Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone, and fasten your seat belts, it's 2024. If you were new to the show in 2023, maybe you even just discovered us on some days off over the holidays, welcome back for year two. If you're currently raising kids, wasn't it great to have a lot of time with them over the holidays? Yes, it's okay to acknowledge that you're really glad they're back at school today. Yes, you can do that, and you're not a bad parent.

If you've been with us longer than just last week or just last year, happy New Year, and here you still are. Here we still are. Hope you are all safely strapped in as we tried to navigate the possibly very bumpy ride ahead. Again, this year, we will try to have the best conversations we can for the New York area and beyond. Conversations with guests and conversations with you about the big events in our area and anywhere in the world.

We will continue this year to try and present respectful conversations about the Middle East and America's role in it that are open to hearing the aspirations and grievances of both the Israeli and Palestinian people, and that respect both the obvious truths like that there's a humanitarian catastrophe in front of our eyes right now, but also the many complexities of the underlying issues. We acknowledge, again, that those conversations are difficult, and we won't always get them just right, but we will try in good faith.

Again, this year, we'll be doing a climate story of the week on Tuesdays. Mark your calendars. If you follow climate news, our climate story of the week on Tuesdays, again. We'll kick that 2024 series off during this show today. Remember, it's Tuesday, not Monday today even though it might feel a lot like a Monday. Again, this year, despite all the big and heavy soul-searching things we'll be diving into and challenging ourselves with, we promise to have some fun along the way too.

Games and quizzes and contests like we do and call-ins about the strange or wonderful things that are happening in your lives, your families, in your neighborhoods, all those things. Oh, yes, did you know that this is an election year? It's not a big deal. Just another any old run-of-the-mill election year. Right? It's not like the leading Republican candidate will be fighting 91 felony indictments at the same time as he runs for president, many of those indictments having to do with trying to overthrow our democracy itself.

It's not like the leading alternative to that candidate in the primaries couldn't even say slavery was the cause of the Civil War without being shamed into it by a public backlash. It's not like the Democrats are tearing themselves up over little things like immigration and the Middle East. It's not like Mayor Eric Adams got fired as a surrogate for President Biden because Adams has been so critical of Biden on immigration.

It's not like Congressman Jamaal Bowman left the Democratic Socialists of America over its stance on Israel but is now facing a primary challenger from the right anyway for his Bronx and Westchester seat. It's not like the biggest liar in the history of lying liars just got kicked out of Congress and a special election is coming up in just one month in that Queens and Nassau County swing district that will set the tone for the swing district battles in every suburb everywhere in America this whole high stakes year. Is it?

Well actually, it is like all of those things, isn't it? It's exactly like all of those things. In fact, it is all of those things, and we will be talking about it all as we all try to process and participate in all of these things. Conversations about the news we're all trying to understand will happen here. Welcome in if you are a member of any party or of no party. If you're eavesdropping from another country or continent, if you want to call in or just want to listen and think this year, welcome, welcome, welcome. Happy New Year.

We'll follow the intersection of the legal and the political on the Republican side. Also, the Bidenesque and more on the Democratic side, the third party, fourth party, fifth party candidates that could happen for President. RFK Jr, Cornel West, Liz Cheney, Joe Manchin. Time will tell. The fight to build affordable housing despite not in anybody's backyard backlash that seems to break out everywhere they try to do it.

Later this hour, we will do a segment specifically on the special election to replace the lying liar George Santos. Voting begins one month from tomorrow. We will look at that Suozzi versus Mazi Pilip race, Tom Suozzi versus Mazi Pilip, with two Newsday reporters, and your calls coming up later this hour. Astead Herndon from The New York Times kicks off our coverage of this presidential election year for the ages.

Astead Herndon is a national politics reporter and host of the politics podcast The Run-Up. In 2019, he was The Times campaign reporter for Kamala Harris's presidential campaign. Among other things that he's done, recent podcast episodes have included interviews with Iowa evangelicals. Remember, the Iowa caucuses are less than two weeks away. We'll sample from that podcast episode as well as the one with the very local, really hyperlocal focus group he did.

It was at his own Thanksgiving dinner on the surprisingly large percentage of Black voters considering Donald Trump if you believe The New York Times poll that came out a little before Thanksgiving. We'll talk about the whole Nikki Haley civil war thing too. Astead, great to have you back on the show. Thanks for starting 2024 with us. Happy New Year and welcome back to WNYC.

Astead Herndon: Happy New Year to you. Thank you so much for having me. It's a great way to start the year.

Brian Lehrer: Well, the first vote up is the Iowa caucuses, Monday, January 15th. Martin Luther King Day, by the way. Though in Iowa, I guess that doesn't stop them from having an election. [chuckling] We will play a clip of one of your podcast episodes from Iowa. Is the headline here that there is really no drama in this first vote of the year because Trump is such a shoo-in for first place, or would that be missing some important things to watch for on January 15th?

Astead Herndon: I mean, I certainly think that's the headline, and to your point, all of this has really been reliant on polling over the past year. We have not seen, really, any of these other candidates threaten Donald Trump's lead both in Iowa and in some of these early states, and it's actually grown over the year in 2023 to the point where we now have some Iowans who are backing other candidates even directly acknowledging that a big win for Donald Trump in the state would feel like a start of a more coronation primary process than a really competitive process that I think a lot of people expected.

I think that's important to say. When we started the year, I remember talking to you in early 2023 about some of the reporting we were doing. Republicans on the national level were certain they were going to get a really competitive primary or Donald Trump would at least be challenged. That they thought there was enough people in the party who, after the midterms, were upset with him or were nervous about the coming indictments that it would then mean he would at least a face of sweat.

The thing that they didn't expect was that the reality of the indictments have caused so many of the base to rally around him, and then the other candidates haven't really caught on, and so we enter 2024 with much more of a Trump-dominant space than I think a lot of the Republicans expected coming into this primary to the point where Iowa now feels like a question of how much will Donald Trump win by rather than who's going to be at the top.

Brian Lehrer: I'm glad you remember coming on with us to start last year.

[chuckling]

Astead Herndon: I do. That was awesome.

Brian Lehrer: That was January 5th, 2023, so it's like a New Year's tradition in [laughter] the beginning of the year here on the show, Astead and me. All right, so you were in Iowa a few months ago when Tim Scott was still in the race. Scott was probably the most clearly religious candidate in the field, at least openly so, and Iowa is known for its large evangelical Republican base. You had this exchange with some voters at the Iowa State Fair. Listeners, this is a minute-and-a-half clip. It starts with a question from Astead.

Astead Herndon: If you could describe what Trump's message is, what is it? If I know that Tim Scott's inspiration is hope, seems like Trump's is different. What's Trump promising that is resonating with you?

Speaker 3: He loves this country. He always has. He says, "I will fight every day of my life for this country."

Astead Herndon: He's promising a fight.

Speaker 3: A fight. We are in a fight. We are in a war. We are in a war. Whether we want to believe it or not, this country's in trouble.

Speaker 4: What are the sides of the war to you?

Astead Herndon: Yes, what makes you-- Yes.

Speaker 3: We are fighting for our children. The education in this country is deplorable, and I think this latest movie, the Sound of Freedom, has exposed big-time what's going on with Hollywood, pedophilia, trafficking, and we're not stopping it.

Astead Herndon: I see what you're saying. So because of these existential threats, because of this war,

Speaker 4: It's the [crosstalk]

Speaker 3: -the answer--

Speaker 3: The morality of our country-

Astead Herndon: [crosstalk] equals Trump.

Speaker 1: -deteriorated horribly. We're not the country that we should be or were or was, and it's got to stop. Were on a slippery slope.

Brian Lehrer: Some likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa earlier this year with political reporter Astead Herndon from the New York Times who's my guest. Well, Astead, child pedophilia, child sex trafficking, the whole thing, did you find a lot of people at the Iowa State Fair who buy into that particular kind of conspiracy theory?

Astead Herndon: Absolutely. I would say that that was not the only person to mention specifically the Sound of Freedom movie which was, of course, a kind of rallying cry on these specific fronts. I think that that woman's articulation of her voting reasoning is something that has become really familiar to us as we talk to more Republicans. There is a sense that because of the direction the country has moved in, whether that was under Obama or whether it continued under-- Of this Biden term, but it's really around social factors.

As she describes morality and the conspiracy level there. but it really-- Rise in social justice movements, increasing acceptance of LGBTQ people. There is just a litany of things that these folks bring up as a reason of why that really points them to Donald Trump. I would ask Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, these other candidates also say that they can bring back a more traditional version of America without the drama of Trump.

They would explicitly reject the idea that they trust those other candidates to really "deliver on the fight" in the way that Trump does, and there's a certain level of- I want to say this artfully. -but there's a certain level of punishment that Donald Trump promises for his political opponents. That is what some of these voters are looking for. In another episode for the show, we went to a country music concert, Jason Aldean concert, in Des Moines, Iowa, and we're talking to people about similar things.

There, there was a couple of people who I really remember really owning the idea that it wasn't just that Donald Trump was a person who was going to pass a certain policy or espouse a certain political opinion that they like. It's that he was going to punish opponents that they didn't like, and that is also part of those values, too. When we think about Trump versus the Republican field, I think we have to think back to each side of that coin. What that woman's saying here is not just that there is a sense of urgency because of these things that she believes is happening and wants to push back against, she wants someone in there that is not only going to espouse those views but promise to really inflict punishment on political opponents. When Donald Trump says, "I am your retribution," for some on the Republican base, that is a appetizing message.

Brian Lehrer: Based on the clip that we just played, and we're going to play one more from that episode, and what you were just describing, what's-- What I'm not hearing is specific items of policy to improve people's lives. Did that come up from a lot of the Iowa voters? The economy, anything really tangible like that?

Astead Herndon: Yes, you would hear some of that. You hear how the economy was, maybe, in a better place, or they would talk about things like inflation that don't necessarily match up with the economic data, but it's not-- I don't want to overdo it, though, because it's not that policy-specific. It's not as if there are citing specific things that happened in Trump's administration as a reason of something needs to come back, taxes or traditional policy concerns, it is much more of a vibe I have to say. [chuckles]

It's just much more of a feeling of loss that they want to reclaim and that he's the one who promises that alongside with it. I've talked to supporters of other candidates and you'll hear supporters of Nikki Haley talk about her stance on Israel-Gaza. You'll hear supporters of Ron DeSantis talk specifically about what he's done in Florida to combat liberal colleges or such. You don't really hear Trump supporters talk like that because it's more of a mantra of strength, rather it is a kind of recitation of policy specific.

Brian Lehrer: In your reporting so far on this election cycle, do you also hear Democratic voters reflecting a vibe more than specific policies?

Astead Herndon: Certainly, and I think that really speaks to the group of Democratic voters that polling and anecdotal reporting tells us that Joe Biden has struggled the most with in this year which is kind of a base core voter. We think about young people, we think about working-class people of color. These are groups who-- That's reported softer support for the president in the White House, and it's really what's been causing his polling struggles so far.

When you talk to people in the middle, the swing voters, the independents, the type of people who help Democrats in the midterms, they're still feeling pretty fine about Joe Biden. Particularly in relationship to the Republican alternative, likely Donald Trump, on the other side. What you're having more difficulty, if you're the White House, is in people who are, maybe, marginal voters, people who may not vote in the presidential election, who are leaning Democratic, but are increasingly feeling distanced from the party.

Now, with young people, that's been exploded by the conflict in Gaza. There has been numbers and our own reporting, and I know the White House and party has had to really think about whether the normal prioritization, which says that American voters aren't typically foreign policy focused when it comes to presidential elections, whether that old adage is still going to remain true.

We went to the Biden campaign directly and asked them about this two to three months ago and their hope-- Their answer, basically, was that when it comes down-- When the alternative becomes real, when the choice becomes tangible, whether it be Biden versus Trump or whether it be what transpires through this year, they really believe that they have done enough policy-wise and that the Republicans on the other side are going to force people's hands to come back around to Biden.

I think that that's a real risky bet because, to your point, we are increasingly hearing a certain say-- A certain sect of Democrats say that their motivation isn't the same, and I think it's specifically true for young people and specifically true for young-- For working-class people of color.

Brian Lehrer: Right, and we're going to get to working-class people of color including some of your relatives as we go along here, but yes, when it comes down to a choice if those-- Most progressive Democrats aren't in love with Biden, they might also be the same people who are most horrified by the prospect of a return of Donald Trump to the White House, so time will tell this year what happens there. One more clip from your Iowa episode, and it starts right where the other one ended as you continue the conversation.

Astead Herndon: When we go to the Democrats, they'll say that they feel like this is a really kind of war-time-- War isn't the language they would use, but this is a really existential moment for the country too, a real crossroads moment. It seems like both sides are in agreement that the stakes of this election are really, really, really high. What feels unclear is that somebody is going to lose here and both sides say they think if they lose the country's gone.

Speaker 3: If we don't get control, we are going to be a socialist nation. That's the direction we are headed, and I'm very, very concerned about that.

Astead Herndon: Do you feel that existential about this moment?

Speaker 3: I'd like to go back to the '50s. Those were the perfect years.

Speaker 4: Yes, I know.

Speaker 3: Everybody dressed perfectly, they acted perfectly, didn't hear naughty words. I'd like us to go back to that. When moms stayed in the home and raised their children. That's part of our problem today is that we don't have families raising their children, and then they go to school, and their teachers can't do anything with them, and that's why we've got a lot of the problems we have today.

Brian Lehrer: Astead Herndon with Iowa voters at the Iowa State Fair earlier this year. Astead, putting the two clips together, we have this combination of the drive to fight a political war and that 1950s nostalgia, as if that was really the way things even were. Never mind Jim Crow or McCarthyism or anything like those.

Astead Herndon: Exactly. [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: I don't know, was that just an interesting clip from an older woman, or do you really hear a lot of Republicans there in Iowa when you were on the trail saying, "Let's go back to mom staying at home"?

Astead Herndon: That was a really explicit version of a nostalgic sentiment that we do hear broadly, and so I would say that that was a really clear articulation of it. In the moment, of course, all of those things are running through your head. Not only is that not an even accurate to the depiction of the country in the '50s, but it really does make clear how, for so many people, the promise of Trump's Make America Great Again is very much a literal one and very much a taking back to that type of time when power was really entrenched and really felt comfortable for a lot of people.

I would say that whether-- That clip is a specific instance, but we do hear that general theme of nostalgia broadly. One of the things that we did on the run-up was we started our podcast really focusing on the promise of demographic change that was overtaking the country in Obama era and how that shifted both parties. One of the reasons we did that is because the language of the right and the Republicans over the 10, 15 years has become obsessed with the idea that the changing composition of the country has made it incompatible with simple majority rule democracy.

We were going to places like Arizona, places the kind of the anti-democratic candidates that were running in the midterms, and they were openly calling democracy a dirty word because they viewed it as something that lost them power considering the changes in the country that were to come. That's the connection I really want to make here is that not only is this nostalgia happening for voters, but it's happening in a Republican party context where there is real fear that the direction that the country's moving.

Not only culturally but demographically, makes it incompatible with those traditional values, so I don't think it's an accident at the same time we see the face of America changing, you also see a real callback to those like nostalgic, in this lady's words, going back to the 1950s.

Brian Lehrer: Astead Herndon, national politics reporter for the New York Times and host of their politics podcast The Run-Up, our guest. Listeners, you're starting to call in so I'll give the phone number to everybody. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Call or text. Anyone from Iowa or with roots in Iowa listening right now to reflect on anything you've heard in these first clips that we've played? Anticipating the one we're about to play from another episode of Astead's podcast.

Anyone out there have any conversations at your Thanksgiving or Christmas or Kwanzaa tables this year about whether Black voters, male/female divide seems to be one to some degree, generational divide seems to be one to some degree, looking at Biden and Trump as likely nominees this year? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 on your Black families in politics, on your Iowa neighborhoods in politics.

These two things for our first conversation of the year with Astead Herndon. We're going to get to Nikki Haley, but 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Now let's go on to your Thanksgiving dinner Friends and Family focus group podcast. Reading from the episode page on The Times website, just to set this up for listeners who haven't heard this, "The change was so remarkable that it almost seemed like a mistake. In a poll of residents in battleground states by the New York Times and Siena College this fall, 22% of Black voters said they would support former President Donald Trump over President Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

My first question is, Astead writes, "With a whole holiday season--." Oh, my first question to you, I'm sorry, is with a whole holiday season of hindsight now, not just your Thanksgiving table, does this look like a mistake, that poll finding? Such an outlier of a poll that, even though it comes from The Times, it's not being replicated elsewhere?

Astead Herndon: I definitely think the magnitude of the number-- Remember, this was Battleground State specifically so these are in these-- Weren't talking to the majority of the country in those numbers, but I can-- Think we can definitely say not an outlier result in terms of the big theme because all polling has shown consistently that there's been a downturn in Black approval ratings of the President.

The number in the specific interest to Donald Trump is definitely one I don't think we can extrapolate onto next year mostly because, for a lot of voters, Donald Trump is-- This version of him hasn't become particularly real yet. From the criminal trials that are looming to even his escalated rhetoric and policy promises that I think will become more clear for voters throughout the year. I think some of the nostalgia for pre-2020 times, pre-COVID times, is helping Donald Trump right now, but this isn't that same candidate.

I definitely think we should throw some cold water on the idea that Black men or Black people, were going to be voting for Donald Trump enmass. I remember talking to the Trump campaign in 2020 and their goal was to win, basically, 25% of Black men and that is a number that they are clearing and clear, in our poll and in polls across the country right now.

The real sign that Democrats are also worried about this is they've invested a lot of money early into trying to communicate with these people in terms of investing in Black communities and telling the story of the administration there. I think that's the sign that their own numbers are telling them that they could have an issue there, and that's something that campaigns slightly acknowledged to us.

Certainly, I would say that it may not be as big of a number as we saw in The Times poll but the trend and the idea that Black voters are having a changing relationship with the Democratic Party at large I think it's one that's been consistently proven even back since 2012 which is really the high watermark you see for Black voters with Democrats. It's been trending downward ever since.

Brian Lehrer: I've got an excerpt from your Thanksgiving podcast queued up, but would you set up the general premise for our listeners real briefly? How did you use that poll as a jumping-off point to interview, I guess, basically, your relatives, and some neighbors, right?

Astead Herndon: Yes, exactly. When I saw those polling numbers, one of the things that I really believe is that polling can point you to a theme, to a direction, but it doesn't give you the why of why someone's feeling like that. They'll say if they're backing someone or maybe if they approve or don't approve, but we don't get the backstory behind what leads a voter to that point.

One of the things that I wanted to do was really trace the arc of Black people's relationship with Democrats, basically, from that 2012 time until now. Being someone who's from Chicago, being from someone who kind of had-- Have had some of these conversations in my personal life, and also being someone who loves Thanksgiving, I decided to just combine all of those things in one and really got a nice community of people from my own life, including friends and family, including some of my parents and friends, extended family, who all came over the week before Thanksgiving.

We had a makeshift holiday where we set up our own focus groups, and we really focused on two divisions that also were really clear in the poll. A generational divide between older Black voters and the younger set, and then a gender divide between Black women and men. I think, in those conversations, we were able to have really kind of open discussions that got to some of the why behind those numbers and, I think, matched up with the reality that says, maybe necessarily--

One question I have for these people was, why do we think Black people vote for Democrats in such numbers considering it is unique to demographic groups? I think that the answer we really got was that, more so than identifying with Democrats, there was a sense that Black voters did not identify with the modern Republican party and that was a rejection of them, more than embrace of Democrats, and that really came through in those discussions.

Brian Lehrer: This clip begins with a follow-up question that you're asking coming right out of the ideas you were just describing. It will be clear when it begins which is right now.

Astead Herndon: As a follow-up to the first question I asked about why do you think Black people vote for Democrats in such numbers, do you think that's changing?

Speaker 5: The sad part about it is--

Astead Herndon: Do you think the relationship between the Black people and the party's changing?

Speaker 5: The sad part about it is yes. Even though my job, these younger-- You have more Black people that are owning their own business, they're entrepreneurs, and so the benefit that they're seeing is that, oh, it's helping me financially and so-

Astead Herndon: To vote for Trump.

Speaker 5: - yes. [chuckles] What have they done for me? The Republican party can give me these tax cuts and can give me this and give me that. It boils down to those type of issues. Then they look at the Democratic party and they're like, well, Biden, look at this. We got all these immigrants. He ain't doing this, he ain't doing that, but it's always the plus for the Republican side because it's benefiting them tangibly.

Brian Lehrer: Astead, do you want to put that clip in context for us? There's an assumption in that answer that Democrats would vigorously contest, and that's that Republican economics are better for their families. I'm curious if that debate broke out at all in relation to that answer and anything you want to say to contextualize that clip.

Astead Herndon: All kind of Republican talking points, but you aren't actually-- You don't see that. It talks about Democrats' relationship with unions and that being a helpful driver of working-class communities. Those discussions were happening out in the open, but what I think was coming through there was people kept mentioning the pandemic checks in 2020 as something that people latched onto as a tangible benefit that came from a Republican president, also a Democratic Congress.

I think that those type of things really speak to a broader question of what cuts through the noise. I think this is something that the Biden administration is really finding here. They have a big long list of policy accomplishments. From the IRA to CHIPS Act and the like, infrastructure bill, but the question is what is-- What are voters feeling as tangible impacts?

When something like student loan cancellation gets struck down, it fuels a sense, particularly among some younger voters, that nothing is changing or that the biggest swings at social change are really-- That the political system isn't accommodating of those. That kind of dread is a self-fulfilling cycle. Someone else said in that conversation about how they were a part of the organizing efforts for Obama's first and second victory in Chicago, and that one of the things that they've recognized is that the same people that they really motivated to get involved at that time, they have a really hard time re-motivating them now because there was a sense that not that much changed.

We know that that's not fully true. We can point to things that definitely come from that, but that is what I'm talking about in terms of what cuts through and what makes people feel as if government's actually working. If you're the Biden administration, you have to ask yourself what is going to be the pieces that specifically resonate with this group that's not as politically engaged, that's not as motivated to come to the polls, and does not identify with the party as deeply. Those are only going to be certain issues and certain messengers that can really reach them, and that's the struggle they're having right now.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Astead Herndon from The New York Times. We are going to take some of your phone calls, and I'll read some of the texts that are coming in on the Iowa portion, on the Black voters' portion of the conversation we've been having so far. We will also take on Nikki Haley and the Civil War and slavery. 212-433-WNYC. Call in, text, stay with us.

[music]

Brian Lehrer on WNYC. January 2nd, our first political conversations of the year happening this hour. In a few minutes, when we're done with Astead Herndon from the New York Times, we're going to talk to two Newsday reporters about the race to replace lying liar George Santos which is well underway. Voting there starts February 3rd, so it's going to come up. If you're doing a mail-in ballot, it starts even before that, so we'll talk about that.

Tom Suozzi versus Mazi Pilip, very high-stakes congressional special election coming up. We're staying on preview of the Iowa caucuses, the first vote this year, January 15th, and a focus group that Astead did at his own Thanksgiving dinner with his own Black family and some neighbors talking about these poll numbers that, maybe, a surprising number of especially Black men and younger Black voters might be considering Trump over Biden in that hypothetical match-up.

We're going to fold in your calls now, 212-433-WNYC, and then touch on the Nikki Haley Civil War slavery thing too before we wrap it up. 212-433-WNYC. Kyle in Boston, originally from Iowa. Kyle, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Kyle: Good morning, Mr. Lehrer, Mr. Herndon. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good, thank you. Happy New Year.

Kyle: Happy New Year to you as well. I'm born and raised in Waterloo, the same town as Nicole Hannah-Jones. I've since have lived in New York, Bay Area, California, Europe, all over the place. I think just a couple of things on what's happened in Iowa over the years. I'm 40 so this is where my perspective comes from, but I think there was a separation of the Democratic Farmer Labor Coalition that plays into this.

I think higher education's influence on culture has diminished over time in the state of Iowa drastically which relates to the K-12 public schools getting worse and a general diminishing of the culture and political literacy. Then one final thing I think plays into it is Iowa has a specific unique case of brain drain. Iowa raises a lot of people to be curious about the rest of the world and a lot of times they leave and go out to see it.

Brian Lehrer: Kyle, thank you very much. We're getting a call from Des Moines, so I'm going to go right there. Mark in North Bergen, we told you you'd be second. Give us a minute here since we're getting a call now from Iowa, and then you'll be on. Sharon in Des Moines, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Sharon: Hello.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, there.

Astead Herndon: Hi.

Sharon: I am in Des Moines, and it's almost caucus time, and there's no middle. They either love Trump or they hate him. There's no middle. I have friends who are going to caucus, who are Democrats, who are going to caucus for Nikki Haley.

Brian Lehrer: You can do that in Iowa. You don't have to be registered-

Sharon: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: -in one party or another right?

Sharon: Well, I think you do but you can change

Brian Lehrer: Oh, okay.

Sharon: Then you can change back. Those of us that don't like Trump are terrified that he will get this nomination, so it's a very busy place around here at caucus time.

Brian Lehrer: Sharon, thank you very much. Thank you. Good luck out there. Astead, it's one of the questions that we're going to ask of our Newsday reporters about the Suozzi-Pilip race in the swing district of Queens and Nassau County and that is, is there a middle? Are there swing voters? We hear Sharon from Des Moines reporting, at least, from her experience, that people are so divided there is no middle.

Astead Herndon: Yes, that's a really important question. I think particularly in this primary, it's become very hard because the nature of a primary is really to play to the activist, to the most ardent kind of supporters, to the loudest voices, and that's going to inevitably pull candidates to the right. I think Nikki Haley is a perfect example here. This is someone who's natural constituency of a moderate or more professional slice of Republicans.

It's simply just not large enough to win the Republican nomination on its own and so you see a candidate who's really making specific overshoots to a more Trump-fueled base. That's a losing game because, to their point, they really want the pure stuff. We see in poll after poll that about 40-ish percent of Republicans want someone else other than Donald Trump, but what we also see is that those candidates are split between-- I mean those voters are split between different candidates and, more importantly, they're anti-Trump for a lot of different reasons.

If you're a Nikki Haley voter, and you're a Ron DeSantis voter, you might not like Donald Trump, but the reasons of why you don't come from different sides of the ideological plane, and it really makes those other two candidates unacceptable to you. We were at the Nikki Haley watch party asking people would they back DeSantis. We asked some DeSantis voters the otherwise, and it becomes very hard for them to really see that level of consolidation.

If that does not happen, to the caller's point, it makes it very easy for Donald Trump to run away with this and so it's both a tall task ahead of the non-Trump candidates, but if it's going to end in anything other than the former president being back, it's something that has to happen quickly and start in Iowa, probably.

Brian Lehrer: Mark in North Bergen, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mark, thank you for calling in.

Mark: Hi, how are you? Happy New Year's, everyone.

Brian Lehrer: You too.

Mark: I just wanted to say that I come from a predominantly Black Muslim family. Some of us are just normal Sunni Muslims and some of us are Nation of Islam. We feel a strong connection to our brothers back in Palestine and in Sudan and in many other areas, so we just feel absolutely betrayed by Joe Biden for allowing this genocide to happen.

A lot of people feel like they're not going to vote for Biden and they're sure as hell not going to vote for Trump, but there's this sentiment where they want to teach the Democrats a lesson. They want the Democrats to know that we were affected by what you did, so there's that strong feeling of just betrayal amongst Black Muslims, Muslims in general. I think that's [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: How much tension do you think the people you're describing are experiencing between what you just said and the fact that not voting for either of them is, in effect, a vote for Trump, making it more likely that Trump will become president again with how much worse that might be.

Mark: It's almost like the feeling of-- It's bringing back past traumas in a way because many Black people felt that when they were being abused, when they were being oppressed, that the media and the political sphere would ignore them in a way and gaslight them and act like nothing's happening, so all those past traumas are, in a way, making these people so angry that they don't even care whether it's Trump. They just want to teach Biden, Kirby, Blinken, all those people, they just want to teach them a lesson. That anger is palpable. I see it every day.

Brian Lehrer: Mark, thank you very much. Call us again. I'll just acknowledge, since he used the word genocide, that there are many people who say that's not an appropriate word for this, and both sides are accusing the other of wanting genocide, so I'm just acknowledging that there are points of view on that. All right, we have four minutes left in the segment. We've squashed the Nikki Haley part because all these other parts have turned out so interesting.

In brief, here is the original answer which she still stands by, but with slavery added later. I'll explain why I'm playing this because I think the bottom line here is about a lot more than her omission of the word slavery. Here's part of Nikki Haley's original answer from that New Hampshire campaign appearance last week.

Nikki Haley: I think it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are. I will always stand by the fact that I think government was intended to secure the rights and freedom of the people. It was never meant to be all things to all people. Government doesn't need to tell you how to live your life. They don't need to tell you what you can and can't do. They don't need to be a part of your life. They need to make sure that you have freedom. We need to have capitalism, we need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way.

Brian Lehrer: Her bottom line villain there, "Without government getting in the way." Remember what question she was answering. What was the cause of the Civil War? Here's how she revised her language, but here's what I'm keying on. She didn't revise her emphasis on Fox News on Saturday. Listen.

Nikki Haley: We want to always fight for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom for a person to do anything they want to do without government or another person getting in their way. If you went on and heard the rest of the explanation, that's what I was trying to say but-

Speaker 6: Well, by the way--

Nikki Haley: -yes, I should have said slavery right away.

Brian Lehrer: Instead, I hear that second clip and I think no one thinks Haley is a secret supporter of slavery, but the exact way in which she danced around the word and her explanation since reveal a certain conservative take on the Civil War that panders to white privilege today and ignores the legacy of slavery. The racial wealth gap, a six to one white-Black ratio in household worth. According to Federal Reserve, 10 to 1 per Rand Corporation study. She still comes back to her core message being government is getting in the way.

Astead Herndon: Exactly. I think this reveals a person who is trying to calibrate a message that does not lead with the clear factual reason. There's this thing that people do about slavery where the intuitive answers to say the Civil War was about slavery and all the experts will say the Civil War is about slavery but then you'll have a group in the middle who tries to intellectualize their way out of the thing that's right in front of us.

I think that this really speaks to a candidate who is always-- Who has often tried to find the right answer for the Republican coalition. What this question did was really expose how someone who prides themself on straight talk or brands themself as someone who is unafraid can come off as really calibrated and come off as really a me-- Poll-testing her way to the right answer.

I just think that speaks to a larger authenticity problem rather than anything specific. To your point, no one thinks that Nikki Haley's a secret slavery supporter, but we definitely do recognize when someone is unwilling to say something that may make parts of the Republican coalition uncomfortable, and that is not leadership. I think it's interesting the next day when you have Haley was getting questions from voters saying, "Would you disavow-- Would you reject being Donald Trump's number two," and she wouldn't say anything on that front.

That's going to be the through line that's really going to have-- Really going to make things difficult for her at the top levels of the party and even among the Republican base. If they cannot trust you from either one of those sides, it makes it hard to make a coalition. To your point, I definitely think you're right on the facts of it, but I also think this is a politician who, when they're pulled away from those specific talking points, you feel them trying to calibrate the right answer and that's never a good thing.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Equal opportunity for housing, don't let government get in the way of market rents, the expanded childcare tax credit, don't let government get in the way, but they don't want business owners or colleges to have the voluntary right to affirmative action programs and diversity programs. Government can get in people's way about that. There we have to leave it with Astead Herndon, national politics reporter for the New York Times and host of the national politics podcast called The Run Up. You were here on January 5th last year, January 2nd now this year. [chuckling] We're going to have to have you on before January 3rd, 2025.

Astead Herndon: Absolutely.

Brian Lehrer: Talk to you, Astead. Thank you very much for today.

Astead Herndon: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate--

 

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