All right, guys, here we go.
Steve, I turn to you first.
Nikki Haley and Ron De Santis showed up,
debated. Clearly, they hate one another's guts.
Donald Trump did not participate in the debate,
but what did De Santis and Haley achieve?
How do where do we go from here with these?
I don't know. I felt like they bludgeoned each other
pretty well,
and I don't know that they advanced either of their
causes.
Look, it's the numbers. The numbers just show Donald Trump
way ahead.
I'm trying to find a Zen with,
you know, Brett Stevens from the New York Times,
who wrote a column today about how to understand and
appreciate people's love for Donald Trump.
But that's what's going to happen.
And we are headed for this
rematch of Donald, inexorably, of Donald Trump and and Joe
Biden.
And I think it's an election that the public doesn't
want,
but it's an election the public's going to get,
whether they want it or not.
It's an election the public deserves
because this is what that's who they put if that's
who they choose.
And that's how the process works.
I mean, I'm not sure the process is exquisitely designed
to reflect the public's,
the total public's view, but that's the way it works
out.
I think Republican senators did this to us,
right? They had a chance twice and the second time
they really had a chance to convict Trump.
They could have done it.
They could have voted to convict him.
Then he would not have been eligible to run again.
But instead they took the cowards way out as many
Republicans did.
And that's how we got here.
So I don't even think that it's the voters fault.
I really think it's a cowardly Republican Party that refused
to stand up to Donald Trump.
Well, Josh, it's been a long campaign to get us
to this point,
but here we are. And Donald Trump has remade the
Republican Party in his likeness right now,
as a private citizen. He's basically controlling the House GOP
who gets to be the speaker whether or not the
government gets shut down.
So no matter what happens in Iowa on Monday,
is this the party of Trump?
Has he just won? Yeah.
No. But you're totally right.
I think you watch Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis debate
and it feels like when my sister and I would
go,
well we should have this for dinner.
When when for mom and dad.
We should have this for dinner And then it's our
parents who decide.
Right. And it really felt like they were having a
kids table argument.
Well Donald Trump is
is it's it's his race.
Katie hard pass on that Thanksgiving wherever that is.
I'm not sitting at the kids.
Did Donald Trump not just beat his opponents?
Is he beating the media yet again?
Right in the beginning of this week,
we all went, Oh my gosh,
he's not going to be on the campaign trail.
I cannot believe he's going to court.
But guess what happens when he goes to court?
We all show up with our cameras when he's at
rallies,
we don't air them. We say those rallies are filled
with lies.
He goes to court. We all show up.
He stands on the courthouse steps where he gives a
press conference.
And it's basically another rally speech and we take every
word of it.
Has he beat us again?
No. But I will take an unpopular opinion about Justice
and Goran in the New York civil trial,
the civil fraud trial. So he,
quote, allowed Donald Trump to speak.
And I think that was a mistake.
I think we should never treat Donald Trump differently.
And I think he got specialized treatment when in Goran,
even entertained the idea of him being able to say
anything in his closing arguments during that trial.
But I think the problem is,
and I think I really want people to understand because
we struggle with this in the media.
Do you feed the beast?
Are you giving the fire the conflagration oxygen by covering
him?
Do you a disservice and not Do you do a
disservice and not covering because think about it,
the stuff that comes out of his mouth continues to
be so egregious.
And to Jay Rosen's point,
your point, right, Molly? It's not the odds,
but the stakes, right? And if you continue to get
the ammunition to focus on the stakes,
then why not highlight how crazy,
stupid, insane, and completely dictatorial he is?
I mean, think about also
are why are we covering the DC Circuit Court of
Appeals
oral arguments, right. We do that because there's something of
import.
And what came out on Tuesday,
Donald Trump's lawyer saying to a federal appellate court judge
that, yes, a sitting president can dispatch SEAL Team 6
to assassinate a political rival.
But if they're impeaching evicted,
it's OK
Well, let's talk about the fraud trial in New York.
I'm glad I'm a business reporter.
There you go. Now you have to do any of
that stuff.
It's heavy stuff. All right.
Well, depending on how this judge rules in New York,
the fraud trial, could Donald Trump
be out of business in New York City,
the city that made him famous with his black limo
rolling up to Trump Tower?
I I think that's possible.
And like, I love to see horrible people face consequences.
But it is, I think Steve,
what Steve said earlier is really important,
is that the voters like him,
right? Like his, that's who they want.
And I think that that's a danger.
So as much as I would love to see his
businesses
shut down, his real estate business shut down,
would love to see him fall into a manhole cover,
would love to see him injected into space.
But, like, I think as long as he is allowed
to run and as long as his,
his presidency would do additional material harm to people in
the United States and across the world,
it is like cold comfort.
A lot of people like to say
Donald Trump was great for the economy.
Things went really well for me when he was the
president.
So, Steve, I turned to you.
You know, we got another inflation report this week.
It was good. Ish. Yeah.
Republicans love to say the economy is terrible.
Democrats say the economy is so strong.
Where we, where are we really headed?
We're making progress. The inflation numbers have been coming down.
In fact, they may even hit the feds target
come next month or this month,
which means the Fed will cut percent,
which means that it clears the way for the Federal
Reserve to cut rates depending upon how concerned they are
about a resurgence of inflation.
But I think what's interesting is what do people value?
I have no doubt in my mind that another Donald
Trump election might be the last free election leader vote
in.
But to the extent that people understand that that is
not something that it appears when we do the polling
that they value above issues of the economy.
And if you said that's what they deserve,
well, if that's what they want to vote for because
it's their,
it's the transcendence of either the economics,
transcendence of the border issues.
I'm trying to understand this stuff without judging it.
I guess I do judge it a bit,
but but trying to get inside the hand,
just push back for one second.
Even that argument that listen right democracy is an abstract.
The economy is real. What economy was so much better
in the Trump era?
Earlier this week, Donald Trump went on television with you
with Lou Dobbs and said he hopes the stock market
crashes within the next year.
If the stock market crashes,
you know better than anyone here.
That's terrible for every person with a
401K, every firefighter, every teacher,
every nurse and their retirement account.
It's funny the way I believe people remember the Trump
era is songs,
the pandemic. They seem to remember the period before that,
which was a pretty decent period.
And then you had this period at the beginning of
the Biden administration that began with huge inflation.
That's has really colored and become the underlying basis of
which people understand that.
But that didn't happen in a vacuum,
though, is the point. And what
happened in a vacuum? It came on the heels of
the you had good growth,
good, good, very low unemployment and now you have wages
are rising faster than inflation.
Well, Joe Biden has a good story to tell.
Yeah, not just this economic story.
They laid outlook at crime.
The crime rate is lower,
especially murders. Yeah. I mean,
Joe Biden is back in Pennsylvania today.
I think it's his second time in a week.
And in Pennsylvania, he's leading in the polls.
So do you believe the president is finding his campaign
mojo?
Yes. And I also think,
look, Biden continues to overperform.
I mean, I don't want to,
like, teach a history lesson here.
But in 2023, we were told that Youngkin was going
to wear a red vest and flip the Virginia State
legislature.
That did not happen in
2022. We were told that there was going to be
a huge red wave.
That did not happen in 2020.
Joe Biden, who was not supposed to be the nominee,
really overperformed. So I would say I would take a
lot of this with a grain of salt.
Certainly people are mad. I do think we are in
this position because a lot of people feel that Donald
Trump should not be held accountable the way that he
absolutely should be. And like with the Donald Trump court
case,
the law is the same,
even if a lot of people like you.