A.B. Stoddard on 2024: Trump, DeSantis, Biden…and Chaos?

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 83 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What did we learn about Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign from last week’s CNN town hall? How should we assess Ron DeSantis’s prospective candidacy so far? What are Joe Biden’s strengths and weaknesses as we head into the 2024 race? To discuss these questions, we are joined by veteran reporter and commentator A.B. Stoddard. Stoddard shares her perspective on why Trump remains the force in the Republican field—and how DeSantis has yet to live up to early expectations. Turning to the Democrats, Stoddard explains how outperforming expectations in the 2022 midterms helped Joe Biden to secure a lock on his party’s nomination. Nonetheless, she notes that many Democrats remain jittery about Biden’s age and prospects. As things stand, she argues, the improbable rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump seems likely despite being unpopular across a broad swath of the American public.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome back to Conversations. I'm very pleased to be joined today by AB Stoddard,
0:21.1	with whom I had an excellent conversation about 10 months ago, and we're going to pick up on some
0:24.9	of those themes today. AB is a distinguished career as both a reporter and a commentator. You can
0:31.8	find her work at RealClearPolitics, and occasionally, it should be even a little more occasionally,
0:37.1	at the Bullwork, with some really excellent pieces there. And I think really one of AB's great
0:42.4	virtues is that she's both a serious reporter, a real reporter, does interviews, has sources,
0:47.5	and a very thoughtful commentator. And most people are sort of wonder the other, but AB is both.
0:52.0	So, AB, thanks for joining me again. Thanks for having me again, Bill. It's an honor and a
0:57.5	pleasure. Well, it's great. The previous conversation, which was in July 2022, stands up well,
1:02.7	and we discussed Donald Trump and Joe Biden and Congress. And let's just go through those three
1:06.9	topics today and see what's changed and what we have to say since July, but also since the election.
1:13.3	So, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, you've been a consistent skeptic that the Republican
1:18.9	Party could liberate itself from Trump, I think it's fair to say. And including when other people
1:23.8	thought that was quite likely, where do you think we stand on Trump in 2024 and Trump in the
1:29.7	Republicans? Well, Bill, I mean, as of this time, he is clearly the kind of almost presumed nominee.
1:40.2	It's going to take a, it's going to be a big mountain to climb for Florida Governor
1:45.2	Rhonda Santis to try to overcome him. A morning consult hole I saw today has his lead against
1:51.4	over to Santis now biggest ever at 43 points. This is May, what is this? Just to be clear,
1:57.4	this is mid May, May 16th, just so. When people look back a year and a half and now they can give
2:01.9	you credit for being, you know, way ahead of the curve here. Or we'll be able to say isn't a
2:07.5	great that Rhonda Santis came out of his terrified corner and took Trump on and took him down.
2:14.8	And that would be a great thing. But anyway, this rate, it just seems that he's in Trump is
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Conversations with Bill Kristol, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Conversations with Bill Kristol and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.