Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/24/23: REPUBLICAN DEBATE HIGHLIGHTS Krystal and Saagar BREAK DOWN, Winners and Losers, Trump Tucker Highlights Epstein/Civil War, Kyle and Emily Panel Debates

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

DEBATE SPECIAL DISCOUNT: 10% OFF Yearly Memberships available at http://www.breakingpoints.com Get access to full episodes, uncut, and 1 hour early right in your inbox or Spotify.Krystal and Saagar breakdown the highlights from the first GOP 2024 debate, they pick the Winners and Losers of the night, we go over the Trump and Tucker interview highlights, and we have Emily and Kyle on panel to debate whether Trump should have shown up to debate and if Vivek can actually beat Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We have an amazing show for everybody today. We've got the big debate special, the lights. Look at that monitor. We've got amazing show for everybody today. We've got the big debate special, the lights. Look at that monitor. We got so much going on here. What do we have today? Indeed we do. Lots to get into this morning. We are focusing 100% on the big debate from last night and also on the Trump-Tucker interview. So we're going to have all the highlights, Sagar and I's winners and losers. We're going to give you the highlights also from that Tucker Trump interview. Do we think that he made the right call by skipping the debate? We're going to bring Emily and Kyle in. I'm sure they're going to mix it up on some various things as well and give

their takes on how all of this broke down. So it should be a lot of fun. Before we jump right into it though, we want to say thank you to everybody who's been signing up to become a premium subscriber. We have decided because we love you all so much, we are going to extend our debate special discount so that more people can take advantage, Soccer. Yeah, I just want to say thank you to everybody out there who's been taking advantage of this. It means so much to us for your guys' help, support to the show. It's what enables these specials. Our entire crew, all of us worked very, very late last night. We're all running on a couple of hours of sleep here. It costs a lot of money to produce these things, and it's because of all of you that we're able to. And it's not

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All of the benefits in there are on our Web site. And please do take advantage if you're able to help us out right now at this time. Yes, absolutely. As you guys have seen, you know, your help in building out the set and your help in just being enabling us to do additional produced pieces and extra episodes. All of that stuff has made a huge, huge difference for the show. And we've got more cool content coming up for you guys. So stay tuned for that. All right. With all of that being said, let's get to the big debate. Last night, we had eight Republican contenders on the stage and one very notable absence, which was, of course, former President Trump decided to do an interview with Tucker Carlson that was released on X. We'll get to that in a bit. But for now, let's just focus on what happened at the Republican debate. First of all, let's put this up on the screen. This is just a graphic showing you total talk time. Yes. So you can see who kind of dominated the night. Coming in first, I was

actually a little bit surprised by this. Mike Pence, the former vice president, of course, came in first in terms of talk time at 12 minutes and 26 seconds. It's also amazing how little that actually is on your thing about it. But anyway, Vivek Ramaswamy, who had, I think by anyone's measure, a huge night last night. We'll talk more about that. He came in second at 11 minutes and 38 seconds, just edging out former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at 11 minutes and 37 seconds. Rhonda Santus was next, 10 minutes and one second. Nikki Haley at just over eight minutes. Tim Scott at roughly eight minutes.

Doug Burgum, seven minutes and 50 seconds. Doug showing up in spite of Achilles' tear, I think it was. He suffered an injury actually playing pickup basketball the same day as the debate. And then former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson coming in last in terms of debate talk time at seven minutes and 24 seconds. But in a lot of ways, you know, the big story of the night, which we, I guess, have to pat ourselves on the back for predicting ahead of time was Vivek Ramaswamy. He took lots of incoming. I was surprised how much he was the center of attacks from Mike Pence seemed to just viscerally despise him. It sort of reminded me of the way that Amy Klobuchar in 2020 just viscerally despised Pete Buttigieg. There was a similar energy there, but it wasn't just him. Chris Christie came after

him. There were some really spicy exchanges between himself and Nikki Haley. And I think just by being the center of attention and also being quite aggressive and, you know, really showing himself as a fighter, et cetera, et cetera, I think he did himself a lot of good. We'll get into more specifically about that. But to give you a taste of some of the attacks that were coming his way and how he parried them, let's take a listen to this was one of their I think the earliest attack on him. This was coming from former Vice President Mike Pence. Take a listen. Balanced budgets and cut taxes when I was governor. I mean, look, Joe Biden has weakened this country at home and abroad. Now is not the time for on-the-job training.

We don't need to bring in a rookie. We don't need to bring in people without experience. So, yeah, what do you think of that, Sagar? I mean, it was surprising how much he was the center of everyone's attacks, and Ron DeSantis really didn't take incoming from anyone, actually. Preview for everybody who's watching tonight. I mean, today, we are going to just be talking about Vivek Ramaswamy because they were the ones who couldn't stop talking about him. It's just amazing. It was a hit from Mike Pence.

It was a hit from Nikki Haley. It was a hit from Mike Pence. It was a hit from Nikki Haley. It was a hit from Ron DeSantis, a little bit, I guess, whenever it came on some questions. But all across the stage with Chris Christie, it was obvious that they viscerally hated him. I think Vivek really got under their skin with one particular moment very early on when he said, quote, I'm the only person on this stage

that's not bought and paid for. They got very upset. That's when Christie called him a chat GPT and landed one of his first blows. But really where Vivek stood out to me is I wasn't just looking in terms of the speaking time, which is a huge win. I wasn't even just looking at the fact that he's outpolling all these established politicians and then they're all attacking and making him the complete center of attention. It was also how he was outfoxing them on Trump, because let's be honest, this was a

race really for number two. And on the Trump question, it's obvious that he was the one most vociferously defending Trump. That is going to get him brownie points with Trump. It's going to get brownie points with the MAGA base. And it's especially going to allow him to help consolidate at least, I think, a solid number two position, which is coming to here. We have some examples of that on the Trump question, both Ramaswamy in terms of his defense,

but also to give you a taste of how he did kind of stand out from the rest of the crowd on this Trump question when Chris Christie and others were departing from that consensus. Let's take a listen. If former President Trump is convicted in a court of law, would you still support him as your party's choice? Please raise your hand if you would. Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of President of the United States. And, you know, this is the great thing about this country.

Booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth. It doesn't change the truth. That was an important moment. Ramasan was the first person to put his hand up. There was also an exchange that happened there where Vivek was attacking Christie on his support for Trump, kept calling him an MSNBC contributor, which I think was a pretty potent blow for a lot of people in the GOP audience. I noticed it not only in terms of the defense there, but he has the line, which he said

here on the show, President Trump was the best president of the 21st century. I mean, I haven't been that many presidents of the 21st century, but it's a good line. I think nonetheless, really what I took away from it is like, he was one of those where he's not really running against Trump. He effectively was trying to run against everybody else on the stage by kind of moving past them and putting him in a pretty solid position. And I think that's really where he was both able to drive everybody crazy, become the center of attention, and then also capture, I'm not going to say that he's going to bring MAGA people over to him. But what we have critically seen is that even those who don't support Trump as their first choice, most Republicans, they like Trump. The vast majority have a deep amount of affection for him. Those who don't,

they're Christie people. But that's already been consolidated. That's what, four or five percent of the overall base. Depending on the state, but yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you're right. Depending on the state. But I mean, overall, I think that was a good glimpse into both how he was being attacked and also how he was able to make sure that he was always really on the side of Trump, of MAGA, of that agenda. And he's, you know, he's been cultivating as well a lot of the online MAGA people out there. It's interesting, you know, the people who are the most defensive of Trump all had nothing but good things to say about Ramaswamy. I think it's because of exactly like moments like that. Yeah. I mean, throughout

the night, Chris Christie really served as the heel. Yes. From the moment he walked down on the stage, he got booed. Asa Hutchinson, who also second to Christie, has been the most directly critical of Trump, I would say. He also had a smattering of boos to the extent that, you know, people were really aware of who he is and what he's been saying. But Chris Christie really leaned into that role. You know, I didn't think normally I think Chris Christie is very talented debater. I thought I was pretty off last night. He had a couple of moments, but by and large, he seemed off his game, a little unsteady on his feet, a little bit hesitant or nervous. So not a great night for him.

Not that I expected, even if he did really mount an effective like, you know, going after Vivek or going after Ron DeSantis or going after Trump. I just didn't have a lot of confidence that it would matter with a Republican primary base where he already has the lowest favorability. So to the extent that he was going after Vivek, it probably only really served Vivek because he is so hated by so much of the audience that was in the room. So he really served in the role of the heel. Ron DeSantis, we'll talk a bit more about him. But when you contrast his strategy with Vivek's strategy, Vivek, either out of savviness or because he wasn't really from the beginning playing to be the presidential nominee, but more to elevate his profile, potentially end up in a cabinet role, potentially get a media gig or whatever. Vivek has never been trying to supplant Trump. He's always been trying to position himself as like the top alternative. DeSantis, at this point, I think you can say deluded himself into thinking that he really

could come for Donald Trump and supplant him as the number one. And I just don't think that's going to work out. I mean, I think that for all of these, you know, gentlemen and Nikki Haley that were on the stage last night, the best they can hope for is be the top alternative in case something happens with Trump that pushes him out of the race. Yes. Or, you know, really land some sort of a political blow on him where he falls precipitously in a way that we have literally never seen before since he's been on the national stage in 2015. So I think I think DeSantis is strategy didn't work out that well for him last night, even though he had a solid debate, but like, he didn't do anything wrong. He did fine. But the

fact that you had Vivek taking up so much of the oxygen, absorbing so many of the fights and parrying, you know, really mixing it up and, you know, pairing well with everybody else. I think it, you know, it, I think it actually ends up being a bad night for Ron DeSantis, even though he handled himself on the sort of superficial level perfectly fine. We're going to talk more about this in the winners and losers. Yeah. I would say I think he did fine. I think he kind of floated above the morass.

He had some decent enough moments. And it's clear the moderators were giving him really good softballs. He got the most stupid softball I've ever seen in my life at the top, where they were like, why is Richmond north of Richmond popular, governor? I'm like, are you kidding me? The opening question was so atrocious. Yeah, it was horrible. Horrible. Horrible.

It took 18 minutes to even get to the first freaking question, by the way. There are so many things I could say about the Fox questioning, which I think was so bad throughout the entire night. But let's put that aside. Yeah. One moment I did appreciate and what I loved was the abortion section because there was an actual debate. There was actual disagreement. Mike Pence versus Nikki Haley on the prospect of abortion and the national abortion ban. Multiple of the candidates also weighing in. We cut a little bit of that section because it's just so politically important to how these candidates are going to use this issue in the 2024 election, whether they're stumping for Trump or whether they are the nominees themselves. Let's take a listen. To be honest with you, Nikki, you're my friend, but consensus is the opposite

of leadership. When the Supreme Court returned this question to the American people, they didn't just send it to the states only. It's not a states only issue. It's a moral issue. So first of all, I will say it is in the hands of the people and that's where it should be. But when you're talking about a federal ban, be honest with the American people. We haven't had 45 pro-life senators in over 100 years. So no Republican president can ban abortions any more than a Democrat president can ban all those state laws. Don't make women feel like they have to decide on this issue

when you know we don't have 60 Senate votes in the House. 70% of the American people support legislation to ban abortion after a baby is capable of experiencing PAD. Well, there you go. That's what it all came down to. And it was very rhetorically interesting. I was watching this very closely. Every single one of them had nothing to say about the bans, and all of them had a lot to say about late-term abortion. The late-term abortion pivot, that's something that Trump has been doing a lot himself. But I did think it was an interesting question around political realism. So you had Tim Scott says, I fight on the side of life. I would sign a 15 week ban. Ron DeSantis totally miffed the question

on six weeks. He refused to commit himself to the same ban that he signed in the state of Florida. He did not say that he would sign that on a national level that drew a little bit of the ire of Mike Pence. But Haley was the first one critically who actually laid out the position around late term abortion. And she also was talking about one, critically, who actually laid out the position around late-term abortion. And she also was talking about some of the kookier stuff out there, about criminal, imprisoning women or whatever for abortions. I thought it was actually one of the stronger moments for her, and we'll get into that, into the winners and losers section.

But the fight itself is so critically important for how these candidates are thinking about this issue. Yeah. And also about Pence, as long as he's on the debate stage, abortion is going to be the cudgel that he uses to hit every single other person on there, both because he really believes it and because that's where

a lot of his evangelical support comes from. You know, I thought Nikki Haley, I was surprised actually because she tends to be one who really parses and gives the politician-y answers, not just on abortion, also on Ukraine.

There are a few places where even though it's possible that she's actually getting crosswise of certainly some portions of the GOP base with her answers, she was very direct. She was. She wasn't afraid to mix it up. And frankly, I was surprised. She really exceeded my expectations. And, you know, she stands down as the only woman on the stage as well. Mike Pence, even though they're going at each other in this exchange, I actually think they both did themselves some

favors here because Mike Pence very clearly and very directly wanted to wear that mantle of, I will be the most committed pro-life candidate, most committed pro-life president. And for the part of the Republican base for whom that is the number one issue, I think they'd have to come away feeling like Mike Pence was their guy.

You know, overall, Pence obviously has issues with the Republican base, given they still, majority of them, still buy the stop the steal stuff. Many of them think he should have, you know, done whatever Trump wanted him to do on January 6th, et cetera. But I will say he stood up there with a lot of confidence. He ended up dominating in terms of coming in first in terms of the talk time. So, you know, I thought I thought he did fine up there last night and was clear about where he stands. And I don't think that Mike Pence is for every GOP voters,

but he probably solidified the group that was already inclined towards him and lines up with his ideological view. He very much held down that like traditional Reagan, pro-life, conservative lane, almost like a throwback kind of a candidate. He really, I think, sort of like quartered that market in terms of the state. And that's to the detriment almost like a throwback kind of a candidate. He really, I think, sort of like quartered that market in terms of the stage. And that's to the detriment of like a Tim Scott,

who we haven't even talked about yet, who very much fits that same model ideologically. And it's not like Tim Scott was like a disaster. He was just kind of- He was fine. He was fine. But because you had another candidate up there who occupied the space more fully and was more forceful and was willing to get into these fights and tussles, et cetera. We predicted ahead of time debates are not really the best forum for Tim Scott. No. His whole political personality is just being like, you know, this affable guy and people who work with him like him and donors like him and whatever. But when you're talking about trying to mix it up and give those vibes that the Republican base are in love with, that I think Vivek really cornered the market on the vibes last night, it just wasn't the form for Tim Scott. I agree with you.

I think that in terms of that lane, Pence had the best. Clearly, the donors were loving him. From color from inside the room was that a lot of the donors that you can hear, any of the shouts you can hear on TV, absent like a really cacophonous one, is the GOP gives its big Republican donors like the top seats. That's part of the reason why I remember Trump was getting booed at the 2015 debates, even though the base was absolutely loving it. So some of Pence's big moments came from a lot of the donor support in the room.

And I actually expect him to get a second look from some of the billionaire class. People like Larry Ellison who are backing Tim Scott. After Tim Scott. After Tim Scott's performance, it really wasn't that good. Scott's got a very good record with a lot of the billionaire donors who have basically been front-loading a lot of his campaign and of his super PAC. I expect Pence to, I wouldn't say corner the market, but Tim Scott, he just didn't have a good night. He didn't have the pop that I think he needed to. All of this is probably a good segue into our winners and losers. What do you think? Well, I have two more thoughts that I want to lay before we jump into winners and losers. Just

thinking sort of more macro about the debate, a couple of things that I noted. First of all, some of the ideological divides in the current GOP were on display. We're going to show you a little bit of Ukraine in a minute. We just showed you abortion. Obviously, they're trying to figure out how to negotiate this issue, which has become politically devastating for the party. An area where you didn't hear any of the potential new tension within the party was on economics. I mean, the opening question was really the only one that actually focused on economics. They framed it more around, like, Biden and inflation. And every single candidate who took the question sounded like Paul Ryan.

They're all, like, railing about the debt and arguing about who built up the debt more and arguing about who's more committed to fiscal austerity. There were no questions about, all right, who's going to preserve entitlements, who's going to cut entitlements, et cetera. So there was none of that potential disagreement on economics that was really on display. And in fact, economics were not that much of a focus of the night whatsoever. It's not that it wasn't mentioned at all, but it wasn't that much of a focus. The other thing that I really noted, Sagar, is Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, both when they launched their campaign, they were all in on anti-wokeness. They really thought that was the space to occupy. Ron DeSantis, Florida is where wokeness goes to die. Vivek basically launches his presidential campaign

and his media career by writing the anti-woke ink, woke ink, what is it? Woke ink book. And when he first was talking, remember our saga, we watched his initial appearance and it was all about like ESG and CRT and wokeness, et cetera. Did anyone say the word woke? So I'm, I believe that the word wokeness was not said once. And that includes on a question about trans girls in sports. So that's, and it includes on a question, questions about education, which was, you know, Rhonda Santus is bread and butter. And he got pitched that question. He didn't even say the word wokeness. So, I mean, he did, he mentioned, excuse me, CRT, but wokeness, not at all. The fact that the word woke was not uttered both by the questioners and by those who are answering is absolutely, first of all, incredible development, I think.

But second, it shows you that they are imbibing a lot of the same polling data where Vivek and both Ron DeSantis, the core pitch from DeSantis was, and I actually thought that was his most effective pitch. He's like, I'm the governor. I run Florida, one of the most populous states in the United States. You're talking about crime? I actually have a 50-year low crime rate. You're talking about actually governing in terms of locking the state down? I didn't do that whenever I was the governor. I mean, I've always believed that was his best pitch. So moving towards that, it's still his overall performance. And then for Vivek too, Vivek was doing two things. He was both selling the America First agenda

as like Trump would understand it, specifically on key issues. And he was really selling a national identity. I loved this moment where it was Mike Pence versus Ramaswamy, where Pence was like, why are you talking about how America is losing its national character?

You're betting against the American people. And in my head, I'm like, you were the vice president to the guy who gave American carnage. In my opinion, one of the most important speeches in modern American history. I'm not saying it was a great speech as delivered, but text of which no American president, I'm trying to think, has ever taken and had an inaugural address saying things are not going well right now. Yeah. That's never happened before. Yeah, it was a landmark moment in American history. Pence served as that man's vice president. Ramaswamy is just reiterating the same feeling that frankly, I think the vast majority of the

country, including many Republicans feel wrong track, right? The right track, wrong track number has never been worse than it is right now. So I'm 75, 25. It's very clear Ramaswamy is betting on the idea and not just him. Trump as well is betting on the idea of dissatisfaction, some 75, 25, it's very clear. Ramaswamy is betting on the idea and not just him, Trump as well, is betting on the idea of dissatisfaction, of anger, of a feeling of going backwards that I think fits much more deeply, not only with the overall electorate, with the GOP electorate too. That was a huge moment. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Pence, again, it's the throwback, right? It's Ronald Reagan, morning in America. And it's like, that's not the moment we're living in. And it was fun.

I picked up on that same thing. I was like, you were the guy who were, you know, you were there for the American carnage speech. You backed up this guy. And I do think that what Pence said last night is actually more true to his political persona. Yeah, you're right. I think he, you know, I don't think he's like making this up. I think he genuinely feels what he said. I think he just, you know, was always a little bit of an odd fit for Donald Trump and his, in my opinion, more accurate view of how people feel

about the country at this point as backed up by the numbers. All right, let's go ahead and move on to who we picked, our power ranking, who we picked as winners and losers from this debate. I'll tell you how I was thinking about this very specifically is not necessarily who had the best performances last night, but who is going to do themselves the most favors in the polls. Like who's actually going to get a bump from this. Let's go and put this up on the screen. The first one is going to be no surprise. Vivek Ramaswamy, I think was the big winner of the night. He got a lot of speaking time, second only to Mike Pence. He had, I mean, the biggest thing is putting aside whether you're with him on Ukraine,

against him on Ukraine, or whatever. He had the vibes. And he was the fighter. He drew so much incoming. Just by being the center of attention, he, I think, really was elevated by the moment. And keep in mind, this is somebody who had one of the lower name IDs of this group. And I think he is certainly going to climb significantly in the polls. The other person I put as kind of like a

runner up winner was Nikki Haley, because I do think she she has been almost invisible in terms of this presidential race since she announced. She announced and then she like dropped off the scene. And we really haven't heard much from her. I thought she handled herself very well in a number of these exchanges, including in, you know, feisty exchanges with the vague on both Ukraine and also the exchange she had on abortion. Yeah, I thought she handled herself well. I think she distinguished herself. I think that, you know, there's a chance.

It's not that she's going to like skyrocket, but I think she'll get she's a three percent in the polls right now. I think she'll get a little bit of a bump because she outperformed what people expected and distinguished herself and was, you know, clear and had, in my opinion, overall a good night. I think you are definitely correct. I differ a little bit. I do think people should take a listen, though, to that Ukraine bit that we teased a little bit earlier, because it's important to this context. Let's take a listen. Is there anyone on stage who would not support the increase of more funding to Ukraine? We would not support it. Europe needs to step up. I mean, I would have Europe step up and do their job. Ukraine is the first line of defense for us. And the problem that Vivek doesn't understand is he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia.

He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don't do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends. Ukraine is the front line of defense. Putin has said, if Russia, once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next.

That's a world war. We're trying to prevent war. Look at what Putin did today. He killed Pergozin. When I was at the U.N., the Russian ambassador suddenly died. This guy is a murderer. And you are choosing a murderer over a pro-American country. Nikki, I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon. But the fact of the matter, Boeing came off of it, but you've been pushing

this lie. You've been pushing this lie all week, Nikki. You want to go and defund Israel? You want to get Taiwan to China? Okay, let me address that. I'm glad you brought that up. You want to go and give Ukraine Russia? I'm going to address each of those right now. This is the false lies of a professional politician. There you have it. Under your watch, you make America less safe. You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows. And you know what? There's a foreign policy experience that you already have. Donors loving that Ukraine bit. I mean, listen, she got raucous applause for that. I thought that was the one exchange. We're putting the substance of it aside, where she's obviously spouting just like neocon worldview, but she's spouting neocon worldview very effectively.

I hate to say it. And the audience raucously applauded her. That was the only time where I really felt it was clear that someone got the better of Vivek in an exchange, even though in terms of where he has positioned himself, I think he has more of the GOP base on his side. But on the showmanship, she really you know, really took it to him. She didn't back down. And I think it was a—that moment right there is the reason why I really think she did herself some favors.

So I was checking the Google search trends this morning. We were both going over it. And the data basically bears out what you said. Vivek Ramaswamy had the biggest search term bump of the night. He obviously is the most unknown, you know, funny name, et cetera. But Haley had the second biggest. We all have to look at it. It actually was equivalent to Vivek. She was the second biggest of the entire night. So I do think she's going to get a big donor pop off of this. And yeah, look, we shouldn't pretend that that view isn't very predominant, at least apart some parts of the Republican Party, specifically the

donors, I think a lot of whom were cheering. So listen, I think that she did well. My thing is that I, because this entire debate, in a sense, is a farce without Trump, I only thought there really could be one winner. And that's why I went, and I'll put this up there on the screen, guys, my winner, I just said it was Vivek, because at the end of the day here, it's like choosing and parsing multiple

Everyone here is already fighting for number two Like you can't be the clear winner when the literal winner is off doing an ex interview and is polling at two-thirds higher than every Single other person on the stage. So I think it's fine to have a moment like Nikki Haley But you know, I think she'll get a moderate polling bump I think the Ukraine and the Bill Kristol people will freaking love her. But for the number two slot, the fact is Vivek was already nearly tied with Ramaswamy in the RCP polling average. Vivek and DeSantis, I mean. Vivek and DeSantis, I'm sorry.

And for Vivek to then have a 40% non-name ID in the state of Iowa, he's going to get massive media attention out of this. His name ID is going to go through the roof. I bet he's going to get massive media attention out of this. His name ID is going to go through the roof. I bet he was going to raise a ton of money. Then those stories about him rising to number two is going to generate even more earned media. It's a cycle of which can only really benefit him, I think, up to the top. And, you know, he did a lot for himself, but he also was really given an assist by the fact that every candidate on stage was basically gunning for him. And, you know, it's funny because we expected that he was going to be able to handle himself well, and he did. And we also expected that since he has been willing to go on a bunch of different shows and mix it up with all kinds of different people who don't agree with him, that he would be

well positioned to handle those sorts of attacks. And he was. What I didn't expect is no one would basically even try to lay a glove on Ron DeSantis. They basically moved on from him, which is a real sign of weakness on his part as well. But it ended up being a really failed strategy. It would have been much better for the rest of the field if they had pretended like Vivek didn't really exist, because they gave him a lot of oxygen. They made him really central, and it was very elevating. Go ahead, Sagar. I was going to say that was just so on display with Chris Christie, you know, in that moment where he tried to ridicule him for copying. By the way,

I did think it was a bit odd. The moment he said the line, I was like, isn't that what Obama said in the audacity of hope speech? Same reaction. Was that audacity? I forget. The 2004 speech, the red America, black, whatever. Yeah, there's no red states and blue states. 2004 DNC. Let's call it that. So Vivek kind of borrowed one of the lines from there and got called out by Chris Christie. Just take a listen here because it's very clear he very much got under his skin. I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like chat GPT standing up here.

And the last person in one of these debates, Brett, who stood in the middle of the stage and said, what's a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here was Barack Obama. And I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur standing stage tonight. Give me a hug. Give me a hug just like you did to Obama. The same type of amateur. And you'll help elect me just like you did to Obama, too. Give me that damn hug, bro. The same type of amateur. Hold on. Hold on. I thought that was a good parry from a vague, but also, as you can see, very clear. He drives

him crazy. They were attacking him all night, and you put all of that together, and it's a victory in terms of attention. Notice, Mike Pence may have spoken more the entire night. He didn't have the same level of moments. He was actually more trying to dominate the conversation and also attack the others that were on the stage. I think it just irked him that he's like, I'm the freaking former vice president, and I'm sitting here behind these two jokers. And he's like, I just can't believe it. It was very much like you said, Amy Klobuchar energy towards Pete Buttigieg. Clearly it drives him nuts. Absolutely. The person who it was really clear, just absolutely

Lowe's Vivek was Mike Pence. I mean, it was just visceral from the first mention of him. It was really clear. And they had a bunch of exchanges back and forth. Chris Christie getting booed there. I think Chris Christie made a real sort of tactical error by saying, like, it's America, you're allowed to boo, because it sort of greenlit everybody to boo everything that he said from there on out. And he played the heel. He's not going to be the Republican nominee. I thought it was a decent line there, you know, in terms of his hit on Vivek. I also thought Vivek handled it fine. But it just gives you a sense of how much he was taking the incoming and

ended up being the center of attention, which is kind of incredible. In terms of my losers, let's go ahead and put this up on the screen. You know, two of them are people that we haven't even really talked about, Doug Berger and Asa Hutchinson. They just were kind of invisible. Their answers were kind of stumbling. They were awkward to watch, et cetera. No big moments. I mean, I don't even know if I should call them losers because they're already at like below 1%. Right. So are they really going to go down?

They'll probably just stay where they are, to be honest with you. The other person I put up here, though, you might be surprised, which is Ron DeSantis. And the reason why is not because I thought he had a terrible night. I thought he did fine. I thought some of his answers were kind of politician-y, especially on climate change and abortion and Ukraine. He would sort of try to find that, like, you know, how can I wordsmith this to not really say anything or not really take a hard position? I thought that was noticeable at certain points. But overall, I thought he did fine. The problem for him is he can't have all the oxygen sucked up by somebody else. And, you know, if I'm looking at this in terms of who's

going to go up in the polls and who's going to go down in the polls, I think it's very likely that Ron DeSantis goes down in the polls, even in spite of the fact that he had a decent outing, simply because for people who are looking for a Trump alternative, many of them are going to go to Vivek or, you know, Nikki Haley. To the extent that you have other people on the stage who are proving themselves to be worthy second place contenders, that's a disaster for Ron DeSantis, who has to consolidate all of the potential non-Trump vote to have a prayer at this thing. Yeah. So this is where I'm just not sure. And I'll put my losers guys up there, please, on the screen just so we can show a little bit of a difference. So mine as well,

I feel like Burgum and Asa Hutchinson are the obvious. My biggest loser was Christie relative to what I expected. I thought he was, I put him as one of my expected winners of the night. He was completely unable to land the shots that he needed to, both against Ramaswamy. Here was the craziest thing. And this is kind of to your point. He did not say one word against Ron DeSantis, a man who he has attacked on Disney, a man who he has attacked many times before. If you want to consolidate the anti-Trump vote, you need to be going after Ron DeSantis. He didn't land a single – he didn't even try a shot against him.

Against Ramaswamy, Ramaswamy interrupted him a couple of times. He parried pretty well on the Obama line as well. He never allowed him to himself get Marco Rubio'd. Christie takes a while to get keyed up before he delivers his deadly line. So clearly the lesson is just interrupt him, you know, throughout the entire thing. Christie, man, and also there were,

the thing is Christie, if you will notice and remember, he got the second question of the night where they directly gave him the opportunity to contrast with Ron DeSantis. They're like, why are you better than DeSantis? I believe that was the framing of the question from Brett Baer. He missed it. Totally. Started talking about his old record in New Jersey. Dude, you've been gone for almost a decade. There was way too much about

record and not even as governor as like, you know, when he was on the legal side of things, like it was, it was not a great night for Chris Christie. The reason I don't put him as a loser is because I don't think it's going to really change his polling. And so that's why I was thinking, what do you think about Ron DeSantis?'t think it's going to really change his polling. Fair enough. And so that's why I was thinking, what do you think about Ronda? Do you think he's going to go up, down, stay the same? I think he'll stay flat, and that's a loss whenever you're going to see Ronda have such a bump. So in a certain way, like, I don't know. I didn't put him as a loser just because I thought it was such a wash.

I want to see how it shakes out. Listen, I mean, some of the polling that we've seen, people ranked him, like, number three again. It's like, eh, he was there. I don't know if it's a loss. It's one of those where if you're not going to lose, then it's not necessarily the worst thing in the world. For this guy though, who after the midterms, just remember how hot he was, how, you know, the future was the headline. And he was, he was up there right neck and neck with Trump. And now to go to the first debate where Trump's not even there, number one. And number two,

you're not the center. Like, you're not the guy that people are trying to take shots at, which, you know, on the one hand, it's safer for you. It allowed him to just go out and do the things that he had planned and roll out the, you know, whatever talking points he had prepared, which is not a knock on him. They all had talking points prepared. But he's able to sort of do that seamlessly. On the other hand, you can see with Vivek what an opportunity it is when all of the fire is trained at you because, you know, you can, that's like risk reward. And so the fact that DeSantis didn't have that opportunity to be the center of attention, to take those attacks, to prove he's a fighter, et cetera, I mean, it just makes him look small.

And like I said to begin with, the fact that you have other contenders who are getting the attention, who are getting noticed or getting the Google search traffic interest, et cetera, you can't have that if you are DeSantis and you actually want to be the top Trump alternative. So that's why I put it as a loss for him. And I would expect him to go down a bit in the polls again, not because he had like a terrible night, just because of the nature of the dynamics of where he is and who really outperformed him. Yeah, I think you're right, Crystal, and all of that is very important. Let's move on then to the counter-programming, the important thing that also happened last night. Trump drops his interview with Tucker Carlson. Top line, I'm just going to say this on Trump. I thought that

he miffed it a bit. I think he could have had a much better opportunity to earn more or in media if he was willing to say something a little bit more provocative. And listen, he had some funny moments. We're about to play them for you. I thought the most interesting moment that our producers also nabbed was the bite on civil war, whether he thought we were close to a civil war or not. Pretty important whenever you're running for president and have some of the record that he has. So let's take a listen to what he said. Do you think we're moving towards civil war? There's tremendous passion and there's tremendous love.

You know, January 6th was a very interesting day because they don't report it properly. People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they've ever experienced. There was love in that crowd. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love. And I've also never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred of what they've done to our country So do you think it's possible that there's open conflict? We seem to be doing something I don't know because I don't know what it you know, I can say this There's a level of passion that I've never seen. There's a level of hatred that I've never seen them I don't know crystal. I thought it was a fine answer. I've interviewed Trump before.

I've asked him something similar. It basically was the same stock that he's always given about Jan 6th. I mean, you pulled this bite about Kamala Harris. I thought this was his only good one. Yeah, I mean, agreed. From what I saw, that was... And by the way, I mean, just overall,

I think it was a mistake. I actually think, I have come to think, it was a mistake for him to not go to this debate. Interesting. Because it allows people to imagine a Republican field without him. And I think a lot of Republican voters probably saw some things that they liked on that stage, whatever like flavor of conservative they happen to be. So I think it was a mistake. I think the specific choice he made to do the Tucker Carlson interview on Twitter, which Twitter still under Elon Musk, as it was before, perhaps even more so under Elon Musk,

is a niche platform. You know, most people are not going to watch any of that interview. The fact that you chose to, you know, rub Fox News' nose in the fact that they turned against you and turned against Tucker or whatever also doesn't serve you

because it means they're not going to talk about your interview whatsoever. They're not going to share any of the clips. There was nothing provocative in it to grab the headlines and wrest them away from Vivek, who is certainly having his moment in the sun right now. And so he's done something very uncharacteristic, which was to allow someone else to grab the spotlight and to allow Republicans to imagine a party and a field without him. So I think it was a mistake.

And then in terms of the content of the interview, it was boring. I'll give the counter. It got some hundred and something million views so far. You know that's fake. Yeah. It's totally fake. How real is that? I don't know. Whether you're counting it as a view. It's not real. That I scrolled past it or not. Who knows what the real number is. I think I'll split the difference. I think that at the end of the day, it won't matter whether it came or not. In terms of the mistake, I think it was a mistake democratically, small d, in order to give voters a chance. I also think looking at the stage, I think he would have dominated everybody there. He would have crushed. So if anything, he had a missed opportunity to just make everybody look like infants, which I think he would have done, just given his own sheer amount

of political skill he has vis-a-vis what we saw last night, where we really only saw one or two people with some real shine-out moments. I think Trump would have absolutely dominated. But in terms of the content, like you were saying, I was shocked at how little he was willing to like engage and play it up because he's such a showman to that level. He was very low energy. He was lower energy. He did have one funny moment, as I said, on Kamala Harris. Let's take a listen to that. She has some bad moments. Her moments are almost as bad as his. I think his are worse, actually. Yeah. She seems pretty senile, too. She speaks in rhyme. It's weird. It's weird. But she has bad moments. In rhyme? Well, the way she

talks, the bus will go here and then the bus will there, because that's what buses do. It's weird. The whole thing is weird. This is not a president of the United States future. He's right. I mean, what is the technical term? Iambic pentameter? I'm joking. He is on to something, though.

I mean, Marshall had the best insight on Kamala Harris, which is she's always trying so hard to, like, Aaron Sorkin it and say something meaningful. And it's like, just say the thing, you would be better off with basic syntax. The final moment was on Epstein where he both seems to say that he thinks Epstein killed himself, but he leaves himself a little bit of a room. He dodged on this one too. He dodged a bit. I was surprised by this. Let's take a listen, guys.

Do you think Epstein killed himself sincerely? I don't know. I will say that, you know, he was a fixture in Palm Beach. Yeah. I don't know what Barr said about it either. I have no idea what he said. What did he say? He killed himself, probably? He said he killed himself and that they were going to do this investigation. They never did the investigation. It's never been public. And they hid it. And why are they doing that? And clearly, Barr knew. But why would Bill Barr be covering up the death of Jeffrey Epstein? Bill Barr didn't do an investigation on the election fraud either, okay?

He said he did and he pretended he did but he didn't. McSwain, the US Attorney in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said Barr just wouldn't let him do it. It was crazy. I was reminded of the time he got asked about Ghislaine Maxwell. Remember that? At the Poet and He was like, I wish her well. And everyone was like, what? It's because he knew her. This is the thing. He knew them, as he said. He knew Jeffrey and Palm Beach.

Yeah, he's a fixture of Palm Beach. That doesn't really pertain to the question that was asked. There's that famous line, what did he say? Where he's like, Jeffrey, he likes him young. Or something like that, whenever they knew each other back in the Mar-a-Lago days. But he claimed that he was pissed off at Epstein, so he banned him from the club.

Anyway, those were like the big three, I guess. Yeah, that was what people are sharing around. It was 46 minutes. That's mostly what people took notice of. I don't think he did it effective enough of a job of earned media because it's not just about the interview or whatever itself and the people who watched it. It's about actually getting others to cover it.

And it's clear. I'm looking at the front pages of the New York Times and all of the other major papers, as well as some of the banners from Fox News, but also, you know, in terms of YouTube creators and others, and you know, the main headline mostly comes out of the debate and not from the ex-interview. And that- The debate was way more interesting.

Yeah, and he needed, if this were to be a success, it would have to have been a big event that forced the media to cover it. And I haven't seen that happen. Very uncharacteristic of Trump. Yeah, I was surprised by it. Who, if anything else, I mean, this is a man who knows compelling TV. And he really didn't create any in that interview and got completely on shine by the Republican debate. So, you know, rare, rare situation in terms of the Trump show. All right. We've got Emily and Kyle standing by to also weigh in and see their thoughts on whether

Trump made a mistake here by not showing up to the debate. And we want to hear their overall debate thoughts as well. So let's go and get to it. All right. We've got our power panel here in the house. We got Emily and Kyle to add their thoughts on the debate last night. Wanted to start, guys, with the conversation Sagar and I were just having. What do you guys think about whether or not Trump made a mistake by not doing the debate and deciding to do this Twitter interview with Tucker Carlson?

Emily, go ahead. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I don't think it was a mistake. I mean, I think he wins either way because he's up 40 points in the polls. I think his interview with Tucker was compelling. It's on a new platform. It did get a lot of views. We don't know how many because those numbers are so juiced and faked. But at the same time, it was fairly viral. There's a lot in it. He got to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about, and he didn't have to look like he was debasing himself. Again, I think he should debate, but from a strategic point of view, he just can't lose at this point when he's 40 points up,

unless there's a real—someone mounts a very serious threat to him. But he's even up 26 points, according to RCP's average, in Iowa right now. So unless there's a really serious threat to him, I just don't see how he loses. He could have crushed that debate. I think he probably would have had a lot of viral moments, a lot of fun with it, like circa 2015, 2016. But again, I just don't think there was any way for him to lose despite whatever decision he made yesterday. What do you think, Kyle? I mean, if he just showed up and farted on stage, he would have won the debate. I mean, I remember back in the previous elections, he would show up.

There would even be nights where he had an off night, and still the reaction would be all the polls show he won, all the focus groups say he won. There's something about his vibes that resonates with the GOP base. So the only way he could lose is by not going. And I actually think that you're going to see a real, real minor chipping away on his numbers. Again, I agree with Emily. I don't think it's going to actually make a difference ultimately, but I do think you'll see a three, four, five point reduction in his numbers. And that'll sort of spread out among the candidates who did well. He could have humiliated everybody on the stage and basically closed the door for anyone. You know, Chris Christie was not on his A game last night, so I don't think he would have been a real threat to Trump in terms

of, you know, any sort of exchange there. And what I said earlier is he actually opened the door for Republican voters to envision a post-Trump Republican Party, which is not something that he should allow. And very uncharacteristically, he also allowed someone else, Vivek Ramaswamy, to basically grab the spotlight from him. So do I think that means that Vivek's going to beat him? No. But do I think it erodes his support some? Do I think that it enables someone else to get some oxygen for Republican voters to imagine different?

Yeah, I do think from that perspective, it was probably a mistake. Although he still loomed really large. There was this whole extended segment about Trump himself. He was there very much. And I think from the perspective of a Republican voter, they're still thinking about Trump when he's not in the room, even when all these guys are answering questions. And to your point, Crystal, I agree. I think that's so interesting to see this group of

people who are not Donald Trump, who are jockeying for the nomination. And for the average Republican voter, I think a lot of people looked at that and were like, damn, this is what we got? These are my choices. And I mean, in some sense, it explains why you still have so few undecided voters in the Republican primary. One of the things that kind of came across to me, Kyle, was one of the reasons why Vivek was doing well was because he wasn't running against Trump. He was actually the bigger defender of Trump. And so in that way, when you have a power dynamic like that, I kind of do agree with you where even if Trump had showed up, if it really would have robbed Vivek of the spotlight, because then Vivek couldn't just defend Trump and be the person kind of standing up for some of the more America first

MAGA policy areas like he was, it gave him more of a contrast than I think he would have had if Trump was there. That said, I mean, because he's looming so large over this whole thing, it's just difficult to look at this as your loss or a win. Like you said, three, four points. I mean, Trump doesn't care. That's more than he's already made up since Ron DeSantis and Vivek announced him. I mean, I think Vivek's numbers will go up, but I think that those people are still going to vote for Trump. You know what I mean? So it's almost like, it's like a sort of a fake win. I think he's gunning for VP slot or something in the administration.

And I do have a slight disagreement with you guys on Vivek. I feel like he did great in the first half, but then in the second half, I feel like he really got hammered into the ground. So you watched it twice. Yes. I'm curious.

Sorry, go ahead, Crystal. Well, I was just going to, just to keep it on Trump for another moment here, because the other question would be like, you know, I think it's disgraceful that Trump didn't show up at the debate. I think it's disgraceful that Joe Biden isn't going to debate. I think it's disgusting. I think you want to talk about, like, you know, deterioration of democracy or whatever.

I think this is number one case in point. However, we have a poll that we can cite here that shows that Donald Trump, they asked, was Donald Trump right to have attended the debate, to have not attended the debate? 71% of Republicans said, yeah, they think he made the right move. That's the thing, it would be the opposite if he went. If he went, it'd be like 98% say he should have gone. So like, I don't take much from that. Which just shows you, but it just shows you how central, whatever he does, they're like, we love that. I agree, but have fun moving those deck chairs around on the top of the Titanic because he's got 91 criminal charges against him, and eventually I think he's going to be going to prison. And again, his numbers have gone up.

And you guys have talked about this many times. His numbers are going up. The more the indictments stack up, the more Trump support stacks up. In the Republican primary. In the Republican primary. Yeah, not in the general. And maybe there's a ceiling in the Republican primary on that. We haven't seen it be the case so far.

In fact, what we've seen is the gulf widening between him and everybody else, which is another interesting thing. When you look at this group of people, the analogy that I'm thinking in my head, it's like you have some of the people from varsity playing on the JV squad. That would be like DeSantis, which is why he wasn't dunking, right? Yes. Where Vivek is the freshman. So he's like dunking left and right. He's trying, even if he misses, he's trying to show that he can jump. He's trying to get it all in.

And when you have Pence and Christie begging for airtime, basically, they just looked like they were debasing themselves just to get a... This is a former vice president of the United States, a former governor of a state, and they are just squabbling, scrambling for airtime with people like Doug Burgum. I mean, come on. It's a bad look. So you think more people should have skipped the debate? No, no. I think they should have just not been scrambling so desperately.

Should have been dignified. There's a dignified way of doing it. Like, Mike Pence kept saying, like, oh, I want to get in here. He was saying that out loud. And I was like, oh, buddy, come on. You're the vice president. Let Vivek do that. There's no winning for them, though. If they didn't say anything, everybody would be like, why are you being so meek? Why are you being so nebbish? Why are you being so weak? Now they say a lot. It's like, bro, relax. They just can't win. It's kind of a humiliating thing for anyone. I mean, it's very humbling, especially for if you've been former vice president and you've got to be there on the stage.

You could tell how much it irked him not to be there with Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum, who he views because they have political credentials as legitimate. And he didn't find it disrespectful to be on stage with them. Mike Pence despises Vivek Ramaswamy. And we made this comparison earlier, but it really does remind me of Amy Klobuchar and the way she felt about Pete Buttigieg. She thought this guy has done nothing. He was the mayor of this tiny town.

Here I've been a senator. I've done all these things. Like you could viscerally see how much she despised being up there next to him. And then he comes out and actually is, you know, gets higher in the polls and places better in Iowa, better in New Hampshire, et cetera. Very humiliating experience oftentimes

running for president of the United States. Yeah, I think you're right. Let's underscore this also, though, in terms of why it didn't necessarily work out for Pence. We have a focus group that CNN actually did immediately after the debate in Iowa. So let's all take a listen to that about who they said actually won the debate. Here's what I want to ask you about. Who you thought did the best during this debate? Basically, who do you think won the debate? I'm going to do it in alphabetical order to be fair.

Anyone think Doug Burgum did the best? That's zero. Anyone think Chris Christie did the best? He certainly got most of the airtime. A lot of the airtime, not most of the airtime. How about Ron DeSantis? How many of you think Ron DeSantis did the best. He certainly got most of the airtime. A lot of the airtime, not most of the airtime. How about Ron DeSantis? How many of you think Ron DeSantis did the best? That's two people. How about Nikki Haley? One, two, three, four people. Asa Hutchinson?

Mike Pence? Zero. Vivek Ramaswamy? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Tim Scott. Okay, so this panel here thinks Ramaswamy won the debate. So I personally really like that focus group because it matches up with my winners and losers. Number one top winner was Vivek. And number two, I actually thought Nikki Haley of the like also Rands did herself some favors in particular in her exchange with Vivek on Ukraine, where she actually got the crowd in her exchange with Vivek on Ukraine,

where she actually got the crowd behind her. I thought it was the one moment where Vivek was really kind of on his heels and where she got the better of him in that exchange. But Kyle, what are your overall thoughts? So like I said, I think Ramaswamy came out of the gates hard and he was doing well early on. I think he fell off massively. He had a number of lines where he got like very clearly booed, his thing on climate change, calling it a hoax. I think on the issue of Ukraine, regardless of what you think of the substance, I think Nikki Haley got the better of him on that. I even think Mike Pence got the better of him on that.

There were moments where he just sort of like, you know, faded into the background. He was shining bright and then he sort of faded into the background. So I don't agree with you on that at all. My biggest winner is I agree with you on Nikki Haley. I think she did way better than anybody expected. Yeah, she beat the bar. But I also think, and you'll definitely have an issue with this one. I actually think DeSantis had a way better debate than I was expecting. And I watched it twice. And when I went back and I listened, there was a number of lines where he

got like really loud applause. So nobody laid a glove on him and he was able to get his talking points out. He got really loud applause. And I think that he comes out of this looking the best to be honest. What do you think? I actually agree completely with that point because again, I think all he needed to do He knows that this debate is not going to make a huge dent in the polls like that's actually probably one of the most important things like Predicates that you could come into that debate as a candidate thinking, unless you're Verveek, unless you're like the freshman in that analogy that I'm not torturing. But I think DeSantis just needed to be there. He needed to not have any moments where he gets dunked on, and he didn't need to have moments where he dunks on other people. He just needed to be solid

because this debate is not going to change a 40-point lead. That's going to have to be done on the ground in Iowa. Well, it's sad that you're both wrong. I thought Jonah Hill won the debate. Something we can all agree on. No, so here's my analysis of DeSantis. I thought he did fine. I didn't think he had any big mess-ups. I thought he had some answers that were kind of like weaselly politicians.

But whatever, they all have those moments, right? I thought he was totally solid. And I expected him. I put him as one of my predictions as a winner going in because the bar has been set so low for him with all of the like, let's find every awkward moment we possibly can for Ron DeSantis and, you know, convince people that he is like the weirdest human being on planet earth. And he's a little weird, but he's not the weirdest human being on planet earth. So I do think that he exceeded the bar. I thought he was perfectly solid.

But if you're Ron DeSantis and you were the guy that was tied with Trump in the polls for a while, that coming out of the midterms, you were the winner. You know, you were putting points on the board, like check the score or whatever. For you to lose the spotlight to Vivek Ramaswamy, for you to get outshone by like Nikki Haley, that's a big loss. And I think that his polling will probably go down just because this is with this divided field. If you have other people who are sucking up oxygen and getting attention, you know, it's got to come from somewhere. It's probably not coming mostly from Trump. And so that's why I think overall, in some ways, he was the biggest loser because he's so diminished from where he used to be. Go ahead, Kyle.

You can't hold his past against him. The question is whether or not he won that particular debate. Well, the way I'm looking at this is what are the polls going to do? Right. I think they're going to go up for him for sure. I don't think so. See, I'm very curious to that, Bill, because the thing is, is that DeSantis has slid, as Crystal is saying now, from 35-40 all the way down to the RCP average somewhere between 16-17. Ramaswamy are already around 12.

I was talking about this earlier in the show. Iowa, he's got 40% no name ID. People don't even know who the guy is. So if DeSantis slips from that and then Ramaswamy starts to get up, not only is Ramaswamy then potentially taking over Ron DeSantis, but then there's an entire media cycle about this guy came from nowhere and is now overtaking number two with an earned media that spirals there. People like to pick a winner. I mean, look, all of this again, as you said, Emily, Trump is above all of this.

Yeah, they're all Trump voters. Ramaswamy has no actual support. These are all Trump voters. I mean, listen, there are some people, at least in Iowa, currently, from what we can see, let's say, let's call it one third. Maybe let's call it anywhere betweenthird, maybe let's call it anywhere between one-third and approximately up to 40%. Those people are not, they like Trump, they have a lot of affection for Trump. They're willing to vote for somebody else, especially in this ridiculous caucus system,

the whole, how does it work? It's like one, two, and then if this person goes away, then you can go and you can caucus with somebody else. They kind of like the whole, what is it? They vote with their heart in Iowa. So I think that in that scenario, I could see a big night for Vivian. Vivek told them Trump is the best president of this century. Yeah.

So why are you running? Listen, I disagree with you. That makes no sense. I really wish, Emily, the moderators asked that damn question. If you believe that, why are any of you running against Trump? I would actually love to see that question. Here's the thing. Everybody on stage was either a total Trump

sycophant or a Trump hater, except one person, Ron DeSantis. Interesting. It's true. So there were a bunch of lines. He hit lockdowns and the deep state and Fauci got a huge applause. He hit Soros funded DAs, huge applause. He did his line, which I actually, when I went back and watched it a second time, I thought he handled this brilliantly, when they were trying to get him to answer, like, did Mike Pence do the right thing? He basically said, look, I've got no beef with you, Pence. You did the right thing. But then he went, why are we even talking about this, though?

We're helping the Democrats. We should be focusing on the issues. He got a big applause on that. He said, kill people at the border. Leave them stone cold dead. Got a big applause on that. By the way, I hate all of these things, but I'm just saying it landed. Special forces invading Mexico to attack the drug cart. Huge applause on that. By the way, I hate all of these things, but I'm just saying it landed. Special forces invading Mexico to attack the drug cart.

Huge applause on that. He's the only one who didn't get hit and wasn't a Trump sycophant and wasn't a Trump hater like Asa and Christie were. So I definitely think he comes out of this looking the best. Here's the thing, because the other piece is like,

what did you think this debate was about? And to me, this debate is not about beating Trump. This debate was about being the top alternative to Trump. And given the Republican base's affection for Donald Trump, the best way to position yourself as the top alternative to Trump is by being as Trump sycophantic as you possibly can. So beta. It's true. He's the best. I love him.

Vote for me. He's the best. It is, 100%. It's the best. I love him. Vote for me. He's the best. It is, 100%. It's totally beta. But at the same time that you say it's beta, Vivek was the person who had the most assertive vibes on the stage. And so much of this is about the vibes. He was the fighter. He drew the fire.

He was able to parry the attacks. He was the center of attention sort of coming out of nowhere. And so the fact that he was the center of the show and DeSantis, who was really supposed to be the guy, was on the sidelines, you know, I think in terms of that jockeying to be the potential number two, there's just no doubt in my mind Vivek won that away from DeSantis. I haven't, for like the last couple of months, been thinking every question that Vivek handles in regard to Donald Trump is exactly how Ron DeSantis should have been handling it from a strategic perspective because it's that huge Trump contingent that is going to vote for him

right now. And if you are trying to take that, maybe there's some persuadable people in there that you can get into your basket. If you're trying to do that, you have to, have to show that you're on the same page as them when it comes to Donald Trump. Otherwise, you are going to be put in the basket of an establishment hack who doesn't understand what Trump did to the Republican Party. If you're somebody who votes for Donald Trump, you're somebody who's saying, I'm tired of establishment politicians. Ron DeSantis acting like an establishment politician and having these canned answers when it comes to Trump, I genuinely don't think has been helpful. Let me back up what she's saying and I want to hear your response, which is that at the end of the day, all these people are running as number two and their hope and prayer

is that something happens to Trump. As you said, he goes to jail and then the MAGA people actually have to choose somebody alternatively. Very low chance, but it's possible. I've told this anecdote before. Lyndon Johnson, they asked him, they're like, why are you being the vice president? You're one of the most powerful people in Washington. And he named the number of presidents that have been killed.

I think it was like one in five. He's like, one in five. I like those odds, darling. That's what he said to a reporter. So it's like, that's effectively the game that all these guys are playing. Yeah, that's true. So in this scenario, Vivek, by defending Trump the most, can consolidate in this hypothetical, like black swan scenario. Which is the only path by the way. Which is the only path for any of these people. So in that, what do you think of that? I don't agree.

I don't agree. First of all, these people, they're siloed off. They're in their own bubble. There was when they asked a question about like, if Trump gets convicted, would you still vote for him? And like everybody's hand went up except Asa and Christie. When I look at that, I'm like, general election over. But we're not talking about the general election.

I understand that, but I'm saying, okay, what's the ultimate goal? They're running for president. The ultimate goal is to get to the White House. Okay, so congrats. You might, if Trump ends up in prison, you might've weaseled your way by sucking him off into getting into the position

where you run against Biden. Yeah, but then maybe you'll win. But you're gonna lose, you're gonna lose. So I just look at this. I think, to me, it's like, oh, Vivek's being called anti-establishment. There's nothing anti-establishment about this guy. First of all. Oh, I know, I know.

Yeah, and when you're snuggling up to the guy with 91 criminal charges against him, and you think, what, that makes you an outsider? And he was, of course, he was trying to be anti-war on the one hand, but then on the other hand, he kept bringing up China in a hawkish manner. He's called for war with Mexico over the drug cartels. I just, okay, but substance aside, I think that that beta strategy makes you a beta. Like, I don't think anybody who's supporting Vivek is actually going to support Vivek. I agree with you, his numbers are going to go up after this.

But I think it's fake support. I think they're ultimately all going to vote for Trump because Vivek is telling them Trump's the guy. Republican voters will see it as beta that Ron DeSantis is taking D.C. talking points on Trump. That's the Republican voter perspective. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, but they're wrong. That's the Republican voter perspective. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, but they're wrong. That's the point. Let's play devil's advocate in terms of a possibility to another, like a Trump actually getting outright defeated, which I don't think is going to happen. I think that he would have to be sort of removed by going to jail or something crazy like that. But, you know, in Iowa and in New Hampshire, I'm looking right now at the real clear politics average, and he's quote unquote only at 43% in Iowa and 44% in New Hampshire.

That means a majority of Republicans are actually not with him in those states and are at the very least evaluating their alternatives. Right now in both of those states, as it stands, Ron DeSantis is the top alternative. I would submit it is very possible that after this debate, the vague moves into that position of being the top Trump alternative. With all of the media attention, Americans love also like a fresh new face, someone we didn't hear about before, who's new on the scene. Americans love that story, regardless of the political party that they're in. And so I think the fact that he outshone DeSantis and was the center of so much attacks from some figures on that

stage that Republican base by the way really hates I think that's very beneficial for him and I think it's really deleterious for DeSantis the math in Iowa is actually interesting it does not match up to the general election math but it does have DeSantis down by 26 points and the fact that we're even calling that interesting is funny because we are still pretty far away from people actually going to caucus in Iowa. But if Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy start to become competitive in Iowa, what's important to think about is that is the reverse, basically, of what's happening nationally, in that most people in Iowa say they want to vote

for somebody other than Trump. He's still under 50%, I think, in Iowa. And that is fascinating because that means you get into a scenario where you maybe have people dropping out like what happened with Democrats in 2020. And if somebody does manage to win Iowa, Ted Cruz won Iowa in 2016. This is why I think Ron DeSantis' campaign strategy, which is very directly to put all of their eggs in the Iowa basket, I think is stupid to begin with because you can win Iowa and still not do much. But you could consolidate a portion of the Republican vote and then see if you can flip that national math to look more like Iowa. It's a long shot. But Vivek, and if Ron DeSantis and Vivek come close like that, you're going to see some really interesting stuff happen. Let me ask a different question that I'm curious about. Do you think that Trump is going to start attacking Vivek if he does go up in the polls and does take some of the spotlight?

Yes. That's interesting. I don't think so. Not yet. I think Trump will only start attacking Vivek when Vivek says something negative about him. That's how Trump operates. He's super transactional. You could say 80 things negative about him, but if the very last thing you said about him was positive, then it'd be like, great guy, wonderful guy, really smart guy. Maybe, but you might be right. I'm ambivalent about this question myself. I don't know the answer, but the counter argument would be that the other thing you can do to Trump outside of like, you know, being disloyal is stealing a spotlight. He's not a threat. That's where we fundamentally disagree. I think he's so not a threat and he's so beta that Trump is loving this. He's getting free advertisements from the guy who was at the debate. Yes and no. So look, Trump is a

media whore. A front page of the New York Times this morning, Ramaswamy, you know, debate dominates debate. Front page of the Washington Post, Ramaswamy. I mean, the Trump, New York Post, Ramaswamy, our headlines, Ramaswamy. Trump was giving him credit though. Trump was giving him credit too. Look, this is why I hated DeSantis in the first place. DeSantis didn't say one word about him. It was when DeSantis was winning Florida by 20 points. It's when DeSantis was actually getting better headlines than Trump was that it started to drive him crazy. The one reason why I think it's a little bit different is Trump feels stronger today than he did about DeSantis several months ago,

when DeSantis was much nearer to him in the polls. And I think that Vivek does a much better job of actually playing ball. He's one of those where DeSantis clearly is irked by the Trump attacks. DeSantis also has hit back in like veiled ways. Robbins will never do that. And I think it's actually a correct move whenever it comes to running again for this hypothetical number two to number one scenario. So if there is a situation where Trump attacks him, it will be because of

this earned media. But I don't see that happening just yet because Vivek is still a flash in the pan in terms of this amount of media attention. Think about the amount that DeSantis has had for almost, what, two years? All throughout the COVID pandemic up until the GOP primary, Vivek hasn't had anywhere close to that. It would have to reach that level for him to begin to regard him as a serious threat. Look, I just look at Vivek as't had anywhere close to that. It would have to reach that level for him to begin to regard him as a serious threat. Look, I just look at Vivek as the Republican version of Pete Buttigieg. And I also look at him, and even though I agree with you, his numbers will go up after this. You know, there was a moment when Ben Carson was leading in the Republican primary.

There was a moment when Herman Cain was leading. There was a moment when Carly Fiorina had a good debate and led for two and a half seconds. So I look at it kind of like that. And also, I think, just final point, I know I'm beating up on the guy, but he is so politician-y. And the whole thing about Republicans, which I actually gave them a lot of credit for, is that they are much more likely than Democrats to go, I don't want any of your politician nonsense. And I get that stench from Vivek, and I don't see it. I don't see it.

Emily, one thing I wanted to get from you specifically is Vivek and Ron DeSantis, both when they launched their campaigns, all in on anti-wokeness. That was the center of their pitch. That was the center of DeSantis' legislative agenda in Florida. Florida is where woke goes to die. Vivek wrote the book. This was their thing. No one said a word about wokeness last night. We don't think it was said once.

Do you remember, Lauren? I think Nikki Haley said it once. I think she said a word about wokeness last night. We don't think it was said once. Do you remember, Warren? I think Nikki Haley said it once. I think she said like there's some woke stuff happening in schools. I think it was like in passing. But it certainly wasn't a question. It wasn't a focus. Ron DeSantis got pitched a question down the center

about like, tell us about education. Word did not come out of his mouth. He did say CRT, though. He did mention CRT. Yeah, it doesn't qualify that. That's adjacent. It's adjacent to wokeness. It's adjacent. But just think what it's like just think of okay just for comparison remember when silicon valley bank

collapsed and they were like the wokeness that's what i mean that's the discourse we were in was like literally you know what's wrong with the military the wokeness every single problem it came back to wokeness and then for that to be completely disappeared from the debate last night. They got the memo This was not the thing that we cared about. So I think it is literally a memo That would be my that they actually did focus groups and they've been poll testing this and especially when you have really high inflation When you have you horrific wildfires of Maui It is not gonna look good to get on that stage and just start banging the wokeness drum over and over again, which to people, and I'm actually really curious about this, I'd love to see numbers, especially the numbers that they clearly have behind the

scenes about wokeness, if it has just started to feel like a cartoonish, empty type of rhetoric, as opposed to something that felt real in 2020 and 2021 when people were actually like reeling from what was happening in COVID schools, what was happening in big cities. It's just maybe feels stale to people now and it maybe feels fake to people now. And so you have to find a different way to talk about it. And so I think that is a huge takeaway. You guys are completely right about that. I don't think anybody made a mistake by not laying in to wokeness. With that language, he can talk about critical race theory, but woke has just started to feel cartoonish.

What I'll back Kyle up on is I thought DeSantis was the best version of himself last night. As in, he was constantly talking about, he's like, I'm the governor. I'm the governor of one of these populous states. I actually did this. Florida, we have record low crime rate. Everything was about governance and experience

and going to his political record. I really appreciated that version of him because I've always thought that was his strongest thing. He's like, listen, people moved to Florida because of my leadership. End of story. I want to turn America. I want to give that same dream to everybody else. Now, I think there's a lot going on. I don't necessarily want America to be Florida, but that's like, let's put that aside. The point being that that's a very strong message that I think both is a GOP and a general electorate message that DeSantis was able to convey. Yeah. I mean, I think it was solid. I think he was the only one who didn't get a glove laid on him. He was in and out quick. He got a bunch of big applause lines. And actually, I was surprised after the debate when they released who talked the most. I think he came

in third, which I was like, I didn't even realize he talked that much. He was fourth, actually. Pence, Vivek, and then... It was Pence, Vivek, Christie, and then... Then DeSantis, I think. Yeah, but to your point, like, yeah, what happened? I thought wokeness was the number one problem in the country. Yeah, but they...

What happened? You didn't bring up the number one problem in the country? I think basically what happened is Ron DeSantis leaned all the way into that, and his polls went... No, that's exactly right. Maybe this isn't working out. They have such good message discipline. These guys flip on a dime, man. This is gonna sound really weird,

but Jennifer Aniston came out this week and criticized cancel culture. It's like 2023 and everyone shrugs. If she had done this in 2020, like one of the world's biggest movie stars, one of the world's biggest TV stars coming out and being like, listen, I think cancel culture, like what is it?

Maybe it goes a little too far. That would have been headlines for days. She would have had to put out an apology, et cetera, et cetera. And now she's drunk. Can I say what was so annoying about that quote? She said, quote, I'm so sick of cancel culture. And then she goes, I'll probably get canceled for safe.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, shut up. Who's canceling Jennifer Aniston? No one even noticed that she said it. You made a joke in 1997. I'm against this. All of this was promo for the morning show season three. I was there for season one.

Season two is like, things get a little iffy. Season three, I'm not sure anybody asked. I see a lot of you guys in the morning. In the morning show. The only thing that you're correctly getting is that people get bitchy and annoyed when they have to wake up early morning for this job. That's a whole other conversation.

It's me too. So let me give you guys some numbers. This is from jail partners and the Daily Mail. They did a quick poll last night after the debate of who won and who lost. And partly, I want to get from you guys. We've talked about Vivek a lot. We talked about Ron DeSantis a lot. I want to get from you all of the sort of also Rams, if you thought anyone stood out. So who, in your view, performed best in the debate of Republican voters? 28% said Vivek. That was number one. But very closely behind him, number two, Ron DeSantis, 27. Number three, Mike Pence. Number four, Tim Scott. Number five, Nikki Haley. Next is Chris Christie,

then Doug, Asa, and then 9% don't know. What do you guys think of those numbers? And I'm curious, like I said, about some of the also-rans because I personally thought Nikki Haley did herself some favors. She exceeded my expectations since the beginning of the campaign. Since she launched, she's kind of disappeared. I thought she reasserted herself and had a good exchange with Vivek and also was very strong on her views on abortion. Kyle, what did you think in terms of the also-rans? Anyone stand out to you? So here's my breakdown of it.

Burgum and Asa barely exist. They should have been asleep. They would have been more productive. Asa's eye popped halfway through the debate. It was bloodshot red. Burgum was high as balls on Percocet, which that's what's up. Live your best life.

But he had it because he had a pocket constitution. He had a pocket constitution. He also had a torn Achilles too. So there was a lot going on there. But those guys, they barely exist. Pence was way more aggressive than I expected and way more high energy. But, you know, he also his super religiosity came out. I think Pence is also incredibly politician.

He had moments where it was like, oh, that's such a politician line. He's got the sanctimonious. Yeah, totally. He's really owning the sanctimonious lane. It's like the Marshall Sorkin thing that you were talking about. It's like he practiced some of those lines in the mirror. Like, I said in front of God.

You know what's worse? I think that's actually who it is. Without a doubt. Oh, really? Genuinely, that's kind of... Oh, that's interesting. Which is why it's worse. So weirdly more authentic.

He's very similar on and off. Yeah. I also thought there were moments where he was having a legit identity crisis on stage when he's trying to explain January 6th. It's like, who are you trying to convince? I did the right thing, I did the right thing. Like it was very, it was very needy.

It seemed like he wanted the audience's approval for his like whole January 6th shtick. I think Nikki Haley, I agree with you. I think she's one of the winners of the debate. I think her numbers are gonna go up. She did way better than that. I, first of all, I expected nothing of Nikki Haley at all. I find her incredibly boring. She's a donor creation. But then when she got up there and

she started throwing some haymakers, I was like, okay, Nikki. So I think she did a decent job. Tim Scott did better than I thought, but he has no juice, so it doesn't really matter. Christy did a mediocre performance, but everybody was against him. Everybody on stage, everybody in the crowd, he had tough odds. And that's pretty much everybody. Did you miss Perry Johnson being on the stage? Was that a real loss? I miss Larry Elder, I'll say that. I actually, I did a segment, I think Larry got screwed.

I don't know about it, I haven't looked into it. I looked into it and it looks like, because he used a Rasmussen pole and they told him after the fact, you're not allowed to use a Rasmussen pole. And I was like, you guys use Rasmussen poles all the time. That's a good point, actually. Emily, final thoughts, what do you think?

Yeah, so first of all, I thought it was hilarious that Asa was bragging about being the former head of the DEA while looking blazed. Anyway, I just actually I think a big takeaway from those numbers is this is a huge loss for Tim Scott, who has been banking on doing very well in the debates. There's actually a lot of money behind him, which is not surprising because he's on the banking committee. But there's a decent amount of money. He's really been working on infrastructure in Iowa and those early states. And to, I think, flop, he didn't just do well. He actually was a little less than that. He was a little less than solid or baseline because there were times when he was just like pushing so hard to speak. And there were times when it was like he paused after being asked a question.

It was just, it didn't go well. There were a few uncomfortable moments for him, I thought. Yeah. Nothing like horrendous, but he needed to have the Nikki Haley night. Exactly. At the very least. Exactly. Especially when everyone's running for such a small lane,

it's like you've got to dominate that, man. He needed that. He needed to have Nikki Haley or Pence where he was injecting himself confidently into the conversation and taking some of those big exchanges in a way that was actually appealing to those kind of Pence type that lane, the never Trump lane. He really needed to hammer it. And he just didn't, despite the fact that he does have a lot of money behind him and there is, there are resources invested in him. So to not even do baseline well at a debate is a pretty big loss. Well, and that's actually a great point because the donors are shopping around right now.

They were going to be behind DeSantis. They're kind of like, eh, this didn't really work out. We didn't love your answers on Ukraine and on abortion and other things. They've been shopping. They've been thinking about Glenn Youngkin. They go to sleep at night or whatever. I think out of last night's debate, the donors are going to be taking a big look at Nikki Haley. And they've always had an affinity for her.

You know, she has the right ideological positioning for them. She's trying to moderate on abortion. She, you know, has the neocon view on Ukraine. Like she's in the right places ideologically. And I think they'll look last night at her performance and say, oh, there's something here, and she might be the next donor flavor of the moment, which is, you know, that's the thing. That gives you money, that keeps you in the fight, that gives you positive Fox News headlines

and Wall Street Journal headlines and whatever, so it's definitely a thing that matters. Does it get you to the presidency? No. Yeah. Big winner was Paul Singer there in that debate. All right. I agree with you on that.

I wish him the best. I don't feel like it matters, though. Yeah. It's 2016 all there in that debate. All right. I agree with you on that. I don't feel like it matters though. Yeah. It's 2016 all over again. You're probably right. Okay, guys, we have to go. Thank you so much. Incredible conversation here.

We hope everybody enjoyed it. We've got the debate special going on. Take advantage of that if you're able to, breakingpoints.com. Otherwise, we will see you all next week. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind Boy Sober, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, Boy Sober is about understanding yourself outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are

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