sarah longwell: yeah. which you can see, actually.ou know, joe biden, there's been a lot of classified documents that they found on his properties, mike pence, they found classified documents on his properties. and so for voters, they oftentimes think, well, i don't understand. it seems like a lot of these elected officials keep taking classified documents home and they don't always see the difference between trump being told, hey, you have to return those documents and then refusing to do so or lying to the fbi when he was asked. judy: that deep-seated distrust extended to the 2020 election results, and their aftermath, too. longwell: how many of you believe joe biden was legitimately elected president of the united states? [silence] how many of you believe that the election was stolen or rigged in some way? okay, everybody. what about january 6? how do people feel about january 6th? >> setup. >> yeah. yeah. >> 100 percent setup. >> you go look at the videos showing the capitol police walking these people through the capitol, talking

sarah longwell is a publisher of the bulwark, host of the focus group podcast, and she joins me now. first, i want to start with this point about the logic of entering a race. you've got polling, here's the latest republican primary poll. you've got trump at 56, desantis at 22. it's still very early, but that's super different than 2015, right? you know, there is 70% of voters clustered around these two candidates. my thinking is that the general thinking of everybody else is, desantis really ain't all that and lord knows what's going to happen to donald trump. is that how you see it? >> i guess. i mean, i think it's different for different people. i think there are some of them that are running for maybe vice president more than they are president. i think there are people who are in it for the name i. d.. i did not know who the governor of north dakota was. and now i do. so, he's already doing something there. you've got vivek rather swami, someone i had never heard of. and you know, chris christie, i think, is getting in really to try to go hard at trump because you think that the

we had asked polster sarah longwell to assemble two panels of gop voters in the studio of pbs. asked how they are thinking about politics, policy, and current events at this moment when candidates are depending upon their state. >> it is baloney. why isn't biden indicted? just be cave them back at an appropriate time? [laughter] >> we have a current president sicking the doj on a potential candidate. >> afterward, longwell helped guide me through the discussion. most struck you in these two conversations with these iowa voters? >> i was struck by how they sound by every other focus group. they were very clear that the indictments made them want to support trump more, which is really consistent. we have been asking people for several months. doesn't make you want to support him more, suppt him last. 26 of them said it makes them want to support donald trump more. there are little bit mixed on whether trump is exactly the right person to be the person who comes back. still after january 6, still a lot of support for donald trump. >> how many of you distrust the f vi? >> the three

. >> let's get right to republican strategist sarah longwell and south carolina state representative th being here. sarah, early polls shows trump continues to dominate over the rest of the 2024 field. now candidates are having to shape their campaigns around what trump may or may not do. how can candidates recenter to focus on their messaging and is that what you recommend that they do? >> actually, i recommend that they all start taking on donald trump as forcefully as chris christie has. the fak is nobody has a chance against trump unless they are able to knock him out of the race. pull him down. they're all far too afraid of voters. and i understand why. i was just in iowa and doing focus groups with two-time trump voters and a non-college group and a college group. and the non-college group were 100% all in for trump and they all said the indictments made it more likely they'll support him. that's the challenge for the other candidates. i'm not sure that chris christi is the right person, exactly, because republican voters don't love him. i think he's setting a good example for h

joining our conversation is sarah longwell, a long-time republican strategist. r analysis. and i feel a special pain for family members that see someone they're related to, in this case his brother, and i had a chance to interview paul gosar's brother after his anime murder video of aoc came out. and it was the same need to distance themselves from someone so radical and extreme. but i -- it seems to be a hallmark of this wave and this version of extreme republicanism. >> yeah, i mean, we shouldn't have to rely on these people's family members to come out and disavow them. republican senators should be trying to rein these people in, should be speaking out against this. i mean, this -- him holding up these dod nominees, that affects military morale. it affects readiness. he is an extreme -- and this sort of what's going on with these republicans, right. they have lost the ability to rein in the extremism in their midst. and they used to be able to do it. people like steve king, as recently as 2019 would be censured. but something about this new trump rear with ma

those feelings were on display at a gop focus group in iowa assembled by pollster sarah longwell thatour observed. >> why isn't biden indicted? just because he gave them back at an appropriate time? i mean, really? he did exactly the same thing. >> you have a current president who is siccing all of the doj on a potential candidate, that's never happened. >> the country is so divided that these events are being seen in absolutely separate lenses. amna: lee miringoff is the director of the marist college institute for public opinion. >> if you talk about what's happening in american politics, candidate trump, president trump, former president trump, all define so much of our political reality today, but not in a unified way. people are just viewing him so differently with a different set of, a different lens, depending on whether they're democrats, republicans or independents. amna: the latest indictment has only solidified mr. trump's support among republicans. in the marist poll, trump has seen an 8-point jump since february. 76 percent of republicans and republican-leaning voters now

sarah longwell from the republican accountability project regularly does focus groups with trump votersle person in the focus group for the first time, ever, since doing them, so that they would now support trump. and even people who had been skeptical of him as a general election nominee think someone like desantis might be better even those people, they were so mad about it that they were rallying to his side. so look, that indictment it is devastating and i think if independent voters and some republicans, it is going to be very jarring to them. those people probably weren't gonna vote for trump anyway but what is so wild to me and also distressing because it's so corrosive for the democracy is the argument that republicans like ron desantis and kevin mccarthy, even governor youngkin in virginia, are making to defend trump. they're enabling him into dangerous ways. one, they continue to enable him and not hold him accountable for anything he does. that is why he continues to be teflon. that's why he can say what he said about shooting somebody in the middle of fifth avenue. the other

. >> joining us now, publisher of the bulwark sarah longwell. good to see you.ime until they weren't. is this case against donald trump coming from them and from pence in particular compelling? >> i mean, it's compelling to me. i think it's incredibly important to have these conservatives making this case about donald trump to a republican and a conservative audience. unfortunately, it's not very compelling to voters. in fact, i'm not sure over the many, many months of focus groups that i've done where i've asked people about different presidential candidates, there was nobody they dislike more than mike pence. he just really is in a sour spot with voters. for some voters, they think, hey, this guy stood alongside him the whole time, very subservient to donald trump. on the other side, many think he's a traitor, that what he did on january 6th was wrong. i don't know why he's running. because he does come out strong sometimes and he is clear about january 6th, there's other places he's a lot less willing to go after trump, like in his town hall last night where