medicare? so, those are the issues that affect the daily lives of working-class iowans and those are the issues that come up the most. jeff, it sounded like ron desantis was setting some expectations there about potential lower turnout, expectation setting obviously very important in politics, but how are you expecting that the weather or the temperatures are going to affect the caucuses? yeah, i don t think we are going to have a record turnout, brianna, because you know, as you said, -30 wind chills, so you measure the enthusiasm of the voter, you have got the diehards who will absolutely show up some of the folks were very enthusiastic about a specific candidate will show up, but then you have got a lot of folks have heard all the news reporting, they have heard all of the hype, maybe they have gone to an event with the candidate, and maybe they were going to come out this year and caucus for nikki haley or ron
saying maybe a portion of iowa s older republicans won t vote. but that doesn t mean it deals trump a bad hand. as you heard him reference, the former president has the most consolidated and most enthusiastic support by some measurements and there are signs that the snow keeping people home could see a lower turnout by the diehards. so iowa can rebuff front runners but there is the possibility that this cold will reward an even more motivated fan base regardless of its size. it s the motivation that could matter. and trump does have that. and the insurrection, the people who stormed the capitol were in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands. but it was thousands so motivated that they would trespass or break a law. we live with years forward, including why trump was back in
translating or at least we don t see it yet. and i think you combine that with the polling we talked about it is felt from the start of this like there is an incumbent in this race in former president trump. his numbers in the polls have been consistent and commanding and they haven t fluke quated much. his lead has been huge the whole time. the rest of the field has not been able to match and this catch up to that and part of that early on there is a lot of candidates a lot of people to choose from. even now as the field has winnowed, we still see that same lead that speaks to the hold, the support that former president trump still has in iowa among republicans. bret: you look at the weather forecast lynn, for some of the journalists like myself, not from here, you know, we re a little weak. but we look at these temperatures on monday in the minus, you know, category, does that effect the diehards that go to the schoolhouse or the firehouse? it s definitely cold right now.
motivated by what ron desantis has functionally been running on, which is targeting wokism. he talks about the woke mind virus and all that stuff. voters who are interested and motivated by that are still picking donald trump over ron desantis. look, the thing about polling is anybody can do it. surely ron desantis has looked at some of these polls and seen he s trying to go for those same voters who are trump diehards and at some point you have to realize if they re diehards they re voting for donald trump. you have to see who your persuadable voters are. and this poll reveals he s been going after the wrong voters this entire time. so not only does donald trump start in a great position, the closest near rival is actually deploying a pretty failed strategy. and that s why you see this gap getting larger and larger. yeah, but how many voters realistically do you think are out there? because if you look at two of the key numbers in this poll, brendan, 71% of republican voters still b
trump white house and one of trump s loudest defenders, sort of on the fringe, on the right. ed cox, chairman of the new york republican party. bernie kerik, the former nypd commissioner. a number of different people. mike lindell, the my pillow ceo. you know, tommy tuberville, the senator who missed votes to be there tonight. but for the most part, kaitlan, those were the diehards. these were people who were asked by trump s staff to be here or who love the chance to see the former president. but there were not people who were in the administration or even in his past presidential campaign. you re looking at a very, very different motif here. yeah. and of course it s telling who he surrounds himself with. maggie, you say it s clear that he s determined to fight these charges obviously in the court of public opinion. a lot of questions about what his legal strategy actually in the courthouse looks like. does this remind you in any way