Trump Goes Birther on Haley

I guess they'll be back. It's a great question.

On today's show, Ron DESantis says he's staying in the race, but his campaign doesn't seem so sure. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris kicked their reelect into high gear. Donald Trump orders MAGA Mike Johnson not to cut a deal on border security. And later, we'll be joined by New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers for a preview of Tuesday's primary. First, let's talk about the state of the race in New Hampshire, where Nikki Haley is looking to score a major upset against Republican front runner Donald Trump. A man who's been judged a rapist by a jury of his peers and is still facing 91 felony counts for committing fraud, stealing classified secrets and trying to overturn the last election so he could remain in power.

Charges he's fighting with the legal defense that presidents are allowed to commit as many crimes as they'd like, even if they quote cross the line. According to The Five, this is the guy who's in the lead. Nikki Haley is just trying to score a major upset against this guy, the adjudicated rapist, ninety one felony counts he's facing.

According to the 538 polling average, Trump is at 47 percent in New Hampshire. But with Nikki Haley just 13 points behind, nipping at his heels with 34 percent, it's no more Mr. Nice guy. In Portsmouth on Wednesday, Trump let loose a few bird brains, his favorite name for Nikki Haley.

He called attention to her Indian first name. Nimrata, photoshopped a picture of her face on Hillary Clinton's body and delivered another gracious, disciplined speech. Like the one we saw in Iowa on Monday night.

You know, she wants open borders, non liquid gold, you know where it was, Iowa? It's called corn, they have.

It's non liquid, that's my day, you have more non liquid gold. That's a nickname in its own way.

But we came up with a new word for, a new couple of words for corn. I said, Well, is that our test? It can be hard. I said, Look, I got to take it because I got to shut it up and I took it and I aced it.

And let me tell you, you know, they always show you the first one, like a giraffe, a tiger, this or that. well, which one is the whale? Okay, and that goes on for three or four, and then it gets harder.

Personally, that is just anyway, that's the guy, that's the guy that, you know, half the country says they want at the helm, you know, that's that. Those are the. That's the kind of mental acumen that allows him to just make sure that the economy is humming on all cylinders. That's what we love about him.

So Dan Color me skeptical that Nikki Haley is going to be able to pull off an upset. Now that Trump's going all in on the attack, that she's a hillary, loving, globalist establishment rhino shill with a funny name who wink wink might not have even been born here. But what do you think?

I share your skepticism. I'm not entirely sure that Nikki Haley is trying to win at this point. I am mystified by what she is doing. She's doing one event or so a day in New Hampshire, she's really not taking questions.

She's not barnstorming, she has five days left in her presidential campaign if she does not win New Hampshire. And she's not doing any of the things that someone in that position would do, she's not really fighting back, she's not laying out the stakes.

She's not, I mean, you would, this would be the time in a campaign where you would campaign around the clock. Maybe you would sleep for four hours a night, you'd be up, you'd be at diners in the morning, then you would go here, you'd be on a bus tour, you'd all these things.

She's doing like one event a day. It is the most bizarre thing I have ever seen, did you?

I guess she was back on the trail Wednesday. She's been going everywhere with Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire. She did have this to say about Trump's latest attack on Nikki Haley Just, you know, a vote for Nikki Haley's vote for Democrats. Listen, Trump says things Americans aren't stupid.

Yeah, I was going to say.

I'm not sure what she's trying to do here.

But also, I don't know if I should hit Trump, I don't know what my message is. I want to piss off the right, I don't want to piss off the moderate, so maybe I'll just crouch down in my position.

Don't do one. I mean, there is just the electability message that she is offering now. Maybe could have worked if she was building a case for it over time, but she has not done that, she has not leaned into. And even then, she does not say the thing you have to say if you want to deliver an electability message, which is, if you nominate Donald Trump, he will lose the Joe Biden.

That's the thing you have to say. But she won't say that because that will anger. I don't know if she cares if it angers Trump personally, but it'll anger some people in the party. She thinks Donald Trump's probably going to beat her, she doesn't want that hanging over her. And here's the problem with waiting on the selectability message for you.

And I have been talking about Republicans offering electability message on Trump for a year. Maybe we. It's possible we were always wrong, and Republicans made it. Including Nikki Haley made it worse for themselves by never really being able to admit that. Donald, that Joe Biden legitimately won the election. But right now, she's doing this message.

She decided this is what she's going to use. In the YouGov poll that came out this week, they asked people, Regardless of who you support, who do you think will win the election? 84 of Republicans think Donald Trump's going to win the election. They are not afraid he's going to lose. And so you need a different message.

I I think that she may. What do you think that message would be?

You need the change message that she was offering in her concession slash, victory, slash. I got third place, but it wasn't a terrible third place. Speech in Iowa was the message that could have been at the foundation of a more successful campaign than the one she's running. But she didn't really do that.

And I do think there was one massive strategic blunder she made, and that was she should never have gone to Iowa. All the chips are in New Hampshire. She wins New Hampshire, she has a shot. The world can debate if it's a two percent shot or a twenty percent shot. But she stays alive to fight another day. So instead of staying in New Hampshire and competing where she had to win, she went to Iowa. Took time, going to Iowa and tried to possibly beat Ron DeSantis for second.

And even if she had done that, she still would have lost by 30 points, like the idea that that was going to somehow give her momentum. It was a fundamental blunder. When she should have just stayed in New Hampshire and given herself a shot to actually win that. And look, we've only seen a couple polls, maybe she will win New Hampshire. I would be surprised by that outcome.

But she has not maximized her chances by running a good campaign.

I don't think it fucking matters either way.

The challenge for her is that Trump is gaining as well, and that with Vivek out and Desantis fading. Those voters, as we've been saying for a while, they're not going to Haley, they're going to Trump, and so he's gaining. Just like she's gaining, she is winning moderates, winning the undeclared vote, which is a big portion of....

Could be a big portion of the electorate on Tuesday. She's winning liberals, obviously winning college educated voters. It just doesn't seem like in the polls that she's winning those groups by enough. Or that there are enough of them to counteract Trump's strength with conservatives, Republicans and non-college voters. And she could expand the electorate, and there are enough undeclared voters in New Hampshire for her to win. But that would require giving people a reason to come out to vote for.

To try to give yourself a baseline that you have to pick. A year in which there was only a Republican primary, but in 2012, I think it was 49 of the electorate was independent. And one of the things that's interesting we look at all these polls is she down seven? Down 20 is what the estimate of the independent share of the electorate is in that poll, the CNN poll. When she was down seven, it was about half.

It was probably like, 44, I think so. There are enough voters there, but you can't get their own independence alone, you have to win a slice of Republicans and then overwhelmingly get the independence. And she's kind of doing neither right now.

It's really a twofer because you run that out on MSNBC. Liberals and moderates don't like that, there's probably a bunch of conservatives that don't like that either. Because in this Republican party, you have the working class voters who get really excited about sort of the cultural, racial issues, and not as much about economics. And actually, probably.

If you do the math based on a national basis, you know it's not that many, but not that many. Also matters. A couple of my aunts.

I don't actually see that happening to you.

I mean, no one's thinking about him, his obituary has been written, he's not in debates, no one's really talking about him. So yeah, I mean, I guess.

It just like, leave the story with him, just basically destroying DESantis in print, it was just it was a wild story. Second thing I'd say about the story is fascinating story, very well written, you know, full of interesting things. And while the details were new, I was surprised by none of it. Which shows what a horrendous campaign that DESantis ran, that we his campaign was leaking all this stuff.

There were. He had obituaries written about his campaign every two months for a year. And so when we got to this, I was not at all surprised by it. I was like, Yeah, I, I. None of that, none of that's shocking. It makes complete sense. Some of those anecdotes we've kind of knew, you know, various versions of. Because his, the only people who hated Ron DeSantis more than the people of Iowa and New Hampshire were his staff, who have been.

He was told by advisors DeSantis was told by his advisors that interactions with voters were crucial and that he needed to seem more relatable to voters. DESantis response quote People don't care about that stuff. He was told by his pollster that the six week ban abortion ban would be, uh, quite bad and not popular. He disagreed, uh. One consultant said the Twitter launch was disaster.

Remember the Twitter launch? remember with Uh, with his ex, launch with Elon Musk and the Uh, and the Besties and the all-in pod? They were, uh, remember that that was fun? Uh, it's going to be the it's gonna be the podcast election, Dan.

It's gonna be so. They think, uh, they told him to stop talking about Florida so much. And then, the consultant said, whoever advised him to go on Christian TV and say he wanted to have dinner with Jesus should be fired. This campaign is like an Irish wake waiting for the body to drop. Yeah, that's the best line. That was just my favorite.

I love that line.

I have heard rumors that he's actually having conversations about whether to, uh, stay in, despite what he's saying. Pause. You've heard rumors. Yeah, are you doing reporting now?

I am doing reporting, yeah, just accidentally, accidentally reporting from text conversations.

I'm sure he's thinking of how to wind this thing down, right? Yeah, I mean, absolutely, I just don't. I think it seems like they don't, they're not gonna have the money.

There was apparently an NBC story. There was a call with donors where they said we think we'll probably be able to raise the money to stay until South Carolina. Not a chance. There's not a not a person you're saying that you think you think you might be able to raise the money to stay in the South Carolina.

You probably can't raise the money to stay in South Carolina. Who's going to give that campaign money right now? That is the.

It has been over for months, it probably never started to be fair.

And everyone has known it, it has been. It's just the only. Even Ron DeSantis seems to have known it because he was. He had such joy at coming in second, and I'm using joy in the most Ron DeSantis version of that. Which is it just seemed to briefly stop hating himself and the.

It was an absolute disaster. Some of you might be wondering, Why are we just?

I think we deserve that, Dan.

To answer the question, Can any Republican beat Trump?

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Before we move on, uh, it looks like the Biden campaign is finally kicking into high gear. They're running their first ads in South Carolina ahead of the primary there on February 3rd, uh, the first primary that counts for Democrats, uh. And the campaign also announced. The President Biden, the First Lady, Vice President Harris and the Second Gentleman will be holding a rally focused on abortion rights in northern Virginia. On Tuesday. The day of the New Hampshire primary and the day after the anniversary of Roe V.

Wade Uh, what's your take on the thinking behind the timing, location and focus of this event? I think it is smart to have a display of political.

And so it's time to start getting images of Biden out there. At the same time to deliver his message and have a contrast message to Trump and the Republicans that goes along there, I'm, I'm assuming the location is because it's in Virginia and close to the White House. And so, uh, but what do you think about all four of them doing it together? It look they, there is nothing harder than getting attention, right? And so they're. They are out there doing everything they possibly can to get this very challenging media environment, this diminished press corps, to turn around and cover them and give it attention.

And so this is one of those tools in the in the toolbox that you can use is get them all together. Is? It makes it seem different than just the normal Joe Biden rally that does not get the attention that a Trump rally does for reasons that are entirely unfair. Uh, and very troubling, but that but are a fact. And so this, like the word we would if they just announced that Joe Biden was going to be speaking on abortion in Virginia on Tuesday. I'm not sure we would spend as much time talking about it as them, saying all four like that. They were sending a signal to us in the press and everyone else that this is a big deal, so pay attention and we will.

You think they're going?

They said presidents can be prosecuted if they've been impeached, which also seems silly. I feel like it's important for voters to know that the guy they may elect, uh, thinks he has the legal right to have them all killed. Or is that just crazy? Or is that? Is that not kitchen table enough for voters?

Yeah, yes, and I my. And so I went back and looked at polling and message testing on it, and there was some message testing that our friends at Navigator did. About Trump's first original indictment. And saying that no one should be above the law, even presidents, is a very, very powerful argument. And so Trump arguing that he should be above the law is, I think, an argument that can and should be made in this campaign.

And maybe Biden will.

I don't know, I throw that one in a poll, I bet it would go, I would, I would test pretty high.

And if you do not agree with them, even if you did work. Look at the way Donald Trump has treated the people who work for him, the people who are his loyalists. It's not even like he loves Republicans and hates Democrats. If you cross Donald Trump at all, he, uh, he's coming for you. And now he thinks he is completely above the law and can do whatever the fuck he wants. Infinite crimes.

That's that's what Donald Trump thinks he deserves. I don't know I would make that case.

He's going to get a huge tax cut, so I'm sure he wants that.

I'm not saying, people, you don't have to go on TRUTH Social. Check out this Twitter account, see what's happening there. If you're a reporter. Report on it. Because voters should know that it is crazier than ever and that is not coming through in the coverage.

Meanwhile, all four congressional leaders met with Biden on Wednesday to see if they could agree on an aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in exchange for stricter border and immigration policies. Woof, win-win all around. Democrats left the meeting saying they were optimistic about a deal. Some of the reporting was a little less positive. And this is what we heard from Speaker Mike Johnson on Laura Ingraham's show.

Yeah, President Trump is not wrong. He and I have been talking about this pretty frequently. I talked to him night before last about the same subject. We don't have the text of whatever the Senate has cooked up yet, and so we have to reserve judgment. I think, to see what.

He's got total and complete immunity. This guy's a dictator, he's going to come into office, he's going to fix the border, he doesn't need Congress.

Probably going to dissolve Congress by the time he gets there. Trump followed up with a I'm sure, you know, I don't know who am I telling? I'm not telling you anything, you don't know you've got the alert.

He followed up with a truth where he did say he admitted that he told Mike Johnson not to not to cut a deal unless it was perfect. We haven't talked about this in a while, but what do you think? The chances are something gets done at this point? And then how do you think Biden and the Democrats should handle the politics around this? I mean, there is always a chance.

Doesn't seem great.

And, you know, someone once said to me that there are two kinds of politics in the Congress, there's micropolitics and macropolitics. And the micropolitics are the politics of how you keep your speakership, how you move up in leadership, how you keep the caucus happy. And then the macropolitics are how you win control of the House. What's going to happen in midterms, election? National political trends, This is both micro and macropolitics.

For Mike Johnson, because the micropolitics are, he's already, he's got a. He just passed the CR, which he said he was not going to do. He stuck with the Senate with the deal he cut with Chuck Schumer, which he said he was not going to do. He has a majority of basically zero right now, he's got no margin for error, only one person can knock him out.

And so he's obviously going to have to. It seems impossible in that scenario, he's going to cut some sort of border deal that does not make the Freedom Caucus happy. Like you can, you can upset the border, the Freedom Caucus on government funding or debt ceiling of the United States. Maybe once or twice, but you're never, you can never upset them. On immigration, that's the one thing that you cannot do, and so that seems unlikely.

From a macro perspective, it seems very clear that what? The Republicans, Republicans would rather have a crisis at the border than solve for the election than solve the problem. And that's definitely what Trump is thinking, right? If Trump was thinking in terms of being a president, then it would be great to get this off his plate. He doesn't have to deal with it right and be. And be confident that he and Fox News could lie enough about the crisis at the border to keep all the politics of it and then have a solution waiting for him.

But he plans on running on a crisis at the border, and he doesn't want to give Biden any chance to cut a deal. That he could then say he did something good for the border. And so, with that in mind, it seems.

And if I were Biden and this thing falls apart in the House, I might go out there and say, Look, I want to fix the border, I think it's a problem. But the speaker and Donald Trump, and the MAGA wing of the party have basically forbid Republicans from working with us to fix the problem. Because they care more about winning the next election, they don't care about fixing the problem. And that's exactly the problem with the Republican Party right now is that there is an extreme faction that doesn't want to solve problems, that just wants to play games.

That is 100 right, get.

That's a moment, right? We had a deal to deal with the problem. And then you, because you cared more about winning this election than helping the American people. You called up the House Republicans and told them not to do the deal. Even though it was a bipartisan deal, with the support of Blah, blah, blah, there's a way to do this. This would be a the best thing for everyone would be to get a deal and get it done. And because you get to help on the border, Ukraine funding, Israel funding the natural disaster, funding, all of those things. But if the House Republicans block it, make them pay for it.

But also, Biden is operating in divided government, right, with a 50 with a Senate with no margin of error and ability. And he's trying to do a whole bunch of things. So the deal is going to not be awesome, but if it's going to be a bipartisan deal, Republicans are going to block it. We should make them pay for doing that.

Though, I'd have to see what the final details are, but so, like, I don't, that's. It just seems very unlikely that this gets done.

Another big win for Washington. Okay, when we come back, Dan talks to New Hampshire Public Radio's Josh Rogers about what the primary is looking like on the ground in the Granite State.

Good to be here. Give us a little picture of what it's like on the ground. The folks who were in Iowa told me that it didn't really feel like a typical Iowa Caucus, it felt more subdued, they saw less activity from the campaigns.

What's it like in New Hampshire? Does this feel like a normal New Hampshire primary or something different? It definitely is more.

I mean, Haley's been trying to marshal support and not doing terribly many events and not taking questions from crowds, not really engaging with the media. In the way that people in New Hampshire say is important, whether or not it still is, you know who's to know, is there anything you?

It's hard. And you know, she's had Governor Sununu by her side. And he'd been for weeks saying, Oh, you know, Trump is done, New Hampshire is going to. We'll take him out. I mean, now he's indicating that a second place would be good here.

So it's, you know, we'll see. I mean, you know, voters can surprise you, but you don't feel a huge amount of momentum. I mean, Haley certainly had been building momentum. You know, I was out talking to voters yesterday, and you know, there are plenty of people who will vote for her. But whether or not she can catch Trump, we'll see.

But again, in order for her to catch Trump, it does seem that she's going to have to mobilize people who are atypical primary voters. And you know, that's tough. I mean, they've got AFP action out, knocking doors. I mean, they believe that the turnout for the Republican primary is going to be record-setting. They ought to hope it is if they want Nikki Haley to keep this tight and maybe even win.

But they're people checking Nikki Haley out, but she gives a very disciplined, almost rote campaign speech at this point. So if you have seen her before and you're not totally on board, you're not going to see much new. And so, you know, I do personally wonder where she may have kind of crested in terms of her popularity some time ago. And the fact that you've had Trump here every other day, you know, really? Going after her at this point probably doesn't help her with the.

And it's just, you know, he's just sort of deflated. He hasn't really connected with voters here, there are some conservatives who like him, but he's not good on the campaign trail. You know, there've been management issues with his campaign and his finances, but you know, the case he's been making.

That I am a Trump-like candidate who has actually delivered is not something that's galvanized the voters he needs.

I mean, he had, you know. Trump has campaigned here a lot in the closing days, but he hasn't been here a heck of a lot. He has these massive rallies. It draws, you know, fans from across New England.

But, you know, it does.

I am told that they are more organized, they have the resources, they've had more time. I mean, whether or not he needs to be organized is another question. I mean, I'm not seeing any indications that it's going to be really about, you know, flipping the switch on, some sort of.

I mean, the, you know, I was out there talking to voters in Rockingham County, which is a place where Republicans, you know, tend to rack up a lot of votes. Yesterday, and, you know, I heard as much sort of dyspepsia about the coming general election that people see between Trump and Biden as much as engagement in this primary. I mean, I did talk to a fellow who said, you know, he was on the fence, whether he was going to vote to Santas or Trump. And, you know, I talked to plenty of people who complained about their mailboxes being clogged with Nikki Haley mailers and some enthusiasm for her as well. But there is a sense and we'll see if it's true that, you know, there's not going to be much suspense in this on Tuesday.

I mean, maybe Haley gets close, I mean, it's not impossible that she wins, I mean, given the electorate. But it seems like a stretch, it feels like a stretch, and you know, she doesn't really seem to be going for it. I mean, you know, this is a New Hampshire primary, where there will not have been a debate in the entire week between Iowa and New Hampshire.

And you know, you don't feel it out there on the streets, whether or not you know you need to feel it on the streets. I don't know. There may be ways to mobilize voters that are happening and will be effective, you know, there should be a decent turnout.

I attended a organizing event with Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, and I will say I was surprised at the number of people who were there. As were, you know, party officials who were there. But, you know, we'll see, like, this is not, New Hampshire is not, you know, it's been a good state for Democrats in general elections. I mean, the last Republican to win here was George W.

Bush the first time. And so it's a state that, you know, Democrats have done pretty well in. But you know, there are some people who are worried that the trickle-down effect of a lack of organization early. You know, that's one of the motivations of the write in Biden people, and you know, they also have this motivation that, you know. If New Hampshire folks prove that they are really dedicated to President Biden and to participation and to doing their civic duty, that, you know. Perhaps the TNC might end up reversing course in the future, which, you know, strikes me as farfetched, but, like, that's what they're telling themselves.

And they're saying, like, you know, New Hampshire, you know, will have a story to tell about what happened here, so we'll see. I mean, a lot of these folks, you know, the New Hampshire primary is kind of a baby boomer thing in some ways. Like you think about the politicians, who, their families. You know the Sununu's, you know Jeanne Shaheen, you know those people in some ways made by their participation in the New Hampshire primary. And for people of that generation, you know, this is a very big deal.

One thing I've been trying to figure out whether people who aren't really intimately involved and may even have a financial stake in the primary being first here. How much they care? And it's unclear to me how many people who aren't really involved in politics.

I mean, just like arguing about the citing polls that suggest that, you know, President Biden could be weak in November. You know, doesn't seem to be moving people. I mean, you know, I don't know what I mean, you know, Dean Phillips personal story? I mean, he seems, I don't know. Like when I first met him, I was like, Oh, he would be a fine board member for New Hampshire Public Radio. I didn't say, Oh, there's a president kind of thing, you know, he's out there trying, but it's, you know.

There's been this. There've been some national stories about an effort among some liberal donors and activists to try to get people to write ceasefire on the ballot in protest of what's happening in Gaza. Have you heard anything about that on the ground in New Hampshire?

He's trying to do this. I haven't done reporting to know how much there is there, but you know, it is an interesting wrinkle. I mean, one thing that our election officials are gearing up for is like how to count the projected number of write-in ballots in a timely fashion. And the Secretary of State has said, Oh, you know, Republican results will be allowed to be announced before Democrat results if the counting goes long. I mean, they believe they can count all these things.

And I don't know whether, you know, the ceasefire thing will complicate that in any way, but, you know, and it's also hard to know what the perception needs to be for what? So what sort of number does Biden need to get? I mean, you know, obviously people like to invoke, you know, LBJ and Eugene McCarthy, but you know, the write-in, Biden people say, Oh, you know, all he needs to do is win. And this is about pointing us towards November as much as it is. You know what happens here? Particularly given that there will be no delegates awarded, per the DNC.

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