Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 934 ｜ Ready or Not, Here the Election Comes ｜ Guest： Steve Deace

00:00:00.000 Well, former President Trump dominated the Iowa caucus yesterday.

00:00:05.280 What were the results, the numbers?

00:00:07.960 What happens now?

00:00:10.100 Steve Dace is going to give us his analysis.

00:00:12.280 I am also going to give you my perspective of the candidates still in the race and why

00:00:18.260 I am supporting the person that I am supporting.

00:00:22.080 And then we'll have some fun, lighthearted things at the end of this episode.

00:00:26.400 It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:28.760 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:30.300 Use code Allie at checkout. 1.00

00:00:31.680 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:32.700 Code Allie. 1.00

00:00:42.500 Hey, guys.

00:00:43.380 Welcome to Relatable.

00:00:44.340 Happy Tuesday.

00:00:45.600 Hope everyone is having a wonderful week and that you are staying warm wherever you are.

00:00:50.960 I think that there are very few places in the United States right now where that does not apply.

00:00:56.420 I think I saw somewhere on Twitter that there is a 150 degree difference between the south

00:01:01.840 of Florida and North Dakota.

00:01:04.040 One hundred and fifty degrees.

00:01:07.260 Oh, my goodness.

00:01:08.200 If you live in North Dakota, how?

00:01:10.880 How?

00:01:11.660 How do you do that?

00:01:12.680 I wonder every year how people like that survive.

00:01:16.440 More power to you.

00:01:17.500 You must be having a good time watching all these people doing like cold plunge, like voluntarily

00:01:22.720 getting cold in order to toughen up when really that has been your whole life.

00:01:28.080 Everyone is trending North Dakota now.

00:01:30.280 All right.

00:01:30.600 Let's talk about a different state, which is also probably cold, I would guess.

00:01:33.780 And that is the state of Iowa.

00:01:35.220 We are going to talk about the Iowa caucus today, which was yesterday.

00:01:38.680 And we are going to have Steve Dace, who is an expert in the Iowa caucus, in Iowa politics,

00:01:43.520 Iowa Republican politics, really national politics, too.

00:01:47.240 But since he is in and from the state of Iowa, he has a lot of particular insight for us.

00:01:52.760 And so we're going to have him on the show in just a little bit and discuss that.

00:01:56.300 And if we have time, we'll have a little lighthearted segment at the end of this talking

00:02:00.060 about the Emmys.

00:02:02.160 It was the Emmys, right?

00:02:03.340 The Emmys.

00:02:04.020 See, I'm I'm so in the know that I can't even remember the name of the awards show that

00:02:07.800 we might be talking about.

00:02:09.080 But first, let's get into this.

00:02:10.300 Let's get into what happened in the Iowa caucuses yesterday.

00:02:15.100 So we haven't really been talking that much about politics for the last few months.

00:02:19.560 But you guys know it's 2024.

00:02:21.760 Politics matter because policy matters because people matter.

00:02:24.800 Politics affects policy.

00:02:26.300 Policy affects people.

00:02:27.940 That's what we have been saying on this show since the beginning, since 2018.

00:02:32.060 And so even though we like to talk about these more evergreen culture war theological topics,

00:02:36.680 I think it's so important to have those conversations.

00:02:39.380 We're going to have more of them this week.

00:02:41.060 We also have to have the episodes dedicated to what is going on right now, what's going

00:02:45.640 on in this news cycle, what's going on in the polling numbers.

00:02:48.860 What happens in November is hugely consequential for the future of our country and for our children.

00:02:54.360 So if we care about what kind of nation we are passing down to our future generations, to

00:03:00.720 our to our progeny, we have to care about what is going on in politics.

00:03:09.340 As tiring as it can be, as frustrating as it can be, as polarizing and divisive as it can

00:03:15.860 be, as sometimes as anxiety inducing as it can be, this is something that we absolutely

00:03:21.160 have to care about.

00:03:21.960 And believe it or not, we are back in an election year and the primary has officially started,

00:03:28.740 started in the state of Iowa.

00:03:31.200 So yesterday, Iowa voters went to select their pick for the Republican presidential nominee.

00:03:38.060 Voters met at about 1600 precincts across the state, including school gyms, church basements,

00:03:44.220 libraries to vote for their nominee.

00:03:47.940 According to RealClearPolling, Trump had a 33-point lead in Iowa going into the caucus.

00:03:54.120 So President Trump won.

00:03:55.760 Spoiler alert, if you didn't already know that, he won.

00:03:59.880 And that was the prediction going into yesterday.

00:04:04.140 The race was very quickly called for President Trump.

00:04:08.200 He won by a significant margin at 51%.

00:04:11.980 There was some controversy about this.

00:04:14.440 The DeSantis campaign in particular, I think, rightfully complained that the media started

00:04:19.160 calling the race before everyone in Iowa had voted.

00:04:23.400 So even though the doors had closed at many of these voting locations, not everyone had voted.

00:04:29.260 And so they're in line to vote for their candidate of choice.

00:04:31.840 They get a notification on their phone saying that the race has been called for Trump.

00:04:36.620 Well, that's going to ultimately hurt DeSantis' numbers, even Nikki Haley's numbers,

00:04:42.400 because people are thinking, well, what's the point?

00:04:44.800 Does my vote even count?

00:04:46.080 I think it is malpractice for these media outlets to call the race before everyone has voted.

00:04:52.520 What is the harm in waiting just a little bit?

00:04:55.060 But in this, like, clicky culture that we live in, every outlet has to be the first to

00:05:01.180 get the most attention, to get the most retweets, etc., and to be used for the most commentary.

00:05:07.600 And so there were a lot of complaints, a lot of frustration about that, that these media

00:05:11.560 outlets were calling it so early.

00:05:14.120 It's not that they weren't correct, because they were ultimately correct, but again, just

00:05:17.940 very demoralizing for the people who were still in line and hadn't yet voted.

00:05:21.320 Uh, in second place came Governor Ron DeSantis, uh, with 21.2%, followed by Nikki Haley, 19.1%.

00:05:30.860 Now, did Governor DeSantis perform worse than I think people would have predicted one year

00:05:37.220 ago?

00:05:38.020 Yes.

00:05:38.560 I think a lot of people, when DeSantis was, uh, at the height of his popularity, the center

00:05:43.620 of, uh, so many news stories sometime at the beginning of last year and the year before

00:05:49.640 that, I think everyone thought that he was going to run away with the primary, but based

00:05:55.560 on recent polling, he actually outperformed recent polling.

00:05:59.180 Recent polling had put Nikki Haley at second, Ron DeSantis at third, um, but it was actually

00:06:05.420 Nikki Haley who came in third, but very close.

00:06:08.540 So Ron DeSantis, 21.2%, according to CNN, followed by Nikki Haley with 19.1%.

00:06:14.880 And then there's Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:06:16.900 We have had, uh, let's see, we've had a lot of these people on our show.

00:06:20.140 We've had Trump on our show.

00:06:21.080 We've had Haley on our show. 0.95

00:06:22.020 We've had Governor DeSantis.

00:06:24.060 Uh, no, we have not had Haley on our show.

00:06:26.120 We've had Governor DeSantis on our show and Vivek Ramaswamy on our show, but we have not

00:06:31.300 had Nikki Haley on our show.

00:06:33.800 Hopefully that will change.

00:06:34.720 We've asked several times.

00:06:36.200 I would love for the ambassador to come on our show.

00:06:38.700 But Vivek Ramaswamy, he dropped out of the presidential race Monday night after a fourth

00:06:43.700 place finish.

00:06:45.320 Um, I'm not sure necessarily if that was a surprise to people following the polls, but

00:06:50.200 if you are someone who just gets your news from X, then you might've thought that he was

00:06:55.620 going to perform better.

00:06:56.640 I would say that he is the candidate for much of the online right because he is very, very

00:07:01.820 good at articulating, uh, the positions of people who are very online, which is not a

00:07:07.720 bad thing.

00:07:08.220 It's just what it is.

00:07:09.300 But he, uh, now endure, he is now endorsing former president Trump.

00:07:13.780 That doesn't come as a surprise at all.

00:07:15.500 He was very complimentary of Trump, uh, as he was running now, just a few days ago, Trump,

00:07:21.420 uh, I guess not tweeted, but he posted on truth social, um, that Vivek Ramaswamy is basically

00:07:28.420 a swindler that he's a con man and that he is not really MAGA that he can't carry on MAGA.

00:07:34.320 And then you saw that echoed by some MAGA people on X as well.

00:07:39.180 Even people on X who had just recently said that they love Vivek Ramaswamy, that they want

00:07:44.940 him as the VP pick.

00:07:46.100 Of course, they have to echo everything that former president Trump, uh, said.

00:07:50.720 Uh, now Nikki Haley, after she came in third, she had an interesting analysis of the conclusions

00:07:57.780 of the Iowa caucus.

00:08:00.020 So, uh, let's play SOT 1.

00:08:02.640 Here is Haley's, uh, Haley's takeaway.

00:08:04.620 I can safely say tonight, Iowa made this Republican primary a two-person race.

00:08:16.540 A two-person race between Trump and DeSantis?

00:08:24.240 A two-person race between Trump and you, but you came in third place.

00:08:30.780 So maybe I'm misunderstanding what exactly she's saying there, but I don't think that

00:08:36.760 that's the case, Nikki Haley.

00:08:38.360 I don't think that that's the case.

00:08:40.060 But again, you can come on my show and you can explain exactly what you meant by that.

00:08:45.740 Uh, if you would please kindly reply to our requests.

00:08:48.320 Um, the New Hampshire caucus is next week, and so we'll see what goes down there.

00:08:53.560 Uh, here's the, uh, here's the polling data right now on that.

00:08:58.080 Trump, 52.5%.

00:08:59.800 Nikki Haley, 18.8%.

00:09:02.720 Um, and then DeSantis, 15.7%.

00:09:07.020 Now, we'll see what happens.

00:09:09.620 Again, DeSantis, his favorables are good.

00:09:12.400 And, uh, he actually had, there were some interesting, uh, interesting analysis actually

00:09:18.640 on, uh, DeSantis and what demographics he actually won, which I think is good long-term.

00:09:24.620 I don't know if it's going to help him in the primary, but if you look at the exit polling

00:09:28.880 from the Iowa caucus, um, 35% of 17 to 29 year olds, and we can put that graphic up.

00:09:36.800 Uh, this is actually not an exit poll, it's an entrance poll from CNN, uh, 35% of 17 to

00:09:44.400 29 year olds voted for DeSantis.

00:09:46.840 Now, that was the only age group, uh, that Trump did not win.

00:09:52.280 So 23% of that demographic for Haley, 21% for Ramaswamy, which is also interesting because

00:09:59.240 if you spend time online, you would think that all Gen Z loves Vivek.

00:10:03.220 Um, and then 21% for Trump, but 35% for DeSantis.

00:10:09.440 It was the boomers 65 and older who really, uh, who really are in the Trump camp.

00:10:16.340 56% of 65 and older voted for Trump versus only 17% for DeSantis.

00:10:22.440 That's so interesting.

00:10:24.100 That's a gosh, that's so interesting.

00:10:26.380 I have a lot of thoughts, but I haven't fully formulated them yet.

00:10:30.100 And so I'll have to share them on a future episode.

00:10:32.080 Also, my dad is going to come on soon and he's going to give us some analysis of these

00:10:36.760 things.

00:10:37.100 He's going to be giving us a lot of political analysis this year.

00:10:40.400 You guys love when my dad comes on.

00:10:42.140 He has a way of explaining things very clearly, but in a way that makes us feel like, uh, the

00:10:47.580 sky is not falling.

00:10:49.180 Um, and so he'll be here.

00:10:50.220 Maybe he can give us some boomer analysis from a boomer himself on why they're so in

00:10:55.300 Trump's camp and don't like DeSantis.

00:10:57.240 It's very interesting, or at least in the state of Iowa.

00:10:59.360 I don't know if that's true generally.

00:11:02.080 Joy Reid has some very incredible analysis, as she always does.

00:11:17.340 The most brilliant, the most brilliant analysis on why Trump won Iowa and Nikki Haley did not.

00:11:24.920 So here's what Joy Reid of MSNBC has to say.

00:11:27.580 This is Sato.

00:11:28.060 But, you know, I feel like the important sort of data point and, you know, Steve talks

00:11:34.440 about it a lot.

00:11:35.040 He's, he's going to probably talk about it a little more tonight is that these, these

00:11:38.760 are white Christians, that this is a state that is overrepresented, overrepresented by

00:11:43.780 white Christians that are going to participate in these caucuses, especially tonight.

00:11:47.240 They see themselves as the rightful inheritors of this country, and Trump has promised to give

00:11:53.360 it back to them.

00:11:55.200 All the things that we think about, about electability, about, you know, what are people

00:11:58.960 gaming out or none of that matters when you believe that God has given you this country,

00:12:05.620 that it is yours, and that everyone who is not a white conservative Christian is a, 0.96

00:12:10.620 is a fraudulent American. 1.00

00:12:12.320 That is obviously, that's obviously ridiculous. 1.00

00:12:17.020 That is obviously a ridiculous analysis. 0.86

00:12:19.640 Now, I have my own questions about why, when there are other Republican candidates on the 0.83

00:12:28.480 table, people are so solidly, and so many people are so solidly for Trump.

00:12:36.800 I'm not saying that I don't understand it at all, and that I'm completely confused about it.

00:12:41.060 I'll be honest, during the primary in 2016, I was confused about it.

00:12:45.960 I understand more now, for better and for worse, why so many people are solidly pro-Trump

00:12:51.820 and will not step outside of the MAGA camp, no matter what he says or does.

00:12:57.740 But do I think that this is because Trump voters see themselves as the rightful white inheritors

00:13:05.520 of this country, inheritance of this country, and that every black or brown or non-Christian 1.00

00:13:13.140 person is some kind of phony or some kind of second-class citizen? 0.93

00:13:21.400 No.

00:13:21.920 I know for a fact that that is not the case.

00:13:24.420 In fact, I would say that Trump's base is less Christian than the left thinks it is,

00:13:31.220 and a lot more secular, a lot more pluralistic, a lot more quote-unquote open-minded about a lot

00:13:37.340 of issues like LGBTQ issues and abortion than the supporters of someone like, say, DeSantis.

00:13:44.580 And so this is going to be the bell that they're ringing.

00:13:47.280 This is going to be the only analysis that they are able to give because they are very

00:13:51.840 unintelligent and unoriginal.

00:13:53.700 They can't come up with anything interesting to say or true or accurate to say about why

00:13:59.940 people support Donald Trump. 0.96

00:14:01.820 And so they will say ridiculous things like this. 0.91

00:14:05.440 Now, I do want to, on that note, I want to read something that Beth Moore said. 0.64

00:14:13.840 And because I know that y'all love to hear analysis by Miss Beth Moore.

00:14:20.180 Um, and this is also analyzing the evangelical support of Donald Trump.

00:14:28.500 She said, sobered by last night and trying to practice what people call radical acceptance,

00:14:34.060 not of a presidential candidate because surprising things happen, just plainly sobered by the thought

00:14:40.140 that with other individuals to choose from, masses of people still hail Trump.

00:14:45.020 He's what they actually want in a leader, a bully, she says. 0.91

00:14:49.080 Verbally abusive, artfully, and purposely divisive bully who has all but left the Republican 0.74

00:14:54.180 party unrecognizable.

00:14:57.200 I can't read the whole thing right now because it's very long, but she says, as the scriptures

00:15:01.240 say, I want to seek peace and pursue it.

00:15:03.200 I want to be a person of kindness, love, and compassion, but I've got to move to a place

00:15:06.440 of radical acceptance.

00:15:08.080 It was one thing to cast a vote for the, for a party's only candidate reasoning the choices

00:15:12.340 of the lesser of two evils.

00:15:13.620 This is quite another thing.

00:15:14.860 This is wide open eyed.

00:15:16.620 We want Trump.

00:15:17.740 Anyway, this is where we are.

00:15:19.840 We can complain all we want about our leaders, but in this government, by the people, at the

00:15:24.000 end of the day and beginning of November, our candidates are mirrors of ourselves.

00:15:30.480 And so some of the confusion and the questions that she has, okay, that's fine.

00:15:35.880 I can relate to that.

00:15:37.060 As I just said, in a primary field where I think that there is a more conservative and

00:15:42.680 Christian candidate, I think that it is odd to pick someone who is less conservative

00:15:47.420 and less in a line with Christian ideals.

00:15:50.120 But to say that people want these aspects of Trump to be verbally abusive, to be a bully,

00:15:57.780 whatever it is, however she describes him, that's not true.

00:16:01.720 Now, is it true for a contingency of people who support Donald Trump?

00:16:06.200 They actually like that he turns his back on people who used to work for him, that he now

00:16:11.220 deems disloyal, that they like the name calling and things like that.

00:16:16.120 I'm sure that there are some people who support Donald Trump who genuinely like and prefer all

00:16:21.140 of those things.

00:16:22.660 That's not true for most of these boomers who are voting for Donald Trump.

00:16:26.720 They see him as someone who is fighting against the system.

00:16:31.640 Again, I'm not necessarily agreeing with all of these things, but they see him as someone

00:16:36.680 who is fighting against the system.

00:16:38.360 They see him as a victim of the system, as a victim of the establishment.

00:16:42.860 They see how these institutions like the intelligence agencies, like state governments,

00:16:50.900 the federal government is coming after him.

00:16:53.220 And they think that they are all coming after him because he is trying to fight for good

00:16:59.700 and to fight against evil.

00:17:01.380 And they saw what happened in the 2020 election when, admitted by Time magazine, there were

00:17:07.920 several entities and several institutions, global and national, who worked as hard as they

00:17:12.640 possibly could, expended as much money and energy as they possibly could to ensure that

00:17:17.820 Trump was not elected.

00:17:19.180 I think that they just even just look at that and say, OK, there's got to be something

00:17:23.220 to this guy.

00:17:24.580 If all of the people that we don't like are after him, then he must be accomplishing something

00:17:29.200 good.

00:17:29.580 And I think they also look at things like, look, there was peace in the Middle East,

00:17:33.500 unprecedented while Trump was president.

00:17:36.580 Our economy was doing well while Trump was president.

00:17:40.300 We were able to overturn Roe because of Trump's Supreme Court picks.

00:17:46.380 And so I think they're looking at things like that.

00:17:48.620 They don't necessarily like a lot of the things that he says.

00:17:51.240 They don't necessarily like all aspects of his character and personality, but they look

00:17:55.580 at his track record and they see things that they like.

00:17:59.400 Now, again, as we'll get into in just a second, I would say that he's not conservative enough,

00:18:04.120 but I can look at some of the things that he accomplished during his presidency.

00:18:07.920 And I can say, wow, that was really good.

00:18:10.040 The fact that we overturned Roe, that in and of itself, saving tens of thousands of lives.

00:18:15.080 I can look at that and understand why someone would say he's our guy.

00:18:19.680 He's the only one who can fight against the system.

00:18:21.900 He's the only one that's going to really get things done and accomplish things again,

00:18:26.280 whether you agree with that or not.

00:18:28.420 There is a much more innocuous justification for someone voting for Donald Trump in the

00:18:36.220 primary than someone like Beth Moore is letting on.

00:18:39.040 And Beth, like, I understand, though, your confusion about, OK, we've got these other

00:18:45.080 candidates over here.

00:18:46.340 If you're a Republican and you're a conservative, why Trump?

00:18:49.560 I get that.

00:18:50.620 I get asking that question.

00:18:51.940 But assuming the worst motives of the people who are voting for him, you're indicting millions

00:18:58.980 of Americans who you are saying all support a bully because they themselves are bullies or

00:19:05.560 love bullies.

00:19:06.500 That's just not true.

00:19:07.580 There are better understandings, like there are better reasons.

00:19:11.840 Maybe talk to some of those people.

00:19:14.120 Now, some of those people, I think they do some.

00:19:16.860 They do have just like a cult-like mentality about Donald Trump.

00:19:20.340 Like you could say anything.

00:19:22.400 You could tell them, OK, look, this is what he has said.

00:19:25.600 I bet you don't agree with that.

00:19:26.840 I bet you don't agree with that.

00:19:28.060 And they will straight up tell you to your face that you are lying or they will find some

00:19:33.000 kind of crazy reason and justification for why he said what he said or did what he did.

00:19:38.460 It is kind of insane.

00:19:40.420 But a lot of people, they're not paying attention to the 24-7 news cycle.

00:19:44.800 They're not seeing everything that he's posting.

00:19:46.560 They don't know everything that he said.

00:19:48.140 And they just look at his list of accomplishments and the way they feel that he is unjustly being

00:19:52.500 targeted.

00:19:52.880 And that's why they're voting for Donald Trump.

00:19:55.800 So, OK, I understand your questions.

00:19:57.960 Maybe some of those are fair questions.

00:19:59.580 But the character indictment of all the millions of people who voted for Trump in the in the

00:20:04.380 primary, I just I simply don't think that's fair.

00:20:07.380 Now, I am going to give you some reasons why, even though I am happy about some Trump

00:20:28.120 accomplishments, I am concerned about Trump leadership as someone who is a social conservative,

00:20:33.220 as someone who is a Christian first, a Christian conservative.

00:20:35.740 I just don't think that he is conservative enough when it comes to when it comes to policy.

00:20:42.220 So let me read you some things or let me play you some things that he has said and compare

00:20:50.080 it to some other people on the field.

00:20:54.880 And then you can tell me you can tell me what you think.

00:20:58.760 OK, let's look at abortion. 0.59

00:21:01.660 Um, so Trump has not taken part in any of the debates, the primary debates so far leading

00:21:07.780 up to Monday's caucus.

00:21:09.300 He did appear in a Fox News town hall.

00:21:12.860 It took place in Des Moines last Wednesday.

00:21:16.080 And he was he was asked by this woman, how can I be assured? 0.75

00:21:23.800 How can you reassure me, she said, that you can protect every person's right to life without 1.00

00:21:31.040 compromise?

00:21:32.940 And here was Trump's answer.

00:21:34.760 This is top three.

00:21:35.760 Now, I happen to be for the exceptions, like Ronald Reagan with the life of the mother, 0.99

00:21:42.920 rape, incest. 0.72

00:21:44.680 I have I just have to be there, I feel.

00:21:48.720 There's a lot of people say a lot of, you know, if you talk five or six weeks, a lot

00:21:52.220 of women don't know if they're pregnant in five or six weeks. 1.00

00:21:54.980 I want to get something where people are happy.

00:21:56.940 You know, this has been tearing our country apart for 50 years.

00:22:01.840 Nobody's been able to do anything.

00:22:03.240 And again, you can only ask that question and you ask it brilliantly.

00:22:07.340 And I understand exactly where you're coming from.

00:22:09.500 I love where you're coming from.

00:22:10.540 But we still have to win elections.

00:22:15.200 OK, so he was in context, he was saying the only reason you're able to ask that question

00:22:20.140 is because I helped the overturning of rate of overturning of Roe by nominating the Supreme

00:22:27.540 Court justices that that were on the majority of that decision.

00:22:33.620 And that is true.

00:22:35.080 And you can see just so classic Trump that he is extremely charming, even when he is

00:22:41.080 answering a question in a way that I don't like because I don't like his answer.

00:22:46.260 But he does, you know, pay compliments and and honor the person who was asking the question.

00:22:52.380 But he did not give her the reassurance that he is going to protect every beating heart and

00:22:57.700 every life.

00:22:59.120 And you can see it there that he is for exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest.

00:23:05.200 Well, as we all know, abortion is not necessary to save the life of the mother.

00:23:10.920 Delivery is either way.

00:23:12.380 The baby has to come out.

00:23:13.760 And so if the life of the mother is at risk, which we should all care about as pro-life people,

00:23:18.720 understanding that mother's life is of equal value, that baby has to come out, that baby 0.58

00:23:24.620 has to be delivered.

00:23:25.980 And so there is no need to dismember or poison or kill that child before the child is delivered.

00:23:33.600 Now, again, this could be a premature delivery.

00:23:36.380 The doctor should do everything possible to try to save both lives.

00:23:39.860 That is the pro-life position.

00:23:42.400 Assenting to this idea that you have to allow abortion to try to help the health of the mother,

00:23:51.780 that the category of health as defined by Doe v.

00:23:56.200 Bolton, that means emotional health, that means mental health.

00:23:58.720 It just opens the door to all kinds of exceptions, which basically allows abortion through all 0.95

00:24:04.440 nine months.

00:24:05.480 And Trump should know that.

00:24:06.520 He should know that as someone who has now been in pro-life and conservative Republican

00:24:10.980 politics for a while now.

00:24:13.160 He also said he's for exceptions and rape and incest.

00:24:16.100 We've talked about that several times.

00:24:17.620 You're basically giving the death penalty to the child rather than to the rapist.

00:24:22.660 That is morally and ethically egregious.

00:24:25.340 He is right that that is where most people are, though.

00:24:29.160 And he does go on to say, look, if we don't compromise on this issue, basically, then we

00:24:33.640 are going to lose elections and then you lose everything.

00:24:36.620 That is a position.

00:24:37.780 That's a position of a lot of people within the Republican Party.

00:24:40.240 He is not wrong to say that that is the position of a lot of people in the Republican Party.

00:24:45.220 And so a lot of people will listen to that or watch that and say, yeah, that's representative

00:24:49.100 of me.

00:24:50.740 But I did not, as a staunch pro-lifer, did not get the assurance that I need to know that

00:24:58.900 he is as pro-life as I am.

00:25:00.700 And what I think is more egregious is a comment that he made on Meet the Press several months

00:25:07.400 ago when he was talking about Governor DeSantis' Florida's SB 30, 300, which is the Heartbeat

00:25:14.560 Protection Act.

00:25:15.440 It prohibits abortions once the unborn child has a detectable heartbeat.

00:25:19.180 And here is Trump on Meet the Press talking about that.

00:25:23.960 If a federal ban landed on your desk, if you were reelected, would you sign it at 15 weeks?

00:25:31.500 Are you talking about a complete ban?

00:25:33.260 A ban at 15 weeks?

00:25:34.720 Well, people are starting to think of 15 weeks.

00:25:39.020 That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.

00:25:41.860 Would you sign that?

00:25:42.600 I would sit down with both sides and I'd negotiate something and we'll end up with peace on that

00:25:48.880 issue for the first time in 52 years.

00:25:51.540 I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't.

00:25:54.000 I mean, DeSantis is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.

00:25:57.920 Would you support that?

00:25:58.880 You think that goes too far?

00:25:59.580 I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.

00:26:03.140 OK, a terrible thing and a terrible mistake to sign a heartbeat bill.

00:26:09.040 Oh, my goodness.

00:26:10.660 A terrible thing and a terrible mistake to protect babies with a beating heart inside the womb.

00:26:16.140 So I just can't get down with that.

00:26:18.040 I'm sorry.

00:26:18.760 I just can't get down with that.

00:26:19.960 And then here is Trump also talking with Megyn Kelly about transgenderism.

00:26:26.600 And she asks a very simple question.

00:26:28.780 Can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:26:30.320 And here's what Trump had to say.

00:26:31.540 Can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:26:36.140 In my opinion, you have a man, you have a woman. 1.00

00:26:40.580 I think part of it is birth.

00:26:44.240 Can the man give birth? 0.91

00:26:45.620 No.

00:26:46.480 No.

00:26:46.840 Although they'll come up with some answer to that also someday.

00:26:49.620 I heard just the other day they have a way that now the man can give birth. 0.91

00:26:53.820 No.

00:26:54.160 I would say I'll continue my stance on that.

00:26:58.240 OK, so at the end, to be fair, he did say, I would say no.

00:27:03.140 But this is not a complicated question.

00:27:05.960 It's not a complicated question at all.

00:27:07.620 Can you imagine just a few years ago hedging on that 10 years ago?

00:27:12.820 Can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:27:13.840 First of all, it would be impossible to even comprehend why that question is being asked 10 years ago.

00:27:18.580 I think even Hillary Clinton, probably in 2016, would have been able to say, no, a man cannot become a woman.

00:27:25.280 She probably would have said something crazy about gender. 1.00

00:27:27.220 But now we have the potential Republican nominee not really knowing what to say and kind of him hawing around that question.

00:27:35.540 Look, I just want someone who's clear on that.

00:27:37.680 And Trump is not the only one who's unclear on that.

00:27:39.800 I think he represents probably a lot of boomer cons who wouldn't know exactly what to say about that.

00:27:45.000 And so maybe that's why he is so appealing to that demographic, because the less online you are, the I don't know, the less you know really about what's going on and what language to use.

00:27:56.660 I don't really want someone to hedge on that.

00:27:59.080 I want someone to know for sure.

00:28:00.360 But this is a difficult it's a difficult position for Trump because he has a pretty strong LGBTQ so-called contingency in his base.

00:28:10.880 And I mean, he's got Caitlyn Jenner, who is a big supporter of him.

00:28:16.020 So I think that he is going to have difficulty being extremely clear on that.

00:28:19.880 Now, he has been clear in the past about, you know, I think men and men's sports, women and women's sports and things like that.

00:28:25.740 I just don't want someone who is going to hedge.

00:28:28.000 It's very, very clear.

00:28:29.180 Now, on immigration, some people are also pointing out because this was something that people really liked about Donald Trump, but he did give amnesty to cover a 1.8 million dreamers.

00:28:38.580 That was triple Obama's DACA.

00:28:41.160 A lot of people have also criticized him for not building the wall.

00:28:45.640 And also people also criticize his first step act, which was a soft on crime act.

00:28:51.900 And so for all of the talk about Trump being very strong on crime and being very tough on immigration and strong on the issues that, you know, evangelicals and conservatives care about.

00:29:05.720 If you look at his record, in some ways he was, in some ways he really was not.

00:29:11.000 In some ways, like with the First Step Act, he was soft on crime.

00:29:14.640 Now, that is something that I care a lot about, that I find egregious to be soft on crime in any way.

00:29:20.980 I think a lot of people look back at how 2020 was handled with the riots and not just 2020 and the riots and all of the just chaos that was allowed to go on in these major cities.

00:29:32.780 But also with COVID, people are still concerned with how he handled COVID, his refusal to fire someone like Christopher Wray, his refusal to fire someone like Fauci.

00:29:42.780 Now, some people will defend that.

00:29:45.180 But those are concerns that people like me have.

00:29:48.880 And then if you look at someone like Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley also, for me, just isn't conservative enough on these issues.

00:30:09.940 When it comes to abortion, she said this.

00:30:12.100 This was April 28th, 2023.

00:30:14.680 She says some states have passed laws protecting life.

00:30:17.280 I commend them for that.

00:30:18.220 Other states have doubled down on abortion.

00:30:19.900 I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.

00:30:21.440 Different people in different places are taking different paths.

00:30:24.400 What?

00:30:25.260 In the moral relativism.

00:30:26.980 That's what the founders of our country envisioned is the reality of living in a democracy.

00:30:31.700 I said I want to save as many babies and help as many moms as possible.

00:30:34.700 To do that at the federal level, the next president must find national consensus.

00:30:38.400 You don't save any lives if you can't enact your position into law.

00:30:44.060 And so I would say that that is similar to Trump.

00:30:46.660 She is more pragmatic, more willing to compromise when it comes to abortion because she just wants something that is able to get passed. 0.80

00:30:55.860 Again, I would say that is a position that is probably the more popular position to take.

00:31:00.640 I am giving you my perspective as a conservative Christian and pro-lifer.

00:31:06.160 On December 11th, she was asked about the Kate Cox abortion case, which we have talked about.

00:31:11.160 We talked about on this podcast that this woman in Texas who wanted an abortion because tragically her child was diagnosed with trisomy.

00:31:23.500 Was it trisomy 13, I think?

00:31:26.960 I think.

00:31:28.100 Anyway, it's a pretty fatal diagnosis.

00:31:31.080 You die either in utero right after birth.

00:31:34.080 Very rarely can they live into their teen years.

00:31:36.360 And so she wanted to abort this child.

00:31:38.060 Texas law doesn't allow for that because her life was not at risk.

00:31:42.500 And so she traveled to actually get a 18 plus week abortion. 1.00

00:31:47.440 And so in response to that, Nikki Haley said, I don't know the details of the case you're referring to, but what I can tell you is that the issue didn't need to be in the hands of unelected justices.

00:32:00.120 It needs to be in the hands of the people because it's a personal issue for every woman in the middle. 1.00

00:32:03.860 What does that mean?

00:32:05.520 What does that mean?

00:32:07.260 That is not staunchly pro-life.

00:32:09.500 That is not a staunch position when it comes to protecting the life of the child.

00:32:14.020 We should not allow the murder of children just because they might be disabled or may have a hard life.

00:32:22.520 That child is still made in the image of God.

00:32:24.500 That child still has value.

00:32:27.240 Is that the principle that we apply to children outside of the womb?

00:32:30.860 Well, it certainly should not be.

00:32:34.980 She has made several comments about abortion that are similar to that.

00:32:38.380 I guess I don't have to go through all of them.

00:32:40.420 But then here she is on transgenderism.

00:32:44.080 This is Sot6.

00:32:46.640 Now, can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:32:48.420 There's been a lot that's been talked about when it comes to all of these roles and all of these issues.

00:32:55.080 We want to make sure people can live any way they want to live.

00:32:58.880 I don't think government needs to be in control of anybody's life.

00:33:01.900 You go live the way you want to live.

00:33:03.700 You should be free to live the way you want to live.

00:33:06.220 And government and everybody else should stay out of your way.

00:33:09.100 I think that, you know, you always have to believe in freedom and allowing people to live the life the way they want to live.

00:33:14.380 And if that's how they choose, then, you know, I don't think government should have any say in that.

00:33:19.820 OK, so let me give you some context on that because I don't want to decontextualize her.

00:33:24.000 She is talking about before 18, she's against puberty blockers.

00:33:27.620 She's against these surgeries to change your body.

00:33:32.140 After 18, she's saying that anyone should be able to do what they want to do.

00:33:35.340 Government should stay out of the way.

00:33:36.720 The problem with that, of course, is that if someone can change their license, someone can change their identity and then someone can change their body, then it is very difficult to keep that man out of women's spaces. 0.97

00:33:51.360 It is very hard to make a case that that person should not be in a female prison, that that person should not be in a female domestic abuse shelter, that that person should not be swimming on, you know, the woman's swimming team.

00:34:05.280 And so that, again, that position is probably representative of a lot of people.

00:34:11.700 She's trying to get that independent vote. 1.00

00:34:14.020 That's not for me.

00:34:15.300 That's not where I stand.

00:34:16.840 That's not the position that I'm in.

00:34:18.580 I think a lot of conservative women are also just notably more conservative than both Trump and Haley. 1.00

00:34:26.460 Now, when it comes to DeSantis, I just find that he is more conservative on these issues.

00:34:32.420 As I already said, he signed SB 300, the Heartbeat Protection Act, which I'm which I'm thankful for when he has been asked to articulate his positions on abortion.

00:34:44.460 He says on issues that are fundamental, he asks, why are you in office?

00:34:48.560 Are you in office to put your finger in the wind and try to contort yourself into a pretzel, which I would say was both Trump and Haley's position, by the way, on abortion?

00:34:57.520 Or he asks, are you in office to stand up for things you believe in?

00:35:01.260 He's also explained how he's made changes to help people afford babies as well, such as making all baby items tax free in Florida.

00:35:09.380 And he was also asked in September of last year by Glenn Beck, can a man become a woman?

00:35:15.820 And here's what he had to say.

00:35:17.520 Let me ask you something.

00:35:19.120 Can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:35:21.060 No. 0.97

00:35:22.420 How ridiculous that we're even asking that question. 0.60

00:35:25.320 And, you know, sometimes people will knock me because they'll say that he's talking about woke and you shouldn't worry about like people say who cares about it, right? 0.79

00:35:34.320 Look, society needs to be grounded in truth.

00:35:36.700 And if you're telling me a man can get pregnant and you're telling me a man can become a woman, that is not true. 0.72

00:35:42.280 And I'm not going to accept that as true.

00:35:44.380 And I'm not going to be complicit in a lie.

00:35:46.260 And if our society is built on a mountain of lies, even on those issues, which maybe some people don't care as much about, how are you going to have a situation where you're going to have get things right?

00:35:58.740 Yes, that's absolutely right.

00:36:00.200 It's not difficult to answer that question.

00:36:02.340 Can a man become a woman? 1.00

00:36:03.920 Like you don't need to hem-haw. 0.95

00:36:05.580 You don't need to hedge.

00:36:06.620 You don't need to, as he said about the pro-life issue, contort yourself into a pretzel.

00:36:11.280 You know, that's what people really liked about DeSantis is that he is extremely clear and extremely articulate in explaining the position that not only he has on these issues, but that a lot of us have.

00:36:23.980 He is, in my opinion, the most conservative choice that we have, and he has a record of implementing, of applying that conservatism in a way that makes positive widespread change and has made Florida the beacon of freedom that it is.

00:36:38.420 That's why people are leaving states to go to Florida because of DeSantis' policies.

00:36:43.080 And I'll just be honest, it is very difficult for me to understand why he isn't doing better than he is in the primary.

00:36:52.540 Like, I'm not saying that any campaign is perfect.

00:36:55.140 Of course, we can analyze all different campaigns and say they should be doing this.

00:36:59.120 They should be saying this.

00:37:00.320 They should be going to this place.

00:37:01.720 They shouldn't be saying this.

00:37:03.280 The online people represent it.

00:37:04.620 Whatever it is, like, there are plenty of analyses that we can give.

00:37:09.240 But when it comes to his record, he is by far the most conservative choice that we make.

00:37:15.440 I'm not indicting your character.

00:37:17.340 I'm not questioning your morality.

00:37:18.900 If you are voting for one of these other people, we're all going to have to come together at one point and figure this out and decide what we're going to do in November.

00:37:27.540 But when it comes to the candidates in the field right now, yes, I think DeSantis is the most conservative on the issues that matter most to me, on these culture war moral issues, issues that we know on this podcast are not primarily political issues, but are biblical issues.

00:37:46.360 Gender, abortion, the family, these things are biblical Genesis 1 issues.

00:37:52.980 And all of that really matters to me.

00:37:54.740 And I think that he's right when he says that society has to be grounded in truth.

00:37:58.200 These are not like peripheral issues that we can just push to the side and think, oh, we don't need to care about that.

00:38:04.020 We can just care about the economy.

00:38:05.820 That's how we got where we are right now.

00:38:08.720 That's what the Republican Party has been for decades.

00:38:12.240 And that's why we are even debating if a man can become a woman.

00:38:15.600 We have to have a culture warrior in office. 1.00

00:38:18.160 And obviously, policy wise, he has enacted protections for women in sports and women in domestic abuse shelters and things like that.

00:38:26.800 And I'm just grateful for it.

00:38:28.040 So that's my stance.

00:38:29.680 I know that for saying that there's a ton of Trump people that are going to come online and say how awful that is, how terrible that is to be for another candidate in the primary.

00:38:39.860 Sorry about it.

00:38:41.580 It's you know what?

00:38:42.680 This is a free country.

00:38:43.860 We're allowed to articulate our views and to support the people we want to support and to make the case for them.

00:38:48.600 And when it comes to their records, I just think DeSantis is the most conservative pick that we got.

00:38:54.320 So anyway, we'll see what happens.

00:38:56.760 All right.

00:38:57.500 That's enough of my analysis.

00:38:58.900 That's where I stand on it.

00:39:00.180 That's where the race stands right now.

00:39:02.280 We'll see what happens.

00:39:03.520 I'll bring you the analysis as it comes.

00:39:06.300 And right now, I want you to hear from Steve Dace.

00:39:08.220 As I said, he is an expert, especially when it comes to Iowa politics.

00:39:13.360 He's going to give us a breakdown of what really happened and what he thinks we can expect going forward.

00:39:22.300 Steve, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:39:24.940 I know that you are in high demand, especially today.

00:39:27.700 So let loose, break down what happened last night.

00:39:32.520 Well, I think there's two trains of thought here.

00:39:34.720 On the primary side, there's one.

00:39:37.180 And then what it means maybe going forward in a potential general election alley, there's another.

00:39:41.540 So let's start on the primary side, because to the victors go the spoils.

00:39:47.280 The president and his team should be given their flowers.

00:39:50.460 This was a dominant performance.

00:39:51.920 They more than doubled the all-time caucus margin of victory record set by Bob Dole.

00:39:56.840 Not the year he won the nomination, by the way.

00:39:58.440 It was set in 1988.

00:39:59.380 But, I mean, this was a very dominant victory for sure, and it turned out that the public perception of his support ended up being accurate.

00:40:09.820 So there's no question that it's a significant uphill climb to dethrone him in this primary moving forward.

00:40:17.720 So I think that's one of the big narratives in this primary electorate.

00:40:22.700 I think Nikki Haley doesn't have a base, really, within the Republican Party.

00:40:26.400 I mean, essentially, her base is basically the John Kasich voter.

00:40:30.480 That's essentially her base.

00:40:32.280 And then for Ron DeSantis, he was able to peel away about 20 percent of Trump's support.

00:40:38.560 You know, traditionally, Iowa punches two or three tickets out every cycle.

00:40:41.900 And so he gets one of those tickets.

00:40:44.700 And I think what he'll need to monitor moving forward is, you know, on righty Twitter, where you and I have to hang out some.

00:40:52.140 It's part of our gig.

00:40:53.040 You know, there's kind of this Twitter grift core, you know, mythology.

00:40:59.700 We wrecked the scientists.

00:41:01.080 None of that's true.

00:41:01.960 His favorables have remained very high with both Trump voters and Republican voters as a whole this entire time.

00:41:07.500 And I think as long as he can not risk, you know, those favorables plummeting, because that would mean a hindrance to his overall political brand at just 45 years old.

00:41:18.480 As long as he cannot risk that, then he wants to continue to challenge the president or the former president for this nomination.

00:41:25.080 Then he's perfectly fine to do so.

00:41:27.060 If I were advising him the minute you start to see those favorables erode,

00:41:31.320 I would take that as voters saying you gave it your best shot and this isn't your time and not to take on unnecessary water.

00:41:38.980 But I think those are all decisions that will all be made, you know, probably by the end of February through the South Carolina primary.

00:41:45.580 And I think people will reassess where they're at from there.

00:41:47.740 So that's kind of the primary train of thought.

00:41:50.180 You want to respond to that at all before we talk about what it means for a general election?

00:41:53.820 Well, I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of things to say.

00:41:56.880 If I remember correctly, Joe Biden came in fourth in the Iowa caucus, correct?

00:42:01.340 Correct.

00:42:01.800 And then he came away with the nomination.

00:42:03.520 Now, there's a lot, I think, that happened in between Iowa and South Carolina for Joe Biden that we don't have time to get into today.

00:42:10.140 But it is not unprecedented that someone would lose Iowa and still have the nomination.

00:42:17.680 What happened in 2016 with Trump in Iowa?

00:42:21.620 He finished almost third, actually.

00:42:25.460 Him and Rubio were neck and neck for second.

00:42:27.820 He barely edged out Cruz or Rubio for second and Cruz won overall by about four points.

00:42:34.780 OK, so are you surprised with the results in in Iowa?

00:42:39.420 I mean, obviously, we've got a strong evangelical base in Iowa.

00:42:43.300 You would imagine that someone like DeSantis would have a pretty heavy pull with them.

00:42:49.820 But obviously, most of them went for Trump.

00:42:52.720 At the same time, though, there's some conflicting numbers that say that white evangelicals didn't turn out enough for Donald Trump or as much as they had in the past.

00:43:01.200 So what do you make of the evangelical response to the candidates on the table now?

00:43:05.760 Well, that gets us to the general election aspect of things.

00:43:09.840 There are ominous signs.

00:43:12.020 And, you know, you know, the way my mind works, I try to always think about what do my opponents and enemies think and try to get ahead of that rather than, you know, sit around and, you know, smoke cigars and slap five.

00:43:23.800 I want to know, OK, we just beat the bad guys.

00:43:27.420 What are they going to try to come at next?

00:43:29.040 You know, and so if I were at the DNC today, here's what I would be saying.

00:43:33.180 Donald Trump won an extremely record low turnout in a race that's 97 percent white, mostly rural and white evangelical turnout plummeted nine points from where it was at in when he ran in 2016.

00:43:47.020 64 percent of caucus goers in 2016 to 55 percent this year.

00:43:52.240 Correct.

00:43:52.540 There is simply no way.

00:43:54.580 The Republicans could nominate Heinz Ketchup.

00:43:58.340 It doesn't matter who the Republican nominee is.

00:44:00.600 They are not winning a general election with a depressed amount of white evangelical turnout.

00:44:05.260 It doesn't matter what percent.

00:44:06.580 You know, there's always this talk that Trump has this unique association with white evangelicals.

00:44:11.880 Actually, his overall number wasn't much different that he received in both of his elections.

00:44:16.240 Ali, it wasn't much different than what Mitt Romney got in 2012.

00:44:19.040 It's just his turnout was larger.

00:44:20.620 OK, so it's not the size.

00:44:22.520 It's the size of the slice of the pie.

00:44:23.900 It's the size of the pie.

00:44:25.260 So it's not that he received 78 or 68 or whatever it was percent of the evangelical vote.

00:44:31.600 It's that it was down nine points from 2016.

00:44:33.860 And that that also if you look at the overall turnout, this is the worst turnout in the history of the Iowa caucuses.

00:44:40.180 It's not the lowest number.

00:44:41.240 But when you consider that we have a record number of Republicans and this is the number we posted per capita, it's the worst.

00:44:49.220 We had a 41 percent drop in overall turnout from 2016.

00:44:54.040 There's a few factors that you could point to, you know, and say, hey, Steve, you were the one complaining about the weather.

00:44:58.540 That's true. 0.64

00:44:59.020 It still sucks here. 0.95

00:45:00.320 A lot of people may have thought, too, when they looked at the polls and said, well, he's so far ahead. 0.96

00:45:04.220 I don't have to risk the cold.

00:45:05.160 I'll just stay home.

00:45:06.160 That's part of it, too.

00:45:08.020 I'm hoping those are true.

00:45:10.000 Those are the reasons why.

00:45:10.940 And this is unique.

00:45:11.620 But but here's the thing, Ali.

00:45:12.620 Last year, in special and off year elections, Democrats, on average, outperformed the demographics of those races by nine points.

00:45:21.140 Our base was demoralized last year, too.

00:45:24.420 And in 2022, what did we see?

00:45:27.740 We did not see the red wave that we were promised outside of, say, Florida and Iowa.

00:45:32.000 It didn't materialize almost anywhere else.

00:45:34.180 So I can't think of a time that a political party had a victorious general election with a depressed primary electorate.

00:45:42.940 That almost never happens.

00:45:44.600 You cannot win with just your base, but you can't win without a completely energized base either.

00:45:49.700 So how much of this is people are like, well, I'm bored.

00:45:52.760 He's going to win anyway.

00:45:53.600 And I'll see you in November.

00:45:54.500 That could certainly be a factor.

00:45:56.500 But what concerns me is that last year, our base was pretty demoralized and had depressed turnout as well.

00:46:02.880 And then again, and then the other thing you look at is in the four most populous counties of Iowa, Donald Trump averaged only 41 percent in those counties.

00:46:11.040 So 10 points what he ran statewide.

00:46:13.580 And Iowa doesn't have a lot of urban areas that are Democrat anyway.

00:46:17.480 So we're talking suburbs and exurbs.

00:46:19.840 And those have been the kryptonite in the Trump era.

00:46:22.740 Now, in a state like Iowa, which still has a lot of critical mass in rural areas, Donald Trump can overcome that with his with his rural support.

00:46:30.900 But but but Arizona doesn't have that.

00:46:33.140 Georgia doesn't have that. 1.00

00:46:34.260 Pennsylvania doesn't have that.

00:46:35.620 Michigan doesn't have that.

00:46:36.740 Wisconsin doesn't have that.

00:46:38.280 Georgia doesn't have that. 1.00

00:46:39.260 North Carolina doesn't have that.

00:46:40.980 And so we are left again with with with Donald Trump's going to have to show moving forward that, yes, his base seems to be maybe more energized, his hardcore base than maybe it's ever been right now, given what they're trying to do to him and everything else, which is understandable.

00:46:54.880 But in terms of 294 days from today and a path to 270, there's no there's nothing in the Iowa numbers at all that indicate he is more electable in a general election now than he was 48 hours ago.

00:47:08.120 If anything, you see the same trend lines that that were problems for Republicans the last several cycles.

00:47:13.660 Right.

00:47:14.300 You know, Ron DeSantis outperformed what people thought they outperformed his polling numbers.

00:47:18.480 That was something that you predicted and you were correct about that.

00:47:21.600 A lot of people are saying, well, Nikki Haley, she is going to run away with the number two spot easily. 0.86

00:47:27.640 Yet when I talk to people, you know, the listeners who are in Iowa, I'm sure you feel the same way.

00:47:33.680 I get a lot of now, again, this is kind of just pulling from my audience.

00:47:38.300 So it's not necessarily indicative of everyone in Iowa.

00:47:42.800 But the suburban moms that follow me are saying, well, I and everyone I know are voting for DeSantis.

00:47:47.740 And they'll say, I know some people voting for Trump, but they'll say, I know no one voting for Nikki Haley.

00:47:53.320 There are no Nikki Haley signs in my neighborhood.

00:47:55.840 There are a lot of DeSantis signs, a few Trump signs, but there are no Nikki Haley signs.

00:48:01.080 Now, you're saying that most of her voters are coming from the kind of John Kasich camp, I guess.

00:48:09.660 Yeah.

00:48:10.220 And Democrats, correct?

00:48:11.940 There are non-Republicans, I should say.

00:48:14.260 Yeah.

00:48:14.400 Non-Republicans.

00:48:15.020 So independents and Democrats went out and they voted for Nikki Haley.

00:48:18.480 Correct.

00:48:19.460 So we actually had more non-Republicans vote in the 2016 caucuses, 21 percent than the 16 percent that voted this time.

00:48:27.340 But this time they were all either Trump voters who don't want to register Republican and or more likely for Haley.

00:48:35.660 For example, the only reason Haley was even in the ballpark for second place last night is she beat Ron DeSantis 32 to 8 among non-Republican voters.

00:48:45.180 In my suburban district, which is one of the most populous, densely populated areas in the entire state of Iowa, the biggest mall in the state is, you know, a 20-minute walk from my house, basically.

00:48:57.760 You know, I saw several people that I know are Democrats, that I know are Democrat operatives walked in to campaign or to with Haley stuff and registered Republican.

00:49:08.460 We had 140 people vote in my precinct.

00:49:10.640 Thirty-three of them were people who were Democrats that switched to Republicans, and they all voted for Haley.

00:49:16.480 And she narrowly ended up winning my precinct as a result. 0.99

00:49:18.880 In fact, when I got up as the precinct captain for DeSantis to give my speech for Ron, I actually pointed out in the room the Democratic operatives were there in my speech.

00:49:27.340 I said, hey, one of the reasons I'm supporting Ron is like our governor, Kim Reynolds.

00:49:30.540 He has reduced the Democratic Party to smoldering ash, which is why Democrat operatives are sitting at these tables over here to come over here and vote for Dickie Haley.

00:49:38.120 They don't have a party in Iowa, so they have to come over here and vote in ours.

00:49:40.660 I said that right to them.

00:49:41.840 And, you know, and so that's that's so within within the within the right, her base is the Kasich Republican.

00:49:47.840 That would have. So she would have gotten 10 percent last night, may struggle to get out of double digits. 0.99

00:49:53.160 She got into the high teens because of the amount of Democrats that crossed over to vote for her last night. 0.96

00:49:58.220 Which is so interesting that as someone who served in the Trump administration, who in some ways has certainly been conservative as the governor of South Carolina,

00:50:07.160 that she can garner so many Kasich like votes, that she can garner so many independent votes.

00:50:13.700 I don't know if it's because she's been wishy washy on abortion.

00:50:16.380 She's been wishy washy on the trans issue.

00:50:18.600 She's obviously more of a hawk than a lot of people on the stage. 0.89

00:50:22.900 So but it is interesting to me that she has gotten so much independent support when really, I mean, she's she's she's still a Republican.

00:50:33.520 Like she's still pretty conservative on a lot of things. It just is surprising to me that they are willing to vote for someone who was in the Trump administration

00:50:41.760 and really has not bashed Trump as much as I would imagine a lot of independents would like their candidate to.

00:50:49.860 Well, here's what's happening with her. 1.00

00:50:53.220 What's happening with her is, you know, I know it seems as if Mitch McConnell will be Senate Republican leader long after you and I are six feet under.

00:51:00.880 And that might be correct. OK, but but notwithstanding people like him in places like Washington, D.C., across the country,

00:51:09.880 much of the corporatist wing of the Republican Party has been annihilated.

00:51:14.040 Even even Republicans who are favorable to that wing, like, say, your governor, for example, Greg Abbott,

00:51:19.960 have to at the very least, when the cameras are on toe, a completely different line because you're just not going to get away with George.

00:51:27.060 The George W. Bush era talking points out in the open, you'll get eviscerated.

00:51:31.020 She is adopting them openly because it is very clear that she is allowing her candidacy to be a cudgel by which that wing of the party can be reemergent.

00:51:40.280 And that's where all the talk about her being a Trump running mate is coming from. 0.85

00:51:44.380 That's why I think the Koch brother dropped 70 million on her campaign in the final weeks in Iowa.

00:51:49.860 I don't think that was for campaign spending, Ali. I think that was a dowry. 0.55

00:51:53.880 I think that was a the Trump team.

00:51:56.380 On one hand, the former president's personal fortune is under attack in New York right now.

00:52:00.840 On the other hand, they are struggling to raise money and they need a massive legal defense fund against all of these indictments.

00:52:06.900 And so I think that that was an advertisement to the Trump, to Donald Trump and his family to say, hey,

00:52:12.280 if you put her on the ticket, there's a lot more where that comes from.

00:52:15.840 We can write a lot of checks to help your cash flow situation.

00:52:18.540 There's no way, right? Because if you follow MAGA online, they do not like Nikki Haley.

00:52:24.020 I have not seen any of the hardcore MAGA people say, oh, yeah, you know, Nikki Haley might give us a balanced ticket. 0.62

00:52:31.040 They all think that Vivek is going to be the VP pick, which I don't think at all.

00:52:34.280 But they won't make it. They won't they won't make any of the decisions.

00:52:37.200 Well, yeah, I went through this with Donald Trump in 2016 when he was wooing me to work for him.

00:52:41.440 I never met Jared Kushner, didn't know he existed.

00:52:44.200 I didn't have to go through any of these people.

00:52:45.620 I dealt directly with the former president and his personal assistant and campaign manager.

00:52:50.120 The minute he became the presumptive Republican nominee, the family closed the circle in the loop.

00:52:55.340 Jared Kushner came in, started running things.

00:52:57.320 That's what will happen here.

00:52:58.500 The minute that he becomes the presumptive nominee, if that were to happen,

00:53:01.700 everybody that's not around him now but really ran the White House will come back.

00:53:06.020 And that's where these kinds of deals get cut.

00:53:08.240 You can you can see the family internal squabbling about this in media.

00:53:11.840 Don Jr., who's much more aligned with people like us, who's much more in tune with kind of the movement on the right.

00:53:18.280 He's like, no way. I'll do everything I can possibly do for Nimrod to not be the nominee.

00:53:22.560 His sister, Laura, is out there saying, hey, I think she'd be pretty good.

00:53:25.300 I think that's an internal fight in the family because they do have you know,

00:53:30.240 there's a reason why the kids went to that New York courtroom to testify.

00:53:33.280 What the Democrats are trying to do is essentially steal the Trump empire from him.

00:53:37.760 And and so they're they're they're facing some existential threats here beyond just trying to win an election.

00:53:42.920 And I do think there is a serious wing within that family.

00:53:46.160 The kinds of people that were the reasons we were often if we were disappointed with Trump when he was president,

00:53:50.960 it's because these people were the ones making the decisions, the Kushner wing.

00:53:54.160 I think they would absolutely push hard for somebody like Nikki Haley.

00:53:57.820 And I think that's why the the hardcore MAGA movement people that you and I know, they know that, too.

00:54:03.200 That's why they're being so militant against her now.

00:54:05.260 They're they're trying to send or at least hoping to send a message.

00:54:08.540 Can I just be honest, a Trump Haley ticket like as involved as I am in the political commentating culture war sphere?

00:54:17.920 I feel that malaise that we were talking about.

00:54:20.460 I do not feel excited to go out and vote for that in November.

00:54:24.320 Now, of course, when it comes down to it, anyone is better than Joe Biden.

00:54:28.620 Of course, I think that ticket is better than Joe Biden.

00:54:30.960 But am I excited about it?

00:54:33.000 Am I mobilized?

00:54:33.920 And if I feel that if I feel that knowing what we know about what is at stake and I know everything about what is at stake,

00:54:41.820 I mean, as much as a person can anyway, I don't feel excited about that.

00:54:46.080 If I don't feel excited about that, I know for sure that the other moms and the preschool carpool line are not feeling excited about that either.

00:54:55.380 There's a dirty little secret here that a lot of times we don't want to talk about because it's really not good for business.

00:55:00.240 But, you know, there's a lot of members of your audience that didn't write a book last year and they almost sold as many books as Carrie Lake did.

00:55:07.800 This this idea that this is some impenetrable brand.

00:55:11.100 I mean, there's a reason why you pay for bot farms and do things like that to inflate the perception of your worth.

00:55:18.460 So this idea that this is an impenetrable brand and and and all of America is just lining up to join it is just simply not true.

00:55:26.000 You're the comments that you just made from the heart. Just reflect that as somebody who's as hardcore on the front lines involved in the party and everything as you are.

00:55:35.280 And and that is why I believe I said at the start of this year, one of my 10 predictions was if the rate if the if the election is Trump Biden,

00:55:42.880 RFK Jr. is going to break Ross Perot's modern day record for the highest vote percentage by a non major party candidate.

00:55:49.380 It's a good point. He's going to break it. And now, unlike Perot, who mostly took from H.W.

00:55:54.220 Bush, you know, it's going to be an interesting ratio how much he takes from each side, because there are you know, that's what's funny, too.

00:56:00.660 There was only there was only one age demo that Donald Trump didn't win last night in Iowa.

00:56:05.460 Youngest voters and Ron DeSantis won them going away.

00:56:07.940 I know I love to see that. I can see that.

00:56:09.540 And I can I can see that entire demographic voting for RFK Jr.

00:56:13.120 in the fall. And I think, by the way, I think that's true on the Democratic side, too.

00:56:16.900 I could see that entire demographic voting for him, too, on the other side.

00:56:20.840 So I don't know, you know, necessarily the media will tell you if RFK Jr.

00:56:25.480 is hurting Biden or not. They'll say, you know, this has to stop.

00:56:28.440 If he's hurting Trump, they'll say it's great for democracy.

00:56:31.200 You know, but I do think he'll get over 20 percent in November if the if the choices are Biden and Trump.

00:56:37.460 Yeah. You know what? I think I think that you're right.

00:56:39.860 I think that's really interesting, especially with the suburban moms that I just talked about.

00:56:44.160 Amazingly, they might be willing to compromise on some other stuff just to vote for someone who is so for medical freedom.

00:56:49.780 And that's honestly a contrast from Trump.

00:56:51.900 You got the person who doesn't make them frankly feel like.

00:56:54.740 Yeah, go ahead. It doesn't doesn't make him feel like when I'm in the church foyer or atrium,

00:56:59.680 I have to be ashamed of talking about politics.

00:57:02.140 Don't do not underestimate that factor.

00:57:05.400 OK, that that is absolutely a thing for sure.

00:57:07.520 And you know that you know that even better than me.

00:57:10.300 Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really, really appreciate it.

00:57:13.480 Everyone make sure go out, listen to Steve's show because he'll have a lot more analysis actually on his show today.

00:57:18.900 And I'm sure the rest of the week. Thanks so much, Steve.

00:57:21.700 Thanks, Ali. Always good to see you. God bless.

00:57:23.180 All right. We got all the serious stuff out of the way, all the important stuff.

00:57:40.240 And now we are going to talk about something that's in the grand scheme of things, very unimportant, but it's fun.

00:57:45.200 We're going to talk about the Emmys that apparently occurred last night and we're going to rate some outfits.

00:57:52.980 Let's change up the scale, Brie.

00:57:54.760 Let's do 10 being the best this time, because last time that was very confusing.

00:57:59.160 10 being the best, one being the worst.

00:58:01.820 Let's rate some of these outfits.

00:58:05.360 OK, let me scroll to where it is in my document.

00:58:07.920 OK, I don't I don't know all these people.

00:58:10.780 OK, I know a lot of these people.

00:58:12.260 Let's do Suki Waterhouse. 0.99

00:58:15.760 We got the picture.

00:58:19.260 Is she pregnant? 1.00

00:58:20.740 Yes.

00:58:21.160 Pregnant. OK, well, I love I love a pregnant gal on the red as a white beige carpet, the white carpet. 1.00

00:58:29.540 I guess.

00:58:29.900 And she is wearing red.

00:58:31.580 Now, I do not like this dress.

00:58:34.120 I think there is a lot that can be done that is beautiful for maternity outfits.

00:58:39.280 But this is not one.

00:58:43.240 This is not the style that I love.

00:58:46.100 You know, I actually I picked this angle because there's one from the side and it is all hanging out.

00:58:52.480 And so.

00:58:53.500 Yeah.

00:58:54.140 If people are just listening to this, it's basically like a rectangle that's just covering the front of her torso. 0.94

00:59:01.300 But the side and the back is all out.

00:59:04.940 And wow, that's a lot.

00:59:06.200 I'm going to give this a three.

00:59:09.120 I'm going to give it a two.

00:59:10.760 OK.

00:59:11.280 Yeah.

00:59:11.820 Again, as as I always say, very beautiful woman.

00:59:15.260 Pregnancy is beautiful and can be accentuated and highlighted.

00:59:18.440 This just is very like it's hard to do a drop waist.

00:59:21.780 It's hard to do a drop waist at all, ever in any way, unless you're a flapper girl. 0.70

00:59:28.120 But pregnant, that's an interesting choice. 0.96

00:59:30.540 So, yeah, I'm going to go with the three.

00:59:31.880 OK.

00:59:32.460 I don't know who Suki Waterhouse is, by the way. 0.87

00:59:35.100 She's Robert Pattinson's girlfriend.

00:59:38.480 OK.

00:59:39.440 Does she?

00:59:40.100 Is she in a singer? 0.74

00:59:41.840 OK.

00:59:42.360 OK, Suki.

00:59:43.420 OK, let's do Allie Wonk. 0.99

00:59:46.160 OK.

00:59:47.480 Yeah.

00:59:48.140 I saw this yesterday.

00:59:49.860 I don't like this.

00:59:51.900 Now, Allie Wong, as a comedian, is very funny.

00:59:56.280 She is one of the few female comedians that makes me laugh out loud. 1.00

01:00:01.920 But I don't love this.

01:00:04.280 I don't.

01:00:05.000 I don't love the mixed media thing going on.

01:00:09.460 I'm going to.

01:00:10.320 There's a lot going on.

01:00:11.360 Well, it's a little better than the last one because the fit is nice.

01:00:16.460 I'm going to give it a four and a half.

01:00:19.020 I'm going to give it a three.

01:00:21.060 Three.

01:00:21.780 OK, so better to you than the last one.

01:00:25.680 Yeah, slightly.

01:00:27.540 But not much.

01:00:28.580 What do you hate about it?

01:00:29.860 It's just there's so much.

01:00:31.460 There's so much going on.

01:00:32.660 There's so much.

01:00:33.300 The top, the black on the top, and then the foil.

01:00:36.040 Yeah, the black. 0.89

01:00:36.800 I can't really see that. 0.80

01:00:37.900 But you're right.

01:00:38.560 Yeah, why?

01:00:39.420 I don't know.

01:00:40.060 So strange.

01:00:40.800 I don't know.

01:00:41.180 OK, Donald Glover.

01:00:44.860 It's hard to see the details in this one.

01:00:46.940 Yeah.

01:00:47.460 It's I mean, it's not bad, I guess.

01:00:49.520 And plus he's so he's wearing black and white and he's against a black and white background.

01:00:53.600 Yeah.

01:00:54.380 So I don't think I love for the guy a like blazer with what looks like a cami underneath 0.68

01:01:01.080 it.

01:01:01.900 Yeah.

01:01:02.560 That reminds me of when Michael Scott accidentally bought a female suit, a pantsuit, and he didn't

01:01:09.680 realize it wasn't.

01:01:11.900 It was a woman's pantsuit. 1.00

01:01:13.740 But other than that, I think it looks kind of cool.

01:01:16.760 So I'm going to go with a five.

01:01:18.740 Yeah.

01:01:19.120 I like the details.

01:01:20.680 I don't.

01:01:21.500 I mean, they're flowers, but I don't think it's like overly feminine.

01:01:24.500 Feminine.

01:01:24.980 Yeah.

01:01:25.260 I think six.

01:01:26.500 OK.

01:01:26.960 OK.

01:01:27.260 Yeah.

01:01:27.460 I can get down with that.

01:01:28.560 OK.

01:01:28.840 Jenna Ortega.

01:01:30.400 She's Wednesday.

01:01:31.760 Yeah.

01:01:32.260 OK.

01:01:32.800 Wednesday, Adam.

01:01:35.180 OK.

01:01:35.820 We got a T length here.

01:01:37.740 Mm hmm.

01:01:39.260 Um.

01:01:41.900 Oh, I think we could have done so much better.

01:01:45.860 I'm going to go with a four.

01:01:48.040 Really?

01:01:48.800 Yes.

01:01:49.740 I think it's kind of cool.

01:01:50.700 Maybe you can't see the details all the way.

01:01:52.560 It's kind of like a trellis with like flowers and vines.

01:01:55.560 OK.

01:01:56.100 I can barely see that.

01:01:57.660 I think it's kind of cool when you see the details.

01:02:00.900 Um, so I would say seven.

01:02:02.900 I kind of like it.

01:02:03.940 Oh, wow.

01:02:04.520 See, I think it's not a great color.

01:02:06.500 It is a very washout color.

01:02:08.500 That's fair.

01:02:09.060 For someone who is fair.

01:02:10.760 Now, someone who had darker skin, I think it would probably look better. 0.52

01:02:14.420 It's not a bad dress.

01:02:15.680 I just don't know if that is the best on her.

01:02:18.020 I think so many colors will look so pretty with on her.

01:02:20.780 That's not one of them, in my opinion.

01:02:22.720 OK.

01:02:22.920 I don't know who this person is.

01:02:24.100 Don't know how to pronounce their name.

01:02:25.400 Ayo Edibiri.

01:02:27.100 Yeah.

01:02:27.580 Ayo, I think.

01:02:28.420 Ayo.

01:02:29.160 OK.

01:02:31.980 OK.

01:02:32.560 So I saw this yesterday and actually said that I liked it at first.

01:02:38.540 But we could do better.

01:02:39.680 We could do better.

01:02:42.040 Yeah.

01:02:42.900 I'm going to go with a four and a half.

01:02:45.420 Yeah.

01:02:45.860 I'd say five.

01:02:46.740 I think the leather is cool, though.

01:02:48.780 Yeah.

01:02:49.060 And I like the shape on her.

01:02:50.380 I think it's very flattering.

01:02:51.860 But yeah.

01:02:53.840 The bottom.

01:02:55.340 Weird. 0.95

01:02:56.140 A little trash baggy. 0.96

01:02:57.760 Yeah. 0.72

01:02:58.820 Yeah.

01:02:59.320 For sure.

01:03:00.820 OK.

01:03:01.800 April Ludgate.

01:03:02.980 I mean, Aubrey Plaza.

01:03:04.080 The.

01:03:06.760 Um.

01:03:08.240 OK.

01:03:09.640 Here's my hot take.

01:03:10.920 I know that that looks so bizarre, because if you're listening to this, she's got a huge

01:03:14.980 sewing needle through her chest, not through her chest, through the chest of the dress.

01:03:20.740 And obviously that's supposed to be a statement.

01:03:23.740 You know, like it's supposed to be weird.

01:03:26.140 But I think other than that and other than the boxiness at the top, which doesn't like

01:03:30.840 show any shape at all.

01:03:32.260 I think she looks amazing.

01:03:34.520 This is probably the best I've ever seen her look for hair and makeup, I think.

01:03:40.140 Oh, yeah.

01:03:40.600 Her hair and makeup are amazing.

01:03:42.220 Great color on her. 0.72

01:03:43.580 Not everyone can pull off that color.

01:03:45.280 Oh, my gosh.

01:03:45.600 I would look awful in that color.

01:03:47.120 But she looks great.

01:03:49.100 And I say I don't always like her style.

01:03:53.960 But besides the random sewing needle, I think she looks really, really good.

01:03:59.100 So I'm going to give her probably I'm going to give her just general look a seven. 1.00

01:04:04.080 OK.

01:04:05.280 I'm going to give it a five.

01:04:06.820 OK.

01:04:08.000 You said we could do better.

01:04:09.720 I feel like that was the theme of the night.

01:04:11.300 Yeah.

01:04:11.540 I feel like everyone could have.

01:04:13.540 Me judging from my couch.

01:04:15.620 You all could have done better.

01:04:16.800 Yeah.

01:04:18.440 I know.

01:04:18.940 But that's you know what?

01:04:19.840 They're supposed to be scrutinized.

01:04:22.740 They're supposed to be judged.

01:04:24.960 Their outfits are supposed to be judged.

01:04:26.460 That's why they take all the pictures so we can all comment on them.

01:04:29.660 And they're all beautiful human beings made in the image of God.

01:04:32.460 And I hope that Jesus saves all of them.

01:04:34.760 OK.

01:04:34.960 Does that make everyone feel better?

01:04:36.240 We're just rating their clothes because it's fun.

01:04:39.980 All right.

01:04:40.820 Before we head out of here, I just got to tell you about one more thing.

01:04:44.000 One more thing for today.

01:04:45.620 And that is just a reminder to check out a new docuseries on Blaze Originals by Glenn Beck.

01:04:51.820 He has gone to Liberty County, Texas, to give you the real story of Colony Ridge.

01:04:56.080 This is a development, a community that is being built at a stunning rate.

01:05:02.440 We're talking like 200 lots a day.

01:05:04.080 And the interesting thing is, is that all these houses almost are housing illegals. 0.94

01:05:09.780 What?

01:05:10.520 What is going on?

01:05:11.380 Who is behind it?

01:05:12.080 Who is funding it?

01:05:12.780 Why and how is this happening?

01:05:14.820 That's what Glenn Beck is digging into.

01:05:17.260 So go to blazeoriginals.com.

01:05:18.940 Use code COLONYRIDGE.

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Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 16, 2024

Ep 934 ｜ Ready or Not, Here the Election Comes ｜ Guest： Steve Deace

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