WEBVTT - Biden, Trump, and a Presidency in Play 0:00:01.040 --> 0:00:04.519 Hi, this is Tim. Since this episode was first recorded, 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:08.160 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race. 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.080 As you will listen in the following conversation. We did 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.040 expect him to drop out pretty soon. We just didn't 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.439 think it would happen this quickly. Anyway, Thanks for listening 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:23.640 and enjoy the episode. Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.000 about business, political, and social disruption and what we can 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:32.360 learn from it. I'm Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course Biden 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:36.440 Trump and a presidency in play. The first act in 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.520 the Republican Party's presidential primary season. The Iowa CAUCUSUS has 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.720 come and gone. Other contests in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:48.360 and the collection of fifteen Super Tuesday states all lie ahead. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:52.920 Donald Trump registered a resounding win in Iowa. If polls 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.040 are to be believed, he is situated to easily continue 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:59.080 his sprint to the GOP nomination, the flag bearer of 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:02.160 a party shaping itself in his image. Just a year 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.200 or so ago, mired in legal prosecutions and memories of 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.040 the January sixth Insurrection, Trump appeared to be politically spent. 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:11.880 Voters didn't seem to want to give him another chance 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.720 to torch the Constitution. Iowa at least has proven that 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.240 to be wrong. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, who has presided 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:24.040 over a robust and expanding an economy undercut by a 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.000 savage bout of inflation, a rational and globally minded approach 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.399 to foreign policy in the time of war, and a 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.440 lackluster approach to immigration, comes to the race with strengths 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:37.080 and weaknesses. A lot does it stake in the race 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:39.360 for the White House. And joining me to discuss the 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.240 presidential battle is Nancy Cook, a stellar political reporter for 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:46.319 Bloomberg News. She has covered both the Trump and Biden 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:49.440 white Houses, and she has a wealth of knowledge to share. 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:53.040 Greetings Nancy, Oh, thanks so much for having me Tim. 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:55.440 I want to talk a little bit as we get 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.360 into this about your background, because you have an interesting 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.120 path into your current and powerful role, and I always 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.200 wonder what a nice person like you did to wind 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.639 up in this dirty little business we inhabit. So tell 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:11.600 me a little bit about your first job covering politics, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:13.240 when and where was that. 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.360 So, my first job out of journalism school was actually 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.720 at a tiny paper in Massachusetts called The New Bedford 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:24.840 standard times. It's a gritty, old fishing town that has 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.600 seen much better days. A downtown was cut off by 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.560 a highway. There's a ton of poverty. There's a big 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.040 drug epidemic there. It's a huge fishing port. There's a 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.040 huge migrant population there that works in these fish houses 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.720 on the waterfront. It's basically a place that a lot 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.120 of people drive through on their way to Cape Cod. 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:46.880 But it is an extremely gritty, sort of formerly powerful 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.320 industrial whaling city that has fallen on very hard times. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.600 And so I worked there for two years when I 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.880 was in my twenties, and I do think that that 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.480 made me very scrappy, because you know, there was twelve 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.320 reporters on staff. I wrote eight stories a week. I 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:03.400 covered local politics. And the thing is when you cover 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.440 local politics in Massachusetts, which is the place that people 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.720 really care about politics, you also run into like the 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:13.000 selectmen that you cover at the coffee shop, and you 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.160 know when you're getting lunch, and so everybody gives you 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.960 feedback all the time on your stories. And I definitely 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.800 think it made me realize that journalism is about covering things, 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:25.000 but it's not just about the horse race. It's really 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.800 about what happens in people's lives, and there's a great 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:28.840 responsibility to that. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.480 Yeah, I would argue actually that the horse race coverage 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:37.000 off an eclipses coverage of real policy issues that have 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.320 a direct and pivotal impact on voters' lives, and we 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:42.800 could do better to tilt more in that direction than 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:45.880 sometimes we do. But we're in an election season and 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:50.400 you've covered obviously national elections before. Was your first national 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.480 reporting job at MPR in two thousand and eight or 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:54.480 do I have the timeline wrong? 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:56.960 No, that's right, And so I ended up at NPER 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.640 in two thousand and eight as a producer during the 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.000 electtion that Obama won. It was super historic and I 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.120 learned so much on that campaign. But one thing that 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.600 I did realize was that horse race politics sort of 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.760 failed us a little bit in that election, because I 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:15.040 do remember that fall of two thousand and eight, there 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:17.240 was a huge financial crisis, you have to remember, and 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.920 I remember sitting in a big meeting at NPR. You know, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:23.520 it was a very low level employee there, and everyone 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:25.360 was trying to figure out how to cover the financial 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.080 crisis in terms of the presidential race, and political reporters 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:32.240 really didn't know what they were doing then, because the 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:36.080 financial crisis and the economic downturn that came about really 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:39.320 was so much bigger and ended up influencing the campaign 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:42.640 quite a bit. John McCain, who was Obama's challenger at 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:45.160 that point, was really caught flat footed by that. And 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.719 so after that I took a break from covering politics 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:51.360 for a few years and covered business and economics in 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.280 New York and then in DC, and sort of having 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.520 that background in economic policy in business really ended up 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:01.120 informing me quite a bit when I went back to 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.560 political reporting in twenty sixteen, And I do think that 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.200 that has been really a hallmark of my journalism career, 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.760 is sort of this blending of politics and policy, and 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:12.600 that's really what interests me the most. 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:16.359 And in twenty sixteen you were at Politico. Obviously that 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.240 was an epic race for any number of reasons, but 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:24.640 that was obviously Donald Trump's great debut on national political landscape. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:30.520 Were you aware during that election that this essentially seismic 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.159 moment had arrived or did it sort of reveal itself 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:34.160 more gradually to you? 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:38.640 It revealed itself a little bit more gradually in twenty 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:43.000 sixteen that fall Politico assigned me and another reporter to 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.480 basically get to know all of the Trump transition people. 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.240 And the transition people are the people who will like 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.040 go in, you know, if someone wins and sort of 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.919 form the government initially, and it was funny because I 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:57.600 got to know all of them well because they didn't 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.280 think they were going to win, you know, even the 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:01.039 people around tru But you know, you have to remember, 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.800 in twenty sixteen, the people are on Trump and the 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.960 people who were closest to Trump did not think he 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.080 was going to win the twenty sixteen election. They were 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.960 surprised by that. So I think the media was surprised, 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.599 Trump was surprised, and I think all of Republican politics 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.839 was surprised. And it's never been the same since. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.719 What were the biggest changes, And not necessarily exactly in 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.040 twenty sixteen, but during the evolution of the Trump presidency 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.080 in the White House, I mean, we're aware of Donald 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.680 Trump as a in my mind, you know, a cartoon 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.479 figure willing to burn down certain civic norms to have 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.359 his way. I think that's been on steroids more recently, 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.120 but we can get to that. But beyond Trump as 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:42.039 a kind of human phenomenon and someone bursting the seams 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:46.280 of traditional presidencies and raising the specter of authoritarian rule, 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:50.440 et cetera, et cetera. What other sort of foundational changes 0:06:50.520 --> 0:06:53.239 did you see in that twenty sixteen to twenty twenty 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:57.040 period that made that political era in that White House 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.880 different from other presidential races and administrations you had covered. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.320 Well, it was just wild that he won the presidency. 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.640 I mean, he you know, had sort of no organization, 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.280 you know, in twenty sixteen in Iowa, he had like 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:14.160 no field operation, no one there, you know, no one 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.760 there to speak up for him at caucuses. And he 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.320 did lose the Iowa caucuses in twenty sixteen to Senator 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.720 Ted Cruz of Texas, but it was only by six 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:27.000 thousand votes. And he really changed the Republican Party in 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:30.800 twenty sixteen. He was able to speak to the working 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.960 class in a way that Republicans hadn't. He shed a 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:36.600 lot of the conventions that Republicans had been talking about 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:39.280 for years, Like he didn't want to cut social Security 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:41.680 in Medicare, which is what all these other Republicans like 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.440 Paul Ryan had been talking about for years. He wanted 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.960 to protect that. He talked about trade. He basically changed 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:51.800 the way Republicans talk about trade. Forever Republicans used to 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:53.960 be sort of these country club people who wanted to 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:57.480 cut taxes and believed in free trade. He doesn't, you know, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:01.120 he really believes in this whole different trade policy of 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.160 putting punishing tariffs on other countries, really punishing China and 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.880 going after them, and that has informed not just the 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.680 Republican Party, but Democrats too, And then within his White 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.000 House he continued with that. He changed the nature of 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.840 immigration and how it looked. He was much more about 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.880 closing borders, restricting the number of people that could come here. 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.520 Trade was a huge thing. You know. I can't overstate 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.920 enough the extent to which he has remade the whole 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:32.080 Republican Party in his image and his policy philosophy. And 0:08:32.120 --> 0:08:34.680 that started in twenty sixteen, and when he took the 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:37.920 White House it was just, you know, really took off well. 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.119 And in many ways, it's not about a fully coherent 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.120 set of governing principles or policy principles. It is about 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.720 fostering this idea, almost a cult of personality around Trump himself, 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.480 which I don't think the Republican Party had ever done before. 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.120 They obviously had people who had great emotional connections with 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.959 their voters. I think of Ronald Reagan, for example, or 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.520 Dwight Eisenhower, or even George W. Bush in the early 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:05.319 part of his first term in office. Having said all 0:09:05.360 --> 0:09:08.320 of that, Trump leaves his mark on this party, but 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.479 he still loses in twenty twenty. And in your mind, 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:12.880 why did he lose that race. 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:16.640 I think he lost that race because of COVID. You 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.000 know I covered that race and he honestly, before COVID hit, 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:23.120 it seemed like he was on track to win. The 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.000 economy was doing very well, He was doing well in polls. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.240 I remember Biden was nothing in Iowa Genmine. Reporters who 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.920 saw him there for the Democratic caucuses in twenty twenty 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.760 thought he seemed tired. He didn't seem like he was 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.319 with it. He was not drawing big crowds. But then 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.680 COVID hit in twenty twenty. In February, we really started 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.920 to see the first hints that this would be a 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:50.000 global problem. And then things started to shut down in March, schools, businesses, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.960 the whole world change. And Trump responded very poorly to that. 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:57.000 He did not want to do mask mandates. He started 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.120 warring with his health officials. It didn't seem like he 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.160 took it seriously. He gave these pretty crazy two hour 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.040 COVID briefings where he urged people to inject themselves with 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.040 bleach like it just it became off the rails. And 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.320 you know, a lot of the infighting in his White 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:16.920 House or the influence of family members like Jared Kushner 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:21.160 was really laid bare during that time period, and they 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.800 could not come up with an effective COVID response. Tons 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.240 of people were dying. It's funny because they did actually 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:33.240 help develop the COVID vaccine very quickly, and I think 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:37.040 that if his earlier response had been more measured and 0:10:37.120 --> 0:10:41.400 more tempered, that he would have potentially won reelection and 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.440 gotten credit for the COVID vaccine and its development. But 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:46.880 the public handling of it seemed like a disaster. I 0:10:46.880 --> 0:10:49.640 think Americans felt tired of the chaos in the middle 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.160 of a global pandemic, and you have to remember that summer, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:55.760 in addition to facing a global pandemic, there was a 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.720 ton of unrest. George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:02.920 Office us her people were protesting in the street. People 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.880 were mad about race relations in the country, and it 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.600 just felt like Donald Trump was adding fuel to the 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:12.800 fire rather than resolving it, you know, leading the country 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.880 in the extreme times of turmoil. And you know, he's 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.320 never been a president for the whole country. He's always 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.640 been a president that really speaks to his supporters, and 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:22.800 that became very apparent during that time. 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.360 He also was impeached twice. He escaped that, but there 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:28.960 were also two impeachments. And the other thing I think 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:32.640 about COVID is he was sort of trapped by this 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:37.559 populis fervor he had helped unleash because I think there 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.199 was this widespread belief that government couldn't be a force 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.640 for good, You couldn't necessarily put your faith in government 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.480 solutions to big problems, and COVID really demanded the kind 0:11:48.480 --> 0:11:51.240 of effort that I think ultimately got the country back 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.280 on the right track, which was this public private partnership 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:57.880 that resulted in the creation of the COVID vaccines. And 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.080 I think he knew in his books he couldn't really 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.679 embrace something like that right out of the gates because 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:08.040 it ran contradictory to the sentiment of his populace base. 0:12:08.520 --> 0:12:11.000 And much of his own rhetoric about government getting in 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:14.040 people's ways. We wind up with that with Joe Biden 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.360 in the White House, and you've now covered Joe Biden 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.160 for the last three and a half years or so. 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.920 What kind of a report card would you give Biden. 0:12:23.000 --> 0:12:26.240 Well, I think that Biden has done a ton of things, actually, 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.520 but his White House has really struggled with selling it 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.520 and sort of making that apparent to people. You have 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:36.440 to remember they've passed a sweeping infrastructure law. They responded 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.600 to COVID, Well, they got it under control. They sent 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:41.679 a bunch of money to schools to reopen. They made 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.440 sure people had vaccines, they made sure people had tests. 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.080 You know. He had passed the Chips Act, which helps 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.440 basically bring a lot of manufacturing of pretty key things 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.880 to the US like semi conductors and chips. He canceled 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:57.280 student loan debt that has been blocked by courts, but 0:12:57.400 --> 0:12:59.599 the Department of Education is still managing to do a 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.720 bunch of that stuff in a regulatory way. He appointed 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.000 the first black Supreme Court justice who's a woman. That's 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.080 a huge accomplishment that the left has really wanted. The 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.240 list sort of goes on and on. But for whatever reason, 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:16.360 and I think it's mostly both the people around Biden 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.120 but Biden himself, they have not been able to sell 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.000 the American people on that record. Biden has never been 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.120 a great orator. He's not an Obama figure. You know, 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.800 he doesn't go out there and give these amazing speeches. 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:30.800 He's more like a grandpa who has a lot of 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.640 gaffes and makes the same old jokes. And the people 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.640 around him too. You know, it's a very insular group. 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.080 They have been together for a long time, and I 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.640 would say one of my critiques of covering them is 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.040 that they can be very insular and move slowly. And 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.480 so for instance, when we see things like a low 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:51.040 approval rating, you know, he's having problems in swing states 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:54.680 with voters. These are like flashing warning signs for this 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.040 upcoming election. And what they're choosing to do is sort 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:01.440 of double down and blame the media or defensive rather 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.960 than realize this is going to be a tough election 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:04.920 for them. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.240 And now the first sort of litmus test of that 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.440 is what happened in the recent Iowa caucuses, in which 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:16.679 Donald Trump, after not really actively campaigning in the state, 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:19.960 though he had a much more robust ground operation than 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.080 he had in the past, which I think is something 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:24.880 we can talk about later in the show, because that 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:26.840 also should be a warning sign to the Biden crew 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:30.720 from a purely competitive standpoint, But he is not physically 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.320 in the state very much, but he dominates the polls, 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.160 he dominates the sentiment of voters, and he winds up 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.440 with a thirty point victory over the second place finisher, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.200 Ron de Santis, and slightly more than that over NICKI Haley, 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.600 who finishes in third place. All of the other Republican 0:14:47.680 --> 0:14:50.200 condenders have dropped out of the race so very quickly. 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:54.800 Now it is Trump versus DeSantis versus Haley. And I 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.560 think Trump was expected to romp in Iowa. But what 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:02.800 else came out of the Iowa caucuses that surprised you 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.000 despite the sort of foregone conclusion that Trump was going 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:07.560 to be the victor. 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:11.280 There well two things. One, I think that it's not 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:13.680 just that he won the Iowa caucuses. It's said he 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:17.920 did well with almost every demographic group that includes. He 0:15:17.960 --> 0:15:20.640 did well with all of the age groups. He did 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.760 well all across Iowa rural areas, suburban areas. Do you 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:26.920 know what I mean, he just did well. He's always 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.040 been a president who has spoken to the working class. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.600 He did well with college educated Republicans. I mean, he 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:38.000 is really just has a commanding lead among Republicans across 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.600 the board. And I think that's very hard for his 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.280 rivals to catch up to because it's not like, you know, 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.760 they can pick off, Oh, well, he's just the working 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.000 class guy, but I'll get the college age Republicans. It's like, nope, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.120 Nikki Haley got some college age Republicans, but Donald Trump 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.240 got the same amount. Like he's just doing well with 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.160 every group. So I think that that is a real 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.280 lesson to take away, that there is a depth of 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.840 support therefore him that is pretty remarkable. The second thing 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:05.920 is just that I think Republican voters and voters in general, 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.080 as we've seen in the swing state polls, sort of 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:10.440 have amnesia about some of the things that he's done. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:13.680 Like people don't really talk about January sixth that much. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.320 There's a bunch of polling that shows that a huge 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.360 soauthor Republican Party does not think that January sixth was 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.480 a problem anymore. And so he has also been very 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.320 successful at rewriting the history of what happened sort of 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:29.680 after the election in twenty twenty, what he was responsible for, 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:32.240 and I think that we'll see that moving forward. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:38.040 Would a candidate in the past be forgiven for inciting 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:43.400 an insurrection of the capitol, for several civil and criminal indictments, 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.640 for being charged with more than ninety crimes. My feeling 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:51.320 is absolutely not. So something in the water has changed, 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:55.640 and I'd be curious to know how. Despite all of 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.520 that important baggage that Trump carries, as well as his 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.280 sort of own proclamations that he might be a dictator 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:04.760 for a day or more, maybe he'll serve another term 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:08.320 beyond this one, etc. Etc. All the warning signs are there, 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.320 and yet it doesn't really affect his standing at all 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:17.399 with his base and now with an expanding part of 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.479 the Republican electorate as Iowa is shown. 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:21.960 Yeah, it's been fascinating. And I talked with a bunch 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:25.000 of polsters in Iowa who have asked questions about if 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.680 he is convicted on any one of these ninety one 0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.520 charges that he faces, will that hurt him? And they 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:33.040 all said no, you know, they do not expect him 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.520 to hurt him. So it's hard to see, like where 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.400 The breaking point is. I have been at a bunch 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:40.720 of Trump events in the past year, and what I 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.760 have marveled at is his ability to turn his misfortune 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:48.400 to a political advantage. He is out there at rallies 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.199 telling people, I am being prosecuted because of you. I 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.400 am a victim, I am fighting for you, and these 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:58.119 people believe it. You know. I was at an event 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.040 in Florida that he did this fall. There was someone 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.160 who had been to sixty rallies. You know, people really 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.960 view it almost like a grateful dead show. They come. 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:13.240 It's like a sense of community. It's a movement. People 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.560 come to the rallies to see people that they've seen 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:19.040 at other rallies. They wear T shirts. It's not really 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.480 just like a political rally. It is almost like a concert. 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:27.000 And he has been so successful at flipping the script 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:31.320 around on his criminal charges and making it sort of 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:33.480 all about him and to his political advantage. And I 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.040 will tell you his campaign officials are delighted by this. 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:38.920 Yeah. I think the idea of I'm a victim too. 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:41.720 I know what it's like to be persecuted. Even though 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.600 Donald Trump has walked through life with enormous embedded advantages, 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.200 he's a white male. He's a wealthy white male. He's 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.119 had these various rings of protection around him his whole life, 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:55.560 his father's wealth, celebrity, now the White House. But he 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:58.360 has always sort of, I think, pitched himself historically as 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.520 the working person's idea of what you would do if 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.560 you became rich. You'd have glitzy women around you, you'd 0:19:05.600 --> 0:19:08.880 have a triplex condo that looked like Louis the fourteenth 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:11.440 that built it on acid. You would have a jet 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:13.159 with your name on it, et cetera, et cetera, what 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:15.399 you do with your lot of money. And he's shrewd 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.719 about that, you know, he's built a business around that. 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.320 What's interesting, though, I guess in the electoral context to me, 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.760 is while he has this bond of shared victimhood and 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.959 presents himself as an EmPATH to his voters, he hasn't 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.480 really come up with a full set of policy solutions 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:39.320 that really address the very real struggles working class and 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:41.199 middle class Americans are contending with. 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:44.719 Yeah, you're right, he hasn't, and I don't think that 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.960 we're going to see a ton of policy specifics from 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.239 him ahead of the election, Do you know what I mean? 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:51.840 I don't think we're going to hear from him what 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:54.879 would you do on affordable housing, for instance, what would 0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:58.280 you do to tackle inflation. I think that his campaign 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.080 doesn't see a lot of value and offering these specifics. 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:04.959 I think that they're going to try to win based 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.760 on this personality cult that he has and based on 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.040 the connection that he has forged with his base of 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.760 working class voters. But this expanding base, which we've already 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.240 talked about, and that's really going to be coupled with 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.679 an intense organization this time. They're very organized on the ground. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:21.960 That's going to be how they're going to win the election. 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.359 On that note, I wanted just tilt to a break 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:27.359 here from one of our sponsors, and then we'll come 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:36.680 right back and pick up this very interesting conversation. I'm 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:39.479 back with Nancy Cook, who's educating me and you, I 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.560 hope about the presidential primary season that just kicked off. Nancy, 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:46.679 we were just talking about Trump's win in Iowa and 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:51.000 the fact that he demographically scored very well with groups 0:20:51.119 --> 0:20:53.880 who had conventionally been seen as not having an affinity 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.959 for him. Of interest to me is college educated Republican 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:00.239 voters which were seen as sort of the province of 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.800 Nicki Haley, and Nikki Haley has closed within several percentage 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.399 points of Trump in New Hampshire, though that might be 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.479 her high water mark in this whole campaign. But New 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:15.480 Hampshire's a very different Republican electorate than Iowa. New Hampshire 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.160 has more educated Republican voters, more affluent Republican voters than Iowa. 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.480 So it's a very different kind of case. But I 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:27.159 wanted to ask you where does Iowa leave Nicki Haley? 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:31.000 And if she doesn't really have a standout show in 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:35.000 New Hampshire, you know, her next step is in South Carolina, 0:21:35.080 --> 0:21:37.159 her home state where she was governor, And if Trump 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.119