>> We've all seen how Donald Trump is struggling in recent polls. In fact, for several weeks
in a row, Joe Biden leads in General Election polls in the double digits. And when it comes
to Trump's approval rating, he's not doing well either. So why is it that Republican
lawmakers haven't pivoted to an anti-Trump framing when they're running their re-election
campaigns?
What are Republican consultants advising them on? Well, it turns out that based on what
Tim Miller over at Rolling Stone found out by talking to nine Republican consultants,
they're all afraid, they're all weak. But they're definitely afraid of Donald Trump
and think he's a monster. So let's start off with what Miller reports in Rolling Stone.
He says that these swamp creatures were never the biggest Trumpers in the first place. His
initial campaign team was an assortment of d-listers and golf course grunts rather than
traditional GOP ad men. So why, as Trump's numbers plummet, are these establishment RINOs
continuing to debase themselves to protect someone who is politically faltering and couldn't
care less about them?
So again, as I mentioned, he talked to nine different Republican consultants who are currently
working on consulting various Republican candidates. None of them were willing to go on the record
for obvious reasons. Once you hear their quotes, you'll know why. But first, what do they really
think of Trump?
Well, one consultant says, we haven't worked for anybody who seriously thinks the guy has
it all together. Another Republican consultant said, I told very high ranking people in the
Trump Administration that it hasn't been like this since October of 06, when President Bush's
numbers were tanking all over fallout from the Iraq War, Katrina and the Mark Foley scandal.
Another Republican consultant says, every shred of evidence points to a likely ass kicking
in the fall. A different person says, well, it's as bad as it gets right now. And finally,
right now most campaigns are thinking baby jesus every day, the election isn't held today.
So that's what they really think about Donald Trump.
But you wouldn't know it based on how Republican candidates are campaigning right now while
they take the advise from these consultants. >> Yeah, I love this story. And part of the
reason why I was so excited about today's show, and we've had so many great stories.
By the way, if you want to get the whole show, tyt.com/join or hit the join button below
on YouTube.
So, this story's great on a couple accounts. First of all, it has all the consultants and
GOP strategists saying secretly what they believe, which is of course Trump's an idiot.
But by the way, they don't necessarily disagree with him on policy, and they hate the same
people that he hates.
So, I'm not absolving them of anything. If you read all the quotes so, I mean, but I
despise the media and I despise Democrats, and I despise all of Trump's opponents. They
leave out the racism, and it's among the people that Trump despises. So they generally agree.
It's not that they don't like Trumps hatred, they just don't like how incompetent he is.
They're like God, if he was better at this, we'd all win with our hatred and it would
be awesome. But he's just such a terrible manager. And so that's why they're frustrated.
But the real culprit here is what nobody will talk about, Republican voters. Because the
reason they cannot break from Trump is because over 80% of Republicans, even in the worst
of times, right now, they're thanking baby Jesus the election isn't today, otherwise
they get annihilated.
And even now over 80% of Republican voters say Trump or die, okay? So, if you're mad
about Trump or you say, hey, why don't these Republican politicians break from Trump? What
you're actually saying is, why don't they break from their own voters? They're not gonna
break from their voters.
And the Republican voters are actually even more toxic, especially on the social issues
and the cultural issues than the Republican politicians, and even the scumbag Republican
strategist consultants. And I'm gonna get to why they're scumbags in a second if that
hasn't been clear enough already, and how selfish they are.
But at the end of the day the cancer is the actual voters themselves that love Trump specifically
for his hatred. >> Right, so, Trump's approval rating among
Republican voters prior to the pandemic and the protests throughout the country was somewhere
around 96%. Because of how badly he's done in responding to various issues, he's down
somewhere in the 80s, right?
But that's still incredibly high among the Republican electorate. So you're right. Their
Republican candidates are afraid of distancing themselves too much or criticizing Trump because
that would mean that Trump would attack them and that could really hurt them with the Republican
constituency. But I wanna give some of the quotes from these Republican consultants because
they're refusing to advise their candidates to attack Trump in any way, despite the low
approval rating overall among all Americans.
And so one Republican consultant told Rolling Stone, there are two options, you can be on
this hell ship or you can be in the water drowning. Which I think is a pretty powerful
statement, because, really, the Republican consultants, and the same goes for Democratic
consultants, doesn't matter, consultants in politics.
Bottom of the barrel people for the most part, right? They don't really care about the direction
of the country, what they do care about is how they can benefit financially and career-wise
with the direction the country's going in. So in this case, they might hate Donald Trump.
They might think it's absolute hell to be a Republican consultant trying to navigate
Republican campaigns in the age of Donald Trump.
But they're still making money. And that's more important to them than, maybe switching
gears and going into a different career altogether, or maybe doing something that has at least
some level of morality. One other person says no dissent is tolerated with Trump's base,
and if my candidate is going to win, it's going to be by 1 or 2 percent, and can't afford
to lose any votes on the pro-Trump flank.
One other person says my candidate didn't vote for Trump. But we're running ads right
now about being a big Trump supporter, because in that district, draping yourself in Trump
is still a good decision. And look, if anything, if there's anything to take away from this
story, this is what I hope that I leave you guys with, and that you remember.
For all of the chest pumping or bumping, whatever, the nonsense about how strong the Republican
Party is and how they're all about morality and principles and nuns, no, they're all scared.
They're terrified of literally the most incompetent President in American history. So one consultant
told Rolling Stone. The idea of distancing from Trump, if it's discussed is discussed
very quietly.
It's discussed one-on-one. You don't talk about it on a conference call. Maybe someone
would, but let's just say it hasn't happened yet. And I'm on a lot of these calls. So in
other words, you have to be super secretive, pull out your burner phone, don't do a conference
call, make sure you don't put anything in writing cuz it'll come back to you.
And if Trump, Big Bad Trump finds out, you're gonna get it. I mean, it's just these people
are pathetic. >> So last couple of important things here.
So, first of all, they're not wrong in their calculation. I need you guys to understand
this. So if, number one, if they pulled away from Trump too early, they would get primary
to lose their primary.
That's just basic math. If over 80% of Republican's supporting Trump, no matter what he does,
and during the Primaries it was over 90%, they would have lost, and a lot of them did
lose, if they just deviated just a shade, a couple of inches away from Donald Trump.
And then there's a graveyard full of Republican so called moderates, who was actually massive
right wingers, but who said Trump looks a little stupid, doesn't die you're a goner.
So they're all lobbyists and retired now. So there's good reason for them not to deviate,
but it's not just the Primaries guys.
In the General Election, the way that Republicans win is by getting much bigger voter turnout
than Democrats historically. So, if you criticize Trump you depress your own voter base, less
of them show up to vote for you, and then you're doubly screwed, and have no chance
of winning.
That's why their consultant was saying, if I lose one or two points from my base, I got
no chance of winning. I got to try to squeak by by tricking people into thinking that I'm
not that pro-Trump or anti-Trump, I just got to be quiet about Trump, so I could squeak
by.
Now that leads me to my huge criticism of the press. The press knows that these consultants
and all these politicians are scum, that they purposely lie to you in every conceivable
way, not in order to inform you, but in order to trick you, but they never say it.
They never say, well, your Republicans are great and they're moderate Republicans. As
Susan Collins disagrees and look at this person and the brave Republican and Chuck Grassley,
and blah blah blah blah blah. No, no, no, they're all doing this calculation. Why is
it every political article about what political reality is, as opposed to the theater that
these consultants are presenting?
The press credulously covers the theater as if it's real. And that's what hurts the country
the most. And I'll end on this quote cuz it is so telling you about consultants, and Ana's
right. As I'm reading this quote to you it's not just Republican, Democratic consultants
think the same exact way.
So listen to what one guy said. If you actually think about this very selfishly, if Trump
loses, I make more money. He loses, we go back to a semi-normal Republican party that
leaves more populous that I think a lot of people would like. We get to run all of these
challenger races and probably take back in two years.
Maybe even gains on the state level because of the extremist Democratic Administration,
I make more money. So that's a very selfish view and people talked about that. So
what he's saying is, I don't care if the leader of my party wins or loses, all I care about
is making more money.
Later, we'll pretend we weren't with Trump, and later will lie to you in a different way,
the press will play along and we'll get all the money anyway. And for Democrats, the equal
and opposite of that is, who care if Donald Trump wins, if Donald Trump wins, we make
even more money raising more money to oppose the Boogey Man and I take 15% of that money.
So their Democratic consultants are through the Trump one, they make so much more money
because of it. So this is the sick, sick game that's being played on all of us. And yet
the press is almost completely mute on it.