>>> Tomorrow a top influential
Democrat will stump in the early
primary state of New Hampshire,
but there's a catch.
It's not Joe Biden.
West Virginia senator Joe
Manchin, the other Joe here in
Washington, who hasn't ruled out
running for the white house next
year, will headline an event
hosted by the organization no
labels.
If you haven't heard what no
labels is, it's a centrist group
that could launch a third-party
presidential ticket, possibly
upending the 2024 election.
That's giving some Democrats a
little heartburn.
>> I don't, you know, think no
labels is a political party.
I mean this is a few individuals
putting dark money behind an
organization, and that's not
what our democracy should be
about.
I'm obviously concerned about
what's going on here in Arizona
and across the country.
>> Let's get some perspective
now on that and more of today's
topical stories.
Joining us, former white house
press secretary during the Clint
administration Joe Lockhart, and
Republican strategist Joe high.
Joe, let me go to you first
since we're talking about joes.
That's only natural.
How do you rate the chances?
Does no labels have no chance or
some chance?
And what do you make of what Joe
Manchin is up to?
>> Well, I mean they have no
chance of a third party winning
the presidency.
They certainly have a chance of
determining who the winner is,
and I think that's what troubles
some Democrats.
I think there are voters -- a
lot of voters in the electorate
who are motivated by voting
against Donald Trump, assuming
Donald Trump is the nominee.
I think what we've done, though,
is what Joe Manchin is up to.
There are traditionally, in many
of these races, people who get
in or talk about getting in to
make a point, to try to move the
party in one direction or the
other because they have an
ideological bent and want to
make sure that they moderate
generally, you know, whether
from the left or from the right.
But what is clear -- and you can
look at 1980 with John Anderson.
You can look at 2000, probably
the most significant, where
Ralph Nader most definitely
caused Al gore to lose the
election and George Bush to win.
These third parties have an
impact, usually a big impact on
who wins the presidency.
>> Right, and maybe Ross Perot
as well back in '92 with your
old boss, Bill Clinton.
Doug, if no labels puts up a
candidate of their own, what do
you think about this?
Does this necessarily hurt the
Democrats?
Might it hurt Donald Trump?
Might there be some Republicans
out there who say, you know
what, I'm not going to vote for
Joe Biden, but I'll vote for Joe
Manchin.
How does it cut, do you think?
>> The most important bloc of
voters out there are those who
voted for Donald Trump in 2016
but after four years of trump,
wanted to go into a different
direction and voted for Joe
Biden.
Those are the voters that could
potentially be peeled away by a
Manchin, by anybody else who
might run in a third party.
It's not a big subset of voters,
but it's very specific.
A few voters here and there in
Arizona, North Carolina, and
Georgia makes a big impact,
especially because third-party
candidates typically struggle to
answer questions on what they
really stand for, what their
reason of existence is.
I certainly remember Andrew yang
talking to you and struggling to
talk about what exactly the
forward party was and what it
meant.
Manchin could have those same
problems.
>> No, that's true.
Let me switch gears, Joe, and
ask you about what former
president Donald Trump had to
say on fox earlier today.
Let's listen to this.
>> You didn't drain the swamp.
>> I did.
I fired Comey.
I fired a lot of people.
A lot of the people I fired.
I fired Comey very early, and,
you know, there was a question
as to whether or not you could.
But I fired Comey.
If I didn't fire Comey, I don't
think I would have been able to
serve out my term.
>> I don't know if you picked up
on the last thing that Donald
Trump there said.
As dishonest as he can be, he
can sometimes be quite candid,
Joe.
He said at the very end of that
clip there that had he not fired
Jim Comey, he might not have
been able to fill out the rest
of his term.
>> Yeah.
Well, I mean, he still believes
or we're about to find if he
ever has to testify that he won
the election.
I mean we can't expect either
honesty or astute political
analysis from Donald Trump.
I don't think he's capable of
either.
On draining the swamp, that's
really a comical statement.
He populated the swamp.
He made the swamp bigger.
He made Washington an entire
swamp.
There's no doubt before he got
there, there were a number of
special interests.
There always wasn't and probably
never will be a level playing
field.
But there was a level of
corruption in the trump
administration that we haven't
seen, oh, since probably almost
100 years ago in American
politics.
>> Doug, this is a headline that
stood out to me.
Ron Desantis' campaign
confirming to CNN it recently
let go some staffers after
numbers indicated he has been
struggling to raise money in
this primary process.
This is starting to have some
echos of Scott walker back in
2016, the young up and coming
Republican governor, who
ultimately couldn't gain
traction.
Does Desantis have time to turn
this around and catch trump?
It's not a good sign when you're
laying off staffers at this
stage.
>> It's certainly not a good
sign, and clearly he's going to
have to make some redoubled
efforts on what he's doing on
the campaign.
The good news for Desantis is he
has opportunities to do so.
Everything that we've talked
about so far in this campaign is
conjecture until the candidates
have a debate.
Donald Trump may or may not be
there.
If you're Ron Desantis or Tim
Scott or Nikki Haley or anyone
else who qualifies, you're going
to have a lot of eyeballs there
for you on several occasions.
This is the time to make your
impact so you can move forward.
If he's unable to do that,
whether trump is there or not,
this is not just a problem that
he's dealing with in July.
It will be an existential one.
>> Joe, let me ask you about
president Biden, his campaign
and the DNC also released some
new fund-raising numbers this
week.
They've raised a combined
$72 million since April
apparently.
Do you think that's going to
quiet some of the president's
critics within his own party?
There was also a "New York
Times" piece that said that
perhaps the president is lacking
in some of those small dollar
donations, not to get too far
into the weeds, but that might
not be a good sign.
What's your sense of it at this
point?
>> Well, I think it's an
impressive haul of money, and I
think if you look at his
campaign, it's very similar to
Bill Clinton's campaign.
It's going to rely heavily on
the DNC on the money side.
Barack Obama kind of set up a
third organization really
dedicated to his campaign that
did a lot of that work.
For Biden, he's relying on the
DNC.
He charged them with coming up
with a big number.
They did it.
I think it has an impact on
someone who might think about
challenging him.
But I think we're kind of past
that among democratic stalwarts.
The ones who were thinking of
running were all doing it on the
condition that Joe Biden didn't
run.
There's no reason for them to
think that they can get in at
this point, which is why I think
if you're sitting in the Biden
headquarters, you feel pretty
good.
Trump is winning 2-1, 3-1.
He's the best candidate for them
to run against.
They've got the money.
They do need to worry about this
third-party candidacy because it
does change the dynamics.
When you're sitting in the white
house, you want the dynamics to
stay exactly the same.
>> Doug, I want to show this
video of Republican presidential
candidate Asa Hutchinson, who
has been deeply critical of
Donald Trump.
He was repeatedly booed and
heckled at a conference held by
a pro-trump organization.
Let's listen to it.
Let's watch.
[ Crowd booing ]
>> Yes, I'm running for
president of the United States.
We've got some great, great
people that are running
[ crowd booing ]
What we need is respect for
those that might have differing
opinions.
>> Doug, what is going on here?
I mean Asa Hutchinson is a
lifelong Republican, has been an
extremely loyal Republican for,
I mean, decades.
And yet, I mean, he has been
critical of Donald Trump.
Is that simply the reason here
why he was treated in this
fashion at that turning-point
conference?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
If you watch a baseball game,
sometimes the announcer will
say, well, they're not saying
boo.
In this case, they sure were,
and they were saying it over and
over again.
For the real trumpy part of the
base, the question is always,
what have you done for me
lately?
Mitch Mcconnell, who did more to
get through Donald Trump's
legislative agenda than Donald
Trump did sometimes get boos
from those members of the real
trump core base.
So it's not surprising when what
Asa Hutchinson does is what
nobody wants to hear.
The trump base doesn't want new
material.
They want the trump talking
points over and over again.
>> Yeah, and they don't want to
hear you going after Donald
Trump.
I mean they just --