>> we have located our panelists. if you want to make your way back into the room, we will give just a second.

if you are going in and out, come back in for a second. is my pleasure and privilege to introduce this next panel. 2024 election: the road ahead and the principles at stake. this is one we have been wanting to chat about, what is at stake in november. i am delighted to welcome our bulwark crew, sarah longwell from the accountable the project -- accountability project. a.b. stoddard of the bulwark. and jonathan v. last. thank you. >> write what we were to sit and

you took the exact opposite. >> you told me the other end. they show is starting now. this is 2 -- i missed two years in a row due to illnesses and i don't think i'm going to get sick until this afternoon. thanks to he and all of you. i cannot believe how many people are here. 100% less -- then at cpac. it is primary day. it can all come down to canada. poll's showing nikki haley within 30 points of donald trump. i don't want to spend too much time on this, but i will ask you three questions i want you to respond to. relative to new hampshire exit polling -- are you all right there?

>> i was a pair the unscrewing my microphone. jonathan: nikki haley won democratic voters who crossed over 86-5. will she do better than that were worse than that today? >> worse. >> i am going to say better. level or better. jonathan: she won independent voters 38-30 nine. . will she do better? a.b.: level or better. sarah: worse. are we talking percentages are absolute numbers? in new hampshire, there are more independence quickly used to the voting in -- jonathan: i am trying to norm it out. sarah: let's say she has a high percentage but a lower level of absolute numbers. that does not translate into a better showing. jonathan: the more the people

kyiv, the less they like her, even independents and democrats. the subtext. she got 39 percent of self identified republicans in new hampshire. give me her number with the self identified republicans today? a.b.: 30%. sarah: 28%. a.b.: in that window, definitely worse. jonathan: i will take the under. this is "the price is right." one dollar. does any of it matter? does nikki haley strike you as the person who is going to stand up to marco rubio and ron desantis and the rest of the party and say you guys are the crazy ones? i am not going to do this. sarah: let me go back to nikki.

i think she is going to do worse because i think she is worse, i think she is a better candidate today in south carolina that she was when doing her middling thing. the problem is south carolina which is her home state which is going to hurt more for her to underperform, is a state not a good fit for her. new hampshire was a better fit for someone like nikki haley. given the republicans are better fit. in south carolina, i'm amazed. we did a focus group with tim albert who wrote that really amazing profile of nikki haley a couple of years ago. what is so interesting about the conversation i had is that peace was called "nikki haley a time for choosing." and it was about this question.

was she going to choose to burn the boats, where she going to choose -- alberta's peace with the nikki haley is a decent person who wanted to do the right thing, wanted the future of the republican party to be a decent american leadership in the world, free market kind of party. there she going to end up back in trump's corner? the thing you hear from all voters in south carolina, nobody was going to vote for her and one woman was going to vote because she won her to have a good enough showing so trump might take her to be vice president. but she still wanted to vote for trump. she was a trump person. they say they cannot trust her the reason they think they cannot trust her is because nikki haley has been on multiple sides of the trump question now

for a long time. they heard her say i will not run for president if donald trump does not want me to. remember when she was asked if she was going to run and she said i would talk to trump first and get his permission? but does not scream strength and authenticity and the things she needed to win. she has chosen now to the burn the boats nikki. the problem is she has been both those things for so long that people cannot trust her. i think she is doing a good job. i think she is running as the person she generally wants to be, the person i hope she would be. she is showing something by saying she is going to stay in for super tuesday no matter what happens. i have problems with how she comported herself but there is something about saying i'm booked tuesday and make them fight for it. jonathan: okay i am sorry i was mean.

i take it back. ivf which is suddenly the most important issue in america, the alabama supreme court rules -- they don't exactly rule ivf is illegal put a ban on it, but the issue willing that is going to believe drive it out of the state of alabama. we have for should be aware moment because ivf is wildly popular. 86% of americans are in favor of ivf. 78% of pro-life advocates are in favor of ivf. 83% of even vigil good in favor of ivf -- evangelical christians in favor of ivf. nikki got herself on the wrong side initially and has been scurrying to back off since then

and has tried to frame it as a state rights issue. she is like, i think ivf is great but we have to respect states. trump is a demagogue. he is good at finding -- things. this is why so many people think he is pro-choice. a.b.: because he is. jonathan: also because he is. he popped out and said ivf is great. what happened in alabama is in travis street -- a travesty and i call on him, to pass a law passing iv -- protecting ivf. is that going to work? a.b.: this is the beginning of

the issue and not the end of the issue. you saw two alert next morning all the candidates up fighting for swing states for all of them to put out statements about how they want to so many babies and pro-ivf. the fact that the republicans -- jonathan: does it matter that steve daines cosponsored a bill granting full constitutional protection for frozen embryos in 2021? a.b.: right. just getting to this fact that incoherence is a feature not a bug in the aim -- the age of trump. as long as donald trump gets to change positions every day and the republicans follow him, they get to also. that is what i do, change names

around and i'm being sarcastic and no one has a sense of humor. this ivf. it -- ivf pivot will help them but if the democrats are smart, start running ads saying are jordan safe in mississippi? -- are your eggs safe in mississippi? write your eggs safe in idaho? it is the logical next question about what authoritarians want to take from you. they need to be very explicit about it. donald trump has been working hard. he might not have known this is coming but he has been working hard to throw even chuckle leadership under the bus and say we are going to lose elections on this issue. if they have already let him do this, the issue is probably over with in the movement and even chuckle christians are going to support him nonetheless. for democrats, i think the story is not over.

the last couple days, the stories of these women finding out this could happen to them -- i have two children from ivf of my three. finding out that you have spent so much time and money preparing for and so much emotional duress invested in the injections you have taken, the thinks you had to cancel, the secret you are keeping from your family and coworkers and friends, hanging your hopes on the retrieval, the harvest, the transfer. it is so overwhelming and yet here that they are sitting in alabama not knowing how to control their future for their family with these embryos in a freezer somewhere, it knocked me over watching these people. this is a devastating story for them that i insist did not end with trump's post yesterday. jonathan: i am going to be super

dark but let you go first. sarah: you are kidding. i would go to defend nikki because i don't think she said what people matter of to say. she said she also had her kids via ivf and she really wanted those kids and they felt like a life. i think this is not an uncomplicated question in the sense that i also have two kids that were done via ivf. although, lesbians, they think they tell you when you go to infertility clinic, you don't suffer and fertility, you suffer from a lack of exposure to spurn. -- exposure to sperm. jonathan: i am not sure i call that suffering. sarah: we are good to get you some of that. this is a little bit of a

personal story but i got approval to tell it. we started feeling like this is going to be great. we tried for what ended up being almost close to two years. it did not happen and he had to move to ivf. we had miscarriages. it is one of the hardest times when you want children badly and it is not happening. eventually obviously it worked and i have two kids, boys who i love more than life itself. you are messing with things in people's lives. people think this is not your job, tommy tuberville. tommy tuberville does not get a say in what is happening. i agree. the problem with democrats is they are allergic to --

they know we are the pro-life party, these guys and i pro-life . there are not pro-life taking care of your kids when they are born. there is a message here and it is up to them to jump on it. jonathan: i think this is 100% loser for democrats. sarah: i want to hear it. jonathan: donald trump has come out and divide the furthest elements of pro-life inc.. he said ivf is great, he is called upon the legislature to rectify this for a bowl law -- horrible wrong. nobody from far out pro-life world is going to crack back on

him. they are awkward to say it is fine. -- they are awkward to say this is fine. this is good to create a hollow effect for all of the other republicans. you have a split. 125 republicans in the house still on board cosigned to a bill that would create personhood for embryos. those people will get to benefit from trump's halo. my rep says this crazy thing but i don't have to worry about it because trump is super pro-ivf. do you want me to read it? i took a turn as trump's speech on threads this morning. i bet you $1000 trump could not tell you what ivf is. my understanding is they take the baby, a very small baby. some say even smaller than the baby jesus.

they injected into the mother and it is beautiful, a beautiful thing. we love babies, maybe not mexican once, you cannot say that. the mexican ivf should stay in mexican. [laughter] every minute that you're litigating this stuff, you're not talking about jobs. it is a-lose-lose. sarah: this is predicated on the fact that democrats bible to prosecute this case which is not 100%. if they did, here is the thing you're absolutely right about which is donald trump is perceived as a cultural moderate by voters and it is misunderstood. here is the thing about why voters think he is a moderate on abortion. they believe he does not engage in any sexual morality.

they say he probably paid for an abortion and a focus group. they don't think he is pro-life. they don't think he is like the rest of the party. there is a reason that donald trump is more popular than the republican party because people perceive him to be not a mike johnson type where a mike pence type on gay issues and on issues of reproductive rights. if you talk to swing voting women and you say to you think trump is extreme on abortion, they will say moderate. the more extreme the republican party gets on things like ivf, trump is able to triangulate against that and look more moderate himself. true. the democrats after my people that trump put the three c -- three supreme court justices on the court that overturned roe v. wade. he appointed the judges.

this is going to be important, a walking and chewing gum thing. you have to run against trump but you have to run against people republican party. you have to run against what it has turned into under trump and mike johnson. when you do that, if you can prosecute that case, i think you can win that. jonathan: maybe. we live in a world where nobody remembers the pandemic. one million americans died, this guy was standing out there saying we should put in the bleach, ivermectin works. sarah: they don't her member to blaine trump for it. jonathan: -- the other gentleman who writes our focus groups for us -- sarah: this is what he does for debating me to write on the website, he puts other people in focus groups just to troll me. jonathan: that is 100% true.

he did a focus group with pro-trump and pro-choice republican women from swing states. they all thought trump is great, he is with me. i feel good about trump and his position on abortion. when asked about the dobbs thing , don't you maybe think he had something to do? they all hated dobbs. three of the 15 said maybe trump bore partial responsibility for it. that sounds about right to me. i have seen the people. i live with the people. they cannot hold these things in their heads. sarah: part of the biggest problem for democrats, and here is where i think it will help. you may have noticed joe biden is not to doing great with people aged 29 and younger. young folks -- remember the

focus group we did and one of the girls is like he is likely same age as my grandma and she says a lot of problematic stuff. i think maybe he is like that. the thing that will get those people out, it will not be joe biden but it will be those issues and the contrast between joe biden saying i will protect reproductive freedom and being able to prosecute a case against republicans who would to get rid of it. donald trump will point at the justices who overturned roe v. wade. it does a lot for the enthusiasm that is not there for trump -- for joe biden. a.b.: you argued this is that he is kind of effectively -- he has effectively won distancing himself from jobs and the abortion issue. i think it is powerful for the democrats when they try to

explain to people, they say these are the justices he appointed saying there are to overturn roe v. wade -- saying they are going to return roe v. wade. ivf is so much more tangible that when you explain to them what has happened since dobbs with women in a topic pregnancy's and doctors are leaving the award to call their lawyers. that is a little bit too complicated unless it has been in their community. ivf is so much more acceptable an issue. to tie to dobbs and talk about the supreme court he set up to repeal roe v. wade. i think is a slamdunk. you basically say it does not matter what donald trump is telling you, these are the people and bed state legislatures -- red state

legislatures that are coming for birth control but they want your frozen eggs and your frozen embryos. they can pretend there could you fix it, where is it going to be next? these people are dystopian and radical. it is the easiest message. sarah: i don't think it is over as an issue for them. one thing to understand about this race, it has not started yet. it feels to us -- jonathan: because it is already over. [laughter] sarah: you stop it. there are reasons that people run campaigns, there are things they teach voters who are not paying attention yet and as somebody who talks to a lot of voters, they are not paying attention yet. the dynamic of this upcoming race, i talk about this a lot, you have two different people that everybody does not know that well because you are trying to teach them new stuff.

that is up at this race is going to be about. talking about we had to keep our blood up and energy up. it is easy to get like, i don't believe we are going to do this again with these guys. the voters that are persuadable hate both of them. i don't like either guys. it is going to be a race about who they dislike more. i don't like when things are just about hate. jonathan: give in to the hate. sarah: negative polarity is going to rule the day. joe biden is old, but he can either be yoda old --

jonathan: is he old? sarah: he can be due to old, wise, teach a new generation, or he can be -- jonathan: name the character. sarah: i don't know the bad guy. jonathan: now you are attracted to your sci-fi analogy. but you are not a nerd. sarah: what is the name of the bad guy? jonathan: emperor palatino. -- palpatine. this is why i did not have a girlfriend until i was 30. i was hoping to rope you all as people into being co-defendants with me. you are co-conspirators by listening to us talk about this

-- sarah: he did it right before i was supposed to debated nancy jacobson. we were supposed to have a public debate and she used jonathan's rents to cancel the debate. she she sent me a note saying i will not share your despicable podcast with your despicable cohost. they sent a letter to the department of justice claiming there was a conspiracy against no labels that included our podcast and jvl and a bunch of

people trying to educate about why no labels would have a sport candidacy affect. jvl keeps calling me saying am i going to jail? i am like anybody can send a letter to doj, it is not a real thing. jonathan: i am being stereotyped based on my new jersey her dish. i want to talk to you about this. yesterday we had greg sargent arguing befalling out of no labels because joe manchin both the plug on his run. larry is going to run for senate. thank you for not running as a third party spoiler. i was like, what do you think? you to a contrary position -- you took a contrary position. a.b.: the new republic piece claims the effort is in meltdown. it is well-funded and well-organized, already on 16

ballots which is more than rfk junior can say. it is intentional and pretty competent. romney would have been the ideal candidate. with hogan and joe manchin out, it looks to the casual observer that is over, but there are other people they are pursuing. if you go to a lower tier, if you get 70 who is confident and could appeal but is not rfk junior or mitt romney whether he hogan. -- four larry hogan. it does not mean it is over. the theory that it is in meltdown is wrong. they invested so much money i think they are not going to go through with it. there are people working against

it. they are to get it to back out. they maintained that not intend to be a spoiler for trump -- they do not intend to be his father for trump. this new exit ramp for people's can you get out at the last minute if it looks like it is not viable? jonathan: by july. a.b.: that is tricky. you get someone in and you have to work up their name. that is middle march, early april at the latest. we are in the world. there is a lot of concern about this going for the house being a contingents elect scenario where the house decides it. i truly believe it would break the country in half and burn down and the american electorate is not ready to prepare --

electorate is not prepared to receive any election decided by the house -- an election decided by the house. at what point do they see a path to 70 which avoids the nightmare house scenario? or do they give in to the groups trying to dissuade them and say you are right, we did this. we believe the public subheads biden and trump that they would come on and give a ticket of plurality. when do they back off? jonathan: did you talk to anybody in this orbit? a.b.: i am agnostic, i am on the outside. i volunteered for no labels for big -- for use -- for years. jonathan: the former insider for

years. a.b.: i really want to say that we would have no chips, no pact act, no codification of same-sex marriage, no gun reform, no electoral count act, no infrastructure without that a group that functions on the congress and a filibuster proof majority in the senate of republican senators to defy the president and give biden all of these accomplishments. sarah: the fact that they have done such good work is why it is a bummer they have assented to shred their credibility through this cycle. the idea they will get to 270, how many electoral delegates does delaware get? three? i do not think there will get to three.

they have put out material that says they will win a bunch of states. one of the states is delaware. can you think about anything about delaware that would make it implausible that their unity ticket would be better than joe biden? i can think of a reason -- it is joe biden's own state. they will not vote for the no labels candidate. they have been selling snake oil. the people they have been trotting around, larry hogan, joe manchin, the billionaires that have kicked in all this money, those guys are both out -- real out. now they are going down the list. i think for meltdown looks like them going to rfk jr. and saying, what do you think? we have access and you have whatever it is you are doing. the billionaires that funded this thing will not like that. they will not like some b tier, second-tier candidate. i think they can still cause

trouble but in terms of them doing anything that looks like a serious effort -- they went from, no, we will have all of these delegates, we will hold a big convention and person -- no. and then it was we will hold a zoom convention. now it is a few party insiders will pick this person. i think that looks like a meltdown. jonathan: one more thing. you said this to me in passing yesterday about the polling. polling showing third parties really hurt biden. this speaks to your broader case. the most recent one of these i have seen, i do you do not like harvard harris. you think they are a bad polling outlet. the most recent one, when it is straight up trump and biden, trump is plus seven. when it is trump, biden, rfk, trump's leader gets bigger.

when you throw jill stein and cornell west in, trump goes up 11. the more third part -- the more third party candidates you offer --would you like to speak to this? sarah: go back to the idea of double doubters, double haters. what happens in that situation -- what voters would talk about is the lesser of two evils. if we had a drinking game and every time someone said we have to choose the lesser of two evils and we had to drink, we would all be dead. you are not building a pro-joe biden coalition, you are building an anti-trump coalition. it is right-wing independents, soft gop voters, you need those

people. if you give them a unity ticket of joe manchin and larry hogan, those people are right there, they are out. if you give them cornell west, there are a lot of black voters or young voters who are more progressive. anytime you peel off a segment of the people who when push comes to shove about who they hate more, they choose trump and joe biden, you give them france and it fractures the anti-trump coalition and that is how this race is lost. that is why i have taken the third-party stuff seriously. with the particular psychology of this race, it can do enormous damage. jonathan: thank you. we are going to end with a big philosophical question. before that, newsflash, today at cpac at 1:00, the defeated former president at 1:00 will be giving an address. did you know that?

i will said that once upon a time, having a former president who is the presumptive nominee of his party speaking at a conference where the opening speaker said "welcome to the end of democracy, we are here to overthrow it completely, we did not get there all the way on january 6 but we will endeavor to replace it with this right here." sarah: i thought he raised a cross. jonathan: ok, then i am cool with that. [laughter] i think it would have been the end of the campaign for the presidential nominee to appear at the same conference that was opened that way. i get the sense that is not the case anymore. [laughter] we have an advanced look at the

remarks that he may or may not stick to. i do not know if you saw that this morning. he will say four years ago, i told you crooked joe biden got to the white house that our borders would be abolished, middle class would be decimated and our communities would be plagued -- interesting word -- by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime. as the saying goes, trump was right about everything. that is not the same. [laughter] i have the trademark and that is not it. he will do american carnage again. he will just do american carnage again. is that going to work again? spoiler, yes, it is, but i would like to hear what you think. a.b.: democrats destroy democracy because the 2020 election was unconstitutional.

trump's remarks that he will talk about the tierney of joe biden and that is their ammo and it will work on a lot of uninformed voters. we are living under fascism now. trump says the socialists, communists, the fascists in his speeches. he has turned the threat of him and his party into a criticism of joe biden and the democrats. they are happy with it. they are raising money on it. we are living in a third world country where the government is going after this politico poll -- political poll leader. he is winning all the polling in the swing states. they will not let up on it because it is working. everyone should prepare for that. jonathan: i do not want to sound like an elitist, but people are

buying a lot of boats. they are buying sneakers, how does that work if it is so terrible? sarah: there are a lot of people in this country, some of them are buying sneakers but i do not know if it is enough to say this is the fullness of the economy. jonathan: let's have our fight again. sarah: i do not want to fight about the economy. like a.b. said, it is working right now. talk to me in four months. if in four months it still looks like this, i will hit the panic button. the reason i have not been panicked this whole time that everyone else has been freaking out, even though i sent a long time ago i thought joe biden is indeed old and that is indeed going to be a big problem, whether the media talks about it or not, the voters have noticed.

they have noticed. however, right now, people know what they do not like about joe biden because he is the president. he is right in front of them and they see it and they have their frustrations. they have forgotten about donald trump. something that is happening is because the media -- i feel bad for them because they cannot win. stop broadcasting all of his insane did seriously theories because it just broadcasts him. now people asked whether or not. both of those things are true and i do not know what to do about it. i believe when voters see donald trump more, when he is in front of them, he has has always been unhinged to his benefit because the drop off not seem so pronounced. he always sounded like a lunatic. i listen to swing voters now through multiple cycles. they think it is not even

democracy or abortion. they think he is awful. they think he is a jerk. when people are -- as long as there is no third-party, as long as there is a had to head competition and it becomes a contest with front, i do think joe biden will win. i believe that scenario exists. [applause] the other thing i will say, this is why prosecuting this case is so important, the democrats have done a pretty good job in part because of responding to the republican party that has been driving yourself off a cliff -- there is a bunch of people on the democratic party who are very normal. josh shapiro in pennsylvania is a normal guy. the progressives are like we are taking down the william penn statue and he was like, no you

are not. what you talking about? joe biden said we are not doing that. so is abigail spanberger. they have this whole bench now -- [applause] those people have got to come out and become surrogates for this democratic party and show people what the future of the democratic party will be an otherwise it will be gavin newsom, and i do not like gavin newsom. [laughter] that is a me problem. there is a much better version of the democratic party to show. there is a future case to make. contrasting that with marjorie taylor greene and lauren boebert and matt gaetz and tommy tuberville in the future of the republican party, that contrasting get pretty stark pretty fast if you show it to people. there will be no organizing tool like donald trump back in the public eye -- media, if you are listening, show trump in

all his glory. voters need to see it. [applause] jonathan: we will bump up against time but i do want to be a little philosophical. what happens next? sarah: i am going to eat lunch. [laughter] jonathan: we will hit an inflection port in eight months when one of three things will happen. donald trump will win the election fair and square and become the president. one pathway. joe biden will win the election and will wind up sworn in again after whatever happens, because i just assume there will be challenges again. " stop the steal 2" will be much better organized than "stop the

steal 1." the third option is biden wins and the results are overturned. alternate slates of electors that create confusion. the reform act is taken before the supreme court to see how much power they have. you have to squint a little bit but not all that much. my question to you guys is, where did these three pathways lead? if you wind up on one of the two pathways were trump loses, is there a line that republicans will not cross? is there mike pence-ism, the great american hero? [laughter] i am serious about that. i will fight anyone who wants to talk bad about mike pence. is there any force for that left in the party?

so there, go ahead. you do your thing and then i will make everyone want to hang themselves before they go to lunch. [laughter] a.b.: i want to end on a high note for me, i believe nikki haley who is a through and through phony, it does not matter what she is doing in this race. the fact that people are giving her money to injure trump for the general election matters to me and the cause. she is finally speaking the truth. she cannot back away from it. i do not believe she will endorse trump. others think she will. sarah: there is a 35% chance she will. [laughter] a.b.: i am clinging to this now that she will not. whether she believes, in the event of a trump defeat, a

revival of some kind of boomerang and republicans finally saying, once again, with rump we lose, and she -- with trump we lose, and she is better situated with ron desantis. i want to help that senator john cornyn and people will stand up if trump loses and we are rent to stop the steal professional version, stand up and say i am out. i am done. this was as safe and legal as the last one and i am done this time. we know there will be many that do not. we know how many people will run around and lie about this. i am hoping there is this tiny slice of what was the establishment, paul ryan will be one of them now, who say this is

bull and i am out. i do not know if that means there is any hope, that is separate from a real group turning into the next republican party. the post-defeat republican party. i so hope there are a few that say i am done once he starts stopping the steal. [applause] sarah: this is why nobody can get tired. this is why nobody can decide, i don't know, i don't feel like dealing with it. when i really want to ruin my own day, i sit there and say -- i call jvl. i do trump's fantasy cabinet. john eastman try to overturn the

last election, he would probably be the head of the justice department. jonathan: jeff clark. sarah: with jeff clark. all the people who try to overturn it. the madisons, the kellys, everyone who kept the thing on the rails, nobody is joining the administration to do that. whoever he chooses as vice president would not be mike pence. it makes it much harder to do one of these alternative slates of electors. i do not think people are sufficiently alarmed about what a second trump -- it is not just american courage all over again -- american carnage all over again. there is burning the boats in a bad way where these people say they are writing this -- riding this prompting to the end and

i'm. going to punish my enemies. . . we are all getting audited in this room if trump is the person. jonathan: at minimum. sarah: at minimum. anytime i feel tired, i hold those scenarios in my head to think about just how bad it could be. most of the people in congress who would have stood up to him last time, they are gone. they have all been run out. there is brad raffensperger in georgia, there is stephen richer in maricopa county in arizona, kemp in georgia you could probably count on to do the right thing, i'm sure you could, it is a dwindling number of people who will stand up. that is why it is on us to do the hard things in this moment and push one more time, except he will be the 2028 nominee. push one more time.

[applause] jonathan: that was so good that as my gift to all of you, i will not tell you why she is wrong and we are all doomed. thank you for coming out. [applause] >> we are through the first quarter. thank you. we will now break for lunch. when you come back from lunch, there will be three panels outside, a principles first banner with lincoln on it, feel free to sign that with one of our sharpies. we will see you back here, we will get started at 1:00 p.m.