The Biden-Trump Rematch Begins

Pfeiffer.

Gang's all here. Here we are.

Well, Dan's on Zoom.

Sort of.

Sort of.

Tough.

On today's show, Nikki Haley concedes to Trump but doesn't endorse. Dean Phillips concedes

to Joe Biden and does endorse. Adam Schiff is headed to the Senate. North Carolina Republicans

nominate a Holocaust denier for governor. And Joe Biden prepares for his biggest speech

of the year. But first, Super Tuesday told us what's been obvious for a very long time.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are headed for a November rematch that

no one asked for.

It's happening, guys.

It's happening.

We started a podcast eight years ago talking about Donald Trump. Eight years later, here

we are.

You know, still running for president.

I think we've slowed him down.

I think we've slowed him down, though.

I think there's not as much air in those tires.

All right. So on Super Tuesday, Biden won every contest but the caucuses in American

Samoa. Talk about that soon. And has won every state and every delegate but 10. He's now

just a few hundred delegates away from officially clinching the nomination. Trump won every

Super Tuesday contest but Vermont and is also just a few hundred delegates away from

clinching, which he will because he's now the only Republican candidate left in the

race. Nikki Haley suspended her campaign this morning but declined to endorse Trump in

her concession speech. Let's listen.

I am filled with the gratitude for the outpouring of support we've received from all

across our great country.

But the time has now come to suspend my campaign.

I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard.

I have done that.

I have no regrets.

In all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee when our party convention

meets in July.

I congratulate him and wish him well.

I wish anyone well who would be America's president.

I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee.

But on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good

advice when she said, quote, Never just follow the crowd.

Always make up your own mind.

It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did

not support him. And I hope he does that.

This is now his time for choosing.

So do we do we consider the boats burned?

Is that the non endorsement we were hoping for?

What do we think? Love it.

Here. If you say it is now to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and

beyond it who did not support him.

And I hope he does that.

If you're saying, I hope Donald Trump earns everyone's vote.

What exactly is she hoping for?

Because it sounds like she's hoping that he wins the president.

Hoping that I guess he has a personality transplant to them.

Yeah. He suddenly changes his his ways to build that big tent.

Yeah. Finally going to change.

Yeah. Seventy seven years old.

She hopes she turns over a new leaf.

The thing that I feel like just I've seen a bunch of people talking about this speech and, you

know, has she burned the ships or not?

Will she endorse it? Will she won't?

It is truly amazing that she has been running against Donald Trump for a year, running hard

for three months. We have absolutely no idea what she thinks.

We don't know what she thinks. We don't know what she actually thinks.

Sort of been the case for her entire political career.

Dan, it's I don't I'm not going to make a prediction whether she's going to endorse or not

endorse. Coward.

Oh, on the eight year anniversary, we're going to bring predictions back into the podcast.

Exactly. Hillary's going to win.

She's leaving herself the option to do it.

But he's obviously not going to earn the votes of anyone.

I think in his statement, his truth about this, he called her bird brain and said she did

really poorly and then asked her supporters to vote for him.

So I'm not sure it's a low bar she's setting.

Yeah, like I thought it was better than an endorsement.

Sure. But not as good as a non endorsement where she took a few more shots at Trump.

That's what I would say. Tommy, what did you think?

Yeah, listen, first of all, Maggie Thatcher, shout out right here.

Good for her. You know, look to me, she's a world of through and through at her core.

She knows really how to appeal to the core.

She knows the Republican Party.

Yeah, it sounded to me like she was setting up a process for her to come back to the fold

and endorse. She wants to make it bigger.

About her supporters and not herself, because she, of course, not about her.

It's about the country, John.

So I think she'll probably at some point pretend that Trump has changed or improved.

She will. Joe Biden will do something that a bunch of establishment Republicans will

arbitrarily decide is unforgivable.

And they'll all give more people health care.

So almost certainly people calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, the thing that says it right

in Trump's camp. It's also telling that, as she was saying, like, I hope Donald Trump

does whatever he can to earn the votes of my supporters.

He was putting out the statement he wanted to put out, dinging her, that he wrote before

she spoke, but didn't get it out in time so that he could get a statement out saying, I

hope she never fucking quits.

I hate this woman. And then the campaign puts it out and just puts a little note that

says, just so you guys know, it was from before she started speaking.

That's when he wrote it. But we didn't get it out in time, but we wanted to put it out

anyway. I'm looking forward to the unity event in Unity, New Hampshire, her convention

speech. Or maybe she'll do the Ted Cruz vote your conscience at the convention.

And then go ahead and vote for her. Who knows? Dan, can you talk about your message box

takeaway from last night that Haley's candidacy helps Biden in the general?

Yeah, I think when you look back on this, Nikki Haley never had a shot to beat Donald

Trump. But what happened is the Koch brothers spent almost one hundred million dollars to

fund a sophisticated, persuadable voter I.D. program for Joe Biden, right?

All across Koch brothers, that's like we all of them.

We always say here, there's only one left.

There's one that the Koch brother and the Koch Koch organization, the Koch Kochs.

Well, I do think the dead one is happy.

And I was happy to be part of it.

I mean, yeah, I can thank him.

It's still his money. That's the one who bought all the fake wine.

It's a great documentary. Anyway, continue.

Sorry.

What I mean, basically, when you look at this, there's been this little pushback over the

last few days or so about this idea that Haley voters are potential or a demonstration of

weakness for Trump, because in the New York Times Siena poll, a near majority of her

supporters voted for Biden in 2020.

And so it's like so people are like, so see, Trump is never going to get those voters

anyway if they're telling exit pollsters they're not going to vote for Trump because they

never were. That's because a bunch of Democrats came into the primary.

I think that's idiocy for two reasons.

One, it's only half of her voters, but also the people that Biden needs are the people

who voted for Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020 and now don't know what they're going to do.

These exact kind of Republican leading independents who vote in Republican primaries.

It's just a pure numbers game.

Right. Take Michigan. Right.

There were 300,000, almost 300,000 people who voted for Nikki Haley in that primary.

And so let's say just let's just pretend that half of them were always going to vote for

Biden. They were just they just wanted to play in an open primary because they wanted to

just pull one over on Trump.

But then you still have 150,000 voters, some portion of whom are open to Biden.

And in the exit polling we've seen upwards of 60 percent to three quarters of Nikki Haley

voters who say they will not commit to voting for the nominee.

So that is 150,000 voters in Michigan that Joe Biden can target.

And you know what Joe Biden won Michigan by in 2020?

150,000 votes.

So it's just these are voters that the Biden folks can go get in his camp.

They can track them down.

They now have eight months to persuade them.

And Donald Trump is helping them by saying things like non-MAGA people are not welcome

in this party. So I just think.

This is she is given a little bit of a road map and I need a whole bunch of voters that

the Biden votes can go get.

And I think that's been very helpful to him, even though I'm sure that was not her

intent. Dan, can I do a question about this?

Because I was thinking about this when I was reading your message box, as I do every

morning, as like almost like a prayer ritual.

So you see, like in the exit polls, you see this sort of weakness that there are a ton

of Haley voters, including Republican Haley voters, that just say they won't vote for

Trump or their open divide and just shows like a real weakness that Donald Trump has.

And then you look at like the polls that just came in.

And if you if you were wondering who has done a better job of consolidating their own

party, it's actually Trump. Right.

Like Biden's in the 80s and Trump has in the 90s among Republicans.

Is that like is that just the difference between these two electorates?

Is that the difference between people that like how do you explain that difference?

Yeah. How do you how do you square in The New York Times poll like 48 percent of Haley

voters saying they were Biden 2020 voters, but then Trump winning 96 percent of his

2020 vote, which is the high one.

Right. Like 90, 90, 94 or 96.

I think I'm talking to your time.

Yeah. So of so it's 48 percent of Haley supporters say they voted for Biden.

Thirty one percent who say they voted for Trump and the rest are people who either

declined to answer or most likely did not vote in 2020.

So when you're dealing with a margin of error, that math actually works out OK, that

you have a couple percent of Trump's voters who have voted for Haley in the primary or

who may be unwilling to vote for him in the general.

And so those are the people you'll get.

We're talking everything's happening on the margins here.

Right. Trump has obviously done a better job of consolidating his overall base.

Biden has done a better job of consolidating primary voters than Trump has.

And you see that in the poll where they ask people if you voted in the New York Times

or you voted in a primary in a midterm, then Biden actually was was up by one point

among that group of people.

It's when you the further you get out among Trump voters, the better he does.

But the hardest core people are some or most the most regular Republicans are ones he's

struggling with and those people that Joe Biden can go get.

Look, in an election like this, you're trying to go get if you could find 15000 votes in

Michigan, the people who voted for Haley, who either didn't vote in 2020 or voted for

Trump in 2020, that that could be enough to win this race.

Right. Like so that's why I think it helps.

Yeah, I think it we we don't know how many Haley voters supported Biden in 2020.

We just like no polling.

But one thing that keeps coming up and that has for like a year, a couple of years now

is there is about 30 percent of Republicans who say they don't like Donald Trump, believe

that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, tell pollsters that he shouldn't be president if

he's convicted. So there's like there's like 30 percent of Republicans out there who

are at least potentially persuadable.

Right. I think that's what we've learned from both Haley's candidacy and everything that

people have told pollsters for the last several years now.

Right. And right now, if you look at the other polls about the general, two thirds of

those voters are saying they're coming home.

But a big chunk of those people are gettable.

One thing before we move on from Haley, I just I have to point out that in that fun

little period between results coming in and her dropping out where there's a bunch of

reporting, her spokeswoman sent a statement to Politico saying that Haley was watching

the results with staff and quote, the mood is jubilant.

And I just love that because rarely do you see bullshit printed quite that directly

because, you know, clearly it was not jubilant when you're only winning Vermont.

Tommy, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

They could have been jubilant that the campaign's over and they don't have to work hard

anymore. That's a very good.

Also, I take it back.

They were expecting to win zero contests and they won one.

So I'm sure they're excited.

We gave a little short shrift to Vermont, Vermont, Vermont, Victoria, Vermont.

All right. So the overwhelming majority of Republican voters got their preferred

candidate for president, a criminal defendant facing 91 felony charges that include

trying to overturn an election he lost in last night's victory speech.

Trump dispensed his trademark optimism from the scene of one of his crimes at Mar-a-Lago.

We're going to stop and we're going to close our borders.

We're going to have to deport a lot of people, a lot of bad people, because our countries

can't live like this. Our cities, our cities are choking to death.

Our states are dying.

And frankly, our country is dying.

And we're going to make America great again, greater than ever before.

Thank you very much.

Been a big night. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

How's that for a general election message?

Our country is dying.

Low energy. And I'd say I was I just found it so distasteful that CNN took the whole

speech.

That's like the American carnage message.

It's very dark.

Very dark.

Very dark. And the low energy plus the dark.

The darkness of the message was interesting to me, because at his rallies, he's like

having a good time.

He's a comedian. He's saying crazy shit.

It was he was very subdued last night.

Yeah. Not not the I'm sure the Iowa guy.

Well, I'm sure it was like, hey, Iowa, you were gracious.

New Hampshire, you were an asshole.

Just try to be on message here.

So he tried to be on message, which he's always he's always looking bored when he's on

message. Yeah, true.

Did the primary results and exit polls from last night tell you guys anything else about

Trump's strengths or weaknesses heading into the general?

Dan, you had anything? Yeah, I think it's this.

There's been a consistent story from Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan,

which is there's a group of voters.

Most of the men have voted for Haley that he struggles with.

It's college educated Republicans.

It's people in the suburbs.

It's people who don't believe in the big lie, which is a problem for Trump nationally

because the majority of voters don't believe the big lie.

He's losing those voters by 60 points in some cases.

And so there is this group of people.

It's a 30 percent you identified that that that has persisted through this.

And even there are some who are voting from the primary here indicating some reservations

about it, particularly convicted for a crime.

So it's just it is a story of a dominant performance among the MAGA base and some real

weakness against non MAGA voters.

And we're not a MAGA majority country, so that's not great for him.

Yeah, we also just saw that there's a super PAC that was a pro Haley super PAC that has

rebranded as Haley voters for Biden.

So they spent some money.

So it seems like also making Trump's point.

So give give him give him give him one point there.

I do one couple of strengths that Donald Trump has going into the general.

The entire Republican establishment is behind him, including we just found out this

morning that Mitch McConnell has embarrassing, has just decided to back him.

Donald Trump is a challenger in an environment where last time an incumbent president won

reelection was 12 years ago because the country has been you know, voters have been

pretty upset. And so that's that's what Joe Biden's dealing with.

But again, weaknesses, suburbs, moderates, Haley voters.

And I think it's good to you know, Donald Trump starts 40,000 voters in the hole.

That's what he lost by in 2020.

So he can't afford to lose a bunch of voters, even a couple Republican voters here and

there. Yeah. I mean, but to your point about the sort of anti incumbent sentiment, I did

notice that 55 percent of California primary voters rated the economy negatively,

including 66 percent of independents.

So that's a big headwind for Joe Biden.

There are, you know, 66 percent of California independents disapprove of Biden's handling

of the job. Trump is beating Biden by eight points when it comes to job approval with

California independents. Again, that's just like one snapshot based on the California

exit polls. But it shows the challenges of being an incumbent right now.

Yeah. And other weaknesses for Trump, I think they all the felony charges should be

witnesses. He's just he's he is unpopular still.

He's like he's he's he's a little more popular than he has been, but he's still a pretty

unpopular guy. And of course, his lack of discipline and penchant for saying crazy

shit. I think that's that's a weakness as well.

So before we get to Biden in the general election strategy, let's run through some of

the other notable results from Tuesday night.

Adam Schiff is most likely headed to the U.S.

Senate. He finished first in California's top two primary and will face Republican Steve

Garvey in November, though it shouldn't be much of a race because of California's voter

registration. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee came in third and fourth with much less of

the vote than the polls had suggested.

Any thoughts on how Schiff was able to dominate this primary money?

He had like 40 million dollars in a state that's just absurdly expensive to run in to

begin with. And they had so much money, the Schiff team, that they could spend like

between 11 and 15 million dollars boosting Steve Garvey, the Republican who he will now

run against, including running ads on Fox News.

But then he also could run pro Schiff ads.

He could run anti Katie Porter ads.

And Schiff ended up doing more campaigning for Garvey than Garvey did for himself.

I think he spent like one point five million dollars.

He barely did events.

Schiff also had a bunch of institutional support, like Pelosi loves Adam Schiff.

She helped him raise money.

She elevated his profile in the House.

Republicans gave Schiff an in-kind contribution when they censured him, which made him,

you know, a star on MSNBC.

And, you know, I think Porter and Barbara Lee split the progressive vote.

But as you said, even combining their vote totals would not have gotten them where they

needed to be to make the runoff.

So, yeah, I do think also like being a chief Trump antagonist in a state as big as

California, where it takes millions and millions and millions of dollars just to get

people to know who you are, was a pretty tough, pretty tough uphill climb for anyone who

wasn't Schiff and a chief Trump antagonist in a time where the most powerful

motivating force for Democrats has been Donald Trump.

Right. That is what has gotten Democrats to the polls from 18 on every single election.

And when you are the guy that just takes it to Trump all the time and is seen as taking it

to Trump, then that's going to benefit you.

In other down-ballot news, the Senate map is just about set.

Colin Allred will face Ted Cruz in Texas, and it'll be Ruben Gallego versus Carrie

Lakin, Arizona, because Kyrsten Sinema has announced her retirement.

We'll get there. We'll get there.

In the North Carolina governor's race, Democrat Josh Stein will face Republican Mark

Robinson. You haven't heard of him before.

He's he's the lieutenant governor right now.

He's a Hitler-quoting Holocaust denier who is called being gay, a filthy abomination

that marks the end of civilization and said that school shootings are karma for abortion.

Trump has called Robinson Martin Luther King Jr.

on steroids.

Sounds like a nice guy.

What should we do? A little greatest hits of Mark Robinson oppo.

You got some others? Yeah.

So I want to flag that first one, the Martin Luther King comparison, because Robinson likes

to attack Martin Luther King Jr.

and the civil rights movement.

So he's actually criticizing him there.

Trump. Robinson voiced support for passing, quote, a bill saying you can't have an

abortion in North Carolina for any reason called abortion, murder and genocide.

He refused to commit to protecting IVF.

He called public school teachers, quote, wicked people.

You mentioned the Holocaust, calling it hogwash.

You got really mad on Facebook about the movie Black Panther.

Yeah, I was very upset about Black Panther.

And said the character was, quote, created by an agnostic Jew and put to film by

satanic Marxists and only created to pull the shekels out of your schwarz pockets.

Yeah. Do that right. Yeah.

That's a well, it's an epithet for black people.

So, yeah, it's, you know, Black Panther is a conspiracy by Jews to trick black people

into, I guess, having a good time.

The hogwash quote, the first part of that, because I saw the whole Facebook post.

It's from March of twenty eighteen.

Man spent a lot of time on Facebook in twenty eighteen.

A lot of time. Wow.

It's, quote, this foolishness about Hitler disarming millions of Jews and then marching

them off to concentration camps is a bunch of hogwash.

He also that's the post.

He also referred to the post, just in case you think libs are just exaggerating.

Yeah, no. In context, these are all worse.

He also referred to the students at Marjory Stone Douglas as spoiled, angry, know-it-all

children, silly little immature media prostitutes.

That's a child prostitute.

And this one, it's, listen, it's been a very serious and terrible situation.

But after the Boko Haram kidnappings in twenty, twenty fourteen, he posted on Facebook.

It's not funny. George Soros stole them girls.

I can't. I'm sorry. Jesus Christ.

The folks at the DGA wanted us to remind you to text NC to 30201 to help Democratic

governors win North Carolina.

Yeah, that's important. That's important because here's where we stop laughing.

Race is tied. Josh Stein is real bad.

Josh Stein is the Democratic attorney general in North Carolina.

Dan, what do you think about this race?

I fucking hope Josh Stein can win because if not, we're in real trouble.

Quite a set up for that. What do you think?

What do you think? So get him those shekels.

I mean, it is a it's a situation in North Carolina where Mark Robinson does have, even

though he's a fucking loony kook, he has a lot of name ID because he is lieutenant

governor. Yeah, this guy's already the lieutenant governor of North Carolina.

He's not just walking in off of Facebook.

Now, Josh Stein has run statewide also.

So he is, you know, he's a statewide figure as well as attorney general.

But who is it cool to be a kook in North Carolina?

Wasn't the Outer Banks, the kooks in the who are you thinking of the TV, the TV show,

the Outer Banks? The Pogues were cool.

My bad. Sorry.

Yeah, I watch TV.

Someone get a compilation of Tommy's dad jokes for for for New Year's.

So for the New Year's resolution, it's topical, timely.

It's a pandemic era Netflix show.

Yes, it's timely.

It's very timely. How dare you?

I always love go for it.

Anyway, anyway, got to help Josh Stein, everyone.

Yes. Come on. This is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Everyone thoughts on Allred versus Cruz.

I think it's tough for Allred in a presidential electorate environment.

But, you know, poll so far, limited polling, but polls so far show him somewhat close to

Cruz. Yeah, look, Ted Cruz absolutely sucks.

People hate his guts.

He motivates Democrats in a way that very few other down ballot races will.

Colin Allred is a really good guy.

He's a super interesting bio, played in the NFL.

He's from Texas, played college football there, too.

He's really smart and thoughtful and a compelling speaker and was great on this show in

particular. So I don't know.

He's someone we'd love to have in the Senate.

Excited about it. At some point.

And if you're great on this show, that's that's all it takes.

Sky's the limit for you.

Rocketship. Yeah. You can't get to the Senate or the White House, but it's a lot of other

cool places you can get to.

The like the show, like the show.

Yeah, I don't know. You know, look, Texas, Texas has been like Lucy with the football.

I know. But you know what?

So it's this America.

This is it's the year and it's and this is America.

And it's a new day. It's a new mate.

And I look at Beto couldn't do it.

We're better walk.

Colin can run. Then do you have some insight?

Yeah. Yes.

So I don't know if it's insight.

I think Colin Allred is basically a perfect candidate for Texas, is a black, moderate

football player. He has he's a great demeanor.

He is he is someone who reaches out to people across the ideological spectrum.

He can sort of alive some of the typical caricatures of Democrats.

Is it a very hard race in Texas generally?

Yes. Is it even harder in a presidential year with Donald Trump?

The ballot? Absolutely.

Is there does he have a shot?

Sure. It's a long shot, but he's a shot.

But there's also real value in supporting and funding his candidacy because we need the

map is shifting in ways that are not great for Democrats.

Texas is something we need to get into our column before long.

And every time we run a competitive, well-funded, well-organized race, we get ourselves a

little bit closer to Charlie actually kicking that football.

And so I think it I think people if people have money and they're looking for Senate

candidate support, you may it is not the race will likely deliver us the Senate.

But in the long building, long term, sustainable, progressive power, investing in

Colorado, it's probably a good idea.

Hey, who better to kick that football than a 6'1", 237 pound outside linebacker who ran

a 4'7", 5'40".

Wow. Yeah.

And played a Baylor.

Do you have his combine stats in front of you?

I just I googled it.

I did. He has it saved on his on his desktop.

I have him tattooed on my internet.

All right. Another state that's been shifting to Democrats, Arizona.

Kyrsten Sinema is out.

Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.

I make dad jokes.

People think that's not a dad joke.

That's just a great old saying.

That is a dad joke.

That is a dad joke. So she's out.

She hadn't been raising a lot of money.

So people kind of suspected she was out.

Seems like she's retiring for good.

Doesn't quite seem like she's ready to jump on the no labels ticket.

I haven't heard that.

She'll spend more time with her hedge fund, I think.

Yeah, I think she's going to go do her marathons.

She likes her marathons.

Yeah. Learn more about wine.

Learn more about wine.

So last two head to head polls in Arizona have Gallego up seven and ten on Kerry

Lake. Only two polls, you know, not super high quality polls, but not bad.

Not bad. What do you guys think?

He's another really good candidate, I think.

I mean, he's a former Marine.

He talks like a normal human being.

He's super thoughtful.

He can connect with like your average voter.

He's a combat veteran.

I mean, I think the fact this is now a one on one race is really important.

I think what he needs is money because because Kyrsten Sinema has been kind of

like parked in this will she won't she region, the DSCC and all the other party

organizations haven't been able to go all in on Arizona.

So they've been having to cobble together their own grassroots donor base.

So they're a little behind just on raising, but at least they they have this

fundraising base of their own.

And now they need the DSCC to come in and help them out.

Yeah. I mean, look, Arizona has you know, this is a closely divided state, but it's

also a state that has rejected these fucking kooks.

And Kerry Lake, if they ran a she's the queen of the kooks, she's the queen of the

kooks. And if they had run a more normal old school type of Republican who didn't

believe in the election lie and wasn't just, you know, harassing Ruben Gallego at

the airport, maybe they'd have maybe this would be maybe they'd have a better shot.

Yeah. And much like Trump, she was telling McCain voters to fuck off.

So I bet I suspect you'll see Gallego try to reach out to a lot of those moderate

and independent voters who, like, make up a big portion of the electorate in

Arizona. I noticed that he's he's you could you could sort of tell that he's been

moderating a little bit over in the in the last several months.

But look, replacing Sinema with Gallego and keeping the Senate means that we would

have the votes to get rid of the filibuster, at least for reinstating Roe v.

Wade and passing the Voting Rights Act.

It is huge if we hold the house in the presidency, too.

But like we've we talk a lot about all the bad things that we can prevent from

happening if if Joe Biden wins again and Donald Trump doesn't.

But this is a good thing, a really good thing.