The foremost respected expert on polling Ann Selzer enters the War Room to discuss the latest Des Moines Register poll in which Pete Buttigieg surged to the top of the Democratic pack. James and Al react to the latest in the impeachment saga. Christy Harvey's 'Got Your Number' segment features the Washington football team before we take a look at the 'Back Page'.
Al Hunt: 00:05 James, last Saturday night most of the political world was awaiting the Iowa Poll from Ann Selzer, because every time Ann Selzer does a poll, people who know something about politics wait for it, because as FiveThirtyEight wrote several years ago, she may be the very best political pollster in the land. The poll was a bombshell of sorts. I'll give you the bottom line numbers as we talk to our great guest Ann Selzer. Pete Buttigieg surged in the lead at 25, and then Warren, and Biden, and Sanders were all bunched at 16, 15, and the rest of the pack was in Nebraska. Ann Selzer, what was your takeaway from this really, really fascinating poll?
Ann Selzer: 00:48 Well, we've been looking at the same four front runners, Al, for most of the polls, so we expected if things stayed the same we'd see the same four, but really we have a standalone front runner now in Pete Buttigieg, and then a cluster of the other three, and those are the only ones in double digits. The next highest is 6% with Amy Klobuchar. So, you really have this pack of four with one standout there. I'll just add that the Pete Buttigieg surge, his percentage, picking him as first choice, actually tripled. So, it was a giant leapfrog over the rest of the field.
Al Hunt: 01:34 Ann, what does his surge, and what does the rest of the data that you have in your Paul, tell us about Iowa caucus voters this year. What are they moved by? What do they care about? What appeals to them?
Ann Selzer: 01:50 Well, first of all, I think the best word to define this caucus electorate, if you will, it's kind of a quirky electorate, but is the early commitment to go to caucus. There's an energy, and a sense of excitement just about the caucuses generally. Normally, it isn't until the final run up to the actual caucus itself that we have more people saying they will definitely attend than probably attend, and you have to say one of those to get into our poll. We now have 63% saying they will definitely go to caucus, and even in the final run up to 2008 it was 53, it was lower than that. So, I think that's a really important fact to understand about what's happening here in Iowa.
James Carville: 02:41 So Ann, off the top of your head, do you know how many people voted in the Iowa caucuses in 2016, and how many you expect, a rough estimate of what will vote in 2020?
Ann Selzer: 02:54 Well, that's the kind of number I would've looked up, James, if I'd known you were going to ask. I think it was a shockingly big number in 2008, and I have it in my mind-
Al Hunt: 03:04 That was 236,000, because Ann Selzer told me that one day.
Ann Selzer: 03:09 Thank you. So, maybe you know the answer to the others. Less than, I'm not sure it got to 200,000 before.
James Carville: 03:15 But you expect a sizeable increase in this cycle, is that correct?
Ann Selzer: 03:23 Well, just doing the math on having this many candidates in the state actively organizing, they're going to have to go find new caucus goers in order to build a meaningful and viable group on caucus night. It's just hard to imagine, James, that that wouldn't mean sort of a door buster on caucus night.
James Carville: 03:45 So, it's generally, and I don't know if this is factual or not, but in Democratic consultant circles it's ... We didn't have to run in Iowa in '92 so I'm not that familiar with it, that the Iowa caucus goers tend to be more liberal than the Democratic electorate nationwide. Is that a valid observation, or is that just some inside the beltway myth that's not really true?
Ann Selzer: 04:08 Well, I do have some data on that, let me pull that piece of paper out. We ask, on the Democratic side, how you would label yourself as you ... I'll leave off the conservative part, but you could be moderate liberal or very liberal, and it's 19% who would describe themselves as very liberal in our last poll. That's the way it has been running this cycle, just about one in five who give that big number, and more like one in three who say moderate, and more like one in three who say just liberal without going to the very liberal. So, obviously liberal, but-
James Carville: 04:48 Yeah, if you add the Warren, Sanders vote, which I do in every poll I see, it's at 31.
Ann Selzer: 04:54 Just the two of them together? Well-
James Carville: 04:56 Yeah, if you just took ... I'm just assuming that the very liberal block. That's not much.
Ann Selzer: 05:07 Well, there are some people who ... It doesn't sound like it, and I would say that there are some people who shy away from very liberal who still like some of the things they're hearing from Elizabeth Warren. She was our front runner in the last poll, and some of them who like the Bernie Sanders side. So, there's not a perfect correlation between how you define yourself in an ideology, and what candidates you support, although obviously there's a lot there.
Al Hunt: 05:30 Well, but Ann, you're leaving out what I think was one of your most fascinating findings, what do people want when they vote for someone on caucus, are they looking for ideology? Someone they agree with?
Ann Selzer: 05:40 We have been tracking the same question in almost every poll that we've done, which is which is most important to you personally, to have a candidate win the Iowa caucuses who has the best chance of beating Donald Trump, or is it more important that that candidate share your positions on major issues? It's two to one, it's 63 to 32 that what they really want is for somebody who can defeat Donald Trump. So, the issues may not matter so much as they watch Elizabeth Warren, and they think, "Wow, I could see her on the debate stage with Donald Trump, and I think she could make a go of it."
James Carville: 06:17 Well, it strikes me that the entire conversation has been how liberal the Democratic Party has become, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and in this ... I see people just, they want to win. I mean, they want to elect a Democrat for sure, but they're more by 63 to 32 the first thing they're looking for if somebody can win the election, which is a pretty high number for caucuses goers.
Ann Selzer: 06:46 Well, let me add a data point to that, James, and that is we also asked about the approach to policy, and what do they think is the right approach, whether they want someone who will advocate for policies that would result in big changes even if they have a lower chance of actually becoming law, or do you want to a candidate who will advocate for policies that have a higher chance of becoming law even if the changes aren't as big? That latter one is the choice of the majority of 52%. Big changes, 36%. So, you hear in this, kind of a moderating idea of pragmatic like, "Let's get stuff done. Let's win. Let's get stuff done."
Al Hunt: 07:32 Well, that's not what Warren and Sanders are saying. They're saying you got to be big, you got to be bold.
Ann Selzer: 07:36 Well, and that's so what I find interesting in that finding.
Al Hunt: 07:41 Yeah.
James Carville: 07:42 Right, but that 32% want it, and that 31 it matches up perfectly. Am I wrong? Am I missing something here?
Ann Selzer: 07:51 You sort of hear that number in the low-30s, mid-30s kind of repeated throughout things-
James Carville: 07:57 Yeah.
Ann Selzer: 07:57 ... I think that's exactly right. I just can't tell you that they all completely coincide and that one causes the other.
Al Hunt: 08:05 Ann, picking up on James' point though, I know this is shorthand, and oversimplified, and you hate oversimplification, and I should say, lest I ... anyone think there's a conflict of interest, I was privileged enough to work with Ann Selzer for eight years at Bloomberg News, and she taught me a lot, but it would appear that for Elizabeth Warren to win, she's got to take away some of that Bernie vote. How easy, how hard will that task be?
Ann Selzer: 08:34 Well, she already ... I mean, the two are aligned, there's no doubt about it. If you look at the people who are ... say Bernie is their first choice, Elizabeth Warren is the most common second choice, and vice versa, that's there, and in our previous poll when Elizabeth Warren led, she had claimed the plurality vote of the people who were under 35, which is what Bernie Sanders has built his campaign on. So, there is this tension between the two of them about who is the rightful person to wear the mantle. But, keep in mind that there's a lot of things shifting in how she is campaigning right now, Elizabeth Warren, and what it is that she said about Medicare for All, and taking away peoples ... sort of demolishing the private health insurance industry, and having to kind of back up how she said that was all going to get paid for. We could talk more about that, I know something about the health insurance business-
Al Hunt: 09:39 No, but this is ... It's the point I'm trying to make that in order to win, again, admittedly shorthand, she's got to take Bernie votes, and every time she tries to modify a little bit, isn't that going to make it harder for her to get Bernie votes?
Ann Selzer: 09:56 Well, the Bernie votes are-
Al Hunt: 09:59 She's in a vice.
Ann Selzer: 09:59 She is potentially in a vice, and she's up against a candidate whose people really stick with him. There's a majority of them describe ... more than any other candidate who say they're extremely enthusiastic, and that their minds are made up. I mean, he's got a rock solid core that it's going to be hard for anybody to take, and maybe some of that is some leftover Bernie love and resentment that perhaps he should've won the Iowa caucuses in 2016, but it is a solid core that no other candidate can match.
James Carville: 10:32 Well yeah, you say she's got ... First of all, she's splitting a block of 31, which that means that there's 69 out there for somebody else if she has this, "I got to challenge Bernie." It's a small ... It's under a third of the vote, and I think Warren's general critique is something that most Democrats agree with. I think where she went awry is chasing Bernie with specificity, and then she gets trapped, and then now she's got the problem, which I think is a bad problem, is she and Bernie ... What I say, Sanders and Warren, or Warren and Sanders, and they just become the same person almost. I don't think ... if you want to ... I'm not talking about the general election, I'm talking about the Democratic nomination.
From what I see from Ann's numbers, and what I see from numbers around the country, they're not looking for that, and by challenging Bernie, and trying to get in lockstep with him, you're giving up too much, and I think her critique had real validity across a broad swath of the party that Americans become out of balance, that the rich were just clobbering everybody. I think if she just stuck with that as opposed to Medicare for All, and then trying to walk that back, and then the stuff on the border, and ... I don't think any of that would've been necessary for her, because I think her critique starting out would've had really broad base appeal.
Al Hunt: 12:09 Well, she's going to have a hard walk back now. I mean, we've been in this for 10 minutes and we haven't mentioned the headline, which is Pete Buttigieg is a standalone front runner at 25%. Ann, describe where are his votes coming from, what kind of strength he has, and do you have any sense about how hard it is?
Ann Selzer: 12:27 Well, one of the things that you ... when you pour into the cross tabs you go looking for on that horse race page is, well, who has what constituency? What is remarkable about Pete Buttigieg, and we've seen this from the very beginning, is that he has very few peaks and valleys demographically. There's a very broad base of support there. Of course he does better with moderates, he happens to do better with the higher income people, but it's not a huge ... it's not a giant pyramid leaping off the page, and he does less well, for all of the reason James is saying, with people who describe themselves as very liberal, or in union households. But there's very little difference by age, by where you live, if you live in a city or a suburb, or a town, or a rural area, there's very little difference between whether you define yourself as a Democrat or an Independent. I mean, there are all sorts of ways that we would normally see candidates stake out a claim demographically, and what's unusual about Pete Buttigieg is that there is a broad base that has choosing him for first.
James Carville: 13:37 Well, when I think of Iowa, people think, "Oh, you don't necessarily think of a suburban state.", and no one thinks of Kentucky or Louisiana as suburban states, but we did see some rather dramatic movement in suburban areas on the recent gubernatorial election. I was pretty involved in ... On a scale of one to 10, I was probably a six and half involved in Kentucky, and a nine and half involved in Louisiana, and we saw some really dramatic turnarounds in Northern Kentucky, in Oldham County, and Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, East Baton Rouge Parish, and just going to the general election, and Iowa's a key state, are you starting to see some of that suburban revulsion toward the Republicans in Iowa as we see in other parts of the country?
Ann Selzer: 14:25 Well, a little bit, it's hard to say too much about it, because it's a relatively small portion of our state. What I will say is that a couple of months ago we conducted the Grinnell College National Poll, and what was very striking is what's happen with suburban women, that they disapprove of Donald Trump by a two to one margin. They say they are almost certain to not vote for him by a giant margin, and the kicker of all of that anti-Trump sentiment is that they were more likely to say they were going to vote, like by 10 points higher. So, I'm certainly seeing in other data the shift that is happening with suburban voters, and in particular suburban women.
James Carville: 15:14 Well, the likelihood is that Iowa will be very, very close in 2020, as far as Kentucky and Louisiana, neither which had large suburban populations but provided certainly the margin of victory in Kentucky, and probably help pretty good in Louisiana. So, even where you have small numbers where the bases are fairly even, can be pretty significant.
Ann Selzer: 15:39 That's right, that's right.
Al Hunt: 15:41 Ann, we talked about is there any trade off between Warren and Sanders voters, and you pointed out how solid that most of the Sanders support is, is there any trade off between Buttigieg and Biden, and at 25%, how solid is Pete Buttigieg support right now?
Ann Selzer: 16:01 Well, I have several things to say about how solid he is not, but let me answer your direct question first, which is-
Al Hunt: 16:08 Well, do that, too.
Ann Selzer: 16:09 ... that among Biden supporters, Buttigieg is the leading second choice, the same is not true for Pete Buttigieg going the other way. His supporters, their most common second choice is Elizabeth Warren, and that's why perhaps I was a little bit resistant to this idea that Warren and Sanders are identical in caucus goers minds, because there's something about her that is attractive to the people who are supporting the mayor.
Al Hunt: 16:42 And how solid or non-solid are Mayor Pete's supporters?
Ann Selzer: 16:46 So, we asked a question about how certain you were that each of the top four candidates would defeat President Trump, and the only candidate to get a majority saying that they were either almost certain, or fairly confident, was Joe Biden, and it's still just 52%. That's the top two boxes, so kind of a low bar in feeling confident, and for Pete Buttigieg, it was 46%. So, not a majority of it, but even more telling, Al, is that if you look at just each candidates supporters, and you look at that top box of feeling almost certain, Pete Buttigieg only gets 27% saying that they are almost certain that he would win, and to me, that was his worst number in the whole poll. For Bernie Sanders it was 48, for Joe Biden it was 57. So, he's not instilling the confidence in the caucus going electorate that if nominated he could actually defeat President Trump.
Al Hunt: 17:58 Which is what they care most about, right, James?
James Carville: 18:01 Yeah, and look, I think the evidence is he's a parking spot, you say, "You saw it, we'll park here for now, and we're going to stay here." So, we're having a meeting, the consultants in the room, the candidates in the room, and one of the consultants said, "Look, we got to share Bernie's vote. That's the way we go up.", and another consultant says, "I'm sorry, Senator Warren, but if we just kept chasing him around we're going to limit ourselves. We could actually do better going after the Buttigieg vote, because we got his lead is softer than it looks, and if we just keep chasing Bernie around we're not going to expand beyond that."
So, I would argue if I were in the room for the Warren campaign, that we need to run a more expansive campaign, and contrast her experience with Buttigieg's experience, which and again, I go back to her critique when she came out was impressive, and had broad based appeal, and some jackass in that campaign kept saying, "You got to go big. You got to go big. You got to chase Bernie.", and I think she's caught in a vice now, and it was so unnecessary.
Al Hunt: 19:06 So James, if you were in that room with the Buttigieg people now, what would you tell them, advise them?
James Carville: 19:12 I would say you need to do like some policy papers, or something. Whatever I did, I think the doubt about him is the legitimate doubt is kind of gravitas, and I would look for a lot of markers of people that have gravitas that would endorse me, because people like him. I think, the way I look at him is the way a lot of people do, they like him, they think he's really smart, he's got a different story, he certainly represents change. The question is, you're the mayor of South Bend, Warren is a Harvard law professor, the United States senator, founded the Consumer Protection Agency. I just think she's got a lot more heft, and she's losing it by just chasing Bernie around, and going for every ignorant left wing thing that somebody comes up with. I like Senator Warren, I wish she would run a different kind of campaign, because what she's doing I don't think is necessary.
Al Hunt: 20:10 Ann, Joe Biden is hanging on, how's Joe Biden hanging on?
Ann Selzer: 20:14 Well, he's hanging on because people want to win, and he's the candidate that the most people think has a good shot. This poll was not a good poll for Joe Biden, and one of the things that I see happening is that, of course he came in as a predominant front runner, although Bernie Sanders was challenging him for that status, but as he declined in terms of the proportion of people saying he was their first choice, he was also declining in his favorability number. One does not follow from the other, you can still like Joe Biden but say, "There's another candidate I want to choose." But his unfavorable numbers since we first started polling have doubled. He's got twice the number of people saying they have an unfavorable feeling. So, I don't think he's wearing well. They still think that a former vice president is their best shot, but there are wobbly legs underneath his current status.
Al Hunt: 21:20 Before we go there, you weren't around for Jimmy Carter, you're much, much too young, but are there any parallels between the Buttigieg surge, and he actually happened later, the Obama surge 12 years ago?
Ann Selzer: 21:35 Well, you hear people anecdotally kind of get their hearts excited about Pete Buttigieg in the kind of a similar way that they did with Barrack Obama, but I think in a very important lesson is we looked at the Obama Coalition, which were young people, people who had never caucused before, and people who identified as Independent rather than as Democrats, and if you looked at the history you would say, "Those are three groups that are the least likely to show up on caucus night." So, he's built his future on an unpredictable set of constituencies, and yet, and yet he blew the roof off of all of the caucus locations, and in fact, one-handedly. So, as you look at Pete Buttigieg you're going to say-
Al Hunt: 22:30 There was one poll that predicted that as I remember.
Ann Selzer: 22:31 There was one, and that was a good night for me. So, I think that while Pete Buttigieg is kind of beginning to gel, it's just the beginning of a gel. This is no certain thing.
Al Hunt: 22:46 James, a final thought?
James Carville: 22:48 Yeah, well, the Democratic Party has run two change campaigns, I think, since 1980, and I don't count the caucus so much in that as '92 and 2008. Biden is not a change candidate, so I don't see how he can get these extra people out to the caucuses ... who's far now ... and Buttigieg is obviously a breathtaking change candidate, and Warren is also a change candidate, and I think when you run on change you run on energy, and you carry forward. I just think Biden's in a really tight spot in Iowa, and I don't see Bernie getting any more than where he is, and this level of interest, and the intense interest that we see, I think we'll ... and Ann is too smart to get wrapped up in predicting right now, I think the prediction industry needs to sit down and shut up, and let this thing unfold, because it's going to be all across this process my estimation is there's turmoil coming, and a lot of weather
Al Hunt: 23:55 Well, Ann Selzer was a pace setter in that non-prediction category. She won't predict even when the votes are in. But Ann, based on history, two months out, does it change a lot in the final two months?
Ann Selzer: 24:12 The most common thing to happen in our final poll in the week ahead of the caucus is that the lead changes. So, of course I'm going to think something will change.
James Carville: 24:23 Of course-
Al Hunt: 24:23 Right.
James Carville: 24:25 ... and fools that are out there saying, "This is going to happen, and it's going to be one of these three.", or anything like that, the levels of engagement here are staggering high, let's get some popcorn and watch this thing.
Al Hunt: 24:38 Well, one thing we know is that nobody ever called Ann Selzer a fool. I just called her the best pollster in politics, which is pretty-
James Carville: 24:45 No. I agree, and one of the best guests we've ever had on this show, [crosstalk 00:24:49]-
Al Hunt: 24:48 Man, I'll tell you-
James Carville: 24:50 ... smart, and I could to talk to you for [crosstalk 00:24:50]-
Al Hunt: 24:50 ... Ann, can we get you back again before the caucus?
Ann Selzer: 24:52 Of course.
Al Hunt: 24:54 Good, and your final poll will be, what, that February 1st, the Saturday night before the caucus?
Ann Selzer: 25:00 That sounds about right.
Al Hunt: 25:02 That sounds about right, I think I'll-
James Carville: 25:04 People waiting on that poll like we're waiting on election returns in Louisiana.
Al Hunt: 25:07 Oh, my God.
James Carville: 25:08 Oh yeah, way up to 8:00 eastern I said, "Shit, I wish I was in central time, I'd get the numbers at 7:00."
Al Hunt: 25:15 Ann Selzer, thanks a lot. God, you're a great guest.
Ann Selzer: 25:17 My pleasure.
James Carville: 25:18 Great guest, great guest.
Al Hunt: 25:26 James, on the impeachment front there were really some riveting stuff this week, but nothing really is a surprise. We know what it is, Trump held up much needed military assistance for Ukraine unless they dug up dirt on Joe Biden, it's that simple. Let me just quickly run through and rebut what I think are some of the silly Republican counters, they say, "Hey, no military assistance was really withheld, because it was approved.", that was months after Congress approved it, and it was at least on September 11th. What happened September 9th? That's when we knew about the whistleblower. They knew that was coming, that's why they released it. They say the Ukrainians never investigated Joe Biden. They were going to, but the news came out curtesy of the whistleblowers and others, and that's the only reason it didn't, and then they say, "Yeah, but this President was legitimately concerned about corruption in general, as well as Biden's son-in-law."
I mean, James, it is laughable. Casinos, Trump University, Trump Foundation that Donald Trump was worried about, anything about corruption, and Joe Biden's son shouldn't have been there, that was wrong, it really was, but Joe Biden actually was a zealot in trying to force the Ukrainians to root out corruption. I would just say finally, if you really want to know how bad it is for them, their chief defender, the man who's really trying to defend the integrity of Donald Trump, and transparency, is Ohio's Jim Jordan, who was wrestling coach there when there was a pervasive sexual abuse of athletes by a team doctor, said he saw and knew nothing. I understand why he sees and knows nothing now about Donald Trump. What do you think?
James Carville: 26:56 Well, first of all, I'm stunned at how the lack of a strategy they have, they just go from one thing to another, and there's no consistency. I don't know if they tried to meet before, or anything, and I think Colonel Vindman, I mean, he just ripped Nunes' head off, and he did the same thing with Jim Jordan. If you remember the great movie The Caine Mutiny when he read from the fitness report, and he read from the fitness report that Ambassador Hill had given him, and it was just dramatic. But, if I were the Republicans, I would actually say, "Look, let's stop, and let's hammer out a statement of facts here.", and then I would get, or I would have 40 Republican senators say, "We believe the following to be true, and he did all of this, but we're less than a year away, and we don't believe that impeachment is the remedy. We'd be happy to censure him."
Everybody knows the facts, and I think their strongest argument is, "Yeah, he did it, and yeah, it was inappropriate, but do you really want to exercise a political remedy within 10 months of an election?", and I think that's their best case. I really do, because everything ... You know what the facts are, and the facts are just going to keep coming out, and keep coming out, and keep coming out, and of course, that he hit with extortion, of course he held it up to try to get some political gain for Biden, and the only question is, is this impeachable? That's the only question. There's not a single thing that we don't know. I mean, maybe there's something else to find out, that may be true, but with reference to the underlying charge, we know what it is.
Al Hunt: 28:41 Well, I think you got the best strategy. They got one big problem though, James, and that is there is somebody who will really dispute that, and that is Donald J. Trump who every day makes it worse for them, and says, "I didn't do anything wrong.", and for them to come out and say, "You did something wrong, but it's not impeachable.", he will yell and scream, and he will make it even worse. You're a lawyer-
James Carville: 29:02 You know what? If McConnell-
Al Hunt: 29:02 ... and you understand, what's that old expression that you learn in law school that if the law is on your side you argue with the law, if the facts are on your side you argue the facts, and-
James Carville: 29:11 And you pound the table.
Al Hunt: 29:11 ... these guys have no choice but to demagogue and to divert, they have no case.
James Carville: 29:17 But if McConnell, and I don't know, a couple of other senators go and say, "Sir, this is the best move good for you. Now, if you want to take a chance and go to jury, I think we got 34 senators, but I can't guarantee it. Now, you can get out of here with a censure, I don't think it's going to hurt you with your people, all right, but if you do that, if you want a trial by jury, I got to tell you, juries act funny sometimes, and just understand that your refusal to do this is going to cause a lot of angst amongst our caucus." That's the only thing they can do.
Al Hunt: 29:56 Well, I don't disagree, I just think you have to look at Donald J. Trump. First, he doesn't care about causing angst in anyone's caucus, all he cares about is himself, and you can see going through that warped mind of his is going be early October, 2016, Billy Bush tapes come out, and all of these same people said, "You got to get out, you can't win.", and I think that will be his attitude, "Screw you, I've always been ...", I don't think it's going to work, but I think that he's going to hurt a lot of people, but that's what he'll do.
James Carville: 30:24 Again, when people ... if he wants to take his chance, if he gets convicted, he doesn't have retirement, he doesn't have anything.
Al Hunt: 30:32 Yeah, I don't like it when they get convicted-
James Carville: 30:35 He takes the censure ... Again, if he takes the ... They're going to be made if they offer the censure, and there's a exit ramp here, these people are looking for an exit ramp, I'm telling you, and McConnell is looking for an exit ramp, they don't want this vote. They don't want the vote, and the Democrats just keep forcing for that, and they're never going to win arguing the facts, the facts is clear as bell, it's not doubt as to what happened, and who cares about the whistleblower, or who cares about, who's in there-
Al Hunt: 31:07 The whistleblower's irrelevant, totally irrelevant.
James Carville: 31:09 ... for Trump. Right, totally, but just say, if I was them, and I would all get behind that strategy.
Al Hunt: 31:15 Well, I don't think it's a bad strategy, I think it may be the only strategy they have, but every we know about Donald J. Trump is that it involves-
James Carville: 31:25 But suppose McConnell and the Republicans say, "Do what you want, but we're going to do this. We got the vote and numbers."
Al Hunt: 31:28 Yeah, well, they're not going to ... First of all, given the problems they had they're not going to vote to impeach him, they'll vote to censure him. They'll do it, and what he'll do is he'll just make it harder for them, because he'll cause problems for a number of them, and it's just ... I mean, I think that's what's going to happen. We've also, James ... I mean, I think that's the most likely situation, the most likely scenario on January 10th, pick a date if you will. We don't know what else is going to come out in the next six weeks. So, therefore, it's very hard to predict what the situation will be in five or seven weeks.
James Carville: 32:01 If I were them, I, right now, would get 40 senators ... Huey Long did when they impeached him, he got one more than the one third, and he put a thing out that we're not going to vote no matter what. You get 40, he said, "We'll vote for a censure, we're not voting to convict, it's an entire waste of time, and why don't we get on with the election. You're right, it's wrong, but let the public decide by giving them the relevant facts."
Al Hunt: 32:25 You made the case, I just don't think you persuaded Donald J. Trump, but you still have a couple weeks to try it.
James Carville: 32:30 You could do it without persuading him.
Al Hunt: 32:31 Huh?
James Carville: 32:31 You don't have to persuade him, let him go. I mean, to hell with him, they got to save five, six senate seats.
Al Hunt: 32:38 Well, I think if they are going ... Look, this is so far off, we don't know what's going to happen, and we really are engaged in just wild conjecture, but-
James Carville: 32:45 I understand, but they don't have no strategy, this is all-
Al Hunt: 32:47 They don't have a strategy, that strategy I'm not sure that's a good strategy except it's better than anything else they got, because they're in a ... I mean, all you have to do is look at Jim Jordan, and John Ratcliffe, and Devin Nunes, and I don't know where they got that laywer from, and that laywer, and it really is even-
James Carville: 33:02 You know what? They don't have anything. They don't have a strategy, because he's guilty as the day is long. Just admit the guilt, admit the timeframe, and say, "Let's take it to the voters, and we're just wasting time." If they do that, and people say, "Why not?", that's a good enough answer. You got your pound of flesh.
Al Hunt: 33:18 Good idea, good idea, but Donald Trump never admits guilt. But we'll be back in just a minute with Christy Harvey and her fabled numbers. Okay James, Vegas used to have Jimmy the Greek, we have Christy Harvey, a numbers lady. Go ahead, stick us with some numbers, Christy. This is a lightning round, we're going to have short answers.
Christy Harvey: 33:42 Yeah, lightning round. Hey, fellows, I've got three numbers for you today. The first one is five. The number five is the number of trips that Donald Trump took to try and rally for candidates in both Kentucky and Louisiana, both of whom lost. So, I know both of you charge a lot of money to give really good advice to candidates and people looking to do this well, so give a little for free, what would you say to a candidate who was looking to have Donald Trump come stump for them in the future?
Al Hunt: 34:10 James?
James Carville: 34:11 All right, I think I had seen before where Trump coming in actually helped some. I think he helped brought more when he came into Alabama, I think he hurt Conor Lamb when he came to western Pennsylvania, but I know he made a difference in ... the 16, I guess it was, and I think he helped Rispone, and I think he helped keep John Bell below 50 in the first round. However, an interesting thing happened in Louisiana is they were on alert, and of course Duke endorsed Rispone so they did Duke, Trump, Rispone all the same, and they used it a lot, and it was water cooler conversation in African American urban areas, and rural areas in the state.
So, I actually think in this instance, I think the Democrats finally got smart, and he came in and whatever extra votes he got for them ,the Democrats got extra votes from their constituents to their base. It's pretty clear he came to Louisiana three times, he made it all about himself. The interesting thing in the era of Trump, at least Bevin and Rispone, in other places I've been ... Republicans don't campaign anymore. They don't go walk around the courthouse, or talk to the Chamber of Commerce, or go to the Kiwanis Club, or do anything, they just bring Trump in and they completely nationalize the election. It's not about roads, or schools, or anything else, he just nationalizes the whole election, and it backfired on him twice.
Al Hunt: 35:44 James, you know better than I that these states aren't moving blue, they're not even moving purple, they're still pretty deep red, but if this does suggest, as you just said, that Donald Trump may turn out as many Democrats as he does Republicans, that has real significance for next year. I think there are a lot of non-college educated whites who did not vote last time who Trump can reach, but we'll see what happens. Christy's got another number.
Christy Harvey: 36:09 Yeah, I do, and I'll throw that out to our war roommates on Twitter at @PoliticsWarRoom, to find out if you were running for office, would you want Trump to come stump for you? I think that's a good question to ask people, but I got a-
Al Hunt: 36:21 If you're a Republican.
Christy Harvey: 36:22 And you're a Republican. Got another number for you though, this number is zero, and I just need you guys to kind of explain this one to me. Zero is the amount of taxes FedEx is on the hook for in 2018 thanks to the Trump tax cut. So, my real question is, why is FedEx paying less taxes than I am, but also just what does this mean? How did this happen?
Al Hunt: 36:42 They're even paying less taxes than Warren Buffett's secretary. That bill was an absolute disgrace, and that New York Times story was just a terrifically reported piece, but what's really outrageous is not only has FedEx lobbied like made for this bill, not only are they not paying any taxes in 2018, but what they said when they lobbied for the bill was, "You know what? If you cut our taxes ...", not to zero but, "... you cut our taxes, we'll invest, and we'll create lots of jobs." What that Times story proved was that they have actually invested less and created fewer jobs, and that money that they got, that zero taxes they're now paying, that money is going to stock buybacks, and increased dividends. The rich get richer, the rest got crumbs.
Christy Harvey: 37:21 James, any recourse?
James Carville: 37:23 Yeah, you get a Democrat in office and fix this. Is anybody surprised by this, by the way? I mean, it was good reporting and every, and it showed direct linkage, but I bet you that there are 300 similar corporations that are in the same thing, and of course none of it went to research and development, or hiring more people, or expanding the corporate infrastructure, it just went into stock buybacks and executives pockets. I mean, of course that's what happened.
Christy Harvey: 37:47 You guys know me, I'm the idealist, and the naif in the room, it surprised me, I guess, I wasn't expecting it, but-
Al Hunt: 37:52 Well, I'm not surprised that they didn't pay taxes, but Fred Smith, the chairman of FedEx was the prime lobbyist for this bill, and the prime person who said ... the prime lobbyist for the business-
Christy Harvey: 38:01 Yeah.
Al Hunt: 38:01 ... prime person who said, "Boy, it'll create lots of jobs."
Christy Harvey: 38:04 All right, I got one more number for you, and it's another FedEx one, this time FedEx Field, 10. $10 is how much you could buy tickets to the Redskins game at FedEx Field this weekend, that is the same as a price of a beer at FedEx Field, it's also ... Parking there is 50 bucks. 10 bucks for an NFL game, AL, have the Redskins lost Washington?
Al Hunt: 38:27 Well, I spent years, years and years, trying to get Redskins tickets.
Christy Harvey: 38:27 I remember that.
Al Hunt: 38:32 There was a waiting list, and mainly thanks to their then terrific coach Norv Turner, I finally got them in 1997, I was so happy. I got a couple tickets, and I went for a while, and then a few years ago I wanted to get out. It was so bad, and it was almost as hard to cancel as it was to get in. This is one of the worst franchises in professional sports, they play at one of the worst stadiums in Washington, this whole city used to be galvanized by the Redskins, they now are yesterday, the Nationals are today and tomorrow.
James Carville: 39:00 Yeah, I think that the Capitals, too. I mean, I'm not much of a hockey fan, and Tom Boswell had a column that everybody listened to his podcast should read. I mean, and the thing is not just that they're bad, all right? A lot of bad ... The Lions are bad, the Dolphins are bad, the Jets are bad, Giants I'm sure are not very good. It was how good and how powerful ... Redskins in like 1995 was maybe the most valuable franchise in professional sports. I mean, they were golden in Washington. Tony Kornheiser famously said on his talk radio show, he said if he let the callers dictate the show they would talk about the Redskins 365 days a year. They'd never talk about the Wizards, the Capitals, or the Nationals.
That's just not true, I mean, and there were all these stories about all of the power brokers rubbing elbows with the cab drivers, and how diverse their fan base was, and everything, it's now ... I never liked them at all. I don't like their colors, I don't like their racist ass nickname, I don't like the history of the franchise. Having said that, any Redskin hater is just in his glory now, I mean, they're beyond ... they're not even worth hating anymore. I mean, think of ... have you ever seen a sports franchise just fall that far?
Christy Harvey: 40:23 No.
Al Hunt: 40:23 No, there may have been owners as bad as Dan Snyder, but never one that took over such a treasured franchise who has fallen so ... In 20 years, 20 years, look at the Redskins from 1974, or 1975 to 1995, and then look at them the 20 years under Danny, it's remarkable. All right-
Christy Harvey: 40:41 Well, you guys are right, we've got the Nationals, and we've got the Caps, but don't forget the Mystics.
Al Hunt: 40:45 Don't forget the Mystics. Okay numbers Harvey, back to Vegas. James, before we leave today let's just have a back page, I'm going to do something different. We talk about a lot of downer things, and I'm going to give kudos, a cheer, and the cheer's going to go to the audience at Jazz Blues Alley Sunday night, when a guest unexpectedly walked in, and the whole place ... This is a jazz alley, and the whole place stood up and cheered. It was Ambassador Yovanovitch after her incredible testimony. Yay, yay for the Jazz Blues Alley folks.
James Carville: 41:20 Well, along that line, when Colonel Vindman finished his testimony today, I'm just reading, I didn't see it, he got an ovation from the people in the audience, and it just ... At some point it makes you feel good about being an American, knowing that they have people like this in this country that just are patriots, and will come and rise to the occasion, and we're seeing this time after time after time. I mean, just when America needs heroes, here come some heroes along the way. It's kind of heartwarming.
Al Hunt: 41:55 Get down on your hands and knees, and thank God for the deep state. Okay, James, this has been fun, and I'll see you again next week.
James Carville: 42:03 You bet.