The Charlie Kirk Show - 2016, Take Two with Sean Davis and Jennifer Van Laar

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show.

00:00:01.000 Jennifer Van Law goes through ballot harvesting and Sean Davis helps diagnose the midterm elections.

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00:01:16.000 Ballot harvesting is on the mind.

00:01:19.000 And so we need to talk about this.

00:01:22.000 We need to get better at it, especially in states where it is legal.

00:01:27.000 Joining us now is Jennifer Van Law.

00:01:29.000 She has been predicting this for quite some time, talking about how California ballot harvesting leads to insecure elections and what we can do to reform it.

00:01:38.000 Jennifer joins us now.

00:01:39.000 Jennifer, welcome to the program.

00:01:41.000 Thank you.

00:01:42.000 Jennifer, tell us, just let's get our terms right.

00:01:45.000 What is ballot harvesting?

00:01:46.000 Let's just start with there.

00:01:48.000 Okay.

00:01:48.000 Ballot harvesting is when someone who's not the voter and usually not their family member collects a ballot from a voter and returns it to the election official.

00:02:01.000 So it can be someone affiliated with a campaign.

00:02:04.000 It could be someone affiliated with a PAC.

00:02:06.000 It can just be their neighbor or friend, anyone that that voter wants to give the ballot to.

00:02:11.000 What ballot harvesting in an organized fashion has been evolving into generally is on the Democrat side, where they have unions or big super PACs hire a lot of people to go and they don't just go door to door.

00:02:25.000 They get data on who their voters are going to be, usually Democrats, and they go to their houses, usually in a sales funnel type of way, where they go make the first contact, introduce themselves, talk about the candidates, come back and get the ballot the next time if the person isn't ready to do it then.

00:02:44.000 They aren't supposed to be offering opinions or information on who to vote for, but oftentimes they do.

00:02:51.000 They've even done this in 2018 at nursing homes in California.

00:02:55.000 My daughter-in-law worked at one.

00:02:57.000 They would go in the memory care unit and talk to voters there, and she wasn't permitted to stop that.

00:03:03.000 Well, I don't know if they're talking to voters in the memory care unit.

00:03:06.000 I think what they're doing is something much more sinister.

00:03:10.000 Yeah, it's being generous.

00:03:11.000 Yeah, they do a process called granny farming.

00:03:14.000 It was actually tabulated by the New York Times.

00:03:18.000 And I know they did this in Arizona and no one stopped them.

00:03:21.000 And so in California, you have to give somebody your permission.

00:03:26.000 Is that right?

00:03:26.000 To take your ballot?

00:03:29.000 You do.

00:03:29.000 However, it's still going to be counted, even if there's a place on the ballot to have that person write their name.

00:03:36.000 You don't even have to write it.

00:03:37.000 They write their name as to who's taking it, but the ballot will still be counted even without that signature.

00:03:44.000 And there's no verification that, you know, I could write that my name's Charlie Kirk.

00:03:48.000 You know, some girls are named Charlie, right?

00:03:50.000 They're not going to count.

00:03:51.000 They're not going to check my ID to make sure that that's who I am.

00:03:55.000 So I could write whatever name I want on that envelope.

00:03:58.000 Right.

00:03:59.000 So for years, Democrats have done this really effectively and they've been able to use it as a differentiator.

00:04:09.000 But it seems as if that Republicans and churches are beginning to catch up.

00:04:15.000 And I guess the only difference is that when a Democrat answers the door, are they more likely to give it up than a Republican?

00:04:23.000 Right.

00:04:24.000 I mean, what does your data or your analysis tell you about that?

00:04:29.000 They are a lot more likely to give it up.

00:04:31.000 Democrats in general are a lot more trusting of these groups that say they're going to get the ballot in.

00:04:37.000 And who knows?

00:04:38.000 There's really not any penalty for them not to get it.

00:04:40.000 And Democrats could go try to go to Republican doors and take a ballot and just trash it.

00:04:46.000 But within Republican circles, what we've been trying to do in California and did to some extent within the recall election and even this year is go with the power of churches and other trusted community groups that can put together maybe events at their church and have a ballot drop box there.

00:05:04.000 During the recall election, the California Republican Party partnered with some various organizations to put out community drop boxes because it's not against the law to do that, as long as people do turn in those ballots within 72 hours.

00:05:18.000 So at various churches had drop boxes and the Democrats just lost their mind over that.

00:05:23.000 There was a court case and the Republican Party did prevail there.

00:05:27.000 So what we're trying to do is get people to maybe even have a community gathering of conservative group maybe at a park that's adjacent to where there's a drop box in a secure location, like maybe in front of a city hall or something like that that's monitored and have everyone go ahead and put their ballots in directly themselves.

00:05:46.000 That way they're not trusting a third party.

00:05:49.000 And I think that that's important because as you know, I know that your organization was greatly involved in elections in Arizona and other places.

00:05:57.000 When you're trying to get out the vote, you're texting people, you're calling them to these people and you get up-to-date data on who's turned in their ballots and who hasn't.

00:06:06.000 Each of those contacts costs money.

00:06:08.000 If you can get all of your stalwart people, the people you know are going to vote your base to turn in those ballots a week ahead of time, say then you're not spending those resources to contact people.

00:06:19.000 Yep, that's right.

00:06:21.000 Now, of course, but what this does do, and this needs to be said, is that when you have this system, it does open it up for manipulation and ballot capturing and other nefarious practices.

00:06:33.000 Can you walk us through some evidence of that?

00:06:36.000 Yeah, so that we know in California, people have been paid for their ballot.

00:06:40.000 Homeless people down on Skid Row have been same day signed up to register to vote, paid for their ballots.

00:06:48.000 They've, like you mentioned, granny farming, got in there and told them who to vote for.

00:06:53.000 And then the Democrats are also keeping up with that with that information.

00:06:58.000 So they are knowing how many Republicans have gotten out to vote.

00:07:02.000 So some Republicans have said, well, I don't want to turn in my ballot early because then they're going to know basically how many ballots they have to manufacture to overcome that.

00:07:10.000 I think that, and I understand that line of thinking, but I think that overall, you know, we had 30% turnout in California, a little higher on the Dem side, but overall 30% turnout.

00:07:21.000 The question isn't suppressing our vote.

00:07:23.000 The question is getting more and more and more people out to vote so that those margins are not something that they can just make up.

00:07:30.000 Right.

00:07:31.000 And so do you think that just from a characteristic standpoint, do you think that Republicans are willing to embrace ballot harvesting as a new strategy?

00:07:43.000 I think there's definitely going to be hesitancy.

00:07:45.000 What I've seen just on the world of Twitter, which we all know isn't necessarily reflective of overall real life since last week, there's been a lot more openness to it overall.

00:07:56.000 There's been a lot of misunderstandings of what it is.

00:07:58.000 And so I think on the conservative side, they have to know that we can be successful in it.

00:08:03.000 And one of my writers at Red State, Scott Hounclai, has been on your show a lot.

00:08:08.000 He even came up with this modified program before ballot harvesting was legal in California with a stamp program where they gave a stamp to someone and watched them put it in their mailbox to whoever had an absentee ballot at their home at that time.

00:08:21.000 And they flipped a Democrat plus 13 district in the Central Valley using that tactic.

00:08:27.000 There's different targeting and voter modeling things that they used as well.

00:08:31.000 But just to for conservatives to know that if you're doing this the right way with the right data, with the right consultants and with a good plan, that it is a viable strategy, not just for conservative districts, but within rural areas and with Democrat districts.

00:08:48.000 Yeah.

00:08:48.000 So I guess the question is: can you give us an update on some of the California House races?

00:08:55.000 Yeah.

00:08:55.000 So last night, finally, because in California, they have seven days after Election Day to receive ballots that were postmarked by Election Day.

00:09:04.000 So we finally had kind of the known universe of what was out there.

00:09:08.000 They were able to call a number of House races, including California 3, Kevin Kiley, a Republican hold, and Mike Garcia, NCA 27.

00:09:17.000 That was definitely a hard-fought one.

00:09:19.000 So those two races made it that the GOP has house control because of those.

00:09:25.000 There's a few more Democrat holds that were able to be called, but within the next two days, they should have all of that completely fleshed out and have some final results.

00:09:36.000 Yeah.

00:09:37.000 So in closing here, just on this topic, what do you think is the greatest learning lesson and kind of thing of improvement for Republicans or conservatives on this topic?

00:09:47.000 I think definitely to learn more about it and to embrace getting in those early votes, whether it's taking your mail ballot to a polling place and turning it in, or just gathering your friends together and making sure that we turn out even more of the vote than we have been.

00:10:05.000 Yeah, that's well said.

00:10:06.000 Jennifer Van Law from Red State, thank you so much for joining us.

00:10:09.000 Deeply appreciate it.

00:10:10.000 Thank you.

00:10:14.000 Look, in the good old days, we Americans argued about which policies to pursue to improve this beautiful country.

00:10:19.000 Charlie Kirk here.

00:10:20.000 Too often, we find ourselves arguing about whether or not America is great or not, or whether we should be ashamed or whether we should love America.

00:10:28.000 The reason for this is simple.

00:10:30.000 For too many years, too many of our schools have been neglecting to teach young people about our great heritage of liberty, presenting them instead a dishonest narrative of America as a fundamentally unjust or racist country.

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00:10:53.000 As we get closer to Constitution Day, September 17th, I encourage all of you to enroll in one of these wonderful free courses from Hillsdale.

00:10:59.000 And even better, encourage your friends and family to sign up to begin your Hillsdale course today at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:11:06.000 That is charlie4hillsdale.com.

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00:11:13.000 So, Andrew, I tweeted, and I am now of the opinion that, look, the rules are the rules.

00:11:18.000 And if you're able to ballot harvest, then we need to do this.

00:11:21.000 I mean, look, we are not going to just accept this below-average, depressing result.

00:11:29.000 First of all, I think Carrie Lake needs to fight this thing to the bitter end legally.

00:11:33.000 It is so wrong what happened in Maricopa County, and we support her completely and totally in this.

00:11:39.000 And it's been very interesting, Andrew.

00:11:41.000 The media has actually been very quiet in kind of how they've been talking about this.

00:11:47.000 And I'm sure that's going to change.

00:11:49.000 But I think even deep down, the media knows that there was a legitimate voter disenfranchisement and suppression that happened in Maricopa County.

00:11:57.000 One in five voting centers went down on election day.

00:12:00.000 Listen, I'm, I, you know, I'm usually pretty skeptical about the legal challenges.

00:12:05.000 I think I've been a little bit jaded after 2020 and, you know, everything that we went through in that cycle.

00:12:11.000 I think there's a really compelling case to be made in Maricopa.

00:12:15.000 And I think, you know, again, no hopium here.

00:12:18.000 It's an uphill battle anytime you say, hey, let's, let's run it back.

00:12:22.000 Let's let's do this election again.

00:12:24.000 I think there's a really, really compelling argument, just given the scale, given the number of testimonials.

00:12:31.000 I mean, we have that clip that we could play for the audience here.

00:12:34.000 I mean, it's amazing.

00:12:37.000 And if you guys have that story, go to defenddemocracyaz.com.

00:12:40.000 That's defenddemocracyaz.com.

00:12:43.000 Your stories are going to be taken down for possible affidavits in a legal battle that's going to play out in Arizona.

00:12:49.000 People are asking us how they can support the potential legal bills that are going to come with this legal challenge in Arizona.

00:12:56.000 Just go to Carrie Lake's campaign.

00:12:57.000 I know they're getting that ready right now.

00:13:00.000 But yeah, I mean, it's a really compelling case, Charlie.

00:13:02.000 When you have 70 voting polling places that are not able to tabulate ballots on day of, that's going to disenfranchise overwhelming majority conservative voters that are going to go Carrie Lake and Abe Homeday.

00:13:19.000 Now, Carrie Lake's still down in the thousands, but Abe's down to like 500 votes right now, as of right now, as we're doing this.

00:13:26.000 So you can't tell me.

00:13:28.000 500 votes.

00:13:29.000 Yeah, you can't tell me that we can't find 500 people that got disenfranchised that day and that would have made Abe Homeday the next Attorney General of Arizona.

00:13:38.000 Now, he might end up winning even without that.

00:13:41.000 Doesn't matter.

00:13:42.000 Still do it.

00:13:43.000 Still do it.

00:13:44.000 I think this is a legal battle worth having.

00:13:47.000 Yes.

00:13:47.000 I mean, it's just, so there's a ton of people emailing us right now.

00:13:52.000 And by the way, I'm going to just say this.

00:13:54.000 I think that Maricopa County is lying.

00:13:56.000 I think there's more ballots to be cured out there than what people are saying.

00:14:00.000 I got three emails today, three of people saying that they cured their ballots.

00:14:05.000 There's no way there's only 3,000.

00:14:07.000 It's just statistically impossible.

00:14:09.000 If we know people that have to cure their ballots, we're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of ballots.

00:14:16.000 And it just so happens that we know a couple in our own circle.

00:14:19.000 It's statistically hard to believe.

00:14:21.000 And Charlie, this is another point of hope, right?

00:14:24.000 So we just had Jennifer Van Law.

00:14:26.000 You've got house races in California that are being won because conservatives are finally getting on board with the harvesting thing in that state, that process, these church gatherings, whatever it is.

00:14:37.000 Democrats have outpaced conservatives for years on ballot curing.

00:14:42.000 In Arizona right now, we are on par to match Democrats.

00:14:46.000 And if we keep getting the message out, we might cure more ballots in Arizona than the Democrats.

00:14:50.000 Okay, so that's a sign of hope.

00:14:52.000 This is the first year we'll ever be on par with them.

00:14:55.000 They have known that ballot curing was just as important as ballot harvesting in some races, especially purple states with close races statewide level.

00:15:04.000 So they've been ahead of us on this.

00:15:06.000 This year, we're finally getting the word out.

00:15:08.000 Finally, it took this much, which is unfortunate, but cure your ballots.

00:15:13.000 It could make all the difference on whether or not we're able to prosecute some of these illegal harvesters in the state of Arizona.

00:15:20.000 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to our podcast.

00:15:24.000 Open up your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk Show.

00:15:27.000 And we have tweeted that it is now time for us to build the most aggressive and sophisticated legal ballot harvesting operation in California and Nevada.

00:15:38.000 I mean, imagine the next time Donald Trump goes to election cycle in Nevada or whoever then, you know, I think Donald Trump will be the nominee, but whoever it is, and he says, come turn in your ballot, you know, bring it in this big, beautiful locked box.

00:15:51.000 And our staff will bring it right to the county office.

00:15:54.000 That right there, you're guaranteeing that your base is voting that way.

00:15:58.000 You're guaranteeing it.

00:15:59.000 It's not a matter of go out and vote.

00:16:00.000 That's it.

00:16:01.000 That's you're doing your job.

00:16:02.000 You're turning your rallies into literal votes.

00:16:06.000 Charlie, it's a brilliant idea.

00:16:07.000 Can you imagine a Trump rally where you bring your ballot to the rally?

00:16:12.000 That's power.

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00:17:18.000 Joining us now is Sean Davis and the Federalist.

00:17:20.000 Andrew is also here co-piloting this third hour.

00:17:23.000 Sean, welcome to the program.

00:17:25.000 I want to just get your first initial reaction on the midterms.

00:17:29.000 It was underwhelming, not what we wanted it to be.

00:17:32.000 How should we think about what happened a week ago?

00:17:36.000 I think that's a great question.

00:17:37.000 It was disappointing.

00:17:38.000 It wasn't what we wanted to see.

00:17:41.000 I guess my instinct when stuff like that happens is I want to know what went wrong.

00:17:46.000 I want to know things that the other side did, they did well, things that we did poorly.

00:17:51.000 And then I want to find a way to fix the problems that I think kept us down.

00:17:55.000 And to me, there's, look, failure has a thousand bothers.

00:17:58.000 So I'm not going to say there's one particular thing that was the main reason for everything because it wasn't.

00:18:04.000 But I think the biggest determinant in the disappointing results was the machinery for electioneering that the Dems have set up is an absolute behemoth.

00:18:15.000 It's how they were able to basically in four to five states have the exact same results in 2022 as they did two years ago, despite wildly different political circumstances.

00:18:25.000 And until the Republican Party gets that through its skull and wises up and starts building out its own machinery and using the same rules and processes to get back to an even playing field as far as mail-in balloting or ballot harvesting, whatever you want to call it, until they get back there, they're going to be a minority party nationally, as far as the eye can see.

00:18:46.000 So that to me is the number one thing.

00:18:47.000 It's fixable.

00:18:48.000 It's addressable.

00:18:49.000 They can do it.

00:18:50.000 The only question is whether they have the will.

00:18:52.000 So, Sean, some people are trying to, they're scratching their head.

00:18:57.000 And, you know, we talked about this the other day when actually early in the show about the independence that seemed nationwide to skew a little bit more in the Democrat direction than anyone would have anticipated, more than national trends would have suggested.

00:19:16.000 Why do you think that is?

00:19:17.000 It seemed as if the opposite was happening, right?

00:19:19.000 I mean, you saw the Wall Street Journal stories and the polls.

00:19:22.000 It looked like independents were breaking our way steadily, but it wasn't just Arizona.

00:19:26.000 It was Georgia.

00:19:27.000 It was Pennsylvania.

00:19:28.000 It was Colorado.

00:19:30.000 It was Nevada.

00:19:30.000 It was Michigan.

00:19:31.000 It was those last late, early, those late independent voters that usually break our way significantly.

00:19:38.000 That remember, Trump won in 16, right?

00:19:41.000 That was one of the reasons why he won.

00:19:43.000 What happened?

00:19:45.000 So it's interesting.

00:19:46.000 I actually think if you look at the polls, a lot of people want to say they were wrong.

00:19:50.000 I'm not sure they were.

00:19:52.000 You bring up 2016.

00:19:54.000 2016 was a wildly different year because we didn't have three months of voting.

00:19:59.000 We didn't have this post-COVID. mail-in balloting apparatus.

00:20:03.000 And the result of that is that kind of the polls that you saw towards the end actually reflected your ultimate electorate.

00:20:09.000 We didn't have that this year.

00:20:11.000 And so if you're looking at polls in late October or early November, trying to help you figure out what's going to happen, you're going to be wrong because so much of the voting started in late September in mid-October.

00:20:23.000 And I think that's what really changed is the Dems through very targeted, sophisticated, deliberate scheduling and messaging, they started bringing in their voters.

00:20:34.000 So they got them amped up, they got them activated, and then they got them in the mail in September.

00:20:39.000 And then we were just sitting around on the right, kind of thinking we were operating under this old model where, oh, we've just got to get our people to the polls on election day.

00:20:46.000 Well, by that point, it was already too late.

00:20:48.000 So I think the Republican Party and everyone on the right needs to kind of trash everything they thought they knew about politics pre-mass mail-in balloting.

00:20:57.000 And they need to accept the reality of what they're in right now.

00:21:00.000 Now, granted, I wish we just had Election Day and you only got to do the mail and absentee thing in extenuating circumstances that you had approved.

00:21:08.000 That's not where we are now.

00:21:09.000 Mail and mail is pretty popular and we need to just deal with it.

00:21:12.000 Yeah, but here's what my big frustration is.

00:21:14.000 I want to answer in on this, Sean.

00:21:15.000 And I just want your thoughts.

00:21:16.000 I'm not asking for, you know, to put you on the spot or anything.

00:21:19.000 I'm just curious, is that why did nobody really see this?

00:21:22.000 There were so few alarm bells, right?

00:21:24.000 I mean, we probably have a thousand what I would consider to be smart, highly dedicated people on the right, like people like you, people like Tucker that are on Twitter, you know, people that are just nonstop on Molly Hemingway.

00:21:39.000 Why is it that we didn't get the proper warnings of this, right?

00:21:42.000 It just seemed to be the opposite, right?

00:21:44.000 I mean, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday going into the election, there was maybe a whisper that something might not break our way.

00:21:52.000 But do you have any insights into that?

00:21:56.000 Well, again, I think it depended on how you looked at the polls.

00:21:59.000 So we last went into the field in Arizona, for example, in mid-October.

00:22:04.000 The last poll that we put out showed a generic ballot tie, and it showed Republicans losing each statewide race.

00:22:10.000 And then you looked at the polls at the end of November or end of October, beginning in November, and you thought, oh, things have gone our way.

00:22:16.000 At that point, the election was over.

00:22:18.000 And to me, if you were looking for warning signs in October, you were way too late.

00:22:23.000 The warning sign was 2020.

00:22:25.000 And unfortunately, our party was more interested in kind of casting blame and going after election deniers or blaming Trump rather than doing the hard work of building machinery and party infrastructure, which I can't do.

00:22:39.000 You can't do.

00:22:39.000 Andrew can't do it.

00:22:41.000 That is something that just because of its scale and the amount of capital involved has to be done by the party.

00:22:45.000 And they didn't do it.

00:22:46.000 Andrew, your thoughts.

00:22:48.000 Yeah, I mean, you know, Charlie, I go back to that tweet that you just put up.

00:22:53.000 You know, it was kind of a, it's kind of a big, you know, moment.

00:22:57.000 You drew a line in the sand.

00:22:59.000 And just to bring you up to speed, Sean, this is this is what Charlie tweeted.

00:23:02.000 The Rubicon has been crossed.

00:23:04.000 I don't like it, but it's time to win.

00:23:06.000 We will build the most sophisticated and aggressive legal ballot harvesting operation in America and never let this garbage happen again.

00:23:14.000 And the response is like off the charts.

00:23:19.000 I mean, this, this, A, the tweet is flying, but B, every like cool kid on Twitter right is chiming in saying, yeah, it's time to go.

00:23:28.000 I think there's a, you know, there's a recognition that, you know, with this economy, with inflation being what it is, with illegal immigration being just out of control with a historically unpopular president, this should have gone a different way.

00:23:44.000 But to your point, we had already lost the election in a lot of these places, probably in September, you know, late October, right?

00:23:52.000 I mean, different states had early voting starting well before, for example, Fetterman Oz, right?

00:23:59.000 That was an election where they had already been early voting for weeks by the time that disastrous debate performance happened with Fetterman.

00:24:08.000 You know, so I think you're totally right.

00:24:10.000 We have to reimagine how we do this.

00:24:12.000 And it's got to start at the top.

00:24:13.000 I mean, it really does.

00:24:14.000 I mean, I think, you know, as we see, I mean, if you, if Trump really wants to do this, can you imagine bring your ballot to a MAGA rally?

00:24:22.000 I mean, the guy can turn out voters like nobody else.

00:24:25.000 I mean, that would be a really remarkable thing to see.

00:24:27.000 But to your point, I think it's well taken.

00:24:30.000 Has to start at the top.

00:24:31.000 We need leadership that gets it.

00:24:33.000 Yeah, we can switch gears here.

00:24:35.000 So talking, I want to talk about this, one of these stories here.

00:24:38.000 So Donald Trump running for the presidency, Sean, what do you think that means for the movement?

00:24:43.000 And what do you think about some of the new kind of DeSantis rumblings on the right?

00:24:47.000 Well, so it's, I'll tell you what, I'm going to take a little different hack here.

00:24:52.000 What I am not interested in doing is reliving 2015 and 2016 again and that whole nonsensical season where everyone in Washington decided it was their job to tell everyone outside of Washington what they had to do and who they had to vote for.

00:25:06.000 And I have zero interest in that little game playing out.

00:25:10.000 And you already saw it with a bunch of the so-called conservative publications yesterday immediately coming out and say, you voters must not reelect him and this and that.

00:25:19.000 And I guess my view of this is I'm sick and tired of people in Washington.

00:25:24.000 And I'm sick and tired of people in the party telling us what we have to do and who we have to vote for.

00:25:29.000 They work for us.

00:25:31.000 They need to do their actual jobs.

00:25:33.000 They need to focus on the new reality that we have and they need to stop trying to tell us everything we need to do.

00:25:38.000 You know, it was fascinating after last week watching people like Mitch McConnell come out and say, oh, the problem's candidate quality.

00:25:45.000 It's Trump and it's candidate quality.

00:25:47.000 And I want people to understand.

00:25:48.000 Yeah, candidate quality is code for we lost this because Republican voters are stupid.

00:25:55.000 That's actually what Mitch McConnell was saying is that I'm sick and tired of these voters thinking they get to run this party.

00:26:00.000 That's my job.

00:26:01.000 And so extrapolating that to the whole 2024 race, I'm eager to see anyone who wants to get in, fight it out, and I'm eager to see what the voters choose.

00:26:12.000 And you know what?

00:26:13.000 Given Trump's record as president, I'm not going to be surprised one bit if they come in and say everyone else in this party is corrupt.

00:26:19.000 He was a great president.

00:26:20.000 Things were good when he was in charge.

00:26:22.000 I'm going to vote for him again.

00:26:24.000 Yeah.

00:26:25.000 Andrew, what are your thoughts?

00:26:27.000 No, I think that's wise.

00:26:28.000 I mean, you guys have a story at the Federalists that says that.

00:26:31.000 It says Donald Trump.

00:26:32.000 I think we have the graphic here.

00:26:34.000 Donald Trump is running for president again.

00:26:36.000 Washington would be wise to remember 2016.

00:26:40.000 I mean, I think you're absolutely right when you have these, you know, the Paul Ryans of the world re-emerging on the scene.

00:26:47.000 I mean, I think it strikes the voter as completely corrupt.

00:26:51.000 And what I think they don't realize what they're doing, they don't realize how unpopular they are.

00:26:56.000 And I think they're also going to be surprised that it's going to have the exact opposite reaction.

00:27:01.000 I think that's what you're getting in your piece.

00:27:02.000 They're actually giving him a leg up, wouldn't you say, Sean?

00:27:06.000 Absolutely.

00:27:07.000 I mean, it's kind of fascinating.

00:27:08.000 The guy was president.

00:27:10.000 He's the ostensible party leader.

00:27:12.000 And yet, because of the establishment and DC's just total hatred of him, they're setting him up to be the outsider again, which is where he thrives, is being the guy who's up against the forces that want to keep people down.

00:27:25.000 So I just find it kind of fascinating.

00:27:27.000 And look, I get why a lot of people on the right who weren't anti-Trump might be concerned that he can't win in 2024.

00:27:35.000 And I think that's a debate that the party absolutely needs to have and that we need to duke it out.

00:27:40.000 But this notion that a couple magazines in DC and a couple failed leaders in the party are going to decide who the presidential nominee is going to be.

00:27:49.000 Yeah, they can get out of town with that.

00:27:51.000 I've got no appetite for that nonsense.

00:27:53.000 Yeah, so Sean, who do you think are going to be some of the challengers that you think actually could have a little bit of a spark?

00:27:58.000 The obvious is DeSantis, but I mean, a little deeper than that.

00:28:02.000 What are you hearing or seeing in that regard?

00:28:05.000 Well, obviously, DeSantis.

00:28:07.000 He's got charisma.

00:28:08.000 He's got a great record in Florida.

00:28:11.000 I think another star was Carrie Lake.

00:28:14.000 And I actually think that's why the Democrats and the establishment on the right were so invested in her losing because her ability to rally a crowd, to get people to her side, the energy and fervor she had.

00:28:27.000 We haven't seen that in the party in a long time.

00:28:29.000 It was funny watching her.

00:28:31.000 I actually thought she was the heir to Trump and just her ability to tap into the base.

00:28:36.000 But, you know, I look at Nikki Haley, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence.

00:28:42.000 I think they're kind of yawners.

00:28:44.000 They're good people.

00:28:45.000 I don't have anything against them.

00:28:46.000 But all the excitement right now seems to be between DeSantis and Trump.

00:28:52.000 But look, two years is a really, really long time.

00:28:55.000 We're not actually going to be casting votes in the primary until January 2024.

00:28:59.000 So we have lots and lots of time.

00:29:01.000 And I don't want to let my lack of imagination somehow dictate how I view this because who knows what can happen between now and then.

00:29:08.000 And in January 2020, I didn't think COVID would destroy the whole world and wreck our political system.

00:29:13.000 And yet here we are.

00:29:15.000 Very good.

00:29:19.000 Andrew, you want to take a lead?

00:29:21.000 You know, Charlie and I are both pro-life from conception.

00:29:25.000 I mean, we've devoted so much time in the past couple of years to that topic.

00:29:30.000 But, you know, at the same time, when we are forced to assess what happened in the midterms, I mean, the first question, Sean, is what effects did you see that Dobbs had, especially when you consider single women that went so heavily Democratic, more so than they had in previous cycles?

00:29:48.000 I mean, it seems obvious that that had an impact.

00:29:52.000 I mean, but it's not just, it's not all women, right?

00:29:55.000 We know that women with children are more pro-life than most men.

00:29:59.000 Actually, the polling indicates that.

00:30:01.000 So, what's the does the conservative movement need to find?

00:30:06.000 How do we thread this needle where we can reassure women that on one hand, but also hold true to our values?

00:30:14.000 Well, I think I'd probably disagree on the impact on Dobbs in the midterms.

00:30:19.000 I think it was a wash, really, at worst.

00:30:23.000 You look at the kind of generic ballot, if you just add up all the votes in all the house races across the country, Republicans won by four to five points.

00:30:34.000 That's a pretty massive swing, especially compared to 2020.

00:30:37.000 So, if Dobbs was this albatross around the neck of the Republican Party, why do we see such a national shift towards Republicans?

00:30:47.000 Because people score tickets.

00:30:48.000 That's why.

00:30:49.000 Well, no, I think on the contrary, Dobbs was 7%.

00:30:54.000 The Republicans were 7% up on Katie Hobbs.

00:30:59.000 I think Dobbs was a motivator for base Democrat voters.

00:31:04.000 I think that was its primary value that they used to activate people, get them riled up in September and October so that when the mail-in ballots went out, they were ready and angry and champing at the bit to send in those votes.

00:31:16.000 But as far as like a big determining factor, I really didn't see it.

00:31:21.000 I didn't see it in the data.

00:31:22.000 I didn't see it in the numbers.

00:31:24.000 So I'm not looking at Dobbs and thinking, well, geez, if only that had gone differently, we would have won.

00:31:30.000 No, the Democrats used that to juice their base.

00:31:32.000 And when you look at these poll numbers, you saw two issues.

00:31:34.000 People said they either cared about the economy or they either cared about abortion.

00:31:39.000 And I actually think people are getting cause and effect mixed up on those.

00:31:43.000 If half your voters are Republicans and half your voters are Democrats, I'll tell you right now, the Democrats aren't going in there saying, oh, the economy, that's what I'm voting on.

00:31:50.000 They had to have some sort of issue to tell pollsters to pretend that they were really, really mad about so that they wouldn't have to acknowledge that the economy sucked and it was Obama's Biden's fault.

00:32:00.000 So yeah, I'm sorry.

00:32:02.000 I just don't buy that Dobbs was this big determining factor in the election at all.

00:32:06.000 Well, in Arizona, it was for sure.

00:32:07.000 Yeah, I was going to say, we've gotten just anecdotal evidence here.

00:32:11.000 Well, no data, too.

00:32:12.000 I mean, yeah, well, there's data.

00:32:14.000 Certainly there's data.

00:32:15.000 I think a lot of the moderate Republicans, you know, to Charlie's point, seven to nine percent were voting for Republican treasurer.

00:32:24.000 But because they hammered home on both Kerry Lake and Blake Masters, that they were too extreme on abortion, I mean, they hammered 100 million bucks.

00:32:35.000 I'm convinced that we saw some attrition there, at least at the top of the ticket where we didn't see it down ticket.

00:32:42.000 But, you know, perhaps you're right.

00:32:43.000 I mean, I would be encouraged if you're right, honestly.

00:32:45.000 But then you have to look at Pennsylvania, Michigan.

00:32:48.000 Michigan, we lost huge.

00:32:50.000 I mean, and also the Wisconsin governor's race.

00:32:52.000 I mean, that was the only issue that ever Evers ran in was abortion.

00:32:56.000 That was it.

00:32:56.000 And he won by like four points.

00:32:58.000 Yeah.

00:32:58.000 He literally spent 30 million bucks on abortion.

00:33:01.000 So.

00:33:02.000 So that's actually my question.

00:33:04.000 Was that an abortion issue or is that a money issue?

00:33:06.000 Because I think you could pick any issue, spend $100 million on someone and destroy them with it, and then say, oh, yeah, that's the issue that cost them.

00:33:14.000 The big problem we had in addition to the voter mobilization was we got absolutely crushed on air.

00:33:20.000 Absolutely crushed.

00:33:21.000 And I think ad-wise, there were $400 million spent on abortion ads from Dems and $10 million from Republicans.

00:33:27.000 So you give me a 40 to 1 odd, I can take any issue with a 40 to 1 multiplier and destroy someone.

00:33:34.000 And I think we'll agree on this.

00:33:36.000 Dobbs gave the reason for the oligarchs on the left, a lot of the pro-abortion, like Lorene Powell Jobs and Mackenzie Bezos to just throw money at this election like they otherwise didn't.

00:33:45.000 So we're out of time.

00:33:46.000 Sean Davis, great commentary as always.

00:33:48.000 Thank you.

00:33:49.000 Thank you, guys.

00:33:52.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:33:54.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:57.000 Thank you so much for listening.

00:33:58.000 God bless.

00:34:02.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - November 17, 2022

2016, Take Two with Sean Davis and Jennifer Van Laar

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