Brooks and Capehart on Iowa expectations and Biden campaign concerns

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• Geoff Bennett:

  With just days to go until the Iowa caucuses, presidential politics are taking center stage.

  Let's discuss that and more with Brooks and Capehart. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post.

  It's good to see you both.

  Let's talk a bit about Iowa, shall we?

  David, the latest poll of Iowa voters found that, among Republicans, former President Donald Trump has a dominant lead. That hasn't changed. But this is the first poll to find that Nikki Haley is now opening a real lead over Ron DeSantis. She has 20 percent to his 13 percent, and her lead is outside of the poll's margin of error.

  How do you interpret these numbers?

• David Brooks:

  Disastrous for Ron DeSantis. I mean, he's really bet a lot on Iowa. He is said to have an amazing ground game. He's invested zillions of dollars in Iowa. And if he's down to 13 percent, I don't see how the campaign really goes forward.

  He said he will go to South Carolina, maybe skip New Hampshire. But I just don't see how he recovers from a showing that bad, when he's invested this much time and effort.

  As for Nikki Haley, very good number for her. She's kind of late in the game, less organized on the ground. On the other hand, there is a ceiling on her. And that's because, if you look at who's voting for her, it's college-educated Republicans. And this is a working-class party, and she has done very poorly trying to crack into that working-class group.

  She's done very poorly trying to crack into that evangelical group. And so Trump has great organization, great presence. People are waiting to wait around, I have read recently, five and six hours as he shows up late. They will stick around. They want to see Donald Trump.

  So all indications are that Donald Trump is sitting pretty. And if those polls are right, then Ron DeSantis is in trouble.

• Geoff Bennett:

  And, Jonathan, you could argue there are two ways to look at this, that, one, Nikki Haley is even better positioned to do well in New Hampshire, especially if she has a strong showing in Iowa, or that the race for number two is meaningless when the front-runner is 30-plus points ahead.

  How do you see it?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Exactly.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I keep wondering, why are these people in the race, one, because the front-runner is 34 points ahead in that poll, in the Suffolk University poll you just showed?

  But, also, he's ahead in all of the polls. And they have not taken the gloves off against him, except for, I think, Nikki Haley took the gloves off this week. And Ron DeSantis in some way took the gloves off. But they should have been doing that from the moment they got into the campaign.

  And so, again, as I have said on Friday nights now for at least a month, maybe two, when it comes to the Iowa caucuses, I will be curious to see if that 34-point spread in the Suffolk University poll shows up in actual votes. And if Donald Trump doesn't wipe the floor with Haley or DeSantis, whoever comes in number two, then we have to start to wonder, can he make it through New Hampshire?

  And does that provide an opportunity for Nikki Haley to maybe win New Hampshire, but then get obliterated in her home state of South Carolina?

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, how can Nikki Haley capitalize on Chris Christie's exit from the race?

  Because the one thing his campaign proved is that there is no nationwide constituency for a Republican who's willing to break with Donald Trump in the way that he did.

• David Brooks:

  Right.

  Yes, no, there's a — let me go to my traditional role as the irrational optimist. And there's a scenario for Haley. She does well in Iowa, or better than expected, maybe comes within 25 points of Donald Trump. She goes to New Hampshire, Christie's gone, DeSantis is sort of out of it, even if he's not officially out of it.

  And then she's really — with Christie out, she's in the realm of tying Trump. They're sort of in the ballpark. That would be big news. He's basically a sitting incumbent president. And if a sitting incumbent president loses New Hampshire, then that's big news.

  I agree with Jon. She will then go on to lose her home state. But then, after that, we have Michigan, which has an open primary, and independents can vote in it. And so that looks a little better for her. And then after that, we have a whole run of states.

  So there's some plausible scenario of, the way things are breaking, it turns out to Haley, Trump in short order, and then she has some remote chance.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jonathan, what do you think? Does Chris Christie's exit change the dynamics of this race in any meaningful way?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  No. No. And, unfortunately, that's the case.

  I mean, I don't agree with Governor Christie on a whole lot of things, but I thought his role as a candidate for the Republican nomination was an important one, because he was fearless in taking the argument to the party against Donald Trump. And the fact that a person who is telling the truth about a four-times-indicted-on-91-counts former president shouldn't be the standard-bearer of their party, the party rejected him by not supporting him, meaning Chris Christie.

  And so it's unfortunate that he had to get out of the race, but it's also unfortunate that there's no constituency for the truth-telling that he has.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Let's talk about the Biden campaign, because The Washington Post reported this past weekend that former President Barack Obama has raised questions about the structure of President Biden's reelection campaign, and has even discussed this with President Biden himself.

  Of course, David Axelrod, the former Obama strategist, he's been very public about his own criticisms about the campaign. And, to be clear, they're not criticizing President Biden. They're criticizing the effectiveness and the messaging of the campaign.

  In your view, is there a reason for worry?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, I mean, there are now — well, first, there's reason for worry, because if the election were held today, in my view, Donald Trump would be elected president. So that's reason for Democrats to worry.

  And in my conversation with Democrats around the country, I have noticed there are now 85 million political consultants. Every Democrat I know has got some words of advice on how Biden can do a lot better. And I happen to agree with the Obama people. And, by the way, the Biden people hate it when the Obama people judge them.

  And I do think Axelrod and Obama are essentially correct that, of course, he had to do a January 6 speech. Of course, going to Mother Emanuel Church was important. But he does have to show how I'm going to make your life better.

  And the core reason Donald Trump is doing OK is a lot of Americans think their life was better under him than under Biden. And so they're — in my view, he has to look at the Reagan campaign in 1980, an old guy who said, no, here's what I'm going to do for you. And he has to have law and order. Donald Trump is an agent of chaos, a lawbreaker.

  For a Democrat to be a law and order — a persuasive law and order candidate at a time of global chaos, that would be a good thing. And then I think he really has to somehow get into the working class. You can't give away that many votes, especially among the Hispanic working class.

  So I think he has to champion business, small business, and show he's for enterprise and aspiration. And these are not the usual Democratic themes, but I think he really needs to do it to sort of claw back some of that working class.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Jonathan, I know you're deeply sourced in both Biden world and Obama world.

  What do you make of, this Democrat — the sense among some Democrats that the campaign isn't as nimble or as effective as it needs to be to meet the moment?

• Jonathan Capehart:

  I mean, this — I file this under the — it's like a file folder within the Democratic bed-wetting folder that I keep.

  But I do — but, that being said, I do think that Democrats should be running scared. I do think that it is important that former President Obama is talking to the current president and saying, hey, you need to take this seriously. But I am also confident that President Biden and the Biden campaign absolutely are taking the threat of Donald Trump seriously and taking seriously that their message isn't getting through.

  I mean, I take David — everything he just said is right and true. But as he was talking about the things that the president should be doing or the campaign should be doing, I was thinking back to last fall, when the president was doing and the campaign and the administration was doing exactly that.

  I think that we have to not look at this campaign as — from the snapshot of one week and, oh, my God, because they didn't talk about this or they didn't have a message on that this particular week, that they're not going to be talking about it or have been talking about it.

  So, I am not worried, but I do think that Democrats need to give the administration, give the president, give the campaign the room to let its campaign unfold, and rest assured that they take the threat of Donald Trump, but also the Republican Party seriously, because think about this.

  If Donald Trump, through some miracle, is not the Republican nominee, Trumpism is still abroad in the land. MAGA is still abroad in the land. And so whether Trump's the nominee or not, there still will be an alternative for Biden to run against.

• Geoff Bennett:

  You know, that raises the question in the minute-and-a-half we have left. I was going to move to another topic, but I will stay on this one.

  What is the future of the Republican Party? I mean, Donald Trump will cede the ground at some point as the sort of titular head of the Republican Party. What is left?

• David Brooks:

  Yes, it's going to be a different party. It's going to be a working-class party.

  And we too often look at America only. Every country has a right-wing populist party. And so it's going to be a party that's going to be suspicious of foreign adventures, unlike the earlier Republican Party. It's going to be a party suspicious of international trade. It's going to be a party that represents the — the hope for the Republicans is, we're going to be a multiracial working-class party.

  And they're not far away. The Hispanic movement to the Republicans among the working-class voters has been very significant. Even some of the Black working class has moved a little, not that much, but a multiracial working-class party is what they are hoping for. And it's not impossible.

• Geoff Bennett:

  David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart, good to see you both. Have a good weekend.

• Jonathan Capehart:

  Thanks, Geoff.