moderate voters in general elections. and that s the challenge he ll have. right. you both seem to agree on that, erick, that that s what he ll want to do. erick, on saturday he went to kansas city to root for the jacksonville jaguars against the kansas city chiefs. he doesn t usually love to do touchy-feely stuff with people, but he did plenty of it. and here is how he was greeted. oh, my gosh! and erick, look, we know desantis is a favorite among gop donors. that has been true for a while. they ve been looking for an alternative to trump. trump s base, though, voters, have been loyal to trump. is desantis peeling off some of them? is this working? yeah, look, i think so. and i realize you see some polls that have trump versus desantis and trump is winning, but it s a drought declared for 2024 versus a hypothetical ron desantis, who hasn t announced yet. i think you do begin to see a shift over time. and these culture issues for trump voters right now kind of dominate.
and his whole brand has been strong man, erick. and, by the way, van, it s so great to be on with you. i miss talking to you. in 2018, they could say, well, it was a midterm and president s parties do poorly in midterms. joe biden just became the first president since fdr in 1932 to not lose a single seat in the senate. something donald trump couldn t do. you ve got now three elections in a row where he s lost in all of the excuses keep giving way. if the election was stolen in georgia in 2020, considering every republican won except donald trump s candidates, then the only people elections can be stolen from are donald trump and his friends, except it wasn t stolen. so now let s just talk about what s happening within the gop. mitt romney s made no secret of how he sees things. but let me just play for you some of the criticism for trump and many in his own party. it is incredibly direct and harsh. that s first. the trump obsession is very
pennsylvania or arizona or georgia, you ve suddenly given the democrats 270 electoral college votes that they need to win the presidency. but, van, we ve been here before. i feel like we ve been here before, right, when people start to turn and they say this is it, and they re going to move on. is this really it? it s hard to know, but this does feel different for a couple reasons. first of all, if you re going to be a strong man, you have to be strong, which means you have to win. now, in 2020, he lost, but he said, but they stole it from me. so actually i really won, but they stole it from me. and then he tried to steal it with the insurrection. he said the media s exaggerating this whole thing and just nice people visiting the capitol. so he didn t have any opportunity for a long time to see is this guy a winner or a loser. he has just lost and lost and lost and lost and lost. and what happens is if you re a strong man and you start losing, then you re a weak man. people abandon
wants to win, in your words, and move on from an angry old man with nothing left but a knockoff twitter feed, eric, do you really believe that this loss is finally going to be is this going to be the straw that breaks that camel s hump for donald trump for the party? it depends on how people navigate moving forward. do they engage with him or do they ignore him? if he starts ignoring him, he thrives on the attention, and he does begin to fade. and anyone who thinks he s some sort of threat or to the country or to the constitution or to the future really does need to start ignoring him because he wants the attention. just consider georgia. he s got to win it. it s got 16 electoral college votes. every republican who trump endorsed in the state of georgia lost in the primaries to republicans who he didn t back or herschel walker in the general to raphael warnock. only one won. that would be the lieutenant governor elect burt jones. if he can t win michigan or
bad for republicans. hopefully we ll recognize that his endorsement can be the kiss of death. he was very active of course in the primaries. and even in the general election. so was he a factor? i don t think there s any question about that. okay. but then, then senator lindsey graham opened his mouth. here he is. i think we re losing close elections, not because of donald trump. erick, that s still happening. i guess, that s my point, that is still happening from lindsey graham. and if that is still happening, then what? well, listen, lindsey s transactional with trump as trump is with lindsey graham. so the moment we have another frontrunner, you ll hear him say the same thing about that guy and pretend he doesn t exist. the problem is john thune, mitt romney. if they just say i m looking