trump s performance at the end. how are you looking at these types of events, where they get on these stages in front of the base and yet not take down the guy who is hitting 40, 50 points ahead of them in the polls? it s confounding. you don t get anything for coming in second. it seems like what that s what a lot of people are praying. for their unwilling to upset anytime trump voters and i get it because they re a lot of die hard trump voters. but if you criticize, and they re gonna get upset. by definition a die hard trump voter is not a persuadable voter. you won t win them over. if your goal is to win, you ve got to write those people off. one of the things i find so much encouraging is, trump is leading by a lot, but he seems to have hit a bit of a ceiling. he is in the low 50s, and as much as desantis has stumbled, and no one else has taken on, it s not that he is in the 60s or 70s. there are a lot of people who want an alternative.
repeatedly, so he s got a story to tell. fox added to their troubles. they are already looking at the 2. 7 billion dollar lawsuit from smartmatic, and now they have this little additional trouble. so, david, the thing that is interesting to me is that it was not just fox and tucker carlson making these claims. you had individuals like ted cruz, marjorie taylor greene also making epps a target. yeah. this guy is a die hard trump supporter, whose life has been destroyed by the very right-wing conspiracy theories that he was out promoting. shouldn t this be like a cautionary tale for republicans and loyal fox watchers that, guess what? yeah, they could come for you, too? you are exactly, right michael. a cautionary tale for different reasons politically, republicans are showing that they are not focused on the economy and health care and transportation
and so even now, a big contingent of die hard trump supporters think that mike pence is a traitor, even though he s the opposite in the sense that he actually fulfilled his constitutional duty on general sixth. and republican voters who want to move past donald trump, well, they don t like the fact that pence was a toady on pretty much every other day of his entire term. that leaves pence pretty much stuck with just 7% support. but ambition makes people do amazing things, doesn t it? crisscrossing the state of iowa, trying to convince people the mob calling for your death had it all wrong. and that s really the task for former vice president sever himself yesterday in sioux city, iowa a small campaign event a pizza ranch, or been greet with the republican party. this is important, this was a roomful of rank and file iowa republican caucus goers who came to see and speak to pence. it was not some rowdy maga crowd or trump rally. but as you will hear in this clip, one voter rolls talked
look, our country has to protest. we have plenty of protest, to protest. we ve lost everything. if that s not familiar, then we have to have strength, stuff, right? that was part of the theme of january 6th. he says, protest peacefully, but you have to not be scared, if that is strength. then, that was followed up in the campaign trail over the weekend, trump delivered a series of speeches, continuing to egg on his supporters. these criminals cannot be rewarded. they must be defeated. we have to defeat them soundly. in the end, they are not coming after me, they are coming after you. and i m just standing in their way. i don t know. do you have boxes of classified documents in your toilet? maybe they re not coming after you, they are coming after him. that some of donald trump s most loyal followers have predictably adopted the same language and the tone of this menacing vision that trump is hitting on. republican congressman clay higgins of louisiana, a die
do you think a justice department indictment would change former president trump as a candidate? do you think he would change tactics? a lot of the witch hunt rhetoric would come to the fore. do you think from a candidate standpoint it changes him in any way? i don t think it changes anything. as i said, you and i sat next to each other, he got taken into custody, and then his poll numbers went up. yeah. i think that this is the most serious case that he s facing, this indictment charge is the most serious to date. we ll see what happens. but, you know, i suspect that, again, that the die hard trump base, that 30%, 35% of the trump supporters who love the president are going to continue to love the president no matter what happens in this case. david urban, good to have you. thank you. next, the state of play in the 2024 republican presidential campaign, as mike pence gets in. a republican critic of the former president decides to stay out. also what investigators have