Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 1/15/23 Election Special: Krystal and Saagar Iowa Caucus Predictions, Why Nikki Support Is Fake, Trump Opens Fire On Vivek, Voter Gives DeSantis Participation Trophy

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

Krystal and Saagar discuss Iowa Caucus predictions, why Nikki Haley support is hollow, Trump attacks Vivek Ramaswamy, Ron DeSantis gets participation trophy.   To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/ Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn

to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. High Key. Looking for your next obsession? Brought to you by the U.S. the way she about to yank my bank account.

Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways

we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Today is the Iowa caucuses. People will begin voting later on tonight in their bizarre Byzantine, some would say, system. But before we get to that, we should actually go over, as Crystal mentioned, the final Des Moines Register polls, considered one of the gold standard polls in the state. Let's go and put it up there on the screen so everyone can see. So we've got Donald Trump, 48%, Nikki Haley at 20%, Governor Ron DeSantis at 16%, Vivek

Ramaswamy at 8%, Asa Hutchinson a whopping one. Still hanging in there. And Ryan Binkley, I actually don't know who Ryan is, but okay. Business man, something like that. Ryan, whatever, there's always one. There's a guy who always comes in somehow. What we find here is that Trump overwhelmingly winning with 28% margin. The big question, and we will reveal what we think actually about this, is the Trump support soft? Is it overstated? And we were comparing a little bit to results

from 2016. I have it in front of me here. In 2016, the Iowa Des Moines Register poll actually had Trump at 28% and Ted Cruz at 23%. The final results actually had Ted Cruz winning the Iowa caucuses with 27.6% and Trump at 24.3%. As you can see right there from the 2016 results, Marco Rubio coming in at 23%. So the question, Crystal, is that going to happen again this time? Is Trump's support going to be understated? I personally think, though, because the dynamics are so different this time around, Ted Cruz, if people remember, had a tremendous operation in Iowa.

It also was at a time of much more uncertainty. That was the very first vote ever cast in official proceeding for Donald Trump. The juggernaut that he was politically did not yet quite exist. And there was a different evangelical turnout. He hadn't been president yet. His favorability numbers were not necessarily where they are right now. And then the problem also, in my opinion, opinion crystal is that Ted Cruz was a far more formidable Candidate than both Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis kind of in their own way DeSantis has tried to mimic the 2016 playbook But Nikki Haley is not running, you know for the same conservative voters She's actually winning a decent amount of Democratic voters fine

If you're running in a general election, but not when you're running in an overall Republican primary. Yeah. And let me explain that piece a little bit so people can understand. So traditionally, Democrats and Republicans both have Iowa as their first voting contest, their first caucus on the map. This is sort of like famous political history, et cetera. Because Joe Biden, the DNC, wanted to make sure to rig the primary on his behalf, and also because Iowa, let's be honest, last time around for the Democrats, utter and complete debacle. So New Hampshire sort of put up a fight about getting bumped back in the lineup. They're still going ahead. They're being penalized by the DNC. We'll talk about that more as we get to New Hampshire. But Iowa, I think because they had such an embarrassing situation

unfold last time, just kind of hung their heads in shame or like, all right, fine, we'll go to the back of the line. So there is no Democratic voting tonight. What that means is that theoretically, Democrats who want to vote in the Republican caucus and try to sow a little bit of chaos or try to register their disapproval of Donald Trump, they can actually register as a Republican at the caucus site itself and go ahead and vote in Republican primary. Polls show, and I think we have the numbers we could put up in a minute, polls show a significant number of Democrats are actually planning to back Nikki Haley and say that if she doesn't win, they're going to vote for Joe Biden in the general election. Now, I am a little bit

skeptical because I always see these narratives come up when it's election time. It's like, oh, the Republicans are going to cross over and they're going to cause chaos in the Democratic vote or the Democrats are going to cross over and they're going to cause chaos in the Democratic vote, or the Democrats are going to cross over and they're going to cause chaos, et cetera, et cetera. I've never seen it happen in such large numbers that it really makes a significant difference. That's right. Now, independents are another story. And this is why Nikki Haley is doing well in New Hampshire, because you have a large group of independents who historically do vote in the New Hampshire primary. And so those independents, if they're looking to be able to participate in democracy,

their only opportunity to do so is in the Republican caucus. So I can see a significant number of independents showing up to caucus with the Republicans tonight. So that's kind of the story of Nikki Haley's support, especially with Chris Christie dropping out. She is really consolidating that quote-unquote hard anti-Trump vote. And based on the numbers, the majority, this won't surprise you. I mean, it's a very wine track, beer track kind of situation. Her support is overwhelmingly white, college-educated, suburban. And so as you're looking at the map tonight and as things are unfolding, those are the places where if she's going to have a big night, they should be coming

in really strong for her. And if she's not doing well there, then she's not really going to do well anywhere. That's another good reason. Whenever you're watching the returns, usually these urban centers are the ones who can report more quickly. And they're also the easiest ones for reporters and all that to get to. So in some cases, you can actually see overstated support for the urban-backed candidates, the suburban people, people who would like to support Nikki Haley. For example, let's put this up there on the screen, as Crystal alluded to from NBC News. They asked the question, if Donald Trump is the Republican nominee in the general election,

would you vote for him, vote for Joe Biden, vote for RFK Jr., or vote for somebody else? 43% of Nikki Haley supporters say that they would vote for Joe Biden. Far more, almost double of the 23% who say that they would vote for Joe Biden far more, near more than almost double of the 23% who say that they would vote for Trump. 8% say that they would vote for Bobby Kennedy. And then 19% say they would either vote for another third party or they are not sure. So it's pretty substantial, the vast, I guess, the plurality of those Nikki Haley voters who will vote tonight in the Des Moines, or at least who are slated to vote tonight in the Iowa caucuses, according to the Des Moines Register poll, are Democrats. And so that pretty significant Democratic crossover. If you're a Republican, you don't want to see those numbers.

You don't want to see those numbers in a freaking Republican primary. Again, that's something that you may want to see in a general election. But you got to get to the election first. And I think that's the major problem that they have right now. So as we mentioned too, in terms of the overall polling average, this can sometimes be even more significant. Let's go and put this up there, please, on the screen. So this is what we have for the RCP average, the average of all of the polls going into this over the last five to 10 days. 52% for Donald Trump, 18% for Nikki Haley, 15.5% for Ron DeSantis, 6.5% for Vivek Ramaswamy, and 3.5% for Chris Christie. Chris Christie obviously no longer in the race, so you can kind of distribute that, probably the majority of that to Nikki Haley,

which kind of does line up, Crystal, with the numbers that we saw in the final Des Moines register poll. But then the big question hanging over all of this, the same one blanketing Washington today, what about the damn weather? The weather in Iowa is completely insane. We have a local news clip here just to lay out how this is the coldest caucus literally on record with minus 30 or so temperatures expected with wind chill.

Let's take a listen. The high temperature Monday will be just below zero, far colder than the coldest caucus on record. That was 16 degrees in 2004. Now the wind chill Monday will be, as we mentioned, 20 to 30 degrees below zero. Again, much colder than minus 21 degrees. That was back way back in 1972. So what does it mean? KCCI political analyst Dennis Goldford says the weather likely will affect the Iowa caucus results. Fewer people may turn out to vote for their favorite candidate and all those poll results and the outcome certainly could change. The concern for the various candidates, aside from not being able to get to scheduled venues,

is that their supporters just may not be able to get to their caucus sites or they may decide it's a done deal or it's just not worth it to them. Yeah, it would have to be worth a lot for me, Crystal, to be able to go out there. So currently, as you and I are speaking, it is minus 11 degrees Fahrenheit in Des Moines, Iowa. Is that the field? No, no, no. That's the temperature. According to the National Weather Service, the feels like is wind chills below as low as 35 below zero. So the lowest I've ever personal experience is minus 20. And that's when your snot actually freezes to your face. So yeah, just to make it real for me. First time I was in Minneapolis. Yeah, you just like go outside. It like punches you in the face, that level of gold.

It's horrible. There's a couple ways to look at this in terms of like, first of all, does it make a difference at all, right? Does it just decrease voter turnout overall, but in similar percentages across the board? That's very possible. One way to spin it, if you're a Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis person, is like, oh, well, Trump's support is strongest in the more rural areas where it's more difficult. The roads will be less treated. You've got to travel further in order to get to the caucus site. So perhaps it has more of an impact on his support versus the Nikki Haley support, which is in the more suburban, urban areas. And I think Ron DeSantis is kind of like

evenly distributed across the state. So that's one theory of the case. The other theory of the case is that if you dig into the numbers in that Des Moines Register poll, Nikki Haley's supporters, the support among her supporters is extraordinarily weak. Yes. 9% of people who say they're gonna caucus for Nikki Haley say they're extremely enthusiastic about it. 9%. The equivalent number for Donald Trump is 49%. For Ron DeSantis, it's 23% of his supporters say they are extremely enthusiastic. So you would think that when it requires so much to be able to go out in freaking minus 30 degree weather and the driving snow and with the iced overroads and whatever to go caucus, that you better be extremely enthusiastic to go out and do that. That would auger more in the direction of Donald Trump. So take that for what it's worth. But again, I do think even though

the top line number for Nikki in this Des Moines Register poll was pretty good, especially the fact she jumps ahead of Ron DeSantis. And she really has staked her claim on New Hampshire. That's really where she wants to put in a great showing. So if she's able to pull off a strong second in Iowa, that would be a very good finish for her. But if you dig into these numbers, Ann Seltzer, who does this poll, said it was jaw-dropping, the lack of enthusiasm for Nikki Haley evidenced by those polls. And then you add to what we were saying before, that much of her support is like Democrats and independents. Are they really going to brave the conditions to go out and vote in a Republican caucus? I think that's a gigantic

question mark. Yeah, she says, quote, her enthusiasm numbers again I think are on the edge of job dropping. 61% are just mildly enthusiastic or not enthusiastic. It just seems at odds with a candidate moving up. She actually says, according to her own poll, her own poll vastly overstates Nikki Haley's support. And don't forget, Chris, we have to explain the bizarre caucus system, the way that it actually works, where there's a first round, but then there's also second round before we get to the eventual vote total. So let's say that she does have soft support. Number one, that's going to be very difficult in terms of getting people out to the actual polls. And then in the various precincts

where she doesn't rise to the percentage that she would need to in the first vote, then her voters would then be able to scatter. But then the question is if they don't support anybody, other candidates than her, are they going to leave the caucus? And this is where the actual voting system gets just completely awry. We saw this actually previously, part of why it was so difficult and the whole software meltdown or whatever for the DNC. This was part of what broke the actual software is that they weren't able to account for the second count voting in this system. Yeah, it was just total, complete meltdown of the tech that they were relying on previously. They'd use sort of more just like by hand or antiquated methods that turned out to be a lot more reliable than they paid some, you know, rising Democratic consultant

star to build this crap who happened to be affiliated with Pete Buttigieg. But we'll just leave all of that in the past. I will never forget, though, when we were covering that. Yeah. At Rising, we were doing like a live stream we're waiting for the results anytime the results are the results are sure to start coming in yeah they kept coming in the year they're like it's coming now we're like okay okay and i was i remember being on twitter and be like i don't think so and then what we we stretched it as long as we possibly could and then at a certain point i think it must have been like 10 30 or so and we're like okay like i guess we're just gonna go home yeah i don't really know what's happening and the pete pete came out and just like declared victory based on nothing. And the

media is like, okay, you won. Sure. Let's move on to New Hampshire. It was crazy. Anyway, that's why Democrats, you know, that in the fact that I think I also want to make sure to mention Joe Biden and the DNC have just decided like, we're not doing democracy. We're going to kill democracy to try to save democracy. A bunch of states have just completely canceled their primaries, even though Joe Biden has challengers. He has Cenk Uygur. Now there's questions constitutionally about him, but you can let the courts resolve whether he is actually a legit presidential candidate or not. You've got Marianne Williamson, who's been running for quite a long time. And you have a congressman, Dean Phillips, who is running against him as well.

And rather than having the confidence to say, okay, we believe in our guy, we think, and the polls demonstrate that he's overwhelmingly the favorite. Let's have a contest and let people go out and register their choice. A number of these states have just completely canceled their primaries. And in Iowa, as I said, they were part of the shift in the lineup to try to make sure to bolster Joe Biden because he did poorly in Iowa last time. He did poorly in New Hampshire, very poorly in New Hampshire last time. So they demoted them because they did not align with the DNC's chosen candidate of Joe Biden. And Iowa's decided just to go along with that. New Hampshire's putting up more of a

fight. Joe Biden will be only a write-in candidate in the state of New Hampshire. But that's why you have the Republicans going and not the Democrats in terms of Iowa. So when I look at all of this, the weather, Nikki Haley seems to be surging at the right time. But then again, Iowa's not a great state for her. And you dig into these polls and you're like, her people don't really care about whether she wins or not. And they're like mostly Democrats and independents and whatever. I feel like in terms of my prediction, I think Trump is going to more or less hit the percentage point that he is getting in this Des Moines Register poll right around 50. Maybe I'm going to say a little bit under 50. I'm going to say he doesn't quite hit the 50 percentage point. I think Ron is actually going to be able to come from behind and get the second place win from Nikki and maybe get like 18 to 20 percentage point. And I think Nikki's support in this poll is a bit overstated

that you could knock off like five points from the Des Moines Register poll. And that's roughly where Nikki will come in. I think Vivek will be a little bit stronger. I think the Des Moines Register poll had him at eight. I put him at like 10 because he's done so much. And we'll put the map up on the screen a little bit when we talk about more about him and Trump. He has done so much work on the ground. I just have to, in my head, believe that that counts for something. But his people, because they met him, because he was there, they feel some sort of commitment to him to actually turn up on a difficult caucus night. So I'd put him more in the 10 percentage points, which is kind of why I'm thinking maybe Trump stays under 50 percentage points. Because out of all of these candidates, Vivek eats into Trump's margins the most because they're

running the most similar type of campaign. Yeah, so my numbers are, I agree with you. I think Trump is roughly gonna be where he is. He's gonna be around 48, 50%. It's possible that he goes over. Actually, I would say it's more likely just because of the whole second system. I agree completely. I think Nikki Haley's support is vastly overstated. So she's going to come down probably to third percent. Ron will come in at second, but likely where Haley currently is around 20. And I also believe that Vivek Ramaswamy, I think he could go as high as 15 percent. Really?

I think it's possible he could even beat Nikki Haley. This could be totally wrong. And actually, this is going to be a big test. We're going to talk a lot about this in our Vivek section is I still have to believe, as you do, that this stuff matters. Handshaking matters. Going to 94 out of the 99 counties in Iowa matters. Spending millions of dollars, you know, traversing the state.

He's got all of these endorsements of these local politicians. Steve King, you know, the former congressman. Listen, I mean, he matters in Iowa. Okay, he was a very popular man in Iowa. Not that popular. I mean, he almost lost in an extraordinarily Republican district. Amongst Republicans, he is popular. Didn't he lose in a primary? Republican primary? It's complicated. More what I would say is amongst Trump people- I'm not sure that's who I'd want backing, but anyway. Amongst Trump people, that's who I would want on my side. So he's got enough of these, he's got these, every MAGA influencer in the country is down

with Vivek right now in his suburban, traversing the state. You've got people like Candace Owens who've been going around with him. My point only being that I think it's understated to a point. I've also seen some polls as well that have either left him out or they're diminishing his support. So if there is to be an upset, I think it would be him maybe coming in third. And look, maybe this is hopium on my part. I just want to believe that campaigning still matters. But it's possible it doesn't. It may

not at all. I could be totally wrong. For me, my thinking on Vivek cuts in two directions, which is why I only give him a couple point bump over what the Des Moines Register poll has him at, which is on the one hand, yeah, I think the in-person stuff matters. On the other hand, I feel like the internet-fueled candidates typically underperform. I'm thinking about Andrew Yang last time around where you had all of this online. He was everywhere and there's huge support and you're thinking, this has got to count for something in the polls. And he's got Dave Chappelle and other people who are campaigning for him. And then when it comes down to caucus night, he actually underperforms where he was in the polls. And, you know, I feel like that's sort of the case

with these candidates who are very online, which I would characterize Vivek as being. So that's why I give him a little bump up for all the work that he's doing on the grounds. But the other problem for him is like, you know, his supporters, and we'll talk about this more when we get to the Vivek versus Trump thing, but like, they're basically Trump supporters. They still like Trump. I mean,

Vivek's still out there, like he's the greatest president of all time. So why are you going to vote for Vivek instead of Trump then? It doesn't make a lot of sense. And that's why he struggled to achieve liftoff. But I mean, fundamentally, it's kind of the same problem that all of these candidates have faced, which is that they all ran campaigns that were predicated on something will take Trump out of the equation. I'm not going to be the one to make the argument to take him out of the equation, but something maybe will happen that will take him out of the equation. And I'm going to position myself to be the top Trump alternative.

That simply hasn't manifested itself. Trump is still there. He is in some way stronger than ever I saw. I think it was a CBS News poll that came out this weekend that had him at his highest level national support in terms of Republican primary yet. So if they were betting on Trump just vanishing and going away or being imprisoned or whatever, that certainly hasn't panned out. And it has left them all bizarrely squabbling for a meaningless second place position that doesn't even make any sense. Yeah, I saw a DeSantis, I guess, influencer, if you will, and I was reading some of his

thought process. Yeah. It's Will Chamberlain, just so people know. I've followed him now for quite a long time. He was actually, why he interests me is he was a MAGA guy and now he's a DeSantis guy. Yeah. Very much on the case of DeSantis is the guy who will actually get it done. And he's like, look, at the end of the day, RDS tried his best.

He ran a race, which is one about actually getting things done. And he's like, look, at the end of the day, RDS tried his best. He ran a race, which is one about actually getting things done. But the dynamics of the race just were fundamentally difficult after the Mar-a-Lago raid. And I do really think history is very different if that Mar-a-Lago raid does not happen. I'm not saying he wouldn't win, but I don't know necessarily if he would be able to win as much. If you look, and it's very interesting, I've gone through and read the quotes that, you know, that in general, that the reporters are able to find amongst these people who are like, I'm all in with Trump, no matter what, almost every single one of them are like, look at Colorado, look at Mar-a-Lago, look at what happened here. They're out to get him, you know, I mean, Tucker, even he was like, listen, you know,

you can't let that stand. Maybe they would all come up with different excuses. It's actually incredibly possible if they're running. But it's convenient enough that it's enough to just be like, no, I'm not even going to think about it. I mean, if you're a DeSantis person, I think that's reasonable cope. But I do think it's cope. Because even before the Mar-a-Lago raid, we were looking at this thing and saying, it just doesn't make sense. Because you have to give people a reason to abandon this guy. And you're not willing to do that. And by the way, they still really like him and he's still extremely popular. So I don't

really think that it, it may be like sharpened the dynamics or consolidated them more quickly, but you also have to look at the fact that once Ron DeSantis actually got out on the campaign trail, he's an awkward dude. He's not charismatic. He's not compelling. He's like kind of hard to watch and kind of hard to be around. And he's not that great on a debate stage. So even if you hadn't had the Mar-a-Lago raid, I don't think that Ron DeSantis would have worn well over time and been able to maintain the margins that he was hitting, which he was still trailing Trump, even right after the midterms when you had this dramatic demonstration of like, oh, all the Trump back candidates got their butts handed to them and Ron DeSantis romped in Florida. You know, I always think those memories were going to fade

pretty quickly, especially when you just look at these two people and putting aside however you feel about them, which I don't feel great about either one of them. Trump has just so much more of an it factor. He is so much more of a star player. DeSantis is so much more of a B-League player. It's just manifestly obvious when you see the two of them out there on the campaign trail. So even without Mar-a-Lago or Colorado or whatever, I think this was going to be the inevitable result. We will never know. That's what I always believed too. I was just trying to give the case. What I would say with Trump is, to your point, he's funny, man.

I don't know what else to say. He's good. He loves it. He loves the game. He loves being up there as evidence of that. And he's funny. Just take a look at what he said to people about why they need to come out and vote in the Iowa caucuses, even if they're sick as a dog.

Let's take a listen. You can't sit home. If you're sick as a dog, you say, a listen. You can't sit home. If you're sick as a dog, you say, darling, I gotta make it. Even if you vote and then pass away, it's worth it. Even if you vote and die, it's still worth it. It's worth it. As long as you come out for Trump. Incredible. There's nobody else who would say it. Ron DeSantis was not gonna compete with that man. Yeah, it's just too good. And there is no alternate timeline in which Ron DeSantis wins.

That's right. We got our friend James Johnson who helps conduct our focus groups. He's on the ground actually in Iowa and he's going to join us now. Let's take a listen. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast

season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her and it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try.

She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1,

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast hell and gone, I've learned one thing. No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case.

They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many

questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is our very own James Johnson from JLP Partners. He conducts our focus groups, if you can't recognize him there in his cold weather guard, but he's actually on the ground in Iowa City, Iowa. So James, welcome to the show. Thank you for taking the time. Thank you for suffering on our behalf. We appreciate it. Thank you. I've got two pairs of trousers on. It's a first. A life first for me.

Smart man. Wise man. I can't even imagine. Yeah, so we're gonna keep this as short as possible so that you can get yourself inside. James, you've been conducting interviews with caucus goers. Tell us a little bit about what you're learning speaking to voters on the ground, who you're hearing from in terms of the type of support for each individual candidate and what you expect to happen tonight. Yeah, well, the first thing I think to say is that we put out a recruiting call when we try and get our interviews so we can try and make sure that we're getting a fair range of people, people who might represent the middle of Iowa politics. And I have to say, the number of Trump supporters we've had in return is really quite significant. And that obviously mirrors what

people are seeing in the polls as well. Trump is clearly the favourite going into tonight. And the voters who are backing Trump, it's interesting, they're not factional. They're not sort of, you know, really hardcore Trumpists ready to go out and sort of, you know, rally for the former president. They're middle of the ground Republicans who simply see him as the incumbent. They see him as strong. They see him as someone who gets things done. And they see him as somebody who's had an effective first term. I was speaking to a chap last week in Davenport in Iowa, and he said that he was worried about the economy prices going up.

He thought Trump would fix that because of his record. He's worried about the southern border. He thought Trump would finish the wall. And he's worried that under Biden, we need to, quote, prepare for war because Russia and North Korea will take advantage of him. He sees Trump as the strong man to counter that. So there's definitely a lot of that groundswell of support for Trump here.

But there's also good support for Ron DeSantis as well. He's clearly had a very effective ground campaign in the state. People who are a little bit less sure on Trump but still want that sort of hard conservative politics, fiery conservative politics, are going with Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley, a little bit more muted. It's interesting, if you look at that Seltzer poll that came out just a couple of days ago,

the final Iowa poll, it showed Nikki Haley in second place. But it also showed that half of her support came from Democrats and independents. And you might be able to see from me now that it's very cold here. And I'm not convinced that Nikki Haley is going to be able to turn out loads of new registrants to the Republican Party tonight to get her over the line. And how about Vivek Ramaswamy, who Trump has just gone after? Vivek had an interesting response saying basically like, I'm sort of

protecting Trump from himself. They're going to take him out. A vote for me is a vote to protect Trump is expectantly the case he's making there. But Vivek has spent more time in Iowa, done more events than any other candidate. Do you see any signs that that has moved the needle for him in a way that may not be getting picked up in the polls? I think Vivek Ramaswamy might slightly overperform his polling, but I think it's going to be hard for him to break 10%, 15%. And the reason why is that for a lot of voters, they're not paying attention to the minutiae. They're not going to all these IRO events.

For them, they just look at the news and they see Trump, and then there's DeSantis and Haley who are behind him. And that's sort of their calculation. I do think Vivek Ramaswamy's clearly ran a punchy campaign. If there's one impact of it, it might be an accidental one. His straight talking and plain speaking has shone a bit of a light on Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley from being a little bit more polished, a little bit more manufactured.

A chap I was talking to again last week in Iowa, he was saying, I last week in Iowa, he was saying, I like DeSantis, but he's a bit of a wannabe. He's a little bit of a politician wannabe. And they didn't like that too much at all. Yeah, I could see some of that. So, I mean, and overall, James, could you just tell us about any unexpected things? You think the weather, obviously, as you can see behind you, you think that's going to play a major role. Anything else that our viewers should look out for? I think the big number to watch is Trump's support. If Donald Trump gets below 40%, then he is going to be in trouble in those later primaries. People are going to say Trump hasn't

got the support he wanted. He's in a dangerous position. He's going into this race with high polling numbers. And Iowa and these primaries are all about expectations and beating expectations. So he's going in with those high expectations. If he gets below 40%, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on Donald Trump's support. If he gets over 50%, then I think a lot of people are going to be saying,

let's just wrap it up now. And if he gets in between 40 and 50, then we may well see a competitive New Hampshire, but ultimately he'll probably succeed in those Super Tuesday states. So that's what I'd say to watch out for. Yes, the race for second place is interesting, but it's going to be whether Trump goes below 40 or over 50 that will really make the difference tonight. Last question I've got for you, James, then we'll let you get back inside where it is hopefully a little bit warmer. One theory that I have seen that I don't particularly buy, but I wanna see if you see any signs of this, is that people basically take for granted that Trump's gonna win.

So yeah, his supporters are numerous. They are excited about Donald Trump. But when they're looking at like minus 30 degrees and snow piled up, they might think like, this guy's got in the bag anyway. He doesn't really need me to come out in caucus for him, so I'm just going to stay home and be warm and cozy. Do you see any signs or any possibility of that coming through? Yeah, so definitely Donald Trump supporters are more likely to be first-time caucus goers. You're absolutely right. Oh, interesting. But they're also the more likely to be enthusiastic across the board. So in that Seltzer poll, 88% of Trump supporters said they

were enthusiastic about turning out for him. That was the highest of all the candidates. Now, when you drill down to very enthusiastic, DeSantis fit the post. But I still think those overall numbers of enthusiasm for Trump will get his people there. If anybody's not going to be turning out, it will be Democrats and independents. You can register to be a Republican on the night tonight, regardless of how you voted or how your registration has been in the past. But can I see droves of Democrats and independents coming out and registering Republican

only to re-register as their existing party a couple of weeks later on a night like this, on let's face it, not the most exciting primary season of the last 20 years or so? I can't see it. And I think that's going to mean that DeSantis and Trump do quite well tonight. Yeah.

Well, we really appreciate you taking the time, James. Go get inside, drink some tea, as I know you guys would like to do, and get warm for us. And we will talk to you very, very soon, my friend. Thank you very much. Yeah, stay safe, James. Thank you. Great to chat, guys. Absolutely. At the same time, as we've teased so many times so far, Donald Trump finally is a gloves off on Vivek Ramaswamy. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. Broke over the weekend from Donald Trump's truth. Quote, Vivek started his campaign as a great supporter, the best president in generations.

Unfortunately, now all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the other side. all he does is disguise his support in the form of deceitful campaign tricks. Very sly, but a vote for Vivek is a vote for the other side. Don't get duped by this. Vote for Trump. Don't waste your vote. Vivek is not MAGA. The Biden indictments against his political opponent,

all capitalized for no reason, will never be allowed in this country. They are already beginning to fall MAGA. Okay. So making the case there that Vivek is a vote for the other side. So how does Vivek handle this? He basically has kept saying, Donald Trump is the best president of my lifetime. I'm running actually to defend Trump because I'm the one that can get it done. He put out a very, very long message on Twitter. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He says, yes, I saw President Trump's Truth Social post. It's an unfortunate move by his campaign advisors.

I don't think, everything is never Trump's fault. It's always his campaign advisors. I don't think friendly fire is helpful. Donald Trump was the greatest president of the 21st century. I'm not going to criticize him in response to this latest attack. Then he goes on, I've met thousands of Iowans. But here is a little bit of his message. I'm worried for Trump.

I'm worried for our country. I've stood up against the prosecutions of Trump. I've defended him at every step. I showed up at the Miami courthouse, et cetera, et cetera. I pledged myself to remove from Maine and Colorado ballots if they remove Trump. But we have to open our eyes. Last time, it was a man-made pandemic, big tech election interference. Now, the same billionaires funding the lawsuits against Trump are the ones trying to prop up Nikki Haley. The same MSN blasting Trump is lavishing praise on her. They want to narrow this to a two-horse race between Trump and Haley and eliminate Trump one way or the other and trot out their puppet into the White House. We cannot fall for that trap.

One year from now, we won't look back and say we were shocked that it happened. We'll kick ourselves for not stopping it. Our movement must live on, etc., etc. I mean, it basically just comes and boils down to this, which is, it's a very nice way of saying, I like Trump, all you people who support him, but he's too dumb to actually do any of the things that he said he was going to do. And I'm the person that can get it done. Compelling message. One that appeals, though, to only someone who thinks that Trump doesn't have the requisite skills to pull off what he does want

to do. Whereas the vast majority of Republican voters are like, no, actually, I'm totally cool with Trump. I believe in Trump. I think he can do whatever he is promising me. So part of the reason why Vivek has had a problem getting to the high level traction that we originally saw some flirtation with him and just in general, why Vivek proving that you can be anti-Trump as Haley was, you can be pro-Trump as Vivek was, you can be everything in between for all of these people. But if you're not named Trump, you're just probably not going to win this primary. I mean, I'm sorry, but I think this is a really embarrassing message to be like, to try to persuade voters that the way to help Trump is to vote against Trump. Who's going to buy that? I mean, people are smart. It doesn't

make any sense, you know? And so Vivek has this whole conspiracy that he lays out of like, they want to narrow it to a two person race. And then somehow something's going to happen that's going to remove Trump from the race. And then they're going to trot Nikki Haley into the White House. And so I'm helping Trump. I'm helping to save Trump by having you vote against Trump. And so in a sense, I mean, what Trump said there, this is effectively like a sly campaign trick. I mean, I think that's basically accurate. I think he is right. That's basically accurate.

That's true. Vivek is trying to posture like I am even more pro-Trump than Trump himself is. And that the way to support Trump the hardest and be the biggest MAGA supporter is to vote against Trump and vote for me. And I just, obviously that argument's not going to win the day. Now look, as we said before, do I think he can maybe get to 10% in the Iowa caucuses? Maybe. But all of these candidates, maybe no one more than Vivek Ramaswamy, really bet on if Trump is out of the race, then I've got a lane, then I've got a shot. And especially because the people who like Vivek are basically just Trump supporters. There's very few people who are Vivek number one and Trump number two. Most people are Trump number

one, and then a good number of them are Vivek number two. But if Trump is in the race, your whole theory here doesn't really pan out. So this jujitsu move that he's trying to pull of like the way to be the most pro-MAGA is to actually vote against Donald Trump. I don't think that's going to work out too well. The only way it works, Crystal, is if Trump literally ends up in prison or disqualified by SCOTUS, you know, to not run. Then maybe look, maybe it was a smart strategy. But in the interim, where you can't really bet on something like that, it's just not going to work. We see there's an interesting, there's video that's come out from Vivek on the ground in Iowa.

This is actually being put out by the Trump people, not Trump campaign per itself, kind of showing the way that he's making his pitch to Trump voters themselves. Pay very close attention to his language, to the way that he tries to convince this Trump voter to switch over to vote for him. Let's take a listen. They're scared of you. They are scared of Trump. They are. And they will stop at nothing. But we're not going to let him get away with it. I've got fresh legs. I'm not wounded. They're not going to let this man do it. You know, when you eliminate that game, you're chill because I'm scared because you think it's false because you think it's true. I think it's true. I think they will stop it. Nothing to stop them.

Stop trouble. It's sad, but it's the truth. It's the sad, but it's the truth. So I'm asking you to do your part. We can do this. We can do this. They say, how do you feel about the United States? And I say, I'm worried and I'm fearful.

My job that you don't have to feel that way in this country. But we're losing you. We need people like you. Young, vibrant. And that's where our founding fathers were. Yes. It's 1776 moments. I want your support at that Iowa caucus.

I get emotional. I'm emotional about this country. I need your support on Monday night. You do this, I'm going to do my part. Okay, you're picking at my shell. You are. Yeah. But, you know, I've got...

It's about this country. It's about this country. You want to save Trump, you vote for me. I'm telling you that. You vote for Trump. You're sending him... He's a sledgehammer. No, but you're sending him to his own demise.

You're falling into the trap that not only a country's falling in that he's falling in. You want to save Trump, you vote for me. I need your support of the Iowa caucus. That's a good argument. It's not an argument, it's the truth. Do the right thing for him and for this country. That's what I'm asking you for. Interesting.

I mean, I don't know if it's going to work out. It took him over a minute. Did she get convinced? What do you think? Did she come away saying? The fact that she's saying the candidate to his face, like maybe means no. That means no. So you run for office. I am not. No. Even if the person says, I am 100% with you, discount 50% of those even. But the one that's like, yeah, maybe I'll consider it. No, they are not voting for you. But I mean, this again, to save Trump, vote for me. Who's buying that? It's silly. It's ridiculous. It's embarrassing to make that case. And I go back to what James was saying, which I think was very astute analysis of effectively like, listen, Republican voters, they see Trump as the incumbent.

They see him as the default. And so if you aren't making a very, very, very compelling case to move them off of Trump to you, not for some elaborate conspiratorial argument, confusing 4D chess argument about how really by voting against Trump, you're saving Trump, etc. If you aren't making a straightforward, compelling case of why you need to move on for Donald Trump, it's not going to work out. And here's the other thing with Vivek that I also want to say is, like, this man has really changed his colors to suit what he thinks is, like, where he should be both for this campaign but also for whatever, like, potential media opportunities he wants for the future. Right after January 6th, he said that he cried when he watched what happened on January 6th. And then this year he's, like like tweeting out happy entrapment day.

So the way what he said in his book, very different from the way he's positioned himself in this campaign, etc. You know, his whole book also was about like anti-wokeness and ESG. The moment he realized that that wasn't really selling, he shifts messages again. So I also think there is a little bit with voters of a sense of this man is trying to just position himself to what he thinks we want to hear. Yeah, I mean, he definitely is all over the place. His defense is that he didn't know about the entrapment on January 6th. I mean, listen, I think there has obviously been a lot of political calculation behind it.

What's interesting to me, actually, was the question of why Trump has decided to come out against him now. Because nothing Trump loves more is than to see somebody who is on television, who is not named Trump, who is defending Trump. So he's held his fire on him. Now, part of the reasoning is, let's put this up there on the screen, Bloomberg and others quoting people inside the Trump campaign, is that Trump is pissed because according to his internals, Vivek Ramaswamy is one of the people who is keeping him from under 50%. He desperately wants to get over 50 in Iowa and then over 50 again in the state of New

Hampshire to seal everything up before it even gets to South Carolina, Florida, and to Super Tuesday. The 8% of Ramaswamy, I think it's pretty unquestioning to say. It's obvious that almost all of that would be going to Trump if he wasn't in the race. The question, as we alluded to previously, Crystal, is how much does ground game in any of this matter? Vivek has put in more work than all of these other candidates, honestly, combined. Let's put this up there on the screen. As you can see, Vivek has done 239 events in 94 counties. Nikki Haley, by contrast, has done 51 events in 30 counties. Ron DeSantis, 99 events in 94 counties. Nikki Haley, by contrast, has done 51 events in 30 counties. Ron DeSantis, 99 events in 57 counties. And Donald Trump has only done 24 events, Crystal,

in 19 counties. He didn't even show up until Iowa, until yesterday. He didn't do the traditional week-long stretch. He did much more on the ground. Now, obviously, he didn't necessarily have to do that. So if Vivek does overperform, and it's possible also that Trump's internal show a lot of that second choice stuff going on with Trump for Vivek Ramaswamy voters, that could be why he ended up attacking him. And I think really what he wanted to do is undercut Vivek's permission structure of like, vote for me to save Trump. He's like, Trump is like, just to be 100% clear, that's not what it is. You should just vote for Trump. Yeah, to be clear, this is nonsense, basically, which I think people will be very receptive to hearing because it's an absurd

case that he's making. But if you look at this number of events in the state, based on the Seltzer poll, it is entirely possible that you end up with an inverse relationship between the number of events that were conducted in the state and the success in the state. Because Trump did the fewest events, and he's obviously in first. Nikki did the second fewest events, and according to that poll, she's in second. Ron did the next. He did 99 events, and he's in third. And Vivek is in fourth with the most events on the board. I don't know what Asa Hutchinson has done, how many events he's done, so I'm not sure where he fits into this calculation. But I mean, that would be a pretty stunning repudiation of our self-conception

of how politics work, and especially how the Iowa caucuses work, and what actually moves voters in these states. You saw a lot of this in 2016. I can stay anecdotally from speaking to people who are involved in many of the races, Trump, Rubio, Ted Cruz, and others. They all told me the same thing. They said a lot of this ground stuff, it doesn't matter at all. Now for Cruz, it did push him over the edge, but Fox News is really what the primary was all about. All of them said that in most cases, they were better off doing Fox and Friends than they were trying to hold an event, driving two hours across God forsaken state in the middle of the snow, and that they could almost always reach more people, that earned media would eventually find its way out there. And that in general, the national mood or the Fox News

primary was 10, 15, 20 times more important to people's votes. Now, like I said, it can help you if it can, you know, to push you over the edge, quote unquote, maybe 4, 5%, something like that, in the case of Ted Cruz. But it cannot bring you from zero to 15. And that's what Vivek is trying to do. Basically, events at this point, campaign events, wherever they occur, Iowa, New Hampshire, whatever, they should be seen by campaigns as generating media content to be distributed through social media or to generate some moment that's gonna be covered by traditional media. But going schlepping three hours to somewhere in Iowa to speak to 30 people, obviously that's not a great return on investment in and of itself. If you again have,

like Bernie Sanders did this well, if you have a campaign team, a videographer that you're pumping out your own content based on your interactions with voters, this is getting put up on various social media platforms to generate buzz and interest far outside of Iowa. Yes, then that can make sense. But these little campaign events in the diner or in the coffeehouse or whatever, in and of themselves, it's just not the way the campaigns work now. Right, exactly. But unfortunately, let's say he underperforms. What message does that really tell us? It's like, you don't need to spend any time underperforms, what message does that really tell us? It's like you don't need to spend any time on the state at all.

You should just be the incumbent. You should get as much earned media attention as possible in the circles or whatever that matter to you. I think that's sad. But, you know, sometimes it is what it is. We're a far cry from 2008 where Barack Obama, I mean, bet his entire case on these little Iowa towns. I mean, he spent so much time there and, you know, had all these college students who flocked across the country. They're organizing and all that matter. And it was like a traditional story in American politics. But, you know, the farther we are away from that, it just looks like ancient history, unfortunately.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Over the past six years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned one thing.

No town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've received hundreds of messages from people across the country begging for help with unsolved murders. I was calling about the murder of my husband at the cold case. They've never found her. And it haunts me to this day. The murderer is still out there. Every week on Hell and Gone Murder Line, I dig into a new case, bringing the skills I've learned as a journalist and private investigator

to ask the questions no one else is asking. Police really didn't care to even try. She was still somebody's mother. She was still somebody's daughter. She was still somebody's sister. There's so many questions that we've never gotten any kind of answers for. If you have a case you'd like me to look into, call the Hell and Gone Murder Line

at 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's move on to Ron DeSantis. Okay, so things, I could see things going two ways. We could have a narrative out of tonight where if DeSantis overperforms expectations by beating Nikki Haley, maybe he gets a good news cycle. But let's say he still gets beaten by 30 points from Donald Trump. Well, it's gonna be difficult for him. DeSantis has also boxed

himself now into a corner where there's no, not like Vivek, there's no job for him waiting on the other side. The bridge has been burned. Even just today, DeSantis put out a quote at an event and he was like, look, you can be the most worthless person in the country, but if you say you love Trump, then he'll shower you with praise. True, accurate, not necessarily something you want to say though, if you want to remain in the man's good graces. So, but he's burned a lot of bridges with Trump people. It's clear also that a lot of the Trump campaign, Trump voters and others have genuine like personal enmity now at this point for him. None of that was best, all of that was on display when a voter walked right up to his face to try and present him with a participation trophy in Iowa.

This is especially brutal to watch because his wife had to step in to try and save him. Let's just take a listen. Real quick, before we get started, thank you, everyone. Governor DeSantis, I want to present to you this participation trophy. Now, probably not going to win the election, right? But we're proud of you for trying. I'm proud of you for participating in the trophy. Sorry, buddy.

He's special, he's unique, and he's our little snowflake. Here you go. Do you want the Lord? Man, that's tough to watch, Crystal. His wife's got to step in for him. He's also so awkward. Because what you've got to do in politics, somebody like Vivek would have... Vivek has been doing this thing where every time a protester shows up

He like engages with them and he talks them and rhetorically spars and does like a Ben Shapiro level like beatdown Trump would be like get him out of here go back to mommy like look at this loser something like just belittling You know and like inciting the crowd. Yeah, I guess it does. I just sits there and take you can't sit there and take it Man, you can't you can't let the wife stand in front of you or do something like that. He's just so awkward when he stands there. It's kind of like when Patrick bet David trying to give him those shoes

and was asking him about his foot size. You gotta turn this into a game. Otherwise, I mean, it's just deeply emasculating. And look, I mean, you could say that all this stuff shouldn't matter and that the policy and all that shit, I wish that were the case, but it's not. Let's be real.

This part of politics is that people do not find him relatable. They find him to be an incredibly awkward person, and that's a big problem. And a lot of that was on display right there. Yeah, I mean, this is not the first time that it has occurred to me that he would have been better off if Casey ran rather than him. His wife has way more, she's way more comfortable in front of a crowd, way quicker on her feet in terms of answering questions, delivering a speech, all of those things. But it's a sign, this little embarrassing troll moment, which was spread far

and wide, by the way, speaking of social media and what things actually matter on the campaign trail. It's just emblematic of how far he has fallen since he initially launched his campaign. And coming off of the midterms, looking like he was the guy, all this media love, lots of sort of soft lens features on him and conservative outlets, Fox News throwing all the way in with him, to now where he is scrapping and hoping that he can beat Nikki Haley on caucus night. I mean, this is just so far beyond what he thought, where he thought he would be coming into tonight. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right,

Crystal. And this is also the problem with DeSantis' entire strategy, trying to recreate the Ted Cruz moments and all that. And we can actually see here whenever we look through how Trump is going about this, he no longer is even taking DeSantis all that seriously. He instead has been returning all of his fire and pointing all of it on Nikki Haley. And actually, what we've now seen is that given the polling that came out in Des Moines Register, the Trump campaign's actually been running ads against Nikki Haley on MSNBC and specifically targeting her for her comments on trying to cut Social Security. Just to show you how the dynamics of the race here are changing, let's take a listen to what the Trump campaign

has been saying. Americans were promised a secure retirement. Nikki Haley's plan ends that Social Security, Medicare. How would you manage the entitlements? We say the rules have changed. We change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. What we do know is 65 is way too low and we need to increase that. Haley's plan cuts Social Security benefits for 82% of Americans. Trump will never let that happen. I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. Donald J. Trump and I approve this message. Interesting, attacking her that way and also

doing it on MSNBC. Smart move because so much of her support does come from Democrats. Go ahead. It is and it isn't. I mean, obviously, social security is an issue that a lot of people are very passionate about. I think any ad that ends with, I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message on MSNBC is probably not going to gain a lot of traction. They would have been better off if it had been a connected super PAC that didn't have to say, I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message at the end. And I also think that they would have been better off with a message about Nikki Haley of how she loved Donald Trump right up until it was no longer convenient for her.

Because if there are Democrats who show up to vote in the Republican caucus tonight, it's not gonna be because they love Nikki Haley or they support her position on social security or whatever. Yeah. It's going to be a vote against Trump. That is the animating force among these liberals. So I think a much more effective message for them to put out there would be, this woman is basically a wolf in sheep's clothing. She does whatever is politically convenient. Sure, she claims she's an opponent to Trump now, but when it was convenient for her politically, she was singing his praises, she was doing his bidding.

And personally, I think that is probably a message that would land more effectively with anti-Trump independents and anti-Trump Democrats. Partly I'm saying this because of the brilliance of my own mother, who shares basically these views, because I asked her yesterday just very neutrally, if it was Nikki or Biden, who would you be? Mom's been kind of like an independent voter for a long time, so she's my barometer a lot of ways. And that was exactly what she said. I was like, this woman just does whatever's politically convenient. She loved Donald Trump right up until now I guess she's an opponent of him, but I don't trust her whatsoever.

I think that probably would land better, but who knows how this will all shake out. The question here is what's going to happen. Because if DeSantis gets number two, then we can be guaranteed that the Trump fire is going to return right back to Ron DeSantis and going into New Hampshire. Some of it will also depend. The thing is though, is that we're all seeing this like lack of enthusiasm amongst Nikki voters is that her quote unquote surge in New Hampshire, the bottom could fall out too if she comes in third. That's why she actually arguably has more at stake tonight than everybody else. And things right now in New Hampshire are not bad for her.

Let's go and put this up there on the screen. We've got the RealClearPolitics polling average. As you guys can see, Trump is at 43.5%. He would love to be at 50. But Nikki Haley's at 29.3. And this previously is when Chris Christie was there with 11.3%. DeSantis is 6.5 and Vivek at 29.3. And this previously is when Chris Christie was there with 11.3%, DeSantis at 6.5, and Vivek at 5. You can assume that a large portion of that Christie vote would go to Nikki

Haley, which would make her virtually tied. So that means if she does come in third tonight, I do expect to see a lot of that support just drop out. And the narrative will generally just be like, look, she was overhyped. She didn't have the ability. At the same time, she had second. You could actually see that number go up. And conceivably, she could actually win the New Hampshire primary. I mean, unlikely, but still possible, you know, very much in this realm. So I actually think she's got so much at stake here. The thing is, for DeSantis, though, is that because he's so low right now in New Hampshire, it's clear he's got Iowa first in terms of his campaign. Definitely. If he does come in second, he will have to work incredibly hard to boost those New Hampshire numbers. And I'm not so sure that's as realistic, actually.

Both Ron and Nikki have big problems. Yeah, they do. For Nikki, the biggest problem, I mean, aside from the fact that she's losing to Donald Trump by double digits still in Iowa and every other state by New Hampshire. But putting that aside, let's imagine the best case scenario for Nikki, right? She outperforms in Iowa. She clinches that second place and narrows the gap and keeps Trump under 50%. She goes to New Hampshire and actually wins in New Hampshire. And the media's loving her and they're pushing her and maybe she's really got a chance to

defeat Trump. She has the same problem. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg. Pete is probably actually the best example hat going into the rest of the states. Her support is almost entirely college educated, like suburban white college educated voters. Now that's okay in New Hampshire. It's really not okay basically anywhere else. So if she doesn't show an ability to grow beyond that college-educated suburban base that has an affinity for her, there's just a hard ceiling on the amount of support she's ever going to get. So without any demonstrated ability to really cut

into Trump's working class base, it's hard to see how this really works out. Now, Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, has a similar college educated problem, but not as severe as Nikki Haley's demonstrated a little bit more of an ability to appeal to some working class voters. But if Ron doesn't really outperform in Iowa, he's completely dead in the water. I mean, his campaign is really hanging on by its fingernails at this point. So he is in a lot of ways more imminently threatened by the results tonight. I would not be surprised whatsoever if he doesn't pull off second place in the Iowa caucuses, which is massively in doubt at this point. I would not be surprised if he drops out of the race really, really quickly because he has really

staked his whole potential political trajectory on the state of Iowa. And if he's getting third to Nikki Haley in Iowa, I don't know how you come back from that. He's got big questions, right? So he could stay in all the way till Florida and he could bank it all on his own home state and hope that he beats Trump. There's not currently a single poll that shows him beating Trump in Florida, just to be clear. The other case, but listen, what if Nikki Haley fails in South Carolina? She has to drop out because if you don't win your home state in general, you're not supposed to stay in the race. Then it becomes like a two-man thing and it becomes stronger. And then there's some fantasy narrative.

I can make up a whole lot of things. I've heard a lot of cope in politics now over these years. Let's put this up there on the screen just to show you kind of where the problems really arise for him from the Wall Street Journal. It demonstrates that his, quote, big bet on Iowa risks not paying off. The slipping into third place from all of the tens of millions of dollars at him and the Never Back Down people, which is a super PAC, have spent in the state trying to recreate the Ted Cruz victory. We're not seeing the magic kind of play out in the same way. And the thing is, is that we even saw, Crystal, the same person, Jeff Rowe, who ran the Ted Cruz campaign and kind of pulled off that Iowa win running his super PAC. They ended up resigning from the super PAC. There was all

this controversy. Ron DeSantis was attacking his own super PAC. It was a total mess. To your point of whether he's going to drop out or not, he spoke to Jake Tapper on CNN yesterday. He says he's not going to. Let's take a listen to what he said. What happens if you finish third? Is that the end of your campaign? Well, happy 15th anniversary. Thanks for having me on. We're going to do well on Monday. Our voters are very motivated. I think it's very hard to poll an Iowa caucus, a period which the 16 poll was not accurate and predicted, but especially one in negative 20 degrees. And so these are folks who are very motivated. Our voters are very motivated.

We have spent a lot of time in Iowa because we've gone door to door getting people to commit to caucus to us. We've got a huge number of people that have committed to caucus. And we expect that these are the people that turn out. So there's a lot of excitement on the ground. So there you go, Crystal. Let's see what actually happens with Ron, whether he'll drop out or anything. I do think the big problem for him is not even gonna be voters or whether he wants it. What if the donors are like, look, dude, it's over. You're done.

Like you're done. Yeah, we're pulling the plug on something like this. He doesn't have the same level of grassroots energy. That said, again, I do want to say if he does come in second, it's not a bad world for him. I think that buys him at least until Florida. If he comes in second, New Hampshire, he was never going to do particularly well. See what happens in South Carolina. He can always say, let's go to my home state, just like Marco Rubio did back in 2016. Yeah, maybe. I mean, I guess at this point, even though I just laid out the case against Nikki, which I think is very compelling, I do think she has a real like wine track problem. I also do think that she is almost crystallizing in the Republican base's mind as akin to like a Chris Christie, like hard anti-Trump figure, even though she's been much more careful in her

criticism of Trump. But they still have put her on that side of the divide, which is causing her negatives to really spike, etc. But I like to play devil's advocate here. I like to lay out the case. Is it theoretically possible that we could end up with Nikki Haley beating Donald Trump for the Republican nomination? Here is how it would have to go. She outperforms tonight in Iowa. She gets second place. She narrowss tonight in Iowa. She gets second

place. She narrows the gap. Trump stays under 50%. She goes into New Hampshire with a head of steam, and she comes from behind, and she actually beats him in New Hampshire. And guess what state is up next? Her home state of South Carolina, where, yes, the polls have her down significantly to Donald Trump right now. But if there was any state where you could see her coming from behind and being able to make some inroads even with Trump's working class base, you would think it would be her home state of South Carolina. You know the media, liberal media, Fox News, whatever, they're gonna be going crazy for her if she's able to pull off this series of upset wins.

And then who knows, anything could happen at that point. That would be the best possible case I could make for her. But I do think that there are you have to ignore a lot of realities to imagine that that is going to be how things actually play out with Ron. I just I have a hard time even being able to come up with a theoretical scenario where he's able to come from behind and pull this thing off because he, unlike Nikki, you know, Nikki's got a real shot at winning in New Hampshire. Ron doesn't have a real shot at winning in Iowa. There is no state where you can see a path of like, oh, he could actually win that state.

So if you can't even see a single state where you're likely to beat Donald Trump, it's hard to imagine a trajectory that's going to put you over top of him, you know, at the end of the day. I don't disagree. The other problem Nikki has, I think, just to add to this, is what did we just talk about with DeSantis? Donors are fickle as hell. You know, they abandoned DeSantis. What if Nikki comes in third and they pull the plug before New Hampshire? I could see it. I'm sure you could as well, where they're like, okay, our dream is gone. And then they, I don't know, they all start funding Dean Phillips's campaign. Like, you know, I mean, Bill Ackman just gave him a million dollars. He gave him more money than he's ever given to anybody else.

You know, our producers just sent us this. Bill Ackman and Elon are doing Twitter spaces today. Elon did one for Dean Phillips, with Dean Phillips. So, I mean, maybe Dean becomes, like, the guy of the day. I don't know. I mean, crazier things have happened. But that's the problem is if you're playing the billionaire race, like Nikki and, like, Dean and, like, a lot of these other— I don't know. Crazier things have happened. But that's the problem is if you're playing the billionaire race like Nikki and like Dean and like a lot of these other, I don't want to be as mean to Dean. I actually have a soft spot for Dean just because I have a soft spot for

democracy and challenging Biden. I have a soft spot for anybody who's trying to play in this race. But I do know that when you're relying on them, that's a problem. And that's where I could see for Nikki Haley, they could rug pull her instantly if she doesn't do nearly as well. And then, you know, the bottom could fall out like that. It's not that long, really. It's only two weeks till the New Hampshire. Yeah, this this thing could be over very, very, very quickly. Last thing I'll say, just as a reminder, Sagar and I are going to be watching the results tonight. Once we have some sense of where the race is going, we'll go ahead and give you an update in our analysis of what is unfolding. So stay tuned to that. And we'll have Ryan and Emily in going. We'll go ahead and give you an update in our analysis of what is unfolding. So stay tuned to that.

And we'll have Ryan and Emily in studio. We'll do a full panel breakdown tomorrow in the show. So lots to look forward to there. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community.

I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have

to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. High key. Looking for your next obsession?

Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, and Human Services and the Ad Council. High key. Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a new weekly podcast hosted by Ben O'Keefe, Ryan Mitchell, and Evie Oddly. We got a lot of things to get into. We're going to gush about the random stuff we can't stop thinking about.

I am high key going to lose my mind over all things Cowboy Carter. I know. Girl, the way she about to yank my bank account. Correct. And one thing I really love about this is that she's celebrating her daughter. Oh, I know. Listen to High Key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart Podcast.