The NPR Politics Podcast - Whose House? Trump's House.

Episode Date: February 25, 2024

Former President Donald Trump won the South Carolina Republican primary race in former governor Nikki Haley's own backyard. Trump won about 60 percent of the vote, answering the question--can Haley win at home? This episode: White House correspondent Asma Khalid, presidential campaign correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and presidential campaign reporter Sarah McCammon. Our producers are Jeongyoon Han, Casey Morell & Kelli Wessinger. Our editor is Erica Morrison. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Listen to every episode of the NPR Politics Podcast sponsor-free, unlock access to bonus episodes with more from the NPR Politics team, and support public media when you sign up for The NPR Politics Podcast+ at plus.npr.org/politics.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 Mary in Los Angeles. I'm a TV producer, and today is my first day on set filming after last year's strikes. This podcast was recorded at 9.30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday, February 24th of 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but our cameras will be rolling on this great new show.

Okay, here's the show. Or, as we say, action. Oh, I like that. It's another kind of broadcasting. Yeah. Oh, I'm so curious what the show is now. Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential election. And I'm Sarah McCammon. I also cover the presidential campaign. And we are in your feeds late on this Saturday

night with news from the South Carolina Republican primary. And no, it is not deja vu. Former President Donald Trump had another resounding victory tonight, as expected. And we're going to look at Joe Biden and we're going to look him right in the eye. He's destroying our country. And we're going to say, Joe, you're fired. Get out. Get out, Joe. You're fired. Trump won about 60 percent of the vote and the former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, captured about 40 percent of the vote. It was a huge defeat in Haley's home state, raising questions about her path forward and further cementing the former president's status as the clear frontrunner to be the GOP nominee once again. Wow, that is really something. This was

a little sooner than we anticipated. The race was called just moments after the polls closed. And Danielle, you were at Trump headquarters tonight on yet another winning night for the former president. He has swept every one of the early states. I'm curious what he said tonight that may have stood out to you. Sure. Yeah. I mean, two big things. One is that he really leaned into immigration, which, you know, look, is not notable for Donald Trump. He's been saying it from the beginning, but he, I just think it's worth pointing out just how hard his stance is against undocumented immigrants. The things he says, he has been saying this in recent speeches that the undocumented immigrants

coming into the U S are coming from mental institutions, from jails. I mean, that is baseless, but that is just what he says lately. And I think it's worth just once again pointing to that because that is now the normal with Trump. The one other thing that he did tonight, though, that I thought was really notable was he had an array of politicians on stage with him, some from other states like Georgia. Marjorie Taylor Greene was here, the representative from Georgia. But he had the two senators from South Carolina, Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham, also the governor of South Carolina. And while Trump did not directly do his usual attacking of Nikki Haley in his speech, to me, it really seemed like him saying, look at me.

I have all this support in your home state. Here are all these luminaries from the Republican Party in this state, and I got them. They're on stage with me. And he spent a lot of time thanking them. And suggesting it seems like that the Republican Party is unified behind him. And Sarah, you just heard Nikki Haley speak. In fact, I can hear that music still playing behind you. I know it's a bit noisy there. There was a lot at stake for her tonight. And, you know, she has not yet won a state. And as Danielle was saying, you heard Donald Trump tonight suggesting that the Republican Party is united behind him.

So what is her message at this point? Well, there was a lot at stake for her. As you said, she has yet to win a primary. And this was home. You know, she was elected the governor here twice. And she was a pretty popular governor overall. You know, you talk to even Trump voters and a lot of people say here, yeah, we like Nikki, but he's more popular. You know, he has captured the Republican Party. We say this a lot. And it's true even in a place like South Carolina where Nikki Haley is sort of a hometown girl. She is a hometown girl. She couldn't win. And so her message has been

that and continues to be that voters deserve a choice, that the primary should not be over this early in the process. You know, she says it's only only a handful of states have voted and many more are left to vote. It's a long time until the conventions. I hear things like that. And I hear this from voters who support her, too. There's a real sense of frustration that it seems like this is all over. But, you know, the numbers in reality are just really tough for her. Sarah, you look at the states that have voted so far.

They are geographically diverse. They're somewhat even, you could say, diverse in terms of like the makeup of what a Republican voter is like. You've got the more traditional establishment folks up in New Hampshire, and then the more socially conservative ones in Iowa. She was not able to win any of these states so far. So where does she see herself winning a state in the future? You know, when you press Haley's supporters on that and her campaign, it's hard to get a clear answer. And I don't get the sense that anybody thinks that realistically there is a path forward. You know, when you look at poll after poll in state after state, it looks really bad for Nikki Haley. It looks really bad for anybody who isn't Donald Trump.

And it has for a long time. And, you know, her campaign knows that. At the same time, she has a lot of money. She had her biggest fundraising month ever in January. And the campaign, you know, so they can keep going. Sometimes it's just about that. She can keep going. She has the money.

And I think that by staying in, she's able to have a voice. She's able to speak to her concerns about the state of the party and the country. You know, she said tonight, I couldn't be more worried for America. It seems like our country is coming apart. And she laid the blame for that at the feet of both President Biden and Donald Trump. But you get the sense that she's really talking about Trump. You know, she can only go after him so forcefully

running in a Republican primary, but she's beginning to sharpen her attacks on him. She's sort of turned up the heat on him in the last few weeks. And she talks about, you know, the rancor and disunity and the word chaos is what she uses when she talks about Trump.

So I think she's staying in because she can and because she's worried about the future of the country. And she hears from a lot of voters who say they feel the same way. Danielle, as Sarah was just saying, a lot of states have not yet voted. They haven't had their primaries. And yet we've seen Donald Trump win every state and ultimately the path to being the Republican nominee requires winning a state. So do you get the sense from Trump folks and from the Trump team themselves that this election has already been decided for the Republican electorate? I mean, look, when you talk to Trump voters and the Trump team, I mean, they are not just ecstatic, but they are confident. They are flat out cocky. If you ask them, yeah, it's absolutely been decided

for the Republican electorate. But that said, in any primary season where the incumbent is not on the ticket, there is going to be some disunity. There is going to be some disagreement. We always see it. And yeah, there are people who like Nikki Haley, not just like her, but love her. And I've been to her events, and it is not hard to find Haley voters who say, oh, I really don't like Trump. And even some who say, I could not vote for him in the general. Now, how big is that crew of people? I mean, that's really the, you know, $64,000 question that we're going to be watching come November, should Trump be the nominee, which, you know, of course, looks incredibly likely. Danielle, you just mentioned the idea of incumbency a moment ago. And what strikes me that is so unusual about this election season is that you have, in effect, two incumbents that are running.

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump were men who have been in this White House. They have track records that voters can look at. And that is extremely unusual. And to add to that unusualness, there are so many Trump voters who see him as the current incumbent because they believe the lie that he won the 2020 election. And so that makes that whole question of is he the Republican incumbent, quote unquote, like, yeah, even not only more complicated, but just fraught. All right, let's take a quick break. And we'll be back in a moment. This message comes from NPR sponsor, and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back.

And I want to shift the conversation to the general election season because the Biden campaign is already operating as if we are in that moment, as if we are not really in the primaries right now. He is spending a lot of time in key states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battleground swing states that are going to matter in November. Danielle, I mean, do you get the sense that the Trump campaign is trying to shift into general election mode themselves? Oh, yeah. And I would argue that Trump has been essentially in general election mode for a while now. I mean, yes, he has a lot of attacks on, you know, Nikki Haley right now, or Ron DeSantis back in Iowa. And those, of course, get a lot of attention. And he makes those quite loudly and pointedly. But Trump has four months spent good chunks of his rally speeches, aiming at Joe Biden. I mean, he has been, so in that sense, yeah, it has been kind of a general election pitch,

just Trump assuming that he's going to be the guy who's going to take on Joe Biden. But I will say the tone of the message shifts depending on who he's talking to, whether it's a rally crowd or we're going to play a clip from CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, this weekend, where he laid out his vision for America.

For hardworking Americans, November 5th will be our new liberation day. But for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and censors and imposters who have commandeered our government. It will be their judgment day, their judgment day. His CPAC speech was different in tone. His speeches here are pretty rah-rah and pretty, you know, taking jabs at his opponents lighter in tone, although that's relative. His CPAC speech was a much darker tone. It really kind of echoed his inauguration speech. We remember being about that, quote, American carnage. At CPAC, he really laid out a doom and gloom vision of what America would look

like under Biden, talking about things collapsing like health care and Social Security and even beyond that. But it's important to remember that, you know, these speeches are to different crowds. Some are, you know, these pep rallies that he has out on the campaign trail. CPAC is a group of really committed conservative activists who already really dislike Joe Biden. It's easy to see how that speech is kind of red meat for them. And it's interesting, you know, Nikki Haley, while her tone is completely different, her message isn't entirely dissimilar in this regard. You know, she seems to be tapping into this kind of existential angst that I know I have heard from a lot of voters the last several

months. You know, in addition to saying tonight that she couldn't be more worried for the country, she also said, you know, if essentially if we don't make the right choices, we'll have bad results. So there seems to be a uniform sense of concern about the direction of the country. Of course, the candidates are offering very different solutions to that. So Sarah, I've got one final question for you. You covered Donald Trump's 2016 campaign in which he rose into power in the White House. You're no stranger to campaign trail. And it strikes me that this run is very different than that run. It's very different than, frankly, any campaign probably we've covered. And I'm curious how that resonates on the ground and in terms of what you're looking for in these weeks ahead and what you're trying to pay attention to?

Well, this time Trump has a track record. And, you know, in 2016, he did not, at least not as an elected official. And a lot of people wondered what he would actually do. His track record seems to be a Rorschach test, though. You know, some voters I talk to say they talk about their frustration with, say, the economy or immigration or foreign policy, and they see him as the right leader. They like what he did before. They have this sense that things were better. You know, one woman I spoke to today said she wants a leader that other countries are afraid of. But then, you know, we're talking about Republican voters here. Those who don't

support Trump look at that kind of behavior and they're scared and they're concerned. You know, we talked to some Nikki Haley voters who say they're tired of Trump's temperament and concerned about his efforts to undermine the democratic system and worried about where he would take the country if he's elected again. You know, another centerpiece of Haley's argument has been that Trump cannot win in a general election against Biden and that both Trump and Biden are flawed and problematic in various ways. And I think she is tapping into a sentiment among a lot of voters that they don't want another matchup like this. They don't want to go backwards. But the way that our system is set up is giving us exactly that. I would just pipe in, by the way, about the difference between now and

2016 is that in 2016, Trump was, at least for a good part of the run-up of that campaign, treated as a curiosity, treated almost as a sideshow. It went from that to incredulity, could he do it? And then sort of a surprise of, oh, I guess he's going to do this. That was kind of the tone that some media coverage took that a lot of voters even had. And now it's almost the flip side of that, where so many of the things that were shocking about him at first have become quite normal, especially to his voters, sort of just the cult of personality that surrounds him. I mean, when you go to enough of his rallies,

I cannot stress enough how extraordinary it is. And I know Sarah knows this too. His rallies may not have changed a whole lot, but I think the way that we look at them certainly has. And just one quick thing about that, you know, what's interesting is that even among a lot of Nikki Haley voters, a lot of them say they don't know what they'll do if Trump is the nominee or they will vote for him. You know, one woman I met this week told me she thinks that Trumpism is kind of a cult, but she still might vote for him. All right. Well, on that note, that is a wrap for today's episode. We will be back in your feeds as normal on Monday. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House. I'm Danielle

Kurtzleben. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Sarah McCammon. I also cover the presidential campaign. And thank you all, as always, for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Who's claiming power this election? What's happening in battleground states? And why do we still have the Electoral College? All this month, the ThruLine podcast is asking big questions about our democracy and going back in time to answer

them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR.