best candidate to go up against president biden in a general election. let s listen. when i reach that debate stage next week we re going to be talking about the issues the american people are focused on. is the former president s lead right now just insurmountable? what can do you to catch up at this point? well, just watch and learn. reporter: so watch and learn he tells me, alex. another long day tomorrow here in atlanta. we will hear from governor christie as well as congressman will hurd and vivek ramaswamy has these candidates continue to make their case to voters. we will certainly be watching. for more on the story we re joined by alice stewart and maria car dona. thank you both for joining me this evening. i want to ask you about this decision by the former president to counter program, to do this interview with the fox news host
on thursday was a, quote, chorus of people who think it was dumb, they said. how bad was this for the desantis campaign? i mean, it is yet another faceplant in a campaign of face plants. it s a self-inflicted wound. you got to love the irony of the pac being called never back down. the advice is we ll back down when it comes to donald trump. you know, try to deflect that and defend rather than, you know, speaking with authenticity. of course, among the many problems this is is that we re all going to have a ron desantis bingo card on debate night figuring out how many times he checks the boxes according to what was recommended. it s just a it s a lose-lose. it s tough to be in desantis position, but he hasn t covered himself in glory in the process. yeah. never back down i guess except when it comes to donald trump, you can target everyone else. margaret, desantis competitors, will hurd and chris christie, are criticizing the part of desantis s campaign memo where it called on
for next week s debate? reporter: yeah, so after his remarks vice president pence was actually the only one to stop and speak to reporters, and he got a lot of questions about trump, but he steered the conversation to next weekend. he seemed to say he was really going to focus on kitchen table issues, on mortgage rates, on the economy and steer this conversation to how he thinks he would be the best person to go up against president biden. take a listen. when i reach that debate stage next week, we re going to be talking about the issues the american people are focused on. reporter: is the former president s lead right now just watch and learn. so watch and learn, the former vice president tells me. listen, another long day tomorrow with a host of speakers. among them vivek ramaswamy and chris christie, former congressman will hurd will speak, as well.
tent. there is a little bit of this sort of 11th commandment ronald reagan hangover, thou shalt not insult another republican. it s okay if donald trump does it. for republican primary voters, because there is this sort of cult-like affinity almost to donald trump, they just don t like when other people are beating up on somebody who has been seen as a standard bearer to the party. look, i i know that sounds crazy, but you asked what is happening, and that is why he continues to have such a pronounced lead. i do think christie and will hurd are showing moral courage and clarity by standing up to him. and i do think there s a real chance that one of them could prevail in new hampshire. yeah. and look go ahead i want to hear what you have to say. i was going to say, look, you know, debates in particular are about authenticity. they re about clarity and crispness and moral conviction. and that s where i think you