--:-- [Theme music fades out]
--:-- John Bickley: Welcome to Morning Wire, I'm John Bickley.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And I'm Georgia Howe.
--:-- John Bickley: With the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary behind us, the GOP primary is all but wrapped up. Now voters and politicians are preparing for a rematch of the 2020 election between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump. What will the former president need to do to win back the White House? And has President Biden's strategy changed since last election?
--:-- Georgia Howe: In this episode, we'll get to those questions and talk to a White House reporter about this historic rematch.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm here with Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips. Hey, Cabot. So you spoke with a man who spent years as a White House reporter and who's been on the campaign trail with the current and former presidents. What did you learn?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, so I got to talk with Philip Wegman. He's the White House reporter at Real Clear Politics. And has unique insight into both campaigns.
--:-- John Bickley: We started with what the data tells us from Donald Trump's recent win in New Hampshire before moving on to discuss the outlook for a general election showdown between Trump and Biden.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Here's some of what he had to say. We saw Trump get his expected win in New Hampshire. It was a bit closer than expected, but based on the numbers, what lessons did we learn in that race?
--:-- Philip Wegman: There are broadly two takeaways from the New Hampshire primary. The first is the former president easily cruised to a victory there. I think by most estimates, he won by about 12 points. So his core supporters, they're not going anywhere. And they're also very enthusiastic to get out and vote for the former president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That said, the other lesson that we learned is that Nikki Haley has been able to win over independents and Democrats such that she can still maybe not pull ahead of the former president, but she still has a decent showing. And that is significant because those independent voters, they're going to vote for someone in a general election. And if Republicans want to return to the White House, they're going to have to make a pitch to them to pull the lever for whoever becomes the nominee over Joe Biden.
--:-- Philip Wegman: And right now, what we've seen just from New Hampshire and Iowa is that independents or more moderate Republicans, they are not eager to vote for Donald Trump.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Now, you wrote about Nikki Haley's response to Trump's win in New Hampshire and how it differed from her previous approach. Tell us about that.
--:-- Philip Wegman: So Haley previously had been focusing more on an affirmative case for herself. She was critical of Trump, to be sure. But in New Hampshire, at the end of that contest, that's where the former South Carolina governor really took the gloves off.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And what I was struck by and what makes me think that Haley is actually in this to make a play for the nomination is that she burned the bridges. She knows the former president because she worked for him for two years. She was one of the rare members of the Trump administration to leave on good terms with the former president.
--:-- Philip Wegman: And so when she was in Concord last night, she argued that a Trump nomination would mean a Biden win and necessarily a President Kamala Harris presidency. That's the type of rhetoric, along with some shots at Trump's mental acuity and some shots about how chaos follows him, that is going to make it very difficult for Haley to come around and endorse him later.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And it just widened the gulf between the challenger and the front runner. And that type of intensity makes me think that at least for the moment Haley is serious about taking on Trump. Otherwise if this was just a vanity play I think that she would probably be more conservative in her criticism.
--:-- Philip Wegman: We saw a number of reports indicating that Haley was on Trump's VP shortlist. She might be off of that list now, given her comments, though we have seen Trump reconcile with people in the past.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: What do you think and what are you hearing as far as Trump's shortlist for VP goes?
--:-- Kevin: I'm glad that you pointed that out because there have been times where you thought that someone challenging Trump took them out of consideration or made them unlikely to be within his inner circle.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I think that her comments certainly make it less likely that she becomes the VP nominee, but we definitely need to keep in mind Trump's former history of surrounding himself with rivals.
--:-- Kevin: So obviously he's a bit of a wild card and things could change. From what I can tell right now, the short list more or less includes a lot of the folks who are up in New Hampshire stumping on behalf of the former president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Think New York Representative Elise Stefanik. Think Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, her name gets thrown around.
--:-- Kevin: But I would not expect an announcement from Trump in terms of who is going to be his running mate for at least another two to three months, if not longer.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I know that he teased during that Fox News interview that he had come to his decision. But I think that he's going to sit on this for as long as possible so that he has, you know, a bit of a surprise factor going into the nomination.
--:-- Kevin: But he's looking foremost, you know, for someone who's going to help him win in 2024. And then, of course, it's Trump. So he's looking for someone who is going to be loyal.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And, you know, I don't have to tell you this, but this time around, the Republican VP nomination is even more significant because Donald Trump is limited to one term. He's older than he was previously.
--:-- Kevin: And the thought is that whoever gets the nod from him is going to be set up pretty well to make their own bid for the presidency come 2028.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the White House said after New Hampshire that the general election has essentially kicked off. With that in mind, you keep a very close eye on the numbers. Who has the advantage right now in your view?
--:-- Kevin: Obviously, a lot can change, but at the moment, who do you see ahead?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So the RealClearPolitics average of a hypothetical head-to-head between Trump and President Biden has Trump ahead by about two points. A head-to-head matchup with Haley has her ahead of Biden by about a point and a half.
--:-- Kevin: But the question that I asked Don Jr. and others throughout New Hampshire is what happens when the legal challenges really come full swing? What happens perhaps if the former president is convicted?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And Don Jr. and other Trump allies told me that they were certain that the American people would see through that. Certainly Trump's dedication is not in question. He would continue to run for the presidency no matter what.
--:-- Kevin: But if he were to be convicted, This would be a completely different ballgame because that would give Democrats so much more ammunition to go after the former president.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And we seen from some polling for instance the Ipsos Reuters poll that Trump support among not his core constituency not the MAGA faithful but among more casual voters, his support really does evaporate if he is convicted.
--:-- Kevin: And it's no secret, Nikki Haley makes this argument, but I have heard it from folks who are close to President Biden themselves. They are more than excited for a 2020 rematch. They are excited for Trump to win the nomination so that they can knock him down because they think that they are well suited for a rematch.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And I think that is why we've seen the Biden campaign basically kick off their general election play by targeting Trump. We've seen President Biden start to focus more on the economy as things have suddenly gotten a little better on that front.
--:-- Kevin: Do you expect that to be the main focus of his campaign? Or in general, what issues do you think he's going to lead with in the general?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Yeah, biodynamics was a term that the campaign and that the White House said that they were going to retire. A number of opinion researchers have said that that isn't taking on. And, you know, for obvious reason, right? Inflation has come down, but it is still here. Americans are still struggling.
--:-- Kevin: And while economists can make an argument, perhaps not necessarily the most persuasive one, but, you know, they can make an argument that the worst is over. A lot of Americans, they still feel that their dollar doesn't go as far.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: The thing is, the president is sort of stuck going into that campaign with the economy that he's got. And so I would expect that the Biden administration, you know, on the campaign trail, you're going to see them make an argument about how the worst is over, that there are sunnier, better days ahead.
--:-- Kevin: And frankly, if we do see a significant improvement in the economy between now and November, expect the Biden campaign to say, we made it through. The ship has been steadied. Do you want to go back to the days of Donald Trump?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And they're not going to be talking about 2017, 2018, 2019. They're going to zero in on the darkest days of the pandemic.
--:-- Kevin: Obviously, immigration is going to have a huge impact on the race, especially with more Republican voters. But how do you see it playing with independents and Democrats? Do you see Biden making any effort to crack down at the border to try and counter the arguments that he's allowing the crisis?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Or do you see him continuing to say that there is no crisis?
--:-- Kevin: Democrats know that the border issue is the number one motivating factor for Republican voters. It was top of mind for voters in Iowa and in New Hampshire.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: A number of folks who I spoke with, even former registered Democrats who are going to be voting for Republicans in New Hampshire, that they said that it was what had motivated them to switch parties and to get out and vote.
--:-- Kevin: The current effort, I think, to find a compromise and to achieve something towards dealing with the current situation there. I think that's sort of an admission that the current situation cannot last.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: What I'm going to be watching for in the next couple of weeks and months is to see if Republicans go with a compromise or if they leave the issue unaddressed and basically provide a avenue for Trump to point to the chaos of the border and say that he is the only one who can handle it and come up with a solution
--:-- Kevin: We spoke last time about the potential for Biden to drop off the ticket Where do we stand on that front?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I know you get tired of hearing this question but is there any legitimate chance that it happens or is it set in stone at this point?
--:-- Kevin: Biden will be the nominee. Absent any type of disaster, it certainly seems that Biden is going to be the nominee.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: And I think the strongest evidence of that of late is what we saw in New Hampshire. President Biden wants South Carolina to be the first in the nation primary for Democrats. And so he abandoned Iowa. He abandoned New Hampshire.
--:-- Kevin: And yet he was able to easily win a write-in campaign in New Hampshire and really crush Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips there.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: There's always going to be speculation about whether or not he will be at the top of the ticket because of some of the challenges that the country is facing. And certainly because of his age.
--:-- Kevin: But as of right now, I do not think that Democrats have the will or really the party muscle to push him out of the way at the convention.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It's not the 1960s and the 1970s anymore. The DNC certainly is not as powerful as it once was.
--:-- Kevin: And I don't think that there's going to be any type of plan coming out of a smoke-filled back room to find a different champion.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So in closing, the issue of abortion was enormously influential on the 2022 midterms. Do you think that that anger from voters over the overturning of Roe v. Wade will continue into 2024?
--:-- Kevin: Do you see that continuing to drive Democrats and independent women to the polls? Or do you think that's going to cool off a bit?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That's certainly the hope of Democrats. And when the president had his first campaign kickoff event, he wasn't subtle. There was a giant sign in the background saying that President Biden supported Roe, that he wants to restore that Supreme Court case to the land.
--:-- Kevin: Certainly, Democrats, they don't have the votes to do it in Congress, but that's not going to stop them from running on that in a general election.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Republicans for a long time were more than happy to go through the motions and ahead of elections tell pro-life conservatives that they supported overturning Roe v. Wade. Once it finally happened, then you saw Republicans get caught flat-footed and they argued amongst themselves about whether or not there ought to be a federal ban or at how many weeks that ban should be in place.
--:-- Kevin: And that has provided an opportunity for Democrats to step in and argue that they have to be kept in power to keep, you know, Republicans from enforcing some type of extremism.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: I think that, you know, this will be something based off of the exit polls that we've seen thus far and voter preference that we've seen thus far that motivates a Democratic base, particularly a younger base of voters.
--:-- Kevin: But 2024, first and foremost, I think is going to be about the economy. It is going to be about the border and heaven forbid something catastrophic happen on the world stage.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: If there is some sort of, you know, worsening of the crises that we see in the Middle East and Europe, then it could also be about the wars there.
--:-- Kevin: More than anything, though, I'm looking at the abortion issue as something that gives Democrats a bit of an enthusiasm advantage, but not something that is going to define the entire race.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: All right. We'll leave it there, Phil. Thanks so much for making time for us. Really appreciate your insight.
--:-- Philip Wegman: Thank you.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: That was Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips with Real Clear Politics White House reporter Philip Wegman. And this was an extra edition of Morning Wire.
