Speaker 1: Senator going to be with you in person this week.
Speaker 1: For everyone listening, we do one of our shows a week,
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Speaker 1: get in first into the big news. As we got
Speaker 1: here to film this, Ron DeSantis not only did he
Speaker 1: drop out, but he's endorsed Donald Trump for president. Your
Speaker 1: initial reaction to that is that the right decision, the
Speaker 1: right time to do it early on.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, it is big news. I will say, it's
Speaker 2: not surprising you. And I talked about this in our
Speaker 2: pod last week. As you know last week, I endorsed
Speaker 2: Donald Trump immediately following the Iowa caucus. And the reason
Speaker 2: I did that is the results of the Iowa caucus
Speaker 2: were clear. They were decisive. And what I said that
Speaker 2: next day is this primary is over, Donald Trump will
Speaker 2: be the Republican nominee. I thought that was clear from
Speaker 2: the results of Iowa. DeSantis. It was clear that DeSantis
Speaker 2: was going to drop out. We didn't know that it
Speaker 2: would necess be on Sunday, but we knew it would
Speaker 2: be soon. He did not have a path going forward.
Speaker 2: He did not have a path to victory. He recognized
Speaker 2: that once you don't have a path to victory, I
Speaker 2: think the right thing to do is to drop out.
Speaker 3: That's what he did.
Speaker 2: At this point, it is a two person race between
Speaker 2: Trump and Nicky Haley, and we've got the New Hampshire
Speaker 2: primary coming up right now. As I said, I think
Speaker 2: this primary is over, but New Hampshire might represent a speedbump.
Speaker 2: New Hampshire over history has at times been contrary. Haley
Speaker 2: and Donald Trump are polling basically neck and neck in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire. I think it is entirely possible we see
Speaker 2: a close outcome in New Hampshire. I don't think it
Speaker 2: is impossible that Nicky Haley wins New Hampshire. She's within
Speaker 2: two points of him right now. But whether it is close,
Speaker 2: or whether Haley wins New Hampshire, or whether Trump wins
Speaker 2: New Hampshire, I don't think it makes the Hill of
Speaker 2: Beans of difference. If Trump win, the race is over
Speaker 2: that instant. If Haley wins, the race is over shortly thereafter,
Speaker 2: because after New Hampshire the race moves on to South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Nikki Haley is a former governor of South Carolina. But
Speaker 2: Trump has a dominating lead in South Carolina. Trump is
Speaker 2: going to win South Carolina by double digits.
Speaker 1: And that hurts her more, you think, because it is
Speaker 1: her home state. It's kind of like what Al Gore
Speaker 1: loss Tennessee, for example. If you lose your home state,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna go well for.
Speaker 2: You well, and especially in a primary. Remember Gore lost
Speaker 2: Tennessee in the general election, so there was nothing to
Speaker 2: happen after that. In this instance, losing your home state
Speaker 2: in a primary is crushing. You need to be able
Speaker 2: to win your home state. I don't see any way
Speaker 2: that Nicky Haley is going to win South Carolina. And
Speaker 2: right after South Carolina are the Super Primary, the Super
Speaker 2: Tuesday states that are predominantly Southern states. In all of those,
Speaker 2: Trump has a big, big lead. What we've got plan
Speaker 2: out right now is Nicky Hayley has become the moderate
Speaker 2: establishment candidate. So anyone typically in a Republican presidential primary,
Speaker 2: about thirty percent of the voters self identified self identify
Speaker 2: as establishment moderates. That means seventy percent do not. At
Speaker 2: this point, Nicky is clearly owning the establishment moderate lane
Speaker 2: and part of the reason why it is possible that
Speaker 2: she wins in New Hampshire is New Hampshire's estate that
Speaker 2: has a lot of independence. Now, independence in New Hampshire
Speaker 2: can vote in either primary. They can show up on
Speaker 2: primary day and say I want to vote Democrat or
Speaker 2: I want to vote Republican, and so they can choose
Speaker 2: that day, and so independence can really influence the outcome
Speaker 2: of the New Hampshire primary. This weekend, the Boston Globe
Speaker 2: had a big editorial urging independence, do not vote in
Speaker 2: the Democrat primary, show up vote in the Republican primary.
Speaker 4: Operation chaos.
Speaker 2: Basically, well, no, no, but it's very specific, and vote
Speaker 2: for Nicki Haley beat Donald Trump is what the Boston Globe,
Speaker 2: and the Boston Globe says. We don't like Nicki Haley, yeah,
Speaker 2: but we hate Donald Trump. And so particularly if you
Speaker 2: see a bunch of Independents showing up in order to
Speaker 2: defeat Trump. That could happen in one state, but beyond that,
Speaker 2: I don't see any any path going forward for Haley
Speaker 2: or anyone to beat Trump.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Sanders for a moment, dropping out
Speaker 1: and what happens his voters in New Hampshire there are
Speaker 1: some that might be frustrated their guys out.
Speaker 4: Does a majority of them.
Speaker 1: Go historically to the underdog there because you're mad that
Speaker 1: you had your guy dropped out because the guy who's
Speaker 1: in the lead aka Donald Trump. Talk about the psychological
Speaker 1: aspect of voters and what happens historically there.
Speaker 2: So I have not seen the polling in New Hampshire
Speaker 2: of who Desantus's people lists their second choice, and that's
Speaker 2: among more sophisticated polling. You at people, all right, your
Speaker 2: first choices is Ben Ferguson, Who's your second choice? Mickey Mouse? Okay,
Speaker 2: so you write those down. My supposition, so Dessantus was
Speaker 2: about six percent in New Hampshire. He was not gonna
Speaker 2: do well in New Hampshire. That's part of the reason
Speaker 2: Ron didn't have a path. He was gonna get crushed
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire. Then he was gonna go to South
Speaker 2: Carolina and get crushed in South Carolina, and then he
Speaker 2: was gonna go on to the Super Tuesday states and
Speaker 2: get crushed, including getting crushed in his home state of Florida.
Speaker 2: And so they're just as you looked at the calendar
Speaker 2: and said, well, what state can he win? There wasn't
Speaker 2: an answer to that, which is why why this decision
Speaker 2: was made. You know, in terms of where the roughly
Speaker 2: six percent in New Hampshire voters go that we're going
Speaker 2: to vote for him, my guess is that more of
Speaker 2: them go to Trump than go to Hayley. I don't
Speaker 2: know that, But you've got kind of twin factors. If
Speaker 2: you're just making up positions on one factor. Look DeSantis
Speaker 2: as a candidate based on his record, there's much more
Speaker 2: of an ideological overlap with Trump. DeSantis was running as
Speaker 2: a pretty trumpy candidate. It was basically sure Trump without
Speaker 2: the baggage was to the extent there was a Dessatus
Speaker 2: message that was it.
Speaker 4: You and I talked about this.
Speaker 1: If you put them on stage and you went through
Speaker 1: one hundred concerned issues there and said raizor hand, if
Speaker 1: you agree with this or disagreed, they would probably have
Speaker 1: matched up about ninety nine out of.
Speaker 2: One hundred, and so the voters who were with DeSantis
Speaker 2: tend to agree with Trump on the issues Down the line. However,
Speaker 2: some of the voters with DeSantis are people who just
Speaker 2: didn't like Trump and decided DeSantis was the strongest alternative.
Speaker 2: So if you're a voter who doesn't like Trump, presumably
Speaker 2: you go to Nicki Haley. If you're a voter who
Speaker 2: is ideologically aligned and stylistically aligned with Trump and Dessantis,
Speaker 2: you presumably go to Trump. My guess is of the
Speaker 2: six percent, four percent goes to Trump and two goes
Speaker 2: to Haley. That's that's that's just pulling out of the air.
Speaker 2: But notionally, those would be the reasons that that would happen.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go back to your victory for a second.
Speaker 1: That was a life changing moment politically for you. Can
Speaker 1: we talk strategy just for a second there? What was
Speaker 1: your strategy and remind people what the issues were during
Speaker 1: that election with Donald Trump? It was I mean, that
Speaker 1: was a that was a just bloodbath. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of punches that were being swung. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of negative media and I'm talking about media stories
Speaker 1: and accusations and absurd things that I could have never
Speaker 1: imagined when it hit in that race and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it was all there and you came out
Speaker 1: with that victory. When did you think you were going
Speaker 1: to win?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 4: Was there a day or two before? When you thought
Speaker 4: we have the edge?
Speaker 2: Was it a week before, so on the weekend, all
Speaker 2: of the public polling showed Trump was going to win Iowa,
Speaker 2: and all the public polling was wrong. I can tell
Speaker 2: you my polling on the campaign showed we were going
Speaker 2: to win Iowa, and my polling, I think, was one
Speaker 2: point off. And that was consistent throughout the twenty sixteen campaign.
Speaker 2: Our internal polls were almost exactly where our numbers were,
Speaker 2: and so we knew where we were. We ran a
Speaker 2: very very data driven campaign. Listen, twenty sixteen was a
Speaker 2: race where there were seventeen Republican candidates. It was a
Speaker 2: very crowded field, and those seventeen candidates, it was a
Speaker 2: very strong field.
Speaker 1: The level of debate then was at a level that
Speaker 1: I don't think we've had in a long time in politics.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that I loved about
Speaker 1: that campaign was you did have a lot of brilliant
Speaker 1: minds on stage. I kind of missed that there was
Speaker 1: a level of debate that I thought was good for
Speaker 1: the country on issues.
Speaker 4: Did you enjoy that?
Speaker 2: Loved every second of every minute of every day. It
Speaker 2: was incredible, It was breathtaking, It was all consuming. It
Speaker 2: was most fun I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 4: Can I ask an insight baseball question there?
Speaker 1: Rubio, if he would have dropped out before South Carolina,
Speaker 1: what did y'all's polling show?
Speaker 2: Then Trump would have still won South Carolina, but it
Speaker 2: would have been would have been much closer. And and
Speaker 2: Rubio later on, Rubio state in the race for a
Speaker 2: long time and cuts support away from me. And and
Speaker 2: so you know, if you fast forward Super Tuesday and
Speaker 2: before the Florida primary, we polled at the time, what
Speaker 2: happened if Rubio and I ran together as a ticket?
Speaker 2: One ended up happening. I ended up winning twelve states?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: Trump won at the time, it was something like twenty
Speaker 2: three states, and no other candidate won more than a
Speaker 2: single state. So Kasik won Ohio, Rubio one Minnesota, and
Speaker 2: Trump and I won every other state. Uh. We did
Speaker 2: poll at the time right before Florida, what happens if
Speaker 2: Rubio drops out and if Rubio joins me? And our
Speaker 2: poll numbers showed that my support jumped double digits. Wow,
Speaker 2: And I think it would have changed the outcome If
Speaker 2: Marco had done that. I think it is quite likely
Speaker 2: the outcome would have changed. But he didn't. And so
Speaker 2: what ended up happening is even though I won twelve states,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, Trump had too big
Speaker 2: a lead and it essentially took too long for the
Speaker 2: rest of the field to consolidate. That Rubia stuck around
Speaker 2: a long time, Casik stuck around a long time. They
Speaker 2: couldn't win anywhere, but they could suck votes away from me,
Speaker 2: and they did, and that they're sticking around played a
Speaker 2: pivotal part in Trump's winning the nomination in sixteen.
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Speaker 1: nine to seven to two Patriot. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about dropping out, and I want you to kind of
Speaker 1: pull back the curtain, yep, because DeSantis just went through
Speaker 1: this gut wrenching moment. I think in politics people to
Speaker 1: understand how hard is not when you're running president. I
Speaker 1: think on just you, your family, your friends, your supporters,
Speaker 1: the people that are writing checks. It is one of
Speaker 1: the worst moments watching a candidate half decide how to
Speaker 1: drop out, when to drop out, where to do it,
Speaker 1: being good stewards of their supporters and their dollars that
Speaker 1: you're continuingly asking them to give. When you were looking
Speaker 1: at the idea of dropping out, how did that go down?
Speaker 1: Did you talk to a larger group of people. First,
Speaker 1: did you talk to donors, and then a smaller group,
Speaker 1: did you talk to your campaign staff? And then did
Speaker 1: you talk to your family? What was that cycle? How
Speaker 1: did that look like to make that decision, Because obviously
Speaker 1: DeSantis had to deal with that, and now there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people calling for Nicki Haley to get out.
Speaker 1: I don't think she's going to get out anytime soon,
Speaker 1: and so what does that decision look like when you
Speaker 1: were having to go through it.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, almost everyone drops out for the same reason
Speaker 2: they go broke. What drives you out of a campaign
Speaker 2: is when you're no longer able to raise the money
Speaker 2: to keep the lights on, when you're no longer able
Speaker 2: to raise the money to run any ads, when you're
Speaker 2: no longer able to raise the money to pay your
Speaker 2: campaign staff, when you're no longer able to raise the
Speaker 2: money to fly to the next campaign event. That's what
Speaker 2: drives people out. It's also a reason a lot of
Speaker 2: campaigns are terrible at budgeting, and they blow a lot
Speaker 2: of money fast and early, and they go broke. And
Speaker 2: so you have a lot of candidates who drop out
Speaker 2: before a single voter's cast, to drop out before Iowa happens,
Speaker 2: and so marshaling the money. One of the reasons DeSantis
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised that he dropped out is he was
Speaker 2: going broke and nobody would write him a check. At
Speaker 2: this point, when he's gotten crushed in Iowa and there's
Speaker 2: not a state coming up that he had any prayer
Speaker 2: of winning, it becomes impossible to raise money. Both large
Speaker 2: money you're calling donors and ask him to max out
Speaker 2: and no one to write a check. Then if they
Speaker 2: don't think you can win, your money disappears. But little donors,
Speaker 2: people giving five dollars or ten dollars, they don't do
Speaker 2: that either. If they don't believe you have a chance
Speaker 2: at victory, that dynamic is inevitably the case you also haven't.
Speaker 2: And look, it's worth underscoring believing you can win. If
Speaker 2: your supporters believe you can win, it becomes a self
Speaker 2: fulfilling prophecy. So for example, we came out of the
Speaker 2: first three states I want Iowa, Trump won New Hampshire
Speaker 2: and South Carolina. We then went forward. We had had
Speaker 2: Super Tuesday. I ended up on Super Tuesday. Trump won
Speaker 2: seven states. I won three, So I won Oklahoma, Maine,
Speaker 2: and Texas and Texas was a big deal a lot
Speaker 2: of delegates. I want a big double digit victory in Texas.
Speaker 1: Other win Texas than three or four other smaller states
Speaker 1: in the same day.
Speaker 2: Yes, but winning Oklahoma and that's the day Rubio one
Speaker 2: Minnesota that so that was his one victory. But winning
Speaker 2: those three states is what made it at that point
Speaker 2: a two man race, as I established myself as the
Speaker 2: principal alternative to Trump at this point if you fast
Speaker 2: forward from there. So there was a three week period
Speaker 2: in March and April when I won five consecutive primaries
Speaker 2: by double digits. I won Utah, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: all three of those played. All five of those played
Speaker 2: out over three consecutive weeks, and I won all of
Speaker 2: them by double digits, big crushing victories. Normally, when that happens,
Speaker 2: there's a narrative of the parties uniting, coming together. Whether
Speaker 2: you're winning, you're uniting different factions of the party. Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: for example, was that it was an enormous victory. You
Speaker 2: look at Wisconsin, Wisconsin. The knock that the media tried
Speaker 2: to do on me was the same knock they did
Speaker 2: on Hackabe and centaorum, which is he's an evangelical niche
Speaker 2: candidate that just just appeals in small circles. I never
Speaker 2: thought that was a very very accurate characterization. Yes, I
Speaker 2: am a Christian, and that is a big part of
Speaker 2: who I am, but I'm a very different person than
Speaker 2: Mike Cockabe or rec Centaurum. Wisconsin is one of the
Speaker 2: least evangelical states in the country. Wisconsin is a purple state.
Speaker 2: Wisconsin is a blue collar state. Wisconsin is a union state.
Speaker 2: Wisconsin is a working class state. And so under conventional narratives,
Speaker 2: I should have gotten crushed in Wisconsin. I ended up
Speaker 2: winning decisively in Wisconsin. I won very conservatives, I won
Speaker 2: somewhat conservatives. I want women, I won men, I won
Speaker 2: young people, I won Reagan Democrats. It was a thirteen
Speaker 2: point victory in Wisconsin.
Speaker 4: What was the issue there that made that difference.
Speaker 2: I campaigned on my record that I had a strong,
Speaker 2: proven record of fighting for conservative principles, fighting for jobs,
Speaker 2: fighting for the Constitution, and that proven record resonated. What
Speaker 2: happened subsequently, however, is the next week was the New
Speaker 2: York Primary. Now the New York primary is Donald Trump's
Speaker 2: home state. The New York primary also is a difficult primary.
Speaker 2: For one thing, New York has a curious way of
Speaker 2: doing primaries, and that they have a different party, the
Speaker 2: Conservative Party, so that many of the more conservative New
Speaker 2: York voters are not actually in the Republican Party, they're
Speaker 2: in the Conservative Party. And listen, one would expect Trump
Speaker 2: to win his home state. He did, won New York decisively.
Speaker 2: New York is also where most of the national and
Speaker 2: corporate media is headquartered.
Speaker 4: So they loved it.
Speaker 2: And so for the media, they obsessed on that, and
Speaker 2: what ended up happening. We saw a forty eight hour
Speaker 2: time period where the relentless media coverage was the race
Speaker 2: is over. Trump is won, he can't be beaten, he
Speaker 2: can't be beaten, he can't be beaten. Despite we just
Speaker 2: had five double digit victories in a row in a
Speaker 2: row consecutively. The media just flooded the zone with the
Speaker 2: message the race is over, and we saw our numbers plummet.
Speaker 2: So the next week was Pennsylvania before the New York primary.
Speaker 2: Trump and I were tied in Pennsylvania. After the New
Speaker 2: York primary, when the media hammered the races over, the
Speaker 2: race is over, we dropped double digits. Our people gave up.
Speaker 2: They said, you just can't win. That effect, and so
Speaker 2: I can tell you for DeSantis. Once your people believe
Speaker 2: you can't win, they don't show up. Yeah, they don't work,
Speaker 2: they don't make phone calls, they don't give money.
Speaker 1: They get yard signs, they don't do all the things
Speaker 1: that a campaign desperately needs.
Speaker 2: It just takes. So coming out of Wisconsin, the polling
Speaker 2: in California, I was leading Trump significantly in California. Interesting
Speaker 2: until the media just broke our back with the races,
Speaker 2: over the races, over the races, over Trump has one,
Speaker 2: Trump is one, Trump is one, and the media made
Speaker 2: that a self fulfilling prophecy. And so we saw my
Speaker 2: last primary was Indiana and Indiana the relentless media coverage
Speaker 2: and it actually it was quantified. Trump got three billion
Speaker 2: dollars in free media that cycle.
Speaker 1: And so my campaign, by the way, I think you
Speaker 1: should say that again because I think people forget this
Speaker 1: read billion with a B, and so people understand how
Speaker 1: we do this in the political world when're running campaign,
Speaker 1: there's earned media, there's there's there's free media, and there's
Speaker 1: news cycles. He just played to some people's advantage. Donald
Speaker 1: Trump just sucked the free media out of the every room.
Speaker 2: And there was no precedent for it. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: my campaign raised ninety two million dollars. It was the
Speaker 2: most money any Republican had ever raised in the history
Speaker 2: of presidential primaries, more than George W. Bush or John
Speaker 2: McCain or Mitt Romney. And that came from one point
Speaker 2: six million contributions all over the country. Ninety two million
Speaker 2: dollars is a crap ton of money, yeah, unless you
Speaker 2: have three billion dollars dollars on the other end. And
Speaker 2: it actually was quantified. The last thirty days of the campaign.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump got five hundred million dollars in free media.
Speaker 2: This is during the primary, the last thirty days, five
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars. Wow, over ninety percent of it was positive.
Speaker 2: Basically the last thirty days, the media just said it's over.
Speaker 2: It's over. It's over, it's over. And the floor collapsed
Speaker 2: on all of our numbers. Our people gave up. The
Speaker 2: media convinced them it was over. And once they convinced
Speaker 2: them it was over, it was so Dessantus is in
Speaker 2: the same place. His people had abandoned hope and at
Speaker 2: that point, he had no choice and so I suspended
Speaker 2: the campaign May third. I still remember it, well, we
Speaker 2: did a rally.
Speaker 4: What got you to that decision?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: I understand that the money drying up, but explain that
Speaker 1: the sphere around you and how many meetings did it
Speaker 1: take to get to the decision.
Speaker 2: So look, I had a core team, a senior leadership
Speaker 2: team on the campaign, and these are very trusted advisors
Speaker 2: and it's about ten people, and we spent so the
Speaker 2: night before Indiana, we spent several hours going through the
Speaker 2: data and going through numbers. I told you we were
Speaker 2: in Hensley data driven. I don't think there has ever
Speaker 2: been a candidate and a campaign that was as data
Speaker 2: driven as we were. And we knew the results in
Speaker 2: virtually every state before they happened, and consistently our results
Speaker 2: were within one or two points of the outcome. So
Speaker 2: as we were sitting down the night before, we had
Speaker 2: a long, extensive meeting and we go through the numbers.
Speaker 2: We go through the numbers and the subsequent states, and
Speaker 2: as I'm looking at it, there wasn't a state we
Speaker 2: had a path to win.
Speaker 1: So is that just crushing to you personally? I mean,
Speaker 1: you're still in a campaign, you're still fighting center. I mean,
Speaker 1: so the media played a pivotal role in it. So,
Speaker 1: for example, the night of the New York primary, I
Speaker 1: gave a speech in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was
Speaker 1: coming up the next week.
Speaker 4: I remember that.
Speaker 2: It was a brand new speech, so it was not
Speaker 2: my stump speech. It was a speech I'd never given before.
Speaker 2: It was it wasn't terribly long. It was like twelve
Speaker 2: thirteen minutes, so it was not a long stemwinder. The
Speaker 2: media cut it off, they didn't ear it, they just
Speaker 2: went away. Now, mind you, there are only two of us,
Speaker 2: Trump and me. There were four people on planet Earth,
Speaker 2: one of the four of whom was going to be
Speaker 2: the next president. Trump and me, Hillary and Bernie those
Speaker 2: were the four percentiate's remaining. And the media said, no,
Speaker 2: we're not even going to cover your speech. Mind you,
Speaker 2: They would do things like CNN had one press conference
Speaker 2: where they literally had the camera live on an empty
Speaker 2: podium waiting for Trump to speak, and they had the
Speaker 2: camera pointed at the air there's this plane. I mean,
Speaker 2: it was. It was breath taking coverage that just drowned
Speaker 2: everything out. And so as we're sitting there we looked
Speaker 2: at the upcoming states, and when our numbers collapsed, our
Speaker 2: numbers collapsed everywhere. So I'm sitting there with my data guys,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, well, okay, what's the path to victory?
Speaker 2: I mentioned why Desantus suspended he did have a path
Speaker 2: to victory. As I looked at it, I could not
Speaker 2: see any path to victory. Now, I also knew my
Speaker 2: numbers in Indiana. I knew that we were going to
Speaker 2: lose the next day. I knew we were going to
Speaker 2: lose by double digits. Now did I hold out hope
Speaker 2: for a miracle, sure, yeah, but our data was rock solid.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting there's some people in politics who hire
Speaker 2: staffers who just blow smoke at them, tell them what
Speaker 2: they want to hear. I don't understand that. I think
Speaker 2: that's idiotic. I hire a team that they will tell
Speaker 2: me when I've screwed up, they'll tell me when the
Speaker 2: polling's bad, like they're brutally honest. I think that makes
Speaker 2: you much more effective. But I knew that night, Okay,
Speaker 2: the next day, we're going to get clobbered Indiana. And
Speaker 2: if we get clobbered in Indiana, we go on in
Speaker 2: the state's coming up. We don't have any path. And
Speaker 2: I mentioned everyone drops out when they go broke. I'm
Speaker 2: one of the few people for whom that was not
Speaker 2: the case. I wasn't broke. We had several million dollars
Speaker 2: still in the back.
Speaker 4: You could have kept going.
Speaker 2: I had the money to keep going. Now, we couldn't
Speaker 2: do big.
Speaker 4: Advis yeah, but you could run in a campaign.
Speaker 1: You could get to the next state, you could set
Speaker 1: up shop, you could do the you could do the events.
Speaker 2: So when I suspended on May third, Trump was astonished,
Speaker 2: did not expect me to do that. And as I said,
Speaker 2: the reason I did is we looked at the polling
Speaker 2: numbers and there was no credible path to come back
Speaker 2: and win. And once there wasn't a path to win,
Speaker 2: I wasn't interested in running and being a spoiler. Listen.
Speaker 2: I wanted to beat Hillary Clinton. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 2: didn't want to stick around just for the heck of it.
Speaker 2: Once there wasn't a path forward, and so I had
Speaker 2: a speech prepared that night, and we had We're in Indiana,
Speaker 2: and we had several hundred of our strongest supporters that
Speaker 2: were there, and well, actually, let me tell you something
Speaker 2: about that morning. So the morning of the Indiana primary,
Speaker 2: I fly out to this event to do this speech.
Speaker 2: And by the way, in Indiana, I was campaigning with
Speaker 2: Mike Pence, Yeah, who was the governor of Indiana, who
Speaker 2: had just endorsed me.
Speaker 1: It was a big endorsement, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: thought that could maybe change those numbers you were talking about.
Speaker 2: Except we didn't because Pence's numbers were terrible in Indiana.
Speaker 2: He actually was underwater. His unfavorables were higher than his favorables,
Speaker 2: and so we had we actually there were very limited
Speaker 2: places in Indiana we could take Pence because most counties
Speaker 2: we went to it was not helpful. We picked a
Speaker 2: couple of counties where it was. But this is what
Speaker 2: I mean by being data driven. We say, Okay, if
Speaker 2: we're going to campaign with someone, let's do it somewhere
Speaker 2: where it helps and not hurts, and down to those
Speaker 2: day to day decisions. But the morning of the primary,
Speaker 2: we flew I forget what time. We flew to a
Speaker 2: speech that morning, and as we were driving by, there
Speaker 2: was an elementary school on the corner, and the school
Speaker 2: knew that a presidential candidate was coming, and so they'd
Speaker 2: let all the kids go out into the like the
Speaker 2: yard to like to see the presidential candidate. And I
Speaker 2: told the guy driving the truck, I said, pull over,
Speaker 2: I want to go go talk to the kids. And
Speaker 2: so I went and talked to the kids, and I
Speaker 2: ended up just kind of walking right into the group
Speaker 2: of kids, and I was surrounded by hundreds of fifth graders,
Speaker 2: maybe younger, but they seemed about fifth graders. And they
Speaker 2: were cheering and screaming at the top of their lungs.
Speaker 2: And I've never had that happen, by the way, that
Speaker 2: this is the only day in politics that I've ever
Speaker 2: had this experience. And they're literally jumping up and down
Speaker 2: around me and cheering. And I got to say that
Speaker 2: was emotional because I knew that morning that, barring a miracle,
Speaker 2: I was dropping out that evening. So so that was
Speaker 2: a hard day. That whole day was a hard day.
Speaker 2: And I will tell you, look, I don't don't like
Speaker 2: wearing faith on my sleeve, but ben I genuinely feel
Speaker 2: like that morning was God just giving me a hug. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I will tell you, to be surrounded by several
Speaker 2: hundred screaming fifth graders, just just cheering, I was grateful,
Speaker 2: like Okay, I needed this. I needed that, and it's
Speaker 2: still to this day it I'm getting choked up. I
Speaker 2: mean it was. It was a morning that was just
Speaker 2: like wow. So that night we have the rally. I
Speaker 2: have my prepared remarks and I'm giving my remarks, and
Speaker 2: they have me suspending the campaign. As I get to
Speaker 2: I say, I've always said I will stay in this
Speaker 2: as long as there is a path to victory. Ahead
Speaker 2: looking at the results, I don't see a path to victory,
Speaker 2: and therefore I am tonight suspending my campaign for president.
Speaker 2: When that happened, there was a woman in the crowd
Speaker 2: who let out a whale and it felt like she
Speaker 2: had been struck. And I gotta say, it struck me
Speaker 2: like a knife, like that whale hurt. And I made
Speaker 2: it through the speech, and I'll tell you it was
Speaker 2: not easy to make it through the speech. And then
Speaker 2: I went backstage. There was a big curtain that separated
Speaker 2: the backstage and I went backstage, and I'll tell you,
Speaker 2: I was just weeping. They just tears were streaming down
Speaker 2: my face. And to this day, I'm embarrassed because I
Speaker 2: couldn't go out there and thank those supporters, and I
Speaker 2: desperately wanted. There were hundreds of people who had flown
Speaker 2: from state to state and knocked on doors and made
Speaker 2: phone calls that poured their hearts into them, and I
Speaker 2: wanted with all my might to go out there and
Speaker 2: hug every one of them and say thank you, thank
Speaker 2: you for fighting for our country. And I just I
Speaker 2: couldn't stop weeping. And the problem was there were about
Speaker 2: two hundred TV cameras out there, and from my perspective,
Speaker 2: when I thought that night, I said, I'll be damned
Speaker 2: if I'm going to let the media turn lion ted
Speaker 2: into cry and ted that just no, no, they do
Speaker 2: not get to see this. It's none of their damn business.
Speaker 2: And I could so I couldn't come out. And Heidi
Speaker 2: was there, and it was one of Look, any good
Speaker 2: marriage is really a partnership, and Heidi is my best friend.
Speaker 2: That night, Heidi went out and spent.
Speaker 4: Probably two hours saying thank you.
Speaker 2: Saying thank you, and hugging every person there and they're
Speaker 2: all crying too, like it. It was a painful night,
Speaker 2: but Heidi had the strength to do what on that
Speaker 2: night I did not. That's a hard thing, like a
Speaker 2: presidential campaign is so all consuming it consumes sixteen to
Speaker 2: eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. It that listen,
Speaker 2: I feel for Ron and Casey.
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Speaker 1: for details about credit costs and terms. I think anyone
Speaker 1: that runs for president that's a serious candidate and drops out.
Speaker 1: People have asked me, what's it like on a president's
Speaker 1: campaign when it's over, Mike, it's like a funeral.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if you're a true.
Speaker 1: Believer in the campaign, in the candidate, you're giving it,
Speaker 1: you're all you're a staffer, you want your guy to win,
Speaker 1: and it's over.
Speaker 4: It's like a funeral.
Speaker 2: It and I spend a lot of time after Like
Speaker 2: our team, I still think the team willsembled. And I'm
Speaker 2: not impartial, but I think the team we assembled is
Speaker 2: the best campaign team certainly that I've ever seen. And
Speaker 2: they were like family. And so I went and assembled
Speaker 2: the entire team. Our headquarters was here in Houston, and
Speaker 2: I thanked all the staff that this is like A
Speaker 2: day or two later, I thanked everyone and brought them
Speaker 2: in and just just talked about reflected on what the
Speaker 2: campaign meant and what they'd accomplished. And when we started,
Speaker 2: nobody thought I had a prayer. Nobody thought we could
Speaker 2: win a single state, and we came with an inches
Speaker 2: of winning the whole thing. And I will tell you
Speaker 2: we had so Our campaign office was like an entire
Speaker 2: floor of cubicles here in Houston, not far from where
Speaker 2: we are right now, very close, very close to where
Speaker 2: we are right now. And as everyone you know, went home,
Speaker 2: I remember walking through that campaign office and just all
Speaker 2: the empty cubicles and you know the song from Le
Speaker 2: Miz empty chairs and empty table.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was.
Speaker 2: The song I kept hearing in my mind. In fact,
Speaker 2: I'm sure Ron and Case you're feeling the same thing.
Speaker 2: And it's it is a hard thing because everyone pours
Speaker 2: themselves into it. You know, years ago someone told me
Speaker 2: there's a reason that both politics and war used the
Speaker 2: word campaign because it's all consuming. There is nothing else
Speaker 2: in life like when you are on a campaign. It
Speaker 2: is one hundred percent of your will and your heart
Speaker 2: and your mind and your soul and everything. And and
Speaker 2: you know, you do feel like you've let people down.
Speaker 2: You know, you're getting people their uprooting their lives, they're
Speaker 2: moving their families, they're giving sacrificially. They believe in you.
Speaker 2: And look at this point, I've won elections, I've lost elections.
Speaker 2: Winning is much better. Yeah, those nights are a lot better.
Speaker 2: But the reality here, I think this outcome was ordained
Speaker 2: the night of the Iowa Caucuses, when Trump won a
Speaker 2: dominating victory, it was clear to Santus had no oxygen.
Speaker 2: And Haley, as I mentioned, she will likely be competitive
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire, but I see no path for her
Speaker 2: beyond that, and so now we are going to test. Look,
Speaker 2: there are some big donors in the Republican Party that
Speaker 2: are never Trumpers, that who do not like Trump and
Speaker 2: are writing millions of dollars to try to change the outcome.
Speaker 2: I don't think the money can do it at this point.
Speaker 2: You know, they've got enough money in New Hampshire they
Speaker 2: could practically send a masseuse to give everyone a back
Speaker 2: rub and a foot rub on the way to the polls.
Speaker 2: But as you get on to South Carolina, I think
Speaker 2: Trump's lead weight is way too large for Haley to
Speaker 2: have a chance, And from there I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any path.
Speaker 1: Beyond final question your advice to Nikki Haley. If you
Speaker 1: don't have that pathway that you just described, what's the
Speaker 1: point of staying in now?
Speaker 2: Look, you know, I actually try to refrain from giving
Speaker 2: advice to other candidates that everyone's got to follow their
Speaker 2: own heart and do what they.
Speaker 4: Think is right in their own timeline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's you know, calling on people to
Speaker 2: get out. I don't think.
Speaker 4: Let it play out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it will play out. It's going to play out naturally.
Speaker 2: It's going to play out naturally, and pretty quickly, I think.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I recognize the decision to suspend
Speaker 2: a campaign is not easy. And look, depending on when
Speaker 2: it occurs, it can often mean. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: you know, a bunch of the candidates suspended early, long
Speaker 2: before Iowa, and so I ended up of my opponents,
Speaker 2: five of my opponents ended up endorsing me in that race.
Speaker 2: And and so so I got endorsed by Rick Perry
Speaker 2: and Carly Fiorina and Scott Walker uh and and Jeb
Speaker 2: Bush and Lindsay Graham all backed me. And you know,
Speaker 2: you go out and campaign. So you know, Rick Perry,
Speaker 2: you know, went and campaigned with me, and in Iowa,
Speaker 2: you know, and and knew you know, I remember being
Speaker 2: in Barnes there and and look, Rick Perry was was
Speaker 2: my governor, someone who I knew and respected. He's older
Speaker 2: than I am. So it was a little surreal having
Speaker 2: having someone like Rick Perry come and campaign and say
Speaker 2: go go vote for Ted. Uh. You know Lindsay Graham,
Speaker 2: my colleague, you know, he had famously said that if
Speaker 2: you killed me on the floor of the Senate and
Speaker 2: the jury were other senators, you couldn't find a jury
Speaker 2: to convict me, to convict the murderer. And so when
Speaker 2: Lindsay endorsed me, you know, I jumped on on, you know,
Speaker 2: and he helped raise the money for me, and I
Speaker 2: remember saying and saying at the time, I said, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is the first time in my life I've ever
Speaker 2: been endorsed by someone who's publicly called for my murder.
Speaker 2: You know, politics can be a strange and Lindsay and
Speaker 2: I have become friends since then. But it was you
Speaker 2: get interesting Carly Ferina, who I thought was a terrific
Speaker 2: candidate that cycle. You'll recall I announced that if I'd won,
Speaker 2: she would have been my VP. Yeah, that was an
Speaker 2: unusual step to do it early, but frankly, I was
Speaker 2: trying to break through the narrative, the wall of the
Speaker 2: three billion dollars of free media, and I was trying
Speaker 2: to find something that actually would be heard by the voters,
Speaker 2: but the corporate media had no interest in anything being heard. Frankly,
Speaker 2: I think most of the media wanted Trump to be
Speaker 2: the nominee because they wanted Hillary to win.
Speaker 1: And they thought that that was what all of them
Speaker 1: are saying was give us Trump, he's the easiest to
Speaker 1: be it, and Hillary Quinton will become the president units
Speaker 1: It's America and will break that glass ceiling of that
Speaker 1: beautiful building.
Speaker 2: I think that was a very deliberate strategy, and I
Speaker 2: will say for all those bastards that kind of backfire.
Speaker 2: They got four years of Donald Trump as president. They
Speaker 2: may be about to get four more years of Donald
Speaker 2: Trump as president. And it's you know, the self declared
Speaker 2: media overlords that there is an old saying, be careful
Speaker 2: what you.
Speaker 4: Wish for, no doubt about it. I love these conversations.
Speaker 4: I love that we get to do this.
Speaker 1: Thanks for pulling back the curtain on sixteen and explaining
Speaker 1: it from a candidate's perspective, because, as you mentioned, what
Speaker 1: people go through when they have to drop out, especially
Speaker 1: DeSantis right now, it's tough. It can take months to
Speaker 1: come out from that fog of war afterwards, because all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you go from nine to nothing to
Speaker 1: it's all over, as you mentioned, And how long does
Speaker 1: it take to get out of that fog.
Speaker 4: I think it depends on the candidate.
Speaker 2: It depends a lot. Look, everyone has a period where
Speaker 2: you just kind of morning, I assume wrong, we'll do this,
Speaker 2: but but just about everyone goes and go somewhere on vacation.
Speaker 2: And my advice when I talk to a candidate after
Speaker 2: they've lost, and this is true. I've talked to lots
Speaker 2: of candidates who are running for Senate in the House,
Speaker 2: and some win, some lose. But for the ones that lose,
Speaker 2: I say, go somewhere, unplug, get off email, get off
Speaker 2: your phone, get off Twitter. Just just go sit by
Speaker 2: the beach with a pinacolada and and just recharge. Recharge,
Speaker 2: be with your family, hug your kids, just just get
Speaker 2: away for a while, and and look, the world gets
Speaker 2: a lot quieter. You know. In a presidential campaign, it's deafening.
Speaker 2: And then when you suspend it, it's like, Okay, I'm
Speaker 2: out of this crazy game at least for now. And
Speaker 2: then to come out of the funk list in every
Speaker 2: presidential candidate that loses, I think, without exception, goes into
Speaker 2: a funk. I mean you have a bit of depression
Speaker 2: and grieving, yeah, And the key to kind of I
Speaker 2: was no exception to that. I had a period where
Speaker 2: I was just kind of in a funk. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: I think the key to coming out of it is
Speaker 2: finding something to lean in that you love, that you
Speaker 2: engage in and you know, listen, I have a day
Speaker 2: job of representing thirty million Texans, which I love doing
Speaker 2: and pour all of my heart, mind and soul into it,
Speaker 2: and that became go. And then when Trump became president,
Speaker 2: you had everybody to work with, and I rolled up
Speaker 2: my sleeves and said, I am going to lead the
Speaker 2: fight in the Senate for us to deliver on our
Speaker 2: promises we got. We have work to do. And so
Speaker 2: pouring yourself into the fight and into the work is
Speaker 2: I think a really important part of coming out of it.
Speaker 2: And some candidates do that more quickly than others. It
Speaker 2: varies person by person.
Speaker 1: It's fun. I love the conversation. Don't forget me do
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