This week
was undoubtedly
one of the worst weeks
of Donald Trump's political career.
And that comes after two very,
very bad weeks for the former president
In just the last 26 days
since he launched his bid
to return to the White House,
a special counsel was appointed.
He had dinner with antisemites.
Kanye West and Nick Fuentes,
Multiple associates
were ordered to testify about him.
He recorded a video
for the families of jailed
January six rioters.
He called for the termination
of the constitu ation.
His company was convicted of tax fraud
and other
hand-picked candidate
in Georgia suffered a stinging defeat.
And he hosted a prominent Q
and on backer.
And more classified documents
were found in a storage unit.
And that is just a partial list,
all of which has left
even his allies questioning
whether the former president
is finally becoming a liability.
Now we can roll.
The Star Wars credits for
about ten more minutes on that one.
But the question is,
is there any reason to think
that this is not going to get worse
for the Republican Party
dealing with the shenanigans
from former president?
I mean, I think the bigger question is,
is there any reason to think
that the Republican Party
is actually going to break from him
to some degree?
And the reason I say that
is because
look, there's
no question
Republicans that we've all been speaking
to over the course of the last
three weeks
have been in a different place
than they probably had been
in the six years prior.
And yet over the course of six years,
I feel like we've had
50 of these moments, really like
this is going to be the time
where the grip finally loosens
and everybody starts
to move away from him.
And so it's one of those
like I'll believe it when I see it,
because background quotes from lawmakers
are not going to be
the thing that triggers it.
The reality,
though, is the biggest moment
here is the midterm elections,
because when Donald Trump loses
his power, it's when Republicans
no longer
think they can ride him to wins,
or most importantly,
when Republican voters
and the constituents that are calling
their offices are no longer saying
step by Trump
or we will primary you and you will lose,
this is the key. Yes.
Well, that's that's everything.
All of Trump's power
emanates from the voters.
And so I've done a bunch of focus groups
with Trump voters since the midterms.
And here's the thing.
They are not ready to break with Trump,
but they are ready to shop.
They're ready
to look at some alternatives.
And so, you know,
we asked people
hey, were you enthusiastic
about Donald Trump's announcement?
And they were like,
yeah, it's a
yeah, I'll vote for him
if he's the nominee.
But they were much more interested
in seeing people like DeSantis
get in the race.
They talk about Kristi Noem.
There's a real sense of
I think it's time to turn the page.
I think it's time to move on.
And it's not it's not
you know, they're not pundits.
They're not like, ooh, he's
he's costing us elections.
It's that they think
he has too much baggage.
They don't want to go through another
four years of kind of the orange
brand bad.
Everybody's, you know, angry
all the time.
The polarization,
they think that they have a
lot of it, actually.
For them,
it it does come down to electability.
They'd like to see somebody
that they think
can win
and can beat Joe Biden
and they're not sure
that's Trump anymore.
I think people are also
just really tired.
Yeah,
they're tired of the back and forth,
the fights over Thanksgiving dinner,
all of it.
But we did kind of this week
see a little bit
more of an inching toward
saying the T-word among some Republicans
and actually
being clearer
about Trump's role in all of this.
Take a listen.
The Republican
Party has to
really look deep into our soul.
We have to, first of all, understand
that there's a price to be paid
whenever you have a Trump endorsement.
The Democrats in many cases were able
to kind of
turn it into a choice election
because of of Trump's presence out there.
So you know, was he a factor?
I don't think
there's any question about that.
Are you seeing a little bit
more of that on the Hill?
I mean, I think Asa
Hutchinson, not a huge surprise,
but John Thune being really clear to me
that stood out. Yeah.
So Senator Thune has been some
he's the number two senator
in the Republican Party
he's been critical of Trump
for a couple of years,
but never explicitly saying
that I'm not going to support him.
I sat down with him
and talked to him
for a 30 minute interview,
and he still wouldn't say
that he would not support him
if he was the nominee.
Even though he does not think Trump
should run again,
he does not think he should be
the standard bearer of the party.
And I flat out asked him,
why can't Republicans break from Trump?
Because we know it's the voters,
but it's one thing to hear
a Republican say it. And he said that.
He said we have to be very careful
because Trump still has a lot of support
among the Republican base,
and that means that you can't win
a primary election without Trump,
but you also can't win
a general election with Trump.
So that's the part
that's the challenge
that Republicans are in right now.
And they're going to have
to make a decision
on how they handle this.
It's hard, though, to
to to really believe that this
that Trump
may still not have a grip on the party.
I go back to the weeks after January six
when you
when you saw so many Republican leaders
condemn him, say his name,
and then just a couple of weeks later,
you saw Kevin McCarthy
go to Mar a Lago as well.
The political factor here
and just
the impact that he had on
the midterms is probably going to be
the thing
that continues
to really be a factor moving forward.
Although, you know,
his hand-picked candidate
in Georgia losing
also adds to that as well.
And you hear from Mitt Romney
the other side of
this, which is that
it should not just be that Trump loses.
But that's the reason
that they step away.
It should be other things. Take a listen.
It's going to be hard to
to knock him off as our nominee
if he became a nominee.
I think he loses again.
And would you support him
if he's the nominee? Absolutely not.
And it's not just because he loses.
I mean, that's
that's my reason that I offer
to other people who are big fans of his.
But but it's also he's
simply not a person who ought to have
the reins
of the government of the United States.
Really.
And a great interview
that you did with him.
But very few Republicans
are willing to say that he's an outlier.
Yeah.
Here's the thing, though.
Trump is at his weakest moment right
now, and he was weak after January 6th.
But the problem is, is
what Republicans did in that moment
is Kevin McCarthy went down to Mar a Lago
and kind of resurrected him.
Republicans have got to do
something about Trump.
They have to say his name.
They have to go on offense.
If they don't want him
dragging down the party,
they have got to actually do
something about it.
If they just sit there in silence
and hope that he sort of crumbles
under the weight of his own scandal.
That's the movie we've all seen before.
And that's the thing we know
doesn't just happen.
They're going to have to do something
that's it's the biggest thing.
And it was
it was the thing after,
you know,
calling for
dissolution of the Constitution,
which is the entire
kind of animating factor
of the Republican Party, allegedly.
And that wasn't enough
to get everybody to come out.
And you just felt like
we were doing a rerun.
Serious point that was so critical here.
There are a dozen Republicans
who are either weighing
presidential bids
or thinking about presidential bids,
and a great number of them
are the kind of the epitome of the well,
they have the policy
that Trump had that we liked,
and they have kind of the
aggressive responses that Trump had.
But they don't have all the baggage.
They don't have the anti-Semites
that they're hanging out with.
They're not calling for the dissolution
of the Constitution.
There are real alternatives.
I think, for the first time
on the national stage.
Is that what causes
the turn
in the voters
that leads to the turn
and the lawmakers and policymakers?
I don't know.
But that's the
that's the wild card, I think.
I think one of the biggest problems
for Republicans
is that a lot of them
are waiting for this
to just sort itself out.
And I think your point
to your point, Sarah,
that's a great recipe
for Donald Trump getting 30% of the vote
and winning the Republican nomination.