Pod Save America - Trump Wins New Hampshire, Rages at Haley

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

Donald Trump wins the New Hampshire primary by a smaller margin than expected and returns to form during his victory speech. Despite her loss, Nikki Haley stays in the race and sets her sights on South Carolina. And later, President Biden kicks off the general election with a rally and ad focused on abortion access. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Jon Lovett. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Tommy Vitor. Gang's all here. Here we are. Big night. Huge night.

Donald Trump has won the New Hampshire primary, though his margin over Nikki Haley looks like it'll end up being smaller than the polls suggested, somewhere between 8 and 12 points. We're recording this Tuesday night, so we're still counting some vote. But it was apparently enough for Haley to decide that she's staying in the race. Here's what she said shortly after they called it for Trump. Now you've all heard the chatter among the political class. They're falling all over themselves saying this race is over.

Well, I have news for all of them. New Hampshire is first in the nation. It is not the last in the nation. This race is far from over. There are dozens of states left to go. I love the yelling guy. I love that guy. Go Nikki. Are we political class? Because this member of the political class does not think

it's over. I want her to go stay all the way in. Go to the convention, Nikki. 12 points? That's fucking, that's this bad. Some people might say that in any other election on earth that that's a landslide. Not me. This razor thin margin. 11 points. All the way

to Milwaukee. Come on, Nikki. I wonder what the last primary is. I'll Google it. Yeah, you Google that. Why do you guys think she decided to stay in? Dan? I don't think she did. What are you talking about? Wait, hold on a second. We watched this whole thing.

She got dressed up. She went down there. She said, here we go. Okay, I'm going to flash you back to eight days ago. We sat in your office eight days ago. We watched Ron DeSantis give a speech. That was not a stay in the race speech. That was absolutely a stay in the race.. That was absolutely a stay in the race.

Four minutes, no message. That was pathetic. Look, maybe she will stay in the race. Maybe she will. But I don't think that matters one iota. I find myself rooting so hard for her to stay in the race. I don't think it matters. I don't.

Nikki Haley's not going to win the Republican nomination. Not with that fucking attitude. What are we doing here? Unless we get the hamburger from heaven But I think the longer she's in this race Attacking Donald Trump Pissing him off Absolutely I'll take it

I mean maybe she will stay in The month between New Hampshire and South Carolina Is traditionally a death march for Republican politics George W. Bush and some of the dirtiest politics Of that time Seems like frankly nothing now. Quaint. Destroyed John McCain in that period

to then essentially lock up that nomination in South Carolina. Nikki Haley is going to be under a brutal assault for a month to go to her home state where she's polling in the single digits and losing to Trump by about 30 points in an electorate that is so, and we can talk about how it so unfabled her, maybe she will want to go through that humiliating process. I would be surprised. What does she got to lose? Well, I think the big question is how much money

she can raise in the next 24, 48 hours. If she can't raise money, she's got to get out. There's just no two ways about it. Her campaign is billionaire dependent. She has no grassroots fundraising base. And there's this fund, these billionaires are holding this fundraiser for in a week and we'll see if they're still holding it a few days from now. Apparently she's going to campaign in the Virgin Islands tomorrow. Tomorrow, yeah. For their February 8th caucus and there's Nevada. I figured

it out. The last primary is the June 4th Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota primary. So that's how long this could last. June 4th. Oh, please. Tommy, when is the, can you find the Virginia primary? Damn. That's, uh, sure can, yeah. That is the can you find the virginia primary that's uh yeah that is the one primary she has a legitimate chance to win well so they she their argument the haley team they put out a memo this morning sort of signaling that they were not going she was not

going to drop out uh if it was the 20 or 30 point blowout that the poll suggested maybe that wouldn't have been uh an operative memo but their argument is basically so we got south carolina our home state is on february 24th and uh democrats can also vote anyone can vote in that primary uh if unless you're a democrat that votes in the february third primary the democratic primary uh for joe biden then obviously you can't vote again but if you don't vote in that you can can vote. So that's an open primary in South Carolina. And then they go to Michigan. Michigan is open. And then D.C. Good, good district for her. Then the caucuses in Idaho and North Dakota. And then Super Tuesday on March 5th. And 11 of the 16 states on Super Tuesday have open or semi-open primaries. That is true, but it's far less important than the fact that the

Trump team has completely rigged the rules so that now if he gets 51% of the vote in some of these states, he will take all the delegates, including states like California. It is true that some of these states have open primaries, but none of them have open primaries with the tradition of independent participation like New Hampshire. Half of the voters in this election were either independents or Democrats who re-registered as independents to participate in this process. Right. It almost sounds like independents and Democrats infiltrated

to take a clean victory away from Donald Trump. Who managed to stop this deal. Yeah, it does seem as though, like, if your campaign memo is about how, don't worry, the Republican primary has lots of opportunities for people who aren't Republicans to vote. You do have a deeper problem that can't be overcome by the calendar. That would be the memo written by the campaign that lost Republicans by 50 points in this election tonight. She didn't do so well with Republican voters. Which is tough when you're running for the Republican primary.

At some point, right, presumably she has to, at some point she has to win Republicans to win the Republican primary. That would be sort of, I don't know. This is what you guys pay the big bucks for. Yeah, like I'm a speech writer. I'm not a data guy. I'm not a data, I was more poetry than pose.

But I have to say, I also was a math person. And I do think at some point she has to win republicans i'm just trying to get inside their the campaigns her head the campaigns i think what they might be thinking is um as tommy said trump has rigged the rules so a lot of these are like either winner take all or you hit a 50 thresholds in the primary and then you take all the delegates but maybe she's thinking if i can just keep picking up a few delegates here and there and then uh march 5th comes along or whenever trump is is tried in dc then trump is convicted suddenly the polls start shifting we go to the convention she's the only other one with delegates

except i guess ronnie d has a couple from uh. Like six or something. He's got six from Iowa. No one else is going to get delegates except Trump and maybe her now. So maybe she thinks then, you know, who knows what might happen. It's all crazy, but I'm thinking that's what must be going through their heads. I think what's going through their heads is everyone gets up in a campaign and they care passionately about it. And they can't make the decision to drop out between when the votes are counted and when she speaks. Yes. So they do this and then this is exactly what happened with DeSantis

then over the course of time the checks stop coming in starting to lay staff off people start your endorsers start calling and saying you know what? How many does she have? Like Sanunu is just like stuck to her Sanunu and Ralph Norman.

Yeah, not even. I guess that's right. They start calling and saying, you know, I'm kind of thinking, or the billionaires who are funding this thing say, it's time to get on board with Trump. And then you drop out. Like, this is the process they all go through. Yeah, I think that would help explain why she spoke so early. It's like, you know what?

Let's just go out there, get it over with, give the speech we need to give for tonight. Get to tomorrow. Do some thinking thinking, spend time with your family, and then really decide. I also think they must've seen the numbers and said, your lead is never going to get better. Trump's lead is never going to get smaller than it is right now. Get out there before there's a one in front of that number. That's right. Trump noticed that too. He's furious. We'll get to it. The speech hit different when she was down seven, I suppose, now when she's down 14 or whatever it is at this moment.

I think she's going to stay in all the way to South Carolina. I'm pulling for her. I hope it happens. It's a total wish cast. What we want and what we think will happen are unfortunately different. We all light a candle to Saint Isidore of content, but I want her to stay in too.

I think, Dan, look, obviously you're making the right, like that's the most sensible, obvious path. But hey, we got to put something before the Helix mattress ads. And I feel like- I just also think that people on campaigns and people when you're in it, you don't make sensible decisions. Like I don't, I just don't.

Every campaign manager has to go tell their boss to drop out is saying, lay me off, right? That's not a message people deliver that easily and all these other people who've been in the trench with us for a year now we're all going to become unemployed and if you're possibly unemployable in trump's party all if you are someone who is spending a ton of money if you would put money behind nikki haley you're you are a person who has deluded yourself into believing that at some point the republican party is going to come to its senses.

That is like the core that is that is core to your being, that you believe that something is going to shift. The fever is going to break. A year ago, it wasn't true. What's to say these people won't keep believing that for another three or four months? You know that like the trials are coming. She's also she's just she's bored. She likes running for president. She's you know, she's getting some attention. She likes it now in New Hampshire where 48% of the voters are independent Democrats. I don't know where she's going to be able to talk to them. She can't fill an event in South Carolina. Ken Langone I think is his name he said that his financial support for Haley would be contingent on New Hampshire results so you're gonna have

guys like that deciding whether they're gonna light 10 million more on fire and give it to a super PAC or not and I think that's gonna make the decision for her yeah I believe it's I believe he said at some point you stop throwing money down a rat hole yeah which begs the question why you ever start throwing money down a rat hole yeah and what's a rat hole and these guys also

know that the longer they wait the longer they support nikki haley the more expensive it's gonna be to get back in trump's good graces yeah i will say it's her home state she can run a pretty lean campaign in south carolina she doesn't have to go anywhere you know she makes a point in that down in her um 50 in her victory speech she's given two victory speeches and she hasn't won a thing this is what i'm saying we're acting like this is on the speeches and she hasn't won a thing. This is what I'm saying. We're acting like this is on the level and she's going to be like, oh, look at the data. John, I'm on your side of this fucking table.

But in her speech, she makes this point like I'm from... We were talking about this before the pod that she really is just like... She is just a quintessential politician. She's good at it, but she's such a quintessential politician, but she gets up and she says, now they can't come down to South Carolina

and lie about me or whatever they can say about me because they can. Well, but also she's like, they know me in South Carolina. South Carolina is my home state where you're polling at 6%. That, you know, the, the argument goes both ways. If they know you're polling at six percent that you know the argument goes both ways if they know you they've already decided on you right like what what story can you tell a South Carolina voter to convince them from go to go from Donald Trump to Nikki Haley when you were the governor for eight years she's gonna she's gonna wake up tomorrow and figure out all right and you know what and she can do it and Nikki I believe you can do it. So Trump was none too happy about Haley's decision to stay in the race. Gone was the low energy, somewhat gracious Trump we saw during his Iowa victory speech.

Thank God. Instead, we got our guy back. I can go up and I can say to everybody, oh, thank you for the victory. It's wonderful. Or I can go up and say, who the hell was the imposter that went up on the stage before and like claimed a victory. She did very poorly. Actually, we won in 2016. And if you really remember it, if you want to play it straight, we also won in 2020 by more Ron beat her also, you know, Ron came in second and he left. She came in third and she's still hanging around.

And just a little note to Nikki. She's not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. And I could tell you five reasons why already. Not big reasons, a little stuff that she doesn't want to talk about, but she will be under investigation within minutes, and so would Ron have been, but he decided to get out.

He decided to get out. Now Vivek, I don't think would be at all because he's perfect, right? I find in life you can't let people get away with bullshit. Okay, you can't. You just can't do that. And when I watched her in the fancy dress that probably wasn't so fancy, come up,

I said, what's she doing? We won. Just classic, classic Trump. Can we just talk about one, before we get to all of it, can we just talk about one piece of it, which is, did he forget that Rhonda Sandis endorsed him one second? He just got mad and kept going? Or of it, can we just talk about one piece of it, which is, did he forget that Ron DeSantis endorsed him one second? He just got mad and kept going?

Or what's going on there? He was supposed to be nice to Ron. Ron's emotionally on that stage with him now. Did he forget? There are some legislators in Florida who are trying to pass a bill to give Donald Trump $5 million in taxpayer money to pay for his legal bills. And Ron DeSantis declared on Twitter that he would veto that bill. And that was that.

He also gave his, in his first interview, I think with Steve Deese, he said that Trump's got a real problem with swing voters and he's going to have to fix it. Like he kind of went after Trump today in his interview. They don't like each other. Yeah, I think it's, I don't know if he forgot. I think he fucking hates Ron DeSantis.

He was in no respect for Ron DeSantis. He was in no respect for Ron DeSantis. He was in flow. He was in his flow. He was trying to play that like, oh, I'm going to be gracious and okay for Ron DeSantis. He fucking hates him. Ron DeSantis offers him nothing. Like Tim Scott could be a valuable asset in his campaign, right? Nikki Haley would actually, I don't think he's going to take advantage of this, but

would be a potential asset in his campaign. Ron DeSantis brings nothing to the table. He needs him for nothing. Especially now that $5 million in taxpayer money is off the table. What did you guys think of the speech? What did you guys think of Trump's big victory speech? He was pissed. I mean,

that came through loud and clear. Yeah, he suggested Haley would be investigated. He also suggested that Governor Sununu is on drugs yeah he did you guys gotta be on he's gotta be on something said this guy has got to be on something there was the mocking of the dress which was just petty dickish stuff uh then he said to tim scott you must really hate her about nikki haley because tim scott endorsed him so yeah it was uh old school raging trump he also yeah he let all of his uh new of his new supplicants give a quick little speech. Vivek did a

tight two minutes. 60 seconds. Tight 60. Yeah, Vivek did a tight 60 and then Tim Scott was clearly not prepared that he was going to be asked to say something and he got up there and sort of mumbled through and then when Trump said, you must really hate her, he came up and he goes, no, I just

really love you. I just, so your that's your guy that's love it's got and you know what what do you think what do you think here's what i think here's what i think here's what i think do you want to do you want to live in a world where you don't open up your heart to somebody even if you know there's a chance you might get fucking disappointed yes am i disappointed that tim scott is not just a fucking failed presidential candidate but a sniveling little fucking worm that trump is now going to take out of the gimp box to march down to South Carolina. What box?

The gimp box. It's from a film called Pulp Fiction. Learn film. Go to cinema. Tim Scott is out of the gimp box. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, I'm pissed about it. Yeah, it's frustrating to me to have Tim Scott there.

But just like he didn't obviously the tim scott thing was humiliating embarrassing but even the vivek thing he's like i told vivek he could speak but no more than a minute no more than a minute like you see he's got these guys on an on a on a leash but you know what i was like and i know msnbc and cnn after we complained about this they did take Trump's speech tonight. Although then they cut away and they were like, see, this is the problem with taking Trump's speech because he lies so often. It's like, yeah, there's definitely a lot of lies, crazy lies. They had to fact check it.

But I'm happy for all the voters in America to see the Trump that we saw tonight. More of it. This is why I want Nikki Haley to stay in so badly because Donald Trump talked about this. Dan, you've written a message box about this. He is a strong man. He wants to appear strong. He made himself appear weak tonight because he was so pissed. Even though he fucking won, he was so pissed at Nikki Haley that he seemed like he was just angry.

He was agitated. It was great i also i just i also i i was thinking about this too because you know look we've gone through so many fucking endless conversations about platforming and what you know you can't show trump because it spreads misinformation but if you don't show trump people forget how threatening is and i do think like what i was taking away from because i heard you guys talking about it and i agree we talked about this before but that it's like, yes, Trump is a vehicle for spreading misinformation and that can be dangerous. But also the lies that Trump spews, especially the ones that are just like not plausible

that most people don't believe they are a vehicle for exposing Trump, right? Like we do, you do need to like, and I, and I don't know what's like, you know, I don't know what the best thing is. I don't think there's an easy decision there. But man, is it better to have people seeing Trump being at his most unhinged and angry and all the rest? I think we might be in a different place politically if Trump had not been essentially exiled from public view on January 7th, 2021. Yeah. 2021. Because if he had been rage tweeting about being improperly persecuted for this and how the election was in that moment, as opposed to just disappearing for a few months and then being

slowly welcomed back in, it'd be a very different world. And for a whole host of reasons that you've talked about offline, the information environment has changed so much since that time that now people just never see Trump. And now the one nights of the few nights when they might see him, we're like, don't show him. I think I just think that he has been rage truthing and also doing these rallies the whole time. But the rallies aren't being covered and that no one sees the truth, really. So and as viewership of cable declines, we're an increasing share of the audience.

So we want to see it. So just give it give the people what they want. Two quick housekeeping notes. There's a lot to keep track of in a high stakes election year. Voting deadlines, emergency therapy, and maybe also your job or whatever. That's why Crooked and Vote Save America created a comprehensive 2024 planner. It's filled with important dates and some fun extras to keep you focused, sane, and organized. For the record, we tried to include a few Xanax, but the lawyers said we couldn't. Losers. Head to crooked.com slash store to get your planner now. Also, pre-order our book,

Democracy or Else, How to Save America in 10 Easy Steps. It's a fun, useful guide to getting involved while keeping whatever's left of your sanity intact. Plus, Crooked will donate its profits from the book to support Vote Save America and other organizations mobilizing for the 2024 election so you're helping make a difference before you even crack it open. Democracy or Else is available on June 25th, but you can pre-order your copy now at cricket.com slash books or wherever books are sold. Let's talk about the results in the primary. You guys see anything notable in the results or the exits or anything that might tell us something about the general election? We talked about in Iowa how Trump's win there might have showed some weakness since it wasn't a commanding win.

Obviously, this was even less of a big win in New Hampshire. What do you guys think, Tommy? I thought it was interesting that Trump did best among the 18 to 29-year-old cohort. He got 61% versus 52% or 53% of the older voters. That was interesting and I think does say something about his super fans and the people who like him. And also it says something about the self-selecting sample of young Republican voters too, that they're the more radical, the TPUSA types. Also, the most important issues were the economy, 36%, immigration, 31%. Trump mopped up with immigration voters. 77% of that cohort went for him. No surprise there, but it does tell you what

issues are really driving this primary and then the general election for Republicans. I think you can sum up how Trump won by these numbers. Haley won moderates by 50 points and Trump won conservatives by 42 points, but conservatives made up two thirds of the electorate and moderates one third. Do you think that portends anything for the general election? I mean, I thought if you're going to look for numbers that might say that Trump is a weaker candidate, they again asked in the exits, is Trump fit to be president if he's convicted? 52% said yes. 44% said no. Your feelings if Trump wins the nomination? Again, this is just the Republican primary. 59% said satisfied, 40% said dissatisfied. So for someone who's running as basically an incumbent,

probably not the numbers you want. There are many, many flaws in our presidential nomination process. One may be the fact that Trump is going to receive about 200,000 votes and basically be the nominee by tomorrow in a country with 80 million Republicans. Yeah. That's something more about the Republican party. But one thing where the New Hampshire primary is useful for at least projecting forward for the general election is you do get a pretty significant sample of prototypical swing voters participating in this, right? It is suburban, college-educated, moderate. The largest group of voters in the state by far are undeclared voters.

And those are the exact voters that Trump lost ground with from 2016 to 2020. Those voters are overrepresented in some of the states he lost, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona. And if he is going to win, and we talk all the time about all the things Biden has to do, Trump has to do better with college-educated suburban voters. And nothing that happened tonight suggests that he is doing not even better, anywhere near as well as he did in 2020. That is a big flashing light with a segment of voters that he has to improve with. And there is no evidence he has done so.

Yeah. And we don't know if any of these Haley voters, we don't know how many of them are going to, if Trump's the nominee, vote for Trump or vote for we don't know how many of them are going to, if Trump's the nominee, vote for Trump or vote for Biden or not vote for either of them. But certainly it doesn't show a lot of strength. Yeah, I feel like there's two things that I took from this. One is actually just how strong and dangerous a general election candidate Nikki Haley would be. That's one. But two, Trump in his, you know, rambling, infuriated speech, he he he didn't want to say it exactly like, don't worry.

Yeah, sure. Nikki Haley is doing better against Biden than I am. But anybody can beat Joe Biden. But he basically got there. And, you know, Nikki Haley is making like it's like a vaguely sophisticated point about how Trump cost people the House and cost people Senate like it's a coattails thing. But Republicans want to win. And he made a point of saying, Hey,

don't worry. We got this thing. You nominate me. We're going to win. And he's clearly like, there is an argument that Nikki Haley is making that he's not totally unconcerned by, right? He is responding to it and making a point that's like, Oh, Joe Biden is so frail and weak. Don't you worry about that. I'm going to beat Joe Biden. Nikki Haley, any of us could beat Joe Biden. That's not important. That's not important. It's also notable that they asked in the exits, would you favor or oppose a federal law banning most or all abortions nationwide? And only 27% of voters favor banning most or all abortions nationwide. A couple, one concerning point in that number is that Trump only lost the people who opposed a nationwide ban by 10%. 55, 44. Yep. But here's one other thing

on the electability number. Yes, I do think it gets under Trump's skin because down deep in his very dark soul, he knows he lost the 2020 election and that haunts him. But only 15% of voters in the exit poll listed defeating Joe Biden as their top quality, the quality they cared most about in a candidate. Yeah.

And Trump won those voters overwhelmingly. Yeah. So there is those voters overwhelmingly. Yeah. So there is, this is Nikki Haley's argument. There is zero audience for that argument in New Hampshire. And nationally, we talked about this the other day, is that they asked Republicans in this YouGov poll,

who do you think is going to, regardless of who you support, who do you think is going to win? 84% of Republicans think that Donald Trump's going to win the election. But then what's strange- Tells everything about why he's walking away with it. Yeah, but there is this sort of like, you know, voters aren't good at telling you how they're going to feel about something in the future, I think.

And that could be a double edged sword. But we are in this strange scenario where a bunch of Republicans voted for Donald Trump today and also told a pollster that if he's convicted of a crime, he's unfit and they won't vote for him again. And he is on track, you know, to our minds to be convicted, hopefully before the election. But we don't know. And so the election, but we don't know. And so it's like, it's hard. We know they think you wouldn't be fit,

but we don't know if they wouldn't vote for him because they didn't ask, would you vote for him? Which they did ask in CNN's poll, right? No, they asked it in the Des Moines Register poll. But even, I didn't look at it in the New Hampshire poll and I just got a text from Reid that said, who we work with, who said, organic polar coaster pitch, which I think means right now I'm supposed to mention that we're going to dig deeper into these exit poll numbers in the episode of Polar Coaster

that's coming out in two days. Wow, amazing. That's how the magic happens. Look at that. It just felt like it was right there, part of the conversation. All right. Well, let's talk about the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. There was one. And Joe Biden won it despite not appearing on the ballot. Again, he did not appear on the ballot since Biden and the DNC decided that South Carolina will be the Democrats' first primary. New Hampshire went ahead with their primary anyway, so they are not going to have any delegates at stake. So Joe Biden didn't go on the ballot. Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson did. The Biden allies in New Hampshire, Biden supporters in New Hampshire did not want Joe Biden to be embarrassed. So they organized a write-in campaign

and boy, did it work. So he won over, so far right now, he's got over 70% of the votes, the write-in votes. We'll find out the final number when everything's counted and they read all the write-in votes. Dean Phillips only won around 20%

and Marianne Williamson took 4%. What do you guys think? But Mercury's in retrograde. I kind of think that Biden, look, they were hoping to avoid embarrassment, but I think they also demonstrated some enthusiasm. I don't think it's easy to organize a write-in campaign. And like, if you're a Democratic primary voter

and you know there's not much of a primary, to get up, walk out of your house, go to the polls, write in Joe Biden's name, that tells you something. Yeah, I think it definitely demonstrates some enthusiasm, but I think demonstrates even more is organization. And for all of the Democratic complaining and worrying and everything about the state of the Biden campaign, whether Biden can win. One thing that the Biden campaign has been very, very good at from the very beginning, right? Going back to the primary when they overperformed in the Nevada caucuses is organization. And so this is something that I think that they would be very good at helping engineer is something like this.

Yeah. Dean Phillips and Dean Phillips affiliated Super PAC spent five million dollars in New Hampshire for his 20%. Here's what he said tonight about his loss. What I'm saying is this. I don't know what my name recognition is. It was zero just 10 weeks ago. I would imagine in this country right now, it's probably 5 to 10% tops. I was a brand builder before this in the private sector. It takes recognition of a name or a brand in order to actually test it. I need some months to do that. recognition of a name or a brand in order to actually test it. I need some months to do that. And so basically he said he's going to take a few more months. And once polls start testing Dean Phillips against Donald Trump, he's going to look at those numbers and then he's going to make a decision. This is just a whole race. It's a whole campaign based on polls. What a waste of time. He got in because of polls. He's going to get out because of polls. He's going to stay in because of polls. Whatever the polls say, that's what Dean Phillips is doing with his life. I'm going to suggest that perhaps Dean Phillips'

strategy to campaign in a state, relentlessly, to move to a state where the president was not on the- Where he did go to summer camp. He did go to summer camp.

Where he discovered it, that's where he discovered his passion for America and public service at summer camp, as one does. Yep. To go to base

the entirety of his campaign and this $10 million, whatever, spending in a state with no delegates was not the right choice. Yeah. I will also say too, we have worried a lot about Joe Biden as the nominee. What if another Democrat challenges him? Another Democrat challenges him in New Hampshire, and Joe Biden's not even on the ballot. And the Democratic voters in New Hampshire went out and said, no, I don't want Dean Phillips. I want Joe Biden. They had the alternative. They saw his ads, spent five million dollars in the state. And they just,

you know, that's that's part of the reason this primary has turned out the way it is, because Democratic voters, when they get the chance, they wanted to vote for Joe Biden. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's like I do think like, oh, we look back on this moment. If a year from now, and Donald Trump has won, we look back on this moment, I want to make sure that were we too cavalier about this specific challenger? And I actually think the answer is no. There are legitimate and very real concerns about Joe Biden's ability to get reelected. And the issues that made Dean Phillips so anxious about the polls to get in are not invalid. They are very real concerns that I think we all share. It's just,

this wasn't the candidate. And there was no amount of, I think- He also did a terrible job. If you really had these concerns, you had to get in a year earlier. You had to actually run hard. You had to know when deadlines like getting on the ballots in various states occurred. And instead, he waited too long. He fucked it up. He hired all the wrong people. And now he's just left with this sort of embittered message where he's complaining about the DNC and the process and trying to whine his way to the White House. And it's just, it's not going to work. You're running for president. It's not helping. And perhaps you should not decide to run for president

because you get a DM on Twitter from Steve Schmidt, which is how this happened. Yeah. Good advice, Dan. So speaking of Biden, he kicked off the general with a campaign event in virginia on uh tuesday focused on abortion rights just a day after the 51st anniversary of roe v wade he was joined on stage by vice president kamala harris first lady jill biden and second gentleman doug emhoff here's a clip of biden Virginia. In the United States Congress, extremists are trying to pass a national abortion ban

to outlaw abortion in every single state. But what they need to know is that if Congress passes a national abortion ban, President Joe Biden will veto it. Donald Trump is betting you won't vote on this issue. But guess what? He's betting we won't hold him responsible either for taking away the rights. He's betting you're going to stop caring. By the way, that you'll get distracted and discouraged and stay home. Well, guess what? I'm betting he's wrong. Campaign also released a new ad that features Dr. Austin Dennard, a Texas mother and OBGYN who was forced to travel out of state for an abortion after learning her pregnancy was non-viable and life-threatening.

White House also announced a series of executive actions aimed at protecting reproductive rights. What do you guys think about the events, the ad, the policies? Dan, we were talking about this, I think, on the last pod. Obviously, this was them trying to get some attention, especially, you know, counter-programming a New Hampshire primary. Do you think they got the attention they were hoping for? I think they certainly got more. You never get the attention you're hoping for. Right. They certainly got more attention than any other. Just love it. You're right. Yeah. It's a daily grind. It's a campaign of inches. I mean, it got more attention

than your typical White House event, right? There was, you know, we don't know what the audience was for television coverage tonight, but it's certainly more than on a typical political night, right? And even on some of the network stuff where you're going to see those clips, you're going to see that message, you're going to see the Restore Roe banner that was behind them. And so, yeah, I think it achieves that goal for sure. This is going to be the longest general election in history. What a remarkable stat. There is an ongoing competitive Republican primary. I don't know what we're doing. Three pods a week.

I know it was timed because of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, but I do think it was telling that as we kick off the general election, they started with them. I mean, he did the January 6th speech on the anniversary of that. And then he just did a series of events and ads around abortion. You know, I think that seems to be what they're going to, that's going to be the message, the main message for the campaign. And I'm guessing there'll be an economic component as well soon. Yeah, I think jobs, freedom and democracy. I mean, it seems like the three things.

Yeah, jobs, freedom and democracy. I mean, that is, that's the ultimate question here, right? Is, you know, they've called it, and democracy. the larger general election electorate is going to place a higher premium on economic performance and economic approval than the midterm electorate who clearly voted on abortion, freedom, democracy, and those issues. And that we don't know.

And how persuadable. Right. Those voters. Right. Even though there is technically still a Republican primary going on, technically, the Biden campaign did put out a statement tonight basically saying that the generalists here,

we know Donald Trump's going to... Do we think that Biden's going to be out there now all the time? Is he going to go campaigning? Is he going to be freer to campaign? Should he? In the next month or so while this is still... While Nikki Haley's still doing whatever

Nikki Haley's going to do? I think they're constantly striking a balance. They're doing official events in swing states. I imagine they'll continue to do a lot of those because it saves you money. But I don't know, Dan, you think they're going to do a big-ass rally in Michigan soon or something to really kick this thing off? Or do you wait until the post-State of the Union? I don't know what they're going to do. I imagine it's going to be a relatively slow but steady ramp up. And just there's so much other stuff going on in the world that he has to attend to. I but there is.

There is a real asymmetry in terms of the kind of information people are getting right now. campaign events, more louder Biden message events from the White House or aggressive paid advertising, that asymmetry has to narrow right now. Because there's this very interesting poll that our friend Peter Hamby wrote about in Puck, which shows that people are getting a ton of information about Donald Trump and not very much information about Joe Biden. And that is alarming at two fronts. One, it's allowing Trump to define the four corners of the political conversation. But also part of the Democratic argument is that people aren't paying attention to Trump. Once they realize Trump's still around and still terrible, they will change. The election will change. The diamond fundamental diamonds will change.

This is a piece of data that suggests we have more work to do than just waiting for people to wake up from their political new slumber. And again, I don't think the Biden campaign has to choose between do we go out there and have a positive message from Joe Biden and accomplishments and what he's going to do? Or do we just go out there and, you know, hit Donald Trump every day? I think they can do a contrast message, right? And so every time they go out there, here's something Joe Biden did. Here's what he wants to do if he's going to get a second term. And by the way, here's what Donald Trump would do and the Republicans. And you just constantly drive the contrast message and, uh, over the next couple of months. But yeah, I, I, I'd get out there soon to try to, uh, I think it probably begins after the state of the union. Yeah. That's my guess too.

Ideally that's going to be his biggest audience, uh, that the convention and then the debates. And, uh, hopefully I think in the, in the State of the Union, they'll lay out an economic agenda for the second term that they'll be able to then use in the campaign trail. So that'll be hopefully like the third leg of the democracy Dobbs stool, if you will. All right, well, that's it. Anything else? Any closing thoughts?

Just go, Nicky. Go get him, Nicky. Go get him, Nicky. Tim, you broke my heart. You got this, Nicky. All right. And I don't know that I can love again. That may be i'm out congrats on the engagement i don't know why that came from god trump can't say that without laughing he just can't help himself he just

laughs you know it's it's we just talked about the fucking tim scott engagement just like the idea that like bonus like you know nothing says to me nothing says love to me more than proposing to your uh girlfriend on friday and then endorsinging Donald Trump and going to a rally over the weekend. And then telling him you love him. And then telling him you love him. His heart is big enough for two. And the other thing, too, is it's like, I don't know Tim Scott's life. None of us does.

Right. Fine. Tim Scott's life. None of us does. Right. Fine. But man, the idea that this sort of like slap dash engagement in a photo is going to like mitigate Trump's concerns about Tim Scott being weird. Like we were talking about this before record, like Trump already got duped by a kind of an evangelical right winger who made him a little uncomfortable with all the Jesus talk, but he but he swallowed it to to secure the right wing vote. He's not going to do that again. He tried to kill the last one. He's telling me a favorite thing about that picture of Tim Scott getting engaged.

The photo caption says, this is, you know, Tim Scott getting engaged. Photo courtesy of Tim Scott. Courtesy of Tim Scott. He's like, I really hate that this news broke, but here you go. Here's a pic. Yeah, he also like did this interview.

He's like, I'm such an introvert. He's like, are you, are you such an introvert publicizing your engagement? You just ran for president. Just ran for president. What kind of, you're not really, you're fucking up being an introvert, Tim Scott., are you, are you such an introvert publicizing your engagement? You just ran for president. Just ran for president. What kind of, you're not really, you're fucking up

being an introvert, Tim Scott. All right, we're out. Fucking asshole. That's it. Pod over. Bye everyone.

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