Todd Young comes out against Trump.

Suzanne Crouch picks up a pair of congressional endorsements, plus Rainwater for governor again and more.

From the television studios at WFYI it's Indiana Week In Review.

The week ending May 12th, 2023.

>> Indiana Week In Review is made possible by the supporters of Indiana public broad occasions stations.

>> This week Indiana republican U.S. senator Todd Young said he will not support former president Donald Trump for the republican nomination for president in 2024.

>> Trump appeared on a CNN town hall Wednesday and pushed back against the idea that Russian president Vladimir Putin is a war criminal saying ending Russia's aggression against Ukraine isn't about winning and losing.

U.S. senator Todd Young the next day criticized those comments saying put the has engaged and war crimes and Trump's remarks are the reason he won't support the former president for the election.

About whether he would support Trump if the former president is the nominee for president next year.

>> Are you surprised at young's comments, the first question for our Week In Review panel.

Democrat Ann Delaney, republican Mike O'Brien, John Schwantes and I'm Indiana broad housing chief.

Brian Smith.

If Trump is the nominee which seems like the likeliest of scenarios will Young change his tune?

>> I hope not.

I think it took courage for him to stand up and say recognize that the guy is a pathological liar and he thinks that making friends with our enemies of our country so he can have business deals is okay.

I mean, he is so divisive, so much a threat to our democracy that I thing Young and I hope other thinking republicans will say he's not only bad for our party but bad for our country and we have had enough, four years.

Actually it's not been -- how long has he opinionbeen on the scene.

It is part of the reason this country is so polarized because there is no truth, there is no science, there's nothing.

He lives in a never never land where he makes up whatever he wants to say and I think Young is right to do what he did.

I hope he would stick to his guns if he's the nominee and I wish more republicans with back bone would stand up and do the same.

>> I think the initial comments that most saw that Young made were centered on Trump's remarks about Putin and I'm not surprised that Todd Young pushed back on that.

He's done that even while Trump was if the quite frankly.

But then the other comments we see, the idea that as -- I think Todd Young said I prefer winners and Donald Trump loses.

>> Shortest path to lose.

>> But he makes other people lose.

Are you surprised how far he went?

>> I am surprised by how far he went.

I'm not surprised buty what he said.

Todd Young has been willing to be against him.

He was vocal about being against him explaining why he was against him but also, you know, sometimes he had to kind of go along or maybe not speak up as much as maybe we felt like he wanted to.

That's clearly changing.

I don't think it's going to be unique to Todd Young and this is why.

I mean, can you imagine Ronald Reagan standing in front of the wall and he said I don't really care if the wall is there or not, I just want the cold war to be done.

>> It's not about winning or losing.

>> It's not about winning or losing.

For some reason I was in a dark place on Wednesday so I actually watched it until that part and then I -- we can't do this again.

We barely survived the first time.

We can't do it the second time and this is why.

The moral authority of the United States in a lot of places, China and Taiwan, Russia and Ukraine, these death spots and these tyrannical leaders feel like the moral authority of the United States really no longer applies and that's true when you have a president that doesn't have a moral compass of his own.

>> If Donald Trump does become the nominee however, does this -- >> I walk back.

>> Does Todd Young -- is Todd Young in a rough spot?

>> If he is, good for him.

Have we deteriorated as a political system to the point that not being in lock step with the parties leader is somehow a death nail.

I mean, think how far we have come and I don't mean that in a good way, how far we have fallen.

There used to be vigorous debate when members of a party would take a president from their own party to task and actually agree -- disagree on occasion and maybe you're right, this is about let me count the ways, where do I begin in terms of not wanting to support him.

You could argue that takes it a step further.

But we have become so sensitive to the notion that anybody who says that he or she doesn't like the way that Donald Trump parts his -- that tear.

That that's somehow bad bad bad.

It's not going to hurt Todd Young.

I mean the political question for me is would he have said this before November of 2022 when he just one another six-year term and being in the first year of another six-year term has a way to embolden one, taking a shot -- >> This is an exception even for Donald Trump.

There's not a lot of on par comments.

>> No.

>> They're so relevant to the presidency.

>> Especially from Todd Young.

This is surprising a little bit because Todd Young isn't usually this guy who makes -- >> That's true but I also heard Donald Trump's level.

There haven't been around this level, things so relevant to the presidency and the United States position and the world then even for him -- >> He is more practical.

Has been.

Look at his coauthor ship with the CHIPS act with senator Schumer.

There are some things he puts, maybe a lot of things he puts ahead of politics.

>> Maybe he puts the country -- >> I do want to point out one thing other than the Putin comment, the additional comments he made were all about winning and losing.

They weren't a character or integrity based, you know, opinion.

It was flag-out will lose if he's our nominee.

>> And Todd Young ran -- was running the national public and senatorial campaign in 2020.

He saw the impact Donald Trump had on -- >> And by the way, people concerned about how this will impact him, remember, Todd Young was one of only four senate GOPs who won last year without Donald Trump's endorsement.

He'sSuzanne Crouch a proven conservative who will support families, faith and life.

Larry Bucshon said Crouch inspires confidence in her ability to shape Indiana's future.

Crouch is a hotly contested primary for the open governor's seat in 2024 facing U.S. senator Mike Bron and foreign businessman Eric Dodin.

>> This is shaping up to be an expensive primary.

Mike and Eric has a lot of money.

Suzanne has a lot of money.

Do endorsements help give Crouch who doesn't have the financial advantage that the other two do because they can sell fund a lot, do endorsements like these help give Crouch a boost she needs?

>> Absolutely.

Especially in a primary.

I think they matter less.

Well, certainly the partisan ones matter the less in a general election.

In a primary county organizations still matter.

County partyies still matter.

Congressman's network still matters.

You know, you do try to go collect those especially the well regarded and well connected and well organized, other elected officials in your party to back you up.

Because it gives you a volunteer base, or a fundraising base.

It all adds together.

Right.

And you don't win or lose on a member of congress endorsing you, you're going to lose on your ability to build an organization in a primary especially.

Because you could -- we're going to find out if you can go it by a primary but we have no experience in Indiana like other states.

We have three candidates and spend 8, 10, $12 million.

We haven't had a $30 million primary.

>> I think we'll spend it all.

>> We will.

>> Basically the same question.

How much -- you know, I was just in my head I was just doing the math here.

I'm reasonably confident Larry is the most senior republican member of congress in this state.

There's been turnover over the last decade and he's the most senior member.

Does something like this matter?

>> What has he passed?

No.

All right.

It matters.

It matters.

It matters actually because they're part of the same congressional delegation that Mike Braun is and they separated himself from him and his base in southern Indiana as well.

>> That is Mike Braun's district.

>> That right there, that tells you something about the way they feel about Mike Braun and certainly that helps her, is it enough, who knows but it certainly doesn't hurt her and doesn't help Mike Braun.

>> Now we saw the last really -- one of the last really hotly contested republican primaries in Indiana was the 2012 campaign and there was people afterwards and even at the time said boy, Murdoch burned bridges in the primary that did not help him.

>> And after it.

>> And after it that did not help him when he needed help late in that campaign.

>> Neither did his mouth.

>> But he got himself into trouble and didn't have folks to go to to say can you help me out.

>> I don't know how you help on that.

>> On something like this, how do you walk the line between I'm backing this person but I'm trying not to burn the bridge with this other high profile candidate?

>> I think you focus on -- and I take note of what Ann said, that says something about Braun.

I think they will try to make the distinction of we're not saying anything about Braun, we think he's a good republican.

But we support because of these reasons and you really try to focus on the candidate you chose and not the candidate you didn't choose.

>> Now, there's perhaps another thing going on here with one of these endorsements which is there is a rumor going around I've heard from several people that Greg Pence is interested in the Lieutenant Governor slot should Suzanne Crouch be the candidate for governor.

How much do those sorts of considerations play sort of beneath the surface in endorsements like these?

>> I heard that rumor and I think I heard it from you yesterday.

There's a lot of intrigue because at this point if you believe the ghost of Ronald Reagan the best thing to do for republicans is not only not to speak ill of other republicans but to just wait a little bit and, you know, just let matters -- the chips fall where they may.

When there is a sort of willingness on the part of high profile republicans too often endorsement and take a stand whether it's for or against, you can infer what you want, that it is important and significant, and I think that's what braids these kinds of analyses where people are saying I wonder if it's just that or is there something more.

I don't know the answer to the question.

I do agree with what has been said about, you know, I don't think certainly endorsements are as important in the big scheme of things as they used to be but they are still important at this stage and I think these were particularly valuable because of that notion of federal -- you would think that the delegation or people who serve in Washington would tend to sort of be in one club if you will and those who are in the limestone in west Washington would be in another club and this shows that her appeal is broader than that.

>> Real quick.

If that rumor is true, this is a better endorsement because it's just not on any piece of paper.

If he thinks he's on the ticket he's not going to hit the road.

>> His credentials on economic development when he went belly-up.

[ Overlapping speakers ] >> Just lobbing those softballs across the table.

Libertarian Donald Rainwater announced he would make a bid for governor in 2024 which comes after a record setting run in 2020.

>> In a statement Rainwater says his campaign focuses on education, tax and administrative reform and wants to lower taxes through reducing government services and argues parents deserve to make the choice where their children go to school.

Virtually universal school choseice is included.

His 2020 campaign earned more than 11% of the gubernatorial Voigtvote fueled by a weak democratic candidate and dissatisfaction with conservatives with governor Holcomb's mitigation efforts.

Holcomb is term limited meaning the 2024 race will be an open one.

>> Niki, can libertarians have another performance like in 2020?

>> ThinkI think there were several things in 2020 that aren't going to be there this year.

Donald Rainwater obviously captured a lot of people who were upset with the moves that Eric Holcomb was making on Covid-19.

All the lockdowns, all the curbing of the freedoms and overreaching.

So that is not going to be around anymore.

And he can't even, you know, use it against his -- whoever his opponents are.

Also because of Covid-19, Eric and Woody Meyers couldn't get out there and work things.

I think we would have seen a vastly different race for those reasons, A, Covid bringing some philosophical differences out and B, just the sheer fact that you had to do everything sitting in your house, you couldn't have rally, you couldn't have dinners.

>> Also 2020 saw a really really weak democratic candidate for governor.

The kind of which -- assuming Jennifer McCormick even if she's the only one she would be a stronger candidate.

>> He had the pocket -- you're right.

He turned out not to be the gain of traction.

>> How much -- it wasn't kind of a perfect storm for them to hit this number.

>> I think he's exactly right.

There are a lot of factors involved.

I think the pandemic just about everything the pandemic touched whether it was education levels or the acquisition of skills or work force development, everything is going to always be sadly asterisk next to that.

I think it was a high water mark.

I don't think it will be achieved again.

There will be such a emphasis on such a high stakes game and so much is at stake.

I'm not suggesting voting for a third party candidate is a waste of time or of one's right to vote.

But -- it's not going to prevail.

>> It's an appeal.

>> But when the stakes are so high, I think that argues or pushes not just people into one camp or the other or just to stay on the sidelines and sit on their couches.

>> We were talking earlier in the control room about his candidacy and the idea of third party candidates in Indiana.

If you could only do one thing that would have the biggest impact.

It would to get rid of straight ticket voting.

Our third party candidates at any level, any office naturally going to have just too big a hill to climb?

>> Yeah.

Not just for libertarians, for independents.

When I was county chairman we would have independents running because they knew they couldn't get elected as democrats.

If you just count the straight votes you got to get 90% of what's left if you're trying to win and it's insurmountable but in the republican counties we're like don't touch it but in Marion county -- >> You want to touch it.

>> Right.

Because good for the same reason.

Republican a candidate for mayor is going to capture a huge percent of that.

>> Let me ask you this question about Donald rainRainwater.

It seems what Meyers would have gotten and Holcomb and some people who were upset with Eric Holcomb and wanted to show their support for another candidate.

This time around with all those same conditions not existing, is it more likely if a libertarian does well they bite into candidate for governor?

>> I think so because if you wind up with Braun and you have an election denier all the way down to the point where January 6th happened, he was with them, you may have thinking republicans who don't want to vote for a very well qualified democrat but can't bring themselves to vote for him and for good reason.

Same thing when - abortion feature is in this.

He's going to be in favor of the most restrictive abortion provisions as well.

There may be republicans who just think their arms will fall off if they vote for a democrat who would be comfortable voting.

>> That happened i .

>>> Attorney general Todd are Keita suffered a setback in his fight against Tiktok.

A judge denied a preliminary injunction ruling the state was unlikely to succeed in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is one of two filed against Tiktok alleging that Tiktok is deceiving users with its rating because of videos that contain sexual, vulgar and/or drug use content appearing on the app's for you page or FYP.

Attorneys used the Apple app store as an example.

Apple's age restrictions are based on surveys, ranking content versus frequent/intense.

But the judge said the ratings are subjective and cannot be used as representations of fact under Indiana's deceptive consumer sales act.

The judge questioned whether or not the court had jurisdiction over this lawsuit.

The age rating is uniform across all states, not targeted at Indiana.

>> Is this lawsuit unlike some of the things we talked about didn't feel partisan.

There's a bipartisan concern about Tiktok and its ties to China.

But this lawsuit always felt like a bit of a hail Mary.

He was trying something but always felt like he would probably have a tough time succeeding, maybe he will but this isn't a good sign for that.

In light of that, are you surprised state Lawmakers didn't have a go attic Tiktok?

>> I think they had their full plate of agenda type message sending bills they were chose to spend the most of their time and energy on.

We talked about those.

We don't need to detail them.

They made their points in terms of the overarching sort of conservative government bad, they made their points in other ways.

Also to your point, it would have put them in the awkward position of being in agreement with say the Biden administration and many democrats.

Now in some cases the reasons people are attacking Tiktok are different, Biden administration is national security, others are concerned about exposure of pornography or inappropriate content to children and so forth.

But it's less that and more just, okay, we got four months, let's take -- we got a few things that are going to ignite our base and energize our base, let's double down on those.

>> To that end, is this something we should look forward to next time?

>> I don't know.

I feel like this topic is so much more complicated than some of these.

You know, when you're getting into Nationwide apps and international issues, I'm not sure -- I think there's only one other state that has, quote, banned Tiktok all together.

And even when you do that, like you can't take it off someone's phone.

You can't -- you know, it's just so much more complicated.

I think especially as a lawyer would be more reticent into wading into those complicated matters.

>> Should the state because unlike a lot of states, democrat and republican governors, we haven't seen Eric Holcomb do much unless I missed something in terms of banning Tiktok from government devices.

>> They are.

>> They're banned from government devices but beyond that is there anything that state, state Lawmakers, attorney general, is there anything they should be doing?

>> There's nothing they can do is the point.

This is a federal communications issue and the federal government has to deal with it which is of course part of what the judge in Alan county recognized.

So what if Todd Rokita bans Tiktok.

So what?

It's the same nonsense as him on immigration and stopping immigrants at the border.

You know, he's so far outside his lane that it's ridiculous and this is a federal issue and the Biden administration is dealing with it and that's the only way to deal with it.

>> Yeah.

Is this one of those issues that the states really have to leave to the federal government?

>> Of course.

For all reasons just outlined.

I think you have got a nation of people watching cat videos and tell them that it's bringing down western democracy and if that's true, it's all illusion anyway.

>> I mean, people -- >> Ohs us the important thing.

>> It's not doing anything for me but a lot of people like it and why take on people who think you're just picking on their favorite app.

>> The republican primary for a town council seat in Johnson county Indiana ended in a tie in the election.

103 votes for the incumbent and challenger.

Breaking the tie is up to the party chair, Mike, that's a job you once held, how would you break the tie?

>> How I did break the tie, my policy was we're voting again, so you guys cut a deal or figure it out and if you can't figure it out, then I'll figure it out and I did that once and I did it at a small town convention and they about ran me out of town on a rail.

>> Lesson learned there.

>> The Hatfields ran me out.

>> I would do it the way they did in Pennsylvania when they had a tie.

They took a Bible and each person had a knife and cut through the Bible and the page with the last digit that was the highest won.

>> So page 48 would be -- would win over page 102.

>> Yes, right.

>> Or something like that.

How would you break a tie?

>> I think in the past I said I want an arm wrestle but I'll stick with that one.

>> Let's go with -- why is the dual off the table?

>> Given the high school Civics exam -- >> Ooh.

>> And see who scores highest.

>> I'm taking that one.

>> The coin flip a lot of folks use but it feels kind of boring.

I like the Bible but I really like the Civics exam.

>> What if they both fail?

>> Why stop at ties?

We can do every election that way.

>> That's Indiana Week In Review.

Our panel is Ann Delaney, republican Mike O'Brien, John Schwantes and Niki Kelly of the Indiana Capital Chronicle.

You can find the episodes at WFYI.org/IWRI or on the app.

I'm Brandon Smith.

Join us next time because a lot can happen in an Indiana week.

>> The opinions expressed are solely those of the panelists.

Indiana Week In Review was a WFYI production in association with India