Tangle - Trump wins South Carolina primary.

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

The South Carolina primary. On Saturday, former President Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in the state's primary election by roughly 20 points. Trump received 59.8% of the vote to Haley's 39.5%, with Ron DeSantis — who had dropped out — getting 0.4% of the vote. Trump has now won nearly every delegate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, all but assuring his victory heading into Super Tuesday on March 5.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:01), Today’s story (3:11), Right’s take (5:11), Left’s take (8:40), Isaac’s take (12:07), Listener question (15:21), Under the Radar (18:30), Numbers (19:37), Have a nice day (20:21)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul. Today's episode is edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to

your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the South Carolina primary that happened over the weekend.

Donald Trump came out victorious, but there are some storylines I think are important to cover. We've also got a good reader question today about some of the evidence against Joe Biden and his impeachment trial, his impeachment hearings, I should say. As always, before we get started, we're going to jump in with some quick hits. First up, Michigan primary elections are being held today. President Joe Biden is facing a campaign of voters pledging to cast uncommitted ballots in protest over his handling of Gaza. And former President Trump has a wide lead over Nikki Haley in the polls.

Number two, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shataya resigned yesterday as a coalition of United States and Middle East nations called to reform the party in hopes it can oversee Gaza post-war. Separately, during an appearance with late-night host Seth Meyers, President Biden said a ceasefire could come as soon as this weekend. Number three, the Federal Trade Commission sued to block grocery chain Kroger from merging with its competitor Albertsons, saying the $25 billion acquisition would reduce competition and hurt wages. Number four, a Manhattan district attorney requested a limited gag order against Trump in his hush money trial.

Separately, Trump appealed the $454 million fine he received in the civil lawsuit against him for fraud. And number five, a hazmat team and emergency services were sent to the home of Donald Trump Jr. after he received a threatening letter that contained white powder inside. The spokesman for Trump Jr. said a lab of the powder came back inconclusive. This was a blowout. We talked about closing the gap. We went from about 11 points in New Hampshire to more than 20 in the final tally in South Carolina. A couple of counties, only three out of 46 carried by Nikki Haley. After a stinging defeat in her home state, the former governor is optimistic, but history is not on her side. No candidate has lost the first primary contest by such a wide margin and gone on to win the nomination. With this 20-point win in the South Carolina Republican primary, Donald Trump is that much closer to securing the Republican nomination.

Trump's last remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, trailed him by a wide margin, but she did make one thing clear in her speech on Saturday night. No matter what happens in South Carolina, I would continue to run for president. On Saturday, former President Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the state's primary election by roughly 20 points. Trump received 59.8% of the vote to Haley's 39.5%, with Ron DeSantis, who had dropped out, getting 0.4% of the vote. Trump has now won nearly every delegate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, all but assuring his victory heading into Super Tuesday on March 5th. Still, Haley, who retains ample donor cash, says she is going to stay in the race. Polls had shown Trump outperforming Haley by a 2-1 margin, and after the loss, her team trumpeted the fact she has repeatedly outperformed the polls in the primary. Yet, unless Trump drops out or his

legal troubles prevent him from finishing the race, there does not appear to be any path for Haley to the nomination. Today is not the end of our story, Haley declared. Voters have the right to a real choice, not a Soviet-style election with only one candidate. Trump's win was led by men and white voters, exit polling showed, and he dominated in both rural and suburban areas in South Carolina. Haley was more popular with moderate and liberal primary voters, but no other groups. Trump dominated among Republicans, with exit polls showing he won 73% to Haley's 26%.

The Trump campaign has continued to criticize Haley's decision to stay in the race, saying she's preventing them from focusing on the general election. Nikki Haley should do the only honorable thing, and that's drop out, senior Trump advisor Chris Lekevita said before the South Carolina polls closed. He added that Haley was raising money from Democrats who want to keep her in to do nothing but do Joe Biden's dirty work. Today, we're going to take a look at some commentary about the results from the right and the left, and then my take. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right says that it's obvious Trump will be the nominee, praising him for his America First policies and garrulous personality.

Many criticized Haley, saying that her staying in the race makes it clear that she has anti-conservative motives. Others worry that Trump's smaller-than-expected victories spell trouble for the party in November. In the American Spectator, Charles Lipson wrote about the reasons Trump effectively clinched the Republican nomination. First, the voters in these contests are the party's activist base, and Trump fundamentally reshaped that base during his first run for president and his White House years. He moved the party sharply away from its center-right traditions toward populism, away from free trade and international alliances toward nationalism.

His slogan, America First, encapsulates those changes. So do his strenuous efforts to limit illegal immigration and roll back the administrative state, Lipson said. Second, the former president remained atop the party because his campaign appearances reassured the base that he is the same energetic, entertaining, anti-establishment candidate they have supported ever since he rode down the Trump Tower escalator in 2015. They like his policies. They love his attacks on entrenched elites. They think the legal cases against him are unfair, political prosecutions, and they firmly believe he can defeat a weak President Biden, Lipson said. Those voters have real doubts about Haley's commitment to Trump's populist agenda, an agenda they strongly support. In the American Conservative, Daniel McCarthy criticized Haley as a proxy for Joe Biden.

Whatever her campaign is about, it isn't a good-faith attempt to win the Republican nomination, McCarthy said. It was already clear after New Hampshire that Haley had no realistic prospect, nor even a long-shot prospect, of taking the nomination from Donald Trump. She can't even mount a serious challenge on her home turf. But Haley helps Biden, and in doing so, she might make a new career for herself. Distract and deplete, keep Trump from focusing his attention on Biden, and starve his campaign of funds by making him spend on legal defense instead of elections, McCarthy wrote. Haley plays a useful part in this project, and she's aware of it. Her value to Biden doesn't lie in dividing the Republican Party or in keeping open another front on which Trump has to spend limited resources. Nikki Haley's campaign isn't

about voters. It's about donors. Haley is not growing in popularity and winning converts to her cause within the GOP. Her campaign could fight on after New Hampshire only because the donor class would permit it. In National Review, Noah Rothman questioned whether we were seeing Trump's ceiling in performance. Across the three early contests in South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Iowa, a consistent pattern has emerged. Trump underperforms his polling, Rothman wrote. Trump went into the election in New Hampshire beating Haley by over 19 points in the polling average. He beat her by about 11 points. The spread in South Carolina favored Trump by over 23 points, but his margin of victory ended up at around 20 points. These relatively small discrepancies hardly constitute polling error once the peaks and

valleys in the polling landscape are smoothed out in the aggregate, Rothman said. But as Cook Political Report analyst Amy Walter wondered, these results may also suggest Trump's vote share in pre-election polling represents a hard ceiling on his support, a threshold he approaches but never quite achieves, much less exceeds. All right, that is it for the rightist saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left acknowledges that Trump will be the candidate, but bemoans a Republican party that embraces his recklessness. Some criticize Haley for not becoming the best version of herself to beat Trump. Others castigate the entire process, saying the Republican Party is becoming a cult of personality. In The Atlantic, Sarah Longwell explored how Donald Trump became unbeatable. Today, thanks to Trump's dominant performance

in South Carolina, the Republican primary is all but over. How did we get here? First, you can't beat something with nothing. The Republican field didn't offer voters anything new. Nikki Haley and Mike Pence cast themselves as avatars of the pre-Trump GOP. Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy did their best to imitate Trump, presenting themselves as younger and more competent stewards of the same MAGA agenda. None of them offered a viable alternative to Trump. The second theme, Trump's competitors declined to hit him on his 91 felony counts, despite the fact voters say they have serious concerns about them. Instead, most of them, with the honorable exceptions of Christie and Asa Hutchinson, actively defended Trump, Longwell said. Lastly, Trump started to be seen as electable. This represented a big shift from a year ago.

These voters have come to believe that the election is a choice between senility and recklessness, and they've decided they prefer the latter. In Newsweek, Christy Linder wrote about the candidate Nikki Haley could have been. Nikki Haley has once again fallen short by a mile and in her home state of South Carolina, losing the Republican primary there to former President Donald Trump. Even the Koch organization is pulling its support, Linder said. In her attempt to walk the tightrope across the party line and beat former President Donald Trump at his own game, she's fumbled the nomination, though her zombie campaign continues on. On one debate stage, Haley slammed the concept of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. For those of us who know something about Haley, this was a glimpse into where contradictions

might lie, Linder wrote. In 2015, Haley shared that her father had been racially profiled at a fruit stand when she was a child, an experience that stuck with her viscerally ever since. Someone who has both witnessed and experienced numerous hardships due to inequality should understand the need to fix it. If you're listening closely, there is more to the story, but Haley hasn't offered it to us. In Vox, Zach Beauchamp said the joke of South Carolina's primary actually tells us something

deadly serious. The 2024 Republican primary isn't and never has been a competitive primary. Trump simply wasn't going to lose a contest for the hearts and minds of the Republican base, Beauchamp wrote. I and others have been arguing this for years now. Yet during those same years, many prominent people in politics and the media deluded themselves into thinking he might be dethroned. They have been wrong every time. Breaking news happens anywhere, anytime. Police have warned the protesters repeatedly, get back. CBC News brings the story to you as it happens. Hundreds of wildfires are burning. Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canadians.

This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. CBC News. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.

When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. Trump's cult is the product of his unique ability to channel the cultural grievances at the heart of the current Republican Party, Beauchamp said. By making his very person into a stand-in for the existential struggle of America's soul, he has created a world where

any loss represents an intolerable blow against everything good about the country. Such a setback can only come from a place of deep corruption, from the swamp and Democrat-controlled cities. And if American democracy has truly been subverted this thoroughly, the logical conclusion is clear.

We have to fight like hell to save it. All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So it's not getting any less obvious. Trump has the nomination locked up. The biggest question for me is why Haley is staying in the race. From my perspective, there are three plausible options. Option one is that she genuinely believes Trump might be prevented from getting the nomination. That is, she views herself as an insurance plan in the event his legal troubles or health, given his age, somehow catch up with him and the party is left needing a nominee in November. In that scenario, Haley, the last remaining person fighting Trump, who has the donors and who polls extremely well

against Biden, would be a good pick for the GOP. Option two is that she's thinking about 2028. Haley has a long future ahead in Republican politics and what she's doing now might be an attempt to affirm her brand. She's a fighter. She doesn't give up. She won't back down and so on. Being seen and framed over and over as the number two to Donald Trump, the party's leader, may not play well in the short term, but it comes with a lot of long-term benefits. It means when Trump is gone, she'll be the natural number one.

It might just be that simple. The more people talk about Trump and Haley, the more Haley is seen as his likely successor. I think options one and two are by far the most likely. But I also think there's a third option that is a bit more out there and yet still plausible enough that I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it. Haley is gunning for vice president. Bear with me for a moment on this. On the one hand, Trump prioritizes loyalty over everything else, and Haley publicly and directly criticizing him makes me think he'd never tap her as vice president and that their personal relationship could very well be over. Haley's attacks are getting much more pointed.

They're the kinds of attacks all Republican nominees should have been levying against Trump the whole time, and at some point, there may be no turning back. On the other hand, though, imagine being in Trump's position. Imagine polling terribly with women, suburbanites, moderates, independents, and never-Trump Republicans. Imagine getting the chance to give people the sense that if something happened to you, the country would be in stable, experienced hands. Imagine needing to band together MAGA supporters and centrists to have any chance of winning a general election. Who would make the

most sense as a vice president? Probably the person picking up all those voters you don't have. And then consider the optics. Haley spends six months trashing Trump and warning about what a threat he is, then ultimately decides to run on his ticket. It'd look bad for her, sure, but it would look great for him. Do I think this is likely? Not really. In fact, it is equally if not more plausible that Haley is staying in the race because she genuinely thinks Trump is a threat and wouldn't mind Biden winning again this year, especially if she could run against his legacy in 2028. But I do think a run for VP is still possible, and I think it'd be a brilliant move for Trump if he could stomach it. Remember, this is the same guy who picked Mike

Pence as his vice president in 2016. Whatever the real reason is for Haley staying in it, the fact remains that this primary is over, and it has been over. The only drama left on the Republican side is figuring All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from an anonymous reader in Salinas, California. They wrote, Tony Bubulinski's testimony, and he's not exactly been a stellar witness in the case against Joe Biden. Tony Bobulinski is a former business associate of Hunter Biden, who recently testified to the House Oversight Committee about Joe Biden's involvement in Hunter Biden's alleged influence peddling. Bobulinski testified that Joe was the quote-unquote brand sold by Hunter Biden, enabled foreign dealings, and received financial

benefits from them. His testimony was at times combative, but it ultimately didn't give us anything new or provide any evidence that Joe Biden was directly involved. From what I can tell, Hunter Biden was personally profiting off his father's name. It is hard to deny that. What's harder to prove, and what neither Bobulinski nor anyone else has, is that Joe Biden was personally involved in Hunter's actions. Sure, Hunter was selling his father as a brand, but we don't have any real evidence Joe was enabling Hunter's efforts. Much of the focus has been on the one line that came from Hunter's laptop, the quote, 10 held for H, that's Hunter for the big guy, which is nowhere near as meaningful as Biden's

critics think it is. It's very easy to read that as Hunter being compensated for his promise of access, not for the access itself, which again hasn't been proven. Then there are other issues. Bobulinski and his lawyers have been consistently playing the victim card for the pushback his testimony has gotten from Democrats, and he recently made headlines for denying a claim by former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson that he received an envelope from former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows at a rally, despite a picture Hutchinson took to prove it. To be honest, I don't really care too much about all that. What I care about is where Bobulinski's evidence is. As I've said before, there is some damning stuff on the Hunter laptop,

damning for Hunter, but nothing conclusive for Joe. But again, Republicans also insisted the FD-1023 form and their confidential source were at the heart of their impeachment inquiry. They said that, not me. They believed that was more valuable than Bobulinski's testimony, not me. If Joe Biden financially benefited from Hunter's business dealings, then that's something we

should all want to know about. But the further this inquiry goes without real evidence to prove that, the less testimony like Bobulinski's means. One last thing. Everybody's bias, including me and you. That means sometimes I miss things because of that bias, but also means that sometimes you, the reader, will focus on certain things because of your biases. I think that is worth remembering.

All right, next up is our under the radar section. Stephen Kramer, a veteran Democratic political consultant advising Representative Dean Phillips, the Democrat from Minnesota, in his primary run against President Biden, has admitted to being behind a series of robocalls in New Hampshire that imitated Biden's voice and told voters to stay home during the primary. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday, the fake Biden voice said in the calls. In an interview with NBC, Kramer said he hired an out-of-work New Orleans magician to help make the fake robocall in order to raise awareness about the dangers of AI in politics, comparing himself to Paul Revere. Around the

same time the calls went out, Phillips' campaign paid Kramer $250,000. Both Kramer and Phillips insist that Kramer acted alone, and Phillips' campaign has condemned the calls. Kramer has been subpoenaed by the FCC. NBC News has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. Donald Trump's margin of victory over Nikki Haley, the next closest finisher in the 2024 South Carolina Republican primary, was 20.3%. His margin of victory over Marco Rubio in 2016 South Carolina primary was 10%. Donald Trump's projected margin of victory over Nikki Haley in South Carolina was 29.3 percent. The amount of cash on hand that Donald Trump campaign has, according to Politico,

is $30.5 million. The amount of cash on hand the Joe Biden campaign has, according to Politico, is $56 million. The amount of cash on hand that Donald Trump campaign had at this time in 2020 was $92.6 million. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day section. Get this, good news feels good to read, but it's probably good for you too. Seeking out and reading good news has the benefit of combating negativity bias, reducing anxiety, keeping you engaged with relevant issues, building empathy, and even improving heart health. A 2018 study by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that people with a positive outlook are more inclined to lead a healthier lifestyle, leading to cardiovascular benefits. Not only that, but good news seems to be catching on. Good Good Good has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description.

All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. Before we get out of here, a quick reminder, we're coming to New York City, April 17th. Tickets are on sale now. There's a link to those tickets in our episode description. And don't forget to go check out our YouTube channel. Subscribe there. Also, our podcast, of course, if you're listening to this and you have two seconds to go give us a five-star rating or just recommend the podcast to a friend, that is super, super helpful. We'll be right back here at the same time tomorrow. Have a good one.

Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul. Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Vakova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.tangle.com.

We'll see you next time. inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca.