B (2:28)

Hello. Good to be here again.

A (2:29)

And Anthony Zuerka. Hello, Anthony.

D (2:31)

Thanks for bringing us back around too.

A (2:33)

Yes, glad you could come back. I mean, there's a Lot to talk about and a lot to think about. And I can imagine this stuff is floating around in your brains all the time because as we were discussing at the end of the previous episode, so much of the Donald Trump script that we all experience every day now, he started writing, or was writing, writing at that point in summer 2015. Katrina.

B (2:55)

Yeah. I mean, a lot of the slogans that we hear from him, not just to make America great again, but, you know, build the wall, not wanting immigrants, Lock her up, which was the other very famous one about Hillary Clinton, of course, like so much of this began in that summer and went all the way through the campaign and through his two campaigns that came after that. And we still hear it now as President Donald Trump and his second administration talking about these talking points all the time, as do his team. And you know, the thing that made him kind of catch as well was that when he held these rallies, he used these slogans and he might talk for a really long time, 45 minutes or an hour, and you'd speak to people leaving and they'd remember the three or four slogans and that's what would sit in their brain when they went home to talk to their friends and tell them about this great Donald Trump that they'd just seen.

C (3:50)

We have to build a wall, folks. We have to build a wall.

D (3:57)

And those rallies, I mean, it was a two way street. Yes, Donald Trump was connecting with the voters and changing voters minds and strengthening his bond with the voters. But he was also learning something from those rallies. I mean, he would use those political rallies as a sounding board and he, he would gauge how loud the cheers were and whether the audience was really enthralled with it or not. And so it was kind of an organic process that started in 2015, where he was going out and being among his base and you could see him modulate his message based on what was resonating with the Republican base. And I think that made him a much more effective candidate and better situated than all of the deeply funded candidates who were running against him, who had their focus groups and their polls and were trying to figure out what the voters wanted. I mean, there's sometimes just being, you know, out there in front of the crowd and feeling the energy of the crowd that will tell you a lot more than the margin of error on a focus group poll. That tells you about, like, what their issues are and what they care about and what they want out of a.

B (5:02)

Politician, especially those early rallies. I mean, if you go to a Donald Trump rally now, it's true believers who are there. Right, by and large. But in those early days, I remember going to rallies, big ones and small ones, cuz he held some really small ones with just 20, 30, 40 people there as well. There were many curious people there. They were going to see the guy off the telly, you know, and it wasn't necessarily about whether they believed or agreed with what they'd heard so far, but they wanted to see this famous person up close and personal. And especially in those small rallies, you could get quite close to him. And they wanted to hear for themselves and see for themselves and have that kind of personal interaction with this big political process. And all those people up in Washington D.C. who they never saw, suddenly here was a famous person in their town. And you'd meet people who loved him, who hated him, and who just wanted to hear what he had to say. And I think that really helped him build that messaging that you're talking about as well.

D (5:56)

Yeah, and I saw that. I think the first Trump ballet I went to was in Manassas, Virginia. So it was close here to D.C. and yeah, he was bring out people who were curious people who maybe had voted Republican in Republican primaries before and weren't really sure. And certainly when I'd asked them, they said, I don't agree with everything that Donald Trump says, but I feel like he's telling it straight. We're actually hearing what he believes. And that was something that I still hear from talking to Trump supporters and Republicans. It's like, yeah, he says some crazy things, but at least he isn't telling me what I want to hear and what he says he's going to do. And that, you know, particularly after, you know, years and years of increasingly polished politicians who were running for office and as I mentioned, using focus groups and trying to craft their message, it felt very inauthentic. And Donald Trump was one who had that authenticity, which, you know, at the time wasn't something we talked about, but authenticity now has become kind of the coin of the realm for politicians.

A (6:58)

And let's think about the numbers here, because at the peak of the membership of this contest, there were 17 candidates. Now part of me then thinks, oh well, hang on, if there'd been fewer candidates, would Donald Trump have gathered as much momentum? Could somebody else have like scooped up the. Anyone else but Donald Trump votes? But I just wonder from what you guys have just been saying, that would never have happened. And then you look at the polls and actually he was always out in front in the polls.

B (7:28)

Yeah, I think he Benefited from that big field. All right. Because, you know, if you look at some of the early debates in the Republican field, and they weren't all on the stage, they're all various complicated algorithms about what got you onto the debate stage and who wasn't there. And, I mean, there was a famous case where they held the debate over two nights. Do you remember? And then there was another one where Donald Trump held his own debate and.

D (7:51)

The kids table debate for the lower polling people.

B (7:54)

Oh, my God. When you think it was wild, like you're trying to listen to two debates at the same time, split your ears and so on. But those early debates in particular, Donald Trump stole the night every single time because he was famous, because he kind of had this bombastic way about him. All of the debate became the other candidates kind of rowing with him. Right. So he got more time, more airtime, he got more kind of clippable moments. He got a lot of, you know, bad vibes hit upon him from the other candidates who are trying to chip away at his popularity, which then just enabled him to respond with his own message again and again and again. So it was almost like you were watching a debate stage with an incumbent like the natural leader there, and everybody else wants a piece of that leader.

D (8:46)

Yeah. I mean, the dynamic in these debates was fascinating because they all recognized Donald Trump's appeal and his strength, and no one wanted to be the one to take him down because they would be the one then that maybe the folks would hate, his supporters would hate. It's like, how dare they? Maybe they would go to other candidates. Usually you don't want to be the one sticking the knife. You want to be the third guy who doesn't get down in the mud. And then everyone says, well, pox on both their houses, and I'm going to support this third guy. So you saw, you know, people like Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor, and Jeb Bush going at it, or Marco Rubio mixing it up with Ted Cruz. I mean, you saw everyone picking on each other except for Donald Trump because they didn't want to be the one that took him head on. And I don't know where you were for that first debate, the one that was in Ohio. Right.

B (9:40)

I was in Kentucky, actually, watching it in a very Republican bar to kind of get the vibe of Republicans and Katrina.

A (9:48)

What was the vibe? Was it a little bit split?

B (9:51)

It was. It was really interesting, actually, because, you know, you think big political debate are people in. This is like a barbecue joint, bar thing, gonna sit there at nighttime and Watch, you know, what goes on for two hours with loads of ad breaks. But they really did. And there was a guy kind of like straight out of your stereotypical like, country and western band, nearly complete with the Stetson and the spurs on his boots and everything. And he just kept saying about Donald Trump, look at his hair, look at his hair. Is that hair real? I can't take my eyes off that hair. It's just kind of wild. But otherwise, people were just fascinated about, you know, what was going on, that there were so many people on the stage that they viewed this as the health of their party. Many of the people on the stage were really young. I mean, like, Marco Rubio would have been just in his 40s. Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, you know, Donald Trump was, I think, probably the Bobby.

D (10:47)

Jindal, do you remember him, the governor.

B (10:50)

Of Louisiana, you know, and so they thought this was a great vibrancy and wasn't it a great sort of symbol of the party about how they could field this great team of people?

D (11:02)

Yeah, it was fascinating coming into that debate, because no one was sure what was going to happen. Right. Was Donald Trump going to be the Donald Trump we'd seen, just like a wild card, totally blowing everything up, or was he going. And this is going to be where he pivots to a more statesmanlike, presidential kind of an attitude, where he's drilling down on the issues, and it's more of a traditional debate. And it did not take long in that debate for us to find out that it was definitely Donald Trump wasn't going to change his stripes just because. Because he was in this big spotlight moment. I mean, Bret Baier asked if there was anyone on stage who wouldn't support the Republican nominee, whoever it is, and Donald Trump raised his hand. I mean, no one does that. Everyone says, oh, of course I'll go to the party. I will support the nominee. And that was not, again, right out of the gate, Donald Trump showing that he was not going to. Not going to play by their rules.

C (12:04)

Experts say an independent run would almost certainly hand the race over to Democrats and likely another Clinton. You can't say tonight that you can make that pledge. I cannot say. I have to respect the person that if it's not me, the person that wins, if I do win, and I'm leading by quite a bit, that's what I want to do. I can totally make that pledge. If I'm the nominee, I will pledge I will not run as an independent. But. And I am discussing it with everybody, but I'm, you Know, talking about a lot of leverage. We want to win and we will win, but I want to win as the Republican. I want to run as the Republican nominee.

D (12:42)

And then the first question from Megyn Kelly, the other father. These are the two moderators, co host. You know, she comes out and asks him about his derogatory comments about women and whether he was a misogynist. And he chimed in very quickly when she was listing all the things he said about women. He said, well, that's only Rosie o'. Donnell. And they got a huge laugh from the crowd.

B (13:10)

And by the way, the comments that she put to him, just for the record, she said, you've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.

D (13:20)

Right, right.

B (13:20)

You know, it's quite, again, extraordinary. We use that word so many times, haven't we, since, you know, early 2015, about things that are said in the world of politics nowadays in this country.

A (13:31)

And Anthony, I mean, you talk about going to all these, these conservative conferences and chatting to people in the party. I mean, the Republican Party is a big established party with loads of money, loads of presumably very experienced strategists. Are there smart people thinking, we need to stop this guy, we. Or are there smart people saying, oh, this guy could help our party here?

D (13:54)

You know, where I was for that debate was in Atlanta, Georgia, at a conservative conference called the Red State Gathering. It was put on by an influential Republican activist. His name's Eric Erickson. He's still, still around. And I was watching that debate. They had a big debate watch event in a room full of kind of conservative activists, a lot of them evangelicals, a lot of them Southern as well as media. And, you know, we were all kind of staring at each other like, I can't believe this is actually happening. Just kind of open mouth. I mean, people were laughing. People were amazed at how all of it was kind of playing out. And, you know, we talked about the opening two moments, but Donald Trump did that throughout the entire debate, just cutting in, interrupting, you know, insulting some of the other participants. After the debate, they were asked about those Megyn Kelly comments or questions to him. And he said the thing about how she had blood in her eyes and blood coming out of everywhere or something along those lines. People thought it was a reference to her menstrual cycle. And that was also people astounded. And a lot of people were offended. And a lot of people thought, now he's really done it. He's managed to say derogatory things about women in the past. And now here he is after the debate saying something that is very, very loaded, very derogatory about one of the Fox hosts. And the next day, Eric Erickson at the conference came out and said he was officially uninviting Donald Trump from the conference. He apparently had extended invitations to all the Republican candidates. And he said what he said about Megyn Kelly was beyond the pale. He should be excommunicated from the conservative movement. And there was that sentiment, there was that feeling among a lot of Republicans that Donald Trump was one, not someone they wanted in their party, but two, also politically toxic and they would pay a price for associating with him. And yet, if you looked at the polls afterwards, everyone was looking at those first few polls saying, okay, what's gonna happen? Is he going to crater? And he didn't, if anything, because of that debate went up. And I think that showed that he was connecting with people in a way that a lot of the Republican establishment just had no idea he had that kind of power.

B (16:19)

It was that straight talking thing that he capitalized from the start and threw out of. I'm an everyman, you know, even though I'm a billionaire businessman or whatever, I'm one of you, I talk like you. I don't have fancy language, I make gags. If someone's talking trash about me, I'm going to interrupt them and stop them straight away. And that was really viewed as something very attractive in him as a candidate. But Adam, when you're saying, was there a group within the Republican Party who sort of said, let's get away from him, and there were, as Anthony's outlined. But fundamentally, people want to win the White House and the Republicans are no different to the Democrats or parties anywhere else in the world that they saw here is a potential winner. And if this is what we've got to do to get the Democrats out of the Oval Office, this is what we're going to do.

A (17:09)

And Katrina, I'm just thinking back to the first episode where you said the day before Trump announced he was gonna run for the nomination, you'd been in Florida at Jeb Bush's equivalent. And it's so interesting because of course, Jeb Bush was the front runner before that and was the second placed behind Trump for a lot of the campaign. But you look back at those pictures, even just not even watching videos of Jeb Bush, but just the pictures, and it's, you find yourself nodding off, even just looking at pictures of him.

B (17:38)

I mean, Jeb Bush, he is the, his demeanor, let's say, is what led Donald Trump to give him the nickname Low Energy Jeb during that whole campaign. And he's really fascinating because you look at him on paper, dad was president, brother was president. You know, it's royal family of Republican politics in a way. His father, and his father in particular, much loved within the Republican Party. But he just couldn't seem to command the kind of zeitgeist or he didn't have the charisma or the energy. He had tons of cash.

D (18:15)

Tons of cash.

B (18:16)

Oh, my gosh, the money that was pouring into his campaign since, like late 2014, really, you know, his was the only name. Oh, this is going to be a Bush v. Clinton election. Do you remember all of that? And, you know, so famous that he was Jeb, exclamation mark. He didn't even need Bush. Like, I still have those posters at home with the Jeb, Jeb, Jeb signs as we collect all these things going around the rallies. But he just couldn't translate that. He'd been governor of Florida, so he had the kind of executive level experience that we always talk about as being a good thing for candidates. Right. But Donald Trump just came in and destroyed him, really. And he was bumped and he had energy and these quips and just took the life out of him.

D (19:01)

Yeah, I think Jeb Bush had lost a step because it had been a. There had been a gap from when he was governor to when he ran. And so he wasn't sharp, he wasn't holding office. So it took him a while to kind of get his feet underneath him and get into that kind of campaign mode. And also the Republican Party had moved away from him. And as I said before, on things like immigration, Jeb Bush was a big proponent of finding a way to court the Hispanic vote by being more open to a pathway to citizenship, for instance, for undocumented migrants, for allowing the children of undocumented migrants to abnormalized status in the United States. He had been a big proponent of education reform, including nationalized education reform and what's called Common Core, which was a series of national education standards that while in theory would help make education in the United States more uniform, was viewed by a lot of people in the Republican base as Washington telling our schools what they should teach and undermining traditional education values. And then on trade, his brother, George W. Bush, had been a big proponent of free trade agreements, of negotiating for the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was going to be this big trade agreement with all of these Asian nations. And then the Iraq war, which Jeb Bush could not separate himself from again because of his and because he was associated with the internationalist kind of arm of the Republican Party, that his brother definitely spearheaded this idea of making the world safe for democracy. And by 2016, there were a lot of Republicans who were not in favor of the Iraq invasion anymore, who viewed it as a debacle. They saw the fallout throughout the region and the cost it had in American soldiers and American treasury. And so here Jeb Bush was coming in as the kind of living, breathing face of the Republican establishment. Republican establishment blood coursing through his veins. And so he made the perfect foil for Donald Trump, and one that, as you rightly say, Katrina, Donald Trump was just able to run circles around and just cut him apart in these debates and cut him apart on the stump to the point where Jeb Bush, in what campaign event, was saying something and the crowd was just lackluster. And Jeb said, well, please clap. I mean, that became the embodiment of Jeb Bush's campaign, that he's begging his supporters to give him some applause for one of his stump speech lines, that.

C (21:39)

We'Re prepared to act in the national.

D (21:41)

Security interests of this country to get.

C (21:42)

Back in the business of creating a more peaceful world. Please clap.

A (21:49)

Well, all of this is actually just buildup, isn't it? Because then you actually get registered Republicans choosing who they want to be their candidate. Katrina, just talk us through Trump's path to victory and the actual kind of when people start voting for people.

B (22:03)

Yeah. So this brings you into the primary season, which in that year began. The first one was in Iowa caucus on the 1st of February, really deep snow. That's my kind of memory of that. And New Hampshire, which followed a week or two afterwards. So these are all registered voters who go along, particularly in the case of caucuses, like I was in one in a little suburban town in Iowa, in a school. And so everyone who's registered to vote can come into a room. And it's really. I love this process because it's proper democracy in play. You have a representative from each of the candidates, and in some cases, you'll have the candidate themselves, depending what town you're in. Say to this room of people, pick me, vote for me, because X, Y or Z, and you can ask them questions and so on, and then it's time to vote. And you all go and stand in that corner if you're for Trump, that corner if you're for Bush, for Rubio Cruz, you count how many people are there, and then there's a bit of kind of horse trading come and stand in our corner and so on. And that's how you decide who wins the primaries. And all of that in each little school, in each little town is fed into one big file somewhere. And that's where the results come from. So just despite Donald Trump storming ahead in the polls at this point, he was kind of the clear leader. And then there was a close second pack, wasn't there, with like Cruz and Rubio in there. And at Iowa, Ted Cruz wins. And it's, you know, a shock really, isn't it, based on what we'd seen. But I guess Ted Cruz had put a lot of time into being in Iowa doing the retail politics. Like that's where you have the going around the donut shops, the diners, turning out at the fairs, standing outside Mass and churches when people come out and you have just people everywhere. So then you head to New Hampshire. Trump wins in New Hampshire. And again you have, I think John Kasich came second in New Hampshire, who we haven't talked about, but who kind of was a bit of the resistance to Donald Trump within the Republican Party. Former governor of Ohio. And then after that, I mean, you're moving through the weeks just to Super Tuesday and it's a landslide at that point.

D (24:19)

Yeah, there was a bit of a surprise that Ted Cruz won Iowa, but he did connect with the evangelical voters in that state in a way that Donald Trump, at least back then, wasn't. There was a lot of skepticism among evangelical voters at this thrice married New York kind of celebrity who was the occasional crass language was one of them. And it was interesting. Donald Trump did finish second in Iowa and Marco Rubio finished a very, very close third. And going into New Hampshire, where there was a lot of feeling that Ted Cruz wasn't going to be able to connect, the thought was, well, maybe this is Marco Rubio, his opportunity to take Trump down again. And if that happened, then game on. If Trump's lost the first two, he might be stopp. And maybe if Rubio had finished instead of just a little bit behind Trump in Iowa, but a little bit ahead, he would have had more momentum. But there was still the feeling like he had momentum going in. And then there was a debate in New Hampshire where they were all on the stage and Rubio, there had been some critiques that he was a little too programmed, a little too kind of set and too polished. And in that debate, Chris Christie just took Rubio apart, said he was robotic, said all he did was say the same Things over and over again. And in response, Rubio was robotic and he said the same things over and over again. And you saw Rubio crater in New Hampshire. Just in the days leading up to the New Hampshire primaries, no one really came forward to challenge Trump. I mean, Kasich kind of benefited from some of the anti Trump vote, as you mentioned, that Rubio had. But Trump just romped in New Hampshire. He went on and romped in the Nevada caucuses again, a place where people thought maybe Rubio, because there's Hispanic voters in Nevada, would do well, but Trump just dominated. I remember being at a caucus site in Nevada and seeing people come out, a long line, a long line of voters at the Republican voters at the caucusite looking. And there were bikers and there were truckers and there were people in jeans and American flag T shirts and thinking like, this is not your father's Republican Party. Donald Trump is bringing people out to vote in Republican primaries that had never been involved in the process again. And as you mentioned, from there, Ted Cruz actually won some. I mean, it was basically down to a race between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz at that point. Ted Cruz was doing well in some of the evangelical hotbeds, but Trump in Super Tuesday on March 1st, I think it was just rolled across the south, won all the big contests. And at that point it did seem like with Trump taking a dominating lead and the delegates you need to secure the nomination, that he was an irresistible force.

A (27:20)

And then we should just say that in the meantime, their opponents, the Republicans, opponents, the Democrats, they're having their own primary process, which was not the coronation that Hillary Clinton was assuming it would be. She was facing Katrina, quite fierce opposition from Bernie Sanders.

B (27:35)

Yeah. And in many ways, the Democratic primary process was the polar opposite of the Republican one in a way, wasn't it? I mean, it did start with a number of candidates, but quite quickly it was down to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and for a while, Martin o', Malley, the former governor of Maryland, who didn't really last much past Iowa, New Hampshire, maybe. That was about it.

D (27:58)

I think Iowa killed him.

B (27:59)

Yeah. And then it was a two horse race indeed between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, but far from a coronation. I mean, we throw back a word from then superdelegates. Do you remember that? Where Hillary Clinton was gonna need these super delegates, people who have kind of extra votes because they're bigwigs in the party, to help her become the nominee, because it was not going to be clear cut that she would win it on delegates that she would secure through the primaries and the caucuses.

D (28:27)

Right. And Katrina. You talked about how Donald Trump was able to attract disaffected Democratic voters, working class voters who are focused on meat and potatoes like the core Democratic constituency. And I think a lot of the problems with the Democratic establishment and their connection to those voters were, were on display in that Bernie SandersHillary Clinton primary contest, where you saw Bernie Sanders run kind of a populist, anti establishment campaign the same way that Donald Trump did, and really tapped into something kind of the people who felt like the Democratic establishment, which Hillary Clinton certainly was. I mean, the same way Jeb Bush was. I mean, she had establishment blood running through her veins. Her husband was Bill Clinton, a two term president. She had been a senator, she had been a Secretary of State under Barack Obama. She had kind of embodied the internationalist, globalist kind of connections of the Democratic Party, where they were big on free trade and they were big on immigration, and they were very much in bed with the big corporations, particularly tech corporations. And that ended up taking a toll on her in that primary campaign against Bernie Sanders, which after a long, kind of grueling campaign, she finally was able to pull ahead. But also, Fast forward to 2016. Donald Trump was able to take advantage of her, framing her as the candidate of Goldman Sachs and the candidate of the establishment and not a candidate who was sensitive to concerns of working class Americans.

B (30:03)

And that Sanders campaign cost her a lot, I think, when you get to the actual election day, because, I mean, do you remember we were talking earlier about Donald Trump saying, no, I'm not going to support the ultimate candidate if it's not me. Bernie Sanders only endorsed Hillary Clinton a few weeks before the polling day. And all through that summer, and we can talk about the conventions in a minute, there was like an anti establishment, anti Hillary Clinton branch within the Democratic Party who were still kind of campaigning against her up until those very late days when a party should be, in theory, all coming together. And, and we saw the same in the Republican Party, but not as public. Maybe they did their dirty laundry slightly more secretively.

D (30:46)

Yeah, you know, Adam, you asked about whether there was any kind of Republican resistance to Donald Trump. And Super Tuesday put him ahead pretty definitively in the delegate count. But I do remember two days after Super Tuesday, I think it was March 3rd, Mitt Romney came out and gave this big speech. It was being hailed as a speech about the future of the Republican Party. And he got up there. Mitt Romney, who had been the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, who had run for president in 2018 or 2008, and to finish right behind John McCain, who had been kind of this leading light of the Republican establishment going back to when he was governor of Massachusetts. He came out there and gave a speech eviscerating Donald Trump, not only saying how awful Donald Trump was, but urging Republican voters to vote strategically from that moment on. That in certain states where Ted Cruz was doing well, you vote for Ted Cruz. If it's a state where someone else is doing well, whether Rand Paul or someone who's still in the race doing well, you know, vote for them and do anything that you can to stop Donald Trump.

C (31:56)

Think of Donald Trump's personal qualities.

D (31:59)

The bullying, the greed, the showing off, the misogyny, the absurd third grade theatrics. And that felt like the last gasp of the Republican resistance, at least in the primary campaign. And after he gave that speech, nothing changed. Donald Trump kept rolling. He won in Indiana. I was there with Ted Cruz. He defeated Ted Cruz in Indiana, which Cruz had kind of put as his last stand, and he beat him comfortably. Cruz dropped out on election night in the Indiana, where he gave a speech saying, you know, I can't keep going, you know, keep fighting the good fight. There were evangelical supporters of his in tears in the audience there. But it was clear at that point that no one could stop Donald Trump during the primary campaign.

A (32:50)

And Anthony, you mentioned about the convention. So let's talk about the Republican convention, which was in Ohio in July 2016. By that point, it sort of seems like it's a done deal for Donald Trump and he's gonna be anointed.

D (33:02)

Yeah, you know, I mean, it wasn't quite a totally done deal. There was still a Plan Z. I mean, the establishment had run out of options, but there was still a bit of an effort in that first day or two on the floor of the Republican Convention to try to find a way to deny him the nomination, to pull votes, to pull some of the delegates over to keep him from being the nominee. But it was very clear at that point that it was a last gasp, that they really didn't have a viable way of stopping him at that point. And if they had stopped him, I mean, what next? It would have been a total. It would have been civil war in the Republican Party, because at that point, Donald Trump really had captured so much of the base. And so Donald Trump swept into the convention, he gave what was a very dark convention acceptance speech where he was talking about what a disaster America was and how there was carnage in the streets. Kind of a preview of what would be his inaugural address. Just about five months, six months later.

C (34:14)

I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police. When I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order to our country.

D (34:32)

You know, he secured the nomination. He was coronated. Interestingly enough, Ted Cruz had a speaking role at that convention and pointedly did not endorse Donald Trump. Said, vote your conscience. Thanks, goodbye, and was roundly booed by. Booed off the stage by the people at the convention. All of these delegates, and a lot of them were Donald Trump delegates.

B (34:57)

I was on the floor for that.

D (34:59)

Yeah, me too. Yeah, I was right up in front.

B (35:01)

Yeah, it was wild. And what Ted Cruz couldn't see as he was speaking was that Donald Trump and his family arrived into the hall just as Ted Cruz was kind of, you know, vote your conscience. Vote for candidates who share your principles up and down the ballot and leaving out and at the top of the ballot. But at that time, as Donald Trump was coming in, you had people booing Ted Cruz. And then the back half of the hall turned around, like, applauding Donald Trump and his family as they came in and sat down. And it was really, for me, that was the moment of the handing of the baton, really, from within the Republican Party, because at that convention, and I know we talked about this at the 2024 convention when we were in Milwaukee, but never. Trump was still a kind of brand within the Republican Party, like the Make America Great Again, MAGA T shirts and caps and so on were on a stall off to the side, whereas by 2024, they were. The merch shop was full of MAGA. Like, the party of Trump is the Republican Party, which there still was a bit of a vocal opposition to him then. And obviously, as we said, the 2020 conventions didn't really happen because of COVID So that's why comparing 2016 with 24, and those people just then decided, right, this is it. If we're going to win, this is it.

D (36:25)

Yeah, yeah. Very different. I mean, it was Donald Trump's party eight years later, but it certainly wasn't. It felt like a whole hostile takeover of the Republican Party that Donald Trump successfully pulled off from that July golden escalator ride up into him standing on stage at the Republican convention. And everyone had been waiting for Donald Trump to change Donald Trump to pivot to a more statesman like Donald Trump. And he was going to do it before that first debate. He was going to do it when people started voting in the primaries. He was going to do it once he secured the nomination in the primary process. He was going to do it when he got to that convention and he never did. And he still hasn't. I mean, Donald Trump you saw in July, in 2015 in New York buy the golden escalator was the Donald Trump you saw for his entire first term. The Donald Trump you saw for the four years between the end of his first term and his next presidential term. And the Donald Trump you see today.

B (37:21)

And that hostility we saw at the Democratic convention as well, didn't we? I mean, they were wild conventions thinking back at them because that was Bernie Sanders cohort was still there in the hall with the Bernie Sanders masks. You remember that. And big protests in Philadelphia downtown where the convention was on and you had two split parties. But as someone said to me after the election day when Donald Trump had won, they were a Democrat, said to me the Republicans were better able to hold their nose and do it anyway and vote for Donald Trump even though they didn't love him because they wanted. Whereas the Democrats who didn't like Hillary Clinton and there were many, were not able to do the same.

D (38:01)

Right. And part of it was the Democrats had been in control for eight years. They were more complacent. Republicans had been out of power for the Obama presidency and were ready to do whatever it takes, holding their nose, voting for Donald Trump in order to win where Democrats were a little, you know, less, less willing to pull together one more time.

A (38:22)

And the 2016 election would be about 198 episodes of old Newscast. But that is where we will leave these very excellent two. Katrina, thank you so much.

B (38:31)

Thank you for that great trip down memory lane. It's been fun.

A (38:34)

You're very welcome. And Anthony, thank you for raiding your old notebooks for us.

D (38:39)

My pleasure. I can't believe it's been 10 years, but it seems like a lifetime and it seems like just yesterday.

A (38:51)

Thank you for listening to this episode of Old Newscast on Donald Trump winning the Republican nomination to be president back in 2016. Laura and Paddy will be back this weekend and I will return to the Newscast studio on Monday. Speak to you soon.

D (39:05)

Bye bye.

B (39:06)

Newscast, newscast from the BBC, you've come.

A (39:09)

To the end of newscast.

D (39:11)

Some people, and you know who I.

A (39:12)

Mean, might say you, you ooze stamina.

D (39:14)

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A (39:16)

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D (39:24)

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