Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: It's just past eleven pm on the East Coast on Tuesday,
Speaker 2: March fifth. This is the big take. I'm Seleia Mosen.
Speaker 2: Fifteen states voted in the presidential primary contest on Super Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Traditionally this is a decisive point in the election cycle.
Speaker 2: Trump's campaign has been working towards securing the nomination by
Speaker 2: mid March. Tonight is a clear victory for him. For Biden.
Speaker 2: Between Super Tuesday and his State of the Union address
Speaker 2: on Thursday, it's officially the beginning of campaign season. Is
Speaker 2: Trump's grip on the GOP solidified? Will Biden be able
Speaker 2: to rekindle Trump angst to compete with trump nostalgia. We'll
Speaker 2: get into all of that and more with Mario Parker,
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's White House and Politics editor overseeing our twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four election coverage. So, Mario, we could sit here and
Speaker 2: talk about all of the ways that this Biden Trump
Speaker 2: matchup is going to feel like a twenty twenty rerun.
Speaker 2: But I actually want to hear from you. What are
Speaker 2: some of the bigger ways that it's not just like
Speaker 2: twenty twenty all over again.
Speaker 1: Well, in some ways.
Speaker 3: And this is what's kind of got our coverage is
Speaker 3: that as much as the primary cycle has essentially been
Speaker 3: cruise control for months now, I think the American electorate
Speaker 3: has been signaling that it expects a rematch of the
Speaker 3: twenty twenty election.
Speaker 1: These are unprecedented times.
Speaker 3: Right, When was the last time that we've had a
Speaker 3: rematch to this degree. When is the last time we've
Speaker 3: had a former president make a comeback bid? When is
Speaker 3: the last time we had a former president make a
Speaker 3: comeback bid with ninety one felon accounts? When is the
Speaker 3: last time that that former president was up against an
Speaker 3: incumbent eighty one years old who would presumably be eighty
Speaker 3: six at the end of their second term, Which brings
Speaker 3: into question whether or not the first African American Indian
Speaker 3: American woman vice president would essentially take the reins. And
Speaker 3: so that's a very long winded answer saying just as
Speaker 3: much as things stay the same when we look at
Speaker 3: the marquee, there's a lot under the hood.
Speaker 2: Let's dig into a little bit on the Trump side.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the ninety one felon accounts. How are Trump's
Speaker 2: legal problems playing into his campaign?
Speaker 3: He's made the traditional campaign trail and his court room
Speaker 3: appearance is one of the same. Some of the cases
Speaker 3: are delayed, for example, there's still the uncertainty as to
Speaker 3: whether or not they will take place before the election
Speaker 3: or after the election. We saw that the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: ruled in his favor that he could stay on the ballot.
Speaker 3: That was largely expected. But those sorts of challenges right
Speaker 3: one could expect to continue to kind of crop up
Speaker 3: during the course of the cycle.
Speaker 2: So we've obviously seen Trump sweeping primaries since the Iowa
Speaker 2: Caucuses for the most part, and now Super Tuesday. Has
Speaker 2: there been anything about the beginning of the election cycle
Speaker 2: this year that surprised you.
Speaker 3: The momentum that he gained last summer on the back
Speaker 3: of some of the legal cases and the way that
Speaker 3: the party, the GOP coal least around him, I guess
Speaker 3: the follow through has been quite surprising, and it looks
Speaker 3: like he's going to be the presumptive nominee. Now the
Speaker 3: devil is in the details, right, Nikki Haley was able
Speaker 3: to get at least in some of the earlier primaries
Speaker 3: twenty thirty percent of support, and so the question now
Speaker 3: is about whether or not Trump still has some more
Speaker 3: work to do in terms of getting the rest of
Speaker 3: the party unified around him by November.
Speaker 2: I want to pick up on that theme about the
Speaker 2: interesting moment that the Republican Party is at right now,
Speaker 2: because it seems to be now firmly becoming the party
Speaker 2: of Trump. Do you think that Trump's grip on the
Speaker 2: party is solidified?
Speaker 3: Not only is his grip on the party solidified, but
Speaker 3: this completes his remaking of the party in his own
Speaker 3: image right. So, over the coming days, the Republican National
Speaker 3: Committee will vote as to whether or not to place
Speaker 3: his daughter in La Lara at the top of the committee,
Speaker 3: the primary apparatus for the Republican Party. He's hand picked
Speaker 3: almost every part or had an impact on every part
Speaker 3: of the Republican Party at this point. Mitch McConnell last
Speaker 3: week stepped down. He was one of the most powerful
Speaker 3: leaders of the Senate in history, and he stepped down
Speaker 3: because he feels as though he doesn't have a place
Speaker 3: in the party and a leadership role in the party anymore.
Speaker 3: And again that's because he's directly at odds with the
Speaker 3: Trump doctrine. So I think what we've seen here with
Speaker 3: a sweep that you mentioned celeia because essentially he's remade
Speaker 3: the party in his own image.
Speaker 2: What about policy? Are his policies now the Republican Party's
Speaker 2: policies officially.
Speaker 1: They seem to be.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's still semblances of the more traditional Republican stances.
Speaker 3: But look no further than just the House's inability to
Speaker 3: pass aid for Ukraine. Right, this is something a few
Speaker 3: years ago there would have been anathema to the party
Speaker 3: that had touted itself as one for foreign policy, American
Speaker 3: leadership abroad, et cetera. The fact that the House still
Speaker 3: has yet to pass aid for Ukraine against Russia aggression
Speaker 3: no less kind of signals where we are with the party.
Speaker 2: So, Mario, do you think that the traditional Republican voter
Speaker 2: is going to fall in line and vote for Trump
Speaker 2: or do you think that they will stray and either
Speaker 2: go for Biden, a third party candidate, or just not
Speaker 2: vote at all.
Speaker 3: That's a great question when we look at some of
Speaker 3: the vote totals that Nikki Haley has been able to
Speaker 3: put on board. Right again, it's a small one. Looks
Speaker 3: at something that's seventy thirty win, that's a blowout, right,
Speaker 3: But for someone like Trump, you need that one hundred
Speaker 3: percent or as close to one hundred percent of the
Speaker 3: party voting for you as you possibly can, just as
Speaker 3: a hedge against any losses that you may have among
Speaker 3: independent voters.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So, the polling, including a Bloomberg News Morning Consult poll,
Speaker 3: shows that even as Republicans largely characterize Donald Trump as
Speaker 3: dangerous right, they still plan to vote for him.
Speaker 2: I've been talking to White House and Politics editor Mario
Speaker 2: Parker about Super Tuesday and what Trump will face in
Speaker 2: this election cycle. I want to turn to Biden. We
Speaker 2: haven't seen Biden on the trail much leading up to
Speaker 2: Super Tuesday. Do you think that now that we're past
Speaker 2: that we're going to see him actively campaigning.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: From what we understand, the President will pivot immediately out
Speaker 3: of his State of the Union speech on Thursday, hit
Speaker 3: the road, which is a traditional kind of posture from
Speaker 3: the President. He'll be going to Philadelphia, which is the
Speaker 3: key swing state of Pennsylvania. He'll be going to Atlanta,
Speaker 3: Georgia on Saturday. We know that that's a very hotly
Speaker 3: contested swing state as well. And then also just landing
Speaker 3: on surrogates and dispatching them across the country and what's.
Speaker 2: The narrative that Biden is hoping to sell to American voters.
Speaker 3: We'll get a little bit more of his vision for
Speaker 3: a second term agenda at the State of the Union
Speaker 3: on Thursday. Some of that will be how he plans
Speaker 3: to argue that he's going to further lower costs for
Speaker 3: voters and along the lines of prescription drugs, make housing
Speaker 3: more affordable, those kitchen table issues that he frequently speaks about,
Speaker 3: and then he'll also try to make the case that
Speaker 3: his policies have already improved the lives of Americans. One
Speaker 3: source of frustration for the White House for the President
Speaker 3: is the fact that he feels as though he hasn't
Speaker 3: gotten credit for some of the policy accomplishments that have
Speaker 3: benefited Americans. That's the Inflation Reduction Act, that's the Bipartisan
Speaker 3: Infrastructure Bill. And Americans have so far been showing not
Speaker 3: just that they're not giving him credit, but they're given
Speaker 3: a credit to Trump. They're giving Trump more credit on
Speaker 3: the economy, They're giving Trump more credit on foreign policy.
Speaker 3: They're even giving Trump credit on things like some parts
Speaker 3: of democracy. Right, while Biden holds a lead in that regard,
Speaker 3: you would expect this would lead to be much wider
Speaker 3: than what the polls are bearing out. Maybe that's a
Speaker 3: messaging issue that the White House has to solve. They're
Speaker 3: looking at the State of the Union from what we
Speaker 3: understand as a seminal moment to pivot and kind of
Speaker 3: rejigger that messaging going forward, But as of right now,
Speaker 3: it's just not really setting it in with voters.
Speaker 2: What are some of the other challenges that Biden is
Speaker 2: facing in the camp this year.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the subtext to some of this is
Speaker 1: his age.
Speaker 3: There's just no way around it. Even Democrats impolls express
Speaker 3: concern about whether or not he's fit to serve a
Speaker 3: second term. And again this is to the frustration of
Speaker 3: the campaign as well and to the White House as well.
Speaker 3: But Americans have this view of Biden that he's much
Speaker 3: older than the four years that he has.
Speaker 2: On Trump, I would ask the same question I asked
Speaker 2: earlier about Trump. Do you think that traditional Democratic voters
Speaker 2: are going to fall in line and vote for Biden?
Speaker 1: This is where it gets tricky.
Speaker 3: The calculus on the Bidens side is a little bit
Speaker 3: different than the calculus on the Republican side. On the
Speaker 3: Biden side, the Biden campaign. They want to rekindle the
Speaker 3: angst that the electorate had toward Trump some four years ago,
Speaker 3: and right now what they're confronted with is just this
Speaker 3: odd nostalgia for the Trump years that oh, you know what,
Speaker 3: it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. And
Speaker 3: so now you've seen people kind of go back in
Speaker 3: Trump's column.
Speaker 2: Are there specific policy issues that you see Biden leaning
Speaker 2: on in order to convince voters that he's the best choice.
Speaker 1: He'll lean on democracy, for sure.
Speaker 3: If Trump has made his campaigns anonymous with America first,
Speaker 3: Biden has essentially made his campaigns anonymous with saving democracy,
Speaker 3: not just here in the US, but also in places
Speaker 3: like Europe, where again he's advocating for sustained and continue
Speaker 3: aid to Ukraine and made that existential issue right.
Speaker 1: He'll again try to mention costs.
Speaker 3: He'll try to lean into his blue collar background and
Speaker 3: talk about how he's lowered costs and prescription drugs, how
Speaker 3: his policies have worked to lower the rate of inflation.
Speaker 3: And then just in terms of just social issues, you'll
Speaker 3: expect him to lean on that. This past weekend, he's
Speaker 3: spoken more about the George Floyd Policing Act, You'll see
Speaker 3: him make entreaties to black and Hispanic voters, voters of
Speaker 3: color large as well. You'll see abortion. I would be
Speaker 3: remiss if I didn't mention that abortion will feature prominently,
Speaker 3: particularly given that every couple of months that issue flares
Speaker 3: back up with Alabama and being the latest with IVF,
Speaker 3: and so you'll see him campaign on advocating for women's
Speaker 3: reproductive rights.
Speaker 2: So you've laid out what Biden's obstacles are on the
Speaker 2: road to reelection. But Bloomberg News has reported that Biden
Speaker 2: donors have committed more than seven hundred million dollars to
Speaker 2: help him to beat Trump, and that is on top
Speaker 2: of one hundred and thirty million dollars that his campaign
Speaker 2: reported that they had at the beginning of February. Mario,
Speaker 2: do you think that, considering everything that Biden is up
Speaker 2: against with Trump and the obstacles within his own party
Speaker 2: and campaign and messaging that that is a competitive war chest.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, you'd rather have more money than that in this instance.
Speaker 3: Right in twenty twenty, part of the reason that Trump's
Speaker 3: campaign was undone in the final months was essentially they
Speaker 3: ran out of money. They had to go dark on
Speaker 3: advertising in some of the key swinging states that we've mentioned,
Speaker 3: and Biden will still flush with cash. It seems to
Speaker 3: be bearing out this time as well. There are reports
Speaker 3: out over this past weekend and how the Trump campaign
Speaker 3: has been minding money a lot more closely than previous cycles.
Speaker 3: When we get into that September October window right where
Speaker 3: Americans are super attuned to the election. If you're Biden,
Speaker 3: you're able to advertise in those airwaves and get your
Speaker 3: message across.
Speaker 2: What about Trump? How does Biden compare to the fundraising
Speaker 2: that Trump has done and what his war chest looks like.
Speaker 3: Well, Trump's war chest is considerably smaller. There's been the reports,
Speaker 3: including our own, about how much money is super political
Speaker 3: action committees has been devoted to or funneled toward some
Speaker 3: of his legal woes. As we just mentioned, those legal
Speaker 3: woes aren't going to go away, and so money is finite, right,
Speaker 3: that's money that could otherwise been going in North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada,
Speaker 3: Michigan that they won't necessarily have.
Speaker 2: So on this podcast, we've previously covered how GOP donors
Speaker 2: were reluctant to get behind Trump before and even during
Speaker 2: the early primaries. Do you think that that's going to
Speaker 2: change now.
Speaker 1: That part is a bit unclear.
Speaker 3: There's still seems to be big dollar donor concern about
Speaker 3: being associated with Trump. During the primary, they were solidly
Speaker 3: with Nicki Haley. We know that Trump's made a threat
Speaker 3: to those donors, saying anyone that continues to front Nicki
Speaker 3: Haley's campaign isn't maga and won't be welcome should he
Speaker 3: get another term in the White House. We'll see whether
Speaker 3: or not those that type of threat will impact whether
Speaker 3: or not the deeper pocketed donors come back to him
Speaker 3: during the summer.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about some of the smaller donors and the
Speaker 2: regular voters who give money to campaigns.
Speaker 3: Trump is essentially cast himself as the fighter for these
Speaker 3: everyday Americans who aren't rich. He's got a juggernaut in
Speaker 3: terms of small dollar campaign donations. Those retirees, those as
Speaker 3: you just mentioned, aligned with more blue collar union workers
Speaker 3: who have been more willing to chip in thirty bucks,
Speaker 3: fifty bucks, one hundred bucks.
Speaker 1: Here and there.
Speaker 3: They vote with their money in some ways, and so
Speaker 3: we see the fundraising appeals when Trump goes to cord
Speaker 3: or some type of legal development happens, and Trump's blasting
Speaker 3: out a text message to those individuals they're answering the bill.
Speaker 3: But with again increments of fifteen twenty thirty fifty one
Speaker 3: hundred dollars, Biden has the deep pocketed voters. He goes
Speaker 3: out to California, Los Angeles, San Francisco pretty frequently to
Speaker 3: raise money, and he's been quite successful doing that. But
Speaker 3: in terms of apping in and translating that energy that
Speaker 3: we see from the Trump folks into tangible money, Trump's
Speaker 3: been pretty good at that conversion.
Speaker 2: Mario, do you think that we might see voter turnout
Speaker 2: drop this election given how unhappy and unsatisfied people are
Speaker 2: about the options that they've got.
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty was an election in which was held amid
Speaker 3: a one hundred and year pandemic, spelling over and dovetailing
Speaker 3: with the country's largest wrecking race in some fifty sixty years.
Speaker 3: All those things led to just record turnout, mail in voting,
Speaker 3: just an electorate that was extremely engaged. Now you can
Speaker 3: kind of see the apathy, right, So this election is
Speaker 3: looking a lot more like twenty sixteen than it did
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty, and twenty sixteen was a lore turnout election.
Speaker 2: All right, Mario, Thanks so much for joining This was great.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, it was great. I look forward
Speaker 1: to join you again anytime.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Big Take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 2: I'm Sleiah Mosen. This episode was produced in fact Checked
Speaker 2: by Julia Press. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and
Speaker 2: Michael Shepherd. It was mixed by Alex Sugia. Our senior
Speaker 2: producers are Naomi Shaven and Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beamsterbower is
Speaker 2: our executive producer. Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts.
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