Speaker 1: Conversation with David Drucker of the Washington Examineries, the senior
Speaker 1: political correspondent, that fine publications being a fine publications. David's
Speaker 1: the author of In Trump's Shadow, The Battle for and
Speaker 1: the Future of the GOP. David, how are you, sir?
Speaker 1: I'm great, terrific. Oh yeah, absolutely, it's good to talk
Speaker 1: to you. So, Uh, speaking of In Trump's Shadow and
Speaker 1: and the state of the GOP, I actually want to
Speaker 1: take a look, if you will, at both parties and
Speaker 1: the conflicts of the divisions therein. But we can start
Speaker 1: on the Republican side. I mean Liz Cheney Adam Kingsinger
Speaker 1: of Illinois, recently centured by the r n C. Mitch
Speaker 1: McConnell shoots back that that's idiotic and useless and divisive
Speaker 1: and and the rest of it. Uh, what's the what's
Speaker 1: the state of the Republican Party at this point from
Speaker 1: your perch there in the Capitol. Well, it depends on
Speaker 1: how you want to look at the party. I mean,
Speaker 1: the party is on track for uh big games in
Speaker 1: mental elections. Um, I think they're they're on track to
Speaker 1: win control of the House and Senate and possibly by
Speaker 1: big margins. So when you want to look at win
Speaker 1: loss and judge a parties political viability that way, which
Speaker 1: seems to make sense to most people. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: they're they're in pretty good shape. Um. When you look
Speaker 1: at the evolving nature of the Republican Party, when you
Speaker 1: look at the party in long term, there are some
Speaker 1: more uncertainties out there. Obviously, the party continues to realign somewhat,
Speaker 1: and you have this ongoing battle between the traditional conservatives
Speaker 1: and the conservative populace in the party. I think former
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump's fixation on the elections long term is
Speaker 1: not helpful to the party. Um. And those could have
Speaker 1: consequences in four especially if Republicans do well in two,
Speaker 1: there are all of a sudden and this is the
Speaker 1: problem you want, of course, that you're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: share responsibility for governing. Um. We've seen past Democratic presidents
Speaker 1: get repudiated midj terms and then recover in their re
Speaker 1: election bids. Uh. And we've seen Republicans suffer in mid
Speaker 1: terms in presidential or midterm elections and then recover two
Speaker 1: years later. So Uh, it's by every measure that matters.
Speaker 1: In the moment, Republicans are doing very well. Their fundraising
Speaker 1: is up. Uh. Their political organization is doing well when
Speaker 1: you look at some of these longer term trends, whether
Speaker 1: the party is getting along, whether they're willing to cooperate
Speaker 1: with each other to form a majority coalition in a
Speaker 1: national election. Death still remains to be seen. And it
Speaker 1: is a concern among some Republicans. I talked to you,
Speaker 1: and I think they're right to be concerned about it.
Speaker 1: But this is not an either or scenario, nor is
Speaker 1: it remotely all dumid globe. You know, I'm ambivalent about
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. Is a conservative um, I
Speaker 1: just you know, I mixed feelings on a lot of it.
Speaker 1: But what do you think of this? Notion? That? And
Speaker 1: and well Trump's fixation election, I think he's making him
Speaker 1: less relevant going forward. If if Trump were focused hard,
Speaker 1: focused on inflation, the border, people's living conditions, you know,
Speaker 1: dinner table issues, um, and not obsessing over election, his
Speaker 1: shadow would be looming even more over the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: His influence I think would have grown. Well. You know,
Speaker 1: when I asked Trump about this, when I interviewed him
Speaker 1: last year for in Trump Shadow, and I asked him
Speaker 1: if he thought his his you know, decision to constantly
Speaker 1: beat the Bush about the you know what he thinks
Speaker 1: happened in I said, you know, doesn't it make it
Speaker 1: harder for your party to win control of the House
Speaker 1: and Senate in mid grom elections? And this was before
Speaker 1: president by approval numbers had dropped and things looked so
Speaker 1: good for Republicans And he said, yeah, maybe so, but
Speaker 1: I don't really care. And then he also said, well,
Speaker 1: I think this will help energize our face because that's
Speaker 1: what they're interested in. So you were is a really
Speaker 1: good question. What I would say about this is that
Speaker 1: there are a number of Republican primaries in big states
Speaker 1: and Senate races, never mind House races, and some governors
Speaker 1: races where they all where they agree with Trump, these
Speaker 1: primary candidates and won't say otherwise, and maybe they secretly
Speaker 1: disagree with them but refused to say it. And if
Speaker 1: you end up with nominees and some of these key
Speaker 1: races with candidates who also want to talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: an election beat stolen despite um an incredible lack of
Speaker 1: evidence to that effect, then this issue is not going
Speaker 1: to go away. Now in many of these states, I
Speaker 1: still think the Republican nominee wins anyway. I mean, I
Speaker 1: tend to think that whoever wins Ohio and just about
Speaker 1: all of them say Trump's right, the election was stolen.
Speaker 1: The nominee in the Ohio Senate race is gonna win.
Speaker 1: The nominee in the North Carolina Senate race is likely
Speaker 1: to win. The nominee in the Pennsylvania Senate races likely
Speaker 1: to win. So it's not going to hurt in the
Speaker 1: near term, but it is going to keep alive this
Speaker 1: notion in the party um that Trump is right. And
Speaker 1: then of course you have voters who want to focus
Speaker 1: on the future. Given how the nature of how much
Speaker 1: trouble the Democrats are in, and given it they're in
Speaker 1: charge in Washington, I don't think this kind of this
Speaker 1: kind of conversation is going to hurt Republicans were the party.
Speaker 1: I think they're still given the Democrats super thin margins
Speaker 1: in the House and Senate and everything else, Republicans are
Speaker 1: still likely to have a really good election, which of
Speaker 1: course is going to make some things that that there's
Speaker 1: no problem in talking about a stolen election that wasn't stolen.
Speaker 1: And and that's why I say it possibly becomes a
Speaker 1: problem in David Drucker of the Washington Examiner on the line,
Speaker 1: one more question about the Republicans before we moved across
Speaker 1: the aisle. Uh. It seems to us that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting and encouraging trends for the
Speaker 1: Republican Party. Uh. More folks of color, more working class
Speaker 1: people are moving the Republican way, and it feels like
Speaker 1: the Democrats are becoming the party of the suburban, social
Speaker 1: degree holding elites of America. To what extent is that true, Well,
Speaker 1: it's I think that the signs are there that this
Speaker 1: is happening. Before I make b linket predictions, I like
Speaker 1: to see how things play out over time. But we
Speaker 1: have seen Republicans make games with Hispanic voters. For instance,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump won Um, a county along the Mexican border
Speaker 1: in Texas that Republicans had not captured in a presidential
Speaker 1: race in a hundred years. And I think what this
Speaker 1: trend is about is as the Republican Party, at least
Speaker 1: for the time being, becomes more of a working class
Speaker 1: party where more of its voters tend to be blue
Speaker 1: collar um workers. Well, there are lots of Hispanics and
Speaker 1: lots of voters that are not white that are a
Speaker 1: part of the working class that had long seen the
Speaker 1: Democrats as the party of the working class and now
Speaker 1: believe that the Republicans are the party of the working class,
Speaker 1: both from an economic standpoint and from a cultural standpoint.
Speaker 1: And by the same token, we have seen some suburban
Speaker 1: voters UM and we've seen some evidence of this, some
Speaker 1: sort of white collar suburban voters of both of you know,
Speaker 1: both of of all races, but but you know, particularly
Speaker 1: these white suburban, white collar UM workers who had long
Speaker 1: voted Republican finding more cultural affinity with the Democrats. So
Speaker 1: we've seen some of this realignments. All of these things
Speaker 1: are sort of dependent on who the next Republican nominee
Speaker 1: is twenty four, what kind of coalition they're able to cement,
Speaker 1: what the economic and geopolitical conditions in the country and
Speaker 1: the world are, and how you know, the two nominees
Speaker 1: position their parties in that contest. But the size are
Speaker 1: definitely there that this is beginning to happen um, and
Speaker 1: so it'll be interesting to see what happens, not so
Speaker 1: much in midterm elections, because we've seen non white voters
Speaker 1: flocked to Republicans and greater degree in mid term elections
Speaker 1: with Democrats trouble. But how But but it will be
Speaker 1: more interesting to see if we see a continuation of
Speaker 1: what we saw in twenty happen again in four Okay,
Speaker 1: we just have a couple of minutes left. But one
Speaker 1: of the thing we've talked about a lot around here
Speaker 1: is to what extent do you think the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: is being led by the woke energy on Twitter and
Speaker 1: among congressional staffers, and Twitter is not America, to what
Speaker 1: extent do you think they're being you know, the dog
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party is being wagged by the tail or?
Speaker 1: Or does the woke left have that much haft? Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think I think there is some validity to this.
Speaker 1: Both parties, as polarization has increased over the past two decades,
Speaker 1: have been led or influenced more by their base of
Speaker 1: committed voters. Right. You know, we've seen in covering the
Speaker 1: Republican Party over twenty years the influence that the Republican
Speaker 1: base often has. These the committed conservatives often have in
Speaker 1: in in the party, in part because in house races,
Speaker 1: where most districts are drawn to elect one or the
Speaker 1: other party, it's the primary that really counts. And if
Speaker 1: you don't play to your primary audience, you don't get
Speaker 1: to the general election where you're going to win easily.
Speaker 1: And so I think that what we're seeing in the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party now is something we have seen four years
Speaker 1: in the Republican Party, and they are being influenced to
Speaker 1: a huge degree by the far left flank of their party.
Speaker 1: And I think we've seen this most notably when it
Speaker 1: comes to pandemic policy coming out of the White House. No,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden can't win in this regard, UH. In Republicans certainly,
Speaker 1: but even but especially Independence really want to shift to
Speaker 1: a posture of policy on the pandemic that that recognizes
Speaker 1: or believes that the coronavirus is just not going anywhere,
Speaker 1: uh for the foreseeable future, and and get us back
Speaker 1: to a normal footing, just doing living like we did
Speaker 1: before in the pandemic, but taking you know, precautions as
Speaker 1: they are necessary. Left point and the Democratic base of
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party doesn't mean Joe Biden's doing enough to
Speaker 1: protect against the coronavirus. They want stricter mandates on vaccines,
Speaker 1: more mandates on vacate scenes, stricter and more mandates on
Speaker 1: mask wearing and and the like. And that belief on
Speaker 1: the far left length of the party is influencing how
Speaker 1: many Democrats in Washington at least are reacting to the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but politically and from a policy standpoint, and it's far
Speaker 1: different than what you're seeing from center left Democrats and
Speaker 1: independence who may tend to vote Democrat. And we've seen,
Speaker 1: you know, the Democratic governors around the country are starting
Speaker 1: to react to the broader number of Democratic voters in
Speaker 1: their states rather than the most committed liberals. But it
Speaker 1: is definitely having an impact. And you're right when you
Speaker 1: point out that Twitter is not real life needed on
Speaker 1: the right or the less, and when politicians cater to Twitter,
Speaker 1: they end up in trouble with a broader number of
Speaker 1: voters they need to win re election. Well, and your
Speaker 1: point about the COVID policy is a great one and
Speaker 1: such a such a strange chapter of American history we're
Speaker 1: all living through. I'd like to write the book Culture
Speaker 1: and COVID if I only had the time. But um,
Speaker 1: let's remember Glenn Youcan is the governor of Virginia. Not
Speaker 1: so much because the critical race theory stuff that got
Speaker 1: so much attention, purely because he ran on get the
Speaker 1: kids back in school. The kids need to be in school,
Speaker 1: and that hardcore left flank of the Democratic Party is
Speaker 1: just have four year olds and masks and and send
Speaker 1: everybody home the minute anybody gets COVID and uh, that
Speaker 1: is just absolute electoral poison. I think to an extent
Speaker 1: that the mainstream media does not adequately reflect. But David
Speaker 1: Drucker of The Washington Examiner, David, I wish we could
Speaker 1: talk all day, but I'm afraid we're up against a break.
Speaker 1: But it's to talk to you. Good luck with the
Speaker 1: book in Trump's Shadow, The Battle for four in the
Speaker 1: Future of the GOP. Thanks David, thanks so much. Good
Speaker 1: to talk