DeSantis and the No Labels DEFCON Level (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey there. It’s JBL. On the Secret Show with Sarah Longwell today,

we talked about Ron

DeSantis’ big campaign reset. And then about no labels and all the nonsense they’ve got going on. Here’s the show. We are gonna talk about the breaking story by NBC News, which got the the leak from the the Santa’s world about how they are ready to reboot their campaign, and then we’re gonna talk about no labels. Sound good?

Great topics.

Yeah. Good good topics. So do which would you like to do first? I was gonna leave with Cassandra.

Yeah. Let’s do the Santa

Okay. So let me set the table. The story, I’ll just read you the lead to it. Expect fewer big speeches and more handshake in diners and churches, there will be more of a national focus than constant Florida references and the mainstream media may start to get more access. In Ron DeSantis will be running as an insurgent candidate rather than as an incumbent governor.

This is from the NBC report. There’s a lot more in it. The reason I would like to talk about this is because not, I just wanna dunk on them. But because this is deeply concerning to anybody who wants Ron DeSantis to be a viable alternative to Trump in the primary, which I think both of us would like. Mhmm.

And not not because we like Ron DeSantis, but because To be

clear, we would like somebody else to be the viable alternative Trump.

Somebody else to be right. I if Mike Pence was viable to alternative Trump or Ace Hutchinson, it’d be great. Right? But but the point is, if you’re looking for viable alternatives, I think this is a sign that DeSantis is is in very deep trouble. And in a way, I think it’s helpful because the sooner he If it turns out that he’s gonna blow up the sooner he blows up the better.

Because this way, maybe it does give space to Mike Pence. Who again is the hero we need,

not the hero we deserve. With the pen stuff, this is not this this is terrible. You’re doing this to troll me with the best.

You know what, I am, in fact, writing a story for somebody else, not not the bulwark, about Pence and I agreed to do it. Purely, to troll you.

It alarms me how much of your content is designed specifically to make me nuts.

Doesn’t don’t you enjoy the the specialness of having a writer of of national political prominence who’s writing content just for you on almost daily basis.

It is funny how I will I will, like, go catch up on your triads, like, days and days later and I will see that you have name checked me in them as, like, specifically Sarah’s wrong about and, like, I haven’t even it’s gone right by me.

So anyway, I I think it it would be helpful. If if DeSantis is not capable of beating Trump, then the sooner Republican voters know that the better. Because in a in a good world, that would give them time to go and coalesce around somebody else. Now in the world actually live in, what it probably means is that they go to Trump sooner. But, you know, we can’t

So I think I think that’s that’s probably right that, like, one of the things I’ve talked about a lot. Throughout this is like how much Trump is people’s number two choice. Like, if people go off to Santos, they don’t really go to Haley, they don’t really go to Mike Pence. They might go to Vivic. I will say though, Ron DeSantis implosion that is like a real clear implosion, it does have a bunch of dynamics.

Just even before we get into like the specifics of DeSantis’s implosion, I think it’s worth thinking about, if he’s not the obvious number two, like, it allows somebody else to be tested in the national spotlight at a time when there is still time. One of the things, so Tim Scott, let’s just say that Tim Scott is somebody that I hate the least. Okay. I like object to. I still object to, but like, in my list of how I object to him, He’s one of the lesser ones.

Whenever I see him like, there’s a couple of appearances he studied. He did one on the view where he was pretty good. I was like, oh, he sounds great. You know, he sounds like he could he could tell a good optimistic story. There’s a bunch of other times when I see him, and I’m like, you’re terrible at this.

You don’t have a position on abortion. You not think you were gonna get asked about abortion? Why are you talking about baking reservations? You were just asked about abortion. But I think the question is is does Nikki get a chance to be sort of like, you know, there was this this thing that happened not in twenty sixteen in in the election before.

Twenty twelve with everybody.

Everybody got a shot, nano nine nine nine.

Everybody tops to number one for two weeks.

Right. And like it’d be nice to get a little bit of that to see if there’s anybody else who could stick. I’m not super optimistic about that, Ron DeSantis remaining at a low number two is the worst case scenario because then everybody just keeps fighting to get to number two, which means they’re beating up Ron DeSantis, which means DeSantis is constantly being pulled down by the constant attacks. And so like, either everybody’s got to get out and give DeSantis the opportunity to do sort of one on one, or DeSantis has to implode and somebody else has to like, other people have to be able to take a shot in the national spotlight. To get some momentum.

Why couldn’t everybody else get out and give Tim Scott a shot. Right? I mean Or that? Yeah. You can see one of those things.

They won’t do that until there’s some measure of viability. Yeah. DeSantis is the only one who has the remotest measure of viability.

I agree. And and the other thing is DeSantis floating back down to earth so we have a muddle at number two does free people up to, if they choose to, attack Trump instead of going after Ron DeSantis.

Exactly.

And again, The the optimistic scenario we’re painting is unlikely. The most the more likely scenario is, people just coalesce around Trump sooner. But we believe that’s going to happen anyway. And so if there’s a ten percent chance that another thing happens instead, then I’m I’m I’d be happy to roll the dice there. Yeah.

So that’s why we’re we’re talking about this because this is this document is basically like a pre mortem of a campaign that so here is a a quote from DeSantis campaign, Marinera Peck. Ron DeSantis has never been the favorite with a darling of the establishment and he has won because of it every town No one this race has been under fire more and one than Governor DeSantis. He’s ready to prove them wrong again, buckle up. That’s that’s an actual couple responses.

The synthesis team sucks.

Ron DeSantis is absolutely the darling of the establishment. There’s a reason Jim Bush has endorsed Ron DeSantis and not Donald Trump. I believe as much fire as governor DeSantis has been under, Donald Trump has been under more. He’s indicted. In criminal proceedings, two of them so far.

And as for winning every time I mean, Donald Trump won the presidency and Rhonda Sanchez didn’t want Donald Trump as one two presidential nominations. Ron DeSantis won his first gubernatorial nomination literally because Trump endorse him. I mean, this is it all of which is to say that if this is the story that they think telling publicly, will help them with Republican voters, then they’re incompetent.

Yeah. So, here’s the thing about this story. So, it’s important to note why the shakeup is happening. So, the thing what came out when their financial information came out, it became clear that DeSantis is a few things are going on. One, they are spending at a really high rate.

And so their burn rate is too much. Like they’re actually, despite being one of the highest fundraisers, because their burn rate’s so high, they’re actually in a cash crunch. They’ve had to lay off a bunch of peoples, they laid off like twelve people, which when you start layoffs, anywhere, a company, a campaign, it’s a moral killer, especially when you do it in part because you’re like, a, we’re not budging in the polls, but also, we’re now in a cash crunch. One of the things contributing to the cash crunch is that they clearly rounded up their most enthusiastic donors early, and so their big supporters have already all maxed out. And so the only that only Bulwark, so it’s fine if all your sort of first tier donors max out, as long as you demonstrate momentum, so a bunch of new donors move in and are willing to max out.

But their contributions have slowed down. Right? Because people, the perception of him, is that he is not as viable as people thought, and those things are compounding. Because people who think you’re less viable, so you raise less money, you raise less money, think you’re less viable. Like, that thing is a spiral, a death spiral.

And so, there was a bunch in that story where the other thing that they said they were going to do is they were going to reboot their messaging. But I thought, this is great, so there’s like a it’s like a headline, reboot to the messaging, and I was like, Oh, I wonder if he’s gonna stop talking about, you know, groomers in schools and instead talk about, you know what? Nope, that’s not what it is. It’s just that he’s gonna talk about Florida less and national stuff more. Yes.

And and Ron DeSantis against the world message. That’s that’s their quote.

Is that new? Is that new? Is that a reboot?

It’s here’s here’s another

Oh, he’s gonna whine more?

All DeSantis needs this is Peck, the campaign manager again. All DeSantis needs to drive news and win this primary is a mic and a crowd. That’s if that’s their view, because they have though like he’s gonna do more v f w halls and pizza ranches and fewer big speeches. Have they not seen their candidate? With people?

That’s that I mean, that is literally not his his strong point. And the the truth is, what DeSantis needs to drive the news is the power of the governorship. Like, that is the way DeSantis was driving news was by taking executive actions and hurting people in Florida that Republican based voters wanted to see hurt. And where has his his lethargy in the poll started? It is once he stopped doing that stuff and was doing, like, legislating with you know, like, the Disney fight was good for him.

The the migrant and the migrants. The refugees being sent to Martha’s vineyard was good for him. The the trans stuff and yelling at high school kids and college kids about masks, that was good for him.

In a limited way. Right? And that and that it got him on Fox News to talk to audiences about who he was yelling at today. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. This idea that, like, you know, his real strength is just, you know, talking to voters, five people at a time. I mean, again, if that’s their plan, then that’s a terrible plan.

Yeah. So one of the things that I was reading in puck last night Ron DeSantis world is one of the things that has, that people say about their campaign, about DeSantis and Casey in particular. Is that they are extremely paranoid about outsiders. And there’s a fair number of political families who are like this, right? People who feel like they got done dirty, by leaks, whatever, they become paranoid, they basically will only rely on a very close held group of people.

But that also leads to insular thinking, it creates an inability to scale when you want to go outside of Florida and you need a national campaign. And it’s like, so they’re very anti consultant, which I understand. Right? Like, the political consultant

they’re seeing, then I’d be my tech consultant too.

Yeah. But, like, you know, like, the consultancy as a whole into industry and they don’t want to pay them, you know, like whatever, they’ve got their resistance to it, and some of that could be fair, except when you’re running a national campaign. Like if you’re gonna run for president, you need a gazillion people who are running your state level stuff, who are You know? You need a new warm. You gotta rely on new people.

And that’s and it’s, like, as a good executive, you gotta bring in good people. And so, they’re unwilling to do that, which I think is leading them to sort of hunker down instead of expand and amplify, But I agree with you this idea that But, you know, what’s funny about the smaller venues and the smaller events is also being cost driven.

Yeah. They they they make that point. They’re like, we can do an event for only nine hundred forty dollars.

That’s right. Jeez. Which is a tough now you’re in, like, now you’re in like a penny pinching mode of like, well, we’ve gotta ration our appearances based on costs, which is also a terrible place to be, when Trump could still feel stadiums,

Yeah. I or towns as we talked about in the next level. Right? I mean, this I if you’re penny pinching at the level of vote, like, physically getting the candidate in front of voters, that’s bad. Right?

That that’s really bad. One one more thing. Final quote from a source familiar with the campaigns thinking. The elites have already picked their candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump, but the American people want a fighter who is not a creature of Washington and isn’t afraid to stand up and take our country back. I don’t know what mouth breathing moron thinks that this is a message that can be sold to Republican primary voters, but it’s insane.

That that Donald Trump is the candidate of the elites, who isn’t a fighter, but Ron does Like, again, I am I’m not dunking on them just because I enjoy dunking on these people. But if if they would like to hire me, I could tell them how to run a better campaign, which is that all those things Donald Trump says are great. But he didn’t do them and we need somebody who’s gonna really go to the mattresses and not worry about padding the his his bottom line Trump International Hotel and is actually gonna build the wall and put sharks with frickin lasers on their head in the Rio Grande River to kill as many migrant children as possible. That’s what he needs to do. Right?

Go go go from the super hard and, you know and look, I’m gonna the president’s done a lot of shady stuff, but but will pardon him on day one because I’m not gonna let those those hippie communist BLM people win. I don’t care I don’t care if I’m Trump broke a couple laws. That’s what we sent him there to do. But I’m gonna come in and, you know, if I had been president in twenty twenty, you can believe me that those that stolen election would have been overturned. Yeah.

Right. I mean, this is just just run as the, like, authoritarian plus. Maybe it’ll Bulwark, maybe it won’t. I think it probably won’t work, but it’s got a better chance of working than trying to convince Kletas that Donald Trump is the candidate of the elites.

Yeah. Well, I’ve got good news for Ron DeSantis, which is that Trump’s gonna be indicted imminently again. And so your campaign reshuffle woes will be out of the news. However, Donald Trump’s gonna raise a gazillion dollars over indicted again, and will probably get a polling bump, which is when DeSantis during his reboot will probably drop to third place.

I you know, why why why not if you’re Ron DeSantis, simply have as your response to to this stuff You know, when Jake Tapper asks you, you know, about the the indictments, why not just go full yellow and say

Dude’s a criminal. He’s terrible at this.

You know what? I bet he did do it, but I don’t care. I’d pardon him anyway. Because I wouldn’t I’m not gonna let those Nambi Pam, be socialists in the Department of Justice get a win. Why not just say that?

Because you know what? That would be gold.

I mean, I don’t wanna encourage these guys to say things that is actually, I mean, that’s more insane. He’s already saying insane things. He’s already pre defending Donald Trump on this indictment. And that’s why when They say campaign shake up and reboot. I was it lives like, oh, what will they do to change strategy?

Will they stop defending the president every time he gets indicted and become his little beta, like, you know, like no. That’s not what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna keep doing that stuff.

So Yeah. Okay. Topic number two. No labels.

So I texted you earlier to be, like, have we done this yet? Like, I know we’ve talked about no labels a little bit, but I don’t know that we’ve, like, gone deep on it.

I I don’t think we have. And if we have, I don’t think I don’t think this is the type of thing you can only do once because this is a real threat. And I don’t think it’s going away. It feels more real every day. And with guys like Lieberman and Manchin, and Cinema lurking out there and Larry Hogan doing his t’s and I You know so much more about this world than I do.

I cannot understand the psychology of any of the people in this space. Except on the theory that they they’re doing their dirty tricksters who are really in it to help Trump. I can understand that. Right? If if at heart, what they want to do is, like, they’re running a, like, subrosa, like, you know, the truth is Biden’s really bad.

And, you know, we Trump’s good for business and we give yeah. That I could understand. But this like, hey, look at this. Here’s our map with the states we can win. We can do this.

This is the time. Joe Biden is an unacceptable. Bulwark yeah. Charlie Charlie Sykes newsletter yesterday about the the Supreme Court illegitimacy argument and Charlie Sykes like, here’s Joe Biden, the one the one guy who is, you know, behaving reasonably and upholding norms on on all this stuff. And I was like, yes.

Yes. That’s right. And no labels thinks that Joe Biden is too too unacceptable somehow? I don’t understand. What are they thinking, Sarah?

So I think so I don’t know what they’re thinking exactly, because I don’t really know. But I wanna let’s let’s take let’s take an uncharitable version and do that, and then let’s take a charitable version. So I think the uncharitable version is the one you just kind of got at, which is that actually, this is a Trojan horse for re electing Trump, and that’s what they’re planned to do. Right? They plan to get on the ballot, they know that ultimately they’ll hurt Joe Biden, and this allows people with clean hands to argue, listen, this is just about giving people more choice, this is about, you know, look, these two, you know, extreme candidates, America, look at the polls, the polls show you that Americans are not happy with these choices, which Americans are unhappy with their choices.

And so, this is the awkward, you know, this is the opportunity, but they know, they know that it’ll reelect Trump. Actually, that’s I’m getting into actually slightly more charitable version. The uncharitable version is actually, yeah, Trojan Hers for reelecting Trump. I don’t think it’s definitely that. Which would be

bad for Joe Mansion, I think.

It it would be bad for Joe Mansion

Right? And Joe Manchin on

the other side of it.

No. I mean, if Joe Manchin wants to run for his senate seat again, it’s much better for him to have Joe Biden in office to run against than to have Trump in office running against helping the Maga candidate against him. Right? Because then, mansion doesn’t have a Biden Democrat to triangulate against and butch himself up against.

Well, that assumes he’s running for Senate and not on this unity ticket.

Oh, right. Yes.

Yes. Right. I because I think I think the the mansion Hogan or the man chin, huntsman deal, or huntsman mansion. I don’t I don’t know who would be at the top of this.

The mansion cinema.

Yeah, whatever. But who’s at the top of the ticket would matter somewhat. But let’s leave aside the idea But like, here’s the thing. So here here’s where I wanna I wanna explore the charitable case.

That’s what I want because I don’t understand that.

Right. So the uncharitable case trojan horse. The charitable case is a little bit of, sorry, what I was just saying before about, Americans deserve more choices, like, in my world, the democracy world. There’s a lot of reformers, right? A lot of political reformers who talk about things like ranked choice voting, or fusion voting, and sort of at the heart of that is the idea that the two party duopoly, is is terrible for America.

Americans deserve more choices. You know, the reason, the argument for ranked choice voting really is one of if we had ranked choice voting, we could have more political parties and more opportunities for coalitions, a more European style right? And let’s break up the two party system. I would say that a lot of people, and so, like, okay, fine on its Meredith. I know you’re sort of a right choice voting person.

I some of my best friends are big ranked choice voting.

I I I am just I am agnostic on ranked choice voting.

Okay.

I people talk about it like it’s the end all be all, and I I don’t I’m agnostic.

So sort of regardless of the utility, like the actual whether or not it would be good or or bad, Let’s assume it would be good. Just the practical reality is that you can only pass it in places where like, main, like, or Alaska. Where there’s a lot a there’s tons of political independence and a huge advocate for Yeah. You are not gonna get this nationally.

You might be able to get it in blue states. Honestly. But you’re not gonna get it in red states. Right? I could see New Yorker, California going to, like, because it’s it fits with the, like, you know, gugu democracy reform types in in liberalism.

Right?

Right. And so but without so if you don’t have things like like ranked choice voting, right, then sorry, the reality is that third parties, unless they have this chance of winning, a genuine chance of winning. Otherwise, they are pulling in their twenty percent from some combination of both parts. Right? And so the question is, who do they pull the most from?

And I think no labels understands that, like, A Joe Manchin Run, the idea that it would siphon out, this is the problem for Trump. Trump’s committed vote People who want Trump proactively is like forty percent of like, of the country, like, or, you know, it’s like, the always like, or of the of the of Republicans, it would be, Trump would still get eighty five percent of the Republican vote.

Yes.

And Joe Biden probably get like seventy five percent of the Democratic vote, because there’s a lot of soft Biden voters, a lot of soft dams in there, a lot of hard control.

Conservative DEMS in places like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And if you give them a more conservative alternative, right?

Yeah.

They might go there.

And so I understand why you want to offer mortgages, but here’s the thing that’s really happening, which is there is not a huge appetite among voters for this sort of fist scoly conservative, socially modern. Like, I love it. And this is the thing. I am the no labels target builder. So I’m sympathetic.

On some level to this idea. And look, if it was Bernie versus Trump, I think, like, and they really came up with a dynamic candidate, I could It is this idea, but here’s what’s driving it. Sorry, this is the thesis. It took me a while to get here. It’s donors.

It’s it’s the money. So donors to efforts like no labels, are, they are socially moderate and fiscally conservative. Right? And, they wanna live in a world with candidates who are socially moderate and fiscally conservative. They don’t want high taxes, they want less regulation, they want, right, they’re, and I’m supportive of this, I’m not a billionaire, but I’m still, like, dear, when you’re a billionaire, right?

You got the good end of the stick and you like the story of American capitalism. Right? Because it’s your story.

Look at that. Any make me a

video there. I love I love that story too. I loved it. The stories stories of American capitalism, that being said, the idea Keep this guy

He started out with just a hundred million dollars from his father, and he turned it into a billion. What a great country America is.

Yeah. Right. So I’m not gonna argue this part specifically with you, but I I what I am would argue I

just wanna troll you. God.

The people the people that that that class of billionaires, like, they want to believe what no labels is selling. No labels is telling them. These people, these two candidates are deeply unpopular, this is the moment. For a third party. And these guys, you know, they listen to Larry Hogan, just like I do.

And they enjoy me and they get the warm fuzzies. Because they’re talking like, because they sound normal. Like, let me tell you, I would just say, Whoever the no labels, if it was like a a mansion huntsman ticket or a Hogan mansion ticket? Isn’t is a normie ticket. I’m four.

I’m not

really four

of them, as, like, general people, like, would prefer them and prefer their policies, it ignores all political reality, though. And the biggest part of the problem is that what they will do is they will generate this is the this is the worst thing. Is that right now, going into this election, depending on where the economy is. There’s gonna be a lot of what we’re gonna start. We’re gonna talk a lot about double doubters.

K? People who don’t wanna vote for Trump and don’t wanna vote for Biden. And if no labels gets ballot access, and even if they don’t field candidates, right? So let’s say they start out field candidates, they realize their ceiling is twelve percent fifteen percent whatever, twenty percent. They’re going to reelect Trump.

They can see that in all of the polling whatever, which is obvious to everybody else right now, but let’s say it becomes obvious, to them, they don’t do it, but they’re there on the ballot. And people just have protest votes and they just start throwing away. And four percent and they vote down ballot, which actually, they vote down but instead they go, they go, and like this happens, right? With third Charlie Sykes was the margin in the Blue Wall States of people who went third party.

And these are the ticket splitters. Right? These are the people who otherwise would vote Biden and then vote Republican Down ballot, which is why the Down ballot Republicans have performed better when Trump was on the ballot because there are a lot of people both in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty who who couldn’t make themselves vote for Trump, not a lot. I mean, not not like ten percent. But there was, you know, there was a small percentage of people and those people were decisive in the in the swing states.

Yes. That’s right. And also, it’s like you can see, right, these are people who would be like, oh, Mike Bloomberg is getting in. Like, they want one of their own

—

Yeah. — in a lot of ways. Right? Like, they’ll, like, who’s a banking CEO that would be great? Like, who’s a great business person?

We want that person. That’s fine. That’s not a person that is gonna win over a majority of Americans, many of whom like, I I was talking about this on the, I think, on the next level about, like, the parties are in some ways quite weak. Right? They’re weak enough that they can be hijacked by Trump or, like insurgent forces.

But they’re strong in the sense that people have a lot of party, ID, and loyalty. And so they just start out so far ahead that the idea that you could just like run up the middle on a guy like Joe Biden is wrong. They’re telling themselves, and they just talk to each other. It’s like a lot of billionaires and it’s the no labels people giving them wish fulfillment. Wish fulfillment they’re saying it can happen.

It could happen, and because these people, because the donors, whatever, they look at buy it, and they think this guy’s too old, Comala Harris is bad, you know, these guys can’t win, they view themselves right they’re entrepreneurs, they take risks, they believe and take So, there’s a bunch of ways in which they are hardwired to want to believe that this is true, and there’s a group who is willing to sell it to them.

So let me give you a political science y explanation of this stuff, and you tell me if it scans correctly or not. In the question of party weakness, I would submit to you that the Republican party is much weaker and in the sense of being capable of taken over by an outsider than the Democratic party. Because of the nature of its coalition, because it is so homogenous, and the the the party is really driven by a single demographic, which is white men who are Christians. That made it easier for an outsider who could hit very well with them to take over the party. The expansive and diverse coalition that makes up the Democratic party makes it harder for an outsider to come in and take it over.

Because there are just too many you know, you have you have white working class voters. You have African Americans. You have liberals. You have suburban professionals. It’s just too many different the coalition’s too broad for one person who way over indexes on one of them.

To come in and just own the whole party. That’s that’s political science park number one. Political science park number two is that a no labels let’s just take no labels out of it. A third party candidacy becomes viable in a world in which both parties have been hijacked by outsiders. And I think that this is true of the Republican Party.

Now after seven years of Trump. I think Trump is no longer an outsider. Trump now is the Republican Party, the Republican Party is Trump. But let’s pretend in twenty sixteen, Bernie had beaten Hillary. And Bernie was an outsider candidate.

He was not really a Democrat. Right? Bernie taking over the Democratic party would have been again, don’t get mad at me and yell at me. But but as a political science matter, would have been roughly the same thing as Domino’s Trump coming in taking over the Republican Party. In that kind of world, a third party suddenly maybe is viable because your committed partisans don’t really have a place to go.

I mean, they could stay with their party, but they understand that the the person who’s running their party now isn’t really one of them. The problem with the no labels or third party bid now is that Joe Biden is the dead set center of the Democratic party. Like that’s just where he lives and where he has always lived just right in the middle of the Democratic party. So does that all make sense from a political science perspective about like the nature of the party coalitions and having candidates who who are centered within the party versus candidates who are outsiders. Hey, again.

It’s JBL. The conversation goes on from there. If you want to hear the rest of the show, head on over to Bulwark plus and subscribe. We’d love to have you.