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Speaker 1: I'm Kevin Cirelli, Chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Television and

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio, and you're listening to the sound on Extra Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: And I'm joined today by the two guests from our program.

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Speaker 1: Rick Tyler. He is a Republican strategist. He's also the

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Speaker 1: former communications director for the Ted Cruz presidential campaign and

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Speaker 1: now he's the co founder and partner at Foundry Strategies.

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Speaker 1: And Kevin Walling he's a Democratic strategist h G Creative Media.

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Speaker 1: You know, we were talking on the show and we

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Speaker 1: didn't have enough time to get to this. We're talking

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Speaker 1: on this show about former Vice President Joe Biden and

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Speaker 1: how he's really targeted President Trump already in his campaign.

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Speaker 1: He's at a crowded Democratic primary field and he's taking

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Speaker 1: aim directly at President Trump. And Kevin I was at

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Speaker 1: the White House earlier today and in the morning special

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Speaker 1: Counselor to the President, Kelly and Conway. She comes out

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Speaker 1: and for more than thirty minutes, she delivers a blistering

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Speaker 1: critique in the way that only Kelly and Conway can

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Speaker 1: and goes after Joe Biden. So why why is why

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Speaker 1: are we watching President Trump? Target Biden and Biden World

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Speaker 1: target Trump. Yeah. I mean, as Rick said earlier, and

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Speaker 1: it's a smart move by the vice president to take

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Speaker 1: the fight directly to the president. He can elevate it.

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Speaker 1: He's the sitting former vice president, so he is on

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Speaker 1: that level when it comes to, uh, you know, this

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Speaker 1: kind of debate. It's a smart move by the Vice president.

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Speaker 1: He had a really compelling video bringing up Charlotte's Bill

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Speaker 1: as a really poignant moment in the history of this country. Really,

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Speaker 1: I think that was a deciding factor for a lot

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Speaker 1: of folks that actually had supported President Trump that are

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Speaker 1: now questioning. You know, they put their hope in someone

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Speaker 1: that was new, that could shake up the system. But

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Speaker 1: his true colors shine through in that very instant and

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Speaker 1: I think the Vice president is smarted to bring that up.

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Speaker 1: But how is he going to do this differently? Because Rick,

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Speaker 1: you know this, I mean everyone that's come at the

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Speaker 1: who said that Ron Monjee when he tweeted out if

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Speaker 1: you come at the King, your best not miss and

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Speaker 1: that went viral. He was he's a Republican strategist as well.

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Speaker 1: When you've had just look at the last cycle where

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Speaker 1: everyone who's engaged with with UH with then candidate Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump and thought, oh, I'll be the tough guy. I'll

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Speaker 1: take him on. I'll take him on, and then you know,

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Speaker 1: he gets completely annihilated. And and President Trump tweeting, you know,

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Speaker 1: in April twenty nine, yesterday, quote, sleepy Joe Biden is

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Speaker 1: having his first rally in the great state of Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: He obviously doesn't know that Pennsylvania is having one of

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Speaker 1: the best economic years in its history. So I mean,

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Speaker 1: sleepy Joe Biden. It's already started so early on, early

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Speaker 1: on the campaign, Donald Trump went before a Christian nanity.

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Speaker 1: Assume he's interviewed by Steve Daves, who's an Iowa activist,

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Speaker 1: Christian and Iowa someone you want to win the support

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Speaker 1: of if you're Republican and want to win Iowa. And

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Speaker 1: he called he criticized the former UH Senator John McCain.

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Speaker 1: Remember that, and that that was a decisive moment. And

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Speaker 1: everybody in the world thought, as we continued to think

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Speaker 1: and thought before is okay this campaign is over because

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Speaker 1: a candidate just criticized the war hero. That's just something

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Speaker 1: you don't do. And what happened was Rick Perry, whose

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Speaker 1: longest serving governor of Texas, right, uh decided he was

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Speaker 1: he was a pilot in the Air National Guard. Decided

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Speaker 1: this is mine. I got this. I'm going to take

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Speaker 1: care of Donald Trump and I'm going to uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: pulverize him over this issue of taking on John McCain. Well,

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Speaker 1: guess what, Rick Perry got his head handed to him. Now,

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Speaker 1: we saw this, and we knew that although people knew

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Speaker 1: take Cruise his name, he didn't have universal name recognition.

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Speaker 1: And we understand, we understood that somebody beats nobody every

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Speaker 1: single time, and so we had to buy it our time,

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Speaker 1: and so we actually befriended Donald Trump for a long time.

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Speaker 1: Remember that we were criticized over this, and so we

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Speaker 1: said nice things about Donald Trump. He's a nice things

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Speaker 1: about us, and Donald Trump did our work. He just

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Speaker 1: dispensed with every single candidate until we were really the

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Speaker 1: final candidate that was viable against Donald Trump. To take

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Speaker 1: us into strategy worked, except we got dispensed too. Well,

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Speaker 1: we'll take us into the ver seriously, because I mean

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Speaker 1: I covered the trail and I remember I mean take

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Speaker 1: us into the into the cruise campaign, you know, crash course,

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Speaker 1: when when you guys were getting attacked by the President's

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Speaker 1: tweets on on you know, a conspiracy theory. What was

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Speaker 1: it that that Ted Cruise dad was involved in the

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Speaker 1: JFK assassination. Well, Raphael Cruise, Ted's father, did kill JFK.

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Speaker 1: But but he didn't. But he didn't mean to. He's kidding.

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Speaker 1: We're not that kind of podcast. But but take us

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Speaker 1: into that meeting. I mean, it was it was it laughter,

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Speaker 1: was it intense? I mean it was. This was on

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Speaker 1: the front page of the National Choir, right um. And

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Speaker 1: so so for me, the communications director, I have to

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Speaker 1: look at the National Choir and say, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: this is not serious. But you know what, that was

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Speaker 1: a mistake because the National Enquirer sits at every checkout

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Speaker 1: stand and every supermarket across the country and people read that. Now.

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Speaker 1: I would like to think people wouldn't believe it, but

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Speaker 1: the National Enchoirer sells a lot of copies, and enough

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Speaker 1: people did believe in Donald Trump, who pedals conspiracies and

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Speaker 1: still does. Uh, you know, got the mainstream media to

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Speaker 1: pay attention to it, not in a serious way that

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Speaker 1: that Raphael had anything to do with with JFK. UM,

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Speaker 1: but it was you know, it was just pure Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: It was just pure entertainment, pure uh, you know, sidetracking

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Speaker 1: the campaign. But let me let me tell it. Back

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Speaker 1: in June, in June of two thousand and fifteen, we

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Speaker 1: wanted to know because everybody's saying that Donald Trump was

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Speaker 1: eating Take Cruises lunch and that he was taking all

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Speaker 1: our votes. What we did a poll. We pulled everybody

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Speaker 1: who supported Donald Trump in the poll and asked them

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Speaker 1: who their second choice would be. You know what Cruises

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Speaker 1: support was out of that. Wow, nobody knew that, but

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Speaker 1: we knew it, which told us we can't attack him

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Speaker 1: right now. We gotta wait, and we waited until the debate,

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Speaker 1: and then we finally took him out on the debate

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Speaker 1: because millions of people watching debate now, they weren't watching

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Speaker 1: the debate because the Take Cruise. They're watching debate because

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Speaker 1: of Donald Trump. All right, we're gonna leave it. They're fascinating,

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Speaker 1: fascinating insight, and it's always fascinating, especially when you cover

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Speaker 1: had paint up close and personal to hear in hindsight

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Speaker 1: what was really going on behind the scenes. My thanks

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Speaker 1: to Kevin Walling and of course to Rick Tyler. I'm

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Speaker 1: Kevin CURRELLI Chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Television and Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for checking us out and be sure to subscribe.

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Speaker 1: Thanks