Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
BP added more than $130 billion to the U.S. economy over the past two years by making investments from coast to coast. Investments like building EV charging hubs in Washington state and starting up new infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico. It's and, not or. See what doing both means for energy nationwide at bp.com slash investing in America.
OK, so we're entering CPAC Central. That's what it's called? CPAC Central. Every year at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, there seems to be an unspoken competition of who can stand out the most. People wear wild outfits. This year, I saw a Trump ball gown, $400 MAGA sneakers, a man carrying his pet cat around his shoulders.
But the thing that I remember most from CPAC this year was a little booth on the ground floor of the conference center. So it's a virtualized pinball game that, oh my goodness, has different things signifying January 6th. So fake news, stop the steal, peaceful protest, Ashley Babbitt's murder, political prisoners, left ramp awards, double freedom. A custom pinball game.
built to memorialize the January 6th insurrection. I mean, I actually use the word insurrection a little bit tongue-in-cheek because I don't think it was an insurrection. Though the creator, Jonathan Linos, takes issue with that word.
To him, the game is a reminder of the great lie of the 2020 election. I don't like losing, but I hate to be cheated.
And that's what I was reacting to. It was a visceral reaction. And to me, it's a reminder that for a lot of the CPAC crowd, Donald Trump isn't just the former president or even the next potential president. He's the rightful president. Because 2020 is not over. The election is still stolen. What's your trust level? Can you rate it from 1 to 10 in November? A 1 to 10, probably a 4. What were you at going into 2020? Oh, 9, 10.
You're saying that's what's changed for you? Yeah, absolutely. So with Trump marching toward the Republican nomination and a rematch with President Biden in November, I came to this convention center outside Washington, D.C. for a little temperature check on election denial. Has MAGA moved on from 2020? Or is the only result they'll trust in November a result where Trump wins? Also, I would love, can I try it? And of course, I had to try the game. Let's go.
Mail-in ballots, voting machines, drop boxes. You see that up there? From the New York Times, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Runner. You see this? This is called skill. Okay. Here's the thing. Ever since the 2020 election, when Donald Trump used his platform to spread falsehoods about the electoral system, Republicans have been in a pickle.
On one hand, Trump and his allies have continued to call the voting process corrupt, rigged against him, and sown doubts about everything from early and mail-in ballots to electronic voting machines. On the other hand, Trump is running in the 2024 election. And if he's going to win, Republicans need as many people as possible to participate in that very system, however allegedly corrupt.
And this dilemma is of particular importance to the Republican National Committee, the party's leadership group, which has had a bumpy relationship with Trump and is often tasked with leading efforts on voting mechanisms and election integrity. So after playing some pinball, we headed to the main hall at CPAC to hear a speech that was particularly relevant to that problem. Hey, CPAC, how are we doing today?
Quick question, where are my MAGA, ultra MAGA patriots at today? And when we walked in, Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, was on stage. Well, it's great to be back with you guys here again at CPAC. This is always such a treat to come. But I'll tell you guys, we have our work cut out for us, don't we? Laura Trump is currently running for RNC co-chair, hoping to be one of the leaders taking over for Ronna McDaniel.
who officially said this week that she'll step down next month. So some of you may have heard that I've had the great honor of being endorsed by my father-in-law, President Trump, to co-chair the Republican National Committee. Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Lara, and she's expected to coast through the election, easily win the position.
And continue Trump's complete capture of the Republican Party. Well, I'll tell you guys, this is a position for which I never imagined I would run. But I also never imagined that our country would be in such dire straits.
It is time for change. It is time to fight. And it is time to win, ladies and gentlemen. Okay? She spent a lot of her speech talking about how important a Donald Trump victory would be. And let me just assure everyone here of one thing. What happened in 2020 cannot and will not ever happen again. We must adapt.
And we must fight fire, not with fire, but with dynamite. We must and we will build the strongest, most secure election operation that this party has ever seen. That's how we have to do this, folks. She underscored election security. But we got to adapt a little.
Then, she made a clear turn. As Republicans, I get it, we like to go vote on election day. It's exciting to be a part of that day. It's exciting to fill out the ballot for the future leader of our country. Heck, you even get a little sticker and then you can take a photo and post it on social media. I know, it's very fun. But the truth is, if we want to compete with the Democrats, we cannot wait until election day.
If we want to compete and win, we must embrace early voting. She advocated for early voting and some of the things that Republicans and Donald Trump point to as the cheating that led to the 2020 election being so-called stolen. We need so many votes banked for Donald J. Trump that we're not playing catch up.
Now, Laura Trump was saying these are actually the ways that we're going to win. Every single day up to and on November 5th, because this November, every single legal vote matters. She was asking CPAC to trust the system this time around. And that caught my attention. Thank you, guys. God bless you. Thank you. So after that speech, I wanted to check in with some of the leaders at CPAC.
People with large audiences who once pushed the election lie to ask if they were thinking about 2024 in the same way. Can you introduce yourself? Hi, Jack Posobiec, senior editor of Human Events and the host of Human Events Daily. I found Jack Posobiec, the far-right political activist and commentator. He was one of the biggest names to promote election denial.
But you might also know his more recent work, spreading the conspiracy that Taylor Swift is a government scythe, planning to get Biden reelected.
I want to get to what, you know, Laura Trump was saying on the stage yesterday. She was saying that Republicans need to embrace early voting, that Republicans need to embrace ballot harvesting even. I wonder what you thought about this. Not just I know who you want to win, but how are you all going to win? That question seems more open, even among the people here. Not everyone agrees on that. Well, I agree. There's been there is a level of consternation, I believe, among a lot of conservatives at sort of the
What they would say, we're conservatives, you know, we like conserving things. And so for a lot of conservatives, even myself included, that having one election day where people vote in person with ID checks is something that's very, very important to a lot of conservatives and something I certainly would hope to strive for. That being said...
In many of the states that are going up for this election, we do not have those things. We have a new system, a system that by and large came in or at least was greatly expanded during 2020 because of COVID rules and universal mail-in ballots, early voting greatly expanded as well as the drop boxes. And I believe firmly that the Republicans, conservatives, whatever you want to call it, must embrace
any and all of the above opportunities to vote, vote early, get your ballots in, get them in the drop boxes. And I say, hey, if, you know, in California, you know, they started collecting ballots in churches. They started collecting ballots in organized drives. I think those are the types of things that I'd like to look at. And I'd certainly love to talk with the RNC and, you know, looking at ways to legally use these ballot opportunities for the Republicans as well as the Democrats have embraced it.
I mean, the problem here is that Donald Trump continues to assail them, right? Like Donald Trump continues to say that mail-in voting or ballot harvesting is corrupt, even. How do you all create those opportunities to win, as you're talking about, with the leading candidate saying, don't do it?
Well, certainly I think that if Laura Trump is able to get in there at the RNC and look at the RNC's current swath of operations when it comes to ballots, we all know obviously she's going to speak to her father-in-law about this and about what the plans are to go forward. I think everyone knows that she's a big Trump supporter, of course. And so I think that if he sees the confidence with her operations and her plan for the way forward, I think we'll get him to fully embrace it and fully be behind it.
They just think y'all will work on them eventually. You'll think you'll get them there by November. I guess it seems like a big thing to overcome before November. You're confident that you can flip that?
Well, I think, again, we'll be focusing on key states. So we don't have to focus on it for everywhere in the nation, four or five key states that we're looking at, of course, then expanding that out to, so you have your hard swing states, your soft swing states. Obviously, there are places like Michigan, places like Minnesota, even Maryland with their Senate race that are now coming on board for the Republicans in ways that even, frankly, I didn't even know that Maryland would be on board. So I think that's a huge pickup for Republicans.
Look, there's going to be some growing pains with any change, but I'm fully committed to, like I said before, any and all of the above forms of ballot harvesting, ballot chasing, mail-in ballots, drop boxes. This is absolutely where we need to go. And I've said as such to the president himself.
Hi, how are you? My name's Ested. I host the New York Times Politics Podcast. You got five minutes to talk to us? You're the New York Times Podcast? Yeah, we're the New York Times Politics Podcast. You want to talk to me? And I want to talk to you, yeah. What do you want to know? First, I want you to introduce yourself so we can have a floor. I'm Mark Levin. I've been on your New York Times bestseller list ten bucks in a row. Can you tell me what you do? I know that's an obvious question. Oh, I do? Yes. I eat. I go to the restroom and then I eat.
Mark Levin is a very popular conservative radio host. And some of those Times bestsellers have titles like Liberty and Tyranny and The Democrat Party Hates America. He's also been outspoken in claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and advocated for people to, quote, fight on January 6th.
One of the things we're really interested in here is what should the RNC do around the question of how to vote and the larger question of how to win? That's a good question. As a philosophical matter, I don't like any of this stuff. But the states get to decide. So the blue states are developing all these new techniques for voting, the least of which is actually showing up and voting. And if Republicans intend to win, they have to do the same thing and be better at it. Look at this election in New York.
The Democrats banked their early votes. You had a snowstorm. Republicans didn't turn on their numbers and they lost the seat. So I don't like it, but it's the nature of the beast. And so sometimes you got to do what you don't like. Yeah, I'm interested in that because obviously Donald Trump has not taken that tactic. He's called it corrupt. And even as the RNC has gotten closer to trying to embrace things like that, he's stayed away from it. Does he have to change that language to have a better chance of winning in November?
Now, you're interviewing me, right? I am. Okay. You can ask the president himself, but I think I've heard him say, we got to get out early, we got to vote early, and so forth. But that's my view. Just my last question would be like, if you could distill what you think this election will be about, where would it be won and lost, and who do you think will decide it?
That's a lot of questions there. Yeah, I'm just asking you to predict the whole thing. Well, it's going to be turnout, as it always is. I ignore all the polls because they're not only almost always wrong, but what's the point? What will the election be about? What do you think the core issues that are going to be decided? I think it is going to be immigration. I think it is going to be dinner table issues. But I also think it's going to be bigger than that for a lot of people. A lot of us here think we're right on the precipice of losing our country.
And we blame the Democrat Party and what Biden is doing by executive fiat, what he's doing on the border by executive fiat, what he's done to women's sports by executive fiat. The enormous amount of spending. And by the way, the Democrats aren't alone in that. The Republicans too, driving up the debt, the interest. People now know what that means with inflation. So this is going to be a very meaningful election. You know, some elections are more important than others. But to people like me,
This is a doozy. Thank you. We really appreciate your time. No problem at all. Have a great day. Thank you for your integrity and asking questions that I think are very interesting. I try. I try. Thank you. I appreciate it. You should listen to our show. We have a lot of conservative... It's called The Run-Up. Yeah, The Run-Up. You should check it out. The Run-Up. Thank you. Thank you. I will. I do every now and then. Jack Posobiec and Mark Levin have considerable influence.
When they talk, conservatives listen. So it's notable that they, like Lara Trump, seem to be pleading with the former president and his base to accept all the ways it's possible to vote. But I was skeptical of how that message was landing, especially among Trump's base, and especially at CPAC, where the 2020 election conspiracies are still popular.
We talked to you last year. Remember that? No. Where are you from? We're from the New York Times. We did the podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. So I wanted to talk with one of the loudest voices associated with Trump's election lies. Good. Can you introduce yourself again for the microphone? Mike Lindell. You might remember Mike Lindell for a lot of reasons. He's the CEO of MyPillow, a close ally of Donald Trump. And we interviewed him last year at CPAC.
the same year he ran for RNC chair against Ronald McDaniel. But most notably, he's an outspoken critic of electronic voting machines. Lindell said he spent more than $40 million on his cause, though recently he said he only asked $10,000 to his name. How are things going these days? Well, ever since I came out with the plan to secure our elections in August, which is at the lindellplan.com, I've been attacked and my company's been attacked more than any time in history.
I remember last time you were saying how you faced a lot of attacks for your previous advocacy, but it seems like things have ramped up in the last three, four years. They've ramped it up because it's not about flipping the 2020 election. I want to get rid of the electronic voting machines and go to paper ballots and count. That's what we're at now. I have the perfect plan laid out. We've got to have fair and secure elections, and that's what we're doing. My plan, I have over 300,000 people on the ground in all 50 states.
I saw an article in the Associated Press recently that said that, you know, your advocacy has cost you financially and that you hadn't worked. All I've left is a pickup truck and my house I live in. I remember you saying last year that you didn't care. I wouldn't change a thing. Is that still where you are? Yeah, absolutely. We're trying to save the country here.
You know, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because there does seem to be a little bit of a split emerging in terms of how people should vote for November. I heard Laura Trump, you know, who might be the next co-chair of the RNC, saying she wants Republicans to vote. Almost booed, didn't she? I was curious about what you thought about that because... 100% she's wrong. 100%. Not 99%. 100% wrong. You need to vote same day. I know everything about this. I've studied for three years and put everything I have into it.
The early voting and all that mail-in voting and stuff has to go. And if you're a Republican or whoever you are, if you're a Democrat, it doesn't matter. If you're a person out there and you want your vote to have the least way of getting it stalled is on election day. From Lindell's perspective, what Laura Trump was proposing was not only a mistake for the Republican Party, but also a departure from the vision of the party he helped create.
The RNC passed a resolution, and in that resolution, same day voting, paper ballots, hand counting, precinct level, and voter ID. That resolution passed, ready for this, 168 to 0. So anyone out there that's with the RNC or anybody thinking about running on the RNC that says let's vote early and all this other rubbish...
And the latest blow to Lindell's cause.
A judge recently gave him 30 days to pay $5 million to a software expert who disproved Lindell's claims that the 2020 election was stolen. But Lindell isn't ready to give up on the fight, not in the legal cases.
and not in the Republican Party leadership. You guys, you've got to go to paper ballots, hand counted. I can keep taking bullets. I don't care. I'm never going to stop talking about trying to save our country with paper ballots, hand counted, and everybody vote same day. Don't listen to anyone on that stage that says anything other than that. You don't care about the money, you're losing.
What do I do? I won't have a country anyway. I'm out 40 million. You know what I have left? My pickup truck and the house I lived in when it was started. And people say to me all the time, would you change anything? Do you regret anything? No. What I need now is people to donate into the lyndaleplan.com to finish what we're starting. We're 90% there. When all these elections, you guys will be thanking me for still having a job two years from now. We're going, wow.
What a concept. Paper ballots, hand counted. We got rid of the electronic crooked voting machine. Beautiful. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time, man. I appreciate it. I talked to Lindell at one far end of the conference center. Episobic and Levin on the complete opposite side. It felt like the perfect image to represent where they stood on the issue. Far apart, with compromise difficult to imagine. But how are the attendees of CPAC thinking about their vote
And if they can trust it in 2024, that, plus Donald Trump, after the break. This podcast is supported by USA for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. In Ethiopia, Sudan, and across the Horn of Africa, millions of people face catastrophic hunger and extreme heat. The situation is dire. UNHCR is on the ground providing food, water, shelter, and medical care. But funds are running low. With your help, UNHCR can make a difference.
Please make your tax-deductible donation now. Just $25 can feed a family with nutritious fruits and vegetables for an entire month. Visit at unrefugees.org slash hunger to give now. I'm Julian Barnes. I'm an intelligence reporter at The New York Times. I try to find out what the U.S. government is keeping secret.
Governments keep secrets for all kinds of reasons. They might be embarrassed by the information. They might think the public can't understand it. But we at The New York Times think that democracy works best when the public is informed.
It takes a lot of time to find people willing to talk about those secrets. Many people with information have a certain agenda or have a certain angle, and that's why it requires talking to a lot of people to make sure that we're not misled and that we give a complete story to our readers. If The New York Times was not reporting these stories, some of them might never come to light. If you want to support this kind of work, you can do that by subscribing to The New York Times.
Let's see what we got. The first thing you see upon entry is the John Frederick shows. MAGA bus tour. Trump for president 2024. One of the biggest things at CPAC, literally, was a bus parked in CPAC Central. On it was a giant headshot of Donald Trump. And a lot of people are using markers to sign the bus and send a message of support to Trump.
Cops for Trump, we have your back. God bless you. People left notes, inside jokes. I was here. 71 rallies so far. I want to pick with my prez. Wow. It was like the MAGA version of a middle school yearbook. The American dream is real thanks to MAGA and American First. Thank you, 45, 47. And showed the complete commitment this crowd has to Donald Trump.
I wondered how the attendees at CPAC felt about the changing tides I was seeing when it comes to voting and trust in elections. Were they as open to change as the leaders we heard earlier? Had their perspective shifted since 2020?
Hi, you all. My name's Estep. This is Anna. We're from The New York Times. We work for The Politics Podcast. We are talking to people today about what brought them to CPAC, but also what they're thinking about November and Trump's prospects of winning. Y'all have five, ten minutes to chat with us? Sure. Sure. Thank you. Can you tell me your names? Tell me what brought you to CPAC. Where are you from? I'm Jim Hansen. We live across the river, and we play this game. I'm Samantha Nero, and right here, Arlington, across the river. Yeah, yeah. So y'all have been to CPAC before?
Yeah, we have. Many times. Many times. You know, one of the things we've been following here is, you know, how the Trump faithful talks about certain issues and how they talk about winning. You know, we've talked to people about whether they trust the results, about whether they'll vote by mail, things like that. Would y'all consider yourself Trump supporters, just to make sure? I'm a conservative supporter. I do not support Trump personally. I mean, if I'm talking about me, my personal position on this is,
But when he is the nominee, he's got my vote. I will vote for the Republican nominee because I am voting against the Democratic agenda. And Trump's going to be our nominee. And I'm actually looking forward to, I think the interesting thing is now that it looks like the Democrats are going to stick with Biden, I think he might win.
I was pretty pessimistic for quite a while. You think who might win? I'm sorry. Might win. Biden is a great candidate for him to run against because he's basically not there. You know, he's running against an empty suit. And I think Trump can rile the crowd up and say, were things better when I was president? They demonstrably were. You know, is the world on fire? It demonstrably is. Don't you want things to be like they were back in the day? And a lot of people do. So that's
That's interesting. You're saying you were skeptical of Trump's ability to win, but you've changed in recent time. What drove that change? Is it just seeing Biden or what? I think Joe Biden has helped Trump's chances of victory immensely by destroying our economy, by destroying our foreign policy, by being a pushover that emboldened tyrants around the world.
I can't think of anything he's done right except try to buy votes by paying off student loans and things like that. And I don't think it's working.
You know, I think he's shedding constituents at a rate that is unsustainable. And I think right now I'd put it 51-49 Trump if Biden's the nominee. You know, in there we were just hearing Laura Trump talk about, you know, taking over the RNC or trying to. And she was saying how she thinks Republicans need to embrace voting early. I'm curious for you all who are conservatives, like how have you thought about the way that
Trump and the kind of ecosystem has talked about the system of voting and really cast doubt on its legitimacy. And then more so, what do you think needs to happen for November so that the Republican nominee can win? It was a mistake for Trump to crap all over early voting and absentee voting because that's why he lost. It was a mistake to say we shouldn't do it because the left used it and counted every ballot, even ones that shouldn't have been. So I think that being said...
ballot harvesting, ballot banking, whatever you want to call it, is the smartest thing we can do right now because it's the rules. If that's the rules, play by the rules, you know, step all the way up to the line on the rules and do everything you can because the Democrats are. And so you're giving away votes by not doing that. We need to register, get ballots out, harvest those ballots and get them in just to keep up. It's interesting because that makes, you know, complete logical sense.
But Donald Trump is busy saying the opposite right now and continuing his kind of war on mail-in ballots and ballot harvesting and calling it corrupt. And a part of me sees this split screen where I'm like,
It is the rules. And you do have some parts of the party who are now saying you have to play by them. But the biggest and most important voice is still talking about corruption. I mean, who wins in that, you know? Hopefully there will be enough people who are saying, look, let him, because he's not going to get over 2020. I don't blame it. All right. There were some things he talked about that were not true. But that election was the worst election in U.S. history. I don't think there's been a worse one.
I'm going to hear you on this because you don't seem like someone who's fully in, who just believes everything Trump says. So I'm saying for you, why is that the worst election in history? Because of what I said about the way they changed the rules in major swing states and they counted ballots that would not have been counted in any previous election. There were so many things that were done that should have been adjudicated in Trump's favor that weren't for whatever reason.
And I think there were enough votes in those places that I think the election would have flipped. I think he would have won. If the same rules that were applied in even 2018 were applied in 2020, Trump would have won. So I don't blame him. I don't blame him for being mad. I think it's counterproductive to let that override how to win this time. Instead of looking backwards on these things, which I think is kind of a fault of too many people right now, and that's what you're alluding to. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Let's look forward. And, you know, forward is what we need to do is we need to meet the letter of the law. And I'm with Jim. We need to get our toes right up to that line. I do not advocate for breaking the law. I don't even advocate for cheating. I don't think we need to. But we need to play the game. It's like, OK, it's a football game. Don't bring a basketball. OK, you know, it's soccer. Don't bring a tennis racket.
It does seem like Republicans are voluntarily disarming on these couple points to satisfy, you know, people's upsetness over 2020. For you all, like, if there's a thing that you think the party needs to think about to win in November, because it seems like that's the goal here, right? Like, is it this type of stuff we're talking about? The, like, strategy, logistic stuff? Is it a message thing? Like, what would be your...
you know, direct message to the Trump campaign? If they're listening to this podcast, like, what would you say that they need to do to win? Get on the message of bring back the good old days.
All right, people had money in their 401k. You know, we weren't at war in a bunch of places around the world. There are a lot of things to talk about that were better than they are now. Get off the election, you know, of 2020 as the reason for him to win this time and point out that his economic policies were better and he will stop the administrative state from destroying the lives of people they disagree with. Think forward, not backwards.
2020 is done. It's over. And we need to focus on what's going to happen next. We need to look at how we can do it the best we possibly can. And the message needs to be, talk about what people care about, not just what is going to ignite the fury. Yeah, we can all get mad about 2020, but...
Okay, that was 2020. It's now 2024. And let's do what we need to do now by focusing on the issues that matter to people. You know, what matters? You know, economics, the border. We need to talk about crime. We need to talk about, you know, some of our national security policies. Those are things that matter. Focus on that and focus on 2024. And if it happened before 2024, just shut it.
It's really nice meeting you all. I appreciate your time. It's a pleasure. Yeah, thank you. Have a great day. Y'all have a great day. We didn't have to ask to interview the next people we spoke to. We are doing interviews. We're looking for some. They asked us. Tell me about yourself. Well, I've been to 71 Trump rallies. 71 Trump rallies. I think I saw your signature on the Trump bus. You said you were trying to get a picture. That's right. I want a picture with him. Have you been able to get a picture in the 71? I've got three-side MAGA hats. Three-side MAGA hats. I'm shaking his hand.
He has tweeted me and mentioned my name twice. He has talked to me from the stage on about eight or nine occasions, but I haven't gotten the picture with him yet. I'm sorry for you. That's right. But I've also, I was there on January 6th. Where are you from? New Jersey. Why did you, what brought you to the Capitol on the 6th? It was my 50th Trump rally. He was giving a big speech there. It was a rally. It was number 50 for me. I mean...
I wanted to see my hero. Uh-huh. Is there anything, was there anything specific to that rally that made you like, you know, that wasn't just a rally. I mean, I've been to Trump rallies too. That wasn't just a rally.
The election was stolen. It was so obvious. And I saw it with my own eyes because I worked in the campaigns. It was so obviously stolen and we were angry. But nobody was plotting to overthrow the government. Everything you hear on the news is a lie. Talk to anybody who's been there. I'm moving on from that. I'm actually thinking about going forward. I mean, if you're someone who believes that the 2020 election wasn't fairly decided, how do you feel about 2024?
I think if this is an honest election, Trump will win in a greater landslide than Ronald Reagan. I think he'll get all 50 states. They'll get all over the country. But I don't think we're going to have an honest election. I believe the Democrats will cheat like we've never imagined. And I think that they will do it so out in the open, crimes will be committed before our eyes. They will dare us to arrest them. They'll break every rule. It'll be by any means necessary. Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks. So with that assertion,
assumption, what should the Republican Party do? I mean, we just saw Laura Trump saying that, you know, Republicans need to think ahead, that they should embrace things like early voting. Since you expect Democrats to do quote unquote cheating ahead of November,
What should Republicans do to ensure what I imagine is your desired outcome, which is that Trump is the next president? Well, I mean, where there are Democrat governors in states we're going to lose anyhow and cities we're going to lose, we're screwed. But I think where Republicans are in control, we better enforce some strong election laws. And we better arrest people, prosecute them, and imprison them if they're caught engaging in election fraud. It's fraught with fraud.
All over the place. I was living in Hawaii during 2020, and Hawaii doesn't have going to the polls and voting. They have mail-in voting, and that's it. And the box I had to put my ballot in was in an empty parking lot. Laura Trump was just on stage saying the Republicans need to embrace ballot harvesting, that they should be doing the same thing the Democrats are doing. As long as it's not illegal, go for it.
Is there something that could happen between now and November that will make you all trust the election results? Are you serious? The way they are now? No. No. We need one election day. You vote, you have voter ID. You don't have voter ID, you don't vote. We shouldn't have election month or two months or however long that is. It's election season now. That's a bunch of BS.
Thank you all so much for chatting with us. Can we have your names, please? My name is Edward X. Young from Brick, New Jersey. Mike O'Neill from St. Louis, Missouri. Thank you. Question. Hi, how are you all? My name's Ested. This is Anna. We're from the New York Times. We work for the Politics Podcast there. And we're talking to people here about CPAC, about what made them come, and specifically, like, what they think about Trump's prospects in November. Do you all have a couple minutes to chat with us?
Sure. Sure? Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Can you tell me your name and where you're from? I'm Lily from Brazil. Lily from Brazil. Do you live in the States or did you come? I live in Orlando, Florida. Yes. Florida. Awesome. And you came for CPAC? Yes. Is this your first one or have you been before? No, I've been to many. You've been to many? Yeah. Do you vote in America or no? Not yet. This year I will be voting in America. Yes. This year will be your first? I am becoming a citizen myself. Oh, congratulations. Yes.
Who you gonna vote for? I think I know. 100%. You know that already. I need you to say it though for the microphone. Donald J. Trump, the best president America has ever had. How confident do you feel in Trump's ability to, you know, come back? I feel confident if they don't rig the elections again. If they don't steal it, I feel confident that he might win because you know what? What I've been hearing...
is that people are tired from the border invasion. People are tired to see a weak president that cannot represent the United States. And this is the biggest, greatest country on earth. What would make you trust the system? You mentioned how you thought it was rigged last time. I guess I'm wondering, like, coming up now, do you have confidence in the election to be fair?
Not really, but I mean, we still got to do our parts, right? We still got to come on and vote. We still have to show patriotism and we still got to do our parts. We still got to be honest and respect each other and making sure that we are
doing whatever we can for a better society. Do you have any idea of how you're going to vote? You know, in Florida, there's vote by mail. I've heard a lot of people here talk about whether voting by mail is safe or whether they worry about it being corrupt or whether they want to go in person. Have you ever put any thought into, like, how you want to vote? Not really, because Florida is different. Florida is, you know, Ron DeSantis is making sure that things stay fair.
and the integrity of the elections are kept. - So you say you don't have any fears about Florida because you think Ron DeSantis will make sure Florida is fairly counted. - He's been saying that. But, you know, I fear for the rest of the country, you never know.
Do you worry that like the talk of a rigged election will get people, some people who even agree with you, to not want to participate, right? Don't you have to believe that the thing is fair to do it, you know? I mean, doesn't that hurt the chances of Trump winning? Look, it's hard to say because I'm a Christian. A lot of these people are Christians, right? The Bible tells us there is a book in the end, the book of Revelations, that tells us
That a lot of weird stuff, corrupt stuff, nonsense is going to happen. And we're going to have to deal with it. But we can never stop believing or stop fighting or stop doing what's right. Have a good day. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next president of the United States, President Donald J. Trump.
Donald Trump spoke on the last day of CPAC. This is a nice crowd. That's a beautiful crowd. Thank you. That's a great honor. They have rooms. And while I wasn't expecting him to say, endorse mail-in ballots or ballot harvesting, I did want to listen to see if he'd moved on from 2020 or not. We have to break out of the nightmare that we're in. In his speech, Trump provided a clear answer.
A simple flowchart to understand how he thinks about 2024 and the question of election integrity. Make America richer and safer and stronger and prouder and more beautiful than ever before. I think we have a final shot at it. But if we don't do well in this next election or if they cheat enough that they can steal it, which is, I think, the only way they can win. If he loses, it's fraud.
Your victory will be our ultimate vindication. If he wins, not only is it a victory for his base, but it's payback for last time. And the unprecedented success of the United States of America will be my ultimate and absolute revenge. That's what I want. Success will be our revenge. Thank you.
This podcast is supported by Progressive Insurance. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're driving, cleaning, and even exercising. But what if you could be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average, and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. Multitask right now. Quote today at Progressive.com. Progressive
Thank you.
That's the run-up for Thursday, February 29th, 2024. Now, the rundown. They're going to have a night like we've never seen for a protest vote in Michigan. On Tuesday night, President Biden won the Michigan Democratic primary with 81% of the vote. Still, more than 100,000 people, that's more than 13% of Democratic primary voters, cast a ballot for uncommitted voters.
after organizers encouraged Michigan residents to use the primary to protest the administration's handling of the war in Gaza. Organizers of the uncommitted campaign have been calling for an immediate ceasefire and have warned that Biden's failure to change his position could cost him in November. And in the Michigan Republican primary, Donald Trump clinched his sixth straight victory. He got 68% of the vote to Nikki Haley's 27%.
Despite that, I mean, we are in all the Super Tuesday states now. That's what this is all about, is making sure that we hit every state and letting them know, look, there is a voice out there for you. There is a way out. Yes, we are fighting through. Yes. Haley said she'd stay in the race through Super Tuesday. That's now five days away. And we're now 250 days away from the general election. See you next week. The run up is reported by me, Ested Herndon.
and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Anna Foley. It's edited by Rachel Dry, Lisa Tobin, and Franny Kartoff, with original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Landman, and Alicia Bitt-Eto'o. It was mixed by Sophia Landman and fact-checked by Caitlin Love.
Special thanks to Paula Schumann, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halfinger, Maddie Macielo, Mahima Chablani, and Jeffrey Miranda. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your question using the voice memo app on your phone and then send us the file. The email again is therunupatnytimes.com.
And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, y'all. Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So hard to tell apart.
We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at phrma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma.
