0:01

I'm Barry Weiss, and this is Honestly.

0:07

On Wednesday night, Fox News and the streaming

0:09

platform Rumble hosted the

0:11

first Republican presidential debate. Tonight,

0:14

the race for the White House takes flight.

0:17

Welcome to the first debate of the 2024 presidential

0:20

campaign live at Fiserv

0:22

Forum in Milwaukee.

0:24

With

0:28

eight GOP hopefuls who made the cut. There

0:32

were a lot of governors and former governors

0:34

on the stage. North Dakota Governor

0:36

Doug Burgum, I had to Google this guy. Former

0:39

Governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson. Senator

0:41

Tim Scott. Former Governor of South Carolina

0:43

Nikki Haley. Former New Jersey

0:46

Governor Chris Christie. Former Vice President

0:48

Mike Pence. The biotech entrepreneur Vivek

0:50

Ramaswamy. And finally, Florida Governor

0:53

Ron DeSantis. Now, of course, missing

0:55

from that list and missing from the stage was Donald

0:57

Trump, who refused to attend the debate. Instead,

1:00

he sat down with Tucker Carlson. It's

1:02

debate night, but we're not in Milwaukee. Mr.

1:06

President, thanks for joining us. Thank you. A

1:09

move that allowed both men to flip the bird.

1:12

One, Trump to the RNC, and two,

1:14

Tucker, who was fired from Fox a few

1:16

months ago. His interview with Trump aired exclusively

1:19

on X, or the platform formerly known as Twitter,

1:21

and more than 74 million people tuned

1:24

in.

1:27

As much as I have come to loathe politicians,

1:29

I got to say I love a debate night. And

1:31

we were up until the wee hours of the Free Press

1:33

discussing it all on Slack and getting up a

1:36

report from Milwaukee, which is authored by

1:38

our own Olivia Reingold, who joins

1:40

me now. Hi, Olivia. How are

1:42

you? I'm feeling good. I mean, riding the

1:44

waves of excitement. It was thrilling,

1:46

honestly. Amazing. We can't wait to

1:49

hear more about it. Well, Olivia is also

1:51

joined by Peter Savodnik, senior editor

1:53

at the Free Press.

1:54

Hi, Peter. Hey, Barry. Also

1:56

joining us is friend of the Free Press

1:59

and Newsweek opinion.

1:59

Canadian editor Batya Ungar-Sargon, who

2:02

looked very glam last night on News Nation, offering

2:04

her commentary. Batya, thanks for joining us. Thanks

2:06

so much for having me, Barry. It's great to be here. OK,

2:08

so let's jump right in. With Trump missing from

2:11

the debate stage last night, there was only really one

2:13

reason to tune in at all. And that

2:15

was to see if there's actually a viable

2:17

candidate in this race that's a not

2:20

Trump option, because polling has

2:22

consistently shown that people are desperate

2:25

for an alternative to another Trump v. Biden

2:27

face-off in 2024. And

2:29

I wonder, did last night give us a clear

2:32

contender? Was there a winner? Batya,

2:34

let's start with you.

2:35

So the debate that

2:37

we have up at Newsweek today in our daily

2:39

debate is about who won the

2:41

GOP primary debate. And

2:44

the two competing answers we got were

2:47

the winner of the GOP debate was

2:49

Donald Trump. And the other one

2:51

was the winner of the GOP debate was Joe

2:54

Biden. So clearly

2:56

our debaters did not feel that anyone

2:58

on the stage really stood out. You

3:01

know, there were some moments, I think,

3:03

that really sort of defined

3:05

the evening. One of them was

3:07

the foreign policy debate between Nikki

3:09

Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. You're

3:11

on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon. But

3:13

the facts of the matter— And you know, you

3:15

had put down everybody on the stage. You've

3:18

been pushing this lie all week, Nikki. But you wanted to go and

3:20

defund Israel. You wanted to get

3:22

to a one-day trial. OK, let me address that. I'm going to go and give

3:24

you a break. I'm going

3:24

to address each of those right now. You did. There

3:27

you have it. Under

3:31

your watch, you were like America, less

3:33

than you have no foreign policy experience,

3:35

and it shows. And you know what? The

3:37

foreign policy experience that you all have shows in

3:40

the world as well. Which was sort

3:42

of, you know, the old GOP versus

3:44

the new Trump GOP positions

3:47

really going at each other. But I think

3:49

that Vivek's credibility really came into

3:51

question in that moment in a way that surprised

3:54

me. You know, as somebody who's sort of much more

3:56

in the America first foreign policy

3:59

mode than I am. in the kind of Nikki

4:01

Haley American exceptionalism,

4:04

you know, let's make sure that we're policing the world

4:06

mode. I did find myself

4:09

sort of admiring the way in which

4:11

she took Vivek to task, despite the fact

4:13

that I agreed with what he was saying. And so I'm obviously

4:15

still processing those emotions personally,

4:18

but I think that really speaks to a question of credibility,

4:21

bringing a level of humility to these

4:23

big questions that Americans are really

4:25

debating. So I think that moment really stood out in

4:27

terms of thinking about who made an impression,

4:30

Vivek had the right lines, but I think Haley's

4:33

deportment and her credibility

4:36

and her experience, despite

4:38

the fact that I don't agree with what she's done with it really

4:40

came through for me.

4:42

I love that Batia is having an identity crisis

4:44

about liking something that a neocon

4:47

has said. Peter, let's go to you. Who

4:50

stood out to you?

4:50

Yeah, I mean, I think it's obvious that Vivek had

4:53

the best night. He had the best lines. He

4:55

had the most energy and the momentum. The

4:57

problem is that he's trying to beat Trump. And ultimately

4:59

the question, I guess, for him, which no one asked is, if

5:02

you are such a fervent supporter of Trump, why are you

5:04

running? And ultimately I think this is

5:06

gonna lead to his own kind of

5:08

unwinding. Because I think

5:11

he clearly last night had a great night.

5:14

There were five or six career politicians

5:17

who he laid to waste. I think that Batia

5:19

is right. Haley demolished

5:20

him on the foreign policy front. And he's

5:23

playing the Trump playbook. And in 2016,

5:26

foreign policy just was not as much

5:28

front and center. And it was easy just to kind of rail against

5:31

the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Today

5:34

is a totally different geopolitical landscape. China

5:36

is much more frightening. And I think that

5:39

Vivek is not the reassuring

5:41

kind of avuncular presence or kind

5:43

of like, you know, gravitas that I think Americans

5:46

crave.

5:46

A lot of people I was watching with last night

5:49

watched Vivek and thought to themselves, what's this

5:51

guy's actual agenda? Like, does

5:53

he wanna become president? Or, and I think this is sort

5:55

of the emerging consensus, does he, is he actually

5:58

running to be Trump's vice president? I wonder.

5:59

if you guys had a feeling about that. I have

6:02

strong feelings here if it's okay to jump

6:04

in. Yeah, Olivia jump in. So Olivia, you

6:06

were actually there in the room last night during

6:09

the debate and in the spin room. So I'd love to hear

6:11

from you on this. I was there in the debate and

6:13

then I also caught, his

6:16

campaign was calling it a party. I would call

6:18

it maybe more of a rally. I didn't

6:20

feel that personal, I suppose,

6:22

but before the night before the debate. And

6:25

I truly believe this is a man who

6:29

wants to

6:29

be president. He hasn't even tried

6:32

to hedge the VP

6:34

claims. He has just said, I don't want

6:36

it. I'm not running for that. Also,

6:39

if you listen to interviews

6:41

with him, he has been talking about 2028 for months

6:44

now. He

6:47

talks, he literally says sentences

6:49

like, well in my second term, dot,

6:52

dot, dot. And so, this

6:55

is someone with massive ambition

6:58

and just the way

7:00

he was interacting with voters.

7:02

I mean, I didn't

7:03

quite see kissing baby behavior,

7:06

but it was a hunger

7:09

in his eyes. The ambition is

7:12

real. How did it feel like in

7:14

the debate room last night? Did it feel

7:16

like Vivek had the standout

7:18

night when Nikki Haley sort of drew blood

7:20

at that foreign policy moment that I want to get to? Did

7:23

it feel that way? When you walked out of the room,

7:25

did you think

7:26

there's a clear winner and it's Vivek Ramaswamy,

7:29

a total political neophyte? Absolutely,

7:32

and a lot of being in

7:35

the actual kind of media filing

7:37

room is like schmoozing.

7:39

Like you see old colleagues,

7:41

you see people you know, and a lot of those

7:43

people came up to me, people

7:46

at CNN and Politico, and

7:49

they were like, I think

7:51

Vivek could be our next president. But

7:53

I think it was the first time that a lot

7:55

of that crowd

7:57

had really heard of this guy.

8:00

or maybe they had heard of him but weren't taking

8:02

him seriously. Vivek,

8:05

I think his dissent can be explained

8:07

by his

8:08

authenticity or perceived authenticity

8:11

like he's gone, he has a knack for

8:13

going viral and he's gone viral

8:16

a few times for engaging

8:19

with hecklers. It's very

8:21

hard, I would say, to be

8:24

authentic on a debate stage. I

8:26

think you saw a lot of other candidates using pretty

8:29

canned or rehearsed lines but

8:31

Vivek, I got the sense that often

8:33

he was improvising and

8:35

he took positions that,

8:38

you know, the crowd booed a

8:40

few times and he did not

8:42

hedge at all. I'm going to change agenda, I'm going to

8:44

raise a hand. Let us be honest as Republicans,

8:47

I'm the only person on the stage who isn't bought

8:49

and paid for so I can say this, the climate

8:51

change agenda is a hoax. Oh, wow, wow, wow, that's ridiculous.

8:53

The climate change agenda is a hoax. And

8:56

we have to declare an amendment school. He

8:59

maintained

8:59

his position and I think

9:01

that that's what people admire about him

9:04

is that they feel like

9:06

they're getting someone who's actually honest

9:08

about where

9:10

they stand. He's not

9:12

trying to water things down. It's

9:15

the same Trump cocktail. It's like you say

9:17

a bunch of stuff that's patently untrue

9:20

but in a way that's like really entertaining and

9:23

kind of colorful and you know

9:25

like Newsflash, the USSR is dead. Vice

9:27

President Pence, I have a Newsflash. The

9:29

USSR does not exist anymore. It fell

9:32

back in 1990. The real threat.

9:34

You talked about the Communists and the real Communists

9:36

that we have to address right now is the alleged... You

9:39

already spoke, now I have Jeff. And

9:41

Vladimir Putin has been saying he wants

9:44

to re-establish the

9:45

old Soviet sphere of influence.

9:49

That's a completely meaningless line. It

9:51

has no bearing on the debate

9:54

that we're having now about Ukraine and Russia. But

9:56

it worked at the moment. And then

9:58

the reporters afterwards... get to talk

10:00

about and sort of parse it and deconstruct

10:03

everything you say and he said and talk

10:05

about how he's wrong. And he's laughing,

10:08

sort of a la Trump and saying, well, being

10:10

right is for losers. What matters is winning

10:12

and capturing the zeitgeist and

10:14

being entertaining. But again,

10:17

he's not the OG Trump, so why

10:19

him?

10:20

Batiav, the four of us, you're probably the most,

10:23

I would say, inclined to be sympathetic, at

10:25

least toward Vivek's worldview. My sense looking

10:27

at your face is you're not a big fan. Tell

10:30

us why.

10:31

So there's such a hazard for us

10:34

in the media cast sort

10:36

of bringing our own emotions

10:39

and impressions. We

10:41

know how wrong we are

10:43

likely to get this just based on 2016. And

10:46

so I hesitate to even trust my own

10:48

emotional gut response. So I've been checking

10:50

in with people, especially working class people,

10:53

like how is this person coming off to you? And

10:55

they'll say a lot of what I actually am

10:57

feeling, which is he's saying all the right things,

10:59

but there is an ick factor.

11:03

I'm getting the sort of opposite feeling that Olivia

11:05

is. I feel like this is a person

11:07

who, if he thought the political winds

11:09

were moving in that direction, would have run as a Democrat.

11:12

I think he will say anything to be famous. And when

11:14

I saw that video of him that he posted

11:16

playing tennis without his shirt on, I

11:19

thought, oh, this is why he ran for president because

11:21

he thought 40 million people needed to see him

11:23

playing tennis without his shirt on, making these very

11:26

effeminate grunting sounds. And

11:29

I just, I think he's incredibly

11:32

smart. And so he is able,

11:34

I agree with Olivia, to improvise, to come up with

11:36

those lines. But at the same time,

11:38

I don't think he cares about anyone but

11:41

himself. And maybe I'm a fool,

11:43

but when Trump talked about decimated

11:45

communities, when he talked about the destruction

11:48

of the working class, I just

11:50

think that there was a kind of authenticity

11:53

that came across there that's really missing

11:55

here. But again, I say

11:57

all this with caveats because I don't want to bring

11:59

my own personal

12:02

feelings and crowd out what

12:04

the electorate is really looking for. The

12:07

lines were good. The lines were right. He

12:10

didn't have a robust economic platform. They

12:13

started with that. Nobody really shined there.

12:15

That's what I was looking for because that's really

12:17

where Trump shines. That's really where his voter

12:20

base is at. That's really where all of his popularity

12:22

comes from as far as I'm concerned, immigration,

12:25

trade, foreign wars, and

12:27

just the orientation the US should have. Whether

12:30

it should be focused on our people

12:32

or on the rest of the world. That didn't come

12:34

across, but at the same time, in the opportunities

12:36

he was given, Peter is 100% correct. He

12:38

did a great approximation of

12:41

a younger person of color version

12:43

of Trump who was educated at liberal

12:46

elite institutions and can talk that talk.

12:48

There was definitely a debate going on

12:51

inside the free press Slack last night about

12:53

whether or not Vivek was

12:55

the walk away winner or whether actually

12:58

the more we watched him and it's

13:00

kind of shitting and grinn, the more people felt

13:02

he was antagonizing and childish.

13:06

There's still an ongoing debate about that. Olivia,

13:08

if you could briefly tell us, you spent the day

13:10

trailing Vivek in Milwaukee

13:13

on the campaign trail. How are actual

13:15

voters responding to him?

13:17

I heard from

13:19

a lot of voters and then I actually

13:21

heard this from Candace Owens too,

13:24

which I thought was very interesting because

13:26

she is obviously pretty

13:28

loyal to Trump and the fact that

13:31

he is winning over admiration

13:33

and support from people like Candace Owens, I

13:36

think it's definitely something to watch. She

13:38

shared a belief that I

13:40

heard

13:41

echoed by voters earlier

13:43

that day, which is that Trump was

13:46

convincing to some people about everything

13:49

that's wrong about America. But

13:51

what they see in Vivek is someone who says

13:53

what could be right about America. I

13:56

will say though, Batia, that

13:58

you are right.

13:59

that that optimism

14:02

that I think

14:03

people really have

14:05

admired in him in the various

14:08

media hits he's I mean this man

14:10

has to do like three to four media

14:12

hits a day the optimism

14:15

that often comes through really

14:17

I think was tarnished in honestly

14:19

some pretty

14:20

ugly and aggressive he

14:23

I definitely got the sense he was

14:25

energized by the opportunity to

14:27

kind of unload

14:29

Olivia you wrote

14:31

this piece today in the free press called knives

14:33

out for a vague which I thought was

14:35

a great headline and here's some

14:37

of the things Olivia that you talked about in your piece

14:39

that people said Chris Christie

14:42

compared Ramaswami to Obama calling

14:44

him an amateur he had maybe the line of the night

14:46

when he said listen

14:47

no hold on hold

14:50

on enough I've had enough already

14:52

tonight of a guy who sounds

14:54

like chat GPT standing

14:57

up here Mike

15:02

Pence called the vague a rookie he then

15:05

said now is not the time for on

15:07

the job training we don't need to bring

15:09

in a rookie we don't need to bring in people

15:11

without experience

15:13

it went on like that all

15:15

night and I wonder Olivia or Peter

15:18

do you think the other candidates were attacking Vivek

15:21

because he's an easy punching bag

15:23

or because they actually see him as

15:25

a genuine threat I think more

15:27

the former and what was amazing about

15:30

about that is eight years

15:32

after Trump they haven't learned the

15:34

lesson of Trump in 2016

15:36

which is that the old game is over and

15:38

this idea that somehow resume matters

15:40

at all to voters is astounding

15:43

like the GOP keeps looking for

15:45

presidents who don't come

15:47

from Washington and who are bulls

15:50

in the proverbial China shop and

15:52

Vivek played that role you know beautifully

15:54

last night I still think he's a I mean

15:56

ultimately he's not gonna go anywhere I think because

15:58

I don't see why any Trump voter in the end

16:00

would migrate to the Vivek camp and

16:03

leave Trump. I also think that just touching on

16:05

something that Bhatia said, like, I don't like him.

16:07

There's nothing about him that makes me want to have him over for dinner.

16:10

There's nothing about him that makes me want to

16:12

just hang out or have a conversation. And

16:15

I think something really important here, unfortunately, I think the

16:17

great picture- You don't

16:17

think the Eminem rapping is cool? I

16:20

mean, it's fine, but I just like,

16:22

I think unfortunately that he comes across

16:25

as a very kind of smart, like a whiz

16:27

kid who is decided that at the ripe

16:29

old age of 38 or 39, that like his next

16:31

big thing he wants to accomplish is the White House.

16:34

And what he's missing is that like when Donald Trump

16:36

decided to run for president, there's a huge

16:38

opportunity cost for him, right? Like

16:41

there are millions of things he could be doing beside like putting

16:43

himself through like the the ringer of, you know,

16:45

like White House politics in America, but he

16:48

decided to run. There's this kind of sacrificial

16:50

quality about it. For Vivek, it's a sort

16:52

of like, no, this is the next big thing that

16:54

I'm going to accomplish because I'm all about accomplishing.

16:58

And there's nothing about that that makes me like feel like,

17:00

oh, well, you're actually somebody I want to know

17:02

or who I think might accomplish something. You just seem like a kind

17:05

of like a jackass.

17:06

Let's dig a little bit deeper into the moment

17:09

that I think Batya is having an identity

17:11

crisis over, which is this like foreign policy

17:14

confrontation, right? An area

17:16

where Vivek really strays sort of from

17:18

the consensus, at least on the stage last night,

17:20

leaving aside who the actual Republican voter

17:23

is. He was the only one, aside from

17:25

DeSantis, who when asked by the

17:27

moderators if they would stop support

17:29

for Ukraine, raised his hand.

17:31

Mr. Ramaswami, you would not support an increase

17:34

of funding to Ukraine. I would not. And

17:36

I think that this is disastrous. That

17:38

we are protecting against an

17:40

invasion

17:40

across somebody else's border

17:42

when we should use those same military resources

17:45

to prevent across the invasion of our own southern

17:47

border here in the United States

17:48

of America. We are driving

17:51

Russia further into China's

17:52

hands. The Russia-China alliance

17:55

is the single greatest threat we face. And

17:57

I find it offensive.

17:59

Hailey went hard in the paint

18:02

against Bevek for having no foreign policy

18:04

experience and she really kind of dressed him down I thought

18:07

extremely effectively

18:08

You've

18:15

been pushing this lie all week

18:30

You have no foreign policy experience and

18:32

it shows Now

18:38

what I think is interesting is that like Bevek

18:40

and this sort of neo isolationism or if

18:42

you want to put it more positively the America first

18:45

agenda Really represents

18:47

the

18:48

online new right crowd,

18:50

right? They seem to be telling us the

18:52

Vakes view DeSantis's view is

18:54

the norm But what or the new norm rather

18:57

what shocked me is that Hailey seemed

18:59

to really win over the room

19:02

When she went after of a Vake and Pacha I

19:04

wondered like what you made of that moment

19:06

because it was it surprised me

19:08

And it challenged sort of some of my new priors

19:11

Yeah, me as well because it's

19:14

not really just the online right that

19:16

agrees with Trump on the America first foreign

19:18

policy You know as you know, I spent the

19:20

last year traveling around the country interviewing working-class

19:22

Americans from both parties and

19:26

Aside from maybe two every single

19:28

one of them on their own brought up funding

19:30

to Ukraine as this travesty Given

19:33

how many problems we have here at home the

19:35

latest data shows that 55% of Americans

19:38

say it's enough with the support for Ukraine They

19:40

don't want any more aid going to Ukraine And I'm

19:43

sure that if you looked at the income

19:45

distribution there the class distribution

19:48

there You would see that that was overweighted

19:50

in terms of the working class The working

19:52

class is so sick of these foreign entanglements

19:55

and they are so sick of paying for it and

19:57

they are so upset at the idea

20:00

given the struggles they have to achieve the

20:02

American dream, they should be supporting the

20:04

dreams of people from other countries, either here, illegal

20:07

immigrants coming here, or just sending that

20:09

aid there. And so that

20:11

view is extremely popular in

20:13

terms of just the masses.

20:16

That's where the American people are at. And

20:18

so I was- How do you understand

20:21

that moment? So obviously you can

20:23

think about, all right, who would go to one of these

20:26

debates and so forth. But interpreting

20:28

myself, right, when

20:29

the weirdest thing that happened was

20:32

Vivek made me for the first- I have debated

20:35

Ukraine with many experts, okay,

20:37

because if you are in that Trump camp,

20:39

if you are on foreign policy and you think

20:41

from day one we should have been

20:44

supporting negotiations rather than war,

20:47

you've had a lot of debates on this subject. And

20:50

for the first time, Vivek made me

20:52

ashamed of my own position. Like hearing

20:55

it come out of his mouth, which is a very weird

20:57

position to have because I've thought about it a lot. Like,

20:59

obviously I still think that I

21:01

feel compelled to represent

21:03

that view given that I know how much

21:06

it represents the working class. So

21:08

I'm trying to analyze like what happened. And I think that

21:10

it was a failure of

21:12

not just humility because being

21:15

humble before people's resumes and experience, like

21:17

Peter said, come on, like give me

21:19

a break. This is the expert class that sold

21:21

us out, right? We don't owe them any humility,

21:24

but there was an arrogance there

21:26

and a refusal to even

21:29

admit that good people

21:31

could have the other position here.

21:32

And I really took to heart,

21:34

you know, for myself, like, look,

21:37

if you really believe that view, you have

21:39

a responsibility to speak

21:41

about it in a way that doesn't erase

21:44

the truth of the other side, right?

21:46

That Putin is a murderer, you know, and

21:48

that Ukraine is struggling for, you know,

21:50

as an unrepentant Neocon, just kidding. Like,

21:57

I have to say, I think the reason Nikki Haley

21:59

won that moment is

21:59

because common sense is on the side of Nikki Haley.

22:02

In other words, it is an incoherent worldview

22:05

to say about China.

22:07

We should feel rightly.

22:09

And I think this is where we would maybe all agree the

22:12

threat of a sort of like aggressive

22:15

Imperial China. To me, it

22:17

follows from that, that we should

22:19

be against Russia and on the side

22:21

of Ukraine, because when

22:24

the US doesn't fill the vacuum, others

22:27

will, our enemies will. And I

22:29

just feel like- Can I just

22:31

say though, the idea that Putin

22:33

has the ability to

22:35

see Russia as an Imperial

22:38

conquesting force is

22:41

belied by the fact. I mean, obviously we don't have

22:43

to get into a debate about Ukraine here, but

22:46

the greatest punishment for Russia

22:48

would be if Russia were actually

22:50

able to take over Ukraine and then

22:52

had to actually rule over it. He cannot afford

22:55

that. So she's wrong about that. She's wrong

22:57

about, I think, the ability and

22:59

the power that Russia has to

23:02

fulfill these Imperial- To

23:04

be clear, I don't think

23:05

it's about Russian power. I think what it's about

23:07

is America's role in the world. And it's

23:10

an incoherent worldview to suggest

23:12

that this one war is

23:14

one we should stay completely out

23:16

of and has nothing to do with us, but this

23:19

other conflict is one where

23:21

we should be an aggressive world's policeman.

23:24

But can I just ask you, what if

23:26

it turns out that that is the view of 55%, 60% of

23:28

Americans? Would

23:31

that change your mind at all about that?

23:34

Change my mind that it's incoherent?

23:37

Or that we should, would you still feel

23:39

that we should follow the view of America

23:42

being whatever

23:44

it is, American exceptions, the police, whatever. I

23:46

don't have to call it a denog or anything, but if

23:49

you found out that most Americans were

23:51

on the side of just, all right, we've done enough, we're

23:53

stepping back, now it's time to negotiate,

23:56

would you still feel that we shouldn't do that,

23:58

even if that represented where most Americans are?

23:59

Americans were at?

24:01

I believe in democracy and I believe

24:03

in the consequences of elections and

24:05

the consequences of there being a

24:07

debate about ideas and clearly

24:10

you know those of us who supported say

24:13

the war in Iraq as I did for what

24:15

at the time seemed legitimate reasons are

24:17

wrong and have been humbled by that.

24:20

I'm simply trying to point out though that

24:23

and Peter I want to let you jump in because

24:25

I think you and Batia disagree on this that

24:28

I find it really hard to understand

24:30

how to square a person that says

24:33

America should be an unbelievably

24:35

aggressive muscular world policeman

24:38

hegemon whatever you want to call it in this one

24:40

arena but not in this other one

24:42

when they're clearly in my view deeply

24:45

interconnected.

24:46

No it's totally a name and I think the reason

24:48

that like Haley dominated on that front

24:50

last night is that she made sense and

24:52

the emptiness of his you know so-called

24:55

argument was laid bare. He was

24:57

playing again like the 2016 game where you you

24:59

say something which is just sort of like provocative

25:02

but also just untrue or you

25:05

imply something untrue like it won't actually matter

25:08

like American power vis-a-vis

25:10

China won't be affected at all by what we

25:12

do in Ukraine that's patently untrue

25:14

and then you throw out some zinger and

25:17

the crowd is sort of like you know moved by

25:19

that or they're talking about it and that's where

25:21

all the excitement is and what happened is I

25:23

think like Haley in a very smart way

25:26

and I think she was helped here by being a woman

25:28

and you know she'd quoted Thatcher earlier and she

25:30

came across in my mind as very smart

25:32

and thoughtful and also more reasonable and

25:35

there is that seasoned and experienced element

25:37

and instead of flaunting her resume with

25:39

the kind of the sanctimony and the kind of

25:41

noxious sanctimony of like Pence

25:44

and it was like enough it was insufferable.

25:47

She came across is just like as smart

25:49

and like I think she was the person you

25:51

wanted you know in control and I

25:53

think he came across as yeah

25:56

like sounded like Trump circa 2016 except we don't

25:59

live in that.

25:59

in that world anymore. And

26:05

that's frightening. And

26:10

I think the idea that that's going to be the commander

26:12

in chief is frightening. So

26:15

I think that's why she performed so well. And

26:20

of course there's a bigger debate about

26:22

geopolitics and US foreign policy and

26:24

all that. And I think that's going to be

26:26

a really fun debate. Let's

26:30

stay on Nikki Haley for a minute.

26:33

Nikki

26:35

Haley also emerged as a clear

26:37

contender. And

26:40

not just in that moment with the fake over foreign policy.

26:45

From the very start of the night she came out swinging. The

26:50

fact is that no one is telling the American

26:52

people the truth. The truth is

26:54

that Biden didn't do this to us. Our

26:57

Republicans did this to us too. When

26:59

they passed that $2.2 trillion

27:01

COVID stimulus bill,

27:03

they left us with 90 million

27:05

people on Medicaid, 42 million

27:07

people on food stamps. No one has told you how

27:09

to fix it. I'll tell you how to fix it. They

27:11

need to stop the spending. They need to stop the borrowing.

27:14

They need to eliminate the earmarks that Republicans

27:17

brought back in. And they need to make sure

27:19

they understand these are taxpayer dollars.

27:21

It's not their dollars. And while they're all

27:23

saying this, you have Ron DeSantis,

27:25

you've got Tim Scott, you've got Mike Pence.

27:28

They all voted to raise the debt. And

27:30

Donald Trump added $8 trillion

27:33

to our debt. And our kids are never

27:35

going to forgive us for this. And so at the end of the

27:37

day, you look at the 2024 budget, Republicans

27:41

asked for $7.4 billion

27:43

in earmarks. Democrats asked

27:45

for $2.8 billion. So you tell me who

27:47

are the big spenders. I think it's time for an accountant

27:49

in the White House. Vice President Pence. I

27:51

thought it was really interesting that that's where she started off

27:53

the night. And Olivia, what

27:56

was the response in the room? And then Batia, what

27:58

did you think of that strategy? Yes.

27:59

She also, just quickly to note,

28:02

she took a similar approach

28:05

when abortion came up, which I thought was

28:08

interesting too, when it came

28:10

to the abortion discussion. And she was bringing

28:12

up the balance of the Senate, which

28:15

really impressed

28:17

me and had a lot of depth

28:19

in comparison to the

28:22

ways that other candidates were discussing

28:24

the issues. But how

28:26

did she land? That

28:29

was super smart, I thought. I honestly,

28:31

I don't know that she made

28:34

that much of a splash. She

28:37

didn't come to the spin room, or

28:39

at least I didn't see her there. She

28:42

didn't have surrogates wandering.

28:45

So I honestly didn't

28:47

hear much chatter about her. Okay,

28:49

Badja, what did you think of the strategy to sort of come

28:51

out swinging? Trump definitely did some

28:53

things like that early on, and I thought it was interesting. She

28:56

took a page a bit from his book.

28:57

Yeah, I mean, it was a way of talking about the

29:00

economy that set her apart,

29:02

right? It was a sort of gambit to be like, let's

29:04

all take responsibility, where both sides are

29:06

at fault for inflation, right? That's essentially what she

29:08

was trying to say. I mean, I think that she

29:10

really is a throwback to,

29:12

not just on foreign policy, but on economic policy

29:15

as well, to the kind of pre-Trump Republican

29:17

party, the kind of more chamber of commerce, free

29:20

trade, version of it

29:22

with a slight shift on immigration and kind of

29:24

nod to his accomplishments. You can hear the disdain

29:27

in Badja's voice.

29:27

I'm trying

29:30

so hard to match. And really,

29:32

I think any of them could have

29:34

really stood out had they shown up

29:36

and answer to that first question about why

29:39

Oliver Anthony is the anthem of our

29:41

times, just said the word NAFTA,

29:43

right? And there was just an inability

29:45

to, not inability, a lack of desire

29:48

to really answer the call

29:51

for a pro-working class economic

29:53

agenda. But I agree with Olivia

29:56

on abortion. I think that Nikki

29:58

Haley showed the Republican party. party

30:00

the way forward on abortion for them, which is

30:02

a very tricky issue because

30:04

the majority of Americans

30:07

are in this kind of interesting place on abortion.

30:09

If you ask people, they say that they're against

30:12

abortions, but they are also very against

30:14

abortion bans. And that leaves Republicans

30:16

in a very tricky position in terms of how

30:19

to respond to Democrats. And

30:21

I just want to read her quote because I just

30:24

thought it was extremely moving. And

30:26

I just wish that this was the approach that we

30:28

brought to all of the issues on which

30:29

there's so much consensus in America.

30:32

So what she said was let's

30:34

find consensus. Can't we all

30:36

agree that we should ban late term abortions?

30:39

Can't we all agree that we should encourage

30:42

adoptions? Can't we all agree that

30:44

doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion

30:46

shouldn't have to perform them? Can't we all

30:48

agree that contraception should be available?

30:51

And can't we all agree that we are not

30:53

going to put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty

30:56

if she gets an abortion? Let's

30:59

treat this like

30:59

a respectful issue that it is and

31:02

humanize the situation and stop demonizing

31:04

the situation. Brett, you got the right

31:06

to hold on. And that was a very courageous thing

31:08

for a pro-life candidate to say. But

31:11

finding that consensus, like

31:14

that is the only way we get out of this

31:16

morass. And so it was very moving.

31:18

And you know, Olivia, I don't know how it felt in the room,

31:20

but at least watching from home, it seemed

31:23

like that really landed with

31:25

the audience. And I know just from the working

31:27

class people I spoke to, that's really kind of

31:29

where they're at. I heard from so many people like

31:32

I would never get an abortion, but I will

31:34

never vote for an abortion ban. Yeah,

31:36

Olivia, I'm so curious. One of the most interesting

31:38

moments of the night was this back and forth between

31:41

Mike Pence, who talked

31:43

about opening up a Bible and knowing

31:45

that the cause of life had to be my cause.

31:48

I mean, this is his issue.

31:50

After I gave my life to Jesus Christ as

31:52

my Lord and Savior, I opened up the book and I read,

31:54

before I formed you in the womb,

31:56

I knew you.

31:58

And see, I set before you life and death. Blessings

32:01

and curses now choose life. And

32:03

I knew from that moment on, the cause of life had to

32:05

be my cause. And I've been a champion for

32:07

life in the Congress, a champion for life

32:09

as governor and as vice president.

32:12

Trying to say that Nikki Haley is a squish

32:14

on the issue and there was

32:16

this sort of back and forth over it. How

32:18

did that feel in the debate

32:20

room? And who did you feel got the better

32:23

of that argument? So, I'm sorry

32:25

to burst everyone's bubble,

32:26

but this crowd could

32:29

not have been more jaded. These

32:31

were people who were laughing during the national

32:33

anthem. So,

32:36

I think the cynicism could not

32:38

have

32:38

been higher. So, I

32:41

don't think any of it

32:43

landed for many of the

32:46

media attendees. But who

32:48

got the better of the

32:51

exchange?

32:54

I mean, I think Pence fell

32:56

flat. I think that

32:59

he relied a lot on just his

33:01

own either personal anecdotes or

33:04

just his own religious belief.

33:07

And I think where Nikki Haley was coming from,

33:10

the push for consensus

33:13

was really powerful. And

33:16

unfortunately, I don't know how much

33:19

the average voter is

33:22

interested in consensus over

33:24

kind of the aggression

33:27

that Vivek represents. But

33:30

I think Pence was trying to make

33:32

an emotional claim that kind of

33:35

fell flat.

33:36

Let's spend one second on the Thatcher moment because I thought

33:38

it was also quite interesting. And Batia,

33:41

I was really wondering coming into this conversation what

33:43

you think about it. Like, she's

33:46

the only woman on stage. She clearly

33:48

came ready to deploy this one particular

33:50

line. And she found her opening

33:53

when Vivek and Christie were sort of squabbling

33:55

back and forth. And she steps in and she says,

33:58

This is exactly why Margaret...

33:59

Thatcher said, if you want something said, ask

34:02

a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.

34:05

And the crowd cheered. And this is a

34:07

crowd ostensibly that hates identity politics.

34:10

You know, is this sort of like the GOP

34:13

embracing hashtag the future is female hashtag

34:15

girl boss, or is it

34:17

just the exception? Is Nikki Haley?

34:19

Like what did you guys, anyone please

34:21

like make, how do you make sense of what happened in that

34:24

moment?

34:24

I guess a few things. One, I actually

34:27

brought that line up to a media

34:29

friend of mine and they rolled their eyes

34:31

and they were like, don't you know, she uses

34:34

that line all the time. I

34:36

mean, Barry, you already conceded that, you

34:38

know, it felt like she had it in her back pocket.

34:41

Peter, I'm dying to know. I imagine

34:44

that was probably alienating

34:46

to men.

34:46

No, I don't think so. You don't think so. Okay.

34:49

No, I think, look, the

34:51

thing about Haley is that Haley was all about last night.

34:53

Like I'm conservative, but I'm also about getting things done. And

34:56

when she confronted Pence about the Senate calculus,

34:58

that was all about, look, look, like you're

35:01

playing an old playbook. You're stuck

35:03

in the nineties or the eighties. Like you think that

35:05

somehow like being, you know, the most

35:08

righteous on the stage is somehow going to win

35:10

the base. And in case you didn't realize, Donald

35:12

Trump won in 2016 with evangelicals

35:15

being fully aware that he was the

35:17

most sinful of all the sinners on

35:19

stage. Like there's no doubt in anyone's mind

35:21

that, you know, Trump was, was, you know,

35:24

morally flawed somehow like

35:26

that memo didn't reach the

35:28

vice president or the former vice president. It's, it's

35:30

a strange, it was very odd to

35:32

watch and Haley comes along and

35:34

says, and that's why the Thatcher line

35:37

works so well. It's, it's all about, yeah, look,

35:39

look, we're all more or less in agreement here that abortion

35:41

is, you know, lamentable, but like,

35:43

what can we actually, actually get done? And if

35:45

you look at like, you know, what happened in

35:47

Kansas, if you look at, you know, like debates going

35:49

on in her own state or elsewhere

35:52

in, in other kind of like red bastions,

35:54

people are tired of the old original

35:57

culture war that stretches back to the early seventies.

36:00

And so I think she very deftly tapped

36:02

into that, just like with the line about attacking

36:04

the GOP in the very beginning, it was her way of attacking

36:06

the swamp without identifying it as the swamp.

36:09

I thought she was just very, very smart

36:11

in a very kind of, you know, almost

36:14

coded way.

36:15

Yeah, I think that the phrase has become overused,

36:18

but it felt like she was putting herself forward

36:20

as like the common sensical candidate.

36:22

Yeah, that's right. Okay,

36:25

so it took about an hour into this

36:27

debate before Donald

36:29

Trump really came up. We are

36:31

going to take a brief moment and talk

36:33

about the elephant not in the room. Former

36:38

President Trump, Brett Baier, one of the moderators

36:40

said he wanted to take a moment to address the

36:42

elephant not in the room, and of course, that

36:44

was Donald Trump.

36:45

You all signed a pledge to

36:48

support the eventual Republican nominee.

36:51

If former President Trump is convicted

36:53

in a court of law, would you still

36:56

support him as your party's choice?

36:58

And then the candidates proceeded to spend 15 minutes

37:00

going back and forth about Trump, his behavior,

37:03

the four indictments. Today, by the way, he's

37:05

turning himself in in Fulton County, Georgia.

37:07

Now, Chris Christie, whose entire

37:10

candidacy is riding on attacking

37:12

Donald Trump, got an auditoriums

37:14

full of booze after he said,

37:16

Someone's got to stop

37:18

normalizing this conduct.

37:20

Haley went on to say that no one wants a rematch

37:22

between Trump and Biden, he's the most disliked,

37:24

speaking of Trump, politician in America,

37:26

and that he will cost the Republicans the election

37:29

if nominated. And then, of course, there's

37:31

our friend, Vivek, Trump's biggest fan girl,

37:33

who defended Trump's honor and crowned

37:35

him the best

37:36

president of the 21st century. And

37:40

I wonder what you all made of this

37:42

moment. Like, I want to put the morality

37:44

and the ethics of this aside for a moment.

37:47

Let's just talk political strategy.

37:49

Looking at where the Republican voter

37:52

base is,

37:53

is Vivek's strategy actually the

37:55

right one for winning? And as

37:57

Christie's the wrong one. Peter, let's start with you, because

37:59

I know you're no...

37:59

I'm a fan of Trump. I'm

38:30

a fan of Trump.

38:51

I'm

39:00

a fan of Trump. I'm

39:30

a fan of Trump. because

40:00

it's immoral. And so I think that's how

40:02

they see it. Like stop asking

40:04

me to judge this person who helped me on

40:06

your standards that sunk my children's

40:09

future, right? That's kind of, I

40:11

think how it's viewed. And with

40:14

every additional indictment, it

40:16

becomes more and more ridiculous and

40:18

more and more apparent to them that

40:20

this is what's happening. And so, you know, great

40:23

TV, they had to ask that question, but to me

40:25

the answer is really just

40:27

none of these people were able to quite understand the complexity.

40:30

Like these people are not voting for Trump because they think

40:32

he's moral. They're voting for him because it is

40:34

undeniable what he accomplished and because

40:36

he represented their future. And

40:39

that is why he

40:41

is the target of this now

40:43

at this point bipartisan elite

40:45

infrastructure.

40:46

Well, talking about Trump gave Pence sort

40:49

of his big opportunity to get on the soapbox

40:52

and Christie and Scott and Haley

40:54

all applauded him for his refusal to buckle

40:56

under the pressure of Trump on January 6th and

40:58

Pence leaned hard into this moment.

41:00

You know, it's not about looking back at January 2021.

41:05

It's about January 20th, 2017. I

41:08

put my left hand on Ronald Reagan's Bible. I

41:10

raised my right hand and

41:12

I took an oath to support and defend

41:14

the Constitution of the United States and

41:16

it ended with a prayer, so help me God. It

41:19

was a promise that I made to the American people,

41:23

but I also made it, it

41:25

made it to my heavenly father.

41:27

And he said he took an oath to the Constitution and his

41:29

heavenly father and he quote said,

41:31

everyone on this stage needs to make it clear

41:33

whether they'll do the same. Now taking

41:36

a step back, this is just like the riddle of Mike

41:38

Pence. You look at him, he was the governor of

41:40

Indiana. He has

41:42

the perfect hair, he's got the tan. He

41:44

was vice president of the United States. He's like

41:47

very hardcore objectively on every

41:49

conservative issue. And yet he's pulling it like 4%.

41:53

So is the problem that Mike Pence is just so uncharismatic

41:56

or that there's something

41:57

about his brand of conservatism

41:59

that's just...

41:59

not relevant anymore.

42:02

The GOP base is the working class and

42:04

the working class is not hardcore. They

42:06

are extremely tolerant. I mean, they're conservative

42:09

by and large on social issues, much more so

42:11

than Democrats, but they are deeply, deeply

42:13

tolerant people. And the class

42:15

issue unites them much more than a political

42:18

identity. And this is something I think

42:20

is very hard for people to understand. Working

42:23

class conservatives hate

42:26

the Republican Party. They hate,

42:28

hate, hate the Republican Party. And

42:31

Mike Pence really represents that thing that

42:33

they hate. And so I don't think it's surprising

42:35

at all. I do think what's interesting is that

42:38

we've gotten 45 minutes in and have

42:40

not even mentioned Ron DeSantis, who for

42:42

so long, right, was the front

42:44

runner. Let's get to Ron DeSantis. This is exactly

42:46

where I want to go.

42:48

The biggest loser to me, I think, was

42:50

Ron DeSantis. Six months ago, we were

42:52

told by everyone that the Florida governor

42:54

was the man to beat. He was hailed

42:56

as the future of the Republican Party. He raised $20 million

42:59

in the first six weeks of his campaign. He

43:01

was definitely the favorite among

43:03

the donor class who were looking for an alternative to Trump.

43:06

He was the strong horse. He's now polling at 15.2

43:09

percent, down from 40.5 percent, within

43:11

two percentage

43:13

points of

43:15

Trump in January. That's where he was. Now,

43:18

last night, he tried to kind of Trumpify

43:21

himself a few times. He said

43:23

things like... The

43:24

deep state bureaucrats lock

43:26

you down. You don't take somebody like

43:28

Fauci and Coddle him. You

43:30

bring Fauci in, you sit him down,

43:32

and you say, Anthony, you are fired.

43:36

He blamed the corporate media for the decline of America.

43:39

He called out George Soros and liberal DAs

43:41

saying... These

43:42

hollowed out cities, this is a symptom

43:45

of America's decline. And one of the biggest

43:47

reasons is because you have George Soros

43:50

funding these radical left-wing

43:52

district attorneys. They get into office

43:54

and they say they're not gonna prosecute crimes.

43:57

They disagree with the inmates start running the asylum.

43:59

are running our asylums, I'm sure he rehearsed

44:02

all of those lines, but none

44:04

of them stuck. I'm not going to remember any of

44:06

them 24 hours

44:07

from now.

44:09

A lot of people are saying it lights

44:11

out for Ron DeSantis, he's done. Okay,

44:13

Peter Batia, what happened

44:15

to Ronny D? And is there any

44:17

chance of making a comeback, Peter?

44:18

I don't think so, because the whole DeSantis

44:21

play from the very beginning has been one word, which is competence.

44:24

It's not that I'm going to out-Trump Trump, it's that I'm going

44:26

to enact the Trump agenda. And the

44:28

whole campaign is premised on the assumption that

44:30

MAGA voters, that the Republican base cares

44:33

deeply about the Trump agenda. And I think that's

44:35

wrong. I think what they really care about is they

44:37

want the proverbial bowl in the China shop, they want

44:39

the person who's going to muck everything up.

44:41

That's what they love about Vivek. That's

44:43

what they responded to last night. I think that's why

44:46

even like Kelly's line about like, you know, a woman getting

44:48

the job done is why that resonates well

44:50

with voters. It's like a, it's argumentative,

44:53

it's brash and DeSantis

44:55

lacks all of that. And I think like one

44:57

other thing that's worth bearing in mind here is that like,

45:00

and this is true of Pence as well, people

45:02

forget that with like career politicians, you

45:04

might be very good at one thing, running for Congress,

45:07

running for governor. It's a whole different game

45:09

when you're running for the White House. And I think that

45:11

what we saw last night was, you know,

45:13

like a bunch of people who have long fashioned

45:15

themselves or looked in the mirror and imagine themselves

45:18

future presidents or not. And this

45:20

is their image of themselves for many, many years. And

45:22

it turned out that that's just not who they are. It's not

45:24

their stuff.

45:25

Batia, anything you think Ron DeSantis

45:27

can do to get back in a strong position

45:29

or is he kind of fading out?

45:31

So I disagree

45:33

with Peter. I think that Ron DeSantis

45:36

misunderstood the Trump voter

45:38

in exactly the same way that the liberal

45:41

media does. He

45:43

assumed like the liberal media that people

45:45

voted for Trump because they were anti-gay

45:47

or suspicious

45:49

of blacks. And so, you know, his

45:52

campaign retweeted this very anti-LGBTQ

45:55

video and he started defending saying that

45:57

slavery had benefits. I

46:00

think is the exact opposite.

46:02

You know, the Trump voter is very pro-gay

46:05

like Trump, you know, they're suspicious of

46:07

the trans agenda. They're also not

46:10

suspicious of black people. There's a lot of unity around

46:12

that. And they're very eager to show that they are

46:14

tolerant and have moved on from that

46:17

stereotype about Republicans. So

46:20

to me, the thing that draws

46:22

Trump's voters is the economic

46:24

policy that's geared towards the working class.

46:27

And the reason Ron DeSantis

46:30

will not be able to recover is because he

46:32

doesn't agree with Trump about creating

46:34

an economy that does that. His donors don't

46:36

agree with Trump about creating an economy

46:39

that does that. There is a huge divide

46:41

in the GOP between what the donor class wants,

46:43

which is the fight against wokeness, and

46:46

what the voter base wants, which is

46:48

an economy that works for the hardest working Americans.

46:51

And you can't fake your way

46:54

towards wanting to build an economy like that

46:56

because everything that the GOP stands

46:58

for pre-Trump and now is trying to get back

47:00

to post-Trump if their donors have their way

47:03

is an economy that rewards the rich at

47:05

the expense of the working class. And so he could

47:07

tomorrow wake up and say, you know what?

47:10

I am going to do, for example,

47:13

what Trump suggested yesterday, which is impose

47:15

a 10% tariff on everything coming into

47:17

the United States. He will never do

47:19

that because he fundamentally

47:21

is in that chamber of commerce model of the GOP.

47:24

And that's why he was never able to take off with

47:26

the Trump base.

47:28

Okay, one last question about the debate. And then I want to

47:30

turn to Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson

47:32

that I watched this morning, some very funny

47:34

moments. You know, when I think back to

47:37

the Republican Party

47:39

pre-Trump

47:40

just on the issues and where it is now, I

47:43

am just

47:44

kind of blown away by how

47:47

changed it is, just fundamentally

47:49

changed on core issues. You

47:51

know, to even have a single candidate, let alone

47:53

a few and the front runners say

47:55

that we should be not supporting Ukraine is

47:58

quite shocking considering the Republican Party. party

48:00

that we grew up knowing. Having

48:02

watched it last night, what are the biggest

48:05

changes, and you can just pick one

48:07

and Batia maybe your answer is the economy

48:09

issue, like what are the biggest changes that each

48:11

of you see in the party judging

48:14

from the debate last night?

48:15

If you think to yourself, wow

48:17

I could never have foreseen 10 or 20 years

48:20

ago that

48:21

this would be the perspective of some mainstream

48:24

Republican candidates, contenders for the presidency,

48:27

what are they? Peter maybe let's start with you.

48:29

I think that the most important shift

48:31

has been a migration away from ideology

48:34

toward the practical. I think the

48:36

Republican base, Republican voters more

48:38

than ever want to know what works,

48:40

which is why you can throw out seemingly crazy

48:43

ideas or take positions a

48:45

la Vivec or Trump that are not

48:47

aligned with kind of conservative bedrock

48:49

principles and no one

48:52

bats an eye, no one thinks that there's anything kind

48:54

of wrong or politically inept about that. And

48:56

I think that's why you know Haley had I think on balance

48:58

a good evening and it's why like you

49:00

know Pence and to a lesser degree Burgum

49:03

and the other kind of forgettable candidates, Scott

49:05

etc., just seem completely

49:08

clueless.

49:09

Batia?

49:09

I love how Peter put that, the move from ideology

49:13

to practicality. I think that the realignment

49:16

along class lines to where

49:19

the Republican Party has become the party of the working

49:21

class and the Democratic Party has become the party

49:23

of the very rich and the dependent poor has

49:26

resulted in exactly that. There is

49:28

a kind of desire for autonomy,

49:30

a real desire for tolerance,

49:33

but also you know protecting the innocence of children,

49:35

the American family, the American

49:37

dream, and that's what

49:39

frustrates me

49:40

the most is you have all of these

49:43

Republicans running against wokeness

49:45

and so few of them explaining how they're

49:47

going to run for the American dream

49:49

and bring that back because that's what their voters

49:52

are hungry to hear is how are you going to

49:54

make homes more available? How

49:56

are you going to make health care more available? Something

49:58

you'll never hear from a Republican. but which is

50:00

actually extremely important to Republican voters.

50:03

How are you going to create an economy that rewards

50:06

our hard work instead of making us feel

50:08

like idiots because we're competing against either

50:11

illegal immigrants here or Chinese slaves

50:13

in China? So I would say that's

50:15

the biggest change for me. And Olivia is

50:18

the youngest person here. What about you?

50:20

I think the fact that

50:23

the real momentum in the party

50:26

seems to be on the side of isolationism.

50:29

That surprises me. I mean, I personally

50:32

think the sickest burn of the night was

50:34

when Vivek turned to Nikki Haley and

50:36

was like, I wish you well when

50:39

you sit on the corporate boards of Lockheed

50:41

Martin or something. And I think

50:43

growing up, I always

50:46

assumed that the right

50:49

had accepted a certain

50:51

coziness with the

50:54

quote unquote military industrial complex.

50:57

And I think a skepticism

51:00

about the military

51:03

and our involvement in quote

51:05

unquote fighting other people's wars

51:09

does really surprise me that

51:12

the momentum in the room

51:14

seemed to be on the side of

51:17

really drawing a distinction, much

51:20

like therapy speak these days where

51:22

people say, oh, that's a you problem. That's

51:24

not a me thing. That

51:27

seems to be the GOP

51:29

approach of the moment where it's like, oh, Ukraine,

51:32

that's a you problem. I think

51:34

that really,

51:35

really surprises me. Okay,

51:39

let's take a quick break and then we'll be back to talk

51:42

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53:57

Okay, guys, so Trump went on a tape Tucker

53:59

Carlson interview.

53:59

for 45 minutes during the same time

54:02

as the debate was happening. Mr. President, thanks

54:04

for joining us. Thank you. Why aren't you at the Fox

54:06

News debate tonight in Milwaukee? Well, you

54:08

know, a lot of people have been asking me that, and

54:10

many people said you shouldn't do them, but you see

54:12

the polls have come out, and I'm leading

54:14

by 50 and 60 points,

54:17

and, you know, some of them are at one and

54:19

zero and two, and

54:21

I'm saying, do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever

54:24

it's going to be, and get harassed by

54:26

people that shouldn't even be running for president?

54:29

Should I be doing that?

54:30

But during Tucker's interview with Trump, and I assume you

54:32

guys have watched it, it didn't really feel like

54:34

a presidential conversation. They were chatting

54:36

about

54:38

things that I'm very interested in, like Jeffrey

54:40

Epstein. Do you think Epstein killed himself

54:42

sincerely? I don't know.

54:45

I will say that, you know, he was a fixture in Palm

54:47

Beach. Yeah. Hillary Clinton. I

54:49

mean, Hillary Clinton goes crazy. Every time

54:51

she talks, she says, he's not the president.

54:54

There

54:54

was a very

54:55

memorable exchange about Kamala Harris,

54:57

rhyming things.

54:59

She speaks in rhyme. You

55:01

know, it's weird. It's weird.

55:04

But she has bad moments, and... In rhyme?

55:07

What do you... Well, the way she talks, the bus

55:09

will go here, and then the bus will go there, because

55:11

that's what buses do, and it's weird.

55:14

But Trump barely dinged to Santes. He

55:16

didn't mention Vivek. Do

55:18

you think this is a winning strategy? Like, can he

55:20

actually just sail his way to

55:23

the nomination and not even engage

55:25

with these debates at all? Like, is this how he's

55:27

going to play it?

55:28

I think not. In retrospect,

55:31

I think it was not

55:34

advantageous for him to

55:36

not attend last night's debate.

55:39

Because without him being

55:41

there, they didn't have

55:44

to differentiate

55:46

themselves from him. I think if he were in the

55:48

room, it would have been really uncomfortable

55:51

for them to challenge or contradict

55:54

him. And so, yeah, I

55:56

think that interview surprised

55:58

me, because...

56:00

It had the cadence of someone

56:03

who, like you said, is not really in

56:05

campaign mode. I mean, it really, they

56:07

were kind of exploring their own personal

56:10

fancies of, oh yeah, that's kind of interesting.

56:13

You know, at one point they brought up, they

56:15

had like a one to two minute

56:17

tangent, I think, about Chris Wallace's

56:20

dad. This was

56:21

in front of probably not a

56:23

friend of yours, Chris Wallace. He was the moderator.

56:25

Not a friend. I said, why is

56:27

it? He wants to be Mike, but he doesn't have the talent.

56:29

It's one of those little ... It's a bitchy little man. He wanted to be

56:31

his father, but he didn't have the talent of his father.

56:34

His father was great as father. He said, little fussy man. His

56:36

father interviewed me in 60 Minutes. It was actually

56:38

a 10. Can you believe? No, I told him

56:40

his father had talent, at least. I may have been

56:42

the only guy that he gave a good 60 Minutes, so he

56:45

was rough. Really? His father was tough.

56:47

He was great, though. He

56:48

was great at what he did. Trump was saying, oh, he was

56:50

a great reporter on 60 Minutes,

56:52

and they were both saying, huh, that's so interesting. I

56:55

wonder, though, this morning,

56:58

if

56:58

Trump feels like he is in campaign mode

57:00

now, if he feels like, okay, I have

57:03

a real challenger in the race. Because perhaps

57:05

that's the approach of someone who thinks that they're

57:07

really up against DeSantis. I

57:10

mean, I got to say, I looked at

57:12

it, and I'm like, look at the poll, just like, let's look

57:14

at the numbers.

57:15

He is just so

57:18

far ahead of all of these people. Let

57:20

them duke it out. They'll split

57:22

the vote, and he'll walk away with it. I don't know.

57:25

It's obnoxious. It is, as

57:28

Trump is, totally ignoring standard

57:30

etiquette, standard politics, the way

57:32

we've always done things.

57:34

Again, maybe that's a smart strategy.

57:37

Peter, what do you think?

57:38

I think that's obviously the strategy. He's

57:40

sitting on a 55% lead,

57:42

or that's the piece of the GOP base

57:44

that he controls, or at least he's in his camp

57:46

right now. But I think I don't see that

57:49

working long-term, or over the next five, six

57:51

months in the lead up to the first primary in South

57:53

Carolina, because what Trump seems to be

57:55

forgetting is his own lesson of 2016, which

57:58

is you have to fight for the nomination. And

58:01

while all the other candidates back in 2016, the 15

58:05

or so who were right against him initially,

58:13

were kind of riding on years and

58:15

years of their political careers and

58:20

their various successes or elections, the

58:25

message, I should say, really resonates with voters. Kind

58:30

of like hanging out with your media friends, I

58:35

don't see how that ultimately wins. And

58:40

I think what happens is that people will begin to look

58:42

at candidates like Vivek and

58:45

think maybe he is a better alternative. I

58:50

don't see Vivek ultimately capitalizing on

58:52

that, but I do feel like I'm a better alternative

58:54

for feeling this way. But

58:58

as I was watching the Trump-Tucker interview, I

59:02

felt like this is more entertaining objectively

59:04

than what's happening on

59:07

the debate stage in Milwaukee. And

59:10

I wondered if

59:11

you felt the same way. Other people

59:13

I was speaking to felt

59:15

like Trump seemed more tired than usual. Do

59:17

people still have the appetite for what Trump is offering? Do

59:21

people dominate the headlines? And

59:24

the headlines really were very much about

59:26

the debate. Although Trump is a human ratings machine.

59:31

He's very rarely wrong about where the populist

59:33

energy is flowing. And

59:36

so him praising Vivek, for example, on Truth Social

59:38

this morning, that

59:41

signals to me that he really does not see him as a threat

59:43

at all. I mean, maybe they've spoken

59:45

about VP or something, but if he was worried about him

59:48

after last night, I think that

59:50

he's going to be a better solution for Truth Social. I will

59:52

say, you know, there were a

59:55

few moments during the Tucker interview where we really

59:57

saw in

1:00:00

fight mode. So for example, at one

1:00:03

point he said, you know, Tucker was sort of

1:00:06

revving him up to talk about division

1:00:08

and divisiveness.

1:00:10

Do you think we're moving towards civil war? There's

1:00:12

tremendous passion and there's tremendous

1:00:14

love. You

1:00:16

know, January 6th was a very interesting

1:00:19

day because they don't report it properly. People

1:00:22

in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they've

1:00:24

ever experienced. There was love

1:00:27

in that crowd. There was love and unity.

1:00:30

I have never seen such

1:00:32

spirit and such passion and such

1:00:35

love. And I've also

1:00:37

never seen simultaneously and from the same

1:00:39

people, such hatred of

1:00:41

what they've done to our country.

1:00:43

And he also said at some point,

1:00:46

here's the quote.

1:00:46

You have great people in the Democrat party.

1:00:49

You have great people that are Democrats. Most of

1:00:51

the people in our country are fantastic and

1:00:53

I'm representing everybody. I'm not just Republicans

1:00:56

or conservatives. I represent everybody. I'm the president

1:00:58

of everybody.

1:00:59

I'm the president of everybody. And

1:01:01

to me, that was, you know, the

1:01:04

Trump that we could have had if the other

1:01:06

side did not declare war on him from the minute

1:01:08

he got into office and just

1:01:10

decided he was an illegitimate president

1:01:13

despite the fact that he won that

1:01:15

first election in 2016, fairly,

1:01:18

that there is a side of him that I think very

1:01:20

accurately sees his

1:01:23

policy agenda as

1:01:25

a uniting one, which it is. And

1:01:28

yet he was locked out of being able to

1:01:31

partially for, you know, because of his personality,

1:01:33

right? But also partially because of just

1:01:35

the immense pushback he got from

1:01:37

American institutions, which are staffed with

1:01:39

elites who just could not bear the idea

1:01:42

of this mass uprising that he represented

1:01:45

was locked out of being able to be this person

1:01:47

who could take responsibility and

1:01:49

take the credit for having these

1:01:51

uniting policies on trade,

1:01:54

on immigration, on foreign policies. So

1:01:56

I think there was a little bit of pathos for me watching

1:01:59

it

1:01:59

in that sense.

1:02:00

I mean, he sounded a little bit like Marianne Williamson

1:02:02

and not Donald Trump at certain moments in that conversation,

1:02:05

which I thought was hilarious. Okay, final

1:02:07

question. Let's say the

1:02:09

numbers are correct and they hold. No

1:02:11

one else gets into the race to challenge Biden because

1:02:13

it doesn't seem like they are, although I know Peter

1:02:16

is thinking that's going to be Dean Phillips. Maybe

1:02:19

it will be. Maybe it'll be Gavin Newsom. But

1:02:21

let's assume

1:02:22

it's Trump v. Biden.

1:02:24

Olivia, who's your money on?

1:02:26

Okay. Is Trump

1:02:28

v. Biden? Yes,

1:02:31

Olivia, it's Trump v. Biden. Oh, man.

1:02:34

You know,

1:02:35

I think it's going to be Trump

1:02:38

simply because that really makes it a referendum

1:02:40

on Biden. And I just don't

1:02:43

think people are pleased enough

1:02:45

with his performance to reelect

1:02:47

him.

1:02:48

Okay, Peter, Trump v. Biden. It's

1:02:50

Trump because you don't have COVID. That was what

1:02:52

undid him in 2020. The

1:02:54

only caveat there is, of course, like Trump is his

1:02:56

own worst enemy when it comes to politics

1:02:59

often, and he commits some unforced

1:03:01

error. But otherwise, it's Trump with actually, I think,

1:03:04

a sizable margin.

1:03:05

Batia Ungersagran, last word. Well,

1:03:08

you know me, I don't like to prognosticate because I am

1:03:10

always wrong. But I

1:03:12

have to say, I really, really don't know. But I am

1:03:14

excited to find out. I mean, I thought the

1:03:16

debate last night was really interesting. And I think that this

1:03:18

is just a really interesting election

1:03:21

cycle in terms of thinking about the future of

1:03:23

our nation and in terms of it being a referendum

1:03:25

on how we see ourselves as Americans and what

1:03:27

our priorities are. So I'm looking forward

1:03:30

to it, whichever it turns out to be. So elegant,

1:03:32

so diplomatic, sounding a lot like Nikki Haley,

1:03:34

a woman she was shocked

1:03:35

to have fallen in love with last night. Olivia

1:03:38

Reingold, Peter Savodnik, Batia Ungersagran,

1:03:40

thank you so much for coming on. Thanks, Barry. Thank

1:03:43

you.

1:03:44

Thank you. Thanks

1:03:49

for listening. And my thanks, of course,

1:03:51

to Olivia Reingold, Peter Savodnik,

1:03:53

and Batia Ungersagran for joining me. Did

1:03:56

you watch the debate? Did you agree with our takes? Or

1:03:58

did you think Rhonda Santes? and Tim Scott had

1:04:00

an amazing night. Well, talk

1:04:03

about it with your friends and share this episode

1:04:05

and use it to have an honest conversation of your own.

1:04:07

Last but certainly not least, please

1:04:10

check out the free press's website

1:04:12

today, vfp.com, to

1:04:14

read Olivia Reingold's piece from

1:04:16

Milwaukee. It's called Knives Out for Vivec.

1:04:20

And if you wanna support our work, there's one way to do

1:04:22

it. It's by going to vfp.com, T-H-E-F-P.com,

1:04:27

and becoming a subscriber today. We'll

1:04:29

see you next time.

1:04:30

Bye bye. Bye bye, everyone. Bye bye,

1:04:32

everyone.

1:04:33

Bye bye.