Long time national political reporter Neil W. McCabe connects the strategic dots he sees the candidates following into the first Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee tonight on Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy.
TRANSCRIPT
Michael Patrick Leahy: 7:19 a.m. – the original all-star panelist, Crom Carmichael is in-studio; on the newsmaker line right now, the great Neil W. McCabe, national political reporter for Red State, good friend.
Neil, so tonight in Milwaukee, Fox News and RNC is sponsoring the debate of the Keebler Elves.
What are your thoughts on this, Neil W. McCabe?
Neil W. McCabe: Tonight’s gonna be great. I always enjoy watching The Little League World Series.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Now, for those of you who really follow this closely, Ron DeSantis played in The Little League World Series 30 years ago. And he later went on to play and be the captain of Yale Baseball, hit .346 his senior year.
That’s pretty good. Is he gonna whiff tonight or is he gonna hit a home run?
Neil W. McCabe: I think that DeSantis is gonna play things. I think he’s gonna play it safe, whereas everyone else is looking for a breakout.
Unfortunately for him, his Never Back Down PAC posted a debate strategy a few days ago – and this is a sort of a ruse that these PACs do, because the PACs are not allowed to coordinate with the candidates. So what they do is they post things online that don’t make sense to anybody else. But it’s their way of communicating to the candidate. And usually, they’ll put out a press release or they’ll post polling data that basically says, ‘Hey, you might wanna look over here.’ And they posted this advice for the debate for DeSantis, and the number one advice was, ‘Take a sledgehammer to Vivek.’
And then the other piece of advice was, if another candidate makes a point or goes after him, dismiss it unless it is a first-tier candidate like yourself. And so basically everybody is watching to see if DeSantis was gonna follow that script.
One of the pieces of advice was to watch for Christie when Christie goes after Trump, DeSantis is supposed to jump in and say, ‘Hey, let’s not talk about him. He’s not here. Let’s talk about the people on stage. Trump is too weak to defend himself.’
And so, it would be bizarre to me if DeSantis actually followed the advice that now everybody has read it and everybody’s sort of waiting for him.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Crom is in-studio with a smile.
Crom Carmichael: Well, it seems to me that the debate tonight – it’s kind of interesting with Trump – if Trump had been there, the debate literally would’ve been all about Trump. That’s all anybody would’ve been talking about.
And now that Trump is not there, the question is gonna be whether or not the debate is still about Trump, or whether or not some of these candidates are going to try to break out.
I don’t see how anybody – the only two that I think have any chance of breaking out and becoming viable are DeSantis and Vivek. I don’t think any of the others have any chance of even gaining newsworthiness because the only time Chris Christie is on a news program is so that they can use him to beat up Trump.
And so I think we’re gonna find out whether or not there’s any legs under any of these candidates because they are the only alternative to Trump. And so it’ll be interesting.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Neil, let me ask you this question.
A couple of days ago, there was a story – Vivek Ramaswamy, in an interview, said something to the effect that if he’s elected president, he will look at not renewing our aid package to Israel in 2028 when the current program ends.
Now Nikki Haley jumped on that and started attacking Vivek about that. Is this positioning an unforced error on Vivek’s part? And is it something that you think DeSantis might take as a part of his ‘sledgehammer attack,’ if you will?
Neil W. McCabe: Yeah. That’s an interesting tack. I actually saw Nikki Haley speak at AIPAC one year, and she was welcomed like Mick Jagger.
I mean it’s, it was unreal.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Tell everybody what AIPAC is.
Neil W. McCabe: I thought you were gonna say, ‘Tell everybody who Mick Jagger is.’
APAC is the political action committee. I guess, what is it – American Israel Political Action Committee.
But basically, it’s primarily Jewish Americans who support candidates who support Israel. And for its first – I don’t know – 40 years, it was very much a part of the Democratic Party.
In fact, AIPAC was very much responsible for the Republicans losing control of the Senate in the 1986 election because they never forgave Reagan for selling AWACs to Saudi Arabia. Post-Reagan, post-Bush, AIPAC has become more supportive of Republicans, but it still has sort of that legacy of being a part of the old-school Democratic Party.
So it’s a very interesting animal.
Michael Patrick Leahy: So do you think they’ll go after Vivek? Will he be able to counter it? What are your thoughts on that?
Neil W. McCabe: Well, they will go after him. And, you know, it’s their issue. It’s like the NRA asking, ‘Is the NRA gonna go after somebody who’s against gun rights?’
I think that it was an unforced error. I don’t know why you would rattle their cage. And it certainly opens up an opportunity for the others, especially Nikki Haley, when you consider that, in the Republican electorate, Israel is a very important thing.
Many – the vast majority of Republican voters supporting Israel.
Michael Patrick Leahy: I got another question for you, Neil. Are you ready?
So Donald Trump counter-programming; two things to talk about here.
Number one, at the same time as the debate is taking place, Tucker Carlson on Twitter will be releasing his interview with Donald Trump.
That’s point number one. Point number two.
They gave Donald Trump an opportunity to pick the day that he would be arraigned on these ludicrous charges in Georgia. That the left-wing D.A. Fani Willis has brought up. We still don’t know what the actual crime is there. He chose Thursday, the day after the debate.
To me, I think this is brilliant counter-programing by Donald Trump.
Your thoughts, Neil W. McCabe?
Neil W. McCabe: I think that what you’re seeing in this latest iteration of Trump, the politician, is you’re seeing his brilliance, and his instincts are completely tied to the American people and the media. But you’re also seeing brilliant execution, and I think his campaign team is really absolutely top-notch, and you don’t hear the gaffes, and you don’t see the mistakes that you used to see before.
And this is being executed just absolutely brilliantly tonight with Tucker, tomorrow in Atlanta. And I think that what people have to realize is that Trump is running as the incumbent.
And that’s why it’s so ridiculous to even have a debate of his primary opponents, because who would even care? If Trump was the man in the White House, these debates would be ridiculous. And nobody cares–
Michael Patrick Leahy: Good point. Last question for you, Neil – and we’ve got one minute here.
Will tonight’s debate move the needle for any candidate, at all?
Neil W. McCabe: I think that this is gonna be a breakout moment for Vivek. His campaign is raising a ton of money. It’s getting a ton of interest. He’s really becoming sort of that hip candidate. Nobody is talking about him as replacing Trump, so it hasn’t reached that stage yet, but he has really taken his star turn.
And you know, I think in the years to come, everyone will remember when he first walked onto the national stage during this debate. And really it’s about 2028 from this point forward.
Michael Patrick Leahy: And Neil W. McCabe, national political reporter for Red State.
Neil, as always, excellent analysis.
Thanks for joining us today.
Neil W. McCabe: Take care, guys.
Michael Patrick Leahy: Alright; when we come back, more with Crom Carmichael.
Back after this.
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Background Photo “Republican Debate Stage” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
