Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Greg Abbott is defying the Supreme Court and continuing to put up razor wire at the Texas border. We have such a great show for you today. The New Republic's Greg's sergeant stops by to talk to us about how the media is covering the twenty twenty
four election and it's many, many failures. Then we'll talk to Semaphore's Dave Weigel about what's happening on the ground in New Hampshire and Iowa and soon South Carolina. But first we have NBC's National Affairs correspondent John Heilman. Welcome back to Fast Politics. John Heilman.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast. It's so great to be here with you again. In the wake of boy I guess what everybody thinks is like the end of the Republican nominating contest. I guess you know that's probably that's my insensible point of view about it. So, you know, are you how are you feeling about the nation with Donald Trump? Is another day back to a nominee of
the party. They're saying that if anybody right the checks in Nicky Haley, they're going to be like putting a concentration camp or something.
By the way, where I live in Manhattan, I know so many people who are like who come to me and they say, Mom, you know, I'm giving Nikki Haley some incredible amount of money. And I say, the math is not mathing. There's no world in which this works. And they say, yeah, yeah, but something could happen.
Well, they're not wrong. I mean something could happen. The thing that this has reminded me of in the last couple of days is two thousand and eight and the twenty sixteen Democratic nomination flights, where after Super Tuesday, David Luffle looked at all of the spreadsheets and was like, you know, a world of proportional allocation of delegates, there's no world which Hillary Clinton can now come back. And they started making this argument about the math that would
try to convince reporters. They were pretty good. They were good at and they were right. I mean it was like, you know, they would say, she would have to win, you know, the remaining contests sixty five to thirty five, and there's no record for winning anything suscebout thirty five and so there's no world in which she's going to wait all the contests, and there's no math that makes
it as it makes sense. And the Clintons, who are widely described as deluded at this point, were always kind of like, well, something could happen, you know, they could find the they could find the Whitey tape with Brot with Michelle Obama trashing white people. They could find something that will destroy back Obama, and you'd be like, well,
you guys are out of your mind. And then in twenty sixteen, if you want to turn this around for different ideological purposes, it's like there was a moment that came we're Bernie. In the last couple months of that campaign, I had had conversations with him aout it. I'd say, you know, you would have to win seventy five percent of the popular boat in the remaining races to be able to come into that commention with the same number of delegates as Hilary exliner are more you know, what
are you doing? His answer was really, I'm leading a movement and I can't let go, and his I'm saying he didn't say that quite that way. But that was the truth of the thing, and his advisors were like, we're trying to accumulate delegates, so we have a leverage of the convention. People find various reasons to go on, and I think is deluded as the as the Clintons were, that they were going to find some devastating piece of new information that was going to make Barack Obama unelectable
or completely disqualify him. You know it's Donald Trump if you're around Nicky Haley and you have the money to go on because as you as you know, well, no one quits a presidential race because they're losing. They quit a presidential race because the money drives up. If you have the money, I will see whether that continues to
be the case for her. If you have the money and you're headed to your home state, and you know, people could tell you all day long about how the party down, there's maga, there's some more Republicans that all the democractics, the maths definitely against her. Donald Trump is the all but certain nominee. But it's Donald Trump, right, He's legal problems, He's got all.
These things that are ninety one counts.
Yes, Eddie's got the and some of these trials, you know, potentially will start at least potentially Wilson begin not end well in the in this period. Is there a chance, given the way the chaotic, hectic, shambalic crazy asked way that Donald Trump's public life has unfolded, is there a chance that something could happen that would break the race open in.
A certain way. There's a chance.
And to me, it's sort of like not nobody should be like, yeah, I think Nicka Haley's really got a shot. That's not really the point. The point more is that, like if clear, she's in his head that thing on Tuesday night. We talked about it on TV on Wednesday morning. But I was at her without a concession speak out to victory of becha, I am going to the day of the race speech up and conquered on Tuesday night. And she was better in that speech that I think I may have ever seen her in terms of her
projection of confidence, ease in herself, sense of life. She did not seem like a candidate who was trying to put on a brave face. She read to me like a candidate who was like I've kind of found my groove here I'm not probably probably in denial about the ultimate likely outcome here. But as long as she has cut someone who's willing to give her money, and as long as she's got the guts, I do stay guts to risk a loss in her home state that could
really leave a mark on her politically forever. As long as she's got those two things, you know, why not? Four years ago Joe Biden gave basically that same speech on the night in New Hampshire. He finished fourth and iow at fits New Hampshire and he said, there's only two states that have voted. Let the country speak. Why do we have to shut this down right now? I'm going to go on and I want to take this
to bigger and more diverse states. I just don't see why if you thought that was okay for Joe Biden's tate, that pussure, why you wouldn't think it was okay Nikki Elia wants to she has the money and she's willing to take the risk. Why would anybody not want to see her out there prosecuting some case against Donald Trump? If those things are true, and only these two little small states in voted.
Yes, and I think that's right and I think that it's a really good point. And I happen to have written a piece on the Washington Post opinion page that was published quite largely that said that Joe Biden should drop out because he wasn't going away, probably one of the longest I have ever been in my political career.
I think that you have a really good point. Now, Devil's Advocate is that for the last eight years, we have all sort of engaged in group hallucination that Donald that something might happen to Donald Trump.
But this is why I say, let us not engage. I'm the laws person to engage in a wish casting and I'm not like some big McKy haliy fan. I'm not sitting here saying she should stay in because she has a good chance, or she should stay in because she has a reasonable chance. I think she has virtually no chance, and in the end, there's some harm in her going forward if that's the choice she wants to make.
I kind of applaud her for wanting to stay in and make again some sort of case against someone who you know is all the things that we know Donald Trump is, and I know a lot of people you know who would have said to me in the last and maybe this would be a controversial point of view. But the Democrats who really want to stop Donald Trump, who said I don't know I should feel about Nikki Haley eight because I think that this is their assertions.
A lot of people feel this way. I think she would be tougher for Joe Biden to beat than Trump will be. But I also note that if like Trump's the nominee, there's something around the fifty to fifty chance that he'll be the next president. And so I don't know what to do about this. Nicky Haley would be too conservative for my taste as president. She might be better at student to beat Biden. Do I really want to take that risk?
Should I?
How should I play this? If I'm playing it just terms of game theory, and my thing is like, if you're one of these people, and I myself in this camp, for sure, I guess taking to someone who's never cast a vote in potential election, but as someone who's covered them, I do put myself in the camp of I'm on team democracy, right, And if you're one of these people who walks around saying Donald Drum is an existential threat to American democracy, including on the Biden campaign, Like what's
your real principled argument in which you'd say Nicki Haley should drop out? Because what if the argument is, you know, this is an existential threat to democracy Donald Trump. Why shouldn't anybody who's trying to take the fight to Donald Trump who's not just another autocrat, which I don't think anybody think they say Nicki Haley is. You might think she's too conservative, but no one thinks she's that. She's
like missus Hitler. It's like, why would you not? Why are you not for anybody who's like leaving it all in the field and trying to keep Cheetah Mussolini from a retaking power. But don't get that confused with thinking, oh, she's got a chance. You know, It's like she's not a good chance. Like let's put all of our eggs in the Nicki Haley basket. She's looks likely to get creamed in South Carolina if she lasts even that law.
The numbers would say she'll probably get beaten pretty stilely in her home state, and then it will then I think, probably be over because the money will up and she probably won't be too humiliated to go forward, but why not spend one more month here and sort of see how it plays out in terms of her attractions she gets and and what might happen to him? And again not like kind of wish upon a star, but just like, hey, like what's the dump side? That's ice my feeling about it.
And I will say one last thing about the difference between the Biden thing, the one thing that Biden people will tell you that I have to give them just
say it out loud. They would say, well, even though Joe Biden has become coming fourth in Iowa and comes just in New Hampshire, there was a path for us even then that doesn't exist for her in the data, which was to say they were like, we had always been in the number of one or number two positions in South Carolina because we had a kind of popularity with black voters, which is the key constituency of the Democratic Party. We didn't know whether that would collapse after
Iowa New Hampshire. But we had a path in a way, a theoretical path in a way that Nikki Hilly does not right now. And that's true, But again that was not his public argument. It was why are you trying to shut down democracy. We've only had these two more states voted, so let's hear from some more people. And I think if you basically buy that, you know, you've got to kind of apply it both to Haley and to Biden in the same way.
Yeah, I mean, Nikki Haley is serving the same purpose that George Conway is and that Egene Carroll is right. They're driving Donald Trump crazy.
Yes, And if you believe if you look at all this data that we've seen now out of Iowa and New Hampshire, which is people are finding different ways and angles into it. I'm with Joe Scarro on the you know, if Barack Obama ran the Iowa caucuses in twenty sixteen after he was on his way out presidency, if he ran the Ilocacca's third time as an incumbent quasi company he came back, now, you know, he'd get ninety percent
of the Democratic votes. It is striking that Trump is kind of just a little over fifty with the voting electorates that he's had. There is a lot of those people who voted against him, Republicans who voted against him. Although in New Hampshire twenty five percent of them who did. A lot of those people will end up voting for
him in the general election, but not all. And to the extent that Nikki Haley is out there publicly in front of Republican audience, on Republican media in other places, highlighting his increasingly aduled mental state, his increasingly obvious unsuitability, unfitness,
inability to just mentally handle the job. Again, if you think he's an existential threat to democracy, She's gonna have a big public platform for the next month or harberlonga she states in if she changes five Republican voters' minds over the course of the next month. From my point of view, she making an important argument. Diana, Yes, Diana, exactly right.
This was I thought a little bit shitty of her. There were so many Democrats and also never Trump Republicans or not Democrats, but New Hampshire's estate with a lot of undeclared voters. A lot of those undeclared voters voted for her, maybe not so much because they loved her, but because they saw Trump as an existential threat to democracy, as we all do. And she then was sort of not so grateful for it. But I do think that makes your point.
Was when you say she was not grateful for what do you mean by that? I'm not challenging him. What are you keying off of there?
She said something to the effect of something negative about Democrats in the state, and I can't remember exactly what it was. They were people who really went out of their way, and maybe they didn't vote for her as much as they voted against Trump.
Right, I don't know exactly what you're referring to, but I will say this. You know, politics, as they say Plalie, as you know, is not bean bag. And if you were Nikki Haley and you wake up the day after the dam sure primary and you see that Donald Trump has beating you among Republicans by fifty points, and you know that any chance was a one percent chance, infantestinal chance to beat Donald Trump and and to go deep into the primaries against him, because that never has to change.
Most of these primaries coming forward are just are just Republicans. And if you get beat seventy five to twenty five in other states among Republicans, I mean, you really are look like kind of moron to go forward. So if your fundamental political imperative going forward is how do I
get more Republicans to vote for me. There is some political logic, even though it seems a little ungrateful and maybe even more the little lollaigrateful, but there is some political logic in trying to basically change is trying to project the notion not that you're like shitting on Democrats who voted for you, who decided to come out for the primary, but that like, you can't allow yourself to be cast in the minds of South Carolina Republicans as
the candidate of never Trump Democrats in New Hampshire, right, and so the idea that you have some imperative to rhetorically put some distance between yourself and those people who supported you. I understand that. I mean again, I don't you have to YEA, she could do it in a shittier way or a less shitty way, but I at least understand why she feels like she needs to not basically wear the mantle of you. You can't walk out of your Hampshire with a big, giant blue overcoat on, you know.
It's like, you know, with the big with the ad on the back, and that's not going to help her in her cause of beating Donald Trump.
It is interesting to me though, that Donald Trump is threatening to blacklist mega donors who donate to Nikki Haley. I mean, this is a guy who really needs money, and a lot of it he needs for his legal challenges.
Tim Miller and I did this interview with ann On for the last episode in Out of Las bi Us where he did this without with Cary Lake. This all turned into a whole thing, but we're Bannon basically said not basically, I mean really said, believing that and none seeing the view that the twenty twenty election was stolen is now a necessity a litmus test for being in the MAGA movement, right. He was like, if you don't believe that, if you want to test to that publicly,
you're out right. I tried to get carry Lake to say on camera. I just kept asking you, this is what our fight on camera about this. I was like, will you just say, with Steve Bennis, is that your review that if if you don't believe the twenty twenty election was stolen, you're not a member of a good
standing up the Maga movement slash Republican Party. And she because she has some sense of like what she's going to need to do if she's going to be a successful at Arizona, would not go that spar And the reason I raised that whole thing is that there's a flavor of this in a lot of things that are coming out of them now, whether it's the things that Marjorie Taylor Greenen said on stage on Tuesday or this Trump thing about the donors, which is the purity test,
the litmus test. And we're the opposite of a big ten Republicanism. We are not interested in a broader and broadening the coalition or welcoming Republicans who are on the fence, Republicans who are for somebody else work for Like if you're not in the cult, and not just in the cult, but like you know, someone who is like whatever, they have the Scout rankings, so like you know, there's like boy scout, you know. But if you're not like an eagle, if you don't, we're like an eagle scout pin of maga.
You know, we don't want a part of you. In fact, we're going to read you out of the party. There's part of that that you look at and you go that is worrying and dangerous and symptomatic of a kind
of fascist impulse and a cult impulse. And also the way I look at it is it's just like politically self defeating, because you know, in twenty twenty, Trump's and his team surprised us all because we often we analysts, by pundits whoever, we would often point out that it between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty eight, Trump had done nothing to expand his coalition, and we're like, how is he ever going to win against the twenty twenty Democratic nominee if he's brought no one in nobody who had
didn't vote from a twenty sixteen And they would say, that's not where we're going to get our votes. We're going to get our votes from people who are maga, just didn't vote in twenty sixteen. We're going to go out and find the voters who didn't. We're going to turn those people out. And a lot of us were skeptical and we were wrong. They found a lot of those millions. There's but that is a population now that I don't think there's anybody in Trump's world. It is
in his increasingly actual, real, sophisticated campaign. I don't think anybody who would say that there's a lot of untapped from that boat total in twenty twenty, that there's a ton millions more of Trump voters who didn't vote from in sixty and didn't vote from in twenty, which means that if you're going to beat Biden, you're going to have to get some of voters, not necessarily from the middle, but certainly like some of these mainstream Republican voters who
Trump is now saying, if you write a check to Nikiy Hiley are out, you know we're going to send you off to an internment camp. I just think like that's not the way to win. It strikes me as letting your cultish and authoritarian and autocratic and fascistic kind of impulses overcome self interest in terms of putting together the vote totals they're going to need in these in
these battlegrin states to actually beat Biden. Although you know, someone who is being really conspiratorial could say it doesn't really matter because they're just going to try to steal the election by force anyway. But I think he's paying
himself into a corner. Both your point, which is he needs the money, that's true, he also needs the votes and Neither one of those things is terbed by reading the Riot Act, reading, you know, by expelling, expunging, purging anybody who dares to utter a word of support from bird braiding. I mean sarcastic when I say that bird braid Nicki Haley or what does he call her down? Nimbre.
Yeah, he's back and forth between the two.
I liked what he had, Like he couldn't really get nimrata out, so he went for like a slightly more vaguely I'm not sure how that's even more big racist thing, which is the Nimbre thing. And he says he Nimbre. That's an email like to call her. I'm like, you know, I think about the talking head song I Zimbra. I don't know this this weird.
Thank you so much, John.
I hope you'll come back always, always, to the extent that I'm physically able. I'm I'm always precious.
Greg Sargent is a reporter at The New Republic. Welcome back to Fast Politics, my body.
Greg Sargent, Hey, how's it going.
We're delighted to have you here, but also excited because you have a new home. Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, I left the Washington Post after fifteen years there, and it was really a great ride. But now I'm at the New Republic and I'm really psyched because it's edited by Mike Tamaski, who's an old friend of mine and is a brilliant guy and a great writer and editor. And we are going to have a daily podcast at the New Republic, and I really hope your listeners will tune in and check it out.
Yeah, we are big fans of the New Republic here and also of Mike Tamaski. So let's talk for a minute about this was the week of New Hampshire Joe Biden. I wanted to like pause for a moment and remind everyone of what happened last year, which is like a million years ago. Biden decided not to have the Democratic Party start its primary process in New Hampshire, a high stake scambal really, because it meant that Biden was actually not on the New Hampshire ballot. Can we talk about.
That, well, I mean it looked it obviously worked out just fine. I think the big news on the Democratic side out of last night is that the primary is a big nothing burger. I mean, don't you think that.
Oh yeah, what I think is really interesting about it was so Biden had made a promise to Representative Cliburn of South Carolina and also, I would add to the Democratic base which has been really saved by black women and also people of color more generally. New Hampshire's a very white state, and he had said, we're going to make South Carolina go first, and New Hampshire was basically like, fuck you, We're going to go first, and you're not
going to be on the ballot. You know, there was a potential for a disaster here, and in fact, the people who were hoping that there would be disaster were Dean Phillips and Mary and Williamson went to New Hampshire and decided that they were going to take advantage of this opportunity, and they spent, you know, the last two weeks in New Hampshire eating waffles, talking to the press, and it didn't work out for them at all.
We often, as people who are obsessed to a very profound pathological fault with the details of politics, we often sort of admit to ourselves that regular people are not paying attention to the details the way we are. Here's a place where that's really true. Like, if you think anyone out there who's normal unlike us, gives a shit about primary schedules, you are wrong. Nobody cares about that stuff.
So Biden got about sixty seven percent of the vote. He was the right in candidate, So that is like pretty unbelievably spectacular.
Yeah.
By the way, there's another thing here, right, which I think we often get wrong. By we, I mean the kind of collective commentariat or whatever, we constantly look at this or that poll that seems to show dissension among Democrats, right, But the bottom line, Biden is pretty popular with the Democratic base. This is a hard thing for a lot of pundits to admit, but it's just the truth.
Right, And in fact, during the New Hampshire primary, there was a lot of punditry on CNN. I'm just going to call it what it is that said that no one wants Biden and that these two eighty year olds are both as unpopular as each other, which again is like it really is ultimately medium malpractice to compare a guy with ninety one criminal counts to a guy who has brought manufacturing back and is building chipsy They might both be old but that's where it ends, and I
thought it was interesting. I'm just going to read you this one tweet, which I think from Kyle Griffin, who's a producer at MSNBC. Biden is on track to win more votes in New Hampshire as a writing candidate than Barack Obama did when he ran for reelection in twenty twelve, and Obama ran unopposed and was on the ballot.
There, wow, yeah, you see there you go right. I want to say that I think the media worm is turning a little bit. Yeah, explain so, as you say, there was all this kind of media obsessing about how there's some sort of equivalence between Trump and Biden in the sense that, oh, they're both old, they're both despised. I mean, I'm exaggerating a little. That wasn't quite what
the press said, but it was almost. But the real truth of the matter is that what we're really seeing in these primaries is that Republicans are the party with the problem, and that Playbook actually got at this today and they're kind of media I think that reporters and commentators really pay close attention to what Playbook and Punchbowl and all those news news or sheets say, and they said, the story out of the exit polls is that Republicans
are the party that's divided and suffering from dissension. I mean, look, it's actually starting to dawn on people that a fairly non trivial swath of Republican and GOP leaning independent voters actually thinks it's a problem to have a criminalized the nominee, right, which you would think that people would have figured that one out earlier. But there's just this weird built in tendency in our discourse which just kind of treats Trump
as invincible. Everything makes him stronger. He's using the trials to reach voters, He's owning us all with all these clever maneuvers. He's got us all completely baffled at has continued iron grip on the party, that sort of stuff, and it's smoking mirrors a lot of it. We're going to be talking a lot like this on the podcast, by the way, a lot of meeting.
I'm a New Republic podcast with Greg Sargent.
No.
I think that's a really good point. And the thing that I am just completely struck by is, yeah, Trump has this power, but also Trump, you know, the mainstream media is just obsessed with letting Trump get away with it.
We had a great peace on that recently.
Oh thank you there.
About the press just really not being up to this moment.
It's so depressing. I mean, I have to say there's nothing that there is literally absolutely nothing about it that doesn't just make me so upset. So let's talk for a minute about what the Republican primary looks like. There was a lot of excitement about Nikki Haley. I, as a person who live in New York City and am surrounded by people who are text cut enthusiasts, had this moment where they were like, Nikki Haley is going to be our savior, and I was like, you guys, the
math is not mathing. So Nikki Haley came in third in Iowa, came in second in New Hampshire, and Donald Trump got to give it to him. He had a good point. She didn't come in second, She came in last.
Right, although I do think her showing was significantly stronger than Trump himself expected it to be. And that matter, and he was just he was yet again melting down about it in spectacular fashion.
For sure, he was absolutely melting down about it. And the polls were wrong again, right, Like the polls showed that she was losing by fifty points and she lost by whatever.
Such an important point that the polls got that wrong. They're getting it wrong on Trump's strength.
Yeah, and again this is another important point though, I did think about last night, which was you had a lot of independence and some Democrats switch parties and switch back, right, you can switch parties. Their a lot of unaffiliated voters in New Hampshire, and a lot of them really came in to stop Trump and that was their goal. And there was voters switch in. Then Nikki Haley was you came after them, which I thought was an odd move.
Yeah. And there's something else about the independent vote that I think is really important to underscore, which is that the exit polls in New Hampshire showed that nearly half of voters in the GOP primary. Now this is loaded up with independence and maybe even others, but that's important, right, because nearly half of the voters on the GOP primary said that if Trump is convicted of a crime, he'll be unfit to serve nearly half. And there's a number
that I still think of as extremely important. From the recent Washington Post poll.
These are from the exit polls. I want to add that exit polling tends to be a little more accurate than calling people on the phone.
Right, It's really important that nearly half of GOP primary voters said that they'd see Trump as unfit if he's convicted. And by the way, what I was going to say is the Washington Post pole, the most recent one had fifty seven percent of independent nationally saying that they believe the prosecutions are Trump of Trump are lawful as opposed to political, and fifty eight percent of independence nationally said that they believe Trump probably are definitely committed crimes related
to January sixth. Now, this dynamics going to get worse. We could have the January sixth trial jury just found that he had sexually abused E Gene Carroll. These things are going to deepen his problems for him, and I really am glad to see that the press is finally starting to pick this up.
One of the things that I think is an interesting dynamic here too, is that Trump the candidate, actually I think is going to get very soon into conflict with Trump the defendant. Yes, he wants to go into all these court cases and argue politically because he thinks it will help him, which is certainly possible, but it really will hurt him with voters. I mean, that's what these polls are saying.
That's absolutely right, and it's true as you say that it can help him in a narrow sense. It's clear that the indictments helped them in the primaries, right, They helped them out Planetic Dissenttus because Dessantus wasn't perceived as I don't know, a victim of the deep state, a sufficiently victimized figure for the Republican base to support them.
But look, I mean when a last Deefenek recently described the January sixth prisoners as quote unquote hostages, a number of vulnerable House Republicans actually ran away from that comment and they went out there and they forcefully stressed that
these are not hostages, they are criminal dependents. But what I take from that is that in tough districts across the country, it's toxic for a Republican to be aligned with the MAGA position that the prosecution of January sixth attackers is illegitimate.
And this gets back to this idea that I feel like we should all as pundits get tattooed onto our foreheads, which is this idea that, as we have seen again and again and again, trump Ism wins a primary and loses a general. And we saw that with Carrie Lake. We saw that in Pennsylvania. You know, yes, in states, in ruby red states, but even in Ohio, jd Vance ran about ten points behind what he should have.
Yeah, I think it's one hundred percent, right. I mean, in twenty twenty two, the big story of that election was that the mega candidates lost a lot of winnable races. I mean, everything about the fundamentals tilted towards a Republican victory. And again, as you say, the punditry was in denial about this. Remember, and I actually committed a mistake on this too. I think I actually didn't expect democracy to matter quite as much as it did to voters and
in a very pleasant surprise. And I think the January sixth hearings, by the way, played a major role in this, and Liz Cheney played a major role in it too, especially with independent voters. Right. Yes, it turned out that the one to two punch of Dobbs and January sixth really resulted in kind of a toxic combo for the more MAGA oriented candidates in one statewide race after another they lost. Oh yeah, And it's just amazing to me
that this isn't more part of the dialogue. I have this term twenty sixteen brain, and I think it's really like a syndrome that a lot of people are suffering from. As if the only national election in the last seven years or so, it's eight years that mattered is the
twenty sixteen election. We had three national elections since then, and Republicans, especially mega candidates, and Trump lost them all or dramatically underperformed in them, as in twenty twenty two, which is a bit of a mixed verdict but basically a democratic win. Right, It's not part of the discussion. It's so bizarre.
Yeah, I think it's really a good point. The problem for a lot of us in pendent world, but also like just in the world itself, is that twenty sixteen came so out of left field. And as I was talking to Brian Klass about this, is that twenty sixteen was a shifting electorate that shifted right for Donald Trump, and now we are in a you know, we haven't really come back again. We don't know, right, we don't know what the shifting electorate will shift for this time.
But if you look at Iowa had this very low turnout, New Hampshire had much higher turnout, But you have to wonder how much of that was much higher turnout, much closer margins. Again, so you clearly see that in New Hampshire they were certainly polling with a twenty sixteen electorate in mind. Right, Yeah, so I think that's interesting, oh for sure.
Yeah, I mean, and it's true as you say that there was a legitimate reasoning to be shocked and disoriented by twenty sixteen, right, yeah, And look, of course Trump can win this time. Right. There are a lot lot of scenarios you can imagine in which Trump pulls out a victory in the end here, but one can acknowledge that without sort of erasing the last three national elections from the discussion. Right. The bottom line is that there's is an anti Magam majority out there that just keeps
showing up. And the special elections. I think we've all heard the reasons why the special elections aren't all that predictive, but boy, there's a lot of special election wins for Democrats piling up right now, and that is pretty consistent with the idea that that anti MAGA majority is.
Durable, right, And I think that's a really, really, really good point. Again, this is this idea that some of the pre existing mechanisms for covering political races really don't serve democracy.
Yeah, the conventions of political reporting still haven't caught up with the problem. I guess is one put it.
You've written it, yeah, and you've written about it too. So much of the framing here is about comparison, and by comparing these two candidates, you're actually normalizing autocracy.
Yeah, and I think there's also a built in bias on It's funny, it's kind of ironic that it results in a media bias. And this goes back to what you were saying about sort of the twenty sixteen shock, right, post twenty sixteen dramatic stress disorder or something maybe that yes, right,
that people are still suffering from. I mean, if you think about it, right, a lot of reporters and commentators say to themselves the one thing they dread most is to miss a big story, right, And so the feeling was, oh my god, we missed this ground swell of right wing populist support, and now there's like a bias in the other direction, this constant hunt for signs that that kind of right wing populist swell that upsert is a real and formidable force, or maybe is more formidable than
it really is. And so again what gets erased are the examples of all those can that it's losing.
Exactly, Greg Sergeant, please come.
Back, Hey, you have to come on our pod.
Dave Wigel is a reporter at Semaphore. Welcome to Fast Politics. I'm so happy to have you. Dave.
Hello, it's good to be here.
Where are you.
I am in Washington, d C. Getting ready for the June primary. Now I'm just I always expected to come back here after New Hampshire had voted. This was the earliest call I can recall.
In New Hampshire.
That's good writing in Bicky Haley's victory of party. And she walked out in eight nineteen and the Pols have closed nineteen minutes earlier to give her. I guess you'd have to call a concession speech factually, but it wasn't really net So I got back here right away.
So I think of you, Dave as the guy who is everywhere, like when something happens, I think of you as someone who goes everywhere, and that is a high compliment from someone like me who has my own weird phobia is about going anywhere. So you were in New Hampshire on the ground. So what I'm hoping you can tell us is there was a huge turnout in New Hampshire. Numbers much bigger than in Iowa, where there was about
a seventy thousand people less turnout besides the weather. Why was there that big difference and can you extrapolate anything from it?
I was surprised that turnout was that high, and I shouldn't have been. The Secretary of State is his first cycle, but he's worth been working in the office for a while. He predicted record high turnout for Republican primary. He predicted low turnout actually under sold what turnout would look like for Democrats. It's about twenty thousand more people showed up
in that primary than he thought. I was only surprised because on the ground there was not the sort of surging enthusiasm that you've seen before competitive New Hampshire primaries and polling, especially the one track and pull from Suffolk in the Boston Globe was showing Trump blowout, which which it kind of was. I mean, there are not many fifteen point or I think in the net it's gonna be about twelve point results that you don't think are
a blowout, they're probably showing twenty points. I think two things happened. One, the weather was pretty good, literally sixty degrees warmer than I want in New Hampshire on latch day it started as snow, but only after voting was done, not that that's an impediment to people in New Hitsher, So
that helped. I think some unlikely voters turned out. And there were a lot of people who did not show up to political events, were never going to show up to Nikki Hailey rally in person, but who voted for
her just because they wanted to slow Trump down. So a combination of Trump having a very good turnout machine, Hailey having a decent, very decent turnout machine between her and America's prosperity, and just these unlikely voters who said, screw it, I'm going to drive five minutes to the school, walking to the polls, take thirty seconds and vote against Trump by hooting for her.
So that's what I actually wanted to ask you, because I had dinner on Sunday night with a political scientist basic the UK and we were talking about the shifting electorate. Why some of the reason that polling has become so hard, besides the fact that nobody has phones, is because Trump won on this electorate that did not exist before Trump and has not really existed after Trump except in twenty
twenty sort of. And so I'm wondering if what we can get about that shifting electorate when we look at because Iowa is white and tends to be more religious. And notice how I didn't say evangelical, because I feel like it's used in a sort of pejorative there, though evangelicals tend to support Trump, So do with that what you will. In New Hampshire, it's more of a mix. So that sort of Trump voter, that low frequency voter, probably would short up more in Iowa than in New Hampshire.
Yeah, actually one side note not sure how it fits completely in, but there is a special election to replace a Democrat and a Democratic seat in New Hampshire and republic has won it because the high turnout, And I guess I bring that up because the atypical voter attorney off for avery special election has been a college educated moderate who doesn't like Trump and Mega and so Trump
changed the electorate in two ways. Most importantly, he converted a lot of white voters without college degrees, which there are a fewer NAMESAVM Aaron Iowa, but a lot converted them to MAGA voters. And he alienated college educated white voters who were voting for Romney a few years ago and have turned around. Don't like this version of the problem the party. They're going to vote for christ and Hudu not anymore because he's retiring. They don't like probably
and they turn on everything. The reason Democrats have been doing so well and special elections they actually flipped to Seed in Florida, R De Santas dropped out is those voters they are aware of when elections are They don't need a lot of cajoling to turn out. They want to vote against MAGA for many reasons, from Trump personally to abortion.
Rights to the uncoastless.
They see. These are people who drive past a neighbor who has a Trump flag with the F word on it and say, all right, that's not me. I'm going to vote for whoever the ELF is running against ten. And that's how we changed things. And you saw this in Hailey did best in both Iowa and in New Hampshire in places with lots of those voters. She did better in New Hampshire. It has more than turned out. It's a little bit easier to turn out. Remember to
vote in Iowa. In Iowa, you need to show up at the Republican caucuses at six point thirty and change your illustration to Republican. In New Hampshire, if you're an undeclared voter, which there are about three hundred and two thousand, you're already registered to vote, you to show up and say I'm pulling a Republican ballot and then you lease. And so it was easier to do that. A lot
of those voters turned out. You can see that in places like Hanover where Dartmouth is, and places like Durham where the University New Hampshire conquered, places where there are concentrations of college educated voters who do not like Donald Trump. She did very well and also very high Democratic turnout. There were lots of Democrats showing up to write in Joe Biden. Those are voters who might have skipped in the past, but Trump activates them and you were saved
if you're watching TV which from it. My favorite polling was by CNN in University of New Hampshire, which said where people media sources were from. If you watched local news or listened to New Hampshire Public Radio or CNN, you were voting for Dickie Haley. If you watch conservative media, you're vote to somebody else. But all those New Hampshire Public radio folks, they were veryware in the primary, and they were hearing about Trump all the time, and they said, Nope, not that.
Yeah, it's so interesting. And then there was write in, now let me ask you a question here. We tried really hard not to talk about international stuff here, but some people did write and ceasefire.
Not that many. So there was a campaign that formulated you're right, and I wrote about it. So I'm saying I.
Didn't know the numbers on it, so I'm curious.
It is still being tabulated, probably going to be less than two thousand people who did that. There was a campaign formed in really the final week of the election, which is when most people are turning. In some New Hampshire progresses hout a press conference saying we're going to
encourage you able to write in this term. There was actually pushback from Democratic Majority for Israel, which is spending a lot of money on pro Israel candidates trying to defeat Israel critic usually in Devorkcratic primaries, protesting that putting a letter and saying you shouldn't do this. That got a little bit of atension. But when I talked to Mary and Williams, Cintin Phillips, they're saying, look, if you you do want to change the Biden approach here, you
should vote for a candidate who's not Joe Biden. Lower his vote total, increase the denominator and make it look like he's want fewer votes. Biden ends up with around sixty five percent of the vote as a writing candidate, Ceasefire ends up probably around two percent at peak, and Biden alternatives get the rest. So there is a a anti Biden vote here, but not explicitly vote for Ceespire vote. There's not Williams said, is a pro Ceasefire candidate. You
have them together. That is a about six percent of the New Hampshire primary electorate. The obvious example here is let's make it like nineteen sixty eight, where nobody can ignore the opposition to LDJ in the Vietnam War. That's not what happened this time. And I think there are lots of reasons for that.
Yeah, it's a totally different I mean, American soldiers are not there, right.
That's the reason you got it.
Yeah, But I do think what's really interesting when we talk about this is like this does in some way. I mean, New Hampshire really does make a case for the strength of Biden. Right, he's not on the ballot. You could argue that Biden got support. There was about seventy thousand dollars spent in this state. Unless it's more. You might know better than I do, Dave. What I read was about seventy thousand to get people going to
know that there was a write in campaign. I still think that's pretty amazing, considering that he had snubbed the state, right, he changed the like I thought New Hampshire would be matter at him because he has robbed them of their status as going first.
Yeah, that was a surprise. I remember I was quoting the Secretary of States projection. It was that maybe eighty eight thousand people would bother showing up for the primary period, and there was a lot of wardbreed I'd say three months ago that Biden was going to do this. One thing that Governor Sanuna would point out a lot is that Democrats didn't have their meeting on their primary schedule
until after twenty twenty two's midterms. He thought that would be issue that would help Republicans, and they pushed it back, so they didn't get they didn't get the bounce from that. But while this primary was happening, some posters were asking, Okay, when this is over, you voting for Joe Biden or Don Trump or je vote for Haley or Joe Biden. And Haley was in a close race with Biden up
a little. Biden was beating Donald Trump because these voters were less offended they are Also was an impression, i think enhanced by this right in campaign that look, we're going to we're going to get the primary back. At some point, there's going to be a twenty twenty eighth primary. Democrats all realize they shouldn't have done this. They're going to come back to it. So that was explicitly an argument made by the right end effort. It was in grassroots.
If you can call Democratic lobbyists grassroots, they are.
And they were doing this.
About the without money from the campaign as Jim Damers and Kathie Sulivan. That's what they were telling me and other people. Yes, if we have a great showing for Biden, the parties had to come back to us. Actually, I just I just was double checking. It's going to be closer to one hundred and twenty five thousand New Hampshire voters turned out. That is fifty percent more than a
state projective. Biden's going to end up. A stat that you're going to see thrown around is Biden got more votes as a writing candidate as than Bertie got when he won the twenty twenty primary.
Or then Obama got right.
More than Obama got in twenty twelve when there was no opposition, and when Democrats were just going to go back and redominate him. They wanted to prove that. They said, Okay, we know you're unhappy, but I should put it this way. The message was, we're not Iowa. We're not the state that screws up the primary, that makes you stick around waiting for results. We're not the one that can't count. We are the one where people are engaged and they
will show up. You should really reconsider your purge of us, not purge, but you know, your slight emotion of us. In twenty twenty eight, I feel like they succeeded based on the chatter right here from Democrats. Oh interesting, they're probably going to be revisiting this in three years and if Biden's president and there's a new nomination, they fere confident, they'll say they'll be able to come back and say we took her a lump, come back and then do
the best primary, the one everyone loves. So come back and hang out with Verban Supreme.
I know you've seen this, know you've seen this the CNN interview where they where they thought they were interviewing a normal New Hampshire voter.
Yes, because Kathy Sullivan, that's one of the she was leading the super pack in favor of writing and bibe.
Yes, can you talk? That was one of the great moments ever. So they clearly think they have like a little old lady here and she is explained to us who she is again, because I thought that was great.
Kaffy Sullivan is a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair. She was there when Barack Obama won, so she was there for New Hampshire Democrats becoming not the dominant political party, but the party that wins most of the federal races. Chris and Nunu has been able to break that. They're trying to keep that record this year. But they've won governor's races, but they struggled and Senate and House races since the party ship, since more college educated white voters
became Democrat. And yeah, she ran the super pac that was paying for signs and mail, not cdeds. You never saw cded and said, right and Biden, but you saw a lot of road signs that were explaining how to write it in. He paid for it. Yeah, And she said that what Dean Phillips is doing with obnoxious, I did.
Think that was sort of amazing. But Dean Phillips, he made sort of a similar case. I mean, I actually read a really smart essay yesterday about how both Dean Phillips and it was just something I hadn't thought about. Both Dean Phillips and Nikki Haley both ran sort of on the idea that the other guy was too old, right that on this sort of agism platform, because Dean Phillips has almost ideologically he's almost identical to Biden. In fact, he's really for someone of his age. His beliefs are
very center center for this Democratic Party. So I'm just I'm just wondering. Neither of them really did what they said they were going to do, or what they had hoped they were going to do, But both of them seem unfazed by their inability to deliver what they said they were I mean, will they both stay in? Do you think.
Phillips is staying in? Williamson is staying in. Phillip's in public to me said he needs to get into the twenties, which he did. As the votes are finally being counted. He barely made it into the twenties. That is, it's going to round up to that. At least he underperformed what he wanted. More quietly, they said, we did the twenties. They really wanted some dramatic result closer to nineteen sixty eight when LBJ only gets forty nine percent of about
Jim McCarthy gets forty one. They didn't get that half of Fiji. McCarthy is something you'll hear from Biden. Folks, he has a problem where he is not really relevant in South Carolina, where voting is happening next thanks to Democratic calendar. He is not on the ballot in Nevada because he've jett in the race too late to make the ballot, so he doesn't get another test of how
popular he is or how popular. The idea of replacing Biden with a generic Democrat, and this is Joe gander Yang likes, is that if if he just can convinced to change his name to generic Democrat, I'll say, in the country the Trump. He didn't get her test of that until Michigan at the end of February, and then is not clear exactly where else he competeing. One story I've worked on by talking to Phillips is that he
missed some other deadline. So Florida, which is mid March, has a primary that he's not going to be on the ballot. For North Carolina is a Super Tuesday state. He's not in the ballot for that. So he put five million dollars in his own money, which is considerable. He's a successful businessman before he became a member of Congress. He's put money in the race he has a super
pac funding him that has not been that successful. It did a really one of the better sidebar stories about this race was the Dean Phillips super Pac creating an hay I version of Dean Phillips, I can answer your questions and then shutting it down. It's the super pac is funded in part by Bill Lackman. Sam Altman. He's a little bit embarrassed by what the superPAC is doing, but yeah, there's the money out there to keep funding him.
Wait, Sam Altman, Yeah.
The open the Eye guy is also a THILD supporter.
Okay, wow, all right, good for that's great tech brows once again. So now we go to South Carolina. I mean, it just seems as if Donald Trump can't help himself when it comes to Nicky Haley. Do you think that's the dynamic? I mean, and ultimately probably doesn't do much for Nikki, but it might help Biden ultimately, right.
It could.
So. I am very skeptical of any Trump is finished because of the way he emotionally reacted to something.
Theory.
We have seen this not work too many times. Even Democrats I talked to, if they could program the media which believe it or out they don't they assistant usuams and telling what they're doing.
They would love.
More of a focus on what is he going to do about abortion access, abortion medication, What is he going to do about tax rates? What is he going to do about labor? Because he has conservative advisors who'd want to gut the EDLRB Elon tries to it at existence. They'd love to talk about that because they think Trump being erratic is not really a problem for him. Haley
did to give her credit get under his skin. Her basic strategy on election night was concede quickly, which she did, which is normal if you're not Trump usually conceived the election if you lose, and you do it before the victory speech, and you get to influence a victory speech. So she came out there with a speech where she laid out how she was going to keep running for two months. He never said she lost the race. She said, thank you God. She talked like somebody who had just
won an election. And yes, that pissed off Trump, who is going to keep making fun of her. The advantage he has though, as opposed to twenty sixteen when he actually lost Iowa and then yelled about it, just said it was stolen. Is that he has a superstructure in the Republican Party agreeing that Donald Trump should be the nominae and she should.
Back off, like Ronal McDaniel.
Yes, like the sharers for the RNC, which I wrote yesterday, you're not supposed to do It's in that our laws of the by Laws of the Party rule eleven. You're not allowed to do that. The party is not allowed to give it in Times contribution before there's a nominee, and they did so He's already got the parties saying, yeah, we agree. Maybe we're going to express it differently than Donald Trump and use a primetime an election night to make fun of her. But he is, I think, channeling
what his voters think. A lot of Republicans think. He said that, but also Ja d Vance said that the governor South Carolina is getting there. He is a Trump endorser who is campaigning for him. I don't think that is a harmful thing for Trump to look like he's annoyed at Dicky Haley. Are not conceding because so are many of the forces in east side the party.
Yeah, and also, I think you had a really good point. Being insane is not necessarily hurt Trump. If anything, it's sort of baked in. This was so interesting. I so appreciate you coming on and just also I continue to be grateful for your dispatches from places that I desperately do not want to ever go. Thank you, Dave.
It's great, no moment, perfectly.
Jesse Cannon by junk Fast Trump.
He's yuppin, He's in court.
What's going on?
You know, he's testifying right now as we are doing this. We have a Lena Habba. You may remember Alena Hobba as being completely unqualified for this, and she is sparring with Judge Caplan and also with ROBERTA. Caplan. Robbie Caplan, who is the lawyer for Egan Carroll and who have course full disclosure. I know him and friendly with all these people.
I saw that in a truth social post today, in fact from mister Trump.
Yes, I've been truthed, but I just want to say that Trump is gonna have a lot of trouble with this testimony. And already we see Trump saying she said something I considered a false accusation. ROBERTA. Caplan objection, Judge Caplan sustained, and miss Habba I have no further questions. Judge Caplan, cross examination. There was a trial here, correct, Trump, Yes, so this is going to be my moment of fuckery. Basically,
they got two questions. Donald Trump was not allowed to do the kind of lying he gets to do everywhere else. And for that, that is my moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this case. I ask if you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.