The NPR Politics Podcast - Candidates Debated. But They Probably Still Can't Beat Trump

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Seven Republican primary candidates not named Donald Trump debated Wednesday night in the Reagan Library in California. There were some interesting policy questions, plenty of infighting and basically no signs that any of these folks can surge to overtake the former president and win the primary.This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, national political correspondent Mara Liasson, and national political correspondent Don Gonyea.The podcast is was produced by Casey Morell and Elena Moore. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from Autograph Collection Hotels, with over 300 independent hotels around the world, each exactly like nothing else. Autograph Collection is part of the Marriott Bonvoy portfolio of hotel brands. Find the unforgettable at AutographCollection.com. Hi, this is Layla from Boulder, Colorado. Today is my birthday, and I'm celebrating my newfound freedoms of being 18 by buying a lottery ticket, watching a rated R movie solo, and next on the agenda, getting a tattoo. This message was recorded at 1141 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, the 27th of September.

Things may have changed by the time you hear this, but hopefully today will end without any regrets. All right, here's the show. Well, you wouldn't regret it if you got the NPR Politics Podcast logo tattooed on your body. Tam, do you have that? No, but where on her body is the question? Lord. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover politics. I'm Mara Elias, and I also cover politics. And I'm Don Gagne, and I too cover politics. The second Republican primary debate on the Fox Business Network just wrapped up, and it was at times chaotic. That is the sound of seven people not named Donald Trump all trying to get attention at the same time, and that happened quite a few times. The candidates on the stage were North Dakota Governor

Doug Burgum, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. The former president and frontrunner Donald Trump was in Michigan acting like the primary wasn't even a thing. So let us start with your takeaways from the debate. Mara, what stands out to you? What stands out to me is that I saw nothing in this debate that would change the basic dynamic of the Republican primary, which is that Donald Trump right now is the prohibitive frontrunner. And he's so far ahead in the polls that even if the rest of the candidates solved their collective action problem and all dropped out except for one and

rallied around that one person, all of their support combined still might not be enough to defeat him. And I was looking for signs that the Republican field was serious about trying to defeat Donald Trump for the nomination. I saw very few, with the exception of Chris Christie, who has made it his raison d'etre for running to defeat Donald Trump. He had a new nickname for him. Right. Here's the former New Jersey governor in the Fox Business Network debate. You're ducking these things. And let me tell you what's going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We're going to call you Donald Duck. I didn't see a Republican field with the stomach, with the exception of Christie, for taking on the front runner. And a front runner who we should note

has been indicted four times, tried to overturn the results of the last election, which he lost. And yet he is the prohibitive front runner in the Republican primary. Danielle, we can hear the sounds of a filing center behind you. You're there at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library where that debate was held. What stood out to you? I mean, I would largely agree with what Mara said. The thing that I would add is jumping off about Trump having been indicted four times on, what is it, 91 counts, that that didn't come up. And that's on the moderators as well, not just the candidates, although that in and of itself demands some attention, but that the moderators didn't ask about that. I mean, what that hammers home to me is that this is that

this party does, I guess, is largely unified on no, that's just not a thing we care about. And what's fascinating is that this was the moment that we were all talking about after the last debate when the moderators asked, would you support or vote for Donald Trump if he's convicted? And there was that really waffly moment where a few people looked at each other. The hands kind of went up one at a time. It was very telling. We didn't get a moment like that. And that is worth digging into. So honestly, that's a disappointment to me. Dawn, you are in Michigan and you went to former President Trump's rally there tonight. That was all about counter-programming and also kind of all about putting himself up as the candidate currently running against Joe Biden. So what was it like?

He did take the stage as if he were already the nominee. He was at a place called Drake Enterprises, and it's an automotive supplier up in Macomb County. People may know Macomb County as the home of Reagan Democrats of yesteryear. That's going back a ways, right? But this is in one of the more conservative suburban counties around the city of Detroit. And he described this as like a major policy address to look at a future that protects American labor and not foreign labor. What he did was basically describe an auto industry that is on the verge of completely collapsing because Joe Biden is president and because of these mandates that are pushing the auto companies. And again, they're going along quite willingly toward a future where vehicles are electric as opposed to internal combustion

engines and vehicles that dominate the roads today. He is also looking for an endorsement from the United Auto Workers Union. Yeah, that really stood out. It almost seemed like he was asking, begging, I don't know, begging the president. Multiple times. Multiple times. He said, Sean Fain, he says, I'm watching him. I think he's a good guy, but I don't know why he doesn't endorse me. You should tell him he should endorse me. And then he criticizes Fain's

bargaining technique saying, well, you're asking for a lot of money. And it's like, okay, maybe you'll get the money, but what does it matter? Because if Trump doesn't get elected, all of your jobs are going to be gone in two years and we won't even have an industry. I see people really with mixed emotions because you're striking for wages, but you know your job's only going to be here for two years or three years if you're lucky. So there was a lot of that back and forth. I also need to point out that while this was billed as an address to autoworkers, it was in a small place at this manufacturing firm, a parts supplier. Maybe there were 500 people there, and I think it would be generous to say that maybe one in five is a member of the United Autoworkers Union, and this is a non-union factory. So there were lots of workers there who are employed at the factory and they do not have a union. So I do want to get to the part of the debate where

the Republicans on stage, at least a couple of them, did go after Trump. We heard Chris Christie earlier. Danielle, how else did they go after the man who wasn't on stage? Right, yeah. So you did have a couple of attacks on Trump, which we also saw in the first debate, for the spending during his administration. And the Trump administration did spend quite a bit. And, of course, if you're a traditional conservative, which Trump is not, and which many Republicans honestly are not these days, that is a thing that you believe in is cutting government spending. Well, he got that from DeSantis. One other thing is on abortion. Ron DeSantis has really decided this is an issue where he can differentiate himself from Donald Trump

and seems to feel he can safely attack Donald Trump. Donald Trump lately has not come down on how many weeks during a pregnancy, at which point he thinks abortion should be outlawed. And also he has refused to say whether he would support some sort of a federal abortion ban, which other candidates, including Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, have said they would sign. Well, Governor DeSantis says that's not good enough, and evangelical Christians should be very upset. And he did that again tonight. Yeah, and what's really interesting about that exchange, or that comment from DeSantis, is that Donald Trump was very, very critical of DeSantis for signing the six-week ban.

He has criticized Republicans in the midterms for blowing the election because they didn't have enough nuance on abortion and were too severe about it. So he is acting like he's so far ahead that he doesn't have to worry about his abortion bona fides or credentials. Because after all, as he also points out regularly, he's the one who created the conservative majority on the court to overturn Roe. All right, we are going to take a quick break. And when we get back, a lot of the questions in this debate were substantive policy questions. And we're going to dig into that. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally, and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees.

Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. And we're back. And this was a substantive debate. At least the questions were quite substantive. Some of them seemed like they were questions that you would expect to hear at a Democratic presidential debate rather than a Republican presidential debate. And in particular, they started by asking these candidates on stage about their views on the United Auto Workers strike and how they would respond to it. Where did the candidates fall? Well, they tried to thread a needle in a very particular way here. A couple of the candidates who at least addressed the question when it was asked of them said that they support workers, but that they don't support unions, or rather union leaders, I think some of them said in some cases. And so that does demand another question, though, right? Which is, what exactly does that mean? Often, the candidates also talked a lot tonight about,

you know, boosting economic growth, economic output, which could then theoretically help workers everywhere. And also policies that would fight inflation, which would also help workers everywhere. But then the question is exactly what specifically more would you do to help these autoworkers who feel that they are not getting their fair share of their company's profits? Well, and Don, they were at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, and Ronald Reagan notably busted a union. It was a federal workers' union. 1981. It was the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Union, PATCO.

And he did that barely six months into his presidency. And it is the classic kind of get tough move by a president against unions. Donald Trump was playing a different game, kind of cozying up to unions, even as union leaders were pointing out in op-ed pieces and elsewhere, that he also supports making it harder for workers to organize. And he supports right-to-work laws in states that make it easier for workers not to join unions. Now, Don, it'll be really interesting to see whether white non-college voters identify with the culture war that Donald Trump offers them or the kind of economic solidarity that

they may feel with union members on the picket line. And Trump did try to present it in very scary economic terms at this event tonight. Again, if Biden has his way with these electric vehicle mandates, your jobs are going away no matter what you're able to win at the bargaining table. So that's a scare tactic as well. Let's talk about immigration. There was a pretty remarkable exchange there. Fox played a clip of Ronald Reagan calling for a path to citizenship, specifically asylum for people who'd come to the country illegally. everyone on stage to be demonstrating how far the Republican Party has moved from Ronald Reagan. Certainly on immigration, he signed an amnesty bill. So it was an interesting place to have this debate when the Republican Party is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan. There was also some daylight between the

candidates on whether they'd support a federal ban on gender-affirming care. Right. The moderators asked a question about whether the candidates would, like you said, support a federal ban on gender-affirming care for minors, we should say, not just for everybody. But the candidates that answered the question, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, both seem to not quite say yes. Instead, they said this should be left to the states. And so did Doug Berger. Yeah. And I'm very curious where all the candidates would come down on that, because also there is that question of a federal abortion ban. And if you say one should be left to the states and you say the other should not,

then that is another kind of daylight. This is one of the problems with a debate where there are seven people on stage, is you don't really get a chance to know what everyone's answer to every question would be. And the people who most aggressively want to answer often get a chance to answer. Right. Yeah. And I think that that was doubly highlighted tonight, where you have seven people on stage and not the person that is way ahead of them. So you have these seven people who have a choice of two strategies or some mix of the two. Either try to beat everyone else on stage and be the anti-Trump, or try to pick some voters off from Trump.

And when seven people are all yelling over each other, it was totally unclear what anybody was trying to do. And with all of the yelling, just kind of canceled each other out. It was a chaotic mess. And I don't know who benefited from this debate tonight or how much. At least who on that stage did. Trump very well may have. Well, Donald Trump benefited from this debate tonight for sure. Yeah, there you go. I don't know who on the stage. Now we have crosstalk on the podcast. It's just like the debate. Yeah, Donald Trump benefited from this debate as he has from the other debate. But the other thing that is important to remember is that it's as if Donald

Trump is the incumbent. And this is a field of candidates trying to run against someone who has already been the president. And that is a completely different scenario than usually the opposition party has. Before we end, can I just say that we would be doing a disservice to our audience if we did not tell them about probably the standout zinger of the night that was, I think, in the midst of a shouting match about TikTok, but came between Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, and Vivek Ramaswamy, the businessman who definitely does a very good job of talking very quickly and sort of dominating the stage at times. Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say, because I can't believe they hear me. That will, of course, be all over your social media feeds and probably cross-stitched onto a pillow very soon.

You know, our timestamp was looking for something to put on a tattoo. Well, there you go. All right, we are going to leave it there for tonight. I'm Tamara Keith. Or is it still? Oh, nope. It's this morning. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. It's still last night here in California. I cover politics. I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. I'm Don Gagne, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.