S3: DeSanctimonious Deep Dive (with Tara Palmeri)
The Focus Group Podcast
The Bulwark
4.8 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 February 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Republican establishment — and many Republican voters in our focus groups — think Ron DeSantis is the answer to their prayers that they can win in 2024. But Donald Trump has a say in this matter, and he's already offering up an early taste of the kind of attacks he's planning on DeSantis. Heads-up: Those attacks are likely to go lower. What are DeSantis' vulnerabilities as a candidate? Tara Palmeri of Puck News joins Sarah to listen to the focus groups and share some of her reporting from the Trump and DeSantis camps.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to the Focus Group Podcast. |
| 0:12.8 | I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bullwork and this week we're doing a deep dive on Ron |
| 0:19.2 | the Meatball DeSantis. |
| 0:21.4 | Now you might ask, hey, Nikki Haley just got into the race this week, why not do an episode |
| 0:26.6 | about her? |
| 0:28.1 | It's fair, but when we ask voters who they'd vote for, if not Donald Trump, the answer |
| 0:33.4 | is never Nikki Haley. |
| 0:35.7 | It's almost always Ron DeSantis. |
| 0:38.9 | And polling regularly bears this out. |
| 0:41.0 | In fact, the poll we did a few weeks ago with GOP pollster wit Ares had DeSantis beating |
| 0:45.3 | Trump both head to head and in a three-way ballot with somebody else. |
| 0:50.1 | And our poll isn't an outlier in this regard. |
| 0:53.1 | Lots of reputable polls now have Ron DeSantis beating Trump in head to head matchups. |
| 0:58.0 | And while some have speculated that Ron DeSantis may be the Scott Walker of this cycle, meaning |
| 1:03.0 | someone with lots of hype that he ultimately can't live up to, Nate Kohn of the New |
| 1:07.6 | York Times points out in his column this week, Mr. DeSantis is no Scott Walker. |
| 1:12.8 | He would start the campaign in a very different and far stronger position, even if there's |
| 1:17.1 | still no way to know whether he has what it takes to succeed against former president |
| 1:21.8 | Donald J. Trump. |
| 1:23.3 | So I basically agree with that. |
| 1:25.4 | Does Ron DeSantis have what it takes to beat Trump in a GOP primary? |
| 1:29.1 | Will he live up to the hype? |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Bulwark, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Bulwark and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.