spring and hogan gidley who is 2020
campaign national press secretary hogan
thanks for being here tonight
good to have you with us thanks so much
i appreciate the time
so those numbers that tom perez is
talking about 350 000
new voters obviously there's a big
effort on both sides because we know
that people who register
to vote for the first time or the first
time in a long time
they send they tend to turn out what's
your operation seeing in those numbers
well look a couple things i think
important to note here
the democrats put pretty much everything
they had into early voting they tried to
scare americans to say they couldn't get
out and safely do it that social
distancing wouldn't work that masks
wouldn't work that they needed to vote
from home
and democrats seem to be doing that in
in bigger numbers than republicans but
that's something we expected to happen
because that's something that usually
happens
in presidential politics the problem is
it's not happening at the rate they
thought it would michigan is a great
example
we expected about a 80 20 swing
democrats voting early to
20 of republicans but in fact it's
closer to 50 50 right now that tells you
that the enthusiasm the excitement of
course is for this president and donald
trump and we've seen that gap
widen over the last several weeks
because people understand this president
has actually delivered on promises
he made whereas joe biden has a 47-year
career
of failure well it's interesting because
you know
when you look at michigan it's a very
tight race once again
uh and we're seeing that the president
is spending a lot of time
shoring up the places that he won last
time i remember a moment
several months ago when there was
billion dollars in the campaign coffer
on the trump side
and the discussion was we're going to
win minnesota we're going to win new
hampshire we're going to play in new
mexico
all these other states that the
president was going to be spending time
and to try to pick up those states
we see some defense right now
that's not defense i mean look if the
president keeps all the states he won in
2016 he's going to be re-elected
obviously
but the fact is this president
fundamentally changed the electoral
college map
for republicans moving forward winning
states that republicans hadn't won in
decades
we absolutely think we have a good shot
at picking up minnesota possibly new
hampshire
but we still have to make sure we defend
all of the states we won
the first time around and the people
want to hear from the president
they want to hear what he was able to
accomplish on their behalf in the first
four years and what he's going to do in
the next four years
it matters to people that's why we have
decided to go out and do these rallies
again
get in front of the american people
without the filter of the mainstream
media
joe biden is still counting on that
basement strategy
and trying to buy advertisements in
these states and he thinks
that is what is going to bring it home
for him our campaign apparatus our
turnout models our methods it's the envy
of the political universe we've been
building this out for the last three
years and i was looking 130 million
voter contacts in this cycle to date
that's incredible no one's seen anything
like it and we expect that's one of the
things
that's going to help drive home this
this uh this election
uh for a victory for this president all
right um we're looking at
covet 19 the president went after dr
faushi today
uh said you know the idiots talking
about the idiots uh
who worked on the task force and all of
that um saying that people have coveted
fatigue they're tired of hearing about
it
here's what joe biden said about that
watch
my grandfather would say this guy's gone
around the bend if he thinks we turn the
corner
turning the corner things are getting
worse he continues to lie to us about
the circumstances
we are seeing an uptick in
hospitalizations in 39 states
across the country what do you say to
that
still our case mortality rate is
extremely low
uh globally that's good news uh the
american people
um are safer now than they were at the
beginning of this outbreak
um and and joe biden's prescription for
all this is just to shut down the
country again
that's an untenable situation even dr
fauci said that and look
i was working closely with dr fauci dr
han dr burks dr redfield when i was at
the white house
when this first initially reared its
ugly head um
in in this country and the president
listened to dr fauci no question in fact
it was
dr faucious said the president took all
of his advice except for one piece
dr fauci said he would not have shut
down those flights from china
and from europe and now we know thanks
to the health experts and the medical
experts that that one
decision do you think it's a good idea
in this country for him to call him an
idiot at this point i mean when you've
got this escalation because the
the fact of the matter is that there are
places in the country that are
experiencing
what those of us on the east coast
experienced quite some time ago
and that part of this whole experience
is when you feel very nervous and
wisconsin
is one of those states so they thought
they were out of the woods but
now they're seeing what we saw here not
in the numbers i should point out that
we saw in new york or new jersey not
even close
but the hospitalization rates are
increasing around those people
as they get ready to vote well we also
know
you know bumbling governor cuomo and
what he did by sticking
people back into that how do you manage
what
people are going through now in the
midwest when you've got a midwest
uh group of states that you have to win
on your side
right but but look i i want to talk
about this issue because i think it's
very important for the american people
to understand
dr fauci isn't the only doctor out there
and there's competing
you know science on various things it
was dr fauci early on said we shouldn't
wear masks at all
and then came around and said no we
should wear masks after the science
changed
so that's that's all fair and that's
fine but science is meant to be tested
and these conversations should be had
but regardless while we see some of
these cases increase in the states as
you just mentioned
there's still a way to move about our
lives in a responsible
safe way we cannot shut things down
again i mean
losing millions of dollars jobs spending
trillions of dollars to keep people just
afloat not to allow them to succeed by
the way or
or thrive but just to survive that's not
a tenable position for this country we
know
that we can do things safely if we wear
masks if we socially distance if we use
hand sanitizer and all the guidelines
that the cdc talks about we can begin to
open up this country and we should
the american people need to be back to
work and the livelihoods that have been
lost
many aren't going to come back it's
going to take someone who understands
the economy
who rebuilt the economy once who is
doing it again
that's donald trump shutting down the
country is not a strategy and that's
what joe biden wants
president wishes that he didn't shut
down do you think the president wishes
that he didn't shut down the country to
the extent that he did
at this point now that like the wh is
saying that lockdowns
maybe were not the way to go do you have
any regrets about that
not to my knowledge everything i've
talked to him about privately and
everything he said publicly is that's
what he had to do to protect the people
in this country remember
two and a half million people were
projected to die because of this virus
and while one death is tragic and the
200 plus thousand
is horrific and it's because of china
it's what they did to the world that's
what they did
you know with an unforeseen
unprecedented a global pandemic they
unleashed it on the world but this
president's leadership
prevented the spread uh to the to the
numbers of two and a half million people
dying it's his leadership that protected
us against
and how people grade him on that is is
going to be the thing that we're talking
about after this election is over we're
going to learn one way or the other
uh how people ultimately grade him on on
the handling of that
let me just ask a quick question about
the debate before we head out um
is there an effort to make any
adjustments heading into this new debate
jason miller was on over the weekend he
said the president is going to
stand back a little bit and let joe
biden answer these questions
to a greater extent what do you expect
well look i was on your show i think
last week or week before talking about
the debate commission and all the stuff
they were doing to try and tip the
scales for joe biden we saw it again
today first they tried to mess up the
whole process with a virtual debate then
all of a sudden the last debate which is
typically about foreign policy something
we talked about with the commission
early on when we agreed
to the rules set forward now what do you
know it looks like the president secured
a lot of peace deals in the middle east
securing the region making the world a
safer place
information now comes out showing joe
biden knew about the deals hunter biden
was making with
ukraine a corrupt country and communist
china also corrupt
and all of a sudden they're going to
change the the
topics for the debate yet again so it's
pretty clear
are they definitely not how can you have
a debate where there's no
discussion about foreign policy for the
commander-in-chief and the president of
the united states
that is a great question and and look
when you have a record like joe biden i
know he didn't want to talk about it but
his own secretary of defense
robert gates said that joe biden hadn't
made a single
correct foreign policy decision in four
decades everyone knows
he's been a failure in domestic policy
and on foreign policy and when you're
the commander-in-chief
and you have to deal with these nations
in real time like north korea for
example
like uh japan like russia like china
you have to understand the global um
the global implications and the global
set of
if you will and joe biden just simply
doesn't do that
for the commission to pull that to pull
that topic
and not even discuss yeah uh foreign
policy i think it
is it's just a failure another failure
in a long line both sides
should want to have the conversation
about foreign policy it must be had
between the two candidates on stage and
so i would imagine that it's going to
take one of the candidates to bring up
some of these issues if they want to
get get into it with the other on this
and i have a feeling i know which side
it will probably be so we'll see
i think you're probably right hogan
thank you very much good to see you
absolutely
sure