The NPR Politics Podcast - At New Hampshire Rally, Trump Says 'You Have No Choice But To Vote For Me'

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

President Trump held a rally on Thursday in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was his first rally since the mass shootings earlier this month. The team discusses his speech and why choosing New Hampshire to host the rally is significant for his reelection strategy. This episode: political reporter Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Tamara Keith and political editor Domenico Montanaro. Email the show at [e-mail]. Find and support your local public radio station at npr.org/stations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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Oh, that is awesome. Sounds like something to blast. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. Last night, President Trump held a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, and he had plenty to say about guns, the 2020 campaign and the economy. And Tam, you were there at the rally. So why don't we start by just having you describe the mood to us? What was the atmosphere like? The thing I would say is that when he came out on stage, the crowd roared for what I would argue is longer than usual.

It was very exuberant. But this was his first rally after the mass shootings. How is this rally different than all other nights? It wasn't. Were there parts of the speech that stood out to you, things that he had to say? You know, absolutely. One thing that did actually stand out is how much he talked about the economy. The United States right now has the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Interesting in a week when some metrics of the economy haven't been looking that great.

Right. No, it's the kind of week where you don't actually want to look at your 401k, and yet he was talking about the economy, talking about people's 401ks, talking about the job numbers. You know, like, I'm sure all of us have heard supporters of the president and advisors of the president tell us, oh my gosh, I just wish he would focus on the economy.

If he could just focus on the economy, that's his winning ticket. That's what he should focus on. Well, last night he did a lot of that, more than I've seen. And yet it's kind of an odd week to do that. And let me tell you, if for some reason I wouldn't have won the election, these markets would have crashed. And that'll happen even more so in 2020. See, the bottom line is, I know you like me, and this room is a love fest, I know that.

But you have no choice but to vote for me, because your 401ks, down the tubes, everything's going to be down the tubes. So whether you love me or hate me, you got to vote for me. Historically, ahead of the midterms, you know, Republican analysts would have loved to have President Trump talking and touting the economy. He didn't do that as much then. And now he's doing it in a week where some of them might prefer that he not be touting the economy as much then. And now he's doing it in a week where some of them might prefer that he not be touting the economy as much. You know, sometimes the president talks about the thing that he's

worried about even more when he's worried about it. If you were following his Twitter feed this week, he was tweeting constantly about the economy, tweeting constantly about the China trade tariffs. And part of that is that there were, you know, discouraging economic indicators out this week. And people just kept saying repeatedly, well, the president's actions on China are part of the issue. Even the Wall Street Journal had an editorial on its editorial page criticizing the president's China tariff policy and the way he's handling the economy. And lo and behold, he criticized that in the rally, too. Demeca, what do you make of this strategy,

I guess, if we could call it a strategy? Yeah, I mean, look, overall, the economy is still really good. I mean, you know, there are potential indicators that there could be there could be a recession coming. Right. But there isn't a recession currently. And the president's goal in any reelection for any president is to tout what he thinks has gone well and is going well. And of course, it wasn't the only thing he talked about, right? I mean, there was plenty of red meat there for the base. But we'll see what happens. Whoever, you know, whoever it is, I don't know their matters, but whoever it is, different, different people. But I don't know. I think Sleepy Joe may be able to limp across the

finish line. So this was the first rally that the president has held since the mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas. And Tim, talk to us about in what way the president even spoke about guns. I mean, I know he's made some earlier endorsements. I don't even know if endorsements are the right word, but he sort of earlier acknowledged that he would be open to increasing background checks or other sort of gun safety measures. Yeah, I mean, he immediately after those mass shootings tweeted that Democrats and Republicans should get together for strong background check legislation. Well, at the rally, he did not mention strong background check legislation. He didn't mention background checks at all. And before the rally, he had talked to reporters on the tarmac as he does. And we asked him about background checks. And he kept kind of

like dodging and weaving and not really engaging on it. So I don't think it's an accident that that didn't come up in the rally, that he didn't explicitly talk about red flag laws either. These are the laws that he has endorsed that would allow law enforcement to temporarily take weapons away from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. And the way he talked about the gun issue at all was really through the prism

of mental illness. And you've been reading about this a lot lately. We are working very hard to make sure we keep guns out of the hands of insane people and those who are mentally sick and shouldn't have guns. But people have to remember, however, that there is a mental illness problem that has to be dealt with. It's not the gun that pulls the trigger. It's the person holding the gun. Sounds like that was a really well-received line in the crowd there. And it's a line he's used before.

Yeah, but it's certainly not the start of a push on gun control. You know, this is not the president going out trying to convince his base, give cover to other Republicans in Congress, Mitch McConnell in the Senate to say, hey, we need to get something done on universal background checks. Ninety percent of people are in favor of background checks, including big majorities of Republicans. Republicans out there, you are parents. You know what we're talking about. We should pass this legislation. That's not what we heard last night. What we heard last night was a lot about mental illness and which is something that he's pivoted to previously. Earlier in the day, he sort of signaled it as he was leaving to go to this rally and saying, you know, maybe we even need institutions to come back in this country so we can lock some of these people up. And he mentioned the institution idea in his speech, too. We should just note that mental institutions were shut down decades ago in the United States. And generally, the sort of the philosophy has changed about how mental illness

should be dealt with and managed in the country. One other thing, that line about it's not the gun that pulls the trigger, it's the person holding the gun. That was his biggest applause line of the night. And you better believe he noticed it. You know, there is a big conversation to be had outside of politics about the idea of the stigma around mental illness. And there are a lot of people who, when talking about guns and gun safety, sure, people talk about mental illness, but we even saw the head of the American Psychological Association come out and say that he thought that this push about mental illness creates a stigma around mental illness in this country in a way that he thinks is unfair. He was saying that the rates of mental illness in other countries with less access to guns is similar to the United States,

and they don't have the gun deaths that you see in those places. We're seeing the Democrats pivot and talk a lot more in this particular incident about the need for creating, say, an office for federal, a federal office for hate crime investigations, right, or making this a conversation about white nationalism in conjunction to guns. And then here we have President Trump making this a conversation about mental health. And it feels like neither one of them is really on the same page at all. Because Democrats are arguing about labels and what to call the president. And they're talking about things like we should call him a liar. We should call him a racist. We should call him a white supremacist. Right. And that's been the debate over the last week or so where we've seen

about half a dozen Democrats now come out and say the president is a, quote, white supremacist. And some of the people that I talked to this week, by the way, who track extremism and hate, for example, the Anti-Defamation League's head of center for extremism said that this is kind of beside the point. If you want the president to denounce white supremacy, you can't call him a white supremacist, even if they believe he's fanning the flames of white supremacy. Guns has been such an intractable issue. And there are senators from both sides of the aisle who've been working on this issue and are still working on it and trying to come up with something and trying to get something. But there is this sense that this same conversation has happened repeatedly with really the same result, which is nothing happening on the federal level. I mean, you have heard Democrats

over and over again talk about guns, the kinds of policies that they want to put in place. But the problem is, if the president's not on board and he can't give the kind of cover needed to Republicans, nothing's going to get done. And the president is already saying, well, you know, we could get together some sort of good legislation, saying it very much like he doesn't think it'll happen, but we could. But then the Democrats will just sink it because they'll want something that we can't accept. OK, well, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the map that President Trump is trying to put together for his reelection. Support for this NPR podcast and the following message come from BetterHelp. BetterHelp offers map that President Trump is trying to put together for his re-election. at your own time and your own pace. Schedule secure video or phone sessions, plus chat and text with your therapist.

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npr.org slash Life Kit. And we're back. And Tam and Domenico, you've both done reporting on the map that the president is trying to put together for his reelection. In 2016, he lost the state of New Hampshire. That's where he was rallying last night. He wants to win it this time around, right? Absolutely. And this is the first state this year, as President Trump has been running for reelection and having these big rallies. This is the first time he has visited a state that he didn't win last time around. And this is also the state that he lost by the narrowest margin. Yeah. I mean, look, I want to talk about four states. When you look at the map,

it's New Hampshire, Minnesota, Nevada, and Maine. Those are four places where President Trump lost, but were within the top 10 closest either by margin or by percentage difference. So New Hampshire, for example, was the closest state of all the states in the 2016 election. Just 2700 votes separated Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. So it makes a ton of sense why you would want to go to a place where all you got to do is flip 2700 votes and try to expand. It also shows a degree of strength that the president wants to show in his campaign, wants to show to say, look, we're not just going to defend all the places we want, but we're going to expand. And here are the places we could expand.

And they have a legitimate case to say that they could go on offense in these four places. That's really interesting, because I do think when you talk to Democrats this cycle, they'll talk about a different map. They'll talk about trying to win back some of the states that they lost last time, say Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin in particular. And so I feel that it's sort of interesting to hear the president, to your point, perceiving or trying to show a level of strength that, hey, look, I'm not just trying to defend those states. I actually will arguably try to win some new states. There's also an argument that this comes from a place of insurance policy, shall we say, that those states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, were close and they have traditionally been won by Democrats. And so you can't bet all of your reelection hopes

on winning the states that you won improbably last time. And so that in part is why they're looking at, you know, expanding the map, as you call it. That's a really interesting strategy, though, if you're going to go to New Hampshire, because New Hampshire has been trending Democratic in presidential elections as well. Except they have a Republican governor and they feel like the chance is there. And also, like, based on what the president said last night at the rally, it's pretty clear he feels like it's the one that got away. New Hampshire was taken away. It was taken away from us, but we should have.

We did great in New Hampshire. We should have won New Hampshire, but that's OK. I'm not holding it against you because it was not your fault. Donald Trump has this big elaborate theory that there were busloads of people coming across the border from Massachusetts to vote in New Hampshire. That did not happen. I mean, the reason he brings up the buses is because he wants to be able to keep his base fired up. He wants these folks to come back out and vote at the polls. It isn't their fault that he lost because they voted for him.

So instead of saying, you know, we lost and it's an uphill battle, blah, blah, blah. If you do that, then that could depress your base. But if you blame it on something else, then you have an enemy, a common enemy where they can sort of be fired up and show up again in big numbers. It's also really interesting to me, though, that he chose New Hampshire because it's an early primary voting state. Right. So you have so many Democrats, they are constantly energizing the Democratic base. And so just the fact that the Republicans don't have a competitive primary, to me, is an interesting choice that he's going to this early voting state, which has a lot of Democratic energy at the moment. He was definitely there to counter program, if you will,

to draw the spotlight to himself and take a little attention away from all those Democrats, show them that he still gets the big crowds in this very important state. And more strategically, it is a problem for candidates looking for reelection when you have all of this energy in Iowa and New Hampshire, places that are swing states traditionally. If there's all this energy, all this groundwork that's being done, Hampshire, places that are swing states traditionally, if there's all this energy, all this groundwork that's being done, all these activists that are being activated and out there knocking on doors for the opposite party, that can be a problem for a president seeking reelection. Let me toss in one thing about that, which is that I was talking to some New Hampshire

Republicans this week, and they say that the Trump campaign, combined with the Republican Party in New Hampshire, is already running a better and more intense campaign than they did in 2016, and that volunteers are out door-knocking already. They are recruiting. They have a bunch of paid staff in the state, and they have paid staff in all of these states, these so-called stretch states or states that they either want to hang on to or win. So the thing is, while the Democrats are running for the nomination and competing against each other,

the Republicans are building a machine. Asma, you mentioned three states for why Democrats are trying to expand the map or where they're trying to expand. You said Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. If you throw New Hampshire in there, they are the only four states that were decided by less than one percentage point. Okay, so there's an obvious reason why both sides are going to try to show strength, expand, and Democrats have to win Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to be able to resurrect what was a blue wall for many years. Those were places that Rust Belt, Upper Midwest, where that was a firewall against Republicans. And the president knocked that wall down and Democrats that the map is shifting. And when you speak to demographers, they will specifically point to Arizona. It's a state where Democrats did well during the midterms. The Democrats picked up a Senate seat in Arizona. And there is a sense that Arizona is trending more and more when you talk about a younger, browner electorate, more in favor of the Democratic electorate. It looks more like the Democratic base. All right, Tam, we're going to let you go. We know that you are sitting down with Andrew Yang in New Hampshire today. Yang is, of course, another one of the 2020 Democratic presidential

candidates. And that interview will be in your podcast feeds soon. We will be back as soon as there is more political news that you need to know about. I'm Asma Khalid, political reporter. I'm Domenico Montanaro, political editor. And I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.