Morning Wire - On the Ground with GOP Candidates & Iowa Voters | 7.23.23

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips traveled to Iowa for the Family Leadership Summit. He speaks to several GOP presidential candidates and dozens of Iowa voters who say they are still evaluating the candidates before they make up their minds. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the Republican primary field all but set, the 2024 race for the White House is on, as candidates prepare to square off six months from now in the all-important Iowa caucuses. On this episode of Morning Wire, we hear from Iowa voters and some of the candidates looking to win them over. I'm Georgia Howe. It's July 23rd, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Here to discuss the rapidly approaching Iowa caucuses and the state of the GOP primary is Daily Wire Senior editor, Cabot Phillips. So Cabot, you traveled to Iowa. We'll get to that soon. But first, where do things stand nationally in the race for the White House? Yeah, so before we get to that conversation, it's important to stress over and over. It's still early. We've got a lot of time to go. But at the

moment, it is largely a two-man race with Donald Trump comfortably ahead of Florida's Ron DeSantis. Most national polls show Trump sitting in the high 40s or low 50s with DeSantis in the low 20s. From there, it's a cluster of candidates in the mid-single digits, including Mike Penn. Vince, Vivek Ramoswamy, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Tim Scott. Again, it's still very early, but the presence of established figures like Trump and DeSantis has resulted in less volatility in the polls than we've seen in years past, though that is expected to change in the coming months. Yeah, now, when do we expect the polls to start shifting?

So typically, they really start to move once we get into debate season, and voters get a chance to see candidates duke it out on the national stage. The first debate will be held August 23rd, and the question at the moment is who exactly will be on the stage. In order to qualify, candidates must have at least 1% in three national polls or early primary state polls, and they'll also need 40,000 unique donors with at least 200 from 20 different states. That is leading some candidates to get creative. North Dakota Governor Doug Bergam, for example, is offering $20 gift cards to anyone who donates a dollar. While Viveh Ramoswami is launching a new fundraising initiative that will allow any individual to keep 10% of the total

money they raise for his campaign. Then Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is offering off a raffle. Anyone who donates $1 to his campaign could win tickets to see Lionel Messi's first MLS game in Miami. So candidates are getting creative. At the moment, the candidates on the cusp of making the stage are Vice President Mike Pence, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, and Governor Bergam. The six candidates who have already qualified or appear well in their way are Trump,

DeSantis, Haley, Ramoswamy, Tim Scott, and Chris Christ. Now, let's talk about the Democrat side. Yeah, the fact that we're even talking about the Democratic primary shows just how extraordinary this race is. Typically, an incumbent president cruises through the primary with little to no opposition. For context, President Trump won 99.9% of delegates in the 2020 primary, while President Obama also won 99% in 2012. The only serious primary challenge that we've seen in the last few decades came in 1992, and Pap Buchanan pulled in 25% of the primary vote against this. then incumbent George H.W. Bush. And it appears President Biden now has a similar challenge on his hands as RFK, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is currently pulling in around 15 to 20 percent of the Democratic

primary vote. Now, while the odds in the end of Biden actually losing the primary are still quite low, any money he spends fending off a Democratic challenger is money he will not have for the general. So Republicans are certainly thrilled to see RFK pulling so well. So let's get back to the Republican primary. all eyes are going to be on Iowa over the next few months. You recently traveled there to speak with voters. Set the scene there for us. So from a polling perspective, the numbers in Iowa look almost identical to what we're seeing nationally. But if you look throughout the history of Iowa, polling at this point is often a terrible way of predicting the eventual winner.

On that note, I was in Iowa last weekend for the Family Leadership Summit hosted by Tucker Carlson. And one thing that really stood out was how few people had a favorite candidate. While many had a name or two come to mind first, the message I heard over and over was that they were waiting to hear from everyone before making up their mind. Here are a few of those moments when I asked about a favorite candidate. I love Trump because he's a little bit of a wild guy,

so I like what he does, but I do also like DeSantis, so I'd be happy with either of those, anybody but Biden. Well, I've got two. It's a split right now. It's between Vivek and Tim Scott right now. I'm leaning a little bit towards DeSantis right now. Trump, I think, is still a contender, but DeSantis will see what he can do. I wasn't impressed really coming into this, really with anybody,

but Nikki Haley did a fabulous job. Mike Pence. Our favorite would be Donald Trump. Definitely Trump. The two that impressed me the most today so far have been Nikki Haley, and I can't say his name, swore mommy. Yeah, yeah, he was great. So of those you spoke to, it looks like they really ran the gambit.

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. are just the folks who gave a name. The majority said they were keeping their options open and didn't even give a name. And that's the other big message I heard all weekend. Iowans are proud of their status as the first state to make their choices known and do things a little differently than most. Rather than a traditional primary where voters make their pick from a voting booth and leave, Iowa has a caucus. So on election day, voters in each precinct gather in gymnasiums, theaters, churches, or even private homes. To kick things off, a grassroots representative from each campaign typically gives a final pitch to those gathered, and then an informal secret vote is

held. Oftentimes, caucus goers will simply write their vote down on a piece of paper and hand it in. Once the votes are counted, delegates to the Republican National Convention are allocated based on the final percentage for each candidate. Iowans take that process very seriously, and those I spoke to stressed again and again how they're waiting until the very end to make as informed a pick as possible. Do you get a sense of who a frontrunner is within your community? I don't really see a frontrunner yet. I was, you know, we're the home of the caucuses, the original caucuses. So we are more than willing to hear everyone say what they have to say.

And, you know, we'll give it time. And by that time rolls around, I think people will have their decisions made. Everyone I've talked to is open. And they're saying, hey, let's see. Let's see everybody's coming through. You know, love everybody coming through and sharing the candidates. And let's just see what's out there to offer. Do you see an opening where I would say, hey, you know, right now we're not really listening to what the polls say.

We're going to make up our minds later. I think Iowans traditionally have done that where they give the candidates a chance. I think it is an open book. One thing I've learned about the polls is they're really not true. So it all depends on the day of election, how people respond in the moment they can change. And so I think it's anybody's ballgame right now. In your community, do you get a sense of who a favorite is? What are you hearing from people around your community?

I don't yet. It's early. and the thinning process will begin and we'll start to narrow it down by spring probably. I feel like it's kind of a wait and see. We're still trying to see what the field is going to look like. Obviously, it's still very early. Now, you also spoke to voters about the issues

that they're weighing as they make their decisions. What stood out? Yeah, this was fascinating. So the number one issue I heard about was immigration. Nearly every voter I spoke with throughout the weekend brought it up as a key factor for winning their vote. While the economy and social issues like abortion, were close behind. First, border security, southern border.

Somebody's going to do something to close the border. Absolutely have to close the border. I see the human trafficking issue and the border as key to my heart. And our border must be closed in order to prevent that. Immigration, abortion, gender identity, pretty much all the things in the news these days. Pro-life, definitely, pro-life, also the border. Things are expensive. I am a nurse practitioner and I see the, repercussions of the economy on the families that I see, and people are struggling. We have four kids, family of six, I homeschool, stay at home, one-income family, and the last

three years have been nothing but hardships for us when it comes to the financial economics. I mean, our grocery bill went up over, you know, weekly, $150 extra weekly. Now, we talked a little earlier about the upcoming debates. President Trump has hinted that he may skip them. How is that received by the voters? Yeah, there were plenty of folks who seemed to think that he was bluffing, though it is worth pointing out he did skip a debate in the 2016 primaries, so there is reason to believe that he's being serious. Among Trump supporters, the general consensus was that they'd like to see him on stage, but that he's earned the right to stay out. But there were plenty of Iowans throughout the weekend who did not take kindly to the news.

President Trump has said that he will likely not join the debate stage at this point. As someone that's looking to figure out who you want to caucus for, what do you make of that? I think that's Trump in a nutshell. He feels like he doesn't. need to be around the other people. I think he thinks he's got it. He's got the win. I think it's unwise to do that. And I think for Iowans, a lot of Iowans I've talked to. Most of them really have taken that personally in the sense of well, it's almost of that. I'm too good. I'm already going to get a nomination. So why should I come? Why should I give time to these kind of these peasants below me on the stage? And a lot of Iowans don't

take kindly to that. I think it's a mistake. I think everyone that's a serious contender should be on the stage telling us why we should vote for them. Why? they have earned our trust. As someone who has voted for him twice, I'm not impressed with him at all, and I just think he needs to go away. That's my impression. We've seen him in action.

We know what he can accomplish. So if he's going to let the other people fight it out for second place, I think that's what he's doing. Now, you also spoke with some of the candidates themselves. So in no particular order, what were some of your takeaways? So we sat down with the vague Ramoswami, who has really come out of it. nowhere as a serious contender. He started the race as an unknown entrepreneur and has climbed

steadily in the polls. Some show him in third place nationally. For his part, Ramoswami said he's actually been surprised with how quickly he's gained support and laid out what he sees as a path to victory. What's your path to victory? What do you see happening in Iowa and Iowa and top two in New Hampshire? Both of those exceed the expectation of what an outsider with me who started with zero name ID was supposed to do. I think that puts us on a trajectory to win. To be really honest, I am well ahead of where our team expected me to be when we started this race. We wanted to be in third place by about Thanksgiving. We're in third place in many of the national polls now, sitting in July.

I also asked Ram Swami for his take on President Trump's hesitance to join the debate stage. Here's what you to say. I have no problem with that. In the early debates, it really could matter one way or another, whether or not he participates. He's been on that debate stage many times, and frankly, he was president of this country for four years. What we really need is to sort out the differences between people who don't know what a presidential candidate Vivek Ramoswamy or other stand for. That's what I'm going to use it for. Now, Ramoswami spent much of his time on stage in Iowa talking about his plan for ending U.S. support in Ukraine and how he thinks it differs from other candidates.

Here's how he put it. Well, what the other Republican presidential candidates are proposing is largely identical to what Biden is doing, continuing support for Ukraine. I would end the war. I would do it on terms that require Putin to exit his. military partnership with China. The China-Russia military alliance is the top threat that we face. Nobody in either party is talking about it. That's going to take big concessions to Putin to get. Well, I'm willing to make them. Freeze the current lines of control. You have to make sure that we make a hard commitment that NATO will never admit Ukraine to NATO. Those are big wins for Putin,

but it'll be a bigger win for us to pull him out of that alliance with China. I mean, we fund Zelensky, Right, Zelensky is like a customer of the United States, right? We supply him effectively. And so I'm going to do this deal whether or not Zelensky loves that deal. It happens to be the case that I believe that's the best outcome for Zelensky as well. I also got the chance to talk with South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, who used his time with the voters to try and strike a more optimistic tone, touting his life story as the embodiment of the American dream.

We are living a time when there is this, pervasive force, radical left, parts of corporate America that continues to force this culture of grievance on the American people. And along with the culture of grievance comes this drug of victimhood, the narcotic of despair, that folks actually have figured out that you can make a profit off of conflict. I want to stand in the gap and say, the truth of my life disproves the lies of the radical forces that believe that we should be in constant conflict with each other. Now, you also sat down with another candidate who drew a lot of attention, got a lot of headlines that weekend. Vice President Mike Pence. Tell us about that conversation. Yeah, one area where Pence

really stood out compared to others in the GOP field as he was speaking on stage was on Ukraine. While others have said they'd cut support Dislinsky as president, he's been clear that he'd continue to support the Ukrainian war effort and ensure victory over Putin. We're not supporting the Ukrainian military because of their version of democracy. We're supporting them because I truly believe that if the Russian military overruns Ukraine, it will not be long before they cross a border of a NATO ally that we will have to send our armed forces into fight. I mean, look, we've made real progress.

We've only spent 3% of our defense budget supporting Ukraine. And in one and a half short years, Russia has gone from the second most powerful, military in the world to the second most powerful military in Ukraine. That's real progress. And I think by giving the Ukrainian military what they need to repel the Russian invasion, we also send a deafening message to China. So what would be different for me is I'll explain to the American people what our national interest is, what our obligations are as leader of the free world. And I'll more quickly provide support for the Ukrainian military. Joe Biden says we're there as long as it takes. Well, look, it shouldn't take that long.

We're the arsenal democracy. We can provide them with the means to repel that Russian invasion. I also asked Pence about an issue that we've talked about frequently on the show, gender transition surgery among minors. He said as president that he would support federal legislation to ban the practice nationwide. Well, I think we need to ban chemical or surgical transgender treatment for any kids under the age of 18. In the state of Indiana, you can't get a tattoo before you're 18. I mean, we put age limits on things.

because we know that until you reach the age of majority, you don't have a full appreciation for all of the consequences of your actions. And as President of the United States, I'd be prepared to support federal legislation that said to anyone under the age of 18 who's been caught up in this radical gender ideology message that no medical professional could administer chemical or surgical transgender treatment. And finally, we talked about the potential absence of President Trump

on the debate stage. Here's his take. I hope he's there. People ask me sometimes how I think about debating Donald Trump. And I remind them I've debated Donald Trump thousands of times. I just never with the cameras on. I look forward to it. So now we begin the countdown for the first debate and the Iowa caucus after. We've got a lot to cover in the next few months, Georgia. Right. It'll be here before we know it. Cabot, thanks for reporting.

Anytime. That was Daily Wire senior editor, Cabot Phillips. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.