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Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Illy and host of What About Your Friends, a podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the Ringer Dish Feed, I talk to my best friend, Steven Othello, and your favorites from within the Ringer and beyond about friendships on TV, in movies, pop culture, and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the Ringer Dish Feed, where we try to answer the question TLC asks back in the day, what about your friends?
This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian. Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs. I especially like Italian subs made in good places. Like Jersey Mike's, planning your summer picnic, backyard adventure, or beach day? Well, Jersey Mike's. They have you covered with everything you need to beat the summer heat.
they have your favorite summer sub combo they have everything you want at jersey mike's a sub above order on the app today or visit jerseymikes.com to learn more great app by the way this episode is brought to you by experian i don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for or maybe you got some email for something like i thought i canceled that well
This is what happens. These days, anyone could be missing out on savings from subscriptions they've totally forgotten about. It's not just the ones you forgot to get rid of, it's the ones that they have better deals. And that's where Experian comes in. It's like a personal assistant for your subscriptions. It can cancel over 200 plus subscriptions in categories like streaming services, meal kits, entertainment apps, and more. You could save an average of $270 per year
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Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri. I'm Puck's senior political correspondent, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. It's been nearly two weeks since Joe Biden's State of the Union address, and the public polling has remained the same.
His approval ratings are in the high 30s, low 40s, and Trump is leading Biden in the battleground states of Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. It's all very close. And just because today it doesn't look like Joe Biden would win the race, that doesn't mean it will be the same in November.
At the same time, there has been a lot written about Trump amnesia and even nostalgia for him from voters who ultimately chose Biden over him in 2020. They were tired of the chaos. They didn't like his management of coronavirus.
And at the same time, a lot of these voters are now unhappy with the Biden administration, mainly over the pullout from Afghanistan, the war in Ukraine and now the war in Gaza. But the question is, could Trump ultimately wear these people out even more so over the next seven months and remind them why they were so tired of the Trump show?
this would be the ultimate blessing for the Biden campaign and something that they are going to try to reinforce through paid advertising. Of course, the best way to communicate this is through Trump himself. So the real question mark is, will Trump be able to show any self-restraint? Will he self-sabotage?
So far, he has definitely leaned very far into January 6th. He actually launches his rallies with the Star Spangled Banner sung by the January 6th choir, people he now refers to as hostages.
Will he rant about how the election was stolen or tell voters that mail-in balloting is rigged, which will ultimately impact turnout just like it did in 2020? Will his side shows and his fights be unbearable? And will he constantly reinforce his comment that he wants to be a dictator by talking about his affection for Putin, the deals he wants to cut with him, perhaps giving him parts of Ukraine or allowing him to march into Europe? On the
In this episode, I talk to Sam Number. He is one of Trump's OG political aides. He's one of his first and longest serving. He was ultimately fired very early on in the 2016 campaign. But he says there is absolutely no way to control Trump and he has the stories to prove it.
Sam, thanks for joining the show. Like I said, you are one of the OGs, the originals of the Trump campaign. You came on with Roger Stone to help him in 2015 before he even walked down that elevator. I worked for Donald before it was fashionable. I mean, I didn't have direct communication with him, but I was working for him through Roger in around late 2010. He was starting to explore...
running for the presidency. But I think at that point, it wasn't he wasn't so serious about it. What had ended up happening. And I think this is really a misnomer, just from my point of view, having been there. It had nothing to do with the White House Correspondents Dinner with Obama. It was a long running theory for our listeners that Donald Trump decided that he wanted to jump into the race because he was mocked at the White House Correspondents Dinner by President Obama. But you don't think that's the case? Not at all. I think that his contract was up at NBC in
And it so happened that the ratings were very, very good for Apprentice. They picked up that season once he at the same time when he was exploring the presidency. His numbers, though, he was in the lead. He was in the lead throughout until around the time that he announced that he was re-upping with NBC.
Having followed the process in 2012, there were some problems there within the Romney camp about whether or not how much they wanted him involved. They weren't sure they wanted his endorsement, right? They didn't know what to do about it? Not the endorsement. They didn't want him involved in the general election. He really did pull Romney over the line against Santorum in 2012, particularly in Michigan, Ohio, those states. And I think that
Once he saw that Romney lost, he thought Obama was eminently beatable. I happen to disagree with him, but he thought that Obama was eminently beatable. He really just at that point had the bug that he was going to run. He also had some deals going on.
And around that time, he was looking at the D.C. hotel property. He was buying he was buying the property in Miami. And once those were all done, he was really ready to do it. He he called me up the day after the election. I was surprised because I had told him that Obama was going to win the entire time.
I had been involved in Romney's campaign in 2008. And in around 2013, I'll always remember this. This is like a life lesson. I've learned many of them from Donald. This is a life lesson. I just remember when I was telling him that I thought that the field would be much tougher in the 2016 GOP primary.
And he had that big chair. It was the Gordon Gekko chair from Wall Street. And he leaned back in his chair. He looked up at the ceiling in his office and he looked at me and he said, you know, I've been around these politicians. He goes, I could beat these guys.
I'm going to do it. He had a gut feeling. Yeah. That was when he was being laughed at. We were all being laughed at. Yeah. I mean, I remember he called me in 2012, I think it was, after the convention, the RNC. No, during the RNC convention, he told me that McCain told him that he had a shot at the nomination. And I was like, Romney's just been nominated. Like, how is that a thing? And he's like, write this down. This was when I was working at the New York Post. And I was like, I'm sorry, Mr. Trump. I'm
I'm not writing about you anymore. And plus, I think at that point, the Post, we were kind of instructed to no longer write about Trump's political ambitions. It's gone a bit too far. I know you know this. He was leaking to Page Six, the New York Post. He wanted a momentum during 2012 and 2011 that he would perhaps run, right? Yeah.
I guess the thing that I'm super interested in, because you've been there with him for so long and you see him now. And a lot of times, if I ask you for your opinion on how things are going to play out, you're pretty spot on. History sort of repeats itself with Trump. But there are some reports that people in his camp, of course, are trying to manage him. And they really don't want him to go on and on about 2020 and relitigate the election. They don't want him to say it was stolen.
they want him to talk about the future, right? And I'm just wondering, do you think he can actually restrain himself and do that? Because after that report broke, which a lot of people thought was like a leak to sort of hurt someone at the top, perhaps Susie Wiles, he said something on Truth Social or at the rally about, you know, it was a stolen election. And obviously he's incapable of having this sort of self-restraint. Have you ever seen him show self-restraint? Do you think he can actually do this? Look, he shows self-restraint for,
when he knows that he really has to and his back is against the wall.
If you notice, he really did not talk about the 2020 election and his view that it was stolen. I happen not to agree with him that it was literally stolen. He didn't talk about it when he had to close out those early caucus and primaries. He then starts really going out there, putting up true social posts and bringing it up when he's freewheeling at these rallies.
rallies, he'll go about it once, you know, now that he controls the RNC. Now that he is the presumptive nominee, he may try to at least get it out of his system. Now, there are going to be ways where the people around him will figure out ways that like, look, he's going to talk about the election. The but is how do you get him to bring it back, let's say, to a policy issue? So let me give you an example.
Our problem when I worked for him, there was no way he was ever going to use direct prepared remarks. There was no way you were ever going to be able to have him reading off teleprompters. What I did with Roger is we figured out
How do you get his business profile? How do you get what he loves talking about the most, which is himself? How do you get that into trying to ingratiate it into policy, into how it'll evolve into the campaign and make it about the voter? I did used to say to him, look, too much me, not enough we. But what did we do? We saw that he wanted to talk about immigration. He believes in legal enforcement of the immigration laws.
And so we built it in and made suggestions. You can only make suggestions to him. We built it in that, well, why don't you say I'm the builder? I'm
I'm going to build the wall. I'm going to secure the border. I get stuff up. I know how to do this. All these other guys are all talk, no action. And he was really able to do it in his own way that he wanted to adapt. So what I would do if I were around them would be what he tries to do, where it's like they're not coming after me. They're coming after you. They're coming after us. Right. Maybe along the lines of don't let them do what they did last time, which is kind of what he's been doing.
He's moderated, you think? Well, he's moderated. And he also, you know, he's up on criminal charges about it. Right, that's true. But then again, he still keeps going on about, I mean, he was sued for a defamation case. He owed $80 million to E. Jean Carroll, and then he's still flagging her off. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, but remember, Tara, that's a civil issue.
those are civil damages. He always believes he'll be able to get out of it. So there was one way or another in his view. And I do think that ultimately that decision is ridiculous, the monetary award. And it is extremely punitive. He is not going to ultimately have a judgment like that. And
And when he has to come up with the money, he does come up with the money. Do you think he likes the narrative that he has no money because it kind of makes people nervous about the Republican Party and it gets donors coming forward? Like he's probably benefiting from this narrative that he's broke in some ways. Let's be honest. He's not, it's not that he's broke. He's just not, right? He's a real estate bearer. He's a real estate builder. So, you know, when you talk about somebody's net worth, it doesn't mean they have that cash in the bank. Look at Elon, right? With Twitter. So, or X, excuse me. Right.
What I do think is that he's taken over the Republican Party. He's I mean, he's put in Laura Trump, somebody he didn't speak very highly of to me when I worked for him. Oh, really? What did he what did he say about her? He used to just, you know, make off remarks about how, you know, she uses the Trump name more than I do. Oh, got it.
So she was profiting off of his brand, which he doesn't like, obviously. He probably doesn't even like when his own kids do that. But what I wouldn't say, I want to be very clear. It doesn't mean he didn't like her. It just means part of my friends, he shat on her and
He shits on everybody that works for him. That's nothing new. That's just the MO that you work for. So he controls the apparatus. He's really taken over the party. I'm sitting here in West Palm Beach. You know, I'm a couple miles away from Mar-a-Lago. My invitation, by the way, must always be lost in the mail. I don't know what's going on. But they're building offices by me.
You know, they're going to move a lot of the RNC operation down here. And it's going the RNC will exist, not for down ballot candidates. We ride and die with Donald Trump vis-a-vis the RNC. That's just the reality of the situation now. And it is what it is. But, hey, as of now, if we're looking at it today, it doesn't look like a bad bet.
from the state of the race. If the election was held today, Donald Trump would win. It doesn't mean he'll win in November, but if the election was held today, Donald Trump would pull off really the impossible.
And we'll see what happens. But it is what it is. Sometimes I think the news is a little hyped up about the fact that he installed his own chairman and he replaced Rana and he's kind of like firing everyone. But this is what happens. Joe Biden runs the DNC. It's his arm. It's obviously much better organized. But...
essentially when a candidate becomes the nominee, they get to swallow the party up. They own it. The problem is that this party is anemic. The down ballot candidates are pretty much screwed. Trump is going to suck all the money from them, especially from the joint victory fund. Maybe they'll be able to get it together. I don't know. Let's talk about that. You're 100 percent right that that the Republican nominee is able to put his people, his or her people, his people up at the top. They
They layer certain people out. They make sure that they have their own people watch what's going on. That is not abnormal. What is abnormal is
And what we're going to find out if it was the right move, I'm not necessarily sure if it was, was that they've emptied the place out. Everybody's handed in their resignation. So as of now, from what we know publicly, I have no idea what's going on there privately. I'm not a big RNC person regardless. You know, the place has to be completely restaffed. On the other hand, too, when we talk about money with the Republican Party, remember this.
Mitch McConnell is still the leader. The Senate fund will still have upwards of close, you know, definitely over 500 million upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. And that's another important point. In 2016, when Donald Trump won Wisconsin, when he won Florida, when he won Arizona, when even he won Iowa.
those Senate candidates all got more votes than he did. Benefited. No, no, no, no. They didn't benefit. Donald benefited from that. OK. And when you look at Ohio, for instance, state Republicans are targeting in the Senate race, you know, you already have Karl Rove and McConnell. They're going to put in, they said, at least 90 million bucks just in that state. You look at North Carolina, you
You look at Arizona. They probably wouldn't have had to put as much money though into Ohio, right? If Matt Dolan had won, don't you think? In this recent election? He's a more moderate candidate. I don't want to just be disagreeable with you. No, you can be. That makes the show fun. Okay, well, I don't think it has to do with Bernie Marino or Matt Dolan. What I think it has to do with is that Sherrod Brown is never lost. And
Right. Right. He's a very strong candidate. He's a populist. And he's like with John Fetterman, rank and file union members, even in, you know, in Pennsylvania, some of them, not as many as in Ohio, obviously they'll,
They'll vote for the Democrat and then they're going to go vote for Donald Trump. And Sarah Brown, he hasn't won. You know, the last election he won reelect was in 2012, where there was a presidential and obviously Obama won famously showing up with Jay-Z on Election Day. I'm always going to love that. It's one of the most memorable things I've ever seen in politics.
But, you know, it's going to be it's a seat that Republicans can win if it's on the issues. When you look at where Joe Biden is right now, he is in the weakest position of any president seeking reelection on all the major big ticket issues besides women's issues, besides women's health care. He's got big problems. Objectively, you would say Joe Biden's going to lose.
Objectively, you would say Donald Trump, based on his approval numbers, based on his own likability around overall in the nation, he would lose. So it's funny when I talk to Democrats on the other side that aren't directly affiliated with Joe Biden, they all think Donald Trump will win. If you talk to somebody like me, I'll say I'll see it when I believe I'll see it and then I'll believe it that that that Donald Trump beats Joe Biden. I end up thinking that Joe Biden will ultimately pull it off.
Yeah, it'll be really, really close. But I do think in a lot of ways, Trump will probably sabotage himself in the same way where he said, don't mail in ballot. You know what I mean? In the middle of a coronavirus, which was crazy. This episode is brought to you by Jersey Mike's Subs. Jersey Mike's uses only the highest quality meat sliced right in front of you, piled high with the freshest toppings. It is a Jersey Mike thing. My favorite is number 13, the Italian.
Love the Italian. I'm half Italian. I like Italian subs. I especially like Italian subs made in good places. Like Jersey Mike's. Planning your summer picnic, backyard adventure, or beach day? Well, Jersey Mike's. They have you covered with everything you need to beat the summer heat. They have your favorite summer sub combo. They have everything you want at Jersey Mike's. A sub above. Order on the app today or visit jerseymikes.com.
to learn more. Great app, by the way. This episode is brought to you by Experian. I don't know if you've ever looked in your subscriptions on your phone and noticed that you had like four or five subscriptions. Maybe you didn't realize you were still paying for, or maybe you got some email for something and you're like, I thought I canceled that. Well, this is what happens. These days, anyone could be missing out on savings from subscriptions they've totally forgotten about. It's not just the ones you forgot to get rid of. It's the ones that they have better deals.
And that's where Experian comes in. It's like a personal assistant for your subscriptions. It can cancel over 200 plus subscriptions in categories like streaming services, meal kits, entertainment apps, and more. You could save an average of $270 per year
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sports teams. New York City is one of those places that oozes choice. It's got something for every taste. So it's fitting that vitamin water was born there. It's a product of its environment. Colorful, flavorful, anything but boring. Vitamin water injects a daily dose of vibrancy into a watered-down life. So grab some vitamin water today, NYC style. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of Glasso.
There is one thing I wanted to ask you about, because after you were fired from the Trump team, you were one of the first people on it. Paul Manafort was brought on. Obviously, Paul Manafort looms large as a character involved in the Mueller investigation into Russian, what was it called at the time, Russia.
Russian collusion. That was the word. Yeah, the Russian collusion investigation. I know that you testified in it because I interviewed you about it for ABC News. But Paul Manafort, there's a report that they might bring him back to work on the RNC convention. Why would they be bringing Paul Manafort back into the fold? Like, that guy's got stink on him. He served time in prison. Well...
I'm sure if they do bring him back, they won't allow him to have such a public profile. But let's remember what Paul Manafort is the master Republican convention maestro. He helped get Rangel delegates for Gerald Ford in 1976. He then ran Reagan's.
Convention. He's run every convention. I mean, here's somebody who in 1988, Roger Stone had to call because Donald called up Roger a week before the election, a week before the convention after telling him he wasn't going to show up saying, I've decided I'm going to come down and I'm bringing somebody with me, a guest. And they all knew it was Marla.
So this is somebody that controls the convention. He was going to even run McCain's convention in 2008, but they let him go right at the end. He had a big falling out. So that was one of the things I never met Paul Manafort. I've never dealt with him or worked with him. I've met him literally twice.
Both at Yankee Stadium. But, you know, running a running a Republican convention is one of the hardest or any convention is one of the hardest things to talk about, you know, Paul's issues with the Department of Justice. But I would remind your audience, you know, if you look at Biden's convention in 2020, they brought in Stephanie Cutter and she's essentially, from my understanding, hated Biden.
as one of the Obama people, she's hated in the Biden circle. They just knew she was the operator who could make sure that the delegates stayed in line, essentially. Yeah, it's a massive operation. You know, besides delegates, which Paul is the maestro of, you know, you're talking about hotels, you're talking about logistics. It's a complete cluster. So I think that, yeah, that's somebody that you would want
heavily involved, but I doubt you'll be seeing Paul Manafort on the stage. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think they'll be in a master of ceremonies or anything like that. Does this suggest that they're worried that Donald Trump may not be able to hold on to his delegates for some reason, because they don't necessarily have to vote for Donald Trump?
Yeah. So just so that there's, you know, there's a complete misconception, at least on the Republican side, that or because you'll be watching, you know, the cable news shows and it says that this candidate just won this primary and they have this amount of delegates. Those those delegates are not legally contractually bound.
to vote for the nominee. Now, I don't think that that's the main reason they hired Paul. But yeah, it could be an issue hypothetically, if let's say, you know, Donald already found guilty of a felony in New York City, whether or not Republicans take that trial seriously. I don't. I hate that trial because I think it defeated my guy DeSantis in the primary.
I didn't know you were a DeSantis guy. It's my M.O. I went to cruise after Trump fired me. You know, I just can never beat him. But then let's say, you know, you have that trial schedule, the D.C. January 6th so-called trial. You have that scheduled late September.
going into election season and Judge Chuck in there, who's a very aggressive judge, you know, she says, well, I'm just going to do the trial on three days a week and then I'll allow you to campaign certain days. There could be some problems. But at the end of the day, the reality of the situation is Donald Trump will be the nominee. So I think that but certainly somebody like Paul helps just nip that in the bud. OK. The RNC will be paying Donald Trump's legal fees.
The RNC will nominate Donald Trump. Privately, he argues to people like donors, et cetera, that he's being prosecuted because he's running for office. So it's just one of the built-in fees of being the nominee. That's what he argues. I know a lot of donors don't really buy it, but some of them, they're starting to come around to the idea of, well, you know what, if this is our guy. And the thing about Trump, there is so much baked into him. Yeah.
Yeah. And you got to also remember presidential elections to major donors or to people like me, I'm going to go happily vote for him is because.
It's not necessarily just about Donald Trump. You're talking about 4,000 federal appointments. You're talking about foreign policy. You're talking about Fed policy. You're talking about appointments of judges. You know, these are major issues. And you're talking about, you know, 200 executive orders. Who's going to be able to sign those after inauguration? You know, that's just the hard reality.
of somebody like me who's just completely, you know, blackpilled on politics. You know, that's what this really comes down to. Which administration are you voting for? Not necessarily the candidate. Okay, if Trump could just stick to like the economy, the border, do you think he could pull it off? This election is a complete coin flip. When you talk to people like me that, you know, have a vested interest, but I don't directly work for them. I
I would just say anybody that tells you that they know the way this election is going to turn out is somebody who just wants publicity to make a prognostication. We don't necessarily know how many or if we'll have any presidential debates. I don't necessarily think Biden can get away without doing that. We don't we don't know what's going to be going on with this trial as of yet. We don't know when the Supreme Court is going to issue their decision on immunity.
So we in Republican circles say if elections are issue-based, we win. If it's personality-based, we typically lose. And
you know, the personality issues, these ancillary issues, but they're not ancillary to a lot of voters. They're not. Right, because you've got a guy who's literally saying, I want to execute election officials. You know what I mean? And then you've got January 6th, what did he call the hostages? January 6th hostages singing the national anthem. Like, who is doing this? Why are they doing this? Can you just tell me what is going on in there or what you imagine is going on in there, knowing him so well?
I think that when you're around Donald, you can either be a yes man and that's how you'll stick around. Or, and that was one of my problems. You can have screaming matches with him.
And try to tell him what's best to do in your view. And he'll just think that that's safest. So wait, he thinks that your advice is too safe. And he also doesn't want to be told that he's wrong. And his natural inclination is to do the outlandish. And...
He's a show, you know, one way he's a showman and he'll say it worked out for him. He was elected president when everybody told him he couldn't. But I think that there was no matter what, what we hear now, everybody, you know, I know Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavita can all go around, you know, putting their chins up, saying they're so much better than people like me and that they're running such an efficient campaign. I'm not so sure about that. They're his top aides, by the way, for the listeners. The reality is the following. The other people will always have his ear.
And those people that want his ear will play to his will play to his worst propensity because that's what he wants to hear. And there's no way to filter them out, really, because there's so many ways in. Look, he loves it. He loves to talk. He loves the phone. And it may not be a bad thing that he talks to other people. But there are people that that won't that, you know, just care about themselves and their proximity to him because it's all they have.
When Donald Trump's not around, they won't be doing much. OK. Was there ever a time where you really had to get him to show some self-restraint? Like the John McCain issue, for example, he was mocking a war hero, a prisoner of war. I mean, well, you're looking at the guy I was Roger. Me were the people telling him not to apologize.
uh, for that. Really? Yeah. We got lucky on that though. First of all, let's back up there. I don't want to, I don't want to go into such old war stories, but Donald appears in Iowa, uh, with Frank Luntz being interviewing him for Bob Vander Plaats event. Bob Vander Plaats is one of the major Iowa, uh, social conservatives runs a big organization. Frank Luntz had literally pitched us to work for the campaign a week before Donald told them, no, um,
John McCain insulted Donald Trump, insulted his rally that he held in Arizona the week before. We did try to keep it away from Donald. We tried to hide it. It was like I was fighting with Lewandowski. We hated each other and we were like in simpatico.
let's try to see if Donald doesn't see this. Donald sees it and puts out some tweets, making fun of making fun of McCain. First one says to him, have you ever asked God for forgiveness? And Donald says, no, I don't ask God for forgiveness. He says this in front of a bunch of Iowa evangelicals, the people who are very skeptical of him at the time, but we got lucky. He insulted John McCain. And, um,
He said, I don't like people that were captured. And what I said to him was, and I was screamed at by a lot of people, by certain family members. I'm not going to say who, and I'm not. What I said was, if you apologize, we're done, because then they act like they got you. And the people that are going to be voting for us in this primary, they hate John McCain. And it was something that the mainstream media and the mainstream public didn't know. But me growing up
Me being a conservative activist, I knew I personally despised John McCain myself. And I just said, what we need to do is we need to transition it to John McCain doesn't help vets. I help vets. And that's what we did. We took an initial seven point hit and we ended up getting it back once he visited the border. That was a risky move. Is that why he never apologizes? I think it's one of the reasons he never apologizes. I was getting calls from him at two in the morning.
Then at 3.30, then at 5 a.m. And he was telling me this one called him. Bill O'Reilly called him and said he had to apologize. Scarborough called him. His friend, this rich guy called him and said he needs to apologize. And I remember just saying to them, to him, fuck them. What do they know? They don't know what we know. They're not running an election. You told me you want to win or I'm destroyed.
I'm telling you, what do we gain if we apologize? This will work. But you weren't worried about losing vets, which is like a huge part of the Republican coalition. I don't want to just continually shit on John McCain here, but a lot of vets didn't like him.
in those primary states. Did you have polling that said that? No, I had no polling. I don't want to get into it. We're not, you know, but a lot of vets didn't like him and vets weren't necessarily going to hold that against Donald Trump. They didn't care as much anymore if you served as opposed to what you did for them
and how you were going to help them. And the state of the VA, which you have to give Donald Trump a lot of credit for during his presidency, they made major reforms. The state of the VA was really in despair.
It's one of the worst things, the way our vets are treated when they come back. It's just terrible. If I had, I would tell you, if I was a very successful businessman, I would make a point to employ them. It's one of the major things I give to charities and stuff like that, but it's a tragedy. It really is. So I want to get back to the road to 270. I know you're a numbers guy too. So can you kind of map that out for me for each candidate? Uh,
Why don't you start with Biden? Because, I mean, I'm sure you've been tracking him. All right, we can start with him. But let me just do it the way a little easier for me to lay it out for you in the audience. Donald wins Michigan. He wins Pennsylvania.
He wins North Carolina. Even with that crazy guy on the ballot? No, in 2016. In 2016. Oh, we're talking about 2016. Yeah, so let me get... Here are the states that Donald picked up that Obama had won in the previous election. Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Romney won Arizona because a lot of Mormons there. Donald, in 2020...
loses Michigan, loses Wisconsin, loses Pennsylvania, loses Georgia, and loses Arizona. Those five. To get to 270, Donald needs to keep everything he had in 2020, which I have full confidence he will, including Maine 1, which is just your audience owns. It's one state where you can get a delegate from that state, even though if you lose the overall state.
Donald needs to win.
has to win Georgia. He will win Georgia. Really? Even with the 77,000 people that came out to vote for Nikki Haley? Come on. Really? I don't view that. I think that I think some Republicans may stay home, but I think a lot of a lot of independents and a lot of he's going to continue to gain more African-American male votes and youngers. Let me just say, for argument's sake, Donald needs to win to get to 270. He needs to win Georgia.
He needs to win Arizona. He has to win. He needs to hold North Carolina, which is close, consistently close. And he has that crazy person, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson on the ticket, who's a racist. He has too many cuckoo birds on the Senate side. It really is a big problem. They're the monsters he created, though. Right. Our mutual friend of ours told me
that Carrie Lake was going to lose the governor's race all from the very beginning, starting in September. I said, come on, she's up six points in a private poll I saw. And he says, no, she's going to lose. Every time I go to Mar-a-Lago, she's sitting by the piano bar. She's not out campaigning.
She is despised in that state. And that candidate Democrats have, particularly after Sinema is no longer running. I don't think that's I don't think that's a Senate seat that we're going to be able to pick up. And that's going to be a problem for him. But what does he have going for him there? And this is going to be whether or not the top issue, if the top issue for suburban women is.
is the border in the economy, then Donald should win. If the top issue is January 6th and abortion, then Donald would lose that state. But Donald also has to win Wisconsin
and or Michigan, which Michigan, you know, that's another one. I'll see it. I'll believe it when I see it that Donald will win Michigan. It depends on how angry the uncommitteds, the Democrats are, or a third party candidate might sort of mess
and union members and voters that's... What's his name? Sean Faines with the union. He's really working hard for Joe Biden right now. That'll help him, obviously. I mean, this is a guy who's calling for ceasefires in Israel. I didn't know that that was the UAW's problem. I didn't know that that was an issue they get involved with. But here's another interesting number we should try to follow. The number is, if you hated Hillary and Trump, who did you vote for?
If you hated Trump and Biden, who did you vote for? And if you hate both of them now, where are you leaning? And if you see a major shift there nationally, let's just just just talk about nationally. That'll go into the into the down states. It'll it'll play into the states.
That could be an indicator, along with Kennedy, who it seems that is most going to take more from Biden than than Trump, especially if reports are true that he's nominating as VP the.
I don't know her name, but... Nicole Shanahan. She's the ex-wife of Sergey Brin, ex-lover of Elon Musk, according to the Wall Street Journal, and Asian-American woman lawyer. You got it, Tara. You got to get her on the show. I know.
Nicole, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the show. Not a lot of people know really a lot about her. Actually, my colleague, Teddy Schleifer, was one of the first people to interview her about her philanthropic work. He's actually pretty quite close to her. You should follow his reporting at puck.news. But we know you have a history with Trump, but you're a pretty straight shooter when it comes to these things. Who would you rather be right now, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? It's a good question.
Well, first of all, you're talking about the election because physically and mentally, I would rather be Donald Trump. And I still think being president is probably a great title, but the worst job in the world. Vis-a-vis the election, I prefer to be Donald Trump. Biden's got an uphill battle and you just never want to be the incumbent.
in the place where he is. His coalition is very shaky right now. But look, I have, I have, you know, I'm a lawyer, but let me just say, let me just put it to you this way. If a client were to ask me, you know, for business reasons, where, where should we plan on the election going? I would tell them don't plan on either one. And, uh, we'll, we'll know a little closer. Flip a coin? No, I know it. Look, come back and ask me,
if we know that the presidential debates are scheduled, things like that. But overall, as I said, if it was today, Donald Trump would win re-election. And you don't want to be the incumbent at this point with numbers like Biden has. You just don't. I think you're right about that. If it was today, he probably would win mainly because of the polling out of Pennsylvania, Michigan. It's just not...
Looking great. That's a remarkable place for him to be. And you've got to give him credit there. You've got to give Donald credit. Maybe you can give Donald Trump credit where maybe it's a little bit of Trump amnesia. Give that a little credit as well.
Though I don't know. Do you think people are going through that? One of the things I did tell somebody who's working for him, and I said, you could take credit for this, is one of the things Donald would have going for him into 2024 is that regardless, anybody, when you leave office, your numbers always go up. There's nostalgia. But that's, by the way, that's the known...
that happens in elections. And that's one of the things. I mean, the climate is just really, really bad. The issues, where the country is, you don't want to be Joe Biden right now. Well, the economy will probably get better. So that'll be it. It will definitely warm up, I think, before the elections. We'll have that going for him. I don't imagine the conflict in the Middle East will be solved. He's got Ukraine. It's
It's feeling a little tenuous, but we shall see. Then again, the last president incited an insurrection. So it's going to be really close. This one's going to be closer than 2016 even. All right. Looking forward to November for everyone that's still listening to the show and hasn't tuned out out of pure fear. We're here for you. All right. Thanks so much, Sam. Have to have you back and I'll check in with you soon. Tara, thank you. And congratulations on the show.
That was another episode of Somebody's Gotta Win. I'm your host, Tara Palmieri. I want to thank my producers, Christopher Sutton and Connor Nevins. If you like this podcast, please share it with your friends, rate it and subscribe. If you like my reporting, please go to puck.news slash Tara Palmieri and sign up for my newsletter, the best and the brightest. You can use the discount code Tara20 for 20% off. I'll be back on Tuesday.
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