EPISODE 119: CPAC, Trump and the future of the GOP

Speaker 1 (00:04):

Welcome to the Bill Walton Show, featuring conversations with leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, and thinkers. Fresh perspectives on money, culture, politics, and human flourishing. Interesting people, interesting things.

Bill Walton (00:25):

Welcome to the Bill Walton Show. I’m Bill Walton. And I think all of you living in America probably realized that our ex-president gave a speech on Sunday at the Conservative Action Project, and in it Donald Trump pretty much hinted that he wanted to run for president in 2024. And I wanted to dig into whether I think, we think that’s a good idea, and if it is, what he might need to do to be successful. To help me think this through, I brought in the show’s brain trust, Frank Wazeter, Rich McFadden, Brian McNicoll and Greg Corombos. And together we’re going to figure it out. So let’s, I guess the questions I have is, Trump came back and he announced that he wasn’t going to be starting a third party. He was going to pour all his efforts through the Republican party. So that’s one. He clearly is claiming the mantle is leadership there.

Bill Walton (01:27):

Second thing is he hinted strongly that 2024, he might like to be the guy again. And then the third question I want to dig into is, okay, if he wants to do those things, what does he have to change? What does he have to do differently to be successful? And I think there are a couple things that spring to my mind, but I wanted to get your guys’ input. Hey, Greg, let’s start with you. What do you think about the first two questions, which is, should he lead the Republican party or, Brian, you can jump in. Either one of you wants to jump in.

Greg Corombos (02:01):

I’ll take it, yeah.

Bill Walton (02:02):

Take it.

Greg Corombos (02:03):

Well, I think he is the leader of the Republican party. That’s the way the voters look at him. That’s the way the base looks at him, and the base has not gone anywhere regardless of what happened in November or even what happened in January. So Trump is the leader of the Republican party. There’s no question about it. Ronna McDaniel might have the actual title, but it’s Trump. Now, whether he should be the candidate is a different story. If he’s not the candidate, he’s going to take on the role of king maker, which could be helpful to the Republican party, but it might be a difficult role for him because kingmaker is not front and center all the time, and that’s kind of where he naturally gravitates to.

Greg Corombos (02:40):

I think if he’s honest with himself, he probably should not be the candidate because his negatives are not going to get any lower most likely. Those who didn’t vote for him, didn’t like him, probably are going to take a lot of convincing. If there are some who voted for him in 16, but not 20, they could possibly be one over with some of the kitchen table issues that are already popping up, schools and gas prices and so forth. But Trump’s negatives are high. So if there’s somebody who can take on Trump’s position on the issues, it gets pretty edgy with the media, knows how to defend positions, but doesn’t come across as obnoxious as the people who don’t like him think he is, that might be the better combination.

Brian McNicoll (03:24):

I agree with most of what you said. I think it’s really hard to tell whether he will be the candidate. There’s a lot of stuff that has to happen between then. I also, I watched the speech and I’m not sur if it can be taken that he was hinting that the person would be him who would be the candidate, but it could also be taken that who will it be? Because he was kind of playful with it. Maybe he has some other plan for it that we don’t know. I think, to spend a little time on your third question, I think that his campaign was not well organized. I think that’s, I guess the campaign manager was demoted and then he got into some weird fight in his driveway with no shirt on and he was obviously drunk. And so…

Bill Walton (04:13):

And there’s also rumors he was pulling millions of dollars out of the campaign.

Brian McNicoll (04:17):

Right. And this was at the height of the campaign, this guy’s, how is he sitting at home in Florida drinking beer with no shirt on it? So you had to wonder how effective were they going to be? Because the thing about it is, the people who maintain that there’s nothing wrong with the vote and Biden won legally, they say the problem with Trump was he did not convert those rally crowds into votes. And so I think that’s where the secret is should he want to be the guy who runs again. I think that he is clearly the leader of the party. He will clearly have a hand in determining who it is. And then Greg said, finding someone who could beat Trump without making as many people angry as Trump does, DeSantis looks like probably the closest to that.

Bill Walton (05:10):

If you look at the results of the polls at CPAC, Trump personal approval rating was like 97%. Now this is the base, this is the hard core that were at that meeting. And people agreed with it. Yeah. Ron Paul won the straw poll there a couple of times. People agreed with his policies about 95%, but only about 65% thought he should be the candidate. And so there is that delta, but the other two who got votes in that venue were Ron DeSantis, from Florida, and Kristi Noem, both governors that led states that resisted the lockdown and did just fine, thank you. And so that’s kind of… And I think you’ve got to contrast that way to the way Trump handled lockdown, which is, I don’t think he handled it very well. Rich, Frank, you want to weigh in.

Rich McFadden (06:12):

I think the guys have kind of nailed it. I do think all the people at the rallies voted for Trump. And I think that’s the problem because you had the problem getting everybody else to vote for him because he’s just brash and edgy. The thing Trump did that was great was he peeled the curtain back so that everybody can see what’s behind the curtain now. And that’s not, they’re not going to be able to cover that back up. So now that he’s done that, I think it’s time for him to be the kingmaker because he obviously is running the party, whether they want to admit it or not. And I do think the DeSantis and Noem or Noem and DeSantis should be the ticket, at least at this point. We got a long ways to go, because they did a great job navigating through this thing. Their states are running really well at a really tumultuous time. And I think Trump should really move along and invest his money in fighting big tech and fighting big media.

Bill Walton (07:08):

Well, I’ve met them both, and I think Kristi Noem has got a charisma edge, but she’s running a tiny state compared to what Ron’s done in Florida, given all the arrows pointed at him was pretty strong. The organization piece is something that I find he’d have to do a lot better because it’s still, even in the speech on Sunday, it’s all about Donald Trump and always has been. I worked for him in transition and he really is always, we’re seeing this whole operation as kind of like running his family real estate business. He’s got the kids and he’s got his deal lawyers and he’s got a few other people, but it’s always very entrepreneurial day to day to day to day. And I don’t think we… I mean, there’s some arguments about whether there was fraud in the election, but I think flat out he got out worked and he disdained building organization that would go into those battleground states and deal with what we knew what was going on, which was the lawyers, the Democrat lawyers were swarming of states to make sure that the rules tilted in that direction.

Bill Walton (08:22):

I didn’t see Sunday night, anything that suggested he’d learned anything.

Brian McNicoll (08:30):

I think that I did see something that he learned. That was… For one thing is, they wrote a speech for him and he came pretty close to delivering it. There were a few riffs, but there was a lot more discipline to sticking to that script than he usually shows. And the other thing I think he learned is to be very clear about setting out the arguments. He eviscerated Biden. I mean, of all the things that are in that speech, you go in there and look at it. I mean, he makes a compelling case that Biden is a disaster as president, which is ultimately going to be the job in four years is to expose him as a failure. And Trump had it lined up. He had the facts, he laid, that was a pretty disciplined-

Rich McFadden (09:17):

But who’s going to care? Who’s going to care? The CPAC crowd and the Trump fans. The media is not going to cover it, so nobody else is going to ever see it and nobody else is ever going to care. That’s why I think we need this DeSantis, Noem, Noem, DeSantis ticket so that we can get some of that crowd back that we lost because Trump drove them away.

Bill Walton (09:41):

Who covered his speech at CPAC? I had to find it online. I got it on the-

Rich McFadden (09:46):

I mean, it’s online everywhere, but Greg, did you see it on any of the major news networks?

Greg Corombos (09:51):

C-SPAN is where I saw it. So I don’t know if Fox maybe carried a bit of it. I’m sure the others didn’t, although CNN and MSNBC were talking, doing fact checks, because I think they’re more addicted to Trump than the people who went to CPAC.

Bill Walton (10:04):

Well, if you’ve got a count on CSPAN for your coverage, you got a problem.

Brian McNicoll (10:10):

They had 31 million people. That’s a pretty big crowd of people watching a speech from a guy who-

Bill Walton (10:18):

31 million counted on all… How do they count that?

Brian McNicoll (10:21):

Across all the streaming platforms, that doesn’t even count CSPAN, or I guess there were a couple of other, Newsmax, OAN and Fox carried some of it.

Bill Walton (10:32):

Well, I should have said that I think the guy’s great. I find him highly entertaining, but I also think he’s-

Rich McFadden (10:39):

Oh, he’s entertaining.

Bill Walton (10:40):

And I like his policies and his vanity doesn’t trouble me that much, but it does trouble me that he may have not learned about building an organization. And the other thing he did was he named names. All the people that he felt had betrayed him, he called them out. Liz Cheney, Mitch McConnell.

Rich McFadden (11:03):

Mike Pence.

Bill Walton (11:04):

Did he… [crosstalk 00:11:06]

Rich McFadden (11:05):

No, he didn’t, but he made it clear that if Pence showed up at CPAC, he wasn’t coming.

Brian McNicoll (11:13):

He called out the six senators who voted for the impeachment, which he should do. And he called out members of Congress. But he didn’t go after Pence.

Bill Walton (11:29):

I’m afraid. I actually know a lot about the Pence Trump appearance at CPAC dynamics, but I can’t tell you because I’m on the ACU board. But what did you think about Pence’s nonappearance?

Greg Corombos (11:47):

Well, I think Mike Pence has decided a couple of things. Number one, I think after January 20th, he’s not necessarily going to be Donald Trump’s greatest defender like he was for four years. I think the reports of his great frustration with what happened on January 6th pretty much reflect where he’s at. You see the jobs that he’s taken in the private sector and the think tank world with the Heritage Foundation. I think he’s doing some stuff with Young Americans for Freedom. Mike Pence has always been more of a policy guy than a raw politics guy, and I think that’s where he more naturally sees himself. And if you look at the straw polls at CPAC, he barely registered a pulse, even with Trump not on the list. So I think he knows that based on what happened at the end of Trump’s term and just where the base is right now that he’s not going to be the guy. So I think we’ve seen Mike Pence on the ballot for the last time.

Brian McNicoll (12:41):

I was trying to… He says he talks to Trump twice a week and they have a real good relationship. So, I think, Mike Pence is a party builder is what he really is. And I think he’s useful still to Trump and that way you’re not attached at the hip to him. You’re doing, like you say, Young Americans for Freedom, Heritage, other people that you can talk to move them in that direction.

Bill Walton (13:06):

Well, that’s a very interesting idea. Pence understands the party organization, understands what’s needs what needs to be done in terms of infrastructure, and Trump doesn’t, A, doesn’t know, B, doesn’t really care. And that’s just not his temperament. That’s not where he wants to spend his time. So I mean, Pence could be… Although I think Pence doesn’t want to play that subordinate a role after four years as vice-president.

Frank Wazeter (13:31):

Probably tired. Wants to be out of the limelight.

Bill Walton (13:37):

He carried an awful lot of water for Donald Trump and deserves our appreciation for that. But yeah, he left himself, Greg, as you pointed out, not really viable as the next guy in line. What do we do about this cancel culture? The one thing that Trump did in 2015, 2016 was he used Twitter masterfully. And Jack Dorsey… Is it Jack Dorsey or Jack Dempsey? I get my boxer confused with my tech guy. Anyway, Jack Dorsey has canceled Donald Trump’s Twitter account. What does he do? What do all the rest of us do if we can’t get our message out? If he can’t get his message out?

Frank Wazeter (14:28):

I think he’s effectively neutered. I mean, Twitter’s basically won the presidency since 2008.

Bill Walton (14:37):

What do you mean by that? You mean Obama in 2008?

Frank Wazeter (14:40):

Yeah.

Bill Walton (14:40):

Okay.

Frank Wazeter (14:43):

So I mean, because Obama’s real big thing over McCain originally was that he was, he got his message out there. Because back in 2008, the social media thing, Facebook, Twitter and all that was not really embraced at the scale it is today. It wasn’t in the form that it is today. And Obama was kind of the first presidential candidate, probably by hazard of the times, that we saw really to go all in on it. And that was a major, major contributing factor to Trump gaining momentum. I mean, at one point he had like, what? About a third of the population of the United States following him on Twitter. That’s huge, huge power. Now that it’s been taken away, it’s hard to hear anything about him at all.

Frank Wazeter (15:32):

My feeds have been silent. It’s radio silence, there’s not sounds going on. So they could be very, very difficult to gain the kind of momentum that you need without it, or without an equivalent of that. Because I think, a lot of guys probably went with him because he was the guy bringing in the lead, so to speak. And when you bring in the leads, you write the rules and he could write the rules. And without that, I don’t know. It’s hard.

Brian McNicoll (16:03):

I mean the networks, MSM cannot quit Trump. He’s obviously-

Rich McFadden (16:10):

He’s total crack to them. They can’t quit him.

Brian McNicoll (16:13):

So I’m not worried about him getting his word out. Now what Frank says, there’s merit to it because it’s their characterization of his word as opposed to his word. But someone’s going to say, hey, there’s 85, 88 million people, whatever it ended up being, waiting on him to land somewhere and someone’s going to want those 88 million, Parler, whoever, on their site. It’ll coalesce somewhere and the media will not be able to-

Rich McFadden (16:42):

I say, he needs to focus on that now. He needs to get behind Parler and help there become a… Because there has to be… I mean, we watched the government, we watched him break up the telephone companies because they’re too powerful. Well, I mean, when are they going to look at big tech and go, listen, there’s just too much power here and a couple of different hands and we need alternatives for the audience, for the consumer.

Bill Walton (17:10):

But with the Democrat Congress, they’re not going to break up big tech. I mean, they’re on the same side, they’re on the same team.

Brian McNicoll (17:19):

Here’s the thing about it. They want to be regulated. That’s what Twitter and Facebook are doing. They are daring the government, they’re goading them into regulating them, because they regulate them creates barriers to entry for everyone else because whatever the rules are going to be, they’re the only ones who are going to be able to afford them.

Bill Walton (17:37):

Yeah. Well that happened with the financial companies after Dodd-Frank. Jamie Diamond and Lloyd Blankfein at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan bragged about the regulatory moat around their business model saying after all these rules got put into place, ain’t anybody going to come into our business because they just can’t afford it. So you’re saying… Well, the flip side, people talk about breaking it up, I sort of like the idea of not breaking them up, having a real regulation, and then we can watch them at least. We got three or four big ones that we can pay attention to, but I don’t know. It’s a thorny one. Greg, what do you think?

Greg Corombos (18:20):

I think competition is the better way to go here, like Rich was talking about. Either invest and try to build up an existing alternative where you know that the minders aren’t going to crack down on specific policy positions or political thought, the way that Twitter and Facebook and all the others are doing. Because trying to silence others is a lot harder than creating an alternative viewpoint that people can hear in an easily accessible way. So more speech rather than less speech is the way we want to go here. And like you said, Bill, you’re not going to get what the Republicans and a lot of conservatives want. And like Brian said, it’s going to be counterproductive anyway. So creating an alternative where people can go and people will know that they can find that content there is the way to go.

Bill Walton (19:07):

I don’t understand the technology, I know there’s all these servers, billions of dollars worth of server investment that the existing major social media companies have got in place. Can Parler build itself to the scale to be a legitimate competitor to Twitter?

Rich McFadden (19:25):

It has found somebody, I think Russians, that will, create servers for them because Amazon and all the other big left wing tech companies will not serve their data. So, I think they’ve had to go out of the country to get servers, but I’m not sure of that. But yeah. I mean, once they get servers, then they’re back online and they are back online, from what I understand. I tried them the other day and my account did actually open up, but I couldn’t see any content.

Bill Walton (19:59):

Are you using it?

Rich McFadden (20:01):

Uh huh

Bill Walton (20:01):

Are you using Parler?

Rich McFadden (20:03):

I have a Parler account and I do follow a lot of our hosts on Parler. Sarah Carter and Dana Lash and all of them obviously use Parler big time and they were shut down. But it’s slowly trying to make a comeback, but that’s why you need a guy like Trump to come in there and just knock down doors, get some money behind it and build it up so that there is some competition.

Greg Corombos (20:29):

The one problem I think that you’re going to have though, sorry, Frank, is that when you’re on Twitter, at least Twitter as it existed until recently, you had very different ideas and you could respond and exchange and it got nasty of course, pretty quickly on a lot of those exchanges. But the key for the right, whether it’s Parler or some other entity, is not to make it an echo chamber, but to be able to respond to other ideas and not just have one side constantly being promoted. You have to know what the other side is to have an effective counterargument to it. And so hopefully that’ll be part of it, the bigger it gets because you’re going to get more content and more ideas.

Rich McFadden (21:03):

I agree. And I think, Twitter is very, very left, but the right is on Twitter to combat the ideas and the thoughts that are presented there. I think you would see the same thing in Parler. I think if Parler grew, you would see the left coming there to pick fights and spoil conversations and cancel it and end the conversation. So I think that it would grow on both sides and hopefully it would be predominantly right with some left, just like Twitter is predominantly left with some right.

Bill Walton (21:35):

Frank, you’re our tech guy. Are there alternatives already starting to Parler? What’s out there for conservatives to communicate with each other?

Frank Wazeter (21:48):

Well, between Rumble and Parler, those are the biggest ones that come up that I hear about consistently. The problem with these endeavors is that you need two components. You need a lot of money because server costs are operating on a logarithmic scale, meaning going from 10 to 20 is 10 times more difficult than going from one to 10 and all the way up. Because the more people you have communicating at the same time, just compounds all the demands on the server, meaning that everybody is a consumer… That’s when people get lag and they get upset and leave the thing. And then the second most important thing is you need a movement, you need some catalyst to drive people out of their comfort zone, away from a Facebook or a Twitter or a YouTube or whatever it may be, which Parler had.

Frank Wazeter (22:49):

And then, they kind of got the hammer on it, probably because it was getting a little bit too successful in that sense. So on the one hand you need that kind of extreme niche momentum move that just shifts millions of people all at once, or at least within a very short span of time, over to them. But then at the same time, you also have to do what Greg is saying is that you can’t be so one-sided that it’s just this big echo chamber and it’s just one crowd, because then you’ve just kind of capped your market. So it’s a tough ask. I mean, it’s certainly possible, but I think you need a lot of big name support.

Rich McFadden (23:27):

Listen, look at Clubhouse. Okay. Clubhouse has been on fire and it just started last summer and it is growing and they knew how to market it. They had an idea and Clubhouse, if you’re not familiar with it, is voice only. No text, no video. It does not record anything and keep it. It’s live, and when it’s over, it’s over and it’s just conversations about anything and everything. And it is very, very left and it’s very entrepreneurial. It’s a cool place. It’s a cool site. I get a lot of good podcast information there, a lot of good conversations, but they built this thing quickly. These people were smart. It’s two San Francisco guys. They went out and got some hip hop stars to kind of get behind it and make it popular on Twitter and everything. And then boom, here it is. So if they can do that-

Bill Walton (24:26):

Marc Andreessen’s funds behind this, isn’t it? He’s one of the kingpins up there.

Rich McFadden (24:33):

Oh is he?

Bill Walton (24:34):

I want to swing back to, so let’s put this on it to do list, to figure out, maybe the five of us should build it. I’ll rely on somebody else-

Rich McFadden (24:44):

You’re the guy with the checkbook.

Bill Walton (24:45):

Yeah well. One of the things that the conservative movement lacks is the billionaires willing to fund that sort of thing. You can name Bezos, you can name Zuckerberg. You can have the guys at Google, you can name Bloomberg. You can name Tom Stier, on and on, George Soros of course. They’re putting hundreds of millions of dollars into stuff and I can’t think of anybody in the conservative world that’s willing to do a fraction of that. So there’s a mismatch here. We really are kind of fighting against the Redcoats in this regard because we’re working with homemade rifles and stuff like that. And they’ve got Howitzers. Anyway, I want to circle back to one thing before we close up here. Donald Trump was naming names. He called all these people out. Can he control the Republican party while he’s also trying to primary Mitch McConnell or Liz Cheney? I mean is a purification effort a good idea, or should he try to build coalitions?

Brian McNicoll (25:54):

You pick your targets, and yeah, some purification is a positive thing. Liz Cheney, Murkowski, he talks a big game about Collins, but I mean, she has a formula that works for her and she’s with you most of the time. But the people who are directly working against you, Mitt Romney, I could see them getting targeted and I can see that builds energy in the party. It’s not, you’re talking about there’s got to be a movement that gets people interested. That’s your thing that gets people interested.

Greg Corombos (26:33):

Interesting to see what the dynamic is when some of these seats are up. I mean, Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins just got reelected. Mitch McConnell is going to be 84, I think, when his term is up and that’s assuming he even runs again. Mitt Romney, I think, is going to be 77 in 2024 when his seat is up. Who knows if he’ll want another six years of what he’s been through. So he’s only been through two at this point. So, we’ll see. I think watching some of these House races of, was it the 10 Republicans roughly that voted for impeachment, they’ll be up sooner, as will lisa Murkowski in Alaska. I think that’s going to be a very interesting primary to watch there, especially as Republicans try to figure out a way to carve out a majority when they have a lot of open seats to defend like Ohio and Pennsylvania, possibly Wisconsin and some others. So 2022, especially in the House side, I think is going to be the referendum on the people and how they voted on impeachment and conviction.

Bill Walton (27:29):

Okay. Let’s wind up with playing risky business. What’s 2022 look like? What happens in the House? What happens in the Senate? And maybe speeding up to something sooner, what happens in Virginia and the governor’s race this year of 2021?

Brian McNicoll (27:53):

Virginia, there’s some, I don’t know about the governor’s race, but there’s momentum to flip the legislature. I think that’s where the Republicans are focused and probably rightfully so. They don’t really have a great candidate for governor yet. 2022, the House, there were only about eight or nine seats. That’s really where Trump can play a huge role. Go on the road for House candidates, hold the big rallies in House races. That’s hard for the Democrats to match no matter who they are. And it would not take much to flip the House. If you come up with a good candidate in Georgia, you’d flip Warnock, you could flip the Senate. So, Warnock is up in 2022, even though he just won. He’s filling, he’s completing a term for someone else.

Greg Corombos (28:41):

Yeah, that’s correct. That was the Johnny Isaacson seat. I think Brian is right about the legislature being the Republican’s best opportunity. The Democrats did really well in ’17 and ’19 on the House of delegates side. And so that’s going to be their chance. I don’t see Virginia as even a purple state statewide anymore. And there’s nobody super prominent on their side yet. So the Democratic candidate’s going to have to fall on their face, and at this point it looks like it’s going to be Terry McAuliffe, who’s been around the block enough times to probably not do that. I know there’s a lot of…

Rich McFadden (29:15):

He’s a pit bull.

Greg Corombos (29:16):

He is a pit bull. He’s raising money at a record pace. And I haven’t heard a lot from his likely primary opponents like Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor, who was supposed to be the heir apparent until the allegations against him. So I think Republicans will probably take a big win if they can get back the House of delegates. And that’s probably still a big if. As of 2022, Republicans won a lot of House seats in ’20 by a very slim margin. So they’re going to have to hold all or most of those and pick up some that barely got away from them. But I think that’s their chance to stave off potential disaster. Because like I said a moment ago, on the Senate side, they’re having to defend so much. They could pick up Georgia with Warnock having to run again. Arizona, Mark Kelly has to run again. That’s still the McCain seat from 2016.

Bill Walton (30:06):

But did the Democrat voters really know what they were voting for this last time? I mean, they wouldn’t let Biden out of the basement, then they didn’t campaign on any issues. And I’ve got about 15, 16 pages of stuff that Biden’s announced in the first five, six weeks. Environment, abortion, the borders. I mean, it’s radical, radical left stuff that I don’t think most of the people that voted for Biden really voted for that.

Brian McNicoll (30:33):

I don’t think Biden knows it either.

Greg Corombos (30:40):

And that’s why midterms usually go against the president’s party, right? Because they promise to be this middle of the road, unite the world kind of guy. And then they do what the base and the donors, the most loudest donors want. And that’s not what they promised and so there’s a backlash. Pretty much every president has seen it except for Bush in ’02 in recent memory. And so there could be some of that, but a lot of the states where there are open Senate seats are states that, narrowly, but still went blue in 2020. So it’s going to be a big fight for Republicans. And if they lose any Senate seats, especially more than two, they’re going to have to win the House, because if there’s 53, 54 Democrats and Joe Biden, say goodbye to the filibuster.

Bill Walton (31:21):

Well say goodbye to the 50 states and welcome to the district of Republica, whatever word they’re going to come up with, the district of Columbia as a… My God, you’ve sent me into a spin, Greg. You’ve really depressed me. This is the reason I don’t like doing many shows about politics. It’s an unhappy place.

Greg Corombos (31:45):

It hasn’t happened yet and the backlash usually comes. So there you go. It’s far from certain.

Brian McNicoll (31:51):

I’m sorry. Right now, a substantial part of the momentum is on our side. It’s going to stay that way, but there’s a lot of sticker shock. Eight or 9% of the voters said, if they’d have known about the Hunter Biden’s laptop, they would have voted for Trump.

Rich McFadden (32:10):

You guys are so happy. You guys are optimists. This last election, there was a lot of shady stuff that went on in the voting polls, not widespread election, but there was a lot of shady stuff from state attorney generals and county clerks and all this other thing. And as a friend of mine told me the other day, until we figure that out, they’re going to win every single time because they control the rules. And then the other thing is, we mentioned the six billionaires that are out there, just funding everything. Soros has bought and paid for Virginia lock, stock and barrel. And until somebody else comes in with a bigger checkbook, he owns it. Sorry.

Bill Walton (32:52):

I fear you’re right. And HR1, have you guys gotten into that? I mean, that basically would enact a legislative election process that’s identical to 2020 with all the bad stuff.

Brian McNicoll (33:07):

None of the good stuff. No voter ID, no nothing.

Bill Walton (33:10):

So that’s good. And what is the prospect for that passing? Have they voted for it in the House yet?

Brian McNicoll (33:17):

It’s passed the House.

Bill Walton (33:18):

Okay.

Brian McNicoll (33:18):

And it’s dicey in the Senate, but they just hold the party line, they pass.

Greg Corombos (33:25):

They need to get to 60. There’s no tax issue involved. So they need to get to 60, which I think is unlikely.

Bill Walton (33:30):

Oh, they do need to go to 60 for that one? In the Senate?

Greg Corombos (33:35):

Yes.

Bill Walton (33:36):

Well, that’s the first good news I’ve heard in the last minute or so.

Greg Corombos (33:39):

You’re welcome.

Bill Walton (33:42):

Because I agree with Rich and the other pundits that this is the stuff that went on in the 2020 election was really nasty. Well, maybe we should just wrap up. Anybody got any final thoughts, any words of wisdom for the week?

Brian McNicoll (33:58):

Well, the poll, the CPAC poll was 55 for Trump. It was 21 for DeSantis. Everyone else was in single digits. Anyone who said… First of all, the poll was taken in Orlando, so he has a little home field advantage. And second, anybody who’s saying they will vote for DeSantis, will vote for Trump if he’s on the ballot. So you really can say that that 55 is actually 70 or better.

Bill Walton (34:25):

Okay. Well guys, thank you. This is really, this is very interesting stuff. Frank Wazeter, Rich McFadden, Brian McNicoll, Greg Corombos, thanks guys. And we’ll probably come back together next three or four weeks to dig into something else. So thanks for joining in and thank you for listening and watching. And we’ll talk with you next time.

Bill Walton (34:51):

I hope you enjoyed the conversation. Want more? Click the subscribe button or head over to thebillwaltonshow.com to choose from over a hundred episodes. You can also learn more about our guests on our interesting people page. And send us your comments. We read every one and your thoughts help us guide the show. If it’s easier for you to listen, check out our podcast page and subscribe there. In return, we’ll keep you informed about what’s true, what’s right, and what’s next. Thanks for joining.