Frank Luntz: Can Donald Trump win?
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With just two months until the US presidential election, the polls show the incumbent Donald Trump trailing Democrat Joe Biden by a significant margin. This is an extraordinary election year marked by a pandemic, economic crisis, street protests over alleged police racism and a toxic political atmosphere. HARDtalk’s Stephen Sackur speaks to the veteran Republican party pollster and consultant Frank Luntz. Can Donald Trump win, and should Republicans want him to?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service with me, Stephen Sacker. My guest has spent a professional |
| 0:06.2 | lifetime taking the pulse of Republican Party voters in the United States and advising the party |
| 0:13.4 | on how to find a winning message. Frank Luntz is the master of the focus group and the slogan |
| 0:20.6 | that cuts through. |
| 0:22.3 | But this presidential election, and we are just two months from polling day, represents a very particular challenge. |
| 0:29.8 | Donald Trump is a Republican of convenience rather than longstanding conviction. |
| 0:36.4 | His is a personal political brand, and right now the brand is in trouble. |
| 0:42.1 | Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden holds a significant lead in the polls. |
| 0:47.3 | Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, an economy thrown into crisis, and a summer of deepening racial tension, America is a troubled nation. |
| 0:57.8 | Not easy for the incumbent to convince Americans they should vote for four more years of what they've |
| 1:04.2 | just had. Can Trump win? Should Republicans want him to win? Well, Frank Luntz joins me now. |
| 1:12.2 | Welcome to Hard Talk. |
| 1:13.8 | Let us begin by dealing with your meat and drink. |
| 1:17.4 | That is the polls which you watch like a hawk day and night. |
| 1:21.5 | They suggest right now that Donald Trump faces the most uphill task of an incumbent president to win this election |
| 1:29.1 | of any president since George Bush Sr. in 1992. Is that the way you see it right now? |
| 1:36.4 | I think that Joe Biden has a significant lead. I do not think it is insurmountable. If the election |
| 1:42.1 | were held today, Joe Biden is the next president, but it's |
| 1:44.8 | not held today. It's roughly 60 days from now. And there is plenty of time and three presidential |
| 1:51.2 | debates between now and when voters cast their ballots. Do you still see yourself as very much |
| 1:57.4 | a Republican pollster in this election. |
| 2:01.9 | Are you a partisan? |
... |
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