BONUS: Could Trump Still Lose the Nomination? (Live from New Orleans!)

What's up New Orleans?

Welcome to Planet Save America, I'm Jon Favreau.

I'm Tim Miller.

I'm Jon Lovett.

I'm Tom Vitor.

I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

We have an outstanding show for you tonight. Your state representative for right here in New Orleans, Mandy Landry, is here.

Local.

Local local Tim MILLER Yeah, good stuff, all right. Let's get to the news fresh off a very good election day for Democrats this week.

I've never been more optimistic about America's future than I am today. And I know I only look like I'm 30, but I've been around a long time. That's not too much to ask you, OK?

Anyway.

When my predecessor was in office, six factories closed across the country, tens of thousands of auto jobs were lost nationwide. And on top of that, he was willing to see the future of electric vehicles to China. He said. If America invests in electric vehicles, it would drive down wages, it would destroy jobs.

Tim, What'd you think? Good way to handle the age thing, right way to go after Trump. What do you think?

I thought it was pretty good. I noticed you guys didn't show the dance that he tried to do.

I didn't see the dance.

What dance?

It was a little stiff.

It was a little stiff on the dance, I don't know about the dance.

I was just happy when I saw that that was a UAW t-shirt because at first I was like, is that like a red Jimmy Carter sweater? Then I realized he was wearing a t-shirt. I was like, this is good.

They got him on the primo adrenochrome. Now, that's the good stuff, it's working.

Right in the veins, right in that eye vein. I thought it was pretty good. Look, I like all the manufacturing messaging, here's the thing.

Later, he said When you guys were in the fight, I was here. Trump went to a non-union shop and attacked you. In addition to a good economic message, it's also him getting on the side of people like, I'm for you, Donald Trump doesn't give a shit about you.

The thing that I found most interesting about this was when he talked about the plants closing. Under Trump, there's been this big debate in our party, like, how do we narrow the historic gap of the economy that Biden and Democrats face with Trump? Is it highlighting Biden's accomplishments? is it highlighting the Trump tax cuts for corporations?

Yeah. Unfortunately for the president, his party's electoral and policy successes haven't prevented a growing list of potential candidates from weighing primary or independent challenges against Biden. Dean Phillips just hired former advisers to Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang.

And Sarah Palin?

And Sarah Palin Don't forget my buddy Steve. I forgot about that, yeah. The latest New York Times poll has RFK Jr. polling at 25 in a three-way race against Biden and Trump.

Who said her name three times?

And Joe Manchin has now decided he won't be running for re-election to the Senate, but intends to travel the country. Quote to see if there's an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.

I watched that video, it was sort of like a folksy centrist, mad libs. It was very, very hard to follow. Here's what I think about Joe Manchin. He definitely, he drove us all crazy for a year, a year and a half.

Speak for yourself, Tommy.

He was trying to pass the infrastructure bill, he was trying to pass the Build Back Better bill. Joe Manchin made it very hard. I think that when you look back on that, his opposition to the child tax credit extension is indefensible and borderline unforgivable. That that policy lifted three million kids out of poverty.

Ooh, Tommy.

You might have had a point. I've got a little bulwark for Tim here.

You're getting Paul Ryan-filled over there.

I like that.

Yeah.

That's right.

But at the end of the day, like, that's, you know, West Virginia is what? Plus 39 Trump state like that seat's probably toast. So we're going to miss him now. I don't know what he's going to do on his like centrist no labels Rump Springer. I hope he has a good time.

Youngest can in the field.

Young generally, so I don't know I will miss him in the Senate, but not that much.

I think only Joe Manchin can come up with a plan to simultaneously cost the Democrats, the Senate and the White House.

Yeah, that is true. Does anyone think that Joe Manchin is going to be polling well as a third-party candidate for no labels? Does anyone?

I mean, we've seen there's like the first poll and they're showing them getting what? Like, you know, he was getting 10, which is enough to destroy the country, but probably not enough to make him happy. But if I knew how to make Joe Manchin happy, you'd be on a houseboat.

We should start with the Senate implications for the Democrats, because I do think that's a big deal with Manchin.

So this is a stone-cold bummer. We have a 51-seat majority with Joe Manchin, there are seven competitive seats. We now need to keep all of them, so if Joe Manchin is out, we go from 51 seats to 50. With Kamala Harris breaking a lot of ties.

I was told by the DSA that he'll be replaced by a far-left, a real, true progressive in West Virginia. Is that not going to happen?

And no bad ideas in a brainstorm, I wrote them. But so, in order to now, for Democrats to keep the Senate majority. Jon Tester has to win in Montana, Sherrod Brown has to hold his seat in Ohio. Ruben Gallego has to win in Arizona.

Yeah, I think the way to think about it is if Democrats hold all the Senate seats now, that we are defending if Donald Trump wins, Republicans control the Senate. Because at best, now it's 50-50.

And Tucker Carlson breaks the ties.

And Tucker Carlson breaks the ties. And that means that Republicans in the Senate will start getting to appoint judges. That means if there are Supreme Court vacancies, Donald Trump wins, there's a Republican Senate. Clarence Thomas retires, Alito retires.

I would make one, yes, one more. Just note on Joe Manchin I think it's worth noting that Joe Biden put out a statement and his statement was extremely kind to Joe Manchin. And that's been his tack whenever Sir Joe Lieberman comes up.

And we all know that, right?

Because booing him at his houseboat seems to radicalize him.

Somebody clip that.

Beautiful houseboat It's a beautiful houseboat.

I think the Wall Street Journal reported this that there's now an effort, it's not an effort led by no labels, but it's a different group. They're leading a draft Manchin-Romney movement. I think Manchin will be president and Romney VP, or vice versa.

I think vice versa, yeah.

Tim, are you leading that effort? Did you want to make that announcement tonight?

I actually, just for the sake of the content, I have something prepared right now. Underneath this Beyoncé shirt, it's Romney Manchin 2024, and I'm going to do it in the hopes that Jon Lovett gives me a pile. Driver. No, no, I would love to. Joe Manchin actually is pretty good.

Joe Manchin is a pain in the ass that I am sad is leaving the Senate.

He did the gay marriage, that was pretty good.

Without Joe Manchin, we would not have saved the ACA, we would not have had that vote. We would not have had the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest government investment in climate in history, we wouldn't have had all these judges. He is a pain in the ass, he has infuriated us. I get that, but we needed him.

Yeah, and here's the thing, these rich people that have these fucking delusions that Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin might be there. It's because they look at the race and they're like, people aren't happy, people don't like Trump and Biden. The thing is, what they don't understand is that this election between Joe Biden, a normal central left Democrat, mainstream Democrat and a racist lunatic. Who is a game show host who wants to end the country does not call for somebody in the middle ground. If the election was between two Far ideologues, if it was Rashida Tlaib vs Megha Mike Johnson, then maybe Romney and Manchin could work if one of them had a personality transplant, and then they could bring together bulwark Republicans with Biden, Democrats with independents who voted for Trump. But don't like Mike Johnson's Bible salesman vibe that he gives off.

Big, big problem, Dan. I think polling third party and independent candidates seems relatively useless until we know who's going to be on the ballot in which state. From that perspective, which of these potential candidacies do you think poses the biggest threat to Biden?

It is both the No labels candidacy and the Green Party candidacy of most likely, Jill Stein. No labels is already on the ballot in 12 states. Most of those are states that are not consequential in a presidential election, but they are on the ballot in Arizona and Nevada. The Green Party, because Jill Stein, because the 2016 election never stops leaving us, did so well in 2016. They have guaranteed ballot access in a number of states, including the not so consequential states of Michigan and Wisconsin.

Doesn't RFK kind of help us, though? Aren't we going for RFK?

We hope.

I'd rather not touch the proposition.

Yeah, I'd rather not know.

And I just want to say to everyone here, you could have been at a strip club.

But we're going to talk about ballot access.

Ricks I hear good things about Ricks, not my cup of tea, but just something to think about for after the show.

This is just for anyone. What's going on with Dean Phillips? He's now got former advisors to Sarah Palin, Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang on his team. Does everyone still think this is going nowhere?

You either die a Bernie bro, or you live long enough to work for Dean Phillips. That's the deal, right? It's this guy, Jeff Weaver, who worked for Bernie. He was pretty controversial at the time. So I don't know that. I'm worried about, I mean, hiring Andrew Yang's top guy....

Let's not get at the premise of the entire podcast, but.

I don't know I'm like....

Mean, Dean didn't do much for me beforehand.

It's not a good sign when your top advisor has a higher name ID than you do.

I feel like there's.

And cashing checks.

I look at that group of people and I think it only matters if Dean Phillips starts adopting policy positions that you can see from that group of people. It's not really a left-right thing, it's a top-bottom thing, and if Dean Phillips starts being like, Okay, all right.

I fucking challenge you to walk down Bourbon Street right now and find a single person who knows who the fuck Dean Phillips is.

Oh, that's true.

Tim and I. It's all ridiculous, all preposterous bars.

Tim and I are doing a podcast called Top-Bottom Things.

There it is. That's what I was thinking when Tim said that. I was like, I'm thinking if he went anti-establishment, anti-war, populist, anti-DC. But I don't think Dean Phillips has it in him to do that.

Gelato magnate Dean Phillips.

But it's 2023.

I have a concern about this. Young progressives don't listen to the bulwarks. I asked you if I could talk about this here in the hopes that I could reach some of them.

Some.

Because I was having trouble sleeping the other night and I was on TikTok and I had these several angry people in their dorm room. Talking about the moral obligation to vote for Cornel West. It was served to me by the Chinese, and this was giving me some concerns, and I started like hypoventilating into a paper bag.

Hopefully not.

You're getting pointed at.

You're getting pointed at, Hey, so I've been spending the week with Steve Bannon. Young progressives who don't think that there's a difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And here was his plan for the next term. He wants to release all of the January 6 prisoners and let every MAGA domestic terrorist know that they will get pardoned no matter what they do. So that's a little concerning.

You know what, you know what he's calling it. What's that, the MAGA policy agenda? what's that?

Oh my god.

So it should be something that you should be alarmed about young progressives.

It's not about sticking it to Joe Biden, he's not going to care, It's about hurting yourself, it's about hurting the country.

There are stated policies, we're going after trans people, we're going after immigrants, we're going after political opponents. I think the five of us would count, despite us being cis white guys.

That's a concerning combination.

This is not the most important part. But far be it for me to give communications advice to the one-time top message guy in the Republican Party. We did great.

I'm sorry, Tim or Bannon. Donald Trump only beat us by 46 points.

I just feel like I would have offered some context to I spent the week with Steve Bannon before telling that story.

Was it Palm Springs or was it a cruise?

It was in the basement of the Breitbart Embassy. Getting worse. Going to Vegas together, it was interesting. There's a single MAGA Vegas hotel.

The Trump Hotel.

No, not the Trump hotel.

I mean, Tommy's a big War Room listener.

He was live.

A little bit you didn't see me.

No, I didn't see you, sorry.

Okay, well, we don't want a second Trump turn. That's the moral of the story when we come back. Devontae Lewis.

He's awesome.

Joining us now is Louisiana Public Service Commissioner and a rising star in Louisiana politics, Devontae Lewis.

We're friends.

We're best friends.

So the thing about Devontae is he's a young elected official, very impressive person to be doing this job at his age. But he got into politics, like 20 years ago, he was organizing for Barack Obama. In high school, you ran for school board at age 18..

Well, the craziest thing is my grandfather forced me, when I was like 15, to watch one hour of the news every day. And so one day, it was 2004, it was Barack's keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. And something after that, I was like, Oh, I got to get involved, and so after that I just felt like I needed to do something in my community.

I love that. So I did not know that you watched the O4 Convention speech and that gave you like the bug.

That gave me the bug, everything was right there.

We were all just in Chicago last weekend with sort of an Obama campaign reunion. And the way that community is, like, rippled into politics is very inspiring and cool. So you are now a Louisiana Public Service commissioner, you're one of five elected officials tasked with overseeing all the utility companies in your state. What does that job entail?

Yeah, so the Public Service Commission. We regulate all of the public utilities, so water, wastewater, electric gas, sewage, pipeline, waste haulers, common carriers. We also have prison phone call rates, moving truck companies, tow truck companies. And so my district encompasses, of course, here in New Orleans, but all through the river, Parishes and Baton Rouge. So I have Cancer Alley as the district that I represent 971,000 people here in the state of Louisiana.

So, I mean, you alluded to this, I mean, New Orleans is on the front lines when it comes to the impact from climate change. No one in this room needs to be reminded what a hurricane can do to a city. Your neighbors in Texas went through a terrible winter storm and a subsequent power outage that killed hundreds of people and tragically ruined Ted Cruz's vacation.

Sorry, Ted.

What do you think? I mean, you're an expert in this stuff? What do you think this city and this country needs to do to prepare our utilities both to transition from where we are now to this green energy future we want to be at. But also to become more resilient in the near term, knowing that weather is getting more extreme, hotter hots, colder colds, et cetera.

I mean, I think the first thing we have to do is put people over profits. I mean, let's be very clear.

Another issue that I know you focus on a lot in your campaign is the price of phone calls for folks in jails and prisons. And maybe there's people listening to me right now saying, What are you talking about, Tommy? And why are you asking the utility commissioner guy about this? But can you explain the problem here, and how it falls under your purview and what you're doing to address this?

Yeah, so the Louisiana Public Service Commission, we regulate the rates that it costs for an intrastate phone call for those who are calling people who are incarcerated. And so when we think about this question, I mean, Louisiana used to be the incarceration capital of the world. We are now battling Oklahoma to be second. I don't know if that's a great task, I mean, I don't know if I want to follow Oklahoma in anything.

Who's getting paid off that?

Oh, these are the sheriffs, and these are the telecommunication companies.

So it's profitable for them to keep people in jail.

Oh, absolutely. The sheriffs get a big kickback, and so the sheriffs have been the biggest opponents. I tried to just do a study review of our prison phone call rates about four months ago, and the sheriffs called every one of my opponents to talk about this issue. And so what we see is that the sheriffs get a kickback from ensuring that people cannot communicate with their loved ones. But then they want to go and talk about recidivism.

I mean, I imagine when you're talking to folks about this, anyone who's had a loved one or a friend in prison gets it. But look, fighting for incarcerated people is not great politics. As we look around, there's a lot of people demagoguing crime and other issues. I mean, when you talk to folks about this goal and this plan, do you think they support what you're doing?

I think some do. I mean, what I would like to remind people is that we actually need to put humanity back in the society and actually care about one another. So you cannot talk to me about the crime in New Orleans. If you don't want to talk about the effects of what Louisiana does to incarcerated people, or how often we try to incarcerate somebody. And so what I like to do, and the way I talk about it is ensuring that we recognize that. The same way that you want to call your mother, when something happens, someone incarcerated wants to do the exact same thing. And so why should they not only be incarcerated? But also suffer from the lack of seeing? If their child got a great grade on their report card, or if their mother had an issue or what's going on in their family?

Yeah, it seems like keeping people kind of connected and tethered to the outside world is a big part of rehabilitation.

Oh, absolutely, I mean, I think it is extremely important. But the reason why we do it here in Louisiana is because we give our sheriffs a big pay cut for taking state prisoners. So anytime someone is incarcerated, we do not have enough beds in the state penitentiaries, so what do we do? We send them to local jails.

Terrible system. Yeah, boo that.

Boo it.

All right, happier subject. So you are the first Black LGBTQ person elected to any political office in Louisiana, at any level.

Well, that night I don't really remember, because there was a lot of tequila.

You can run as you is my takeaway there. Which brings me to my next question. The Democratic Party in Louisiana had a tough time.

Yeah, very tough.

Trump won the state by more than 18 points in 2020.

Well, I think Democrats get back on their feet if they grow a backbone and stand up for what they believe in. I mean, too often times, Democrats in this state are afraid of Republican voters instead of speaking. When we look at the data analysis, right? A governor, Landry elect, won with less votes than Bobby Jindal did in his re-election campaign, running against a no-name teacher. So that tells you there is an apathetic view in the state of Louisiana. And I remind people all the time that the biggest voting bloc in Louisiana is not the Republican voter, it's the non-voter.

I feel like I might have been a little more cynical about the Democratic Party's chances of winning in Louisiana. Before the last election day, where we saw, you know, Ohio voted issue one that enshrined abortion rights into the Constitution. You've got Governor Beshear in Kentucky running strong, running on abortion access and winning that race. Like, were there takeaways for you guys, or lessons learned about what you want to do next?

I mean, I think the lessons learned is one we have to organize and mobilize people all the time, right? I mean, we can't wait till two days before the election to start talking about Democratic values, right? that we have to start that.

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I like that.

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I did, man, I listened to your podcast.

You didn't even know it was happening. Seems like the early consensus among pundits and some polls is that Nikki Haley did well. Ron DESantis still can't smile.

We have tremendous support from the I call Hispanic, Latino. You have lots of different terms, but it all means the same thing. As far as I'm concerned, they're just great people, incredible people. Right now, you have coming through Mexico.

Poor guy comes up with the best nicknames, no one gives him credit.

Genie's come out of a fucking lamp.

Yes, thank you, thank you.

Pandora comes out of a box. No, it's her box. Evil comes out of the box.

Trump's campaign?

He's running again, there's a buried lead there. It's like, if someone's going to come in and they're going to run against me, he can't run again, right?

It's a good point. I was thinking about that, he's running where, or can he? Yeah, I was going to say.

I also think he lives in a kind of permanent narcissism present, like in his mind, when he thinks about a grievance. It's happening again, someone running against me. He's always living inside of it.

It is interesting. They, of course, asked the campaign. What about the fact that Donald Trump just said he was going to indict people who he doesn't like as president? And they said, Oh, he's just throwing out a hypothetical. That's what the campaign said, but they didn't rule out that he would do that.

Bad hypothetical?

Despite Nikki Haley's blockbuster debate performance, the 538 polling average has Trump ahead by 42 points nationally 42 points and the national polls. They don't matter. 28 points in Iowa, 30 points in New Hampshire.

What was that shit?

And moderating this debate.

I'm going to fucking moderate.

That was a lot of applause for Trump to start.

All right, so that's where we're at to begin to make the case that this primary is not yet over. Tommy, why don't you kick us off?

Thanks, John.

Bush by eight.

Fact number two, number, number two.

What's 17 plus eight?

16.

Did you watch the debate the other night?

Tim Scott basically quit the campaign on stage.

That is true.

I'll give you that.

He went to go be with his girlfriend.

Oh my god, we didn't talk about Tim Scott's girlfriend tonight.

Vivek Ramaswamy annoyed the 3 of voters he had left. Chris Christie is running out of gas. Ron DeSantis is a high heel joke. So here's what's going to happen. Nikki Haley is going to exceed expectations in Iowa.

Very polite so far.

You know, Duke Favreau and Lord Miller over here, they love a coronation. You know what I mean when Dan and I were watching Rocky and Miracle?

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to wrap it up.

Downton Abbey. And so the last time I checked, we live in the United States of America.

And anything is possible.

And we can beat Donald Trump.

Audience, audience, audience, audience. We'd like to hear from the candidates.

Just respond to my neocon friend Tommy, he's a big Nikki Haley fan.

Look.

You're scum.

Hey hey hey hey hey hey.

Get my name out of your voice.

Tough.

Want that one back?

Majority of Republican primary voters, like Donald Trump, they liked his presidency. They believe he won the last election. They don't care about his 91 felony counts.

How did he do?

He went on to win all but seven states. And at the time, George W. Bush hadn't been president already. Donald Trump has been president already, he is beloved by the Republican base.

Wow, powerful words.

I'm going to make three points here first. I don't really appreciate Jon Favreau's Don't Wet the Bed 2016 type messaging here.

Hold on, do you have video of Jon before the 2016 campaign and what he said? Because, if so, if you put that up on screen, I'll switch to you.

That would have been good. That has been erased from the internet.

Unfortunately not.

Point number two Donald Trump is a 77-year-old obese man with the diet of a college freshman at 2 a.

Death.

No shame on.

No.

You're applauding possibilities.

We're cheering for actuarial tables being accurate, that's it.

Point number three, and I know this one is close to Tim Miller's heart is that. Donald Trump has been running for the Republican primary for a combined between 2016 and 2020 for over two years. In that time, he has never once faced a sustained strategic attack. All of the candidates around him have been attacking each other and hopes to be second. So it is an untested proposition. And while I may not share Tommy's enthusiasm for Nikki Haley, I do think that there is a world where Nikki Haley surges. Ron Dissent.

What?

You promoted that I was going to be here. There are going to be at least three Neocons out there in the audience.

Originally, the Neocons only had one seat and they took a second, and then they took a third.

So when Nikki Haley surges, Ron DeSantis surges, which takes some from Trump, because most of Trump's second choice voters are Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley, as Tommy said, beats expectations in Iowa, wins in New Hampshire, wins in South Carolina and there we go.

So Tim, your name was mentioned.

I mean, Tommy's first number was 17 and Donald Trump's winning by 42.

Devastating.

I have two points. First is the name that Tommy mentioned, which I agree with, which would be the plausible person that could beat him. I guess, in a total fantasy world where we're all doing mushrooms together would be Nikki Haley and Tommy. Vitor just endorsed her, officially ending her campaign. So that's kind of a big problem. The people in this room, like Nikki, Haley, let me tell you, I don't think that's a good sign for her in the Republican primary.

That was Chris Christie's problem.

All right, but I'd like to close with telling you about a town called Lafayette. Do we have anybody here from Lafayette?

What are you, fucking Bill Clinton? What is this?

Yeah.

I had to visit Lafayette.

A town called Lafayette. Oh my God.

I had to visit Lafayette a couple months ago.

Get to the sentence about the fucking politics.

Thank you, Tom Friedman.

I was in the Cajun Dome and there was a GOP meeting there. It was the day after the first debate and a lady, kind of with an accent, comes on stage. And she was like, Y'all, who do you think won the first debate? And two people in the crowd go Trump and then everybody goes Trump.

Trump, Trump?

You guys might not recall that Trump did not attend the first debate.

Well, that's.

I got a fourth number.

It was a powerful number. Oh.

Zero.

The number of times you won Iowa pal?

It's getting dirty, OK, we finished.

Moderator take control.

We finished a gentleman's sixth.

I was trying to be one of those moderators that disappears and not make it about myself.

But by the way, not my style. But you can't play that role that well.

Yeah, not my style. It's a huge mistake back to me, Dan.

A lot of points.

A lot of points, but he always tends to be around 50, sometimes a little bit over, sometimes a little bit under. What is your argument that if let's say we lived in a world where a bunch of people dropped out because they've been embarrassing themselves? Tim Scott goes off to just young love picnics and walks in the park, merry-go-rounds and so forth. Ron DeSantis goes back into his sort of ooze cave or whatever he does at night.

Ron DeSantis is people like Trump. if Ron DeSantis leaves them for Trump, that's what I think.

I would like to ask the question to John because I know how you'll answer. But you don't believe that there could be a anti-Trump majority that could align behind one alternative?

Because all the data suggests there is no anti-Trump majority in the Republican Party, there is about 30 of Republican voters. On a good day. Who do not like Donald Trump, who are ready to move on. Then there's another third who love Donald Trump but are willing to consider other options, and then there is the Trump base, right?

It's one of the options that they're willing to consider. An Indian woman who?

Right, who they think is a neocon, even though she hasn't served in D.C. but served at the U.N. You can actually see this now....

For Donald Trump.

Right, I mean, you can actually see this now. With Vivek, right, who attacked her at the debate, and then after the debate started doing the whole. She made a bunch of money on the board at Boeing. They're going to now do to Haley Vivek, Trump, the Maggot world what they did to DESantis.

If only, if only.

Tim Isn't there some weakness in the fact that Donald Trump, despite his popularity among Republicans, never can seem to get that much higher than 50? Exactly, that's sort of where his ceiling. Does that tell you anything?

No.

Why not?

I mean, it's still pretty good and he's winning by 42, that's kind of a lot, I don't know.

Isn't some share of the people that are in that 50 people that would be open, tolerant alternative?

Well, sure, yeah, but they like him, so it's not as if his popularity rating this is the thing.

It's like 80 or 85%.

Yeah, right, so they like him, so there's a percentage of people that are like, I like him. I like the cut of his jib, I like the whole whale shtick that he does.

But doesn't that tell you that there's the people that like him, that aren't for him, that the people that love him, that would bleed and die for him? And have? And then there's a chunk of people....

They are currently hostages right now.

There's a chunk of people that are worried about hostages, as you call them. But there is a chunk of his support that are people who, like him, want to be president, but might have electability concerns, might have chaos concerns. Is that wrong? Am I wrong about that?

I think they had those concerns at one point, but at this point they're consolidating around him and you just have to look at the numbers.

Can I have a rebuttal? Yeah, sure, okay. First, do you know who's more popular among Republican voters than Donald Trump?

No one.

Ron DESantis Higher favorability rating in Iowa and New Hampshire Yes.

Point number one So why aren't they choosing him then?

Can you please stop interrupting?

Yes, Vivek.

It's over there.

Two, no one has made an argument against Trump.

Your hair needs to be way higher.

There has not been negative ads run against Trump, not in 2016, not in 2020..

So let's at least test the negative ads backfire. These people are in a cult.

I'm going to get control, I will turn off your microphone, Dan is speaking.

First of all, this debate should have been moderated by Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. The last time I checked, we live in America and you don't cut Dan off.

What are you applauding?

Shame on all of you for doing this in New Orleans.

Look, eventually-.

Do you even believe this?

Eventually, you all are going to vote. I'm going to say, you have two choices you can vote for Donald Trump or-.

Don't manipulate the audience.

The American ideal of possibility.

Donald Trump is spending a lot of his time not in Iowa, but in a courtroom. Can you make an argument that, given your belief that nothing is over until election day? Do you think that there's a possibility that these indictments start to have an impact and start to shift people towards an alternative? Shut up, Tim, shut the fuck up.

All I see is possibility. And when you look at. Because we live in America, and the Iowa electorate is a very intensely conservative Christian evangelical community, the very popular governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, just endorsed Ron DeSantis. So, yeah, there's a lot of room to run.

Did anyone see that news?

I didn't see that news.

By the way, Tim is laughing at you like, he's salt of the earth. He's not a gay libertarian from Oakland, but he gets what Iowa's all about Shut up, Tim.

Look.

Unfortunately, we're just about out of time before we go, let's see, let's see, everybody feel good about their arguments. Any final?

I just want to say that if Donald Trump did die, I don't think it would be. Please. I'm just saying, if that happened. I don't think it would be out of the question that the Republican Party would still nominate the corpse of Donald Trump.

Wow.

And I think the voters would go to the polls-.

I think we would call that a win-win. My friend, hold on, hold on.

No, no, no. If Don died, Junior Junior would clearly be the favorite if he died, clearly.

Yeah.

Well, on that note, where we've landed at this debate, is Donald Trump more powerful than death itself? Surprising to us as our final point, obviously, but Donald Trump moving sands up through the hourglass.

This is why Donald Trump won in 2016.

Because, as Tim has clocked, this debate has been won by Dan and Tommy.

Wow, wasn't even close.

I'm sorry I've hired Sidney Powell. We are going to challenge this.

Two things that aren't dead Donald Trump, and persuasion. We'll be right back.

Oh my gosh.

Please welcome to the stage your representative, Manny Landry.

They literally just saw my face all over uptown for six months.

Whatever it was, it worked. You are a progressive in a very Republican state. what is that like, and what keeps you going fighting for progressive values in this world?

So, first of all, I have a unicorn district, that's what I call it. They are fully supportive, we have the same views. And part of that reason is when I ran in 2019, I said, I'm going to run as myself.

Tommy asked Devante about this, but I'm going to ask you as well. 2023 was a great election year for Democrats all across the country. We reelected the governor of Kentucky, abortion rights became part of the constitution in Ohio, expanded the legislatures in Virginia and New Jersey.

So I think there are.

Abortion was the issue that drove democratic success in 2022, drove democratic success in 2023.

So what you're describing is the larger argument in the State Democratic Party. That for a while now they've said we need to go for the moderate or the conservative whites. And then some of the rest of us in cities were like, No, your progressives are energized, they want to do stuff, those conservative white voters are gone, they're Trump voters.

And what role did the outgoing Democratic governor's position on abortion have? Do you think that dampened enthusiasm among Democrats?

He endorsed against me in this election, which pissed off everyone in this room. Okay, we're going to get to that. It was very frustrating because both times he ran against horrible Republicans and it was very, very frustrating to go all out. I mean, I volunteered for him.

And do you think that dampened enthusiasm among Democratic voters?

I think it just made people more deflated. Oh, this is happening and he can't even throw us a bone by saying it's too far. And we knew it was happening. I still refuse to believe it until the day it happened, but it was a large part of the last session.

And as you mentioned, the Democratic governor endorsed your opponent. you have left the Democratic Party become an independent. Come back, what is that? A couple questions on that one, do you think? Perhaps it was? In an election where most Democrats did not get 30 of the vote, it was a good use of the Democratic governor's time to endorse your opponent.

I mean, those two questions are together almost the same question. It was him, it was the congressman, it was the former senator. And they had this little girl who was in the clique and wanted to join and all this money.

And talk a little bit about the decision to become an independent and then come back. What brought you back?

My friends in House Democratic Leadership, they said, we want you to come back, we're going to help you, and it's going to be extremely hard if you don't come back. And with House Democratic Leadership, it was before session and they said, you do a lot.

Will you tell that story here?

I've said it many times publicly, she's incompetent.

Is there an effort to try to retake the party apparatus? We've seen this happen in other states around the country where there's been sort of this atrophied establishment, ineffective party apparatus being taken over by the sort of younger activists that happen. Barack Obama was elected. A lot of people who work for Bernie Sanders did in other states. What's happening here?

Yes, it has started and we have a lot of faith in it. And after what happened to Sean? And then a lot of your liberals and progressives around the state were watching my race because there were hardly any races around the state. And got mad about it and started saying, What can we do, what can we do? So, our Democratic State Central Committee, which is the I call it the legislature of the state committee of the state party. Those elections are up when our presidential primary is in March, I think.

You know, as Devante said in his conversation with Tommy, like, this is, we've hit rock bottom here, right? Like, that's what this election was. Talk a little bit about the path back, right? You say it's a decade, right?

Basically, what Republicans did for decades is go into some of these areas. Drop $10,000 on a school board race, $40,000 on parish president. In the middle of nowhere, there's towns, little towns, that the mayor is the mayor of 500 people. We saw Republicans build their bench for decades, and then those people became congressmen and governors, and they went to the Senate. We can do that.