0:05

Millions of voters across 16 states

0:07

and American Samoa cast their ballots

0:09

in the Super Tuesday primary yesterday.

0:12

The results were pretty much what we expected.

0:15

But as New Yorker staff writer Ben Wallace-Wells points

0:17

out, there are a few important things

0:19

to watch as primary season wraps up. First

0:22

I'll talk to him, and then to Antonia Hitchens,

0:24

who had a front row seat to Mar-a-Lago's election

0:26

night watch party. You're

0:29

listening to The Political Scene. I'm

0:31

Tyler Foggett and I'm a senior editor at The New Yorker.

0:41

So Ben, there was a lot of talk

0:43

going into the primaries last night about how

0:45

this year's Super Tuesday wasn't actually that super.

0:48

There were some interesting down-ballot races, but

0:50

if anything, when it came to the

0:53

presidential primaries, it seemed like this was

0:55

just going to be confirming some inevitabilities.

0:58

And so I'm wondering, what were the most significant

1:00

things that happened last night? I

1:03

think the most significant thing is we

1:05

can now see the next eight months

1:07

of presidential race clearly. Donald

1:10

Trump is going to be the Republican nominee. Nikki

1:13

Haley has now suspended her campaign.

1:16

And Joe Biden will be the Democratic

1:18

nominee. And Donald Trump

1:20

is leading Joe Biden. Just

1:23

about every poll that you look at

1:26

has the Republican slightly

1:28

ahead. So

1:31

there are other races

1:33

to discuss and other dynamics, but

1:36

I think the top line coming

1:38

out of Super Tuesdays,

1:40

we can see what the next eight months are

1:42

going to look like. And it is, I

1:45

think, going to be a pretty tense

1:47

run-up to the election. So

1:49

let's talk briefly about Haley real quick. As

1:52

you mentioned, as of this recording, it looks

1:54

like Nikki Haley is going to be suspending

1:57

her campaign. Trump Basically trounced

1:59

her last... Right. Oh there she did when

2:01

the Vermont Republican primary. How.

2:03

Would you characterize the effective he leaves

2:05

primary race on Donald Trump's campaign? Like

2:07

did her saying in the race for

2:09

so long have any kind of impact?

2:11

I think a lot of people had

2:13

hoped that would. I had hoped to

2:15

that there would be a you know

2:17

a kind of. Biggest. Group

2:19

of republicans who are skeptical of Trump

2:22

cuckoo. Maybe it's geared to can have

2:24

an older version of the party, but

2:26

I think when we look back it's

2:28

It's hard to see of a big

2:30

effect in. Oh hell, He was not

2:32

a bad candidate. But. Her.

2:35

Line against Donald Trump was with us

2:37

and meet she said you know he's

2:39

chaotic again and again at which is

2:42

certainly true but she didn't really go

2:44

after him on on January six and

2:46

to go have a sharply critical line

2:48

up against him see like a lot

2:50

of the other Oh candidates who who

2:52

dropped out before her I think was

2:54

difference to the polls and and looking

2:56

at a party where you know the

2:58

bulk of the electorate in a was

3:00

enthusiastic about Donald Trump thought the Twenty

3:02

Twenty election had been stolen. One of

3:04

the country to move in. In a

3:06

deeply concerned this direction and was

3:08

fundamentally kind of unwilling to go

3:10

up against. That vision of

3:12

the republican base or present a sort

3:15

of strongly contrasting vision and in I

3:17

think she sort of fits in with

3:19

a lot of other republican. So the

3:22

last five years you know Mitch Mcconnell,

3:24

I'm in or on down of who

3:26

have suitors, you know, Understood

3:29

some of what was dangerous about Trump

3:31

and even at times sort of stood

3:33

up to him but to sort of

3:36

fundamentally been unable or unwilling or some

3:38

overlap of the to to make a

3:40

really strong anti Trump case. So I

3:42

think we can take from how his

3:44

campaign that there is some part of

3:47

the republican foul electorate that is still

3:49

ah uncomfortable what Trump? But I think

3:51

we can also take that. You know

3:53

maybe it's a little smaller than than

3:55

than we might have thought and you

3:57

know maybe it's a little. Bit. The

4:00

last antagonistic towards drunk then and we

4:02

might have assumed so era is. She

4:04

has said that she's only suspending her

4:06

campaign stuck in a endorse Trump Am.

4:09

Presumably that just sort of means that

4:11

she's trying to weed out at some

4:13

of the trials, though I think that's

4:15

that's a little bit of a fool's

4:17

errand and see a fair. His candidacy

4:19

sort of collapses on it's own by,

4:22

and you know it, I don't think

4:24

in the end this is a very

4:26

impactful campaign. Cel. Moving

4:29

to the Democrats. Would. You say

4:31

that Biden had a good night? I know

4:33

that he's running unopposed. basically cel. Maybe it's

4:35

a weird question, but it's also starting to

4:37

seem like things might not be that straightforward.

4:39

For him as definitely. definitely beginning

4:41

to see my things might not

4:43

be there. Sea Ford for him

4:45

and I don't think last night

4:47

was was terrible for him. You

4:50

know there was a did the

4:52

kind of alternative to Biden basically

4:54

a voters voting uncommitted and which

4:56

is something that does often happen

4:58

in campaigns you know Barack Obama

5:00

had some uncommitted votes against him

5:02

in Twenty Twelve and in in

5:04

Michigan which was something that in

5:06

an era as the think a

5:08

lot. Of people have been I've been

5:10

watching. A week ago, there was a

5:12

sizable uncommitted vote. I think it ended

5:14

up over ten percent below twenty. One

5:17

hundred thousand primary. Years ago not

5:20

not a small number of people am

5:22

of is a very large Arab American

5:24

community and in in Michigan of to

5:27

the Palestinian America and and you know

5:29

and that that book was spears a

5:31

lot of sad organization to to try

5:33

to vote on committed against by as

5:36

a protest against Israel Gaza war of

5:38

an anti in support of Israel in

5:40

that were am in Minnesota last night

5:43

the results are such similarly sizable though

5:45

I do think that that is a

5:47

narrow issue for Biden. That you know

5:49

he will have to deal with to be

5:52

sexy months. How do you think

5:54

he's actually gonna deal with that because he sees

5:56

uncommitted delegates go to the convention? But they're. Only

5:58

gonna be a handful of them. compared to

6:00

all of the delegates who were

6:03

for Biden. And so how do

6:05

you see the uncommitted movement actually

6:08

affecting his campaign and his messaging going forward? Like

6:10

how much does he actually need to pay attention

6:12

to it? I don't know

6:14

that the uncommitted movement is

6:17

something that will cause him

6:19

big practical problems at the convention.

6:22

I do think the fact that many voters who

6:24

in 2020 were in his

6:26

base on a number of issues across

6:29

a range of demographic categories now

6:32

view him skeptically or negatively as a

6:34

huge issue for him. He eked down

6:36

a win over Trump in 2020 with

6:39

an approval rating in the mid-50s. Now

6:42

his approval rating is in the high 30s. It's

6:44

an extraordinary number of Americans who

6:47

used to say they thought highly of President

6:49

Biden and now say they don't, not

6:51

to throw a ton of polling data at

6:53

you here, but among voters under

6:55

30, which I think is correctly

6:57

seen as being one place where there's

7:00

some sympathy for the Palestinian

7:03

sort of position. Biden

7:05

won last time in 2020 by something like 25

7:07

points. Big Fox

7:09

News poll a couple days ago had

7:12

him trailing Trump among voters under 30.

7:15

That's not because a ton of 26-year-olds have said, you

7:19

know what, I'm done with liberalism. I'm all

7:21

in for Trump. It's because a lot

7:23

of those voters who a few years

7:25

ago would have said Biden's my guy are now

7:27

saying, pretty

7:30

disinterested in this whole thing. I don't see

7:32

anybody who's speaking to me. I may just

7:34

sit this one out, not to

7:36

layer too much on here, but, you know, among

7:38

women, you know, he won by 10 points

7:40

last time. Now it's about even. Among Latino

7:43

voters, same deal. The women thing

7:45

seems impossible to me. Like, I saw that. Was that the

7:47

New York Times poll? Yeah. I was just, I saw that

7:49

and was kind of like, really? I

7:52

guess that's a larger question about all the different polls

7:54

and what they show and whether we can trust them.

7:56

I mean, I think we all still have PTSD over

7:58

the New York Times election needle. From

8:00

Honey Sixteen. Only the you

8:02

know good questions and in a will

8:04

see what happens going forward. but I'm.

8:07

Every poll we've seen ah

8:09

for many months now has

8:11

picked up just a general

8:13

decay in biden support and

8:15

that you know I thirties

8:17

approval rating is really bad

8:19

and and that is going

8:22

that and not just come

8:24

from like a whole lot

8:26

of white men pretty against

8:28

him. It's gonna come from

8:30

you know, people in voting

8:32

groups that he used to

8:34

win comfortably. Sayings: Perino.

8:37

Said that I'd like to talk more about the

8:40

general election and also dive into some political issues

8:42

that you been tracking. That's first organic a quick

8:44

break. Your

8:48

him of a political scene and a New Yorker and

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Ai. And that is what you see.

9:23

that they're not actually being equitable and

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try to build a utopia where we

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listen to podcasts. So.

9:39

Then we've talked a bit on the

9:41

shell about the potential impact it's third

9:43

party candidates on as primarily Trump vs.

9:45

Biden general Election. It looks like He

9:47

Lee has ruled out a third party

9:49

run, but I'm wondering if there's anyone

9:51

else, so you could see complicating the

9:53

race in some kind of significant way.

9:57

That the margins are so small, so

9:59

tight. between how voters think

10:01

about Democrats and Republicans, and even between

10:03

Trump and Biden right now, that

10:06

almost any third party run

10:08

might complicate things. So,

10:11

there are polls right now that have Robert Kennedy

10:13

up over 10%, 14%. Do

10:17

I think that that will hold through

10:19

November? I'd be really surprised, but if

10:21

he's able to get on the ballot

10:23

in enough places, Ralph

10:25

Nader plausibly through the election to George

10:27

Bush in 2000, we're

10:29

in a place where it doesn't take a lot. I

10:33

have not heard, I do not see any

10:36

major political figure stepping in

10:39

as a third party candidate right now. There's

10:42

a lot of talk for a while about Joe

10:44

Manchin. He also recently rolled out a third party

10:47

run with Cheney who had been discussed earlier, has

10:49

not emerged as a presidential

10:51

candidate. It just doesn't take much.

10:53

We're like right on the line here. And

10:56

there's a huge amount of discontent with

10:58

both candidates. Does this

11:01

feel like a place where protest

11:03

votes, low voter turnout? Might

11:05

drive the outcome of the election, absolutely. For

11:09

reasons that are sometimes hard to

11:11

fully comprehend, it seems a very

11:13

cynical electorate and a very close

11:16

race and so short of third

11:18

party candidate could absolutely make a difference. But

11:20

I don't think it's like, I

11:23

don't think there's somebody out there who's gonna win the

11:25

election, who's gonna step into the ring.

11:27

I think it's more a question of do 50,000 votes

11:30

and in a couple of really pivotal states go

11:33

to somebody who's not Biden or Trump. And I think

11:35

there's absolutely a possibility in that. So

11:38

primary voters cast their ballots in

11:40

Texas yesterday, which has obviously become

11:42

the center of a larger political

11:45

debate over immigration. Both

11:47

Trump and Biden recently visited border towns

11:49

there after Congress failed to pass immigration

11:51

reform. Where do you think that the Biden

11:53

campaign needs to go in order to go toe

11:56

to toe with Republicans on immigration? And

11:58

do they even wanna go toe to toe on

12:00

immigration. Yeah, I mean, I think

12:02

it's, you know, it's still primarily a base

12:04

issue for Republicans. I think that it's something

12:06

that, you know, Biden would, would primarily not

12:08

want to talk about. But I think

12:10

the reason it's been effective in this campaign is that the

12:13

Republicans have been able to say, you know,

12:15

look, this is chaos in the same

12:17

way that they were able to look

12:20

at is to draw people's attention to

12:22

the pullout from Afghanistan and say, look,

12:24

there's chaos here. You know,

12:26

Biden is, you know, very old. The vast

12:28

majority of Americans think he's too old to

12:30

be president. And you know,

12:33

the Republican line has not just been, we've

12:36

got to change policy, build

12:38

more fencing and walls and deploy

12:40

more, more military, though they have

12:42

said that, you know, it's

12:44

been that Biden can't handle this. And

12:47

so, you know, there is an element of

12:49

Biden sort of trying to run to the

12:51

center, the immigration package he was pushing

12:53

towards before Trump encouraged Republicans to

12:56

torpedo it was much

12:58

more pro enforcement than the administration's

13:01

policy had been earlier. But

13:04

I think the deeper problem for him is

13:06

just being able to reassure Americans

13:08

that things are not out of

13:10

control, that he has a handle

13:12

on what is happening, that if

13:14

he says we want fewer people

13:16

coming across the border, he can

13:19

actually achieve that. I see. I

13:21

mean, that actually explains things a bit, like that

13:23

it's more a show of competency than anything, just

13:26

because I feel like, you know, we were talking

13:28

about the uncommitted voters earlier, and obviously,

13:30

a lot of them are progressive and

13:32

they are voting uncommitted because they're concerned

13:35

about Israel. And it

13:37

seems like going hard on

13:39

immigration would risk further alienating

13:41

the same people who are

13:43

concerned about US support for Israel

13:45

and its war against Hamas. Yeah, I think

13:48

that's right. I mean, there's another element here,

13:50

which is through his whole presidency,

13:52

it seems like Biden is fighting

13:54

through a kind of reputational sludge,

13:56

you know, like you can look

13:59

at the And you can say

14:01

like this is like like working pretty

14:03

well like inequalities down, you know, the

14:05

economy is booming and yet You know

14:07

over the last few months the economy

14:09

has has really looks quite strong In

14:12

a very encouraging way and yet it

14:14

hasn't budged by these poll numbers

14:16

upwards a bit In fact, they're kind

14:18

of getting worse And so

14:20

you look at that and you say like what

14:22

is in the background here? And the thing that

14:25

voters keep saying and this is people who are

14:27

attentive to politics and people who are totally inattentive

14:29

to politics Is the guys

14:31

too old and to me when I

14:33

talk to voters what I really

14:35

hear them Saying is like I

14:37

don't choose them to solve problems if

14:40

the data says, you know,

14:42

the economy is getting better I don't

14:44

believe that that's Biden who's responsible when

14:46

I look at Images from

14:49

the border and I I think that

14:51

looks out of control I think

14:53

that must have something to do with the fact that

14:55

the guy at the top is over 80 years old

14:58

And so I do think that

15:00

there are obvious sort of policy

15:02

or ideological dimensions to the immigration

15:05

issue as there are to all of these issues

15:07

a Fundamental thing

15:09

that I think Biden has really struggled

15:11

to impress upon voters Is

15:13

that when good things are happening in

15:16

the country? He's responsible for them and

15:18

when bad things are happening in the

15:20

country. He's not responsible for them Well,

15:23

that's a great segue into this next question

15:25

So the State of the Union is tomorrow and

15:28

I'm wondering what you think Biden

15:30

needs to do in that address aside from

15:32

put on a Ronald Reagan like, you know

15:34

performance and show of charisma and vitality

15:37

despite being old That

15:39

would be quite a turn, you know Look, I

15:41

think that things are shifting a little bit in

15:44

the presidential race The Trump

15:46

campaign has been very effective at keeping

15:48

Trump basically off stage, you know for

15:50

most of this election He didn't participate

15:52

in any of the debates. He hasn't

15:54

done a ton of big events. He

15:56

is on Truth Social which like nobody

15:59

can read. The you know rather

16:01

than twitter right way where the audience would

16:03

be bigger. And you know. People

16:05

don't like Trump any more than they

16:07

did before the Twenty Twenty elections. It

16:10

just like Biden a lot less last

16:12

night of Mara Lago Trump. Guess up

16:14

there and give you know. The kind

16:16

of species been giving to small audiences

16:19

for the last year was is to

16:21

say it sounds kind of crazy. You

16:23

know he says America's becoming a third

16:25

world country. He rants about the cases

16:28

against him. You know it's pretty meandering.

16:30

He goes home sister reminder that you

16:32

know there is another bad candidate in

16:35

this race. For biden to draw

16:37

people's attention to the so you know

16:39

I think that what the Biden White

16:41

House would love to do is brag

16:44

about the economic success of to me

16:46

you know people either see the economy

16:48

as working for them or they won't

16:50

What he's really gotta do in this

16:53

in this in this address and in

16:55

this next season container thing is remind

16:57

people you know what a threat Donald

17:00

Trump poses why he would be worse

17:02

president them by and just given a

17:04

like clear sense. Of the contest and

17:06

the steaks and this a lesson and

17:08

you can say man that that sounds

17:10

a lot like what Hillary Clinton tried

17:12

to do. and twenty sixteen sounds like

17:15

what Biden did. and Twenty twenty but

17:17

it's probably the best play that the

17:19

democrats have. It's a thing this work

17:21

for them and in in mid term

17:23

elections and last time around and you

17:25

know people still really don't like Donald

17:27

Trump and you know many of them

17:29

are pretty scared of him. And to

17:31

remind voters who am I think Biden

17:33

has gone into hard for Israel. and

17:35

the war but also is really worried

17:38

about you know reproductive rights exactly what

17:40

is it at at seek in in

17:42

the celestial act exactly the way that

17:45

republicans wanna take the country to maybe

17:47

incur some like loud booing from republicans

17:49

i don't think would be a bad

17:52

thing for for by so you know

17:54

i think what he needs to do

17:56

is be be sharpened be prickly and

17:59

not try to can being a consensus,

18:01

but point out why his version

18:03

of the Union is better than

18:06

Trump's. I wanted to ask

18:08

you about this tweet that I saw from

18:10

Kamala Harris yesterday, maybe you saw it too,

18:12

for listeners who didn't get the pleasure of coming

18:14

across it on their feeds. It

18:16

was a photo of Kamala walking across the

18:18

Edmund Pettus Bridge with texts that said, "'History

18:21

is a relay race. Generations

18:23

before us carried the baton. Now they have passed

18:25

it to us.'" As you can

18:27

imagine, this prompted a bunch of speculation that Harris

18:29

will be replacing Biden at the convention. You know,

18:32

it was the combination of the quote and the

18:34

timing of the tweet. Do you have any reason

18:36

to think that this is going to happen? I mean,

18:38

was last night that bad for Biden? No.

18:42

No, I don't. I

18:44

don't think there's any reason to think

18:46

that Harris or even really another

18:49

Democrat is so much more popular

18:51

than Biden that it is worth

18:54

for Democrats risking losing the advantage

18:56

of incumbency and risking

18:58

just the general impression of

19:00

chaos and failure that

19:02

necessarily accompanies sort of yanking

19:04

the existing president and somehow

19:06

replacing him with a different

19:09

candidate. I also think just basically

19:11

because there's been a lot of speculation about

19:13

this, politicians are,

19:16

you know, they're kind

19:18

of bent people off. You

19:20

know, they're generally pretty narcissistic.

19:24

You know, it's a weird thing to stand up in front of

19:26

a crowd of people and say, you know, I am the person

19:28

to lead you. It takes

19:30

a particular personality. Most

19:32

of them think that what they have to

19:34

offer is really unique and really

19:36

different from anybody else who might vote with

19:38

them, you know, 100 percent of the time.

19:41

And listening to their thumb speeches, and it's

19:43

often, and this is especially true with Biden,

19:45

you know, it's often very personal. It's

19:47

about how they came to their politics through childhood

19:50

experiences and, you know, differences

19:52

in young adulthood. And

19:54

you know, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,

19:56

for the good of the Democratic Party,

19:58

probably should resigned when Obama

20:00

was president. She didn't, Biden might've done

20:03

the Democrats some good if he had

20:05

said at the outset, you know,

20:07

I'm not going to run for a second

20:09

term and, you know, here's the person, whether

20:11

a terrorist or somebody else who will, there's

20:13

a case being made that Sonia Sotomayor should

20:16

step aside now and, you know, uh, wouldn't

20:18

be a bad thing for Democrats to have

20:20

a big fight over, you know, reproductive rights

20:22

in the Supreme court in the middle of

20:25

an election year. Those are probably issues that

20:27

they benefit, but they don't do it.

20:29

You know, and I think it's maybe a little

20:31

naive and somewhat against the character

20:33

of politicians to expect

20:36

them to. And, you know, in

20:38

this case in particular, every time

20:40

I've heard from a democratic operative

20:42

or elected official who's worrying over

20:44

the election says, my God,

20:46

you know, it's just, if he just wouldn't run, you know,

20:49

the question I tend to ask

20:51

them is like, well, how will that happen?

20:53

You know, who is, if he wants to

20:55

run, who is going to convince him not

20:57

to? You know, I just

20:59

think that that, that vision of like

21:01

a set of party elders who

21:04

have the power and influence to

21:06

just instruct the president of the United States what

21:08

to do, that just doesn't exist. Well,

21:13

thank you so much, Ben. I really appreciate you taking the time.

21:15

Yeah, yeah. Take care. After

21:18

the break, Antonia hitchens on what it's like

21:21

to be at Mar-a-Lago on election night. World

21:34

peace might feel kind of like a pipe dream, but

21:37

what if I told you it's not? 2024

21:40

will see more than 50 elections around the world.

21:42

And in some places, peace is actually

21:44

on the ballot. One reason is

21:46

because countries in Europe and Latin America have

21:49

been experimenting with this thing called feminist foreign

21:51

policy, because right now the way that we

21:53

wage war in peace is kind of a

21:55

boys club. The new season of

21:57

Things That Go Boom from Ink Stick Media and PRX.

22:00

is coming March 18th. Find it wherever

22:02

you get your partner. Hi,

22:06

Antonia. Thanks so much for joining me. Thanks

22:09

for having me. So you were

22:11

at Mar-a-Lago last night for Trump's victory party,

22:13

and I honestly don't know whether I envy you

22:15

or whether I pity you. I think I envy

22:18

you, honestly. But what

22:20

was the reaction to Nikki Haley winning

22:22

Vermont? Like, among the crowd there? I

22:24

don't know if the crowd even registered that, I would

22:27

say, in the ballroom at

22:29

Mar-a-Lago. It was sort of

22:31

a sanctuary where it was

22:33

almost as though Trump had

22:35

become president again already. I don't

22:37

think much attention was paid to

22:40

that small symbolic victory, even

22:43

though she sent out an email about

22:45

the historic significance of being the first

22:47

female Republican to win the state. That

22:49

was not being noted at Mar-a-Lago, for

22:52

better or worse. So what was being noted? I

22:54

mean, can you just tell me more about what you saw

22:56

and heard throughout the night, just like kind of paint

22:58

a picture? Sure. I

23:01

think in the

23:04

ballroom starting at about 4 p.m., Trump

23:06

had invited local people who support him,

23:08

and they were bused in from a

23:11

hotel nearby. And then there were also

23:13

kind of mainstays you see always at

23:15

Trump events. Marjorie Taylor Green was circulating

23:18

and taking photos and doing TV hits. We

23:20

had members of the Trump campaign kind of

23:22

senior officials coming out and talking to the

23:24

press, and the mood was sort of that

23:27

of a coronation. They

23:30

didn't want anybody to be thinking about

23:32

something that wasn't a victory for

23:34

them. And in the ballroom, for

23:36

the most part, since people were pretty sure

23:39

Trump was going to win every state, as

23:41

he won states when they were announced, there

23:43

was applause and there was cheering. But there

23:46

wasn't a lot of tension or suspense. There was

23:49

a feeling that it was kind of already in the

23:51

bag, and they were just there to

23:53

unite the party and move on and just

23:55

focus on, in their words, beating

23:57

Joe Biden in November. Did you talk to

23:59

any... anyone especially interesting?

24:03

There was a real mix. There

24:06

was Moms for Liberty, there were Bikers for Trump.

24:09

There were some, you know,

24:11

pretty unidentifiable volunteers and just

24:13

incredible Palm Beach nurses who

24:15

were drinking cocktails and eating

24:17

coconut shrimp. So it was a very,

24:21

there was a nice ambiance to the event all in all.

24:23

There's something kind of funny about an

24:26

election results party that presumably

24:28

has a decent amount of election deniers in

24:30

the room. You know, to what

24:32

extent were people talking about the idea that the

24:34

polls are rigged and even though Trump is going

24:37

to be the Republican candidate for president that he's

24:39

probably not going to win because even if he

24:41

does get more votes than Biden in the general,

24:43

those votes won't be counted. I mean, is that

24:45

something that people were talking about? Was that in

24:48

the air at all? In my

24:50

experience last night, that didn't seem to be

24:52

a concern just yet. For those who were there

24:55

who did believe in the election

24:57

results, I think there was a feeling of the

25:00

science that they wanted to move

25:02

on from 2020 and just focus

25:04

on kind of winning this

25:06

fall against Joe Biden. There wasn't yet a feeling

25:08

that was kind of conspiratorial. It's going to be

25:10

taken from us. Nothing's going to be fair. The

25:13

mood was actually, I think, one

25:16

of optimism in the former president

25:18

being able to win. It was

25:20

more when Trump himself came out to make

25:22

remarks that I think he focused much more

25:24

on the past and how it

25:26

hadn't been fair and nobody gave him

25:28

credit. It was sort of a much

25:30

darker view than perhaps there was in the

25:32

ballroom in the hours leading up to his

25:34

arrival. To what

25:37

extent were people talking about Trump's

25:39

trials and his general legal troubles

25:41

last night? Did people seem

25:43

worried about the legal cases against Trump?

25:46

No. I think the fact that it

25:48

seems unlikely any of those will be resolved by

25:51

November for them is another

25:53

thing to celebrate. They were

25:55

celebrating on Monday that

25:58

Colorado has to keep on

26:00

the ballot and there was a feeling on

26:03

Tuesday that the legal cases are something that

26:05

the left is preoccupied with but that don't

26:07

really have any meaningful impact on

26:09

what's going to happen to him. Going

26:11

back to Trump's victory speech, I mean it seems

26:14

like it was pretty somber.

26:16

I'm wondering what you think that was about. This

26:18

was an amazing, an

26:21

amazing night, an amazing day. It's

26:23

been an incredible period of time

26:25

in our country's history. I was

26:27

very surprised by the tone of

26:30

his speech. I've most recently seen him at

26:32

rallies in Iowa for example.

26:34

He did what he calls a two-hour beauty

26:37

where he just sort of risks

26:39

for two hours or more and he's smiling

26:41

and he's imitating Joe Biden not being able

26:43

to find the stairs and he really

26:45

can capture a crowd's attention in a way

26:48

that is pretty unique. It was

26:50

very different in Mar-a-Lago. It felt a

26:52

little bit more formal and stuffy

26:55

and he barely mentioned the victories

26:57

of the evening. He focused much

27:00

more on, you know, the country's

27:02

destroyed by Biden. He spoke

27:04

a lot about immigration but there wasn't

27:06

really a sense of unification and excitement

27:08

about the future that I heard from

27:11

people attending the party and, you know,

27:13

people were filtering out because they

27:15

were bored, because they were kind of

27:17

these scripted political remarks that went

27:19

on for not more than 15 minutes.

27:22

And I don't think it was the show that people

27:24

generally wait 700 hours to

27:26

see from Trump. Many people got

27:28

there at 4 p.m. and they

27:31

were waiting until 10 p.m. because they said, you

27:33

know, Trump is such an incredible presence in person

27:35

and I think last night that was a bit

27:37

of a letdown even to reporters. You

27:40

know, people were yawning and not

27:42

as captivated as they sometimes can

27:44

be. I know you're not

27:47

a psychiatrist but why

27:49

do you think Trump was acting like that last night? I mean,

27:52

do you think it has something to do with the Stormy

27:54

Daniels trials coming up later this month? I mean, what is

27:56

it that resulted in that mood from him? I

27:59

definitely wouldn't. want to psychoanalyze

28:01

Trump. We speak often about Biden's

28:03

frailty in the sense that, you

28:05

know, for example, leading up to

28:07

the State of the Union, he

28:09

has very few things on his

28:11

schedule because he's preparing for that

28:13

large event. Trump has been flying

28:15

to court, to rallies, to Mar-a-Lago.

28:18

He was over the weekend at a

28:20

puppy auction. Laura Trump was doing.

28:22

There's just a sense that you

28:24

saw him at a moment where

28:26

it felt like the road had sort of

28:28

run out. I don't think it is speaking

28:30

to a broader sense of he's become disillusioned.

28:32

I think it just, it was a mood

28:34

that perhaps was, he was saying,

28:36

I'm at home, I'm among friends, I

28:38

can speak this way. It's a rally where

28:40

he has to kind of rile people up

28:43

to feel as though, you know, we have

28:45

to take the country back. He knew he

28:47

was among supporters who perhaps he felt a

28:49

bit more comfortable with. That's fascinating that

28:51

you're able to get a front row seat to that.

28:53

You were able to see the real Trump sounds like.

28:56

Yeah, yeah. No, he walked

28:58

out and he generally likes to come over

29:00

to the press and engage

29:03

in whatever way. He feels

29:05

like, and last night he just walked

29:07

out a couple of waves, a smile

29:10

that I saw it leave his face

29:12

when he was done doing it for the camera.

29:14

And he was off

29:16

up the stairs by 10 45. And that

29:19

was that the buses were filled

29:21

with people going back home. The

29:23

event was over. I actually drove

29:25

home just behind Chris LaSivita

29:28

and Jason Miller who had told

29:30

reporters they were just totally exhausted.

29:32

So it was

29:34

a sort of poignant moment of honesty from

29:37

the campaign about we've worked really hard and

29:39

you know, we have to keep

29:41

fighting because November is a long

29:43

time away. Well,

29:47

on that inspiring note, I think we can we

29:49

can close. Thank you so

29:51

much, Antonia. I really appreciate you coming on. Thank you

29:53

so much for having me. Benjamin

29:58

Wallace Wells and Antonia. both report

30:00

on politics for the New Yorker. You

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can read their latest pieces at New yorker.com. This

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