The 2024 Spoiler? (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey there. It’s JVL. On the Secret Podcast with Sarah Longwell today, we talked about Vivic Ramaswamy and how he could actually potentially impact the twenty twenty four Republican primary dynamic. Here’s the show.

Four

we now have four declared candidates. We have Donald Trump. Nikki Haley Vivek Rama swine. Yeah. That’s right.

The correct name. Who has taken the very interesting position as the man who must be elected because because Donald Trump isn’t allowed to pardon himself. I don’t know whether that’s true or not. Maybe it is. Maybe it’s not.

And so only Vivid promised Swamy, can can be the one to pardon Trump who must be pardoned because of these witch hunts. Right. And so the reason you have to like him is to because he loves Trump the most of anybody. Mhmm. And because Trump must be protected.

So can I just say that this by Vivint Ramaswamy is probably what DeSantis should have done? Oh,

hundred percent.

Like, I I actually don’t You

know, he can’t because of And now he can’t.

No. I I think from the start, his, like, too clever by half, side long. Oh, I don’t know what he’d like to pay for a porn star. Was there he needed to alpha this from the jump and say, like, when I’m president, I’ll pardon him because this is a he needed to be the guy. Ramaswami doesn’t have the juice to do it, but DeSantis would have.

If he had come out and been alpha and been like, This is political persecution against Trump. And when I’m president, I’m gonna pardon him, that would have been the play.

Yeah.

But

and then you’d Will Saletan Trump is forced into react acting with the, you know, will you accept his partner. Right? And Trump is I don’t have to say, yes. That is absolutely the Alpha dog move. So asa, I guess, is gonna run-in the Liz Cheney lane.

No. Let’s not let’s be nicer to Liz than that. Liz Liz is always

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend the fan club president. Tell me, I thought his agent is indeed exactly what all sort of hope for from Republicans on the indictment thing. And I think he’s already isn’t he already on the record about not supporting Trump Trump’s nominees. Sure.

I like Asa Hutchinson. I think he’s a good guy. But also, like, you don’t get to Johnny come lately, Liz Cheney’s Lane.

And then she

she she earns that that that nine percent of anti Trump probably of deeply anti Trump Republicans who would go for her. And I just think, like, Asa Hutchison, the idea from these guys. To think that they can just, like, roll in and be, like, no. No. No.

Really? Take me seriously. I don’t even understand it at all. Especially because I would like, if you wanna come in as, like, a barn burner, this is why Chris Chris is not doing this yet to, like,

Chris

Crissey is at least, like, capable of a version of this where he’s, like, throwing punches or who else? Who else could be in this? Like, you know, Sunu could potentially do this. Like Sunu has, I think, some of the charisma He’s a hundred this is like a seventy year old guy who is not going to inspire interest from anybody. Like, we’re gonna spend this is the only time we will end up talking about ASA Hutchinson.

You know, it’s funny. I

I remember Asa Hutchinson. Here, you say seventy makes me like, because he was one of the

young hotshots mean, maybe he’s seventy five. I don’t know how old he is.

Uh-huh. He’s seventy two. Yeah. But he was one of the young hotshots along with young Lindsey Graham who managed the impeach trial of Bill Clinton. Mhmm.

And that is where he first came to notice to me. And he was like a young up and comer and now he’s like an old man out of the out of the game. Didn’t he run In twenty twenty though, did he run a campaign? No. I thought he was one of the guys who who had, like, hopped in against Trump in theory.

No. That was different governor. Oh,

that was that was South Carolina walking the woods guy.

Yeah. Yeah. He was the Appalachian Trail mistress guy.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very

different, actually, from Juan Aissa Hutchinson.

Yeah. So Yeah. So I don’t know. It’s very it’s interesting. I think that Mesa could probably get to two percent.

In No.

You have to be able to articulate a vision in a big and compelling way. Like, this is I I just

He’ll finish behind Vivic.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Do

you know I had just on VIVIC really quickly. I had a reporter call me one day and he was like, do you ever hear anything to focus GrewSpot, Vivic Ramaswami. And I was like, I don’t know who that is. What are you talking about? And he’s like, well, he’s this guy who, like, made all this money and, like, some health tech, and all along, I was like, never never never heard anybody bring them up.

And I swear to God a week later, all anyone was talking about in the focus groups was visiting around the swamy. They’re all, oh, I like I like and they all know how to pronounce his name, and I was like, okay, I guess this guy is a thing. But it is always funny to me how something just suddenly pops. And is very much in people’s consciousness. And now the Wall Street Journal gives him, like, a column every other week.

Let me

throw a crazy scenario at you. K. I would not be entirely surprised. Sized. I’d be like, this is this is like a ten percent outcome.

There’s a ten percent scenario in which this is the field. Nobody else gets in. You

know, I don’t think this is crazy. So, well, not that nobody else gets in, but I agree with you that I have started to become Well, I think DeSantis does get in.

I think that’s the most, like I I

I think DeSantis

and or Youngkin are the most likely people to get in that is more likely than not. But I do see a ten percent scenario where DeSantis by June is in a such a bad place polling wise. That he decides to have the whole thing be ad fake and wait. And that something happens with Youngkin where he decides that he can’t do it without getting himself to poetically because even though the donors really want them to run, he decides that running means that Trump is gonna destroy him. And that this is the field.

And then we get to New Hampshire and Ramaswamy finish the second.

No. Okay. Hold on a second. First of all, I think Ron DeSantis I was an early person who thought the scientist wouldn’t do it. And then after twenty twenty two, and they’re the diff the disparate ways in which he won and Trump lost.

I was like, no. No. No. That’s wrong. He’s gonna get in.

I still think he’s gotta get in now. I do. I can understand why people are starting to be like, oh, maybe he’s scared. But, like, did you see the story about his strategy being a late breaking telial strategy? Oh my god.

I am very worried about so I’m very worried about DeSantis’ capabilities. That has to be a head

fake. Right? That’s

so dumb. That can’t be

real. That has to be them trying to head fake the the Trump people.

I do so. And I also think Well, here’s why it’s crazy. So number one, Desegis’ team sort of famously doesn’t talk to reporters, national reporters, and so I wonder how somebody got that story to begin with, if that’s really true, like, has inside knowledge of that. It could be a pack conversation I I don’t know. It just that’s straight.

I don’t know why though why they would head fake Trump with that because that is a projection of weakness. That is, like, being like, we’re like Rudy Giuliani who thinks that we’re gonna have a firewall in Florida. Like, it is like crazy stuff. Anyway, but but the thing you’re saying about Ramaswami though, so I the scenario I could see is that, like, Pence doesn’t get in. Pompeo doesn’t get in.

Like, a whole bunch of Chris Christie doesn’t get in. Everybody basically is like, nobody wants to deal with Trump and Ron DeSantis is gonna have to go in there and do this. But Vivek Ramaswamy is running not a Trumpy campaign. He’s running a Santas campaign. It’s intense

It’s a Rand Paul campaign.

Well, it’s entirely on the woke stuff. Right? It’s entirely on the woke stuff. And what I can see is that Vivint Ramaswami becomes one of these people who’s pulling. He’s the newcomer to the race, and he’s pulling ten percent from DeSantis.

Yeah. Hundred percent.

That he becomes a big primary spoiler candidate.

A hundred percent. And the Trump is nice to him. Right? Trump never attacks him. And he he is sucking up sort of wrong Polish type voters.

And I I see that hundred percent. And here’s the other thing. With each person who passes on the race, I think it makes it more likely for the next person to pass. Right? Because there becomes this, you know, in pulling, they they what is it called, clustering.

Right? Where poster is looking, I have an outlier result. I I have to shave it to get it closer towards that what everybody else is getting because mine must be wrong. And if you’re looking at the race and you see Trump at fifty five percent nationally. Right?

And he’s the former president. And you know that running against him means basically destroying yourself before Republican voters. And then every else is passing on it, you say, well, wait on it. What what am I missing here? I should be passing on this too.

And Yeah. I could see I could see Ramaswamy. And that’s the other yeah. Ramaswamy is very fox friendly. I imagine he’ll be all over fox all the time.

And in a way he helps Trump, as you as you say, and white, Why wouldn’t he finish second in New Hampshire? Right? In New Hampshire, Trump gets gets fifty eight percent. Ram Selman gets twelve Nicki get seven. I

Yeah. I need to

see it all happening. You

always talked about this, and I always thought you were right about this idea that, like, there’s some random outsider that could show up and be, like, a dumb person. Because this is kinda how Republicans are right now is, like, oh, no. This person is, like, This lunatic is really scratching my edge now, and they don’t like regular politicians. Right? This is I this is just it’s so clear.

So There’s two things about voters that I have become just extremely convinced on. There’s a lot more than that, but there’s two for the purposes of this conversation. One is They like new people. And then people that are not regular politicians. The idea of Trump not being a regular politician and being new on the scene, not establishment, what I think all of that stuff is super important to a very big chunk of the base.

That is, like, visually compelling. They like the business stuff. And so I could see Vivic. And and you know what else? They like they like the idea that they’re gonna go for an ethic minority.

We talk about this a lot. Like, the the the ability be like, I’m not racist. No. I like this. This is Okay.

So that’s one thing. That’s one key point. The newness and the not a politician. The two the second thing is is that no politicians from the before times are viable — Mhmm. — only politicians from the after times.

There’s there’s twenty fifteen BT. And if you’re Viewer whatever profile was forged in twenty fifteen, BT. That’s Nikki Haley. That’s Mike Pence. Like, we don’t want you.

You are from the before times. We’re never going back there. But if you show up in the after times and you forge your political identity like DeSantis did, like Vividica on the Swamy did, it’s one of the reasons I don’t count yankin out as much as I do. Pence and some of the others, because I think people who were forged in a post Trumbrera, they understand more about the base voters than the rest, than these guys who just grew up thinking something completely different, but also just voters got to know them in their current frame of mind. And they don’t look at them and say, no, you’re established from politician from before, and I don’t trust you.

Because that’s how Trump’s gonna try to get to Santa’s. He’s gonna get him by showing to Santa’s pictures of George h w Bush and no, you can’t trust this guy. And that is gonna work.

I forget where you made that point, but I heard you somewhere on some show making that point. And I I was just like, yes, yes, this is exactly right. She’s got her finger exactly in the right spot on this. So, yeah, and here’s Here’s while while we’re just doing our our Ramaswamy section here, which

we didn’t know we were gonna talk about.

If he pops, Like, if all of a sudden, let’s let’s pretend we are we are, you know, midway through this this process and all of a sudden people look at him and he has a tiny bit of momentum. I also think that drives some country club Wall Street Journal type Republicans who don’t want Trump back to Trump because they look at Ramaswamy and say, this guy is an absolute moon. Trump has been president. We survived it. We we just gotta make sure that Trump winds up as the nominee again.

Right? And could you see it? They’ll talk themselves into well, at least, compared to Ramaswami, Trump is better.

So you know what’s interesting? This idea of Trump being a known quantity is I think a real one. You think that, like, they couldn’t pop. Like, you think like wages known quantity in in a bad way. And so they would never do it.

That’s what the the standard is. We didn’t all die. But

but do not do not underestimate people’s ability to be like, but I already did that and it was okay. In fact, I got a huge enormous corporate tax cut. Like, he was annoying, but, like, he was good for us. There

were some mean tweets.

Yeah.

Hey, again, it’s JBL. The conversation goes on from there. If you wanna hear the rest of the show, head on over to Bulwark Plus and subscribe. We’d love to have you.