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First off, reintroduce yourself for people who might have forgotten. My name is John Fredericks. I'm a TV and radio talk show host. And more importantly, the Godzilla of the truth. I am the Godzilla of the truth. I'm on in the morning, 6 to 10 Eastern, Monday to Friday. You can catch me, follow me on social media at JFRadioShow. Can you tell me where we are now and where did we meet a year ago like at this time?
Right now we're in Nashua, New Hampshire, as the results are pouring in for Donald Trump. Up right now by 11 over Nikki Haley, which is going to end the gangster, bankster, Wall Street, hedge fund, open borders, cheap labor cabal. They're on the edge tonight. We're working people finally take their country back. But where we met was in...
Dana Point, California, where the brain-dead RNC leadership held their meeting last year at a $700-a-night Podge Hotel when the RNC is broke and has no money. On Tuesday, as polls were closing in the New Hampshire primary, I was in Nashua at a watch party held by the Trump campaign. MAGA hats were out in force.
Drinks flowed at the cash bar. Littered among the crowd were some notable characters in the pro-Trump universe. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rudy Giuliani, Carrie Lake, Byron Donalds, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tim Scott. And conservative talk show host and former run-up guest, John Fredericks, who I'd met last January when we were covering the Republican National Committee's winter meeting. Yeah.
At that time, I remember so many of the Republicans there were saying that this race was going to be really competitive, that Donald Trump might even lose. They were talking about people like Ron DeSantis, other people getting in. And I remember talking to you about how you felt that the party had changed so much that it had to end with a kind of MAGA movement candidate. It had to end with Donald Trump.
Looking back now, how has the last year developed and what surprised you versus is this what you expected? Yes. Listen, this is the greatest movement, the populist movement of working people in the history of the republic. And these donors on Wall Street don't get it.
Right? They talk to the same circles of people. They don't get out and talk to working people like I do every day. Secretaries, shipyard workers, people that punch a clock, people with two jobs trying to make a living and put food on the table. They don't understand...
the party has changed. And the populist movement, this is a working-class party now. White, black, Asian, Hispanic, it doesn't matter. If you work for a living and you are punching a clock and you're not part of the elite, right, you're getting screwed, and they know it. Your jobs are going away, your wages are eroding,
Your profit share is going down. Your savings is getting obliterated with inflation. You're getting wiped out. They don't care. Illegals are overrunning your country. They're taking your jobs. They're shipping them to China. And the elites and the donor class and the Wall Street gangster-bagsters who live for open borders and cheap labor just think they can buy this stuff.
And it's over. We have figured it out. It's not the unions. It's our movement. Right now, Donald Trump is the conduit for that. Post-Trump, there'll be someone else. People say to me, in 2028, who's going to be the nominee? Who's going to pick? I'm like, the nominee is going to be whoever the hell we say it is. Because by that time, we will have complete control of the party. And so his VP pick is irrelevant to me.
We will choose a nominee in 28. We will choose a nominee in 32. We will choose going forward because the populist movement is on the verge tonight of obliterating the establishment unit party elite, and we're weeks away from taking over the whole Republican Party apparatus, if not weeks, a year.
Was there any moment in the last year when you thought Trump wouldn't be the nominee? No. In your honest opinion? No. There was? You know what? The only thing that stops him is his own health. And, you know, I think right now he looks more vibrant than ever. So there was never a time. And the persecution has backfired. I was going to say that. Ron DeSantis says without the indictments, it would have been more real of a race. What do you think about that? Ron DeSantis is going to lose either way.
But what the indictments did, the persecution did, is many people relate to that because they've experienced it themselves. So many Americans have been persecuted. They've been through this. If you don't have any money in this system, you're screwed. Right. It doesn't matter what your skin color is. If you don't have any money, you cannot defend yourself. You're at their bay.
You're at their beck and call. And so we're done with that. Working people have one final opportunity, and that's this movement, and our conduit is Donald Trump. Nikki Haley's making the argument that Donald Trump in poll after poll does worse than her against Joe Biden. He's a drag on the ticket, pointing to the midterms. How does Donald Trump win over those people who are skeptical of him in order for him to win in November, as I'm sure you want him to win?
The alternative is Joe Biden. The alternative is raging inflation. The alternative is open borders, overrunning your schools. You can't go to the emergency room. The alternative is turning things over to China, where they are stealing our steel, our aluminum, our jobs. The alternative is giving more of our money to Ukraine. The alternative is... When we talk to people, even with that alternative, they'll think about not voting. They'll think about voting third party because they find, you know, this version of Donald Trump to be a little distasteful. I'm saying...
Does he have to do anything different? He just has to be Trump. Right. He's going to win. It's going to be a last fight. He's going to win the majority of these swing states. He doesn't have to do anything different because he is the leader of a movement. This is not a personality cult like the left-wing media, the state-run media likes to say. This is a movement.
by blue collar working people, and now it's seeped over to the lower professional class. That's what's doing them in, right? As soon as we got their game set match, right, Trump is going to get over 20% of the black male vote. Why?
Last time he got what, 8%? Yeah, over 20%. Because African-American men want jobs. They want security. They want to be able to take care of their families. And they see what's going on, they've had enough. When we talk to Democrats, they say that Joe Biden doesn't need to change anything because the contrast with Trump will make it so that people will back him. I hear you saying kind of a similar thing. You don't think Trump has to change anything? No, I would change anything. Because you'll take the contrast with Joe Biden. We'll let the electorate decide if it's a fair election. Mm-hmm.
You have a fair election. I'm going to put my chips on Donald Trump winning these swing states and winning an electoral landslide and saving America. And once you meet the Haley portion of the party, the donors, the elite Republicans, as you described, don't you need them for that win? No, no, no. They will never support us. They loathe the
the working person. This isn't like something you can mend together like we had a fight at the Thanksgiving table. They hate us. They loathe us. We are just their tools. Go to work, pay taxes, have two fingers of vodka, have a Bud Light, go home, shut up, and go back to work. But there's more of us than them. They got the power. They got the money. Guess what we have? The people. That's what this campaign is based on. A working class revolution of working middle class Americans working
We've had enough. Thank you so much. I appreciate seeing you again. A step. Frederick's is right. Just two states in, the grassroots base of the Republican Party has made their preference very clear. But the establishment of the party, and in particular, the donors, continue to hold out hope for other options. Today, the bitter class war playing out within the Republican Party between the pro-Trump base, who's ready for the primary to be over,
and the anti-Trump donor class who thinks it's just getting started. From The New York Times in Manchester, New Hampshire, I'm Ested Herndon. This is The Run-Up. After I talked to Fredericks, word started spreading through the room. So the news just came in that Trump has officially won New Hampshire. People are cheering and throwing red hats in the air.
In the end, Trump finished about 11 points above Nikki Haley, a sizable victory, but also a much closer race than we saw last week in Iowa. Haley's vote share here, 43% in total, was driven by New Hampshire's high number of moderate Republicans and undeclared independents who lined up behind her just as polls suggested they would. After the call was made, we saw Haley come on TV to give a speech where she said the race was far from over
And she took some shots at Trump, saying that Trump was the only Republican in the country who Joe Biden can defeat. Meanwhile, around 9:15. Well, I want to thank everybody. This is a fantastic state. We watched as Trump himself took the stage. You know, we won New Hampshire three times now. Three. Behind him were his son, Eric, his campaign team, notable endorsers like Marjorie Taylor Greene,
and his former challengers, Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy. And today, I have to tell you, it was very interesting because I said, wow, what a great victory. But then somebody ran up to the stage all dressed up nicely. Immediately, he mocked Haley. And she was up and I said, wow, she's doing like a speech like she won. She didn't win, she lost. And you know...
And then... Now I have here, if he promises to do it in a minute or less, but the only person more angry than, let's say me, but I don't get too angry, I get even. He invited Ramaswamiya. Vivek, one minute or less. Go do it, Vivek. What we saw tonight is America first defeating America last. His former rival understood the assignment.
using his time on stage to also attack Haley.
who he targeted frequently throughout the GOP debates. What we see right now with her continuing in this race is the ugly underbelly of American politics, where the mega donors are trying to do one thing when we the people say another. And it's up to us, to we the people, to at long last say, hell no, we the people create a government that is accountable to us. And we the people have said tonight, we want, again, as we did in Iowa, Donald J. Trump. And so you want to actually speak truth
That's the truth tonight. And the only thing they're rooting for is an ugly thing that we don't want to see happen. That's what these people are rooting for, is playing to say long enough so the Reid Hoffmans and the ugly Democratic George Soros juniors who are funding the lawsuits against Trump can prop up their puppet. We say no to that vision. I say the general election begins tonight.
And this man will win it in a landslide. God bless you. Donald J. Trump. Vote Trump USA. Ramaswami was making a point similar to John Frederick's, that donors and party elites only want Haley to stay in because they're seeking to overturn the will of the people. And in Ramaswami's telling, they're hoping to see Trump get locked up along the way.
Trump and his supporters are confident that he can pull this off without moderate and independent support. And I wanted to keep pushing on that idea with a supporter at the party who caught my attention. Are we recording now? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So tell me, describe the outfit. Okay.
So I have my Trump pin covering up the Patagonia. A label on my vest. You have your Trump sign and the Trump hat. And the Trump hat, which I just got through Amazon. You just got through Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I wanted, you know, it's been so cold. I didn't know if I was going to have to stand outside. What made you want to come and be at the New Hampshire Watch? Be here because I wanted volunteers. I wanted people associated with...
Team Trump to know that there are more with him than he would ever imagine. Did you back Trump in the 2016 primary? I did. Oh, in the 2016 primary, I voted for Ben Carson. You voted for Ben Carson. But that's only because I knew, I don't know him, but I just met him a few times. And as a black woman, I'm his fan girl. But by the general election, you voted for Trump. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I... And did you consider anyone else in this primary? Absolutely not. Did you consider DeSantis? Oh, he is awful.
There's like 40% of Republicans who are maybe it's Cincy Haley or Ron DeSantis, but clearly wanting someone other than Donald Trump. 40%? I don't think so. Well, I mean, both in this election, both in the number of people who voted for other candidates in Iowa, both in polling that we see. I'm saying, what does Donald Trump have to do to bring those people back in the funding? Like, how can you unite around a party if he's, you know...
mocking Haley and the supporters up there. Don't all Republicans have to be kind of around Trump for him to have a chance of winning? How do you make that possible? Well, I don't think that it was Republicans who, I don't think it's Republicans who are supporting Nikki Haley. I think it's Democrats. Here we are in New Hampshire. The people who voted for Nikki Haley were the people, they were allowed to vote as Democrats and vote for her. There were certainly some Democrats who re-registered party. There's a lot of Republicans. I've talked to them.
No, I talk to people. I'm a member of a Republican group. Yeah, so I'm saying there are some Republicans who want other Canadians. I'm saying, do you have to bring them in? There are some, but there are not many. Mm-hmm.
There are some, and there are always going to be some. You're always going to have Democrats where there are Democrats who do not want... I would say that's a different situation with Joe Biden. Most Democrats do not want Joe Biden. Totally, totally. I'm saying, but the donor class that is being insulted here, the Haley supporters who are Republicans, does Donald Trump need those people? No, he doesn't. Okay.
That's really what I'm asking. No, he doesn't need those people. Cool. Well, that answers my question. Yeah, he doesn't. He only needs the grassroots. The donor class is not going to knock on doors. The donor class is not going to make phone calls. The donor class wants to run campaign ads and say Donald Trump is a...
you know, a crook or this or that, or he's going to be convicted of what, you know. The donor class has the money to do those things because for many of them, they want open borders. And we don't want open borders. So I see what you're saying. You're like, next year is not only a fight against Biden. You seem to be describing a fight against them, too. Absolutely. Yeah, the GOP...
I would say that the old guard of the GOP is having a very difficult time because they want their party back. They want the party back where the donor class makes all the decisions. And we're done with that. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. After the break, a member of that donor class, a billionaire who supports Nikki Haley,
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.
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.
On Tuesday night, Trump and his supporters sought to frame this primary campaign as over and done with. But more than that, they said that if Haley were to stay in the race, as her campaign has promised to do, that it would only be because of the party's elite donors who disdain the grassroots base and their preference for Donald Trump. So the next morning, after the results and the watch party, I decided to call a billionaire donor who was supporting Nikki Haley and ask,
Should she stay in the race? And even beyond that, how is he thinking about the MAGA wing of the Republican Party, which was painting big donors as undemocratic villains? Hi, Ested. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Good. You know, I saw this movie last night about a swimmer, a woman who swims from Cuba to Florida.
I was so inspired. I got up this morning at about two in the morning and I swam for about an hour. Oh, wow. That's impressive. Did you swim that far? No, I didn't swim from Cuba to Florida. You didn't swim from Cuba to Florida. No, I swam about a mile and a half.
Hey, that's more than I've done this morning. So shout out to you. Yeah, no. And so it was kind of an interesting, fun way to, you know, after one rem of sleep getting out there and doing that, I thought it was kind of fun. That is fun. That is fun. Tim Draper is a venture capitalist who's invested in companies like Tesla, Skype, Hotmail, Twitch, and Robinhood. And he's given more than a million dollars to Haley's campaign and the outside groups that are backing her.
I appreciate you taking some time out to chat with us today. I mean, I was really interested to kind of talk partially because, you know, I was at the Trump watch party in New Hampshire. I've been at Nikki Haley events all through the weekend. And I wanted to talk to someone who has been supporting her before we talk about the results. I guess I would start with just saying, like, what caused you to back Nikki Haley and specifically what caused you to donate your money to Nikki Haley? Yeah, um...
I have been really impressed with her. I think she has very good character. I think she is kind. She is very thoughtful. She sees all points of view on things like pro-choice versus pro-life topics.
She understands foreign policy, which is, I travel a lot. I go all over the world. I have a show called Meet the Drapers where I interview entrepreneurs all over the world. And I've seen how important our foreign policy is and how we're represented internationally there.
And I like her attitude of I support my friends. I support democracies. I don't support dictatorships. When I first met her, I just thought, wow, this woman is strong and capable. And at the time, I think just left being governor and just about to become governor.
Ambassador of the UN. So you met her before the presidential run. Yeah. And then I was impressed then, and I read her book, and I thought, wow, she's very thoughtful and politically savvy. She gets things done, and you see that she does it in an effective way where everybody comes out feeling good. And I think there's a strong character there.
And she's tough and she's willing to run for president. I mean, that for somebody that amazing to be willing to run for president, I think we were just lucky. I guess I would love to actually step back for a second. I mean, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Can you help me meet the Drapers? I mean, can you tell me about like, tell me about your business career and how you made money in the first place? Good.
Yeah. So I, I started out as an entrepreneur and I borrowed money from the U S government against, um,
Oh, let me go way back. My grandfather was the first Silicon Valley venture capitalist. My father was a venture capitalist. I had venture capital in my blood. It was a tiny little industry at the time I got started. And we raised money from a couple of wealthy people that I was able to get in touch with. It was like I started with
my friends and then I went outside my friends and to their friends and then to their friends and eventually we got to rich people and so I raised a bunch of money I put that to work that fund the next fund the next fund they all went incredibly well we had the internet boom I set up venture funds globally um that did very well so a lot of good bets I hear
No, lots of bad bets and a few good ones. That's kind of the way our business works. I'm curious how is investing in candidates different from investing in tech companies? How is the calculus? Is the thinking the same? How does it come around? How does that part of your brain translate to the political donor side of your brain?
You know, the political donor side of my brain is similar to the philanthropic side of my brain. I look at that as money for society, to improve society. Even though it's not tax deductible or whatever, it's money where I say, our society needs this. And I have traveled around. I've been able to meet the presidents of many countries around the world.
And I've noticed that the presidents that trust their people and set them free, build great economies, create great job opportunities, great societies, optimistic people, and the governments that are control and command
Governments that run as sort of dictatorships really create a very depressed population. They're afraid. They don't try new things. They don't innovate. They just barely try to stay employed.
And their economies go flatline. I do realize how important a leader can be and how it can get people with jobs and get people houses and get people just, I mean, an economy that grows quickly can lift everybody up by its bootstraps.
So it seems like your calculus when it comes to political donations is more about kind of creating a world you want to see, a leader you want to see, rather than it is maybe the more tactical, how does this person win? How much do you think about viability when you're donating alongside those ideals? Oh, you know, I mean, I wanted to make sure that she was very capable. And she has proven herself by winning every single debate.
to be very capable. You know, Trump's afraid to debate her because she's so good. And I think, so she is very viable. Would I think about viability before backing a candidate? Yes, of course. Mm-hmm.
And would I think about what the world will look like if that candidate becomes president? Yes. I know you mentioned winning the debates, but I'm kind of thinking about like electoral viability here. You know, one of the things that we've reported on through this show is how
you know, Nikki Haley has a difficult path to win the Republican nomination, partially because the ways the party has changed in the Donald Trump era. When you are giving to her, when you are backing her originally, I guess I'm wondering kind of how were you thinking about her path to victory in the primary, considering Donald Trump has changed the party to such a degree? You know, it's funny. I miscalculated on one thing, and that was that I didn't realize...
that those Trump supporters just want retribution. They're just angry and they want retribution and they stopped listening. And I was thinking, oh my God, a Trump-Biden conversation.
A combination? It would be ridiculous. We got so many great candidates out there. Why would we ever want these two octogenarians to be our two candidates? You thought everyone was kind of on the same page, that you wouldn't want the same thing again. Right. I didn't think anybody really wanted that. But I think that there is so much...
animosity build up. And I don't know which side is right here. I don't have a really strong feeling about, you know, whether, you know, the people who are saying he was wronged or the people who are saying he's a felon are right. I don't know. That'll come out in the courts or whatever. But I did think, you know, he might have been a good candidate eight years ago. I'm not so sure that makes any sense today.
I mean, he's stumbling on his words, and he mistook her for Pelosi. And I thought, you know, that's kind of a—that's a bigger gaffe than, like, the obvious gaffe. But his supporters are just so much after retribution that I think they stopped listening. And I think that they've—
I'm actually amazed that women are still supporting him. I, it sort of baffles me. Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of where I wanted to go. I mean, obviously, there were high hopes for Nikki Haley in New Hampshire specifically because it has so much more of the independent votes, the moderate kind of Republican voter. I think about the results last night, as I'm sure you watched. Would you say like is an 11 point loss there an example of her gaining traction? Or should we take the results from Iowa and New Hampshire as evidence that the majority of the Republican base is squarely behind Donald Trump?
No, I think, you know, she had 2% of the vote when I started backing her. And she is now at 43% of the vote. She had 20% in Iowa. The trend is good. It's still, he still polls better than she does. But I think that that is changing. I know a lot of Democratic women
are changing party to vote for Nikki Haley. It takes time to get people to go from, I know it took me a little time to change, um,
I was a declined estate in California. That's sort of the independent group. And I moved to a Republican, and I had to sign up. It didn't take long. It was an easy thing to do, but it was one of those things like you got to get around to doing. I think the Democratic women are getting around to voting for Nikki Haley because I know they're going to want to support her in the general election.
And now is the time to support her so she gets into the general election. So what I hear, you're saying the trend line is such that you still feel good about that investment in the Haley campaign. And will you get more money going forward? Should she stay in this race? I know that's an open question that some people are trying to pressure her to get out. What's your message to that? No, no. A lot happens in politics, and she's down to just the two of them. She should definitely stay in. A lot can happen.
through South Carolina, Super Tuesday, a lot of interesting, I remember George H.W. Bush said something like, as Iowa goes, so goes Iowa.
And that's kind of like, you know, hey, you know, Iowa doesn't dictate who ends up winning the nomination. So, no, I think she should go, go, go. I'm very happy with the investment I made. And I wrote a song for her.
I mean, I was going to go to the song next. I'm glad you brought this up because I recently heard the song. Well, I wrote it with Larry Devoskin. And then we got this woman who, Gretchen, who sings with the new Fleetwood Mac group or whatever.
It's a real earworm. I listened to it yesterday and I have to say, I did wake up today with, you know, we need you, Nikki, right now. Still stuck in my head. You're also underplaying your role in here. You had a pretty important like rap feature in this. Oh, by the way, they've done some work on the rap. So it's better than it was. I was going to ask, can I hear some of the rap? Can you drop a little for us right now?
No, I'm not sure I can because I don't have it all in my... I know it sticks in your ear. We need you, Nicky, right now to lead our nation. We need you, Nicky. There we go. That's a different level of... There we go. And then it's... Oh, I can tell you this part of the rap. It's...
Trump, the bully who's afraid of a fight against five inch heels with twice as might. I mean, that's a different level of dedication to a candidate than we typically see, right? I guess I'm asking, like, considering the high road she has to climb to become the nominee, what made you say this moment right now is all in? Is that the candidate or is that the political moment at large?
It's the candidate. I think it's Nikki Haley. And we tend to get the candidate we need at the time we need it in America. What do you mean? We usually vote, although the voter seems to be usually a little bit more open to the candidates that are available than they seem to be right now. And I think in the U.S., we've sort of marched down this path of,
where government's too big a part of our lives. So I think that that's part of what got me excited about Nikki Haley. I'm a venture capitalist. I back these entrepreneurs who are like two guys and a dog or a girl, a guy, and a cat, and they're getting a business started. And instead of thinking of their customer or getting themselves started with the right team, first thing they're thinking about is who's our regulator?
I mean, there's something wrong there. Like, we've got the government spent under Trump and under Biden. I mean, both of them are micromanaging the economy. People underestimate how a light-touch government can grow an economy so much faster.
But she gets it. Nikki Haley gets it. One of the things that stuck out to me at the Trump victory party last night is that they're not just mocking or kind of demeaning Nikki Haley, which there was a lot of.
There was a lot of mocking and demeaning of the kind of donor class, too. They would say pretty openly that the reason she's going to stay in this race is because people who are rich Republicans are going to fund her money. And what they're trying to do is speak over the will of the voter who have made clear the kind of working class Republican voter wants to back Trump.
I guess I wanted to hear you respond to that idea. What do you say to the idea that what the donor class is trying to do in terms of keeping Nikki Haley afloat is against the will of the base Republican voter? Well, I'm rich, but a lot of the donors are not. You know what they're getting? It's interesting. In the Haley campaign, they're getting a lot of small donations from women.
And they're getting donations from Democrats. Those aren't Republicans, you know? Like, that's not the base of the Republican Party. Is that a problem? I mean, it depends on what you mean by a base. I think Trump just has a lot of people who they're just thinking of, hey, he needs retribution. And they're saying, I'm not thinking about anything else. And...
I hope that they open their minds and I hope that they start looking at it in a new way. But I can't see that happening overnight. And I think naturally a candidate who has a higher name ID is going to get a broader base of support.
Does that level of vitriol from the Trump supporter to the donor class bother you any? I guess just more generally, and the way the party now talks about people like you. You know, I tend to find that if you just do the thing that you think is the right thing, it works out. And it comes out in the wash. And no, I think people are people. You know, some people are going to say,
you know, try to be mean and put you off your game. And then we all have slightly different interests. Yeah. And so we all cheer on our own interests. And I think that that's kind of the beauty of a free country.
I guess I heard so much anti-donor vitriol last night. Is there something about the way that you view politics, something that way that how you invest in it that you think those people are misunderstanding or a message you would have to someone who, as they were characterizing last night, thinks that the act of kind of big donors investing is perverting kind of politics? Like, would you have a message to respond to that?
Yeah. You know, I actually think that brand carries a lot more cloud in politics than it should. I think that Trump has a very enormous brand. And so giving other candidates a chance to go up against an enormous brand is probably the way I look at it.
I definitely understand, you know, one person, one vote. And I definitely understand a democracy and how important that is and how everybody gets represented. And I think that that is really powerful in America. And I would be afraid that we would go into a dictatorship at some point if we just let these brands take over. You see yourself as leveling the playing field with Trump's brand.
I think that might be part of it. I don't think that's the whole thing. You know, I back startups. I back entrepreneurs who are, you know, taking on big pharma and taking on big banks and taking on Microsoft and Apple and Google and Facebook. I back entrepreneurs where they're the underdogs.
And eventually they become enormously successful and we all benefit from it. You know, we're all better off because there are Tesla cars out there. We're all better off because we can see each other on the screen because of what we did at Skype many, many years ago. And I feel the same way in backing a political candidate. Give them a chance to get out there in front of everybody and show their stuff.
My last question is to look ahead. I know you're hosting a fundraiser for Nikki Haley soon. I guess I'm asked... You. You. You're hosting too. Okay. I guess the question I have is like, what are the markers that you're looking for for the campaign to continue the upward trajectory that I think we both know it needs? And then...
A follow-up question I have is this, if it does end up being Biden versus Trump again, do you know what you would do? Would you donate? Would you vote Trump? Would you, do you know? I don't think that's going to happen. And I think Nikki Haley will be the president. If it were in that situation, I would kind of desperately look for a third party. And I think a lot of people would too.
I think there's going to be a very interesting couple of months here. A lot of things happen in politics, and I think a lot of things will happen.
So I hear the first step being look to South Carolina and Super Tuesday, invest more to try to give Haley the bump that she needs and continue to close that gap with Trump. And then maybe a secondary step, if this does get to a thing that you don't want, being a rematch of 2020, would you invest money in a third? Or you'll just deal with that? Well, we might have to follow up in a couple of months. I don't know. The thing that went off in my head was a...
What do you call it? A fight or run? Yeah, the fight or flight. Some instinctual nature would kick in. I don't know. I don't know which way I'm going to go. I'm going to either fight this thing out or I'm going to run. Thank you. I really appreciate your time. This was helpful. Great. You bet. Never underestimate. Never underestimate.
Underestimate me, Nikki. Foundation. Conversation. More junk. We need you, Nikki. To bring to get it. We need you, Nikki.
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Visit at unrefugees.org slash heat to give now. That's the run-up for Thursday, January 25th, 2024. And now, the rundown. One other thing we were watching closely in New Hampshire was the Democratic primary. On the Democratic side, Joe Biden is the projected winner of tonight's primary. Now, that may not be surprising. He is, after all, the incumbent president. But this was a very strange year. In keeping with state law to be the first primary in the nation...
New Hampshire Democrats voted in an unsanctioned presidential contest, where President Biden didn't appear on the ballot. Still, through a write-in campaign, Biden won with more than half of the vote. The president's statement is this. It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee.
And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher. In a statement to MSNBC, Biden said it's clear this is now a two-person race between him and Donald Trump. I want to thank all those who wrote my name in this evening in New Hampshire. It was a historic demonstration of commitment to our democratic process.
And I want to say to all those independents and Republicans who share our commitment to core values of our nation, our democracy, our personal freedoms, an economy that gives everyone a fair shot to join us as Americans. Let's remember we are the South Carolina Democratic primary is nine days away on February 3rd. GOP voters won't cast their votes there until February 24th. That's 30 days away. There are 285 days until the general election. We'll see you next week.
The run-up is reported by me, Astead 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 Baitu. 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, Tara Godfrey, Jeffrey Miranda, Michael Gold, and Jonathan Swan. Do you have a question about the 2024 election? Email us at therunupatnytimes.com. Or better yet, record your questions using the voice memo app on your phone. Then send us the file. The email again is therunupatnytimes.com.
And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on our latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, y'all.
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