Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed recovering journalist Clint Brewer in studio to review national polling numbers that indicate a win for former President Donald Trump if the GOP presidential nomination were held today.
Leahy: Clint, I always like Thursday morning at six o’clock when you come in.
Brewer: Yeah?
Leahy: First we have to test the coffee.
Brewer: It’s pretty strong today, Mike. It’s always strong. I always make it. It’s not awful; it’s just strong.
Brewer: It’s high test today. (Leahy chuckles)
Leahy: High test.
Brewer: It’s high test.
Leahy: I’ll dial it back on Thursdays, but it is, it’s,
Brewer: If we had a time-traveling DeLorean, we could put this in there and go a long way.
Leahy: It’s Pike’s Roast from Starbucks. I’ll dial it back next time.
Brewer: It’s all right.
Leahy: It’s got caffeine.
Brewer: It goes with the mood of the show. It’s a little hard-edged.
Leahy: We got a little edge to it.
Brewer: Got an edge to it. Sometimes a little bitter.
Leahy: I wouldn’t say bitter, although I could understand why you might say that.
Brewer: That was a joke, Mike. That was a joke.
Leahy: That was quite clever, by the way. You could make a living using words.
Brewer: I could.
Leahy: You could. Let’s talk a little bit about the national stuff.
Brewer: It’s all over the place, right?
Leahy: It’s all over the place. I come from this Clint and we’ve got 20 months to save the country because I can’t imagine what January of 2025 if we were to inaugurate either Biden or some other Democrat lunatic for another four years…
Brewer: We are not on a good glide path at the moment.
Leahy: Oh we are like in a very bad way. The banking system is shaky. The spending of the federal government’s outta control and the weaponized judicial system.
Brewer: Chinese leaders have just gone to Moscow.
Leahy: Look, I think that the Chinese have figured it out. Here’s what I think they’re doing. The Chinese are saying, that American century thing? We need to stop it. We can do it a couple of ways. We can try a war. Eh, we’re not quite there yet. Or we could try to basically totally destroy the country internally by promoting all sorts of disruption.
Brewer: I saw a story that I think was in The Economist. I actually like The Economist. One of their, one of their writers did like a forecast of a war in Taiwan and if the United States got involved, would cost China roughly 25 to 30 percent of its GDP. And it would cost America about. Four to 5 percent. It’s not a great way to look at war.
Leahy: I think it’s good.
Brewer: There’s not a great incentive for China.
Leahy: Especially since they’re making so much progress, basically stealing our intellectual property, compromising our leaders.
Brewer: Taking over Africa where all the precious metals people need for technology.
Leahy: Yes. They’re very smart, actually, and they’ve got a long-term perspective. Meanwhile, everything, literally everything that the Biden…
Brewer: And we can’t decide whether to kick TikTok out of the country or not.
Leahy: Talk about a brainer.
Brewer: They just flew a spy balloon over our country for four days before we shot it down.
Leahy: So we’re making the case here, Clint, that if on January 20th, 2025, if they’re swearing in any democrat, I think the Constitutional Republic, as we know it, is in deep trouble. The whole point is that we got 20 months here. So here’s my dilemma.
I think on the GOP nomination when you talk about a nomination or even a presidential nomination, there are national polls. Then there are state-based polls. It’s really the states that matter, particularly in the general election.
Brewer: Sure. Yeah.
Leahy: You could have one candidate up by 10 points in the national polls, but if that’s all coming from California and New York.
Brewer: But if they can’t win South Carolina, Iowa, and New Hampshire…
Leahy: And you have to win all those states. But right now, where we stand at the midterms, which were a disaster for Donald Trump.
Brewer: Yes.
Leahy: Real disaster. The only thing that we did was squeak by the House. And if Donald Trump hadn’t injected himself into the Pennsylvania race and the Georgia race, we probably would’ve kept gotten the Senate probably.
Brewer: Yes. And if he were a head coach, he would’ve been removed mid-season.
Leahy: But he’s Donald Trump.
Brewer: But he’s dominating the Republican field.
Leahy: That’s the point. That’s what I’m saying.
Brewer: If the election were today, he’d win the nomination.
Leahy: Oh, there’s no question about it. He would totally win.
Brewer: If the election were held today, he’d just be beating Nikki Haley because there are no other declared candidates, really.
Leahy: No, Vivek.
Brewer: Well, okay.
Leahy: I saw a poll that had of the declared candidates had Trump at 79, Nicki at 11, and Vivek at six. Declared candidates.
Brewer: Is that a state poll or a national poll?
Leahy: National poll. But the point is that yes. And if DeSantis gets in, which he will, Trump is still up 15, 20 points, right?
Brewer: I got to tell you, DeSantis, he’s got some work to do. Two points. One, I didn’t realize this and I read this the other day but Florida has a resign to run law, and he’s stuck in a gray area because the law’s been interpreted a number of different ways and it’s unclear.
How far he can go before he would have to resign? And if he does resign and he doesn’t have the apparatus of the Florida Governor’s Office behind him and he’s not the governor of Florida what does that look like when he runs?
Leahy: Whatever that law is, he’s got to either get a ruling or a
Brewer: There’s talk of that with the legislation. They actually talked about changing it when it looked like Charlie Crist was gonna be Obama’s running mate. There’s that issue. And then, here’s the other thing. You can’t win a Republican primary running under someone else’s flag. He has to make his own movement.
Right now he’s running off the brand of politics that Donald Trump created and the only differentiator there is DeSantis is actually a really good manager and Donald Trump is not. And so he’s running on his competency in the state of Florida. So that’s his differentiator. But I just don’t think that’s loud enough to get the electorate’s attention which is unfortunate. But it’s not.
Leahy: That’s a very good point. And Trump is relentless in his smash-mouth sort of way.
Brewer: Let’s be clear, he’s also getting some help from the left because the Democrats want Trump.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
