Speaker 1: There's a super interesting piece in Politico magazine. This piece is by Jonathan
Martin, and it is called Are the anti-Trump GOP Forces, meaning Republican forces, Starting to
Implode. A mission control breakdown for the Santas and smooth launch for Tim Scott Bode ill
for those hoping to thwart the former president. This entire article is worth reading, but I want
to focus on a couple of different aspects to this. The article asks Jonathan Martin asks,
Will this go down as the week that the grand plan to deny Donald Trump the nomination fell apart?
For months, High level Republican lawmakers, donors and strategists eager to block Trump
have described in separate conversations with me an end game to the presidential primary.
When it becomes clear in the early state and national polling who is consolidating support.
The most influential figures with ties to the lagging candidates will stage a sort of political
intervention and tell them it's time to quit and rally to the strongest alternative to Trump.
Such a plot always struck me as a bit far fetched. For starters, because politicians aren't known for
putting party ahead of self. Interestingly, it's exactly what Democrats did in the primary in 2020.
Back to Jonathan Martin. Yet the appetite among elite Republicans to move past Trump was and is so
immense I thought there could at least be a do the right thing effort. Yet as spring turns to summer,
traditionally the period where presidential hopefuls consider whether they're gaining
traction, this vision seems more fantasy than reality, than strategy. In fact, if Trump
does emerge as the GOP standard bearer next year, we'll look back We will look back on this week to
grasp why, just like in 2016, he was able to take advantage of a divided opposition. Now understand
the strategy that is being laid out. This is a possible strategy. The idea would be, okay, the
Florida primary comes close and imagine that it's Trump 55 and DeSantis 35 because it's his home
state and the other 20% or 10% is divided among other candidates. The idea would be everyone other
than DeSantis gets out and says, support DeSantis and maybe that gets to Santos enough to beat Trump
in Florida. In New Hampshire, maybe Nikki Haley's doing better other than Trump. And so even though
Trump is winning in New Hampshire, everybody but Nikki Haley gets out and says, vote for
Nikki Haley or whatever. It's not super realistic. The timing of it needs to be just so. And it's not
clear that Republicans are willing to do that. But what is being argued in this article is it's
it's not going to happen for other reasons. And it goes on to say the reasons are desantis's muffed
launch the fitting sad trombone conclusion to a preannouncements period in which his stock sagged.
Announcing his candidacy Monday in the gym of his alma mater, Charleston Southern University,
Tim Scott matched DeSantis is Elon Musk with John Thune and Larry Ellison.
He also doesn't seem destined for victory. And then there's Nikki Haley, whose campaign is
totally dead on arrival, etc.. The problem with the anti-Trump Republican movement right now is
that they're all failing very hard. Nikki Haley was never inspiring from the beginning. Running
basically an identity campaign. Vivek Ramaswamy was never really going anywhere. Tim Scott I mean,
again, as I said before, it's not all about identity, but Republicans have to have for now,
for two elections in a row, presidential elections in a row selected the guy who was openly hostile
to black and brown people in his rhetoric, if not policy, they're going to say, oh, let's vote
for a black guy instead to represent us. It seems unlikely at the most base of base levels. And then
now the DeSantis launch, where DeSantis is trying to figure out a way, how can I kind of be there to
pick up the MAGA voters? But I don't really want to attack Trump to explain to the MAGA voters why
they should support me instead. It's not a winning proposition. The launch was a disaster. The only
good news for anybody other than Trump is this chart that we're putting up on the screen right
now. The purple line at the top of your screen is Trump's polling, which, as you can see,
is down from 56 to 53 since the Santos announced. And on the other hand, DeSantis is up from 19 to
22. So we have seen a three point swing in polling in the direction of DeSantis and away from Trump
since it became known that DeSantis would be announcing. If you look at the very bottom,
everyone else is failing. Okay? You look at Pence is down from 6 to 3, and Haley is at one point
was at six. She's down to four. Everybody else is just peanuts, peanuts, peanuts. Whereas DeSantis
and Trump are the only ones really embroiled in anything here. So if there is a path right
now for anyone other than Trump, I don't see it as being anybody but DeSantis. But it's not even June
of the year before the election yet there is time. If there is a big newsmaking event and in my mind,
the only possible event would be Trump gets indicted and arrested multiple times and is simply
unable to run. Can anything else change this Republican primary? Let me know in the comments.