23 posts from Monday, December 11, 2023

And I wanna turn just for a moment to brand new polling out of Iowa on the Republican field for president. Joining us now from the big board, NBC News national political correspondent, Steve Kornacki. Steve, what are the numbers show? - Yeah, we're basically exactly, almost exactly 35 days, almost having a month until the Iowa caucuses. This what we're gonna show you, our brand new NBC News Des Moines Register poll. The Des Moines Register poll is taken by Ann Selzer. She is known as one of the best in the business and certainly the authority when it comes to polling on Iowa. So let me show you these numbers. Republican side for the Iowa caucuses, we now have Donald Trump leading with an outright majority in Iowa, 51% Ron DeSantis, a very distant second at 19, Nikki Haley, 16, Ramaswami and Christie at four. We last polled Iowa in October, also with the Des Moines Register. Since then, look at this, Donald Trump's lead. He has added eight points to his total. DeSantis up a couple, Haley, who had been moving flat. I think it's significant because in the month leading up to this poll, you had Ron DeSantis pick up the endorsement of the governor of Iowa, the endorsement of a key evangelical leader in Iowa, got a lot of press attention for completing a 99-county tour of Iowa, had a Fox News debate against Gavin Newsom in front of millions of Republican-leaning voters, and was part of that fourth Republican debate last week that Donald Trump wasn't in. So for all those things that we thought might be given to Santa Saboost over the last month, it is Trump, despite not participating in the debates again, it's Trump who's made the big gains, Trump who's moved to 51% in this Iowa poll. Just a couple other numbers we can show you behind this. These are evangelical voters in Iowa. Remember, Donald Trump finished third with this group in 2016 when he ran in Iowa and lost. Now he leads it overwhelmingly, exact same number as what he gets overall. Evangelicals could make up two out of every three caucus-goers in Iowa. That was the case the last time around. Where Trump really turns it on though, it is first-time caucus-goers. This tends to be a younger group overall. Look at that, 63% of folks who say for the first time, they're going to go to a caucus or rallying behind Donald Trump. This is independents. Independents are a small share of the Iowa electorate, but I think it gets to the basic problem Nikki Haley has. Look how much better Nikki Haley does among independents. It's true in Iowa, it's true in New Hampshire. It is true in every poll we have seen. But in Iowa and in most of these Republican primary and caucus states, big exception being New Hampshire, independents are going to be outnumbered significantly by core Republicans. Haley has yet to show that she can make the inroads she needs with core Republicans. That is to say, Republicans who like Donald Trump, she's yet to show she can make those inroads to be competitive. Also, in terms of enthusiasm, we asked folks, are you very extremely enthusiastic about your choice? Trump, look at that, two to one, three to one advantage over his rivals. We asked folks, is your mind made up? 77 out of 10% of Trump voters in Iowa say their minds are made up, again, more than double that of any of his nearest rivals. And then we asked this question here, a lot of words. This is about electability and Republicans' perception of it here. We've talked so much in 2023 about Donald Trump's trials. We will continue to talk about it in 2024, but we asked folks, can Donald Trump win the election regardless of his legal challenges? Now, nearly three out of four Republicans in Iowa say yes. Last month, that number wasn't even two out of three. Big jump there for Trump. We also said, hey, are Trump's legal challenges too much? They make it nearly impossible for him to win. 24% saying that, again, that number was over 30 last month. So all sorts of signs in this poll, Mika, showing that Donald Trump over the last month, last six weeks in Iowa has actually improved his position. And the last time we were this close to the caucuses, again, just about a month away, that a Republican candidate had a lead anywhere near this size. You got to go all the way back to George W. Bush. The year was 2000. Bush won the caucuses. Bush won the nomination. - NBC's Steve Kornacki, thank you very much for bringing those numbers. Just as they break this morning, we appreciate it a week. - Look at what's happening.

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Fox News contributor and GW Law School professor, Jonathan Turley. Hey, Professor Turley. Hi, Anzalie. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you. Why do you think he decided? Because over the weekend we thought he was going to testify, then yesterday on Truth Socially said he's not going to. Why do you think he changed his mind? Well, a lot of lawyers would have suggested this course of action because he's already testified in the trial. And so if you're happy with the record you created, why create the chance for a loss or mistake. And so lawyers tend to be risk averse and I think many would have said you don't need to testify. But what's going to happen next is maybe some of the most interesting parts of the trial because there are still some rebuttal witnesses and one defense witness that many of us are interested in. And that defense witness is Professor Bartoff, who's an NYU professor, and he gave very strong testimony in favor of the Trump defense and said that he did not see evidence of accounting fraud in any of these documents. Yeah. Letitia James, the AG here, she ran on taking down Donald Trump. She's seeking $250 million in damages. She wants to prevent him from conducting business here in New York anymore. Trump is claiming election interference and a witch hunt. Do you agree? Well, I think that the part of the problem here is, as you noted, you have an AG that ran on the pledge to nail Trump on anything. She didn't even specify. And she used this law which doesn't require a victim. You know, before Professor Bartoff testified, two bankers testified that said, no, we didn't lose money and we actually wanted more loans from Trump. Trump described him as a whale client, someone you want more business with. But that hasn't stopped James. She wants the Trumps to have the company to be dissolved. She wants a quarter of a billion dollars when no one lost money. And the fact is that it's so over the top that it may end up really raising concerns upon appeal. Look, James had this judge at a low. I mean, I think that she knows that this judge has already obviously decided there was fraud and he's likely to hammer Trump in terms of damages. But they still have to go to the Court of Appeals, which just recently handed Trump somewhat of a victory. They said, we're not going to dissolve these companies until we see more. Yeah, there's so many buildings, as you know, here in New York that have his name on it. He saved Woolman Rink, which is the ice skating rink where all of our kids go ice skating in Central Park and where many of our viewers go when they visit New York. So it would be a travesty to see so many of his businesses fail here in New York or he wouldn't be able to have his name on these buildings. So thank you so much, Jonathan, for coming on.

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But before we get to our two great guests, I wanna make the point as clearly as I can, that Joe Biden and Anthony Blinken have blood on their hands. I mean, they are drenched in blood. Now, what am I talking about? Can anybody tell me of any other president in American history who gives aid and support, billions of dollars to our enemy, to our enemy who has killed American soldiers in Iraq, to our enemy that has created all kinds of mayhem in the Middle East, to our enemy who's now attacking our armed forces in the Middle East and attacking our allies that's trying to build an Islamic caliphate throughout the Middle East. What kind of a commander-in-chief of the United States of America waves economic sanctions, whether it's oil, commerce, finance, banking, you name it, against a regime that sought to assassinate our former Secretary of State and our former National Security Advisor. Who the hell does that? Can you name a single president in American history, a single Secretary of State, since we've had Secretary of State? Go back to Jefferson. Can you name one who would ever arm our enemy? I have another question. What kind of president, what kind of a Secretary of State would appoint an individual who is pro-Iran, who is a Marxist, who is a special pleader for Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal on our behalf against that regime? And then in turn would hire three staffers, one of whom is a potential spy for that regime and that envoy had his classification yanked and is under investigation and the information is being kept from the United States Congress. What kind of a president of the United States and Secretary of State appoints such a reprobate to represent the United States? What kind of a president of the United States and Secretary of State refuses to trigger what's called snapback a few weeks ago to prevent Iran from being able to make buy and sell missiles. That's happened too. What kind of a president of the United States and Secretary of State arm our terrorist enemies? Arm Hamas. Donald Trump said no more money through the UN, Enra, to Hamas, which the UN won't even call a terrorist state. Won't even call a terrorist group so they continue to get money. Trump cut it off, Biden and Blinken, the money's pouring in again. What kind of a president of the United States and Secretary of State fund Arafat's PLO with hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars with no conditions whatsoever and refuse to enforce the Taylor Force Act, which tells the Palestinians you don't get any money from the United States unless you stop killing Israelis, killing Americans for which you give pensions. It's called slay for pay to the terrorist families. So what do we have here in Biden and Blinken? Then what do they do in turn? They tell the Israelis, look, we want the hostages out. They take no responsibility for the hostages. They just paid that regime, the Iranian regime, six billion dollars for hostages. Oh, and by the way, we don't really want you to win the war. We prefer a stalemate, maybe a ceasefire here and there, maybe a permanent ceasefire. Hamas isn't gonna honor a ceasefire. They're a terrorist organization. They don't honor anything. And they even said, this is a dry run, October 7th. We're gonna keep at this until we get what we want, the obliteration of the Jews and the Jewish state. So a ceasefire is a surrender. Oh, and what else? Keep sending fuel and medicine and food in there. We now actually have Palestinian citizens telling Al Jazeera, Hamas is stealing everything. They're taking everything. Well, who's the referee in Gaza to make sure they don't? There aren't any. And this administration keeps putting the pressure on Israel to capitulate, to be nice about the war, to make sure you don't really defeat the enemy, just kind of box them in. In other words, Blinken and Biden take no responsibility for what they unleashed in the Middle East, where we had the Abraham Accords, where we had peace breaking out between Arab and Muslim countries and the Israelis, where the Iranians were in a box. In fact, they were collapsing. The people were rising up, where Hamas was in a box, where Hezbollah was in a box. They were all in a box. Until Biden and Blinken come in and unleash the whole damn thing. And now it's Israel's fault. Israel's attacked on October 7th in horrendous ways that we don't need to keep describing. And now Israel's considered the aggressor. You'll have this Marxist fraud, Bernie Sanders in the Senate saying, "Well, they should not get any funds." We need a condition of funds. Israel must do that and that. And then finally, a two-state solution. While this war is going on, while this war is going on, there's two-state solution that's pushed by, Thomas Friedman at the New York Times, another Israel hater, that's pushed by the Democrat Party, that was pushed by Obama, is pushed by everybody. There was a two-state solution. It was called Gaza. Look what happened. But as I've said here before, the two-state solution for Israel is the final solution. Why? Because you need to understand what the Islamists want. It's a caliphate. It's not a two-state solution. Iran has a state. Are they satisfied with their state? They've all been taken over Lebanon. They've all been taken over Yemen. They're in the middle of taking over Iraq. They've all been taken over the Gaza Strip. They wanna caliphate. And not just in the Middle East. They're building nuclear weapons. They're the effort to build nuclear weapons. That's not for their neighborhood. That's for our neighborhood. And what are we doing to stop them right now? What is the plan? What is the strategy to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon right now? On Biden and Blinken's watch, there's nothing to stop them, which is why they're racing to the finish line because they know they have friends in the United States State Department. And they know that it is in the 1930s and '40s, the Israelis had many anti-Semites in the State Department and many of them are still there. I wanna turn to our friend and a man who really knows these subjects inside and out, Congressman Michael Waltz, a combat veteran, a man who has been ringing the bell and banging the pots and pans for a long time about the Middle East and elsewhere. And we'll get into that too. Michael Waltz, what is wrong with what I just said? - Well, there's all kinds of things wrong with the world. What you just said is absolutely right. And Mark, I would just, let's just go back and look at the world that President Trump inherited, the Middle East that he inherited, with ISIS on the march, Iran on the march. It was a total mess. And within just a few years, he had taken out Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, he had taken out Soleimani, the leader of Iran's IRGC. The Iranian currency was tanking. Oil had gone from four million barrels a day to basically nothing. Their foreign currency reserves were tanking. You're absolutely right. He had it contained. We went from ISIS destroyed, Iran broke, and then the Abraham Accords to back where we are today. And one thing that I would, two things that I would add, one, the same team that's around Biden was around Obama. Blinken, Sullivan, his deputy finer, all of them were all deputies and acolytes of Susan Rice, John Kerry, and Hillary Clinton. And so you've had this same policy basically since '08, because even when Trump was in, they tried to undermine him. And then the only other thing I would add is Afghanistan. We now have an axis of terror from Kabul on a super highway, all the way through Tehran. They have completely, despite all our blood and treasure in Iraq, have turned Iraq into a client state of Iran, all the way to the Mediterranean, through Syria, and through Lebanon, have surrounded Israel with the Ring of Fire that Ayatollah has always complained about. And then now you have the Houthis down in Yemen that Biden on week one of his administration delisted as a terror organization, attacking international shipping. Hey, about 15 to 20% of global trade passes through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. So this is a calamity and a disaster of global proportions. And yet you have a crew around Biden, because I don't think he's really in charge, that has a fundamental misunderstanding of deterrence. Every time you see them, go to the microphone and say, our main goal is to prevent escalation, the Ayatollahs see that as an invite to continue escalation. Sometimes, Mark, when the bully's in the schoolyard, you can't just keep giving them more and more lunch money. You gotta punch him in the nose. And until we hit Iran, which is behind all of this, where it counts, that's not an invasion. Don't let the media freaking out. That's cyber, that's financial. That's all kinds of, we have all kinds of things in the toolkit, but until you hit them where it counts like President Trump did, this is going to continue and it's going to get worse. - Michael Walts, I will ask you this question. You're a man who has studied military history. You're a man who has lived combat. You're a congressman from Florida. Can you think of another president of the United States, who would take steps to directly or indirectly arm our enemy that's trying to build a nuclear weapon that would be aimed at the United States, arm an enemy that has killed American soldiers with IEDs and so forth, arm an enemy that is trying to build a caliphate throughout the Middle East, that has taken American hostages, that is funding Hamas and what Hamas is doing to our ally Israel. This isn't even passivity. This is affirmative action that is taken that we know today is building up Iran. And in the face of all this, there's no recalculation. There's no change in course. Can you tell me another president of the United States who has done something like this? - I can't think of one. The closest I think of is Neville Chamberlain in the 1930s that thought he could appease his way out of Hitler's aggressions. And that's why this is, we need to wake up to how dangerous this course we are on truly is. And the thing that has me so frustrated is I guess, I don't know what it's gonna take for them to change course. I guess we're gonna have to have a ship get sunk by these sophisticated anti-ship missiles that the Houthis are firing or service members die. And I was just in a briefing with some of the generals. Some of the drones, some of the rockets have gotten through our defenses. By the grace of God, they miss, but eventually they're not going to miss and Iran is gonna continue to fire them until they get a catastrophic hit. I don't know what else is gonna take to get these guys around Biden to walk away from this fantasy of appeasement and this fantasy of a nuclear deal that they keep trying to look away from and don't rattle Iran's cage because they think we can get back into it. It's just not the case. - There's not another president in American history that has done or would do what Biden is doing. You don't arm your enemy. That's number one. And number two, the only difference I see, which is a big one with Neville Chamberlain and Joe Biden is Neville Chamberlain wasn't funding the Nazis. Joe Biden's funding the Islamo Nazi regime in Iran.

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