The 2024 Republican race is
getting more crowded.
South Carolina GOP
Senator Tim Scott
filed his paperwork
today, launching his fundraising effort.
He'll make the official
campaign announcement
at home in South Carolina on Monday.
And as noted,
we are told the Florida governor, Ron
DeSantis, will officially file
his paperwork mid-week next week.
Here you see the leading names already
in about to get in.
And several others who promise decisions
relatively soon
or great
reporters are back at the table with me.
Let's start
with Senator Scott
Everyone else you have Trump,
you have well behind him
in the national polls, DeSantis,
and then you have everybody else
way, way back.
And they're trying
to find their piece of it.
The New York Times
saying this about Senator
Scott this morning.
There's little evidence so far that Mr.
Scott's message strikes a chord
with the populist base of the modern GOP,
which for the last several years
has been led by a former TV star
who likes to fight again.
Back to the same conversation
we're having about getting at DeSantis
and Pence, his idea
about limited concern.
That's the challenge
for these candidates.
Which Republican Party
are you competing in?
Are you appealing to? Right.
And can you effectively try to
actually galvanize
some of the Trump base
while going with a different message?
And to be clear,
Tim Scott's
message is quite different here.
I would say even more than are now.
Even more.
But also, it's different than DeSantis
as well.
Well,
you know, as my colleagues wrote,
while Trump is talking about,
you know, needing to reform
law enforcement
agencies, he's
attacking law enforcement agencies
at a time with his rhetoric and
sowing sort of distrust as well.
Tim Scott's message is much more kind of
sunny language.
Ronald Reagan, this going away.
So is that also going to appeal to a base
that has actually been engaged
by Trump's language,
which I don't think anyone would describe
as Sunny?
He launched a $6 million
ad buy in Iowa, New Hampshire today,
which is $6 million.
That's a lot of money.
If people have stayed home.
However,
Trump has 100 plus million dollars.
DeSantis has 100 plus million dollars.
As the challenge
is to prove to prove what?
To prove
that you can start
at least inching up to keep the money
coming for sure.
And I think also introducing himself,
that's one thing
that Senator Scott
absolutely needs to do.
He has a lot of goodwill.
I was out with him in Iowa
a couple of weeks ago
when he was doing
an exploratory committee.
He's one is getting about four bites
out of the apple here
as he announced he's
running for president.
And Republicans
there were very eager
to hear his message.
So intrigued by his biography.
My question for Senator Scott,
though, is a biography
enough of a message
or does he need something
a little bit more than that?
And he does have a hopeful,
optimistic view.
I don't see a lot of demand
for that necessarily.
But without a doubt,
he is going to do this.
And I think he is going to have a
you know, he's the only senator running.
So he'll have
some other support from senators as well.
So, you know, Monday it started.
I think that's a key point.
Trump is a grievance party.
Can you pull it back to a either
a policy, an ideological
or an optimistic party
that that's one of the challenges.
Just look at the polling right now.
It's Trump
at 43,
DeSantis at 20, then Pence, Haley,
Christie and Tim Scott.
These are national polls.
You can change these numbers
by winning Iowa
or surprising in Iowa or New Hampshire
or South Carolina.
Scott from South Carolina, Nikki Haley,
also from South Carolina,
the former governor, the former U.N.
ambassador.
So let's listen to a little bit here.
She got into the race.
She says, I'm the alternative to Trump.
You don't want to go back.
She's trying to figure out her place,
especially with DeSantis
getting so much attention.
This is about January six.
Donald Trump calls it a beautiful day.
Nikki Haley says no
What I will say about January 6th,
I will continue to say
it was a terrible day.
It was not a beautiful day.
It was a terrible day.
And we don't ever want that to happen.
You break the law, you pay the price.
And on the question,
she has come under some heat
on the question of abortion rights.
She says she's pro-life.
She says as a state governor,
she would sign restrictions on abortion.
She says it's dishonest to talk now
about whether it's a 12 week
or 15 week or 20 week federal ban
because she says the votes in the Senate
simply aren't there.
And she says she's glad the Supreme Court
overturned Roe,
sent this back to the state.
Now, she says get the judges out of it.
You never should have
had unelected justices
deciding something, that person,
because the idea of life and abortion
is personal for everyone, not just women.
Now, the unelected justices
have gone back and ruled and I think.
Right.
It is wrong and put it back in the states
close to the people
where the people can decide
what they want.
She says she hopes states
pass restrictions,
but if they don't, that's up
to the people there
and she can accept that.
The question is, what lane is that?
Is there
is there such a lane in the republic
where she's trying to sound like is it?
I don't know what to call it.
Is it more centrist?
Is it more reasonable?
Is it more open minded?
I don't know what it is,
but does it exist? Right.
To go back
to what
we've all kind of been saying here is
how is the party going to define itself?
And that really has been the question
since Trump.
Right because even,
you know,
when I talked to people on Capitol
Hill, privately, Republicans
are obsessed with Tim Scott.
They really think he could bring
the Republican Party
back to what
it was on principle,
but also be able to have
these bigger conversations
on different, different subject matters.
But I think that someone like Scott,
someone like Haley,
I don't know what that path is
because it's not middle ground.
They won't say they're moderate.
They won't say they're pragmatic.
They're tried to really find a lane here
at a time when the party doesn't
even want to really talk about abortion.
They don't want to talk
about those different, you know,
when should abortion
be, when should abortion bans
be happening, those kinds of things.
They don't want to have that debate
right now.
When do they have it?
I'm not entirely sure.
And most of the primaries are closed,
meaning only Republican voters,
not all, but most of them are closed,
meaning only Republican voters.
And the Republican Party
has become more Trumpy, unless,
I would say, you know,
more of a grievance party
than a smile party,
like a Tim Scott, if you will, I.