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ANNOUNCER: From the Nation’s Capital, the McLaughlin Group….an unrehearsed program presenting inside opinions and forecasts on major issues of the day….sponsored in part by Edison Electric Institute…the association of electric companies…and by Northrup Corporation…Northrup, making advanced technology work….
Here’s the moderator, John McLaughlin, Washington executive editor of the National Review.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Issue One – Florida Men.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN ON TAPE: With just seven months to go until Iowans gather in gyms, church basements, and assorted other civic spaces to caucus, Donald John Trump and Ronald Dion DeSantis are trying to rip each other to shreds.
Item: Both men campaigned in Iowa this week, as the two sides traded taunts, jabs, and slights in real life and virtually.
Item: DeSantis also campaigned in New Hampshire and South Carolina, with his wife…Casey..the First Lady of Florida… by his side throughout….what Bill and Hillary Clinton used to call “two for the price of one.”
Item: Trump put on his own road show, complete with media appearances…a town hall with the estimable Sean Hannity…and his inexplicable desire to act like a political pundit…
So…I ask you, Pat Buchanan….First of all, Pat, may I say you look particularly dapper today. But I’m not sure why that is.
MR. BUCHANAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: John, I bought this suit at J. Press on your house account.
ALL: (LAUGHTER)
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Ok, ok, ok. Pat Buchanan, how do you like the cut of the Florida governor’s jib?
MR. BUCHANAN: John, lookie here. This young man out of Tallahassee sometimes seems stiffer than a Tom Collins at the Wayfarer bar. But he had a strong week. He’s taking it to Mr. Trump, giving as good as he gets. This isn’t Sleepy Jeb Bush or Little Marco. This is Rocky Marciano, boom, boom, boom, hitting the former president right in the kisser. He didn’t knock the champ down this week. But you can tell, Trump knows he is in a real fight.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Eleanora, what say you???!!!
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: Well, first of all, John, I found it interesting that you called him “Deh-Santis” during your introduction, because this guy is running for president and he doesn’t seem to know how to say his own name. Sometimes he says “Dee-Santis.” Even Dick Cheney dumped “Chee-knee” long before he went national.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Thank you for the elocution lesson, Eleanor. Now, how did the guy do in Iowa and New Hampshire?
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: First of all, Team Trump displayed quite a bit of what Iowans call chutzpah this week, going after DeSantis for being “odd” like with the pronunciation of his name – and for losing his temper with a reporter. I mean, Trump himself is literally the oddest person any of us has ever met, and he’s a guy who has made a living over the last seven years attacking the media! But somehow this stuff works! The real problem for DeSantis is he’s already gone too far right for too many voters. And it’s not just abortion and Disney. Trump’s longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio says that the electability argument DeSantis is making goes right out the window when voters hear about his record on Medicare, Social Security, a national sales tax, and book bans. All this stuff will be fodder for Team Trump. And it’s not just a problem in the general election. Tim Scott and others are going to pull primary votes away from DeSantis over these positions.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Interesting! Robert Novak, yea or nay to the Clift hypothesis?
MR. NOVAK, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: John, I am told that some of DeSantis’ donors are getting antsy. They like the wife, they like parts of the message, but there’s a problem. And it isn’t abortion, as Eleanor said. Liberals always think pro-life is a problem. The problem is there is no Jim Baker on that campaign. And it is not possible to win the Republican nomination or the White House without a Jim Baker type. There is a lot more opposition research about DeSantis in the pipeline and he’s making the classic mistake of thinking he can handle it without preparation and performance. This is an operation that is all tactics and no strategy. And that won’t beat Trump.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Quickly, quickly, Jack.
JACK GERMOND, BALTIMORE SUN: If you talk to the people who really know what’s going on on the ground up in New Hampshire, John – you know, like actual reporting – you get a different story. People like Tom Rath, who have been around a bit, they will tell you that Trump can be taken down. New Hampshire Republicans..and especially New Hampshire independents…are ready to move on from the insanity and inanity of Trump. The problem, as we have seen this week, is that Trump is the King Pig at setting the terms of debate. And as they say in Davenport, when you wrestle with a pig, two things happen. You get muddy and the pig loves it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: So very porcine of you, Germond. Exit question, who won the week, Trump or DeSantis?
MR. BUCHANAN: Oh, clearly DeSantis. His Super PAC has the right name – Never Back Down. This guy is number two and rising with a chamber full of bullets to fire at Trump, who no longer has his monopoly on understanding and inciting the MAGA base. Watch out.
MS. CLIFT: Trump won, of course. He entered the week with a 30-plus polling week and he ends the week with the same lead.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Prince of Darkness?
MR. NOVAK (SMILING LIKE ELMO ON GUMMIES): Trump, John. Until DeSantis puts a cap gains cut and a major personal income tax rate cut at the centerpiece of his campaign, he can’t catch the frontrunner. I get going after Goofy and Pluto, but the Democrats’ greatest vulnerability is on the economy….and DeSantis barely talks about it.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Jack, last word!
MR. GERMOND: Biden is the big winner. I’ve never covered two bigger clowns than Trump and DeSantis.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Clever but: WRONG!!! It was a trick question. The answer is…Tim Scott…….We’ll be right back, with the Democrats…
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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Issue Two – Pop is up…and…he’s down.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN ON TAPE: It was a week of highs and a big low for President Biden.
Item: Thursday night, on a bipartisan vote, the Senate joined the House in passing a budget bill that staves off the breaching of the nation’s debt ceiling…a measure negotiated and quietly championed by Mr. Biden, who used a Friday evening televised address to take a victory lap and remind the country of his main campaign theme…that he is the adult in the room, the one…as the president said in his inaugural address..whose QUOTE “whole soul is in this: Bringing America together.” END QUOTE.
Item: Also Thursday, after falling badly over a sandbag on stage..and on camera…during the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado, the commander in chief bumped his head on the frame of Marine One…then tried to joke it all off back at the White House..saying he had been “sandbagged.”
Item: With only an aging environmental activist and an even more loony peace, love, and understanding candidate running against him in the Democratic primary, Biden’s party seems determined to ignore his apparent mental decline and frightening poll numbers and simply admire the emperor’s beautiful outfits all the way through November, 2024.
So…, I ask you, Pat Buchanan, do the week’s events suggest Biden is well positioned for re-election…. or a sitting duck?
MR. BUCHANAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It’s pretty fundamental. Forget his age. The economy, the border, Red China on the march, the working class of this country hollowed out, hippies in sandals and beads at the U.S. Department of Education sipping Bud Lights and designing plans to mandate drag shows in every school in the nation? This is not America, John. Biden is doomed.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Eleanor Clift?
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: With all due respect to Pat, this is all silly. The masterful negotiations Biden ran over the debt ceiling, the manufacturing jobs, the Ukraine coalition, the semiconductor law, infrastructure, gun safety. Biden and Kamala Harris have a great record to run on, and they will do it against Trump or DeSantis or some other MAGA extremist who can’t win any real votes in the suburbs of Atlanta, Phoenix, Milwaukee, or Philly.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Robert Novak?
MR. NOVAK, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Biden is in serious trouble. Millions of people watched the clip of him falling on something called “social media,” which my sources say will someday be bigger than television. The Democrats want Biden to repeat his role as the default candidate, making the other guy, especially Donald Trump, the focus of the race.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Jacko?
JACK GERMOND, BALTIMORE SUN: Most people in Biden’s orbit say that he has not lost a step mentally, but tires more easily than he used to. They say that makes him appear frailer than he is and leads to his lifetime stutter to reappear. Aides have also taken care to not overburden his schedule. His days rarely start early and often feature down time in the middle, according to two people familiar with his routine but not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. The fact that Ron Klain and all these other White House muckety mucks got on Twitter after his fall at that graduation to say the president is fine tells you how worried they actually are about the real risks here. I hear it from Democrats every time I am at a bar, in the middle seat on a flight, or at the track. This is real. You laughed off Bobby Kennedy, John, but New Hampshire remains a real danger zone for Biden.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Wow. Ok. Exit question, on a scale of 0 to 10…with 0 meaning zero probability and 10 meaning metaphysical certitude…. What are the chances Biden is the eventual nominee…and..bonus exit question: If not Biden, who?
MR. BUCHANAN: 5 and, we should be so lucky, Kamala Harris.
MS. CLIFT: 10 so I’m not playing your silly little game, John.
MR. NOVAK: Right now, it’s a 3 and the Biden replacement will be California’s pretty boy governor, Gavin Newsom.
MR. GERMOND: Oh, about an 8, John. If it isn’t Biden for some reason, Josh Shapiro would be the consensus choice.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: WRONG!!! It’s right down the middle at 5. And Michigan’s telegenic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is waiting in the wings.…Back with predictions!
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MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Predictions. Pat?
MR. BUCHANAN: Chuck Schumer and Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher are going to come together on a very tough bill on China. The corporatists will try to kill it, but Brooklyn and Cheese Country are going to stay united and good things will happen.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Eleanor, very quickly.
MS. CLIFT: John, the two rising stars in the House Conference are Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves and North Carolina’s Patrick McHenry. After the debt limit talks, they have the trust and confidence of Speaker McCarthy and their colleagues. Watch for them both to play a big role in the shaping the terrain going forward.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Bob?
MR. NOVAK: Jeffrey Epstein.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: What about Jeffrey Epstein.
MR. NOVAK: That’s all I can say for now. But that sound you hear, if you listen closely, is some powerful folks quaking in their boots.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Stay tuned for that! Jack?
MR. GERMOND: Details of the Mar-a-Lago document investigation of special counsel Jack Smith have been leaking out. But Smith has even more secret witnesses, secret evidence, and secret storylines in his hands, about both that investigation and the one related to January 6. Trump thinks he knows everything Smith has. But I’m told Trump’s lawyers are more nervous than they let on. Watch Mark Meadows closely.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The next senator from California – Republican Steve Garvey!
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Bye-bye!!!
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ESSENTIAL READING
* The Orlando Sentinel’s recent profile of Ron DeSantis has nuggets galore that will educate you:
DeSantis’ only sibling..died unexpectedly eight years ago. The governor has rarely spoken about her….
[DeSantis’ father] says he doesn’t talk to his son often, maybe every couple of months or so when he goes to Tallahassee to see him and the family. His wife, and the governor’s mom, Karen DeSantis, 75, sees the governor more frequently, he says. Every three weeks or so. For the grandkids, mainly….
Every attempt to reach out to the people closest to him has been rebuffed or ignored, leaving many questions unanswered about who the intensely private Ron DeSantis really is…
And the most glaring omissions are the friends, mentors, teachers and coaches who helped shape his thinking about culture, politics and the Constitution.
* Rich Lowry decodes the DeSantis strategy deftly.
* Peggy Noonan previews her Sunday comments at the Gang of 500 brunch in her Wall Street Journal column, whose alternative headline could have been, “Going to War With the Chris Christie We Want to Have.”