Welcome to The Lost Debate, a show for politically eclectics. I'm Robbie Gupta, and we have two wonderful guests today.

In the second half of this episode, we're talking with our friend, Bridget Fettesey, from Watkins. Welcome.

That is definitely a not safe for children conversation. She's explicit. The content isn't explicit, but she just has colorful metaphors.

So just a warning about that. But I anticipate this first part of the conversation will be much more PG to the extent that

our politics are. I'm talking to Gabriel de Benedetti from New York Magazine. He has written

about politics and national affairs for Politico and Reuters. And he has commented on this election and previous

elections. He has been a go-to for me for a long time. And he wrote a piece called the

alarming com of the Biden campaign recently that we're going to ask him about. Gabriel, welcome

to the podcast. I would like to start just by asking you about the Iowa caucus.

Is there anything surprising at all about last night to you? Yeah, I was surprised by how people were

acting surprised. I mean, the writing's been on the wall in the Republican side for a really long time.

Obviously, there was some suspense about, you know, if Nikki Haley could do a little bit better

than expected,

or if Ronda Santis had some trick up his sleeve. But no, I mean, Donald Trump is running away

with this primary and has been for a really long time. We've essentially been in a general election,

I think, for a long time. And it's sort of surprising that more people haven't really internalized

that. But in terms of the actual results,

no, Donald Trump won because, of course, he was going to win. He is the central fact of not just

the Republican Party, but of all of our politics right now. And just for our listeners, in case

you didn't fully catch up, at least of my reading, most recent reading, Trump won 51% of the

vote, 30 points ahead of DeSantis,

who eked out like a slim second place to Haley's third place. I think, correct me if I'm

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