The Press Box - Puck’s Tara Palmeri on Low-Energy Trump, Slow-Moving Biden, and the Rest of the 2024 Presidential Campaign

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

Bryan is joined by Tara Palmeri from Puck to preview the 2024 presidential race. They discuss Trump’s current position in the polls and relationship with the media (2:00), weigh in on Ron DeSantis��s potential candidacy against Trump compared to that of other Republican candidates (10:22), and then review President Biden’s potential for reelection with VP Kamala Harris (20:28). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: Tara Palmeri Producer: Erika Cervantes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Pressbox final edition, Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Erica Cervantes. If you listen to Monday's show, you know that David Shoemaker and I have been thinking more and more about the 2024 presidential election, which is really the 2023 presidential election

since it's happening right now. Nikki Haley in for the Republicans, Donald Trump, of course, in, Joe Biden in We think. We've got questions and here to answer them is one of my favorite political writers. She is Tara Palmary of Puck.

She has had a career at ABC News, at Politico at the New York Post and other places. She writes in a very insidery, confidential way about politics and also thinks about some of the bigger questions that maybe don't trickle into other publications. The timing

that political can't have when they want to run for president, the calculation they make when they may be running for president, but also kind of running for vice president. So I had questions for Tara about Joe Biden, about Donald Trump, about Ron DeSantis, about just about everything under the sun when it comes to 2024. Here's Tara Paul Mary. All right, Tara, let me first ask you about the Republicans who want to be president. You describe Donald Trump's campaign in a recent piece as low, energy? Why is Trump low energy? Well, he hasn't really done many campaign events. And I understand why. There are a couple of

reasons. It costs a lot of money to hold these big rallies. So they have a long campaign since they announced in November that they were, that he was running for real for re-elections. So not re-election, but election, obviously. So he, so they don't want to spend the money on the big rallies, which create the, you know, impression of momentum and all of that. there's also, they're also very much aware of the fact that there's Trump fatigue and that people don't want him front and center every single day. This is something, obviously, the boss, as I've been told by people who work for him, does not really like. So it only works in dribs and drabs, but they are really trying to kind of get him out of the forefront. And it actually seems to be working because his poll numbers keep going up.

So there is something to it. I know he's probably the only person on earth where you can ignore them and it can help them. in the polling. But that seems to be part of it. And also, I mean, you saw the rollout. It was a ballroom in Mar-a-Lago. It was a small space. It was kind of boring.

Fox News cutaway. People tried to the exit. It was just not the kind of boisterous, you know, even Obama-like rollout with the pillars. And, you know, nothing felt very grand about it. So for now, you know, he doesn't really have. You have to run a campaign, though. That's the truth. Why run a campaign when you don't have any challengers yet?

We heard in November he was getting in early to head off one possible indictments and two other Republican challengers. Do you think getting in early did anything for him at the end of the day? I think it probably helps him legally. I mean, being a presidential candidate is always going to be helpful in these legal challenges, like you said. That special counsel in Washington looking at. at him for the documents and the January 6th, the insurrection, then you've got Georgia, you've got New York, all of these different legal issues. And yeah, it's a lot stronger standing

to say, this is a witch hunt, it's a political witch hunt. So yes, for all intents of purposes, that helps him. I also think that he wants to present the air of inevitability, which is why a lot of candidates launched their campaigns early. Being the first is always sort of a sort of, it's a jumpstart, right? You get the most press. He wants to keep people like Rhonda Sanders out of the race who are taking away from his donor base, right? He wants to put pressure on people to endorse him, right? So being first, you put the pressure and try to get endorsements. That didn't really work. I read in Politico that he only had about 20 endorsements so far. And these are some of these people. He actually helped them get reelected. One of them is Sarah

Sanders, his former press secretary. She still often endorsed him, right? And then there's also the donors trying to get and pressure the donors to stick with you rather than the others. I think the issue is that Ron DeSantis is for all intents of purposes running. It's a known thing. It's all a shadow campaign right now. The others don't really matter. But Trump surely wants them in. He wants Nikki Haley in the race.

He wants Mike Pence in the race. He wants Mike Pompeo. He wants all of those people in the race because they don't pull. all they do is take shots at Ron DeSantis because they're afraid of Trump. And a big primary means he only needs to win a quarter of the votes, basically, which are already pretty locked in for him. So he's like, come in, Tim Scott, come into this game and make this easier for me. And so, and I'm sure he wants to scare out real challengers like Rhonda Santas,

which is why he's attacking him. And it's crazy. The polling shows that Trump is surging and Ron DeSantis is not. after months of Ron DeSantis actually polling ahead of Trump. But these things change, right? I wonder if the attacks on Ron DeSantis are actually working for Trump. I thought that they would turn people off, people thinking, you know, come on, you lost. I mean, electability really matters after not being in power for four years.

And I thought that people might think, why is he attacking another Republican? We need to win. And electability would weigh more than anything else. But they thought if you look into the polls and you see them as poor. related with the fact that he started to take on Ron DeSantis and Ron DeSantis is starting to drop. It may show that actually Trump voters may think that Ron DeSantis was supported by Trump and that he is like Trump and now they're realizing that there is a rivalry and that they have to choose and they're choosing Trump. I thought it was so funny the other day when Trump was

attacking DeSantis for cutting entitlements or at least, you know, wondering about cutting entitlements when he was in Congress. So now we have Donald Trump and Joe Biden running for president on the same plank, essentially, I will protect your Medicare and social security and those other people will not. It's true. I mean, he was never a fiscal conservative. I was sort of funny to see Mick Mulvaney, the head of the Tea Party, sorry, the head of the House Freedom Caucus be his chief of staff when Mick Mulvaney was all about balancing the budget, the debt ceiling, and yet he's got, you know, a president who's one of the biggest spenders in history. So. So when, uh,

Donald Trump's handlers finally led him out of Mara Lago. How do you think his 2024 campaign looks different than 2020 or 2016? Good question. I think it's going to be a lot of the same hits. I think he will start doing the big rallies. I think he will just attack the candidates. You know, I've already seen some new nicknames, Meatball Ron, the Sanctimonious.

I think it's going to be a lot of the same. I think he wants a fight. That's what everyone around him says, that he does better with the challenger. He doesn't have that right now. So sure, it feels low energy. I could see it picking up, but it really feels more and more when you see these new polls, Fox News, everyone, I mean, saying Trump is leading still significantly, I think 15 points in the Fox News poll to Ron DeSantis. So I think we underestimate his resilience a little bit. Semaphore reported this week that Fox News, speaking of which, which is dealing with its past support of Trump through the Dominion lawsuit,

has issued what they call a soft ban on Trump from its airwaves so DeSantis and Nikki Haley can get on Fox and do hits, but Trump cannot. Do you think that matters at all? I do. I think he knows he needs press, and I think he sees, and I know from, I actually wrote about this a while ago that Fox was really sort of ignoring Trump and that he was really happy to finally be back on the airwaves because of the, you know, the seizure of documents at his Mar-Lago estate. Like, he was genuinely happy. And they were like, look, you need us now, Fox, right? They need the press. They do. And, but I think at the same time, things change. I mean, my good former colleague, my, sorry, my brilliant former colleague, Jack Schaefer at Politico says,

you know, Rupert Murdoch doesn't see red or blue. he sees green. And so if Trump is good for ratings, if Trump is the nominee, he will be on Fox News again. But for now, he's getting a bit of a shadow ban, you could say,

on Fox, New York Post, other Murdoch properties. They've been trying to do this for a long time, though. This isn't anything new. There was a slight hiatus because of the seizure. But I don't even think he went on Fox then. He didn't want to, I think, at that point. who's feeling a little burnt.

Just always kind of amusing to see the Trump media game because so much of it is a game in the media world with him. It's a game for Trump and it's also a game for Fox, right? Like this whole, both sides are making this incredible calculation as we've been reading about this week. I'm always fascinated by a candidate like DeSantis because lots of voters, including his potential supporters, may know him theoretically, but have never actually heard him speak. So what do you think

Ron DeSantis is going to be like on the stump? You know, that's a good point. I think they've heard him speak, but they've never really seen him debate or be under pressure. He definitely gives off the strong man vibes, right? He's a bit shouty. He's muscular.

He's, you know, shouting down on the local Florida press, making, you know, picking on the little guys, whatever you want to say. But is he entertaining? Unclear. can he hold a crowd? He doesn't really like one-on-one contact. We know that from everyone who's around him.

He's not a big retail politician. And when he's on a debate stage with Donald Trump, how is he going to be? Is he going to come off strong when he's being attacked? I mean, Trump is going everywhere, right? He's already accused him of being a groomer, right? I know that they're looking at his wife, Casey, and it's like it's really hard when someone goes after your wife.

You can't not defend your wife. right? Look what happened to Ted Cruz? He looked like a weenie for not defending hiding. Wait till those attacks come. Then we're really going to see how Ron DeSantis does. It's a real question mark right now. But there's certainly a lot of excitement and enthusiasm from the donor base and actually from Trump's base. But I'm wondering, though, the more that Trump attacks him, will DeSantis have a hard time holding on to that base? You've written really interestingly about what you call the bizarre choreography of the Republican nominating process, which is when do candidates who are not Trump and DeSantis

announce their candidacies? If you're a Republican who wants to be president, what is the case for declaring right now? Money. You want to be able to raise money, get donors in line. You want to use the news vacuum. You don't want to be, like that was the reason that Nikki Haley announces in February. You don't want to be and also ran. She essentially was the first person to announce because Trump had long been saying he would announce, right? So she gets at least, you know, a story about, she's going to announce, a story about the video, a story about this, the actual announcement coverage. It's good for her, right? It also tells people like donors and supporters that you're in it, for real.

And you're not, you know, wobbling. You're not undecided that you're really going for it. I don't think she came in with any inevitability. but I think for her it worked. Mike Pompeo has got to announce soon for the fact that he needs to raise money. So momentum. Mike Pence, same.

Now, for people like Ron DeSantis, could announce now, but he's governor. He doesn't really have to, right? Why I jump in? He's already getting the press. He's on a book tour right now. He's kind of got the reverse issue where if he doesn't announce by June,

people start to wonder, if he really in it, donors feel a little shaky. People question, Does he have what it takes to take on Trump? So the longer he waits, post June, going to be a problem. He's already put it out there that he's thinking June. And then there's a whole other corrupt candidates who are sort of, they want to be president,

they want to see if there's an opening for them. They want to be the dark horse that jumps in late summer into the fall. They think, let Ron DeSantis and Trump slug it out, let them kill each other. The others will look small next to them because they won't even be, you know, acknowledged on the debate stage. and then I'll jump in like a Rick Perry after the Iowa's drop hole who actually jumped in at the top of the, you know, pulling at the top. You know, I'll be the dark horse, strong man who comes in there with the

either the defeated or deflated Trump and DeSantis, what people will want, a unifier, that'll be my move. Now, that requires a lot of money, which Glenn Yonkin has and he's looking at this. Rick Scott has that too. He's looking at this plan. Chris Christie, not so much, but, you know, thinks he has a shot at it. Chris Sununu, he said openly, I won't jump in until late summer, maybe fall. Maybe because New Hampshire is his state, he can pull that off, right?

He may not need to be working on the ground operation the same way that like a Chris Christie would or, you know, a Rick Scott or when Young can just buy their ground operation and get on the ballot. So we'll see what happens. I mean, this seems to be the path that a lot want to take because they don't really want to face Trump. And I think that's the problem. I'm always skeptical of any candidate who comes in and says, I need like two or three other things to happen that don't involve me for me to be president. Right. I need Trump and DeSantis to take each other out or damage each other so badly. And then I come in as the shiny new object.

But it's not that crazy, I guess. And I guess Joe Biden was kind of weirdly a. of somebody who this worked for last time around, you know, and sort of I will lose primaries and then I will start winning all the primaries. But okay. Yeah. I mean,

it's interesting, right? And I guess that's the story these guys are telling themselves at this point anyway. Right. They're keeping their optionality as all, you know, all governors do. It's funny,

I'm writing about this in Puck, but like the snoo-new, it just feels like it's another big tease after he kept saying, you know, to everyone in Washington, I'll run for the Senate, I'll run for the Senate. He didn't. And it was almost a year of teasing it. And in the meantime, you get a lot of press, there's attention.

There's, you know, it's new news on TV all the time talking about the New Hampshire model. And it's because he keeps it open that he might run for president. So there are some, there are, you know, advantageous reasons for doing this, right? For drawing it out. He could also just position himself as a kingmaker in New Hampshire. like his father did and helped after he helped George H.W. Bush win New Hampshire after losing in Iowa, basically. And then he ended up being chief of staff. Now, Sununu in New Hampshire, it's every two terms you have to be reelected to governor. He can just run again for governor.

Or he can end up in a cabinet seat, run the White House as a chief of staff like his dad did. There's really not as much to lose for him to dangle it like this. But I think a lot of people in Washington are skeptical after the last rodeo with Sununu when he dangled it up. got all the press. He was the golden boy. Mitch McConnell's begging him to run for the Senate against Maggie Heafson. And he didn't. So I guess we'll see this time around. You floated this idea and puck the other day that every Republican will tell you they want to be president, but some of the candidates may functionally be running to be vice president or get a spot on the ticket. Who fits that bill? I mean, I could see. I know Nikki Haley certainly is not. I

I think Nikki Ely isn't running for vice president in her mind, but she might be in some quiet corner. I think people like maybe Mike Pompeo, Tim Scott for sure. He won't even say how his policy differences are different than Trump's. Like literally asked, how are your policy differences different than Donald Trump? And he just could only compliment him. To me, that's someone who's running for a running-made position or afraid to take on Trump. And Trump has spoken pretty glowingly about Tim Scott.

I think he sees them as someone who can help him with the African-based. an American electorate. Trump could use some help of suburban women. I mean, maybe Nikki Haley is a person for that. I think the dark horses aren't jumping in to be vice presidents. I think they're jumping in to see if there's an opening. But everyone who's an early entrant, I mean, with the exception of Mike Pence,

who's already been his vice president, that's not going to happen again, right? To him, to me, his lane is kind of hard to see at all because he's so hated by Trump. But you know what? Things change. things happen. We'll see how it goes.

One thing you guys do on Pucks so well is give us all a sense of the room. So let me ask you this. Who do people in Washington think is going to be the Republican nominee? Trump or DeSantis. But Democrats hope it's Trump rather than DeSantis. They say like Trump is one of our best assets in terms of getting their votes out. They wanted to be Trump. I think Republicans fear.

it will be Trump. Probably, it might be Trump. The only other person, and I'm hearing it's Sanchez. No one else is really taking anyone else too seriously, which might be a mistake, but only time will tell. When you talk to other people in the press, what does the matchup Washington wants to cover, do you think, in 2024? I don't think they want to cover Trump anymore. I think having, I covered Trump myself as a White House correspondent for ABC and Politico. And I think when you see it up front and up close and you know the stories, I think you see the chaos coming again. I'm hesitant to say, but I get the feeling that they're Trump fatigue among the White House press corps. I mean, I think there's Trump fatigue among the press score, but I don't think it will be any better at the Santa's.

In fact, I think he'll bully the press as well. Or avoid them entirely, as we've been reading. Yeah, or kick them out and do the things that Trump never did. Because remember, Trump always still love, that's the weird thing about it. Trump still loved the press. And he still kept us close because he liked it. In fact, he basically got rid of his press secretaries towards the end and just did his own briefings, essentially. I don't know that this hand is going to be like that.

I think it will be actually worse for the press. I don't think he has that addiction to it the way that Trump does. So I don't know. I mean, listen, I can only say, these aren't really the conversations we have in bars. I think everyone's still just sort of like. Like, I feel like we're still covering Trump. That's the other thing. It hasn't really stopped.

But we'll see. Let me ask you about the other side of the aisle. Last month, Politico had a story that asked, are we absolutely sure Joe Biden is running for reelection? So let me put that question to you. Are we sure Biden's running? I believe that he is running based on what everything I've heard from sources, White House, et cetera,

his wife, Jill Biden. Jill Biden has said that. She was one of the big deciders. I have every reason to believe it. When I saw that Politico article and all the bylines on it, I thought to myself, is the White House floating this?

Right? Because we've all been writing about it for months. He's been on the fence. He's, you know, but then recently they've said, no, he's running, he's running. And I thought, oh, maybe they're floating it. But then when I checked in,

my sources said they're not floating it. They're just, it seems like it's a bit late to the party in some ways. Like, this has been the great deliberation, um, for so long. But who knows with Joe Biden, right? Like, in the end, he decided not to run in 2016, right? He barely ran 20, uh, 20, uh, you know? And maybe they just want to stop the questions, keep the posture. And maybe there is something more to that political story, but from like official sources, he's still running.

And I just don't think Jill would go out there and say he was running if he wasn't. And she was like sort of indignant about it in the same way. We're supposed to get the official answer in April. So what we're just seeing is a normal, slow, very Bideny timetable, which we see with anything he does as president. Exactly. But again, like, you know, someone could clip this in a month and say, oh, Terrapal Mary said he was running. This is the information

I'm getting from my sources, but I can tell you that the guy has been on the fence, the guy, the president has been on the fence for a very long time. And it's not crazy. I mean, he's 80, he's going to be 81 years old when he runs. So it's not out there. It's not that

inconceivable. So we'll see what happens. You interviewed one of Kamala Harris's advisors the other day for a story. Where does she stand in Biden world right now? she's the running mate when Biden runs for re-election, that's for sure. I just think that there's always been a question about her strength on the ticket

and what she brings now that, you know, her polling is lower than Biden's. Karen says, well, Karen is her advisors as well, you know, that reflects the administration more than it reflects her. But for some reason, like, Kamala Harris is under a lot of scrutiny because her boss is one of the oldest presidents of all time to run for re-election. So people are looking at the ticket and thinking she's actually more at the top of the ticket because he may not live out his whole term. There's a lot more scrutiny on her.

Also, she's a historic first black woman, vice president. There's going to be implicit racism and sexism. But I think there's a real feeling that she hasn't stepped up to the plate and that she can't be treated. And I think her team would say she can't be treated like any vice president. You can't just give her immigration, which is like a terrible, you know, policy portfolio that and then throw her out to Lester Holt and have her bomb in interviews because she's really more tied to the top of the tickets. You should be taking some care of her. And that was Karen's point was basically that like have the West Wing and everyone promoting her and making her front and center to strengthen the ticket. Think about it that way. Put more resources towards Kamala. It's good for Joe Biden.

And don't worry about overshadowing, which is always the thing that vice presidents are fearful. of, even though Joe Biden did it a few times with, you know, Obama, like, announcing the reversal on gay marriage. But, you know, they're thinking, hey, this is who you've got. And there's no way that they would ever take her from the ticket, even though it's like the long-running talk in Washington is like, why don't get rid of Kamala? It's like, do you want to literally offend all of the African-American voters that helped, you know, Joe Biden cross the finish line? No. That is a huge part of the Democratic base. And that's what Karen says. pretty explicitly. We do this every four years should the president replace

should the president replace the vice president on the ticket. Yeah, because vice presidents offer an electoral advantage, right? That's why you pick them. Biden was the elder statesman to Obama's young neophyte

like cool energy. You know, Cheney was the dark mastermind to, and also a senator, to, you know, George Bush's

kind of grab a beer casualness. Mike Pence was the conservative alter ego and evangelical to Trump's questionable morals and, you know, background as a Democrat. So, you know, you add these people for a reason and then you think, okay, is there someone better out there for me for the next time around? You know, it's just the natural thing. I don't think there's anything new about it, but it does feel like they're very, been times when Kamala has been set up to Kamala Harris has there. It does feel like there

been times that Kamala Harris has been set up to be out there in the forefront, take on the big issues, and she has not, and she's fallen short, and it's been a bigger story, and it's made her probably more cautious, and that is something that people say about her. So we'll see what happens. Perhaps, you know, they sent her to the Munich Security Council, and that was a success for the administration. They'll probably put her out there more and use more resources towards her to elevate her because I think it does really help the whole ticket. A couple questions about your career before we let you go. You've covered a bunch of things, including Europe before coming full time to politics, American politics. Why politics? Oh gosh, I think I'm really fascinated

by people who are striving for power. I'm fascinated by the strategic decisions they make their personalities, the way that they make partnerships, the ambitions. I'm just fascinated by powerful people and what drives them. And I think being in Europe, I, you know, I covered European politics, but it's still people. I've always been more interested, I guess, in the politics, more than the policy, per se. And I, you know, policy is influenced by personnel politics, absolutely. and people empowered, they have control over our lives, right? So there's value in all that and understanding them and their psyche and their motivations. And I think that's the thing that I've always sort of gravitated towards.

So if you were like, I want you to cover the most powerful people in this industry, I probably would handle it in a similar way to the way I cover politics. But politics is just the most, you know, interesting personality-based way of going about achieving more power. How is the way you write about politics for Puck different from the way you covered it for Politico, ABC News, your other stops? I think with ABC News, it was more headline-driven, was more kind of news the day, kind of stuff that everyone needs to get through their day and know what's happening. With Politico, it was more of an insider account. And the littler updates kind of mattered more because our readership was and is, an insider crowd.

And they have a level of sophistication that they bring with it. So you could kind of speak to them in a way that's a little bit more sophisticated because it's almost, it's a trade publication essentially. And Puck kind of has the combination of a trade publication in a sense that you can speak on a more sophisticated level to your audience, added with the flare of a magazine and the ability to have a take and a voice. and fun. It's more, and it's personal,

for me, I go after the personality route, but I also want to give you nuggets and information you can't get elsewhere that are going to make you better at your job and be more in the know. Frankly, how something to talk about at a cocktail party. So it'll make you seem like you are a Washington insider if you're reading the best and the brightest.

I hope you don't mind my plug. You wrote a piece about Arizona Senator Kirsten Center by the other day that had a very typical puck headline cinema verite. Who is the funny puck headline writer? That is John Kelly. He is a longtime editor

of Vanity Fair and obviously appreciates the New York tabloids. I also came from the New York Post so I throw in some my own headlines from time to time. I'll take credit for that. But he's also kind of does it in a more literary way, which I really

appreciate. He is a literary genius that I'm very lucky to happen. That is ain't me. But yeah, that's John Kelly. All right. Last question. If you had to bet all your equity stake in puck, the 2024 presidential candidates will be.

I'm going to write Kelly about this too, just to get this on the record afterwards. Biden. Oh, man. It's a hard one. I'm going to say Trump. I think that's what I think that's where I'd be. I think that's what the way I bet your equity stake in puck do. If I had to pick.

Yeah, probably Biden Trump. All right. Read Tara Palmeri's stories in Puck, where you will be informed for your next cocktail party or whatever insider pose you are taking at the moment. Tara, thanks so much for coming on the press box. Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me. All right, that's the press box.

I'm Brian Curtis, production magic. As always, by Erica Servantis. David Shoemaker and Arbeck Monday, I'm working on a segment about the Oscars because we are getting close to Oscar time And there is a lot of Oscar media overlap. Ron DeSantis, speaking of presidential candidates, is also trying to create his own media.

We'll talk about that and, of course, have more lukewarm takes about the media. See you soon.