tim: good morning. how is everybody doing? lively, huh? do you want me to get you coffee? thank you guys for being here. my name is tim alberta. i am the chief political correspondent. i would normally not read this. carnage" "american available on preorder. i have little kids who needs a lot of diapers, go and buy them. you tolighted to welcome

the texas tribune festival which politico is proud to be an official media partner. texansbune has invited to a free politics, news, and community festival. anotherlike to thank sponsor for their sponsorship today. my colleagues and i are excited to convene important conversations this afternoon including a playbook exchange with the house freedom caucus, spoiler alert, they are not for impeachment. how to fix american politics will be after that. 2020 and the border will be third in the order, and then finally agriculture in the modern world, so stick around. this brings me to our first conversation of the day, and i am honored to be sitting with this mostly distinguished panel of three of the top republican strategists in the country, three guys who wear the campaign managers for the jeb bush

campaign, marco rubio, and ted cruz campaign. they are danny diaz, say hello. >> hello. hold your applause. [applause] tim: terry sullivan. [applause] a little lesson through the and for terry. >> please clap. that is true. tim: finally, jeff, no applause. >> do not clap all around. tim: we were supposed to be joined by a fourth gas, who was the -- a fourth guest, but that ran into a little bit of flight difficulties, so she could not make it today, which will open the floodgates to the anti-kasich abuse that these guys were planning to levy. >> he is still writing his

dropout speech. tim: can everybody hear us ok. maybe not jeff? all right, we will let you jump into it. we concluded our last conversation, we had a great panel discussion with these and weome months ago, were talking about other things about the changing demographics in america and how that when she -- how that would shape the battleground map in 2020. we are here in texas and i want to talk to you guys about where we are 14 months out from election day. where we are specifically as it pertains to texas being competitive in the general election next year. if you all responsible for running the campaign of the eventual democratic nominee, how heavily would you be investing in texas and preparing to invest in texas. and how real of a possibility is

there for a democrat to turn the state blue next november? jeff, he ran a lot of campaigns here, we will start with you. watermarkp's low would be seven or six, the high watermark would be 13. i would send early people, i would release early polling, i would included in barnstorming. i would act with the smallest amount of resources possible like i was going to play here all day long and i would not spend a meaningful dollar. that is the national narrative everyone wants to have, texas turning blue. texas will never be blue. there is highly likely that in the next four or eight years that it will be poor -- purple and competitive. we are seeing the early advancement of that with the 2018 cycle, and you see it with the president's numbers, image, and job approval. if everybody votes in texas,

republicans win by 10 in a presidential race, everybody votes. tim: you had near presidential level turnout. jeff: near previous presidential level turnout. explain to folks who may be listening and they heard congressman say that this is now a 50-50 state, next november. you disagree with that because why? terry: politicians are wrong. that is the first thing. i do not care what politicians say. year, 8.6 million people voted. and 11t year, 10.5 million. it is literally if everybody votes than you have a wipeout. a lot of people think that the new growth coming into texas are all democrats from -- and hopefully, as i have said before.

it is not just that, democrats do not pick up and move from california to austin for the higher taxes. it is republicans. it is people coming to freedom. it is like freedom's dying breath will be in texas. they like their jobs and opportunities, it does not happen on the coast like here. it is not just democrats, it is republicans moving in. ted cruz did better among people who lived 10 years and less against beto than those who lived here 10 years or more. those are staggering statistics and they will round out with the rest your panelists and politicians, but the reality is beas is red and it will purple because of the nonwhite voting increase, and if there is any kind of immigration reform that legalizes illegal votes, it could happen. where it would be more purple

this year than before. but i would take it all the way through. tim: do either of you guys disagree? >> i do not. from my perspective, politically you might need to do a fake with respect to texas. i do not know how many people? tim: can we get their mics up? >> is this better? you may need from a voter perspective to make head stakes can turning texas. i find it hard to believe that it will be on the map. it was a bit of an element of surprise in 2018. there is no element of surprise in 2020. this is a big state, basically a country. to run a real campaign costs real money. the money spent here is not money spent in phoenix, and not spent in atlanta, which would be more legitimate pick up opportunities and spending money in dallas, houston, and here in austin.

from my perspective i find it hard to believe that they were making meaningful plays much more than it has been. georgia betterd pick up opportunities? terry: absolutely. advice got ted cruz reelected so clearly it is not a swing state. let us be honest. it is a solid red state, maybe it is trending less solid, but it is not anything that is going to be several election cycles before there is any meaningful -- a lot of it is this by out flat -- outsiders of this bias, look at this bennett population. a large portion of the hispanic population in texas is fifth-generation. this is not the hispanic population you will run into in florida or other parts of the country. oversimplified to

growing hispanic means only democrats will win. tim: the last time we got together, the four of us and beth, it was on the eve of the first democratic presidential debate, and we were sort of gaining out what the primary and democratic side would look out versus what the chaotic primary looked like on the republican side in 2016. there are similarities and differences. one of the big similarities that we were noting is how joe biden as a candidate reminded us in a not insignificant way of jeb bush. i would say that one of these, not the biggest development since we got together is that jeb bush -- joe biden is beginning to tread water. coming back in the polls and his vulnerabilitynsed

that they did not sense before. i want to take that to you, you were looking at this a couple of months ago and giving warnings to the biden campaign about how they could avoid what jeb bush suffered. how do you assess the way that they are running that campaign strategically, and do you see his current downward trajectory as a blip or is he in trouble? danny: the reality is that it is hard to be a front runner. when you were on top, in our case you have 16 other people shooting at you. in his case, over 20 people shooting at him. is, he has been fairly durable. performance, and the debates and whatnot. he has maintained a healthy lead on the national plot and he needs seeing that she has seen slippage on the state plots, double digits in new hampshire,

and south carolina, so he has maintained durability. day, thed of the question i am asking myself is how does he ebb that downward trend. if you look at any of the numbers, what is happening is that he has an enthusiasm gap. number two, just as problematic is elizabeth warren is the second choice of a lot of voters. he is becoming less of a second choice. , and in first choice some ways there is more support and firmness around that choice, and she is a little bit softer and some of these early states. but she is the second choice for a lot of voters, and her energy level is on the upward trajectory. his energy level is on the downward trajectory.

the question is what will he do to ebb the current direction? tim: what do you guys make up jab today rail at --jeb relative to where he was at the outset? >> biden or jab? -- jeb. tim: biden. let us talk about biden. for jeb at thets end. what do you make about biden today and we are all hearing almost a panic narrative. it was a reporter who tweeted out that the biden campaign, sources, had told him that they were bracing to lose iowa and new hampshire. we are five months out and those are two very different states. there is a sense that they have to stick this. to danny's point, they need to do something to stop the bleeding.

how worried are you? >> i think it is impressive how well they hung on. at the end of the day, he was dropped -- he has dropped into the margin of error. other candidates have gone up, but he has not at all. he has done a very good job. he had everything stacked against him, being the front 1 -- front runner and everyone coming in. he is more moderate than the rest of his party. at the end of the day, he -- there was every reason to believe that he would tank out of the gate, and they have done a good job at surviving all of this stuff. this handwringing crab about -- insider, it is probably a friend who texted somebody who is like they are ready to lose. who cares. i think they have done a smart running the kind of

campaign they need to run. biden's only chance is to be the front runner. sherry -- and terry are not about to push the panic button. jeff: it is over. you have a better chance to be a nominee. tim: i am not 35. jeff: you are not 35? award-winning author? >> you look much older than that. tim: thanks. jeff: i think that there is a -- when jeb was slowly leaking out, he was not nationally. a prop up and kept his numbers higher. erodingre states he was without a lot of negative campaigning.

hit, he ist taking a taking a hit every single day. -- he has had 100 days of bad news and is getting ready to have another 100. the one thing is electability, and the one thing that he has going, and electability is always full's goal -- fool's gold. the democrats think that the president will be impeached, and we need to go with someone who will do what will get done and widen is not the safe choice to beach trump, that is no longer his narrative. lose iowaare going to and new hampshire and think you will hold, that is bad strategy. the post and the carrier had him at 46%. the post has him at 36 in august. he is on a down alert --

downward decline. he has to address that. and the way you address it is not lifting your guy up, it is by making sure that elizabeth warren gets the level of scrutiny over the next four or five months that he has gotten over the previous four or five months. >> that is a smart point. which is what matters as much as anything, if the pressure comes off -- the limelight comes off him a bit. i do not think the limelight is coming off. >> i call bs on that. at the end of the day, everybody else has gotten a pass. ofre has been no scrutiny elizabeth warren and her policies and ideas in the past six months. and, it will be her turn in the barrel, and there will be that level of scrutiny on her, and they are still going to be scrutiny on him, but that is

going to bring her numbers down. >> i think i said they were running a rose garden strategy, and it does not work. you see him doing one event today, he cannot raise money like the rest can, so he has to keep doing fundraisers. they are hard to get to. it is high octane, you have to be well staffed, your entire operation have to go there -- has to go there. an event today is some diner that he is stopping by on the way to go to a fundraiser. theow many events a day donald trump have a day? donald trump had saturation media coverage in a way that joe biden will not have. >> my point is -- and this is the point, it is all about making impressions, and joe biden is able to get more impressions than anyone else, like donald trump. who the has chosen

nominee is, just like fox. an asset -- msnbc chooses there. -- chooses theirs. you can call roger all you want to do and he said i will not tell andy or lori what to say. take a look at the daytime -- daytime coverage. try and find the last bad elizabeth warren story. you cannot find one. measure media mentions on msnbc, which is what 4 million of their 10 million voters watch every day. try and find a bad elizabeth warren story. tim: the three of you guys were bullish on a couple of people a few months ago, and on the eve of the democratic debate we were handicapping these things. you talked a lot about kamala harris we agreed was the best natural political athlete in the field. pete buttigieg, you thought that buttigieg had the potential to take off. ,one of you were high on warren

because of some of her vulnerabilities and the rocky start to her campaign. how impressed have you been with the way that she has taken off and how durable is it. do you worry that she has peaked too soon because she is about to go under the microscope? >> the numbers show that her voters are not sold on her yet. if they can be persuaded and move off of her, she, unlike joe biden is not an entirely known quantity. you have to paint a portrait of her to those voters with a very powerful tool. new information, information that they have not seen, information they have not heard, you have to drive. premise and it was my that, allah needs to hang around because if -- if -- that needs to hangmala

around because if biden comes down there is room to maneuver. i do not know she controls her fate, but you cannot take your eyes off of her because the lane she is in and who is occupying the lane. then there is the deathmatch, bernie and elizabeth, and she is cleaning his clock. he still is the most donors and money, that she is eating his vote share. we asked, what will biden do to change the dynamics, the next question is what will bernie do to change dynamics for himself? he is the godfather of medicare for all, and she dances on some of the stuff and he has the pure ideologue, and she is playing politics with some of these issues. you will have to figure out what he is doing, because she is blossoming. have secondlitics act, and there is somebody will get a second act three or four

months from now. >> to that point, i think buttigieg is doing an amazing job of hanging around. he got his little bit of a spike, and he did not settle down that much. he still sits around -- for a guy in a small town, he has done an amazing job and i think it has been out of his raw political talent and, from a generational standpoint and telegenic standpoint, he works and he is not -- i think he might end up gaining more from biden coming down than harris. is -- she is not -- she has not done as well as anyone thought she would. her campaign has been boring. as a candidate she is not as

dynamic. she checks a lot of boxes, but she is not dynamic. >> you have to say it. >> here is why, because no matter what, whether you voted for marco or worked for other candidates were secretly told me that you liked marco, at the end of the day, you listen to him and you are like, i like that. he inspires me, even if you disagree with them. he was inspirational. i do not see where she is inspiring anyone he -- anybody. >> people will have opportunities to have movements, it is way too early. >> here's the thing with kamala harris. if i am running for a campaign that i am concerned about, the currency of a presidential campaign is moments. we get stuck in the turn of the screw every day, but it is the moments that break through that people remember. kamala harris taking down job out -- joe biden in the first

debate was the only real moment in my opinion and covering it. she did not capitalize in the way she needed to have that moment and the media coverage, and the t-shirts being printed in the donations coming at flooded into her campaign. a month later she plateaued. that would be concerning. what it not for you guys? >> important part of that is that it was a fabricated moment. any sort of cotton candy high she got out of it was immediately erased. when people said, they did not believe joe biden was a racist, and they did not believe that she believed it. it was a great talking point that she rehearsed and debate prep and she waited for her moment, she delivered the talking point and everybody was like great. and everyone was like, that is not really fair. i think she paid a price. what matters more than anything

else is authenticity or perceived authenticity, and that did not seem authentic. >> i think he is right, that is rubio's problem and it is hard to have a moment of june -- engine that carries much. we had 24 million people watched the first debate, they had 14. all the ballyhoo democrat energy, there are not a lot of people paying attention yet. you have small dollars that are fueling the campaign, small dollars that are required to make debate stages, so you have these people lurching way outside their comfort zones, way left of where they would ever naturally be. senators that are really -- literally cosponsoring bills that they could've cosponsored at any time in their career the day before they go on a road trip in a primary state. you have a bunch of characters acting out of character, they know it and they are faking it.

it seems pretty mundane, which is why biden hangs on and is more durable than he should have been. just liketly right, baseball in the playoffs and the ncaa tournament, you have to get hot at the right time. the top five can all get hot, i don't think anybody outside the top five has any gas into the tank. >> tuesday playing a wildcard game. nobody thought they would have made it. her issue is that she is not growing on staff. improvingmance is not on stuff. that is her problem. politics isntity super strong their side, so when counting -- so counting her out is a fools errand. tim: let us talk about warren. the energy you are seeing on the ground for her is unrivaled on this democratic side at this point, and it is growing.

and in the white house, and the president's team were not concerned about warren as of four or five months ago, they were outright dismissive. they were like, please make her the nominee, we would love to face elizabeth warren. i can tell you from conversations with those same people, there is lot -- there is a lot more concerned now than there was then. >> you mean that the trump political operation did not have their finger on the pulse? tim: it is shocking, right? >> if you are running the white house political shop and you are in charge of getting the president reelected, how worried are you about elizabeth warren, seeing some of that organic enthusiasm in the base that hillary clinton was never able to manufacture? >> she is a wreck for the democrats. tim: why? you pick a freaky

looking liberal, make him a college professional -- professor and get their hair funny, and have them drink beer, it is her. she is literally in the encyclopedia under a labor -- a liberal hipster professor. that is great for the street. that out outside of madison in wisconsin in the wild counties. try it in alabama between pittsburgh and philadelphia and pennsylvania. eclectic,to a very liberal base. that is why you see her as the most clear and consistent, and does not look like a freak show like bernie does. is is a newer version, she 70. she is a newer version of bernie, and bernie got 50% of the vote last time.

we should have thought about this. the most liberal acceptable candidate will be a very strong contender in the primary and have no chance in the general. hillary won 40 states, and elizabeth warren is the nominee. >> who does she pick? >> she has to pick buttigieg, if he was not gay we would not be talking about him. identity politics, and so you put elizabeth warren in pete buttigieg, blowout. tim: you think so? are you guys nearly that parish are in warren? --bearish on warren? >> i think that they run a smart campaign. i think she is an awkward candidate, i agree without all of the name-calling that jeff has done. is coming into her

-- comfortable in her skin a lot more. a lot of her stuff that she did was craft, contrived and awkward, but it is better. it is better and at the end of the day, americans want to elect a president they feel like they can have a beer with and identify with. if you look back historically, it is always the candidate that is more relatable, even neither one of them are relatable. hillary clinton was more awkward than donald trump. if you wanted someone over at europe house he wanted the crazy guy. she was, who is she? her problem is going to be at the end of the day, can she be more relatable? and comfortable in her own skin and trump, i do not think the blowout thing. do nots and demographics line up for 40 states anymore. they just do not. tim: i want to get to you on

this. these guys have both talked style and handicapping warren's ability to wage aid competitive general election. a lot of democrats would be more worried about the substance and the discussions of a middle-class type -- tax hike which she danced around and eliminating private insurance. if you are a republican strategist trying to defeat nominee elizabeth warren, and specifically charged with running trump's campaign because we know that -- know the way he operates, how do you go about attacking her? danny: one, and we were in new droveire in 15, if you outside of manchester, and drove north he saw two things, or any signs and trump signs. rnie signs and trump signs.

from the perspective of trump protecting his northern states, there is a chance that she could appeal to those kind of clue collar workers, so like their strategic imperative needs to be to hold that line. you cannot win the war without holding those lines. , lowerre lower income educated workers who have gone from obama to trump, these are voters that moved. they have to hold that line at all costs. number one. number two is that he is one of the best countermeasures we have ever seen politics. at the end of the day it is mano e mano. for worse,better or pretty well defined. she is undefined. people do not know elizabeth warren. drive theshould do is policy piece on socialism, left

of center, extreme aspect of her agenda, and impact it will have, get it, blue-collar workers in those states, michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. they will have a hell of winning wisconsin. i think it is michigan and pennsylvania, and if they are able to do that effectively, the mathematics improved tremendously, campaigns matter. they got more money, they had more voter contact. in, thereeed to walk is a lot of energy behind her. she will need to walk in and remake the democratic party overnight to be able to run the kind of grassroots operation necessary when we already have one foot in the door. tim: i want to build on that point about the states and her appeal because i think there is a disconnect. on the one hand, she is a liberal college professor, that

is the way she has been painted, which she is. that is what she sells herself. i think she has -- >> she is for socialized medicine and a college professor. tim: she came from a low income family she put herself through law school, there is a different part of her biography. >> she had help in the admissions process. tim: we are not going >> >> down that route. do you want to listen for elizabeth warren -- to elicit -- elizabeth warren for six months. tim: i have been out on the stump, and there is an initial reaction that you will see some voters have in the first five minutes that they are listening to her. i have seen this firsthand, by the end of her talks, you have big dudes in camouflage hats crying at the end of her speeches. she has a way of connecting to people. tucker carlson did a whole

segment and said that the trump people are underestimating her at their own risk because she has the ability to connect on the economic populism. in middle america. isany other vessel, that exactly right, just not her. i just cannot any world. any other person on the stage, with that steam -- same message and ability to connect, joe biden is a terrible outcome. tim: you think so? >> terrible. , who are you got going to pay attention to? tim: trump carries the electoral college by three states, again, wisconsin, pennsylvania. he wins those by 77,744 votes. wants to treat- donald trump like he is a

political phenomenon. he won fewer votes in wisconsin. his trump winning those states or hillary losing those states? i think there is no question. aydin, orfor warren, any of these folks, if you want to concentrate on we should get andichigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, if you flip those tapes -- those states you win the presidency. jeff: biden is a big problem. -- those three states, i do not know how trump would beat him in the state. tim: if biden is the nominee he wins. jeff: highly likely if he is the nominee. cycle, michigan elected gretchen, so instead of a republican, it is a very appealing, very effective my

credit governor. problem, they already had one in hensylvania and wisconsin, has much less of a dynamo. i cannot express enough. one county will be a problem. wayne county will be a problem. he has got to cover the spread. or, he cannot win in michigan. that is the play in the upper peninsula. it is these economic blue-collar voters. he was not far off in new hampshire, she was not far off in arizona. there is ways that you work the map in different scenarios, that is what people will be watching 100%. states,u look at the every single one of those states , pennsylvania, wisconsin, throw in florida, all of those states all had a republican running for senate who outperformed trump on the ballot, and none of those states had a republican running

for senate. there is no ron johnson to help drag trump -- trump across the line and the suburban voters will say, hey, he is kind of offensive but i have to vote for the senate candidate i might as well vote state -- straight party. tim: you talked about gold,bility being fool's and this gets interesting with someone like bernie or warren, but we do not count them out because of grassroots that they have built into the campaign. in michigan, trump wins by 10,000 votes and hillary clinton underperformed by 2000 votes. she does not turn out college education white men, or black voters. if you have a democrat who performs at marginally better -- 2016han clinton 16 because trump is in trouble because it is hard to see his healing getting higher in a

state like michigan, do you disagree? >> yes. you cannot rerun the last campaign, it has no bearings. are aw now, if you republican or center-right, you have a reason to vote for him that you did not have before. before it was a lesser of two evils, and now you will make a choice. i did not know what i was going to get. i thought there was a chance that he might put his sister on the supreme court or before gun control, i do not think he would care about pro-life judges. there was not a lot of energy, it was just who do you not want to listen to for the next four years and she was worse than him. this is a different thing. if you are a center-right person, you have something in the last four years that you can boldly go fight for in the next campaign. much different than his first one. >> if that is the case, why in the state of michigan last fall did you have the governor of

michigan flip? you have two congressional sheets -- seats flip. every meaningful statewide office? >> 50% turnout, which was historic. we have not seen that since 1914. look at the turnout. college-educated, younger, more diverse. let us play 2020, turnout does this, call it 65 plus, who is turning out? a lot of voters who did not show up in 18 who are trump voters. they will focus on those people like a laser beam. they will look at those mathematics and say we need a 68% turnout. what is the difference if i turn those people out and find and register these additional people and that is how i get this. you have to look at who showed up and who did not. those people who did not show up in 18 were his voters, they are going to show up in 2020 for the reasons he gave. it is a given.

if they can turn up the turnout higher on their end, there is a game. i think there is a discounting of his base. he has at 90% with republican voters. these people will show up on his behalf. tim: i'm sure this is a phenomenon you guys have paid attention to. there is a world in which you can see how somebody's approval rating with self identified republican voters is high, at the party itself is shrinking simultaneously. that is a danger for trump and people in most parties. when people expose yourself id as a republican, again, you are 90% with more people embarrassed to say i am republican. >> the republican party used to be just under middle-class, lower middle-class to middle-class, all the way up to high end. of made 100 $50,000, family four, you are a republican.

trump has realigned the party and he has brought that number down. of annuale $150,000 income in a family of four, you will vote democrat. he is getting people that are not behaviorally republican, he is getting the lower middle class. >> he is also losing people. >> he is shaking out the poor democrats, the riches now democrats. the realignment is happening, but the republican might be smaller but the democrats will be smaller. he is getting votes that no republican has ever gotten. tim: the realignment is interesting, because -- >> they are walking and that is what is happening. see the issue is, when you a few months ago at the trump rally when people are chanting send her back to reference to ilhan omar. i was talking to the trump political team and his concern

that for every one base voter that we mobilize for this thing, do we alienate a traditionally republican voter who has pulled the level -- the lever for republicans like clockwork. and that is the if you. darcy issue. >> to danny's point, it is not the base. i do not think his political team gets it. he is firing up the people in macomb county, the blue counter -- blue collar, swing voters who care about the economy that feel like people are taking their jobs and it is being shipped overseas. not the base. >> this is what you are talking about. suburban, base voter. guess what, he has got to do it. who else has to do it, elizabeth warren. she is going to need to say how a government takeover of the

education system, and the health care system, how a redistribution of wealth is a good idea. nobody is talking about it, but they will and we will assign a number per household poor person on this -- per person on this recreation of the american economy, and i find it hard to believe that people will support it. tim: you mentioned macomb county, and let us take on this when we are talking about realigning. this is interesting. come county is home -- macomb county is written by -- is home to the reagan democrats. talk about fighting the last war. macomb county is no longer the bellwether. it is not where this election will be won or lost. it will be counties with high percentages of white collar, college-educated workers who can wait to detroit and elsewhere, and in those counties, that is where you have these two congressional districts flip in

michigan by two young, my credit candidates who ran centrist campaigns and unseeded income but republicans who had gotten complacent. you aree is, if democrat and you have seen that blueprint from 2018, are you worried about somebody like warren not being able to connect with those suburban affluent voters, so are they willing to vote for a blue dog democrat but are they willing to vote for a radical one? >> this is the strategy. it is not about those counties. trump needs to vilify his opponent to make them think, this is not our kind of guy, we think he is offensive and says awful things. but at least he is not a socialist, this or that. he is going to get more votes. he is not going to win macomb, people get more votes than any

other republican. but that is the matter for him. >> he will lose more than a traditional republican. it looks like an amazing job and he is at his best politically when he has an opponent. when he does not he is a hot mess. on,as an opponent to focus he gets really good, and he will make them the issue in the open counties of the world. tim: i want to do a lightning round, and i'm going to name a democratic, presidential candidate who is still technically in the race and i'm reminded almost every day of somebody who is theoretically still running but we forget. i want you to tell me dead or alive, dead no chance and alive there is a slight chance that they could resurrect themselves. huckabee andt mike

president santorum? buttigiegstart with and we will go down the line. buttigieg. >> alive. >> barely alive. tim: barely? >> there is a chance he is nominee. >> so he is dead. there is a marginal chance. tim: kamala harris. >> alive. tim: you have been more bullish on her. >> i believe she checks a lot of boxes, and if biden declines she has an opportunity. whether she takes it is somebody else's deal. tim: beoto. >> who is that? >> the reason why he is not going to win is because he lost his base, the media. when the media leaves you you never come -- they never come back. i thought they would come back

during the tragedy of el paso, so i thought he had a second act, but that was fleeting and it did not work. still on his vanity road trip and does not have a chance to win. >> this is a perfect example of modern-day politics. he was sexy because of who he was running against man who he was. he was running against darth vader himself. issuddenly became -- he playing air drums in the whataburger drive through, who the hell does that? he was a caricature of who he was not, so he was never a life candidate, ever. eto is dying, the next time he goes to the dentist and does a facebook live, no one will watch. tim: i am assuming you will all say bernie is alive. are you surprised to the degree of which he has struggled at this point in the race. you do have statewide polling that he is hanging around mid to

high teens, but it is difficult to see with elizabeth warren continuing to steal his vote share and his path denomination unless she stumbles. how do you ssm? >> alive and well. his image is good and he is getting chomped at on both sides but he has the most dominant liberal and a liberal turn out election and he has one million people giving him $25 every month. >> way alive, he will outlast everybody. >> he is not going to take everything back it is going to be given to him. when your strategy relies on somebody else failing it is not a good strategy. because of that he will probably not make it. he can create his own wave, he has to ride other people's to get back into it. but he has 15% and has not done anything that he has not done for the last 20 years. he is alive, but the problem

for him is that you cannot put lightning in the bottle a second time. energetic, was that 10 seconds or 10 minutes? seconds for you. got it. he is alive, but its going to be tough for him. i know the sure play, but he has the most money, the most donors, and people are voting for him. so, he has a play. tim: you just talked about the strategy of waiting for somebody to defeat themselves, which i think a lot of you guys were guilty of with trump with the exception of jeff. and cruzf you, rubio were operating for much of the campaign operating under a strategy that trump would not last, or did he -- or he did not want to last or he would eventually not be there. >> i still do not believe he wanted to last.

how are you surprised at nice this democratic primary has been. we have not seen the knives coming out in any meaningful way. it is still only late september, you guys were shoving ben carson down our throats. that is not fake news. are you surprised at how nice these folks are playing? >> i do not know if they are doing that to each other or not now. it is a different thing. works, nobody wants to go first. somebody will have to strap the proverbial political bomb to their chest. we saw what happened over that, and somebody has to do it with stature. you saw what happened to kamala when she did it. there is a risk of going first. you really do not have to take the chance and that your entire

political fortune on a presidential race. do not have to make that move in september. you have to make it in december. >> i disagree completely. i think the democrats, look at these debates. at this point in time we were all nice to each other. we were jamming your inbox, but we were civil. tim: no. not the third political debate. >> he did not go nuclear, we took them out. >> who took who out? and 100 million dollars of super pac money. tim: we have been waiting for this. this is what the people have come to see. jeb about that. day,ook, at the end of the early autumn debates, you had kamala harris calling joe biden a racist and other candidates calling other people socialist.

that was not the kind of thing on the debate stage. >> they are trading plenty of paint. they have the outsider and insider thing going. tim: the people who are viable to win a nomination, bernie, biden, even kamala harris. >> it was a dog pylon biden. jessica: nobody has -- laid a finger on biden. >> you punch up, not down. -- to danny'sint point, she is in the hot seat right now. tim: i will post some things that are republican and trump centric. the first thing i want to know, if you look at the fundamentals of this reelection campaign, unemployment low and an economy doing well. there is no reason that the incumbent president cannot rate

43% approval with those conditions, except that he continues to be as polarizing as he is. if you are in charge of getting him reelected, what is the one thing if you got his year and can corner him and there is a chance he might listen to your advice, what is the one thing you tell him to say, mr. president you have to get out of your own way, here is what i want you to stop doing, what is the one thing? jeff: impeachment. it provides them such an opportunity that otherwise he would not have. impeachment is like the turtle on the fence post. you do not know how it got there, clearly somebody did it and it is all bs, you do not want to be the one caught taking it down. this is his opportunity to run across -- run against the entire democrat establishment. he can go into swing seats and put those people where democrats will have to kill impeachment, not republicans. he can win this fight, his

reelection is about impeachment. that, all the other fundamentals are strong. were member that one guy that got all the coverage like the seven things happened and these are who is going to live. he predicted that he would get impeached. those guys had the same fundamentals, and tremble get reelected. it is too hard to change the course of the country when so many things are going right. tim: you do not tell me something to tell him to stop doing. to get out of his own way. jeff: tweeting. if you tweeted 10% less, it would help. tim: 10%? love it.ot of people >> stop listening to the smart people. he has president of the united states because he trusted his instincts. everybody on the stage thought they were insane, he should tweet less and do this. look, corey lewandowski his

credit made smart decisions in their campaign. but is let trump p trump, and all the smart political people that he surrounds him with were working for other candidates in the primaries. kellyanne was working for you guys to defeat him and she could not do it. trust is got, whether you like it or not it has worked. danny: it is really hard. it does not happen very often. stop not talking about the economy. like, double, triple, trod root -- quadruple down on an economy where half the people think it is good, if he rides that till this time next year, his chances are becoming president are great. stop not talking about the economy. tim: one of the questions i get, and i have been out on the trail promoting my book. i will be signing it later.

it is a question of republican loyalty to the president, and how is it that as he once had -- once said, i can shoot someone and they would still vote for me, and people ask what do you make or what do you attribute this incredible loyalty, unwavering loyalty that republicans have to donald trump? what i want to know is if we had a president ted cruz, or president marco rubio, or thinkent jeb bush, do you that the republican base would be as fiercely devoted to them as they have been to trump? and, if not, why? >> it is a polarized country. number two, the russia thing, this thing, it has pushed people into their corners and heightened the partisanship, so, i think any one ofi think anyone

gentleman would be doing well. the reason he is doing extra generically with republicans is that.t due to the politics today has created a situation that we have in front of us, in my view. >> i couldn't agree more with danny on that. we are in a hyper partisan time, it is very tribal. everybody is part of their tribe and everybody else is wrong. does a bettermp job than any other human being on the planet of throwing gasoline on that and really inciting tribalism. democrat asked strategist, what is this unfailing loyalty to hillary clinton? nobody ever asks that.

>> back clinton and obama had been democrats. when donald trump came in -- >> liberty ever asked the senate if they thought hillary clinton should resign over il you males. we get asked every single day because of a tweet he sent. the reality is that none of my bosses would have appointed brett kavanaugh. none of our bosses would have stopped with cavanaugh, they would have cut bait with him when things were getting south. >> he might not have been yours -- >> the reality is trump is a guide who is going to fight them and he will fight them all the way. we are sick and tired of the p.c . police accusing republicans of all these bad things. democrats and the media do a fire drill every single time he

does a thing. if there was ever a time when republicans think i don't think i want trumpet and more, ritual meadow bringing home. >> if i espoused barack obama's 2000 a position on gay marriage today look, i don't think you marry, id be allowed to would be rude, i would be a hatemonger. it is that attack as a conservative. there is such a shift. we feel so judged as conservatives but cannot -- that the much trump has fought like a middle finger to the media. >> to close this up real quick, i went a percentage from each of you, a percentage chance but, trump loses reelection next november. >> who is he running against? >> it doesn't matter. favorite. he is a 65

>> 65% he wins? winning.d say 60% ,rma trump in this environment he could be impeached between now and then. guess.ust a >> who could be impeached, which is basically being indicted. there is never going to be a trial or he is kicked out of the office in the senate because the control the senate, number one and number two, there is a 50% chance he gets reelected. he gets reelected. >> ok, folks will be our out of time. we want to thank the great people of the texas trib for having us. [applause] and i need to thank pfizer for their sponsorship and find my brilliant panelists for making us sound smart. stick around for the next panel,

it will be my colleagues sitting down with jim jordan, mark meadows to have a conversation. i will also be sending my book at noon. this guy has a copy. thank you, guys. [chatter] announcer: that wraps up today's first ran at the texas tribune festival. our live coverage continues with jim jordan, mark meadows, and ship ride. then, pulitzer prize-winning columnist george will