You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Buck Sexton Show. On this episode, our friend Tim Murtau is here. He was the Trump twenty twenty comms communications director. These days he's an executive vice president of comms for National Public Affairs, which is a political consulting firm, and he's got his own podcast. What is the podcast? Tim?
Podcast is called the Line Drive Podcast, and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts. And it's a look at the dissection of the twenty twenty four race from some people who are inside the rooms when big decisions were happening on presidential campaigns, and we take a look at it and dissect it and tell you why candidates are doing what they're doing.
I appreciate the chance to be able to plug that. Buck. Thanks the Line Drive Podcast.
Of course. Now tell me how's this election going so far? You know you worked on twenty twenty for Trump. What are you seeing right now? And take it anywhere you want? Biden big picture? You know, what are you seeing? We're in the is the summer of twenty three, what's happening.
Well, I don't think it would surprise anybody that my take is what everyone can see in the polls, that this is Donald Trump's nomination to lose, certainly, and he doesn't show any signs of loosening his grip on the nomination.
And I think what is less talked about because that point's kind of obvious, I think, but what's less talked about is the fact that if you look at the publicly available evidence, the public polls that are out there, Donald Trump has been shown to be ahead in a matchup with Joe Biden in the general election in a couple of polls. Just in the last month, he's been
ahead in several different national polls, beating Joe Biden. And that's important because in twenty sixteen, and especially in twenty twenty, where I was I was now on the twenty sixteen campaign, but let's talk about twenty twenty. In twenty twenty, Donald Trump was shown to be beating Joe Biden nationally in a public poll exactly zero times. And in just the last month, Donald Trump has been shown to be ahead of Joe Biden in several different national polls, and that
is significant. And to me, that tells me that Donald Trump not only is he in great shape, which is obvious in the Republican primaries, but he's in a better position today against his likely Democrat opponent in a general election than he ever was in twenty twenty or twenty sixteen. Why is that, Well, I think it's a lot of things. The economy is really hurting Joe Biden. And you know, the White House will tell you, oh, everything is fantastic.
The economy is coming back, and we've added all these jobs. And of course that's sleight of hand because those are jobs that are returning because of the opening up of the economy again after the pandemic has passed us. But then you have the I mean, scandal after scandal after scandal, and I think that the media, try as they might, has tried to protect Joe Biden from this. But Joe Biden, I think to the average voter and his approval numbers bear this out. He looks like a weak, ineffective old
president who just isn't up to the job. And I think, now this Hunter Biden stuff, the Devin Archer testimony of the other day, is going to really really hurt Joe Biden because now they've got the media in position where you just can't ignore this anymore. They ignored the laptop and everything that was contained in it for a long
long time, and they just can't do it anymore. These allegations and the facts that Devin Archer brought to the table the other day in his testimony, they're just they're so explosive that not even the New York Times or CNN can ignore it.
So this is now where I have to ask you what happened in twenty twenty?
Man?
You were on the campaign? Whatten? Now that we have all the fullness of time or whatever has passed and we have plenty of ability to look back and understand, because I think that one of the challenges some people might have on the conservative side, on the publican side of things is if they could cheat in twenty twenty, why would it be different? Now? That's always the question that I wonder, you know, or if they could rigate,
if they could pull that off, you know what I mean? Like, why should we believe it's any different?
Now?
What do you say you were part of twenty twenty? Why is twenty twenty four going to be different.
Yeah, Look, if you look back at what was happening the lead up to twenty twenty, and it started in twenty nineteen. You know, the Democrats, led by Mark Elias, their lawyer, they were in court in states all across the country trying to loosen protections for safe campaigns and safe elections all over the place. And I do think that the Democrats had a far better operation to take advantage of laws in certain states where you're allowed to
ballot harvest. And they certainly did a better job of turning out mail in ballots because they were much more widely used. And you know, it was frustrating to me. I honestly, I never saw enough evidence of actual fraud
that would have made a difference. However, if you look at Pennsylvania for the first time, two and a half million people voted by mail in Pennsylvania, and its really hard for me to believe that every single one of those two and a half million votes that were cast by mail were actually cast by the people whose name was on the envelope. You know, do all two and a half million people know that they voted in that election?
I don't know.
And it's not something that we're ever going to be able to prove. So I think that Republicans have a better idea now of how to you have to actually operate under the laws, then do the voting as they're allowed by law. A lot of our folks, a lot of our voters, want to fight on principle, and that's fine. I understand that. And they don't like mail in voting. They don't like ballot harvesting because they are avenues for fraud.
That's true.
But where it is permissible by law, it is silly to fight with one hand tied behind your back, because you know the Democrats are going to do what's allowed by law, and they're going to exploit those laws, and so the Republicans have to play those same games now. Aside from those sorts of things, you know, I think it really was an unprecedented race with a global pandemic, I think, absent the pandemic before things actually had to
get shut down. I feel like the President Trump was headed towards not an easy re election, but I think a re election that was going to come in. I think exactly as we had it planned. He was going to ride the economy. The economy was really unprecedented. It was so strong, it was going gangbusters, and there really weren't going to be a lot of things that Democrats could do to shoot down all of the accomplishments of
the Trump administration. COVID presented a couple of things. It gave the media something that they could use to beat Donald Trump over the head with every single day and somehow say that a global pandemic that affected every single country on Earth was somehow the fault of one American leader, which is preposterous, but that's what they did, and it gave Joe Biden the easy excuse to never ever go out and campaign and keep probably the worst candidate in
our lifetimes off the campaign trail and have a legitimate reason for that to be the case. So I think there were a lot of things that went on in twenty twenty, and despite all of it, the media loves to talk about how close twenty sixteen was. Twenty sixteen was a race that was decided by about eighty eight thousand votes in three states, eighty eight thousand votes spread
across three states. Twenty twenty was even closer than that, less than forty four thousand votes spread across three other states, So it was about half again as twice as close as it was in twenty sixteen. But somehow the fact that the closeness of the twenty twenty race is not something that anybody discusses. But it was razor thin. It's
going to be razor thin again. I think you're going to see another tight race that is decided by very small margins in a handful of different states across the country. It's going to be tight again.
How formidable is the Democrat election apparatus that was able to with all the factors you identified and everything else? Push forward? I would say, wheel forward in some ways, Joe Biden into the White House? What do they do right?
You know?
Where where should we learn from our enemies? So to speak?
Well, they just they unabashedly crank out the votes. This is not you know, it's less of a messaging game now.
And TV ads are still important and the message of the campaign is important, and the day to day fight is all very important, but it's less about persuading people these days as it is about just producing votes, and many times that means you know, actual the actual function of going around getting people to fill out their ballots, sign their names, and where it's permissible, even some places where it's not, what's called ballot harvesting, which is, say,
for example, what Democrats love to do is you go into a nursing home and let's say there's three hundred and fifty residents of this nursing home. You get all of them to fill out their ballots, and then one person can carry all three hundred and fifty of those ballots and go put them in a drop box somewhere. I mean, if that is not the obvious opportunity for fraud in voting, then I don't know what a better
example would possibly be. However, that is permissible under the law in many many states, and Democrats do a much better job, i'd say, vloiding the laws and doing what the law allows, and in many cases probably pushing the envelope. But where it's where they are much better and much more organized, and they don't have any opposition from within
their own party to choosing those methods of voting. I think a lot of our people, as I said, on principle, and I think they're right that they don't want to do the things that are ripe for fraud. However, the other side's going to do it, and if you lay down your weapon while the other side still has their weapon, then you've disarmed yourself and you're at a distinct disadvantage. They're just better at it. They do it with no remorse, I think, I guess that's probably the best way to say it.
So they're ruthless. The things I learned from Democrats is they're utterly ruthless in their pursuit of power, and they have no compunction about playing dirty. And maybe there's something something to be said for that. We'll come back in a second. Speaking of playing dirty, the indictments against Donald Trump, including the latest j six federal indictment. I want to talk to mister m We're ta here about that in
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Well, I mean, look there, it's two different questions. Right.
There's the legal question, which is that he's actually facing criminal charges and he is in pretty significant legal jeopardy. That I am not a lawyer. I'm certainly not a criminal lawyer, not a lawyer of any kind. So I think the legal questions about what he's facing in the
criminal justice system are our question for someone else. Politically, However, in the terms of the Republican primaries, here, I think it goes without saying really because everyone can see the evidence that all of these indictments actually help him politically in the Republican primary. So I mean, by now it's
kind of background noise. And I think this next one, the January sixth indictment, is going to be I think even more apparently political, at least to the Republicans who are watching, because they're going to be indicting him based on the behavehavior of other people who are not him, And so I think a lot of people will see that as just as political as all the rest of them.
But here's the situation. This is how you know that it is rebounding to Donald Trump's favor is that most of the Republicans who are in the field running for president who are not the ones who are just openly attacking him every single day, like Chris Christy or Asa Hutchinson everyone else, every time an indictment happens, or every time someone on the left or in the Biden administration attacks Donald Trump with the apparatus of the federal government.
Every single time, most of them have to defend Donald Trump in some way. And it goes all the way up to vivek Ramaswami, who during one of the indictments, actually stood outside the courthouse where the grand jury was meeting and held a press conference and promised to pardon
Donald Trump if he ever became president himself. Of vivek Ramaswami said that, And really the only way that you can tell that vivek Ramaswami is not endorsing Donald Trump is that he maintains that he's a candidate for president himself. And you know, there are others who attack the DOJ and they attack the politicization of the federal government, the weaponization of the federal government. They don't necessarily stick up
for Donald Trump, but they attack the attackers. And so it's a very complicated political pretzel for the people who are running sort of with one foot in the Donald Trump lane. They don't want to attack Donald Trump because they need to be able to attract his supporters. And as you have seen over the course of the last number of years here in American politics, when Donald Trump is attacked, his supporters feel as though they themselves are
being attacked as well. And obviously the political opponents and the Republican primaries know that, and they are treading very lightly. And I don't think that any of them can really figure out exactly how to handle these things when they keep happening. And this latest indictment will be another example of all that.
What do you make of the theory that's out there that Democrats are throwing all these arts at Trump to make him the candidate for the Republicans so that he'll win the primary, but then he'll be weakened and lose the general.
Well, you know, look, we dealt with.
Some of that during the twenty twenty race before Joe Biden became the candidate. If we attacked Joe Biden one day, people said, oh my gosh, they're attacking Biden. They're trying to elevate Biden. Therefore they want Biden to be the candidate. Sometimes we attacked Pete Boodajete, you know, or Bernie Sanders, and so what was the answer for that. Sometimes you just you level attacks on people with the information that
you have handy. I'm not sure maybe the Democrats that is their game plan that they want Donald Trump to be their opponent. But as I just said, we've seen now a series of national polls that have Joe Biden in front. I'm sorry, I have Donald Trump in front of Joe Biden in a national head to head general election matchup, which never occurred in any public polls in twenty twenty. And I think maybe you're starting to see some of the Democrats changing their mind and thinking, maybe
we're not too sure that we want Donald Trump. They've been they've been focusing a lot more on Ron De Santis. You have this big skirmish that Kamala Harris entered over these new educational standards in Florida, and Kamala Harris went at Ron De Santis, I mean, full bore. She could
hardly attack him any harder. So, you know, I think it's they're showing signs that they're not exactly sure who they want to run against now, certainly using what people are calling lawfair warfare through the law against Donald Trump as a key indicator that I think that they're trying to make sure that if he is the Republican nominee, that he's as damaged as possible going into the general election and perhaps they still do want him as the opponent,
but I'm not sure that the public evidence shows that it would be a slam dunk for Joe Biden or anybody else should Donald Trump be the nominee.
I want to ask what it is or how you'd make the case for an independent voter, let's say, a swing voter, independent in some of these key states, why they would vote for Trump this time in twenty twenty four if they didn't in twenty twenty. But hold on for one second there. Tim My Pillow is celebrating their twentieth anniversary. It's a huge milestone for a company that I spent decades offering amazing products to you, and so for their twentieth anniversary, you know what they're doing giving
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dollars more. All right, Tim, what do you think.
Independent voters who aren't committed yet? First, let me preface this by saying National Public Affairs, which is the consulting firm where I work, we're not affiliated with any of the candidates. So I want to make that clear in case anybody from one of the other campaigns says, hey, that's not fair having that guy on. We're not being
paid or working for any of those campaigns. But if I were going to try to message to independent voters to get them to vote for Trump in twenty twenty four if they did not support him in twenty twenty, I would first I would again remind them that twenty twenty was sort of a unicorn.
Election year because of because it was.
Really under the most extreme circumstances and unprecedented circumstances that anyone has ever seen an election occur in. But I would remember, or I would remind them of what life in the United States was like prior to the pandemic coming one of the best economies ever recorded for this country, and that means one of the best economies in world history. And that was all due to the Trump tax cuts
getting government largely out of the way. I think one of the un heralded things in the Trump administration was the reduction in government red tape and the reducing of federal regulations, getting government and the EPA in particular, out of the way. We were energy independent. We were producing more energy here at home than we were having to import, and we were actually becoming a net energy exporter for
the first time I think about five decades. And that was all due to the Trump policies the border, the cracking down on illegal immigration.
I think the.
Effects of that were obvious and you can see that Joe Biden and the Democrats have completely reversed that you didn't have illegal immigrants coming to the border wearing Donald Trump T shirts the way that they come to the border wearing Joe Biden T shirts and telling reporters we came here because Joe Biden said he would let us in. That you have to remind people of all of the
tremendous things that the Trump administration did. It all gets all caught up in the hoopla, and people remember the pandemic, and people talk about the nasty tweets and now we have and that's the reason why they're doing all these indictments and all the law fair against President Trump. But I think it's incumbent upon the campaign to remind folks this is how it was, and these are the policies that you liked, because most Americans did like those policies, and you have to remind them of them.
Tim Merch to everybody. Tim the Line Drive podcast right.
Line Drive podcast available wherever you get your podcasts, and we take a look at It's me Sonny joy Nelson from the campaign and Hogan Gidley, formerly of the White House and of the campaign, and we talk about the news of the day, and we dissect it from a perspective of people who were in the room when all those big decisions happen.
You know, Sonny Joy, you know, you got to ask her. Who encouraged her to move to DC and start working in politics?
Is that you? You take her?
I met her at Sea pack. She's a friend of a friend of mine and I just just in casual conversation. It sort of came up. She was looking to do some stuff, and I said, you know, move to DC, you'd be great, you know, go for it. I introduced her to uh Lilah Rose of Live Action. I'm trying to think, you know. Yeah, and now Sonny Joy's a big deal. Now she's hosting a great podcast. It makes me so happy to see.
Yeah, oh, I know, I'm very proud of Sonny. She's she was fantastic. As a matter of fact, she she was my first assistant on the campaign and I picked her resume out of the lineup because her name was Sonny and I had just left the Trump administration and I was working for Sonny Perdue, who was the Secretary of Agriculture, And so you know, when you're looking at resumes, of a bunch of people who were like twenty two,
twenty three years old. They're all the same. Basically, it's her first job and her name was Sonny, so I put her aside and said, I'll call this one just because of her.
Name, and it is very proud. I'm glad. I'm glad she's been saving the country from the Communists, as I knew she would.
I didn't realize you could. You could also take credit. That's fantastic.
Good to hear. Anyway, great to see you, Tim, Thanks so much.
Yep, thanks Buck
