July 20, 2023: Inside McCarthy’s secret promise to Trump
The Playbook Podcast
POLITICO
3.9 • 699 Ratings
🗓️ 20 July 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Sponsored by Capital Access Alliance. |
| 0:03.0 | Good morning, everyone. I'm Playbook co-author Rachel Bade. It's Thursday, July 20th, and I've got a pair of scoops for you this morning. Number one, Lindsay Graham might be getting primaried. South Carolina Congressman Ralph Norman is considering a challenge to the top Donald Trump ally in the Senate. That is according to a |
| 0:22.3 | source that I spoke with last night. Now, Graham is not up for re-election until 2026, but a few |
| 0:29.4 | weeks ago he was actually booed by his own constituents at a Trump rally in South Carolina. |
| 0:35.4 | Now, a lot of conservatives who have long distrusted him feel like he might |
| 0:39.8 | be vulnerable and they might have an opening to take him out. On the right, a lot of folks have |
| 0:45.1 | sort of viewed Graham as this centrist who only embraces conservative values when it's politically |
| 0:51.0 | convenient for him. And of course, the more isolationist wing of the party |
| 0:55.3 | doesn't love that he is a steadfast supporter of Ukraine. And a lot of Trump allies, I mean, |
| 1:01.4 | I'm even thinking of Donald Trump Jr., folks in his family, have felt that at times Graham is disloyal, |
| 1:08.0 | including right after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. |
| 1:12.0 | Now, following this rally where Graham was booed, it sounds like a bunch of outside conservative |
| 1:16.8 | groups and South Carolina constituent started reaching out to Norman to encourage him to run. |
| 1:22.6 | And I'm told that he has been discussing this with his own inner circle. |
| 1:27.0 | It's sort of interesting because Norman |
| 1:29.3 | actually endorsed Graham for his reelection last time around. It argued that Graham was one of the |
| 1:34.8 | top reasons that Trump has been able to confirm conservative judges to the bench. But obviously, |
| 1:41.0 | that is changing now. Graham has actually easily put down primaries in the past couple election cycles. |
| 1:47.6 | He put down three in 2020, and he actually defeated Nancy Mace in the election before that. |
| 1:54.4 | Ralph Norman will have more name ID recognition, however, than all those folks had at the time. |
| 2:00.4 | Scoop number two, Kevin McCarthy's secret promise to Donald Trump. |
| 2:04.8 | Now, a few weeks ago after Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested on national television that Trump might not be the best 2024 nominee, the former president was actually furious and he wanted McCarthy to do something to fix that slight right away. |
... |
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