Speaker 1: Hi, this is Tim. Since this episode was first recorded,
Speaker 1: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race.
Speaker 1: As you will listen in the following conversation. We did
Speaker 1: expect him to drop out pretty soon. We just didn't
Speaker 1: think it would happen this quickly. Anyway, Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: and enjoy the episode. Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast
Speaker 1: about business, political, and social disruption and what we can
Speaker 1: learn from it. I'm Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Biden
Speaker 1: Trump and a presidency in play. The first act in
Speaker 1: the Republican Party's presidential primary season. The Iowa CAUCUSUS has
Speaker 1: come and gone. Other contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan,
Speaker 1: and the collection of fifteen Super Tuesday states all lie ahead.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump registered a resounding win in Iowa. If polls
Speaker 1: are to be believed, he is situated to easily continue
Speaker 1: his sprint to the GOP nomination, the flag bearer of
Speaker 1: a party shaping itself in his image. Just a year
Speaker 1: or so ago, mired in legal prosecutions and memories of
Speaker 1: the January sixth Insurrection, Trump appeared to be politically spent.
Speaker 1: Voters didn't seem to want to give him another chance
Speaker 1: to torch the Constitution. Iowa at least has proven that
Speaker 1: to be wrong. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, who has presided
Speaker 1: over a robust and expanding an economy undercut by a
Speaker 1: savage bout of inflation, a rational and globally minded approach
Speaker 1: to foreign policy in the time of war, and a
Speaker 1: lackluster approach to immigration, comes to the race with strengths
Speaker 1: and weaknesses. A lot does it stake in the race
Speaker 1: for the White House. And joining me to discuss the
Speaker 1: presidential battle is Nancy Cook, a stellar political reporter for
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. She has covered both the Trump and Biden
Speaker 1: white Houses, and she has a wealth of knowledge to share.
Speaker 2: Greetings Nancy, Oh, thanks so much for having me Tim.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit as we get
Speaker 1: into this about your background, because you have an interesting
Speaker 1: path into your current and powerful role, and I always
Speaker 1: wonder what a nice person like you did to wind
Speaker 1: up in this dirty little business we inhabit. So tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about your first job covering politics,
Speaker 1: when and where was that.
Speaker 2: So, my first job out of journalism school was actually
Speaker 2: at a tiny paper in Massachusetts called The New Bedford
Speaker 2: standard times. It's a gritty, old fishing town that has
Speaker 2: seen much better days. A downtown was cut off by
Speaker 2: a highway. There's a ton of poverty. There's a big
Speaker 2: drug epidemic there. It's a huge fishing port. There's a
Speaker 2: huge migrant population there that works in these fish houses
Speaker 2: on the waterfront. It's basically a place that a lot
Speaker 2: of people drive through on their way to Cape Cod.
Speaker 2: But it is an extremely gritty, sort of formerly powerful
Speaker 2: industrial whaling city that has fallen on very hard times.
Speaker 2: And so I worked there for two years when I
Speaker 2: was in my twenties, and I do think that that
Speaker 2: made me very scrappy, because you know, there was twelve
Speaker 2: reporters on staff. I wrote eight stories a week. I
Speaker 2: covered local politics. And the thing is when you cover
Speaker 2: local politics in Massachusetts, which is the place that people
Speaker 2: really care about politics, you also run into like the
Speaker 2: selectmen that you cover at the coffee shop, and you
Speaker 2: know when you're getting lunch, and so everybody gives you
Speaker 2: feedback all the time on your stories. And I definitely
Speaker 2: think it made me realize that journalism is about covering things,
Speaker 2: but it's not just about the horse race. It's really
Speaker 2: about what happens in people's lives, and there's a great
Speaker 2: responsibility to that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would argue actually that the horse race coverage
Speaker 1: off an eclipses coverage of real policy issues that have
Speaker 1: a direct and pivotal impact on voters' lives, and we
Speaker 1: could do better to tilt more in that direction than
Speaker 1: sometimes we do. But we're in an election season and
Speaker 1: you've covered obviously national elections before. Was your first national
Speaker 1: reporting job at MPR in two thousand and eight or
Speaker 1: do I have the timeline wrong?
Speaker 2: No, that's right, And so I ended up at NPER
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight as a producer during the
Speaker 2: electtion that Obama won. It was super historic and I
Speaker 2: learned so much on that campaign. But one thing that
Speaker 2: I did realize was that horse race politics sort of
Speaker 2: failed us a little bit in that election, because I
Speaker 2: do remember that fall of two thousand and eight, there
Speaker 2: was a huge financial crisis, you have to remember, and
Speaker 2: I remember sitting in a big meeting at NPR. You know,
Speaker 2: it was a very low level employee there, and everyone
Speaker 2: was trying to figure out how to cover the financial
Speaker 2: crisis in terms of the presidential race, and political reporters
Speaker 2: really didn't know what they were doing then, because the
Speaker 2: financial crisis and the economic downturn that came about really
Speaker 2: was so much bigger and ended up influencing the campaign
Speaker 2: quite a bit. John McCain, who was Obama's challenger at
Speaker 2: that point, was really caught flat footed by that. And
Speaker 2: so after that I took a break from covering politics
Speaker 2: for a few years and covered business and economics in
Speaker 2: New York and then in DC, and sort of having
Speaker 2: that background in economic policy in business really ended up
Speaker 2: informing me quite a bit when I went back to
Speaker 2: political reporting in twenty sixteen, And I do think that
Speaker 2: that has been really a hallmark of my journalism career,
Speaker 2: is sort of this blending of politics and policy, and
Speaker 2: that's really what interests me the most.
Speaker 1: And in twenty sixteen you were at Politico. Obviously that
Speaker 1: was an epic race for any number of reasons, but
Speaker 1: that was obviously Donald Trump's great debut on national political landscape.
Speaker 1: Were you aware during that election that this essentially seismic
Speaker 1: moment had arrived or did it sort of reveal itself
Speaker 1: more gradually to you?
Speaker 2: It revealed itself a little bit more gradually in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen that fall Politico assigned me and another reporter to
Speaker 2: basically get to know all of the Trump transition people.
Speaker 2: And the transition people are the people who will like
Speaker 2: go in, you know, if someone wins and sort of
Speaker 2: form the government initially, and it was funny because I
Speaker 2: got to know all of them well because they didn't
Speaker 2: think they were going to win, you know, even the
Speaker 2: people around tru But you know, you have to remember,
Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen, the people are on Trump and the
Speaker 2: people who were closest to Trump did not think he
Speaker 2: was going to win the twenty sixteen election. They were
Speaker 2: surprised by that. So I think the media was surprised,
Speaker 2: Trump was surprised, and I think all of Republican politics
Speaker 2: was surprised. And it's never been the same since.
Speaker 1: What were the biggest changes, And not necessarily exactly in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, but during the evolution of the Trump presidency
Speaker 1: in the White House, I mean, we're aware of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump as a in my mind, you know, a cartoon
Speaker 1: figure willing to burn down certain civic norms to have
Speaker 1: his way. I think that's been on steroids more recently,
Speaker 1: but we can get to that. But beyond Trump as
Speaker 1: a kind of human phenomenon and someone bursting the seams
Speaker 1: of traditional presidencies and raising the specter of authoritarian rule,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. What other sort of foundational changes
Speaker 1: did you see in that twenty sixteen to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: period that made that political era in that White House
Speaker 1: different from other presidential races and administrations you had covered.
Speaker 2: Well, it was just wild that he won the presidency.
Speaker 2: I mean, he you know, had sort of no organization,
Speaker 2: you know, in twenty sixteen in Iowa, he had like
Speaker 2: no field operation, no one there, you know, no one
Speaker 2: there to speak up for him at caucuses. And he
Speaker 2: did lose the Iowa caucuses in twenty sixteen to Senator
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz of Texas, but it was only by six
Speaker 2: thousand votes. And he really changed the Republican Party in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen. He was able to speak to the working
Speaker 2: class in a way that Republicans hadn't. He shed a
Speaker 2: lot of the conventions that Republicans had been talking about
Speaker 2: for years, Like he didn't want to cut social Security
Speaker 2: in Medicare, which is what all these other Republicans like
Speaker 2: Paul Ryan had been talking about for years. He wanted
Speaker 2: to protect that. He talked about trade. He basically changed
Speaker 2: the way Republicans talk about trade. Forever Republicans used to
Speaker 2: be sort of these country club people who wanted to
Speaker 2: cut taxes and believed in free trade. He doesn't, you know,
Speaker 2: he really believes in this whole different trade policy of
Speaker 2: putting punishing tariffs on other countries, really punishing China and
Speaker 2: going after them, and that has informed not just the
Speaker 2: Republican Party, but Democrats too, And then within his White
Speaker 2: House he continued with that. He changed the nature of
Speaker 2: immigration and how it looked. He was much more about
Speaker 2: closing borders, restricting the number of people that could come here.
Speaker 2: Trade was a huge thing. You know. I can't overstate
Speaker 2: enough the extent to which he has remade the whole
Speaker 2: Republican Party in his image and his policy philosophy. And
Speaker 2: that started in twenty sixteen, and when he took the
Speaker 2: White House it was just, you know, really took off well.
Speaker 1: And in many ways, it's not about a fully coherent
Speaker 1: set of governing principles or policy principles. It is about
Speaker 1: fostering this idea, almost a cult of personality around Trump himself,
Speaker 1: which I don't think the Republican Party had ever done before.
Speaker 1: They obviously had people who had great emotional connections with
Speaker 1: their voters. I think of Ronald Reagan, for example, or
Speaker 1: Dwight Eisenhower, or even George W. Bush in the early
Speaker 1: part of his first term in office. Having said all
Speaker 1: of that, Trump leaves his mark on this party, but
Speaker 1: he still loses in twenty twenty. And in your mind,
Speaker 1: why did he lose that race.
Speaker 2: I think he lost that race because of COVID. You
Speaker 2: know I covered that race and he honestly, before COVID hit,
Speaker 2: it seemed like he was on track to win. The
Speaker 2: economy was doing very well, He was doing well in polls.
Speaker 2: I remember Biden was nothing in Iowa Genmine. Reporters who
Speaker 2: saw him there for the Democratic caucuses in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: thought he seemed tired. He didn't seem like he was
Speaker 2: with it. He was not drawing big crowds. But then
Speaker 2: COVID hit in twenty twenty. In February, we really started
Speaker 2: to see the first hints that this would be a
Speaker 2: global problem. And then things started to shut down in March, schools, businesses,
Speaker 2: the whole world change. And Trump responded very poorly to that.
Speaker 2: He did not want to do mask mandates. He started
Speaker 2: warring with his health officials. It didn't seem like he
Speaker 2: took it seriously. He gave these pretty crazy two hour
Speaker 2: COVID briefings where he urged people to inject themselves with
Speaker 2: bleach like it just it became off the rails. And
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of the infighting in his White
Speaker 2: House or the influence of family members like Jared Kushner
Speaker 2: was really laid bare during that time period, and they
Speaker 2: could not come up with an effective COVID response. Tons
Speaker 2: of people were dying. It's funny because they did actually
Speaker 2: help develop the COVID vaccine very quickly, and I think
Speaker 2: that if his earlier response had been more measured and
Speaker 2: more tempered, that he would have potentially won reelection and
Speaker 2: gotten credit for the COVID vaccine and its development. But
Speaker 2: the public handling of it seemed like a disaster. I
Speaker 2: think Americans felt tired of the chaos in the middle
Speaker 2: of a global pandemic, and you have to remember that summer,
Speaker 2: in addition to facing a global pandemic, there was a
Speaker 2: ton of unrest. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police
Speaker 2: Office us her people were protesting in the street. People
Speaker 2: were mad about race relations in the country, and it
Speaker 2: just felt like Donald Trump was adding fuel to the
Speaker 2: fire rather than resolving it, you know, leading the country
Speaker 2: in the extreme times of turmoil. And you know, he's
Speaker 2: never been a president for the whole country. He's always
Speaker 2: been a president that really speaks to his supporters, and
Speaker 2: that became very apparent during that time.
Speaker 1: He also was impeached twice. He escaped that, but there
Speaker 1: were also two impeachments. And the other thing I think
Speaker 1: about COVID is he was sort of trapped by this
Speaker 1: populis fervor he had helped unleash because I think there
Speaker 1: was this widespread belief that government couldn't be a force
Speaker 1: for good, You couldn't necessarily put your faith in government
Speaker 1: solutions to big problems, and COVID really demanded the kind
Speaker 1: of effort that I think ultimately got the country back
Speaker 1: on the right track, which was this public private partnership
Speaker 1: that resulted in the creation of the COVID vaccines. And
Speaker 1: I think he knew in his books he couldn't really
Speaker 1: embrace something like that right out of the gates because
Speaker 1: it ran contradictory to the sentiment of his populace base.
Speaker 1: And much of his own rhetoric about government getting in
Speaker 1: people's ways. We wind up with that with Joe Biden
Speaker 1: in the White House, and you've now covered Joe Biden
Speaker 1: for the last three and a half years or so.
Speaker 1: What kind of a report card would you give Biden.
Speaker 2: Well, I think that Biden has done a ton of things, actually,
Speaker 2: but his White House has really struggled with selling it
Speaker 2: and sort of making that apparent to people. You have
Speaker 2: to remember they've passed a sweeping infrastructure law. They responded
Speaker 2: to COVID, Well, they got it under control. They sent
Speaker 2: a bunch of money to schools to reopen. They made
Speaker 2: sure people had vaccines, they made sure people had tests.
Speaker 2: You know. He had passed the Chips Act, which helps
Speaker 2: basically bring a lot of manufacturing of pretty key things
Speaker 2: to the US like semi conductors and chips. He canceled
Speaker 2: student loan debt that has been blocked by courts, but
Speaker 2: the Department of Education is still managing to do a
Speaker 2: bunch of that stuff in a regulatory way. He appointed
Speaker 2: the first black Supreme Court justice who's a woman. That's
Speaker 2: a huge accomplishment that the left has really wanted. The
Speaker 2: list sort of goes on and on. But for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: and I think it's mostly both the people around Biden
Speaker 2: but Biden himself, they have not been able to sell
Speaker 2: the American people on that record. Biden has never been
Speaker 2: a great orator. He's not an Obama figure. You know,
Speaker 2: he doesn't go out there and give these amazing speeches.
Speaker 2: He's more like a grandpa who has a lot of
Speaker 2: gaffes and makes the same old jokes. And the people
Speaker 2: around him too. You know, it's a very insular group.
Speaker 2: They have been together for a long time, and I
Speaker 2: would say one of my critiques of covering them is
Speaker 2: that they can be very insular and move slowly. And
Speaker 2: so for instance, when we see things like a low
Speaker 2: approval rating, you know, he's having problems in swing states
Speaker 2: with voters. These are like flashing warning signs for this
Speaker 2: upcoming election. And what they're choosing to do is sort
Speaker 2: of double down and blame the media or defensive rather
Speaker 2: than realize this is going to be a tough election
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: And now the first sort of litmus test of that
Speaker 1: is what happened in the recent Iowa caucuses, in which
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, after not really actively campaigning in the state,
Speaker 1: though he had a much more robust ground operation than
Speaker 1: he had in the past, which I think is something
Speaker 1: we can talk about later in the show, because that
Speaker 1: also should be a warning sign to the Biden crew
Speaker 1: from a purely competitive standpoint, But he is not physically
Speaker 1: in the state very much, but he dominates the polls,
Speaker 1: he dominates the sentiment of voters, and he winds up
Speaker 1: with a thirty point victory over the second place finisher,
Speaker 1: Ron de Santis, and slightly more than that over NICKI Haley,
Speaker 1: who finishes in third place. All of the other Republican
Speaker 1: condenders have dropped out of the race so very quickly.
Speaker 1: Now it is Trump versus DeSantis versus Haley. And I
Speaker 1: think Trump was expected to romp in Iowa. But what
Speaker 1: else came out of the Iowa caucuses that surprised you
Speaker 1: despite the sort of foregone conclusion that Trump was going
Speaker 1: to be the victor.
Speaker 2: There well two things. One, I think that it's not
Speaker 2: just that he won the Iowa caucuses. It's said he
Speaker 2: did well with almost every demographic group that includes. He
Speaker 2: did well with all of the age groups. He did
Speaker 2: well all across Iowa rural areas, suburban areas. Do you
Speaker 2: know what I mean, he just did well. He's always
Speaker 2: been a president who has spoken to the working class.
Speaker 2: He did well with college educated Republicans. I mean, he
Speaker 2: is really just has a commanding lead among Republicans across
Speaker 2: the board. And I think that's very hard for his
Speaker 2: rivals to catch up to because it's not like, you know,
Speaker 2: they can pick off, Oh, well, he's just the working
Speaker 2: class guy, but I'll get the college age Republicans. It's like, nope,
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley got some college age Republicans, but Donald Trump
Speaker 2: got the same amount. Like he's just doing well with
Speaker 2: every group. So I think that that is a real
Speaker 2: lesson to take away, that there is a depth of
Speaker 2: support therefore him that is pretty remarkable. The second thing
Speaker 2: is just that I think Republican voters and voters in general,
Speaker 2: as we've seen in the swing state polls, sort of
Speaker 2: have amnesia about some of the things that he's done.
Speaker 2: Like people don't really talk about January sixth that much.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of polling that shows that a huge
Speaker 2: soauthor Republican Party does not think that January sixth was
Speaker 2: a problem anymore. And so he has also been very
Speaker 2: successful at rewriting the history of what happened sort of
Speaker 2: after the election in twenty twenty, what he was responsible for,
Speaker 2: and I think that we'll see that moving forward.
Speaker 1: Would a candidate in the past be forgiven for inciting
Speaker 1: an insurrection of the capitol, for several civil and criminal indictments,
Speaker 1: for being charged with more than ninety crimes. My feeling
Speaker 1: is absolutely not. So something in the water has changed,
Speaker 1: and I'd be curious to know how. Despite all of
Speaker 1: that important baggage that Trump carries, as well as his
Speaker 1: sort of own proclamations that he might be a dictator
Speaker 1: for a day or more, maybe he'll serve another term
Speaker 1: beyond this one, etc. Etc. All the warning signs are there,
Speaker 1: and yet it doesn't really affect his standing at all
Speaker 1: with his base and now with an expanding part of
Speaker 1: the Republican electorate as Iowa is shown.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been fascinating. And I talked with a bunch
Speaker 2: of polsters in Iowa who have asked questions about if
Speaker 2: he is convicted on any one of these ninety one
Speaker 2: charges that he faces, will that hurt him? And they
Speaker 2: all said no, you know, they do not expect him
Speaker 2: to hurt him. So it's hard to see, like where
Speaker 2: The breaking point is. I have been at a bunch
Speaker 2: of Trump events in the past year, and what I
Speaker 2: have marveled at is his ability to turn his misfortune
Speaker 2: to a political advantage. He is out there at rallies
Speaker 2: telling people, I am being prosecuted because of you. I
Speaker 2: am a victim, I am fighting for you, and these
Speaker 2: people believe it. You know. I was at an event
Speaker 2: in Florida that he did this fall. There was someone
Speaker 2: who had been to sixty rallies. You know, people really
Speaker 2: view it almost like a grateful dead show. They come.
Speaker 2: It's like a sense of community. It's a movement. People
Speaker 2: come to the rallies to see people that they've seen
Speaker 2: at other rallies. They wear T shirts. It's not really
Speaker 2: just like a political rally. It is almost like a concert.
Speaker 2: And he has been so successful at flipping the script
Speaker 2: around on his criminal charges and making it sort of
Speaker 2: all about him and to his political advantage. And I
Speaker 2: will tell you his campaign officials are delighted by this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the idea of I'm a victim too.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like to be persecuted. Even though
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has walked through life with enormous embedded advantages,
Speaker 1: he's a white male. He's a wealthy white male. He's
Speaker 1: had these various rings of protection around him his whole life,
Speaker 1: his father's wealth, celebrity, now the White House. But he
Speaker 1: has always sort of, I think, pitched himself historically as
Speaker 1: the working person's idea of what you would do if
Speaker 1: you became rich. You'd have glitzy women around you, you'd
Speaker 1: have a triplex condo that looked like Louis the fourteenth
Speaker 1: that built it on acid. You would have a jet
Speaker 1: with your name on it, et cetera, et cetera, what
Speaker 1: you do with your lot of money. And he's shrewd
Speaker 1: about that, you know, he's built a business around that.
Speaker 1: What's interesting, though, I guess in the electoral context to me,
Speaker 1: is while he has this bond of shared victimhood and
Speaker 1: presents himself as an EmPATH to his voters, he hasn't
Speaker 1: really come up with a full set of policy solutions
Speaker 1: that really address the very real struggles working class and
Speaker 1: middle class Americans are contending with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, he hasn't, and I don't think that
Speaker 2: we're going to see a ton of policy specifics from
Speaker 2: him ahead of the election, Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I don't think we're going to hear from him what
Speaker 2: would you do on affordable housing, for instance, what would
Speaker 2: you do to tackle inflation. I think that his campaign
Speaker 2: doesn't see a lot of value and offering these specifics.
Speaker 2: I think that they're going to try to win based
Speaker 2: on this personality cult that he has and based on
Speaker 2: the connection that he has forged with his base of
Speaker 2: working class voters. But this expanding base, which we've already
Speaker 2: talked about, and that's really going to be coupled with
Speaker 2: an intense organization this time. They're very organized on the ground.
Speaker 2: That's going to be how they're going to win the election.
Speaker 1: On that note, I wanted just tilt to a break
Speaker 1: here from one of our sponsors, and then we'll come
Speaker 1: right back and pick up this very interesting conversation. I'm
Speaker 1: back with Nancy Cook, who's educating me and you, I
Speaker 1: hope about the presidential primary season that just kicked off. Nancy,
Speaker 1: we were just talking about Trump's win in Iowa and
Speaker 1: the fact that he demographically scored very well with groups
Speaker 1: who had conventionally been seen as not having an affinity
Speaker 1: for him. Of interest to me is college educated Republican
Speaker 1: voters which were seen as sort of the province of
Speaker 1: Nicki Haley, and Nikki Haley has closed within several percentage
Speaker 1: points of Trump in New Hampshire, though that might be
Speaker 1: her high water mark in this whole campaign. But New
Speaker 1: Hampshire's a very different Republican electorate than Iowa. New Hampshire
Speaker 1: has more educated Republican voters, more affluent Republican voters than Iowa.
Speaker 1: So it's a very different kind of case. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you where does Iowa leave Nicki Haley?
Speaker 1: And if she doesn't really have a standout show in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire, you know, her next step is in South Carolina,
Speaker 1: her home state where she was governor, And if Trump
Speaker 1: beats her in South Carolina, I don't see how she
Speaker 1: extends her campaign beyond South Carolina. But I want to
Speaker 1: know what you think about that. And you know what
Speaker 1: we could possibly expect to see in New Hampshire and
Speaker 1: South Carolina with her.
Speaker 2: So Nicki Hailey has spent a ton of time in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire over the last year, and New Hampshire people
Speaker 2: like her, you know, her more moderate style really speaks
Speaker 2: to them. Also, you have to remember that independence and
Speaker 2: Democrats can you know, switch over and vote in the
Speaker 2: New Hampshire primary, the New Hampshire Republican primary. And so
Speaker 2: if a bunch of Independents and Democrats come out to
Speaker 2: vote for her in New Hampshire and she can pick
Speaker 2: up some of the supporters from Chris Christy, you know,
Speaker 2: who just dropped out of the race recently, that could
Speaker 2: really help her. You know, she is closing in on
Speaker 2: Trump in the polling, but I'm just not sure it
Speaker 2: will be enough for her to beat him. I'm not
Speaker 2: on the ground in New Hampshire. I'm sort of in
Speaker 2: between Iowa and New Hampshire now, so I'll have to
Speaker 2: see what it looks like when I'm on the ground there,
Speaker 2: But I would be surprised if she overtakes him. And
Speaker 2: then the tricky thing is is that he is still
Speaker 2: pulling at a huge advantage in South Carolina, her home state,
Speaker 2: and is definitely expected to win there. And so really
Speaker 2: I think her best chance to do well and beat
Speaker 2: him would be in New Hampshire. And if she does that,
Speaker 2: you know, it could change the tone of the race.
Speaker 2: I think it could show some Republicans that maybe Trump
Speaker 2: isn't as invincible. But the Trump campaign is banking on
Speaker 2: the fact that Nikki Haley does not have enough of
Speaker 2: a base in the Republican Party to actually get a
Speaker 2: path to the nomination. That New Hampshire will proper up
Speaker 2: potentially because of Democrats and independence, but that won't be
Speaker 2: the strategy in South Carolina.
Speaker 1: And did you pick up that vibe in Iowa? Obviously
Speaker 1: you were sort of on an Arctic tundra there. You know,
Speaker 1: there was sub zero temperatures, there was a blizzard. It
Speaker 1: affected turnout. I think only slightly more than fourteen percent
Speaker 1: of registered Republican voters actually turned out to vote in
Speaker 1: the caucuses there. What was it like on the ground
Speaker 1: in terms of just the sentiment you were able to
Speaker 1: pick up on in Iowa about Trump and Haley and DeSantis.
Speaker 2: Well, I would say when I was in Iowa, Trump
Speaker 2: just still seemed really dominant. And you know, I talked
Speaker 2: with some business leaders in Iowa who I think didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily want to support Trump again, but were already sort
Speaker 2: of getting back in line because they viewed him as
Speaker 2: the inevitable nine. Nikki Haley really surged in the polls
Speaker 2: in Iowa within the last few weeks, and there was
Speaker 2: some pulling a few days before the caucus that showed
Speaker 2: that she could have potentially come in second, but that
Speaker 2: support was pretty soft, you know, it wasn't people who
Speaker 2: showed the same enthusiasm level that they did for Trump,
Speaker 2: and so I think the bad weather really hurt her.
Speaker 2: She also did not have as much of a ground
Speaker 2: game as DeSantis or Trump did. You have to remember that,
Speaker 2: like she was surging in the Iowa polls kind of late.
Speaker 2: She got some money from the Koch Brothers a little
Speaker 2: bit late. So her ground game in Iowa and Iowa
Speaker 2: is so much about a ground game, like making sure
Speaker 2: people would basically just go to the caucuses. I think
Speaker 2: she was just a little late with the organization to
Speaker 2: do well. You know, DeSantis has a lot of problems.
Speaker 2: His campaign has had a ton of turmoil. The candidate
Speaker 2: himself can be pretty awkward. He has a hard time
Speaker 2: connecting with people. I heard this from Iowan's both you know,
Speaker 2: sort of leaders in the Iowa Republican Party but also
Speaker 2: just rank and file people who I spoke with it
Speaker 2: rallies and events the days leading up to it. But
Speaker 2: he did have a really strong ground game and I
Speaker 2: think that helped him in Iowa. I mean, his campaign
Speaker 2: was like offering to shovel people's driveways and they needed it.
Speaker 1: See. That's why I want them to take a campaign
Speaker 1: more near my house. You know. The one other thing
Speaker 1: I want to sort of think about with Haley is
Speaker 1: Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, has thrown his
Speaker 1: support very strongly and visibly behind her, but he has
Speaker 1: also said that if she ends up not being the candidate,
Speaker 1: he's going to support Trump. And I think that that's
Speaker 1: a kind of drum roll you're going to hear across
Speaker 1: much of the Republican Party that even people who have
Speaker 1: been openly critical of Donald Trump and call him a
Speaker 1: threat to democracy and a buffoon and a racist, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, when push comes to shove and the political
Speaker 1: stakes are at play. And I still find this mysterious,
Speaker 1: but they're willing to throw in with him, and I
Speaker 1: think that that might become visible in New Hampshire. With DeSantis,
Speaker 1: it was interesting to me in Iowa. He gets beaten
Speaker 1: by thirty points, but he said, you know, I still
Speaker 1: got my ticket punch. Here we go. But he obviously
Speaker 1: got that ticket punch for South Carolina because he's not
Speaker 1: going to New Hampshire at all, and so South Carolina
Speaker 1: could be in the end of the road for him
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Couldn't it. Yeah, he is going to New Hampshire. He
Speaker 2: just went to South Carolina first after Iowa. But he's
Speaker 2: not expected to do well in New Hampshire. Some recent
Speaker 2: polling had him pulling like fourth or even fifth behind
Speaker 2: Chris Christy before Christy dropped out, and so we're not
Speaker 2: expecting him to do well in New Hampshire. He's going
Speaker 2: to kind of make his last stand in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: You have to remember the Desanta's people, though, there's always
Speaker 2: like a lot of chest slumping, then a lot of bravado,
Speaker 2: but never back down, which is the super pack that
Speaker 2: did all the ground game in Iowa started laying people off,
Speaker 2: so you know, there's always a lot of bravado there,
Speaker 2: but then they end up doing layoffs because they're running
Speaker 2: out of money. So I know they say they want
Speaker 2: to go through South Carolina, which is at the end
Speaker 2: of February. I do not know if they will actually
Speaker 2: have the money to do that, which is.
Speaker 1: Pretty amazing given the windfall Ronda Santa's had coming into
Speaker 1: this campaign. A big portion of which they appear to
Speaker 1: have spent on the jets, so maybe they'll learn some
Speaker 1: discipline the next time around. After South Carolina, I think
Speaker 1: Michigan is one of the next big votes, and then
Speaker 1: we hit this collection of more than a dozen Super
Speaker 1: Tuesday states in early March. But prior to even Super Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Trump could have this wrapped up. Is this a primary
Speaker 1: season in which the primaries don't really matter?
Speaker 2: I mean, I just think that Trump basically broke the primary,
Speaker 2: you know, similar to the way he broke Republican politics
Speaker 2: and reshaped it in his own image and broke Republican
Speaker 2: policy long standing policy and trade and immigration and all
Speaker 2: these things, he has broken the primary. You know. He's
Speaker 2: done it totally differently, and I will be curious to
Speaker 2: see if anyone ever does it the same again. He
Speaker 2: did not campaign extensively in Iowa until sort of the
Speaker 2: very final stretch. He is campaigning in New Hampshire a
Speaker 2: lot this week, but hasn't spent a ton of time
Speaker 2: up there. And you have to remember that he's basically
Speaker 2: merging his campaign at this point with all these courthouse appearances,
Speaker 2: and he's trying to sort of turn the courthouse appearances
Speaker 2: and speaking after into their own little mini campaign rally.
Speaker 2: But he has totally changed the nature of the primary.
Speaker 2: You know. Also, big donors aren't really backing him, and
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. He has a bunch of people who
Speaker 2: give ten dollars and twenty dollars, you know, all these
Speaker 2: people around the country, and that's what's fooling his candidacy.
Speaker 2: One of the most interesting things this cycle is I
Speaker 2: have never seen such a gap between what sort of
Speaker 2: upper middle class and wealthy Republicans want from the Republican
Speaker 2: primary and what everyone else wants. You know, there's all
Speaker 2: these super rich donors who are berefed that it's going
Speaker 2: to be Trump again, or have been, and they've been
Speaker 2: trying to back to Santis or Nikki Heely but it
Speaker 2: hasn't been working. They don't want Trump, but he's still
Speaker 2: likely going to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: Why don't they want Trump. He's going to cut their taxes,
Speaker 1: He'll loosen regulations on their businesses. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: he is retrogressive in many ways about global trade, and
Speaker 1: he's probably not, in the most charitable analysis, do anything
Speaker 1: to really improve national security. I know he positions himself
Speaker 1: as better on this issue. Than Biden. But the reality
Speaker 1: is he is ignorant of foreign affairs and hasn't really
Speaker 1: developed any kind of a consistent policy about some of
Speaker 1: the global security threats we face. So what is it
Speaker 1: that wealthy educated Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote
Speaker 1: for a Democrat but can't detest Trump? What aren't they
Speaker 1: getting from Trump that they want? Is it simply civility
Speaker 1: or does it go beyond that.
Speaker 2: I actually don't think it's civility. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: we're just giving everyone way too much credit. I think
Speaker 2: it's actually just that his white House was chaotic. Every
Speaker 2: day was sort of this remarkable fight between different factions
Speaker 2: in the White House. There was sort of like a
Speaker 2: business faction or a more maga faction, and it was like,
Speaker 2: if you were a business leader, you kind of never
Speaker 2: knew what policy was going to come out. It kind
Speaker 2: of depended like who won the fight in the Oval
Speaker 2: Office that day. I mean, it was really fun to
Speaker 2: report on. But I think if you're a business leader,
Speaker 2: you want some certainty that policies or executive orders aren't
Speaker 2: going to come out that you like literally weren't expecting,
Speaker 2: or that policy wouldn't change one day to the next,
Speaker 2: and I think it's just this feeling of certainty and
Speaker 2: a desired not to have chaos that has kept these
Speaker 2: people from not supporting him. I do think in the
Speaker 2: end they will get behind Trump because they would rather
Speaker 2: have lower taxes, less regulation, and like the few parts
Speaker 2: of sort of Republican orthodoxy that still remain. They would
Speaker 2: rather have that than Biden. But for now they've really
Speaker 2: been sitting it out. I also think that we may
Speaker 2: not see some big Republican donors step into the race,
Speaker 2: simply because if these people are involved in running public companies,
Speaker 2: there would be big backlash from their employees if they
Speaker 2: supported Trump. So I think these people may stay quiet,
Speaker 2: and although they may vote for Trump, they'll sit on
Speaker 2: the sidelines and instead get involved in things like Senate races.
Speaker 1: And issues like Trump weaponizing Justice Department against his opponents,
Speaker 1: or sending the US military into Mexico to resolve the
Speaker 1: drug wars, or attacking other institutions across our civic and
Speaker 1: academic and media and legal landscapes in the US. Those
Speaker 1: aren't reasons for any Republicans with resources to simply say no,
Speaker 1: I still can't do this. No.
Speaker 2: I think people don't like those things, and I think
Speaker 2: that people think that those are bad things. I just
Speaker 2: think the number one thing is total chaos. They don't
Speaker 2: want the chaos that was around him in the last
Speaker 2: White House. And then I think a bunch of them
Speaker 2: are really bothered by those things. You have to remember, too,
Speaker 2: Trump is totally transactional, and he's into retribution. That's part
Speaker 2: of his personality, and so I think that there is
Speaker 2: a fear when you're dealing with someone like that. If
Speaker 2: you don't play ball and you don't flatter him and
Speaker 2: his White House, he could come after you, you know,
Speaker 2: or your industry, and so I think that is another fear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Ben Carson was on CNN the other night saying
Speaker 1: that Trump doesn't really believe in vengeance and retribution. I thought, huh,
Speaker 1: that's not that Donald Trump. I've come to know. But
Speaker 1: we'll see. There's also been pressure on Biden over the
Speaker 1: last year not to run and to step aside for
Speaker 1: a younger, more vibrant, more verbally adept candidate in order
Speaker 1: to create some energy among younger voters, energy among Latino,
Speaker 1: Hispanic and Black voters who are slipping away at least
Speaker 1: at the margins around the Democratic Party. Why has Biden
Speaker 1: hung in there thus far? And do you think anything
Speaker 1: that happened in Iowa is giving him pause?
Speaker 2: I think Biden has hung in there so far because
Speaker 2: you have to remember, he's always wanted to be president.
Speaker 2: He's run for president several times, and he hasn't gotten far.
Speaker 2: He was finally made vice president under Obama. He has
Speaker 2: a real inferiority complex that has just been a hallmark
Speaker 2: through his political career. There's sort of a real chip
Speaker 2: on his shoulder about always feeling like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: the Obama people looked down at him when he was
Speaker 2: in the White House as vice president there was some
Speaker 2: tension there, and then as president. I think there's a
Speaker 2: real chip on his shoulder. He and his team they
Speaker 2: feel like they've done all these great things, you know,
Speaker 2: for the country. They've changed industrial policy, the unemployment rates low,
Speaker 2: they tackle COVID well, and they feel like they're not
Speaker 2: getting credit for it, and they're mad about it. And
Speaker 2: I think once he got into the White House, if
Speaker 2: it's something you've always wanted and you feel like you've
Speaker 2: done a good job and you're not getting credit for
Speaker 2: you're not going to walk away from it. He is
Speaker 2: eighty one years old, and I think that he and
Speaker 2: the people around him sort of underestimate how much the
Speaker 2: age question weighs on voters and even donors. They're trying
Speaker 2: to overcompensate by this by bringing donors to the White House,
Speaker 2: you know, by having Biden meet with them and make
Speaker 2: sure they feel good. But when I talk to people,
Speaker 2: you know, vote for Biden at this point, I think
Speaker 2: what's animating Democratic voters is not Biden's candidacy. It's a
Speaker 2: threat of another Trump term. And I think people will
Speaker 2: vote for Biden for that reason, not because people think,
Speaker 2: oh wow, he's a perfect presidential candidate for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I want to keep supporting him.
Speaker 1: Let's take another quick break here from a sponsor, and
Speaker 1: we'll roll right back into this conversation. I'm back with
Speaker 1: Nancy Cook, a Bloomberg News political reporter, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about the Iowa caucuses, the other looming presidential primaries, and
Speaker 1: the candidates. If, as it seems likely Nancy, that Trump
Speaker 1: and Biden will be the nominees at the end of
Speaker 1: all of this, how do you see them positioning themselves
Speaker 1: against one another? How will Biden position himself against Trump,
Speaker 1: How will Trump position himself against Biden.
Speaker 2: So we got some glimpse of this in Iowa. I
Speaker 2: think the Trump campaign is really going to hammer Biden
Speaker 2: on the economy and immigration over and over again, and
Speaker 2: those are going to be their two main themes. Trump's
Speaker 2: aids are trying to steer him away from talking about
Speaker 2: his view that he lost the election. They don't want
Speaker 2: him to talk about January sixth, But they're really going
Speaker 2: to hammer home economy the fact that they're say the
Speaker 2: borders are too open, and those are going to be
Speaker 2: the two main themes Biden. Those people are really banking
Speaker 2: on the idea that democracy is at stake. They are
Speaker 2: going to make January sixth and everything that Trump has
Speaker 2: ever said about being a dictator for twenty four hours
Speaker 2: like that's going to be in an ad this year.
Speaker 2: They're also really trying to make women's reproductive rights and
Speaker 2: the restrictions on abortion and Roe v. Wade falling as
Speaker 2: a very key thing. You have to remember that Democrats
Speaker 2: did much better than people anticipated in the midterms. Female
Speaker 2: and suburban women have really turned away from Trump. That's
Speaker 2: a weak spot for him because of abortion. And so
Speaker 2: I would just say abortion democracy for Biden over and
Speaker 2: over again.
Speaker 1: Let's unpack a little bit of that. I think you know,
Speaker 1: in Iowa, both the entrance and the exit polls show
Speaker 1: that the top two issues were caucus goers, as you noted,
Speaker 1: immigration and the economy, and the Trump team is obviously
Speaker 1: latched onto that. You know, the economy. I think the
Speaker 1: Biden team has a good story to tell if they
Speaker 1: can figure out their messaging. Because GDP has grown, wages
Speaker 1: have gone up, job creation has gone up. The US
Speaker 1: is the most resilient developed post COVID economy in the world.
Speaker 1: It's been a very good story. The stock market has
Speaker 1: performed well, et cetera, et cetera. But there's been this
Speaker 1: bugaboo of inflation where people, really average people feel the
Speaker 1: economy more than pointy heads like I do at the
Speaker 1: gas station, in the grocery store, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And they haven't really been able to get around that narrative.
Speaker 1: And by the time inflation appears to have peaked and
Speaker 1: is actually waning, but that might not be in time
Speaker 1: for this election. Immigration, on the other hand, I don't
Speaker 1: think the Biden administration has a good story to tell there.
Speaker 1: It has been chaotic at the southern border. The administration
Speaker 1: came in and didn't really try to move beyond where
Speaker 1: the Trump administration was on this, and states that have
Speaker 1: but the southern border feel this pain, and they've been exporting,
Speaker 1: i think, in heinous ways for political points. They're migrants
Speaker 1: to states like Illinois and New York and Massachusetts, Blue states.
Speaker 1: Why hasn't the Biden administration been able to get its
Speaker 1: act together on immigration?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that to really deal with immigration, you'd
Speaker 2: have to have, you know, probably some sweeping legislation come
Speaker 2: out of Congress, and there's no sort of bipartisan appetite
Speaker 2: to do that which you would have to, and that
Speaker 2: has been the problem for many, many years. Like I
Speaker 2: don't think that anyone in either party thinks, oh, immigration
Speaker 2: is going great. There's just not really a political will
Speaker 2: or consensus in Congress to solve it, and so that
Speaker 2: leaves the Biden team with things that they have to
Speaker 2: do vis a v executive order. But I do think
Speaker 2: that they have sort of tried not to deal with
Speaker 2: it as best they can. And what has happened is
Speaker 2: that a bunch of these Republican governors have sent bus
Speaker 2: loads of migrants to these blue states. As you talked
Speaker 2: about creating crisis in New York. You know where Bloomberg
Speaker 2: has its headquarters in Iowa. The Illinois Governor J. D.
Speaker 2: Pritzker was there on behalf of the Biden administration sort
Speaker 2: of trying to give a counterpro argument in the middle
Speaker 2: of this Republican caucus as to why Democrats would be better.
Speaker 2: But at this press conference, I was said, all these
Speaker 2: questions that he got was what he was going to
Speaker 2: do with migrants in Chicago. And so it is a
Speaker 2: real problem for the Biden administration. They don't have a
Speaker 2: good answer on it, and they've been trying to hide
Speaker 2: from it, and the Trump people are going, I can
Speaker 2: tell you, going to shove it down their throat again
Speaker 2: and again.
Speaker 1: And I think no matter how much the Biden administration says,
Speaker 1: there's only so much we can do because there's gridlock
Speaker 1: in Congress and Congress has to act. Republicans in Congress
Speaker 1: are very happy to hang this particular albatross around the
Speaker 1: White House's neck because they know the electoral points they'll
Speaker 1: score off of it. And they're really going to be stuck.
Speaker 1: And I don't know how they explain their way out
Speaker 1: of that one. Getting over to the Trump side, you know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned January sixth, democracy and reproductive rights for women,
Speaker 1: and one of the other things that really interested me
Speaker 1: in the entrance and exit polls in Iowa again, was
Speaker 1: I think the top two reasons at least an entrance
Speaker 1: polls that caucas Gooers gave for supporting Trump. The first
Speaker 1: one was he fights for us, and the second one
Speaker 1: is he shares our values. You know, he knows he
Speaker 1: animates his supporters that way. He's been I think, engaging
Speaker 1: in pretty craven spirituality, baiting, saying he's the chosen one
Speaker 1: God sent Donald Trump to heal the voters. He has
Speaker 1: tried to engage emotionally on almost any path, regardless of
Speaker 1: whether it's true or not, with his voters, and it
Speaker 1: has worked so for that voting block, things like January
Speaker 1: six and the threat to democracy. It's falling on deaf ears.
Speaker 1: But I do think for swing voters, independence, moderate Republicans,
Speaker 1: conservative Democrats, January sixth and democracy are still salient issues,
Speaker 1: aren't they.
Speaker 2: I think that's what the Biden team is hoping. I
Speaker 2: just think we're going to have the longest general election,
Speaker 2: potentially ever, because if Trump wins the nomination by early
Speaker 2: to mid March, will be have a general election fight
Speaker 2: from March to November. That is a very long time
Speaker 2: for Trump and Biden to sort of go after each other.
Speaker 2: And I think that what we haven't seen is while
Speaker 2: Trump's support among Republicans is much deeper than we thought,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm still not totally sure once we do
Speaker 2: hit a general election and all the media focus is
Speaker 2: on him day after day and not like him Nikki Haley, DeSantis,
Speaker 2: avec Ramaswami like once it's just really trained on him,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that like his statements or the things
Speaker 2: that he says off the cuff at rallies or at events,
Speaker 2: I'm just not sure how those will play with as
Speaker 2: you said, moderates, swing state voters, suburban women like these
Speaker 2: are people that have turned away from him in the past,
Speaker 2: and I'll be very curious to see that, you know,
Speaker 2: once we hit the summer.
Speaker 1: Although he won the presidency in twenty sixteen, he has
Speaker 1: lost every national referendum he's been engaged with since then,
Speaker 1: the twenty eighteen midterms, the twenty twenty election, the twenty
Speaker 1: two midterms, with more recently abortion being a real key
Speaker 1: reason for that. That was the last sort of policy
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to ask you about. Is that made
Speaker 1: a big difference in the midterms. We've seen voters in
Speaker 1: unexpected states like Kansas and Ohio really moves strongly to
Speaker 1: protect women's access to abortion and reproductive rights. How big
Speaker 1: a factor is that going to be in the Biden
Speaker 1: Trump face off.
Speaker 2: I think it's going to be huge. And the way
Speaker 2: that immigration is probably the weakest spot for the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: abortion is the weakest spot for Trump, but also for
Speaker 2: all Republicans. It's interesting because Trump really tries to distance
Speaker 2: himself from the abortion question, when in fact he appointed
Speaker 2: the three Supreme Court justices who overturned the Dabbs decision,
Speaker 2: which is overturned Roe v. Wade. But he really tries
Speaker 2: to act like this is a bad issue for Republicans.
Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't involved, like sort of a hands
Speaker 2: off thing, and I think that that won't fly. Like
Speaker 2: abortion is the question that he doesn't have a good
Speaker 2: answer to on his side, and that's why I think
Speaker 2: Democrats keep hammering him on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, On the one hand, when he says that
Speaker 1: I had nothing to do with this, even though I
Speaker 1: appointed the Supreme Court justices that made this happen. He also,
Speaker 1: on other occasions talks about the Court owing him favors
Speaker 1: for their appointment, so he wants to have it both ways.
Speaker 1: All of this is probably going to come down to
Speaker 1: a handful of swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: we know them, maybe North Carolina, and then swing voters
Speaker 1: within those states. But the sort of characteristics of the
Speaker 1: swing voters are a little different than we've had in
Speaker 1: past elections. Right, won't swing voters in this election actually
Speaker 1: be younger voters and voters of color.
Speaker 2: It will be they'll be younger voters, they'll be voters
Speaker 2: of color. I mean, I just think, well, the Democrats
Speaker 2: at least expect this election to be very, very close.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of wild that our presidents at this
Speaker 2: point are being elected by a tiny sliver of people
Speaker 2: in basically seven states who don't have strong feelings about
Speaker 2: Biden or Trump or it's people who hate both of them,
Speaker 2: but they just have to decide who they hate less.
Speaker 2: And that's kind of the electorate that we're dealing with.
Speaker 2: There's some political scientists or longtime political operatives who call
Speaker 2: these voters who hate both of them the double haters,
Speaker 2: and it's like, which one do you hate? Which one
Speaker 2: are you going to hate less in November? And that's
Speaker 2: ultimately who's going to decide who's in the White House next.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of emblematic of the United States right
Speaker 1: now is we are judging things based on who you
Speaker 1: hate less, not who do you love more. Unfortunately, we've
Speaker 1: also run out of time, but I want to ask
Speaker 1: you one last question. I always like to ask guests
Speaker 1: what they've learned from a certain event or experience. What
Speaker 1: have you learned thus far that you didn't know, say
Speaker 1: two years ago or a year ago, about how the
Speaker 1: Biden Trump face off is shaping up?
Speaker 2: So I would say on the Trump side, Trump is
Speaker 2: still Trump built the way that he has always been built.
Speaker 2: He has not changed, the people around him have changed.
Speaker 2: And there is a very competent, smart, small group of
Speaker 2: people around him that understand politics very well and that
Speaker 2: executed their strategy and ground game in Iowa pretty flawlessly,
Speaker 2: and we can expect to see them take that to
Speaker 2: state by state. And I think the Democrats have not
Speaker 2: really caught onto the fact that Trump is not staffed
Speaker 2: by a bunch of clowns this time. There's no infighting.
Speaker 2: They get along with each other, and I think that
Speaker 2: Democrats should take the people around him and his operation
Speaker 2: this time very very seriously. That's been my takeaway for
Speaker 2: months dealing with them, But that's really my takeaway from Iowa.
Speaker 1: Nancy. I hope you'll come back again and chat with me,
Speaker 1: because I always learned something from you.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I would love to.
Speaker 1: Nancy Cook is a Bloomberg News political reporter covering the
Speaker 1: White House in the twenty twenty four presidential race. You
Speaker 1: can find her work online at the Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: website and on the Bloomberg terminal. You can also find
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at nan Cook. Here. At crash Course,
Speaker 1: we believe the college can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,
Speaker 1: and always instructive. In today's Crash Course, I learned that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has learned a lot himself about how to
Speaker 1: professionalize his political game. That doesn't mean he's going to
Speaker 1: roll into the White House, but it does mean he's
Speaker 1: going to be a more formidable opponent for Joe Biden
Speaker 1: this time around. What did you learn? We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can tweet the Bloomberg Opinion handle
Speaker 1: at Opinion or me at Tim O'Brien using the hashtag
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Crash Course. You can also subscribe to our show
Speaker 1: wherever you're listening right now and leave us a review
Speaker 1: that helps more people find the show. This episode was
Speaker 1: produced by the indispensable Anamasarakis and me. Our supervising producer
Speaker 1: is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help from Sage Bauman,
Speaker 1: Jeff Grocott, Mike Niitza and Christine Vanden Bilard. Blake Maples
Speaker 1: does our sound engineering. Then our original theme song was
Speaker 1: composed by Luis Guerra. I'm Tim O'Brien. We will be
Speaker 1: back next week with another Crash Course