in kind.

I'm willing, I think, I think, I think this court will strike this down and will call this out for what it is.

But we'll see, right?

And then, you know, if they don't, then I can assure you, there's going to be then reactions, as Lieutenant Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said in Texas.

I think even Governor Santos has brought it up.

Like, we start saying that, you know, Joe Biden needs to be pulled off the ballot because he's been a complete abomination, violating our laws, violating his oath to the Constitution, endangering the American people, aiding and abetting our enemies and the cartels who are flooding our country.

So how is that not in violation of the 14th Amendment that aiding and abetting your enemies?

That's the language in the 14th Amendment.

So if we're going to play that game and adjudicate that based on the whims of whatever a state wants to decide, as opposed to some actual conviction after a civil war, a demonstration of insurrection after a civil war, as was intended in the 14th Amendment, then what's good for the goose should be good for the gander.

We're going to have to fight fire with fire.

Right now, let's hope and pray the court gets this right.

I think they will.

But, man, these are strange times.

So, you know, we'll see what happens.

I assume you're like me that you think they will.

I think they will.

But the Democrats, again, I think they will, and that will pass.

But the Democrats will use that as, see, this, this out-of-control conservative court,

you know, just has to be, we have to have other new people on.

We got to get rid of these people.

I mean, that's, that's what they're going to use.

I mean, that's the political game they'll play, but then we just use it against them and say, this is why we need a court.

I mean, look, we've got a couple of our guys getting older, you know, Sam Alito and Justice Thomas.

I mean, God bless them.

They're our two most conservative justices.

And, you know, we got to replace those guys with people at least as good or better because the three that Trump appointed were good, but they're not as good as those guys.

Like, they're not Scalia and Thomas, right?

They're just not, you know, they're just okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Chip, thank you so much.

Enjoy the weather in Iowa.

It's lovely.

It ain't Dallas.

I can tell you that.

By the way, our good friends at Patriot Mobile.

I'm glad you're advertising for them.

They're good friends.

God bless you.

And I'll be back in Texas sometime soon.

You got it.

Thank you.

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It's a head-to-head match.

I mean, it is going to come in by a nose.

I predict.

This race for the GOP nomination is just thrilling, exciting, and nail-biting.

All the way to the end.

We have our first contest to see when they all step into the ring, which one is going to come out as a victor.

And

my man for color here, which is really kind of racist, is Steve Bregier, otherwise known as Stu.

And Stu, what are you looking at at this big matchout

on the mat in Iowa?

It is amazing.

We're seven days away, one week from Iowa.

And it doesn't

feel that way, does it?

No.

No.

I mean, I think there's the sort of belief that we are

in a primary that doesn't really exist, right?

Like that Trump is running away with it and, you know, in a few weeks we will.

No, that's.

That's as exciting as the Biden primary.

Yeah.

That has nothing to do with the voters.

The same thing with the Trump thing.

I mean, you got to go out and vote, but it seems like it's just going to happen.

And then the nail biter is,

is he going to end up in prison?

Right.

I think that's where people see the real contest taking shape.

But I think that's partially why it does matter what happens in these early states, because the second-place primary is important when you have one of the two major parties trying to throw the other guy in prison.

Right.

Yeah.

Well,

we haven't really had that kind of El Salvadorian kind of feel to our presidential elections.

That's true.

We haven't.

Yeah.

We haven't really done much of that.

So I started kind of a new morning update podcast called State of the Race, which is on the Studios America feed if you go there and wherever you get your podcast.

And we're going to go through all of this every day because I think, you know, in a few weeks, we might find out that Trump runs away with this and there's nothing to worry about about him going to prison or being thrown off ballots and that stuff all clears itself out.

We don't have to worry about this, which would be great.

I mean, you know, I mean, if you don't have to worry about democracy crumbling in front of your eyes, that would be a positive.

It'll be surprising.

It would be, but it would be great.

Yeah.

And you have a situation where, look, DeSantis is, do you think it's a, would you say it's a must-win, Iowa, for DeSantis?

Or do you think he can show a strong second and

stay together enough to keep the race going?

I don't know.

I mean,

I would say, yeah, because

it doesn't look like he's going to win in New Hampshire, does it?

No, he's currently in fourth in the polling in New Hampshire.

Yeah.

And he's probably not going to win in South Carolina.

So,

yeah, I would say he's got to win one of them.

Yeah.

Now, if he wins Iowa, right, that's where you depend on Trump to change some of these secondary states.

But if, you know, if,

and we just really, it's interesting because we all complain about the polls.

Everybody, you know, the polls are annoying and they don't always tell us the truth.

And we know the, we know that situation.

However, in a world where we have a lack of polling, which is this one, we have nothing really right now from these states that's updated.

We have the situation with the Real Clear Politics average, which is what people throw out all the time.

And Real Clear Politics does a good job.

Averaging polls is a good idea rather than taking one individual poll.

That's all true.

However, the most recent result from Iowa in the Real Clear Politics average is December 18th.

That's when it ended.

So you have a poll that's over three weeks old.

As Iowa gets close, we don't know.

Like, is it possible that DeSantis has made a move?

Is it possible Haley's made a move?

Is it possible now is in second place at Iowa and DeSantis is in third?

You know, it's hard to know.

We don't have anything updated at this point.

So in this world where we don't know even the basics, it seems like, it would be,

it's one of those situations you have to watch these other indicators.

You're seeing Nikki Haley's upping the spending all over these early states.

She's got the cash, Glenn.

I mean, she really is funny.

She's taking it from Democrats.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, it really is happening where she's taking a ton of money and dumping it into these races, now really leading the spending in a place like Iowa, which has not been the case for most of the campaign.

And DeSantis, like, again, we've talked about DeSantis a lot.

We really, really like Ron DeSantis.

I think he'd be a really good president if he were to win.

I do too.

That being said, you know,

this is his time.

He needs to make the move.

And three weeks in Iowa is a lifetime, right?

I mean, it's a lot of time to see where this movement is happening.

And we haven't seen any updated polling.

I assume we're going to get one more Des Moines Register poll here before the election actually happens, and that's kind of the big pollster in the state.

We will see if we get that.

But right now, it's been shocking.

I mean, we keep getting these national polls.

Hey, here's where the race stands nationally, which means nothing.

Nothing.

These aren't even elections that happen on the same day.

The caucuses and primaries happen weeks apart from each other.

A national poll gives you nothing but a general sense.

Give me the polls that you have from Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Anything you have, and then tell me the date they were last taken.

Okay, yeah.

I mean, you go to the

polling has been less interesting in Iowa, where the race has seemed pretty stagnant for a while.

Again, these are going back a few weeks here, but if you look at the

polls for Iowa, you have a situation where you're about 51% to Donald Trump on average.

Ron DeSantis is about 19%.

Nikki Haley is about 16%.

And after that, you have, you know, Ramaswamy, about six.

You have Christie, about three.

Asa Hutchinson, who's still in the race.

People don't seem to be

interested in his candidacy.

But he's interested in it.

Yeah.

That's kind of

what counts.

Good for you, Asa.

But yeah,

he's at zero.

He's

legitimately at zero.

Now, those, again, are the averages of the race.

If you look at where those polls have been taking place, a couple of them were mid-December.

Some of them are early December,

more than a month old.

And while it would be an unprecedented thing for Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley to be able to unseat Trump in Iowa.

in this short of a window, we have seen massive surprises before.

I mean, Howard Dean was up by, you know, 20 and 30 points.

Rick Santorum was way, way back in this race.

You know, Ted Cruz, even going into the poll and going into election or caucus day in Iowa, still showed that Cruz was not going to win in 2016.

And then he wound up winning.

You know, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards were all really tight.

in the Iowa caucuses leading up to that day.

So there are surprises and they happen pretty frequently in Iowa late in elections.

This is just a different situation, right?

You have a president running who's an incumbent, basically, a guy who is

running as the standard bearer for the party and has been for eight years.

This is different than a Howard Dean who's kind of coming out of nowhere, right?

So that needs to be acknowledged.

This, the only way that Iowa

becomes a surprise on the GOP is if people were saying they were going to vote for Donald Trump because they didn't want any backlash from the right,

but they actually go in behind closed doors and they vote for somebody else.

I don't see that happening, but

that's the only thing I could imagine.

If you were to say, how does Ron DeSantis have a success in Iowa, where you would say, let's just say he wins or loses by two points, right?

A very, very close race that comes down to the wire.

That I think would be seen as a real overperform for our expectations for DeSantis, and that might propel him forward.

How close does he need to be?

If he's down now by, on the average, of 30 some odd points, if he's in single digits, is that enough to make a big statement for DeSantis and maybe propel the campaign forward?

Or does he need to get closer than that?

Well, if he's the big winner of the night and he's, you know, eight points behind, that is huge.

That would change the dynamics, I think.

Be better if he were closer or actually won.

If he actually wins, that will be a big thing.

That would be huge, right?

That would change the, I think, the direction of the campaign.

Yeah.

And, you know, and New Hampshire is interesting as well.

Haley is closer in New Hampshire than DeSantis is in

Iowa, if you believe the polls.

And again, they're not really updated.

One other interesting thing is one pollster has shown very close results between Haley and Trump in New Hampshire.

Now this isn't shown everywhere.

You know most of the other polls are not nearly as positive where you see

at best low double digit leads for Trump if you're if you're Haley and you're at you know like one poll showed

the a 14 point lead for Trump over Haley 44 to 30, which is closer than it's been for a while.

However, American Research Research Group, which

isn't a terrible pollster or a great pollster, somewhere in the middle,

has shown two polls in a row with Trump up only by four in New Hampshire over Nikki Haley.

The most recent one is December 27th through January 3rd.

So the most recent poll we have in any early state.

And that shows Trump at 37, Haley at 33.

Christie at 10, DeSantis 5, Ramaswamy 4, Hutchinson actually showing up at 1%.

Congratulations to Ace on that one.

So

what is

Haley would have to win there.

Where is

DeSantis again?

Only at 5%.

So

even a win in Iowa,

it's difficult to see how DeSantis could make a big impact in a state like New Hampshire.

Now, maybe...

Why is he performing so poorly in New Hampshire?

I don't know.

I mean, he's, look, New Hampshire's a moderate state.

Maybe isn't as in love with the conservative credentials of Aron DeSantis.

That's not entirely

surprising, I suppose.

However, you know, you feel like if New Hampshire's taking the Haley route as the non-Trump option, where Christie is still in the race as well, doing, you know, okay, I guess, double digits in this bowl,

you wonder if Iowa is going to be very competitive, does that translate into support for DeSantis in South Carolina?

I mean, I think he's basically skipping completely New Hampshire in his mind.

His path to victory doesn't matter what happens to him

in New Hampshire.

He's going to go right to South Carolina and hope a bump from Iowa translates there.

We have a more conservative voting base, but a pretty pro-Trump voting base and a voting base who has Nikki Haley as their former governor.

So it's a very complicated path forward for DeSantis, even with a good showing in Iowa.

Not impossible, but really a tough hurdle to do.

Well, with a great track record, which DeSantis has,

and a great conservative message, which he has, he hasn't been able to convince the American people yet that he's better than Trump.

Why is he better than Trump?

That's what he had to do on the road, and I'm not sure that he has ever hit that to America's, or at least conservatives' satisfaction.

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