What’s the Point of Another GOP Debate?
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Here's the deal. Our listeners get 20% off their first purchase at Viori.com slash Simmons. Once again, V-U-O-R-I.com slash Simmons. Hi, I'm Tara Palmieri, and this is Somebody's Gotta Win. The GOP has its next round of debates on Wednesday, and since the last debate in August, nothing really feels like it's changed at all.

except that the field has flattened. Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley, they saw a little bit of a bump. And Ron DeSantis continues to decline, so they're pretty much even, flat. All in the low teens, with Trump polling at 30, 40% above them.

They are so far behind Trump anyway, so it's hard to really understand why we should even pay attention to these debates. What's the point of this primary, these candidates? Trump is acting like we're past them after all. He's not even showing up for the debates.

And he's really focused on his challenger, Joe Biden. But can a strong performance by one of these candidates drag Trump back to the primary? It almost seems like an impossible task for someone to rise up victorious on Wednesday night and to really make all the rest of the candidates fall to the side and be that person who can take on Trump.

And a lot of people say it's wishful thinking. It won't happen. But anything's possible. Conventional wisdom is thrown out the window all the time.

Today, I'm talking to a very seasoned political strategist, Mark McKinnon, who knows a thing or two about debates and how to prepare a candidate for a debate. He famously rescued Sarah Palin when she lost her confidence before the debate with Joe Biden during the 2008 campaign. He's also a big believer in anything can happen and conventional wisdom can be thrown out the window that maybe someone will come out of this debate victorious and ready to take on Trump as a credible challenger.

At one point, he was the chief media strategist for George W. Bush and the John McCain campaign. Now he's a host on Showtime's The Circus. A new episode drops next week. Mark, was it worth it for me to fly across the country for this GOP debate?

Well, Terry, you could be at the debate where nothing happens or you could be at the debate where it changed everything. I mean, the reality is that there are there are three opportunities where candidates have an opportunity to change the dial of public perception about their candidacies during a campaign.

One is during your announcement when you get kind of a free pass from the pass and everybody says, OK, why are you running? Not particularly critical coverage generally. If you get the nomination, your nomination speech and your VP pick are big moments. But the other one, the third one, and arguably the most important, is the debates. And that's what people see you on stage in the arena unscripted without any

notes without a teleprompter, head-to-head with the other candidates where you can really show what you can do. And they generally get a lot of eyeballs. So listen, I mean, the conventional wisdom here is that this thing is pretty much over, that it's become a one-person race, that Trump is crushing the field. And while that is the conventional wisdom, conventional wisdom gets turned on its head all the time in politics. And that's why it's so fascinating and interesting.

And listen, the the opportunity is the daylight is is weak at this point. But it's it's and it's improbable, but it's not impossible. And the way that it happens is that a couple of things. One is that.

Iowa and New Hampshire are going to be huge. Everybody kind of focuses on the national numbers and and really kind of without recognizing the impact that Iowa, New Hampshire and possibly have. But Trump is still leading substantially in both states. Substantially. But the thing that's really interesting, Tara, about Iowa, especially in New Hampshire, arguably, too, is that Iowa voters wait till the last second to make their mind.

They sit there and they analyze and they think about it. And, you know, I mean, ask the former governor of Vermont who was going to be president. And then John Kerry beat him in the last 48 hours.

and upset in that primary. And it happens all the time because they really pay attention. They think that their vote is a big deal, and it is. And so they wait until the last moment. So things can move really quickly, and they can change in a big way. So

Is that more of a retail politics state, though? Like, in my, I mean, from everything I know about Iowa, I think that it's probably more of a retail politics kind of state because you have all the candidates on the ground. So I wonder how much the debate matters to them when they're actually able to shake Ron DeSantis' hand and maybe see him at church.

Well, yes, it is. I mean, you can't you have to have both of them. You can't have a great day performances and then not show up in Iowa. You've got to do what Ron DeSantis is doing, going to all 99 counties. And I mean, his last best hope is Iowa. He's putting it all on Iowa now. And so but to your point in the last debate, Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy kind of broke out and

Haley had a big moment and she changed the equation for her in Iowa and New Hampshire.

She's now running second in New Hampshire. But it's kind of a flat line, though, because I think she's running like 13 percent. Then it's Vivek at 12. Then it's Ron. So to me, this is like all within the margin of error. And they're all sort of running on a flat line. But it's given her some momentum. It's created some buzz. It's created some fundraising. It's given her some hope. A shred of hope in this dark space. Yeah.

Listen, it's a big hill to climb at this point, but at least they're on the hill. And so, I mean, my point is that I think really, you know, there's only three people in this debate that it could matter for, and that's DeSantis, Haley, and Ravaswamy. And if Haley has another big moment, I mean, the key also to Iowa in making it happen, again, is the notion that

voters who are not completely dedicated to Trump and are looking for another alternative coalesce behind one alternative, not three or four. Right. And so if Haley breaks out again and has another big night, she could become people say, you know, I'm over DeSantis.

Rob Aswami is interesting, but he's not going to get the nomination, and therefore Haley's the one. And suddenly, there's a big move to Haley, and that's how it could happen. I have the same thinking as you. I do believe that the person who has the most to win tonight is Nikki Haley, because she did have a great performance last time. And I would say she also has the most to lose if she doesn't step up. Like, if she just ends up...

kind of having the same performance that she had last time. Vivek Ramaswamy is sort of a mess, steals the show. Maybe that helps her, actually, if he's all over the place and she seems presidential and knocks him down every turn. Well, that's partially why she did well last time. She seemed like the adult in the room and smacked him down a couple of times. We haven't mentioned the word Tim Scott, though, because I think he pretty much, I mean, he barely made an appearance at the last debate. I don't even think he showed up. Was he there? No.

I'm kidding. He was there. Well, but but that's a great point. And the point is that there was a lot of hope for Tim Scott, a lot of buzz that he could be the Iowa guy. I mean, he's a natural for Iowa, given his kind of evangelical background and his sort of sunny Reaganism, Reagan optimistic nature there.

But he was so milquetoast at that debate. I mean, as you said, I can't even remember anything that he said. Yeah, his campaign manager, his spin was he was the adult in the room. I'm like, by way of just being silent and letting the kids go crazy and take over the house, the adult hiding in the closet. That's exactly right. That's okay. He, yeah,

He may have wasted his opportunity at that debate. We're talking a lot about Iowa, and I'm not trying to, like, pop a hole in the balloon, but, like, Ted Cruz won Iowa. He didn't win the election. You know, others have won Iowa in the past. They don't end up winning. So just because you win Iowa, I don't know. Can you really bank your whole campaign on it? I know it's the sort of, like, Jeff Rowe axiom model to win Iowa, but...

You can win Iowa, but it doesn't mean you're going to win New Hampshire. But the setup that's a little bit different this time is that there's a kind of man-who-would-be-king thing going on here, which is...

Trump has a lot more to lose if he loses Iowa. He's the former president of the United States. And so great expectations that he should blow the field away. And if he doesn't, I mean, the story out of Iowa could be who runs second if somebody just scratches well against Trump. I mean, Trump, by the way, has raised his own expectations. He's talking about, I'm going to win by 50 in Iowa, which is not smart strategically.

Because he's, again, raising expectations for how well he's going to do. He always does that, though. He literally always raises expectations for himself.

You wrote about this, how he mocked Biden's ability to debate and then his people had to sort of like backtrack on it because if he actually had a strong showing, then it would, you know, could make Trump look like he was losing. But yeah, that's fair. And so then if someone comes in second, then the idea is that everyone drops out and consolidates around this person for New Hampshire. Right. Yeah. But I just feel like these guys never drop out. They didn't do it in 2016. Why are they going to do it now?

Not often, but they're really drying up and they might not have gas for the tank. But to your point, I mean, New Hampshire always likes to turn Iowa on its head too. They're very different states. They're very different states. I mean, I remember it well from 2000 because

I worked for George W. Bush and we crushed in Iowa and then came dancing into New Hampshire thinking we were going to roll it up in New Hampshire. And they were like, we don't dig this cowboy shit at all. No. And they were like, we don't like that evangelical. We're live free or die. Don't tell us what to do with our bodies. Yeah, no, I know all of it. Which was the same message to Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee and on down the line. So it's tough to roll up the two in a row.

Right. And then South Carolina, where they're pretty feral for MAGA right now. I don't know. You have a whole month between Iowa and South Carolina. If you have New Hampshire in the middle. I'm not sure about this banking on Iowa strategy, but maybe that's all you have. That's all they got. That's all they got. Got it. Okay.

Do you think they're actually going to start taking shots at Trump at this debate? Or do you think they're just so worried about alienating the MAGA voter that they're going to kind of ignore Trump again like they did in the last debate?

Well, again, I think Haley had a strong performance in big part because she was the truth teller and she was the truth teller about Republicans and Republican spending. And she was about Trump. She talked about, you know, are we really going to elect a nominee who's been, you know, got 91 counts against him? But she questioned his electability, which I think all the polls now, the question about Trump's electability is not as strong of an attack anymore, I would say. That's a...

That's a very good point. And I think that that's that's very problematic for all the challengers, because I had been making the case that the one avenue that the challengers had to make against Trump was that he would be a weaker nominee in the general election. And now, as you said.

rightly so, that recent polls have shown that he, well, the ABC poll we saw. Yeah, that was disastrous. Biden by 10 points. And interestingly, I just learned that. Can I just say, I just want to tell the listeners who may have not seen that poll, but it's an ABC Washington Post poll that just came out this weekend that showed Trump beating Biden in

52 to 41, it came out over this weekend. We've seen most of the polls, New York Times, Washington Post, neck and neck around 46, 47%. Of course, this doesn't take into account the fact that there are only a number of swing states, about seven or so, where you really need to win the electoral college, not so much the popular vote. But this is very jarring because it basically kills the idea that Trump has an electability issue. And that's what all of these candidates have been running on for so long.

Yes, that's true. And by the way, just to punch that even more, I was really shocked to learn or to remember that at this point in 2020, Biden was beating Trump by six points and in no poll from that point till the election in 2020 was Biden behind in any polls. I actually mentioned this to Jim Messina as well before all these polls came out. I said,

In 2020, there were barely any polls that showed Biden below five points. Like he was always leading Trump between five and ten points. Yeah. Why would and the people I spoke to in Trump's orbit before the election, they all thought they were going to get crushed, slaughtered. They were packing up their bags.

Like, why now should we believe that Biden is somehow stronger against Trump? That's that's exactly right. Now, I will say on the electability point that while these polls obviously help erase that or diminish that, the power of that argument, Nikki Haley still has a strong electability argument, which is to say.

Yes. Yes. Donald Trump has beaten Biden in some polls, but I beat him by way more. She does. She does. And, you know, if you looked at this really strategically, which, of course, most voters don't do, she'd be hands down the nominee. I mean, she just for just for, you know, 10 reasons. You know, she's a woman. She's younger. She's a woman of color. She's, you know, and she helps kind of. She's a contrast to Trump.

Total confidence, yes. And she helps leaven the abortion advantage that Democrats have going into this election. She'd be popular in swing states, the seven swing states that Democrats need to win, right? Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona. You can keep going if you want for me. But I agree with you. She's the kind of candidate who could win over independent swing voters, soft Republicans, all of them, people that Biden needs.

Especially since his own, you know, coalition, Black voters, they're young people, even Hispanics are starting to feel like they're not so high on Biden this time around. Correct. Well, clearly you're pretty high on Nikki Haley. Are you helping her in any way? No, no, no. Because I've got a television show myself.

The circus on Showtime Paramount. I can't be affiliated with any campaigns. I'm a neutral observer, but I have strong opinions. Now, let's say Nikki Haley wins the debate, and it's a decisive win, and she gets a real bump. Does this just mean whatever line of fire Trump has reserved for Ron DeSantis starts coming out, starts to be redirected to Nikki Haley, and then she comes out mortally wounded after...

months and months of attacks from Trump because they're obviously effective. Well, yes, I think she'll become the target. But by becoming the target, that also just raises a flag that she's she's the threat. And I think there was a lot of donors, a lot of GOP donors, you know, a lot of them who originally went to DeSantis, who are now on the sidelines, who are waiting for like kind of a bugle to say, OK, where do we go? And I think that if she has another

a great performance that the money could sort of flood in her direction. And, you know, she can make if she can argue that it becomes a two person race with her and Trump, then it just changes the equation. And then if she just goes and lives in Iowa and and New Hampshire, then like I said, it's it's it's improbable, but it's possible.

And that's kind of like the only possibilities left. The problem is I don't see these other candidates like even Pence or Tim Scott who may have as much as $50 million in a super PAC. You know, they all have their own super PACs. I mean, Ron DeSantis has like maybe $100 million in a super PAC. Why would they drop out now when they have all this money in their super PACs and their super PACs are basically running their campaigns for them?

Well, unlikely. But again, Iowa voters are pretty, pretty savvy. And if they begin to see things, if they look at it strategically, which they do, I mean, that's what they did with John Kerry. They just said, listen, you know, this is going to be the guy. And they they moved in mass and they moved late and they moved, you know, and they mobilized in huge numbers very quickly and very rapidly. But that's sort of also interesting.

kind of suggests that money doesn't matter in the same way. Oh, I agree with you. Yeah. Just ask Ron DeSantis. Yeah, seriously, that guy has a lot of money and all he's doing is going downward in the polls. Yeah, I mean, Vivek Ramaswamy is a good example. I mean, look how much he's done without a lot of money. Does Trump need to be on the stage so that these candidates can actually show how they would stack up next to him?

Well, I think they would prefer that. But obviously, strategically, it hasn't hurt Trump at all. In fact, arguably, it's helped him by not being there. And he's just, you know, said, I'm above all this. And so far, it's worked for him. Will he ever have to? I mean, if it was like a firing squad on the stage, would he do you think it would ever make him?

You know, if I'm an advisor at this point, it's hard to find the strong rationale to show up. Yeah, right. Even if it's not the first time we're in. Okay, well, let's leave Trump for another day or 10 minutes. It always comes back to him at the end of the day because it does feel like we're talking about two different races sometimes. The race for number two and then once you get to that, it's like,

You got to make JV captain and then you can try out for varsity and run against Trump, right? Yes. Good analogy. I guess. We'll see. There's a better sports analogies out there. I'm just not a big sports gal. Let's talk about actually winning the debate. You have coached, you know, nominees, vice presidential nominees. You were George W. Bush's chief media strategist.

You were John McCain's chief media strategist, and you helped Sarah Palin, uh,

coach. You actually coached Sarah Palin out of a breakdown, which I want to talk about because I actually was coached by the same person that they brought on to kind of clean her up when I was at ABC News. I'm going to remain... Oh, really? Yeah. She'll remain nameless, but I'll share a little bit about that with the listeners. And it is psychologically hard to listen to a person for 48 hours, basically tear down everything about you, including how you say your own name.

So we'll talk about that another time. No, I'd love to. I want to hear those. Yeah, we can talk about, cause you actually built her back up and I can talk about what it's like to be in that room being like kind of torn back, torn down.

Yeah. Getting ready for primetime. That's what they were doing, getting me ready to be an ABC Network White House correspondent, right? And I wasn't there. I was a print reporter and I wasn't ready for broadcast and they wanted to like elevate me very quickly. And, you know, that can be a lot on a person. But first, let's talk about the importance of exceeding expectations. You wrote about that in Vanity Fair. When you write about debates, you've written about the importance of exceeding expectations. Yeah.

In fact, you really nailed it about Vivek Ramaswamy. Days before the debate, you were the one who said he could crush it at the debates, that he could have the biggest bump because the expectations were so low for him. And he had this absurd, unbounding confidence that can be almost spellbinding even when you're just spouting out bullshit. You're like, whoa, this guy is so confident. And you have no idea what he's talking about.

But he's rapping to Eminem. He believes in himself. And that is that's the power of a really strong candidate. You saw that in Donald Trump. And obviously he was able to spellbound spellbind an entire nation. And that's why we're here right now.

But you wrote days before the debate, don't be surprised if Ramaswamy steals some hearts, minds, and headlines at the debate. I can imagine viewers shaking their heads and thinking, I'm not even sure what he said, but I sure like the way he said it. And I talked to some people from Ramaswamy land, and they're like, you know what? After the debate, suddenly we had like 30, 40 people showing up at our town halls in New Hampshire. Now we've got a few hundred, and they're just curious about us. They want to watch the Ramaswamy show, just like how people wanted to watch the Trump show. And I'm like, well, I don't know.

Obviously, exceeding expectations is important. Confidence is important. You say that, you write that as well. Who could really exceed expectations based on where we are right now? I mean, Vivek already did that.

The expectations are basically the same for all of them. I think that they're all the same sort of low. There's no underdog here. They're all sort of under. If they had like Vivek and Nikki Haley already had their bump, the expectations were highest for Ron DeSantis and he failed to actually, you know, perform. I mean, I don't know if the word is underdogs, but if they're all the same flat line, how does one exceed expectations over another? Yeah.

Well, that's a good point. I mean, Haley and Ramaswamy definitely exceeded expectations in the last debate. So how do they do that again? And the reality is it will be harder. I mean, they'll have to do much better because their expectations are now higher. People expect them to do well. So I think the person for this debate who has the greatest upside opportunities is DeSantis.

Because he didn't perform well. He just generally hasn't performed. It's just he's not a good debater, generally speaking. So if he should somehow turn it on at this debate, then he's got the most upside in terms of expectations, because the expectations now have been lowered for him just because he hasn't done well before.

Do you think that no one's paying attention to Mike Pence or Tim Scott or Chris Christie anymore? This is really just a three-person debate at this point. I think it's a really, it's a three-person race now. Listen, Pence did well at the last debate, too. He showed some fire and, um...

He's an interesting guy. Romney has some interesting reflections about him, and I've had interesting interactions with him on the trail. He's just a very unique, different cat. But there's a side of him that I think that people haven't seen, and he showed a little bit on the stage before.

Last time, I just I think he's he's he he is the greatest example of, you know, he just gets it going and coming. He the Trump people hate him because he wasn't loyal. And, you know, the other people don't like him because he was Trump's vice president. So he's just got there's no reason.

There's no turf for him to... That's sort of how I feel about Chris Christie, too. They both don't have turf. Well, yeah, the thing about Christie is he's highly entertaining and we all love to watch him and he's fun to be around. And you know that he's going to be the human wrecking ball on the stage. But in terms of electoral opportunities for him, he's got the highest negatives in the Republican primary and the Democratic primary. I mean, on both sides of the aisle, everybody kind of

you know, they're amused by him, but nobody likes him much in terms of, you know, wanting to vote for him. So listen, even if he were, you could argue that he's a good New, well, he isn't a good New Hampshire candidate. I mean, he's kind of built for New Hampshire. That's the kind of candidate they like, but I cannot foresee anywhere where he could go after that if he does well. I mean, he's not going to do well in South Carolina. Yeah. His people were making the argument to me like,

Oh, a lot of people from New Jersey and New York have moved down to the Carolinas. Not enough to elect Chris Christie. And a lot of them remember Bridgegate. Oh, boy, yeah. Yeah, no, I know. I don't see the path after that. They also had a lot of New Hampshire infrastructure from the previous campaign, 2016, in New Hampshire, and that's helped him. But I don't see anywhere past New Hampshire. I agree with that. So basically, you're saying Ron DeSantis has to exceed expectations. Like, that's where we're at right now. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes. I think he's got the potentially greatest upside for this debate because his expectations are low. So in terms of somebody who I think can and needs to break out this, this, there's a lot of pressure on DeSantis, which, you know, makes it means he's going to, you know, just have more weight on his shoulders for this one. Let's do a little rapid fire. One piece of advice for each candidate. DeSantis. Yeah.

Relax and try and be a human being for change. And how does one do that? Talk about their kids, like their family, their faith, you know? Just kind of, you know, just get in a Zen mode and just, it really is sort of like freedom is a good word for nothing left to lose. It's like, just do, this is your last chance. Just throw out all the talking points, throw out all the horse shit that everybody's been telling you and just try and be a, you know, show up as a human being. Be funny.

people could relate to. Yeah, just be authentic. I mean, people didn't agree with George Bush, but they liked him just because he was, you know, he was just an authentic guy. I thought George Bush was funny. He really was. He kind of laughed at himself. You actually are authentic. So, but, you know, at least I'd tell DeSantis, try and fake some authenticity. I would tell Ron DeSantis to be a little self-deprecating and maybe be funny. Yeah, that'd be perfect.

Yeah, lower yourself down to our level. Don't be some robocop killer. Self-deprecation goes a long way these days. It really does. Yeah, even Trump can be self-deprecating weirdly at times. Yeah, show some vulnerability. That works too. Okay, so humanity for DeSantis. Let's go to Vivek Ramaswamy. Advice for him.

I, you know, more of the same. I mean, he's just he again, he he's he's unrestricted by any sort of rules or, you know, he doesn't have to live up to any votes he's ever taken before. So he just keeps pushing the envelope. And I just say keep pushing it. I mean, he's got the most sort of out there interesting.

outrageous ideas. And I'd throw a few more of those on the table. Just go ahead and, you know, be the guy with the most interesting debate, debated, talked about ideas, be the idea guy. And, you know, again, they're controversial, but they get talked about, you know, people can't vote under 25. We're going to send, you know, the

Yeah, you're getting in the conversation. We're going to arm the Taiwanese, you know, whatever. Yeah, you're inserting yourself into the conversation beyond like Reddit circles. Now you're making it into the Wall Street Journal. And also like he just has so much flair. I think he just needs to keep burning up that flair. Like the way he moves his body, he's like an actor. It's kind of like it's freedom. You know what I mean? And I think people like that. It's youth. It shows youth, frankly. Yes. Yeah. And he yes. And yeah, he's the youthful guy. So go ahead and show it.

Yep. I would say, OK, let's go on to Tim Scott. I would say show up, Tim Scott. Come to the debate. Just show some edge, you know, just any edge. Just, you know, just you're just seeing it so soft right now that it doesn't even seem like you want it. And, you know, politics, you got to earn it and you got to burn it a little bit. Right. Like you can't be so docile. People are looking at you imagining you're going to be up against Putin.

Yeah. Show some fire. Yeah, a little bit. Nikki Haley. I think just kind of double down on being the truth teller. She got a lot of mileage last time out of saying things that even Republicans don't want to hear, like about Republican spending. I think she can do that kind of on the current shutdown debate. She could kind of be the truth teller in that and then maybe say something that's unpopular to the base, but get a lot of mileage out of being the one who says,

the hard things. Apparently, I liked her, Margaret Thatcher, zinger as a woman. I can't help myself having a little bit of a sex bias there. But I do think, you know, people told me, oh my God, she used that on the trail all the time. It's kind of corny, but it works. Like if she can nail a few things, I think like just showing that she's a woman who can speak decisively and with like power is something that

it just, they don't fight her. Like no one else on the stage goes after her when she does this. She's basically like the mom on the stage being like, you're being a bad boy. Go in your room and don't talk to me until you, you know what I'm saying? Well, she really did come across like the adult on the stage last time. exactly. But not like Marmee, like not too like. No, no, no, just, just in command. In command. And willing to, willing to,

Willing to, you know, scold the unruly people around her. She made them look childish, frankly, in some ways. Yep. Okay. Chris Christie. I'm going to say actually beat Vivek in a debate. Prove that you are the true, like, debater on the stage. Yeah, you gotta, you know, you gotta...

He was outpunched by the young Muhammad Ali and Vivek Ramaswamy. He's got to maybe throw some punches at Vivek and take him down or else he's just going to get danced around the ring and

He did not meet expectations last time. He's the guy who arguably had higher expectations and has high expectations because of his past performances and his takedown of Marco Rubio, for example, in the early presidential. So he has high expectations. He's got to be lights out and he's got to take out Trump. He's just got to take out everybody. And then Mike Pence.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of his one trick pony, but it's a true thing. And it's, you know, to say when he had to make a decision between his loyalty to Donald Trump or the Constitution, he chose the Constitution. And I know people have heard it before, but it's an historical thing and it arguably saved our democracy. And, you know, I'm not sure he's plumbed that completely or not.

or taken advantage, the full advantage of that, of what was a righteous moment for him. And so, you know, I think he's just got to, like I said, it's kind of his one trick, but you've got to play it out. It's unfortunately not really resonating with Republicans, though. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't think he has any other cards to play. Could he be cool? Like cool Mike Pence?

I don't think so. He tried that leather vest the other day with the Harley, with the bikers or I can't remember, Hells Angels. I think there's a compassionate side to him. You know, you don't see much, but, you know. He's a nice guy. I've traveled with him. Yeah, I was. I was going to say, I've been with him out there on the trails, too. And he's a really nice guy. Yeah, he's a sweet, sweet guy. Really nice.

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So, like I said earlier, you've coached candidates for debates. Yeah, you coached John McCain, you coached Sarah Palin. And this actually ties in my own personal story. But what you're dealing with ahead of the vice presidential debate was a woman who was pretty broken down and not able to deal with the scrutiny of being in the limelight. And I remember I read in Vanity Fair that you recalled what it was like.

you know, to be called by these, you know, your friends, some of these top consultants like Rick Davis, who was running the campaign, Steve Schmidt. They're like, please, God, we're in Sedona. We're trying to like bring this woman back to life. She's just lost it. Her confidence, all of it. It makes total sense. I mean, she was like this...

They plucked her from obscurity from Alaska. This relative unknown. She was a sensation. And then the scrutiny came and I don't think she could necessarily deal with it. I know in the book Game Change, they wrote about her being, you know, 48 hours with these consultants who were trying to sort of change her and sort of make her fit into a box. Right. And.

I had the same experience with the same consultant. I don't want to name the person because they're doing their job. I get it. But I, you know, I was brought in to be a White House correspondent for ABC News at like a pretty senior level. Like they made me a senior correspondent covering the White House.

And I really didn't have that type of TV experience before that. I had been a contributor on CNN and I was a, you know, CNBC contributor, but I was a writer my entire career. And they're about to put me in front of the White House for a network, you know, in front of 12 million people. And I was, you know, call myself Tara Palmieri. Wow.

I sound like I'm from Jersey. You know, my hair was long. They wanted me to drop my voice an octave or they wanted me to purr. But none of these things really could be communicated from the network executives because they're not allowed to like really change you, right? Or like say these kinds of things because it could be offensive. You go to HR. So they hire consultants, outsiders to do this. And they hired the best in the field, right? To get this person ready because it's

At the time, I was breaking a lot of stories on Trump and they wanted my reporting, but they also wanted me to be ready for...

the moment of being on network news and they want it to be fast. But yeah, like when you're 31 years old and you're listening to a person tell you, you know, the way that you've been saying your name your whole life needs, it should really be Tara and not Tara, you know, talking about the way you sound, the way you look, the way you move your face, the way you dress, basically everything about you that's been your identity, they kind of want you to change. And they're like, be like this person. Don't be like you. And that can be

really rattling. I just remember feeling very, like I lost my confidence. I was like, why did they hire me? Why am I here? Who am I? I don't belong here. Me as who I am is not enough. And I know this sounds kind of ridiculous, but it can be shattering. And so what happened after that, and some of that, I know I've heard through my agent that

Even the executives were like, I think we went too far. Because when I would start doing hits, like, I wouldn't move my face. My voice, I was like, hi, this is Tara Palmieri reporting from the White House, ABC News. Like, I sounded like a man. I did everything she said to the nth degree, but I had lost my confidence. I lost the sparkle. I lost the authenticity. I lost the thing that makes people actually like you when they see you. The feeling that they get when they connect.

And I'm sure I wasn't the first person to have that happen. I wonder if I was maybe a little older, if I had more confidence as a broadcaster, it would have been different. But you were sort of dealing with the same thing after Sarah Palin being coached by the same person. How did you bring her back so quickly? Because it did not happen that quickly for me. Well, that's a great and telling story. I mean, because to me...

What they did with you was sort of take away the two most important things that are key to performance on television, which are confidence and authenticity. And the Palin debate story was, I mean, there's a bit of a long backstory that I don't think we need to go through unless you want to. But I got a call from Rick Davis recently.

in the fall, you know, it's pretty late in the campaign, but it's right before the vice presidential debates. And he's calling with kind of an SOS saying we're in trouble. We, you know, Palin's got her vice presidential debate next week. She's really not prepared. And we'd really like for you to come in and run the debate prep and

We kind of went back and forth about it. And I agreed that I would go in sort of for the first night and kind of do some fundamentals and basics. So that's what happened. I get down there and she comes to Sedona. She comes dancing in with her posse and she is.

you know, if you've, she is pretty impressive if you've never been around her. I mean, you talk about a confident woman and just a lot of electricity, a lot of snap, a lot. She got right in my face and she was like, so you're the traitor that left the campaign, you know, very sassy and funny and, you know, full of zest. And anyway, and so we went in to do the debate prep and

You know, in very short order, it broke down. I mean, two or three questions in, it became clear she was completely unprepared. Okay. So she wasn't actually like, she hadn't actually lost her confidence. She just couldn't actually handle. Not at this point. No, no. I mean, the, the, so, I mean, she, when she lost her confidence, it was during the debate prep when it became clear to all of us. So it wasn't actually the consultants that caused her to lose her confidence. Yeah.

Well, we'll have to back channel on that a little bit. But the what I mean, what happened is in the in the process of her trying to to perform this mock debate, it became very clear to all of us and obviously to her, too, that she was completely unprepared. And that's when her confidence, at least that night, evaporated completely.

And everybody left this small little cabin that we were in and we go outside and, you know, Steve Schmidt or Mark Salter, Davis, whoever it was, said, McKinnon, get back in there. This is what we brought you here for. So I went back in with her and spent like about an hour with her alone.

And the first half hour of that hour, she was a wreck. I mean, she was sobbing inconsolably. Oh, she was just like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this. I'm going to embarrass the country. I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to embarrass John McCain. I'm going to embarrass the Republican Party. It's like, this is going to be humiliating. Mm-hmm.

And and then I just started to do what I, you know, argues the most important thing for any debate, which is to build somebody's confidence. And I just said, listen, I looked at the debate tapes from when you were when you ran for governor in Alaska and it was the same thing. You were, you know, a small town mayor from Wasilla.

you know, going up against the big boys and nobody thought you could do it. And it was a, listen, it was, it was, this is just a little bigger stage and a little hotter spotlight, but it's the same drill. And you just have to like, get back to your fundamentals, get back to your kind of reform message about, you know, who you are and what you believe in. And we got kind of got back to those basics. And over the course of that hour, I could see her kind of straightening her shoulders and drying her tears. And, you know, when I left there that night, she was like,

I'm going to get him. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And I was admittedly still skeptical about how it would go. But again, because of expectations, she had very low expectations. She cleared the bar against Lieberman.

I don't know. It was Biden. It was Biden. Yep. Can I call you Joe? Yeah. Was that your idea to say that? It wasn't my idea. I think it was, I think it was her own and it was a good one. Yeah. So she has good political instincts. She just didn't know the actual policy. She's a great performer. And, you know, as long as, as her confidence is up, but if her confidence shaken that she, you know, that was really problematic, but it wasn't that she,

needed to have encyclopedias full of knowledge to fill her brain. Because that's where you get bogged down in debate prep is people like get scared about what they don't know.

And if they're worrying about what they don't know, then they sort of become, there's always going to be something you don't know. You don't know at all anything about what anyone's going to say. So what you got to do is like build up the confidence in the stuff that they do know and just get them in the belief and say, what I know is enough. I mean, you don't want them to be like too stuck on their platitudes or do you think they should always have a place to pivot to if they can't figure out what they want to say? Well, you got to watch the platitudes because that's, you know, ask Marco Rubio about platitudes. Right. He did it a little too, he went too hard on that.

Maybe like a mix of three platitudes. Yeah, you just kept repeating it over and over again. That's where you can be sort of overly prepped. And then you become inauthentic and it's clear you're coached. And what you want to do is be, you know, hear that these thoughts are your own and they're organic and it's what you actually believe. Right. I wonder if Tim Scott wasn't very confident in the last debate because I kind of sensed from just looking at his face, he seemed like he was like,

the lights are on me. I actually saw that in Ron DeSantis as well. I saw like a bit of fear in both of their faces.

For sure. And they both underperformed. You saw that flicker. You can see the deer in the headlights look. Yeah. And that's it. It's so psychological. And then I also think of my, like when I think about a lot of politicians, especially the best ones, they're almost sociopathic in their level of confidence. Well, I mean, Vivek Ramaswamy is a great example. I mean, that guy just has so much confidence. It's just like he's balling. Yeah.

Like I said, sometimes you don't even hear what he's saying. You just go, wow, he sure believes that. So maybe there's something to it. Maybe he's right. No, I'm with you. I think of all the candidates, I think

Probably, again, Tim Scott and Ron DeSantis need to work on their confidence. I bet you Ron DeSantis has been broken down by this. It's hard to start out as, you know, the star of the party, have so many people believing in you and kind of knowing deep down. I mean, what is he, like, 42 years old? He's been, you know...

He barely won Florida the first time around. He was like this no-name Freedom Caucus guy, backbencher, with his headphones in, walking around. You know, I'm sure he thinks very highly of himself. His JAG officer went to Yale, Harvard. But at the end of the day, like when the whole world expects you to take on Trump, it's got to mess with your...

your confidence and then all you do is keep, you keep showing everyone that you're just actually really socially awkward and you don't like retail politics. Yeah, that's, I'm glad I'm not working on that campaign. That's just a psychological stew that is pretty complicated. Totally. I saw that one coming about a year and a half ago. I was like, he doesn't have anybody like you who can come along

and sort of straighten him out, keep him balanced. He's got, he doesn't like, I guess he has his wife, but. Yeah, that's, yeah, I'm not sure I predicted it like you did, but I always thought it was problematic that his inner circle is, I mean, he's so tightly wound and his inner circle is basically him and his wife. And I know that when you go to a broader stage in a presidential, you've got to be able to delegate to a much broader group of people. And I think that's been a

a big problem for him. Yeah, I agree with you. And also he just hasn't really been great to his staff and they all leave. Yep. Yeah. No, I mean, I heard a telling story that somebody told me about somebody who was like applying for assistant scheduler or something and had to go through six interviews over three weeks, all, you know, most of them with Casey DeSantis. And it was just this ridiculous level of stress.

scrutiny and examination for a low-level job that, you know, paid nothing. There's a DeSantis, like, former DeSantis support group that I wrote about a few years ago. They get together and drink based on their time. And now they're all working, like, they're supporting Trump, like, all these people. You know, that's the thing. So, okay, just to talk about this and how much you could really offer the party. Do you think of yourself as a man, and I know you're in media now, but, like,

A lot of your former colleagues in Bush world, McCain world, Rick Davis, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver. I interviewed Reid Gallen last week. You all seem to kind of give off the vibe that you're a man without a party, right? Like that you're men without a party. Yeah.

Trump does not reflect the Republican Party that you came up in, that you worked in. And, you know, you splintered off. Some created the Lincoln Project, like Rick Davis, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver. You were a co-founder of No Labels. But I wonder to myself now...

I mean, I was talking to Reid and he's like, I'm a Democrat now. And he's trying to defeat the third party group, No Labels, which you co-founded, right? Because he believes that's going to hurt Biden and reelect Trump. You all seem to be aligned in the same mission of not wanting Trump to run again. And I'm just wondering, like, why aren't you guys just helping a Republican defeat Trump? Why are you not just helping Nikki Haley? Why is the Lincoln Project spending all of its time on No Labels? And why is No Labels spending all of its time on a third party candidate?

Why not just help what you've got? There aren't a lot of gray hairs on the trail, by the way, for what it's worth. I remember with the McCain campaign, you guys were really seasoned. You were on TV all the time. It feels like a lot of kids. It's not like top-shelf consultants. The top-shelf ones have either gone to Ron DeSantis or Trump, and the rest of them, they're not the same. So I guess if you could explain to me why you guys who are

You're the you're the top shelf of political talent. Why are you not helping the GOP right now? Well, several reasons. I mean, one is that I can't because I'm working on a television show and I am, you know, I am obligated to at least maintain some Arab neutrality, meaning that I'm not getting paid to advise somebody because that would taint my reputation.

my coverage, even though we obviously have strong opinions and I express those. But aren't you a, you're a Republican consultant on the show, right? Though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, a lot of people appear on TV and consult too. That's why I was sort of wondering. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I can't be, um, I just formally can't because I'm doing this, this, uh, this television show, um,

but also, I mean, I'm just, you know, I'm almost 70 years old. I mean, it's a young person's game. And I, you know, I mean, you literally have to put a gun to my head to make me do another campaign. I just, I don't have the energy for it. I, you know, I don't, I don't think I'd be, I think I'm kind of over the hill and you listen, I'm,

you know, I don't recognize Republican Party right now. And yes, I feel like a man without a country, but I think it's great to have, you know, a strong party and I hope to see it resurrected somehow. But, you know, I worked in Democratic, I worked for Ann Richards and George Bush. That's a demographic of one person. But,

But so, I mean, I'm a kind of a radical centrist and I, but it was Bush's message about compassionate conservatism that drew me across the bridge and the kind of McCain style reform politics. And I just don't recognize any of that in the Trump world. And so I, you know, I encourage and express my thoughts about how, you know, I mean, right now, for example, that Nikki Haley would be a much better nominee for the Republican Party. I think it'd be better for the country.

And so I express that, you know, with you and through and I'll do it on my television show and do it as you know, and that's that's the way for me to get the word out and do what I can from that platform. But what about your former colleagues at the Lincoln Project? Like, why aren't they you know, they want to defeat Trump. That's they want to save democracy. They want to make sure Trump doesn't win. Why are they going after no labels instead of helping Democrats?

Well, that's a much longer story, and I completely disagree with them on that subject. So, I mean, I'd be happy to talk about it if you'd like to, but I just disagree with them on that fundamentally. Do you believe a third-party candidate could be a viable option this time around? A hundred percent. I think if it ever could, it could be this time. And I think several things. One is I totally reject...

the argument that you hear all the time in the politics is that X won't happen because X has never happened before historically. And then we elect a black president. Then we elect a real estate guy from Manhattan who's never run for president before. You are right. Murphy's Law, you don't know what's going on. Yeah, I mean, you know, nothing happens in politics until it does. And, you know, if ever there was going to be, you know, people looking for, I mean, 77% of the country or something like that doesn't want Trump or Biden. Yeah, why not now? I mean, if that's what the system gives us,

then why not now? And the sort of button point I make to reader that they just ignore completely, and for the sake of me, don't know why,

They have made it abundantly clear over and over and over again. And Joe Lieberman, who is the chairman of that effort, and whether you like or agree with Joe Lieberman's politics, he is a man of God and a man of his word. And he says the whole point of this exercise is to make sure that Donald Trump is not elected president. And if there's any chance that this would help him, we're not going to do it, period.

What do you think about the argument that we don't know who the donors are? We know like Harlan Crowe is a donor, Steve Schwarzman or a few other Republicans. A nonprofit organization structured exactly the same way the League of Women Voters are designed to be voter education in its emphasis. And that's what it does. And it does exactly what the League of Women Voters does. They apply to this. They they they operate under the same exact rules.

disclosure that the League of Women Voters does. And that's they operate the way the law asks them to. Matt Bennett of Third Way and the Lincoln Project, you know, Reid Gallen of Lincoln Project, they keep saying a third party will take independents, soft Republicans, swing voters from Joe Biden, and they'll vote for the third party candidate rather than Joe Biden. And then Trump will win. Do you think that's the only scenario?

Oh, I think that there's been recent polling that shows that an effort like that would draw much more votes away from Trump. And there's a lot more Republicans out there looking for an alternative than people looking for an alternative to Biden. So you can argue it either way. But the point that I make to them, again, is that if it's going to throw any votes to Trump, they're not going to do it. They've decided that. Yeah. And it looks like it would help Trump. They're not going to do it. The whole point of their exercise is to make sure that Trump's not reelected.

And they would pull the plug, right? They'd pull the plug. But they would be on the ballot. Does that cause any issues, right? They'd already be on the ballot in a bunch of states. Not if they pull the plug and say, don't waste your vote. I mean, they have to put names on the ballot. And how would they know to pull the plug? Would it be based on polling? I think it'll be obvious. It'll be obvious. You know, at that point, you get to next May or June and all the public polling. It'll be clear. But then I go back to the idea, like, why doesn't No Labels just help Nikki Haley?

Because I think that they think that a bipartisan, well, first of all, I mean, if it's Nikki Haley, they may not do it. They're doing this if Trump is on the ballot. But she won't get there unless somebody helps her. You know what I'm saying? It's kind of a chicken and egg thing. I mean, I guess she has to prove herself to get the money, right? That's what you think? Yeah. And if she does and she shows, then they'll stand down. But then again, does money even really matter? Again, we get back to that same point. If you don't have grassroots support, money doesn't matter.

Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, it's but if you it helps to have the money, if you can get it. Fair enough. Yeah, that's true. It helps to have money. Well, we shall see what happens here. It's a very divisive conversation right now. Third parties, probably more so than ever before. Right. Have you ever seen. Listen, I completely understand the fear that people have about Trump.

But my point is, we're all working for the same end point, which is to defeat Trump. They just don't. Galen and Lincoln Project just refuse to I guess they just don't believe people at no labels. They think they're liars when they say we're not going to do this going to help Trump. They're just not going to do it. You're basically and that the whole point of it is to make sure that he's not reelected. And by the way.

My whole point of this was it's a break glass in case of emergency thing. And if it gets to next May and Donald Trump's beating Joe Biden by double digits, what's their plan B?

I like a plan B. I like to have the option. That's why I think, why not? Why? You guys are, like I said, you are some of the most seasoned political minds. Why not, instead of working on a third party, help to build up a GOP, a true contender to Trump within the GOP so that you actually have someone else as the nominee? Like, this is the moment right now. Well, that's why I'm saying all the things I'm saying to you on your show and on the circus. I'm using the platforms that I got.

I guess all I can do is throw out an invite to both the Lincoln Project and No Labels to debate why their strategy is the way to defeat Donald Trump. Now, to my listeners, thanks for joining me. I'll be back with a wrap-up from the debate at the Reagan Library on Thursday. If you like my reporting, you can sign up for my newsletter, The Best and the Brightest, and you can use my discount code, Tara20, that's T-A-R-A 20, for 20% off an annual subscription. See you on Thursday.