The Daily - In Iowa, Two Friends Debate DeSantis vs. Trump

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

On Monday, Iowa holds the first contest in the Republican presidential nominating process and nobody will have more on the line than Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor staked his candidacy on a victory in Iowa, a victory that now seems increasingly remote.Shane Goldmacher, a national political reporter for The Times, and the Daily producers Rob Szypko and Carlos Prieto explain what Mr. DeSantis’s challenge has looked like on the ground in Iowa.Guest: Shane Goldmacher, a national political correspondent for The New York Times.Background reading: A weak night for Donald Trump? A Ron DeSantis flop? Gaming out Iowa.From December: Mr. Trump was gaining in Iowa polling, and Mr. DeSantis was holding off Nikki Haley for a distant second.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. You know, as governor of the Sunshine State, normally in January, I'm down in Florida with all the Midwesterners storming down to escape the cold. On Monday, when Iowa holds the first contest in the Republican presidential nominating process, nobody will have more on the line than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I don't like what the future looks like with another four years of Trump. I would like somebody to step up and make that a challenge because it's really disappointing.

Who has staked his candidacy. I really like Ron DeSantis much better. On a victory there that now seems increasingly remote. I came because I love Trump. Everybody that I know is going for Trump. Did you decide pretty early on in the process that you wanted to support Trump for 24? No question. There's no question.

process that you wanted to support Trump for 24? No question. There's no question. I mean, how did both of you think about it? Today, my colleagues Shane Goldmacher, Rob Zipko, and Carlos Prieto on what DeSantis' challenge has looked like on the ground in Iowa. It's Friday, January 12th. Shane, the question from the beginning of the Republican presidential race was, is there anyone who can beat Donald Trump? And as we sit here today, just a few days before the Iowa caucuses, the first Republican vote, Trump is more than 30 points ahead of his nearest rival, which is about as daunting an advantage as I've ever seen. And I think the question now is why exactly that has

been the case and what have Trump's rivals been trying to do in these final weeks and days to try to defy the laws of political gravity and perhaps pull off some kind of a long shot upset in Iowa? Well, you're right. It is daunting. And it's so daunting that a number of his former rivals have quit, including Chris Christie, who left just this week. And that's left really two people who are ostensibly still competing with Donald Trump, and that's Nikki Haley and it's Ron DeSantis. And in a lot of ways, the race has become a race for second place between the two of them. And in that race, Nikki Haley has been gaining momentum and she's been raising money. And while she's hoping to top DeSantis here, she's been more focused on the next states,

on New Hampshire, where she polls more strongly, and then her home state of South Carolina. But for Ron DeSantis, it's really Iowa. He has set himself apart by saying, this is a state he will win. And he's in a tough spot. In a make-or-break state, just days before the caucuses, he's found himself much closer to Nikki Haley than to Donald

Trump. Right. And we've talked about DeSantis with you a lot and about the fact that his campaign has had a series of major missteps, miscalculations, and has had to really scale back its ambitions and focus them on Iowa, not by choice, but a little bit by necessity. Because his thinking is if we can do well in Iowa, maybe, just maybe, he can kind of resurrect this candidacy and make this a two-candidate race with Trump. Yeah, he has gone all in on Iowa. He's visited every single county in the state,

the only one of the top candidates to do so. He is got the backing of the state's popular Republican governor. He's won the backing of one of the most important evangelical networks in the state. And his super PAC has just been knocking on door after door, more than 800,000 doors in the state so far. Wow. There's mailers, there's TV ads, it's hand-to-hand combat to find the very small number of people who are going to show up on a really cold night in Iowa. And the way the DeSantis team sees it is, look, they're campaigning the Iowa way. This is how some of those long shots surged at the last minute. People like Rick Santorum,

who were given little chance but had pounded the pavement in all 99 counties, he won. Rick Santorum, of course, went on to lose the nomination and really didn't gain a ton of traction after Iowa. But for the DeSantis campaign, this is the model. Put in the maximum effort here, and if it doesn't really work here, it's really hard to see how it's going to work for him anywhere else. Right. Long shots can and sometimes do win in Iowa. But given this daunting math of Trump's lead in the polls that we've just talked about, I'm curious, as you're describing this elaborate door-to-door, hand-to-hand combat by the DeSantis campaign, what kind of voter he's trying to win over at this point? Who exactly is the ideal target of this uphill DeSantis effort in Iowa? I think it's really important to answer that to go back to the assumptions that the DeSantis campaign made at the very beginning of the race, which is that voters in a Republican primary

fall into three basic buckets. The first bucket is the diehard Trump supporters, the people who are going to be with Trump from the beginning to the end, and there's really nothing you can do to compete for them. The second bucket is the sort of soft Trump supporters, people who like Donald Trump as president, people who are open to supporting him again, but also are open to an alternative, maybe somebody without as much baggage, maybe somebody who was younger. And then the third bucket is the never Trumpers, the people in the Republican Party who are absolutely ready to move on

and we're not going to support Trump no matter what. And so their theory of the case was basically that that second bucket, the soft Trump bucket, that that was the biggest of them all. And there were even more people there than folks were presuming. So at the heart of DeSantis' vision in a place like Iowa, you're saying, is the belief that perhaps there are actually a lot of people who are soft Trump supporters. And therefore, if you're campaigning and you meet somebody who says, I'm a Trump supporter, they actually might be available to DeSantis.

That is one of the essential questions of the entire Republican primary. Just how many of those Trump supporters are actually persuadable in 2024? And for the DeSantis campaign, it's the existential question. And I think the best way to understand how the DeSantis campaign has approached this is to meet a former Trump supporter who they actually won over. Are you the Lance? How's it going? Good.

His name is Lance Lillibridge. It's good to meet you. Good to meet you too. And he's become an ardent DeSantis supporter out in eastern Iowa. Do you mind giving us like a quick tour of the farm before we sit down and talk? Where two of our producers for The Daily, Rob Zipko and Carlos Prieto, went to meet him last week. Yeah, let's see. Let's go this way.

Okay, so tell us about Lance. Well, he's a farmer who grows corn, and he raises cattle. I know you mentioned you're in the middle of calving season. I just had two this morning. And he's been busy with all the new calves being born. You'll see them here in a second. Yeah, let me jump over the fence real quick.

Actually, Michael, the very first calf born in 2024 has a very special name. The first one born this morning, we named him DeSantis 24. It's DeSantis 24. Like I said, this named him DeSantis 24. It's DeSantis 24. Like I said, this is a DeSantis success story. And this cow is living on his farm of more than 1,500 acres. Does it ever get too cold for the cattle? I've never had a cow freeze to death. I've come close a few times.

And for many years, that's really just how he thought of himself, as a farmer, not as somebody who was particularly politically engaged. I really haven't always been into politics. You know, in fact, I kind of despised him for most of my life. But about a decade ago, that changed when he started working with what's really an important organization in Iowa, the Iowa Corn Growers Association. And it's a group that lobbies politicians on behalf of corn farmers across the state. And I was asked to participate in a meeting there and was late to that meeting. And when I got there, I found out they voted me in as the

county president. So don't ever be late to a meeting, right? Lance says the politicians he was dealing with, they didn't actually understand farm policy, and they didn't understand really what life was like for a farmer. And that whole experience, it was a big wake-up call. And as Lance is experiencing this awakening, how does

he describe his politics? Well, he describes himself as pretty conservative, as a Christian, pro-life. And then when 2016 rolled around... As you listen to Trump and as he confronted the other party and other GOP candidates as far as that goes... He was intrigued by Donald Trump. He wasn't afraid to come right out and say it.

And that, I thought, was something that we needed. And he voted for him in 2016. So I was kind of excited about that. That, I thought, was something that we needed. And he voted for him in 2016. Mm-hmm. So I was kind of excited. And then when Trump actually got into office, he liked a lot of what he had to say on certain issues, especially on trade. We're going to make the best deal with China.

China's going to buy our agricultural products. It's going to be great. Remember, Trump had promised he was going to renegotiate trade deals with China, that business was going to get better for American businesses. As a farmer, it made us think, we've got a future ahead of us. You know, I've got a daughter and a son that have an opportunity now to potentially come into this farming operation

without having to sweat and lose sleep every night on whether they're going to be able to pay the next bill. Right, and he in fact did start to rip up a lot of those trade agreements and understandings. And he imposed tariffs. And he made a whole number of changes to America's relationship with businesses abroad. But Lance says all those Trump policies that sounded good, they ended up backfiring for him. As Lance tells it, when these tariffs are imposed... It was very difficult for equipment manufacturers

to source what they needed to build equipment. It raises the cost of the raw materials he needs to make his farm work. That made the price of equipment go up. Things like farm equipment and fertilizer. When those fertilizer tariffs got put into place, that becomes a higher cost to us. And those tariffs also set off a trade war with China. And China stopped buying a lot of American agricultural goods. And Lance's businesses are getting squeezed. They're getting squeezed on both sides. His

costs are going up and he's not making as much money when he sells his products across America and across the world. We were really standing on a edge of a cliff ready to fall over. And luckily we didn't, but it was not an easy time. I don't ever want to go back to living like that. But it was not an easy time. I don't ever want to go back to living like that. In fact, he had to take part in a Trump administration program that amounted to a bailout for farmers who all across the country were suffering from the trade war that had been started. And so because of all of this, he starts to grow more and more disillusioned with Donald Trump.

We've got this motivating speaker, Trump, out there talking about how this is going to get better, how it's going to be so much better, you know? But in the background, we've got all these things that are falling apart. Come election day, though, did you vote for him? Yes. Yep. And yet, when we get to 2020, Lance stuck with Trump in that election. Why? It's because he didn't like the alternative. I wasn't a Biden fan. I mean, I did not see anything good coming out of a Biden administration. So what was the worser of the two evils? You know, you kind of had to look at that. Trump still had some good things going on for him.

So Lance feels like a kind of classic Trump voter. Liked Trump's tough stance on trade, wanted a non-establishment, anti-establishment figure in the White House, so voted for him in 2016. Stuck with him in 2020 despite some disappointments because there wasn't really a primary that year and he wasn't going to vote for a Democrat. Obviously, now in 2024, there is a primary, there are alternatives to Trump. So how is Lance thinking about 2024?

So at the beginning of the 2024 cycle, Lance sort of fits into that soft Trump supporter category, maybe even borderline opposed to Trump. And he's determined to figure out, well, who will his Republican alternative be? If I'm going to pick somebody, if I'm going to go out and pick that prize bull or that prize cow, and sorry, I don't mean to compare

any of our candidates to cattle, but if I'm going to go out and pick a winner, I want to look at every attribute. I want something that's got the whole package, you know. And look, he's an influential figure in the farming community. And so some of these candidates are actually seeking him out for meetings. Well, I had an opportunity to meet with almost all of them. I've met with Vivek. I've met with Doug. I've met with Nikki Haley. And at some point,

he eventually gets to meet Ron DeSantis. So I was asked to meet with DeSantis. He got out of the car. We exchanged pleasantries. We sat down at a table and I said, well, let's just not beat around the bush. Where are you at on agriculture and where are you at on biofuels?

I don't know. That's how he answered it. I need to learn more. I don't understand the industry. Tell me more. How can I learn more? And he was impressed with DeSantis and how he seemed open to hearing his concerns about his industry and his business. After we had that conversation that day, one of his policymakers had called me and said, hey, if you got time, let's talk about biofuels. Let's talk about agriculture. So I thought, wow, here's a candidate that had somebody call me and ask more specific questions. And some weeks after that first meeting, Lance had another opportunity to meet with DeSantis

with a bunch of farmers from all across the state. There must have been 30 or 40 farmers there. And Governor DeSantis went around the room and introduced himself to every single person individually and had a conversation with every single person individually. So it was probably all of 40 minutes or better before we actually sat down and then had more of a round table type meeting where guys could ask questions and talk about what's important to them as far as agriculture goes. How did you feel though at the end of that conversation, or I guess the two conversations at those different facilities? Well, I hadn't made up my mind yet, but I got to tell you that I've never seen a candidate

engage people like that, whether it was a senator, a representative, or a presidential candidate. And it wasn't long after that that Lance saw Ron DeSantis speaking on the campaign trail in the exact kind of way he wanted based on what he'd heard from Iowa farmers. Hmm. I think a lot of those things that were talked about that day, he's incorporated into some of his conversations and rallies.

So Lance is really liking DeSantis, but what really clinches it is something that happens over the summer. I was hit. He got into a pretty serious motorcycle accident. And it broke my leg and had some pretty severe damage. It required some reconstructive surgery. I got 36 staples, 8 screws, a wire and a plate in my ankle and foot, holding things together. I was laid up, and it's a Saturday morning, and I get a phone call,

and that phone call was a no-caller ID number, and I thought it was the highway patrol calling me to ask questions about the accident, and it wasn't. It was Governor DeSantis. And Ron DeSantis actually called him to check in. He said, Lance, yeah, hey, this is Ron DeSantis. And I'm thinking, what? He says, hey, he says, we heard you had an accident, and we just, we wanted to call and see if you're doing okay, what's going on, and you know, you all right? And so we had a really nice conversation, and it really wasn't about the campaign.

And he cared. You know, that's how I felt. That was very uplifting that day. So it was really cool. You know, I have to say, Shane, this is a bit surprising. This is not the version of DeSantis that we have come to understand. A bit surprising, this is not the version of DeSantis that we have come to understand. He is pretty widely seen as a little bit cold, disconnected, not somebody who easily connects with voters.

I mean, Michael, it's striking in that there's this conventional wisdom that's congealed about Ron DeSantis, is that he's weak on the stump and that he's awkward and wooden. And for Lance, he thinks that portrayal of Ron DeSantis, it's the media's fault, which is, of course, what Ron DeSantis says, too, that they're not showing the real Ron DeSantis. That is one thing that just absolutely frustrates me when I turn on the TV and you get that from the media. He's not that way.

And so Lance feels like he knows the real Ron DeSantis. And he decides he's going to support Ron DeSantis in the Iowa caucuses. Which makes this, as you had hinted at earlier, a real success story for DeSantis' high-touch

strategy in Iowa, but it's the kind of success that would seem incredibly hard to replicate because you can't call every voter who gets into an accident. You can't call every voter in Iowa, period. And if we're being honest, Lance is not just anybody. He's somebody who is influential. So he's not entirely representative of Republican voters. Right. This is a success, but it's a really hard one to repeat. And so what Ron DeSantis needs is to convince Lance and then have Lance start to convince other people on his behalf. And actually, that's exactly what Lance decides to do. He starts volunteering for the campaign to help get out the vote for Ron DeSantis. I feel like if I'm going to be all in on somebody, then I need to be all in on them.

And I feel strongly that I've had a unique experience, and I need to be able to share that with others. And what has that looked like? Well, as he's recovering from his accident, he's sitting around his house. I'm sitting around, and so I was calling and talking to people. I was trying to keep myself busy and this was a good way... Hey, how you doing? You got a couple minutes? He says he's calling his friends and his family and other farmers. I'm just kind of curious, where are you at in this caucus?

And... There's one person from the campaign that has sent me multiple texts. Like here's one, will you call Darla? Basically anyone the campaign sends his way and says, Any chance that you could call Carmen? Hey, could you call this person, Lance? She's got questions about the governor, and she'd like to hear them from somebody else. And a lot of these people are on the fence. Yeah, I like him, but I really kind of like that Nikki Haley, you know?

Those sort of soft Trump supporters, or maybe even opposed to Trump, but picking between two candidates, looking at Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis. And I said, OK, yeah, she's not a horrible choice by any means, but here's why I think DeSantis is better, is because I've had the opportunity to have this conversation with those. And Lance says he shares his experience with Ron DeSantis and the particular things he likes about the governor. How many calls would you guess that you've made?

Oh, in the hundreds. It's almost, it sounds like the campaign is kind of turning to you as their closer a little bit. Okay. Maybe, yeah. So how did Lance say that those calls have been going? Lance has been having what he feels like is success. He's flipping some people to Ron DeSantis,

people who are kind of open to a Trump alternative. But he's also realizing that some of the people he thought were open to a Trump alternative turn out to be really, really hard to flip. And one of the people he's had a really hard time flipping happens to be one of his really good friends. So we asked Lance if we could sit down with him and his friend

and hear how it's been going as he's tried to pull him into the Ron DeSantis camp. And he said yes. We'll be right back. Hey, Shane. Hello. How's it going? Good. How are you?

Good. So, Shane, describe this conversation between Lance and his friend who Lance has been trying to convert from Trump to DeSantis. So last Sunday... How are you doing? Hi, thanks for making the time. Shane. Just about a week out from the caucus. Lance Lillibridge.

Lance? Rob and I headed out to Lance's farm to meet his friend. Nate Nading. Nate, nice to meet you guys. A guy by the name of Nate Nading. Good. Okay, I think we're ready to get started. And we all sit down and Nate begins to tell us about himself.

I'm a farmer. I should say that Nate's voice does sound a little bit like Lance's. Got a few beef cows, and I also work for another farmer. And that's about it. How big is your farm? I only own 38 acres. Okay. And how did you guys come to know each other, become friends?

Way back in school, in grade school. Grade school? Grade school, yeah. Like since we were knee high to a grasshopper, probably, I suppose. So probably since kid in garden or first grade, maybe. Big enough to get in trouble. Right. And the two of them joke a lot. I mean, you know, he drives green equipment. I have red equipment.

What kind of motorcycles do you ride now? Harley Davidson. Honda. Oh, that's another thing. He's got a Honda. They joke a lot about how they're opposites. He likes Trump. I like DeSantis. But they also started to talk about what they have in common. But we both do not agree with Biden. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There's a lot of common ground. with Biden. That's right. Yeah. There's a lot of common ground. They both generally share the same worldview. And Nate, like Lance, I liked Trump just because he's not a politician, said that he was drawn to Donald Trump basically from the start back in 2016. I just think he was more honest and more down to earth. You could understand him um more redneck it's so interesting to me

because you know he's more redneck because he's you know billionaire from manhattan right so how do you how do you connect how does the billionaire from manhattan feel like more redneck to you well he's he's a worker you know um so i just, I can connect with somebody better that way. And just like Lance, Nate said he was hopeful, not just about the idea of Trump, but some of the specifics. That he would turn the U.S. around. It's cliche, but make it great again. Trade, in particular.

There's a lot of people going broke, but yet we're bringing in beef from other countries. What sense does that make? So they both bought into the original promise of the Trump presidency, but the impact of those trade policies, that's where they really started to diverge. I think it was like taking medicine. It doesn't taste good. And at first, it might hurt you a little bit. But the after effects, if he would have been able to keep going on, I think it would have made a hell of a difference. I think, you know, Trump had these

great ideas. And we were all willing to, as Nathan said, take the medicine and hopefully then it would get better. And it cost us. And I mean, depending on the size of your operation, it was extremely painful. So there's a difference there when you look at the scope of things. Equipment, equipment got higher price. Fertilizer got higher price. And would that be the same for you, Nate? Sorry, I just, you nodded.

You said yes. Yeah. And so your bottle mind in a lot of ways was tougher at that time. Oh, definitely. Yeah. And that be the same for you, Nate? Sorry, you nodded. You said yes. Yes. Yeah. And so your bottom line in a lot of ways was tougher at that time. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Definitely. And that was the medicine. Yeah. And so.

But that wasn't Trump's fault. That wasn't, you know, that wasn't a politician's fault. That was just big business doing what they want to. It was policy. That was, I mean, not necessarily Trump's fault, but it was under his watch. So the thing to know here is that Lance's farm is actually a lot bigger than Nate's.

And you hear Lance very politely point out that fact. It meant that he took a bigger hit during the Trump years than Nate did. And so while that was a huge factor in driving Lance away from Trump, Nate came away feeling differently. Did you ever question your support for Trump in that medicine era when things were a little bit difficult? No, I didn't. How come? I just, I believed in him. So your trust in him never really faltered? No, it didn't. No.

Your trust in him never really faltered. No, it didn't. No. And so these two friends entered 2024 on very different sides of the Republican primary equation. Nate, heading into this 2024 cycle, are you thinking of going with Trump again? I am. Just for the reason I liked what he did before and I liked the way he talks, I'd like to give him another shot. So how does Lance navigate that? I mean, what is he saying to his friend who is pretty adamant that he is likely to stick with Trump? That's what I wanted to know, too. DeSantis is behind in the polls, right?

You're going to need to pull some people with your speech. So how are you going to get Nate onto the DeSantis train? Probably with a baseball bat, I'm thinking. Right, Nate? Is it going to take that or what's it going to take? First hit count. All right, short of a baseball bat. Is there anything he could say to you that would get you to vote for him in the caucus?

Is there anything he could say today? No would get you to vote for him in the caucus? Is there anything he could say today? No, no. I don't think so. Like I said, I don't like politicians. I think DeSantis is a politician. I don't think Trump is. That's my thoughts. Can Trump still be not a politician?

He's been president. He's been the head of the party. He's got allies in all of the places. It's one of those things that's kind of remarkable. How is he still the outsider? Because he's that hated by the politicians. You know, they keep saying that he doesn't have a chance. He doesn't have a chance of getting elected and everything.

But why do they keep trying to impeach him? Why do they keep trying to impeach him? Why do they keep trying to take his name off the ballot? If, if, if he wasn't that much of a threat to them, why don't they just walk away from it? Lance, I saw you shrug your shoulder when he said he's that hated. Can you just give us your reaction to what Nate said about Trump? Oh, I, I think Nathan's right. I think he's extremely hated. And by people in both parties. I mean, here's why I don't think that Trump will make it.

I could be wrong. There's not a Democrat out there that'll vote for him. There's very few independents that'll vote for him. And there's a lot of Republicans that won't vote for him because they're never Trumpers. And so when you start doing the math, that's concerning to me. The math to me doesn't show him winning a general election. And so I've got to strategically think that through my mind, if he can't do that, who can? Who's the next person that can? And in my mind, that's DeSantis. And it really captures actually a dynamic that's happening across the Republican Party, which is, and Lance is open about this, he's thinking strategically, who can we find who can win? He's thinking, all these people, they hate Donald Trump. He's polarizing. And that's the kind of candidate who might lose in November.

He's being deeply pragmatic. This is the classic head versus heart argument. And as you're sitting in the room, you're watching Nate sit there, and Nate is all heart in this debate. You know, he may be hated, and I think that's also a good thing, though, because, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that hate me, but there's a lot of people that respect me, though, because, you know, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that hate me, but there's a lot of people that respect me though also. So. He's basically like, and having people hate Donald Trump, that's a selling point. But Lance wasn't just making an electoral argument. He was also

saying, even if Trump wins, all these people that hate him, they're going to make him less effective. You look back at the history on things and Trump lost a lot of seats in the House and the Senate and Republican side, and he's going to need all of that to get anything done. So I don't know if he can recapture that in that first two years. I mean, if he can, it'd be beneficial to him, but I'm going to be very concerned about that. He's said a lot of things to a lot of legislators and governors. He's put our governor down just because she didn't support him. And another thing that I fear is retribution, how much of that's going to come into play with his first two years. And not that I blame the guy. He's got a lot of people who have done him wrong.

I'd want to get even with them as well. But if we take that out and really look at what we need in the country, we need leadership. We need somebody that's going to get something done. We need somebody that's not a blowhard. And I'm not saying that Donald Trump's a blowhard. I'm just saying we just need somebody that's going to do what they say they're going to do. And I'm not saying that Donald Trump's a bullhard. I'm just saying we just need somebody that's going to do what they say they're going to do. And I fear that there's going to be so much resistance that it's going to play havoc on any kind of results. So that's going to be one of the biggest reasons I'm all in on DeSantis. And how does Nate respond to all of this? I mean, it's hard to quote a shrug, but he basically says, I'm still a Trump guy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I totally agree. But we need somebody that the other countries are going to respect or fear. And Trump has that. And it goes back to what I said before. We've got to start standing up for ourselves. And I think he can do that better for us. I mean, what's your reaction when Lance says that strategically, you know, that DeSantis is a better pick? What do you think about it?

I don't know. There's a lot of good points and it's hard for me to explain. So Nate, it seems, remains essentially immune to this pitch from Lance. Right. Lance, as he's going through this process, he even diagnoses at one point what he thinks is going on. Well, Nathan, if I can say that, I'm just going to say it. I think that, and I respect this, I think that you feel like Trump is owed that second term because it was taken from him and he needs to get in there and be able to finish what he started. And I think that I'm thinking about this more strategically. So I don't necessarily disagree with Nathan's thoughts, okay?

But I'm thinking strategically more in a business sense. So I think maybe is that the dividing line? What do you think? I don't know. I mean, we disagree on a lot of stuff. And at the end of the day, we're still friends. But even in this one conversation, there's a little bit of surprise. I guess one of the questions is, are you definitely showing up at a caucus for him next Monday?

It might be negative five degrees. If I wanted to go to a caucus, I would. But will you? I never have. And that's that Nate is a decided Trump voter. If I wanted to go to a caucus, I would. But will you? I never have. And that's that Nate is a decided Trump voter. But even at the end of this long conversation, it wasn't clear for sure that he was going to show up on Monday and caucus for Donald Trump.

Fascinating. And that's really one of the questions that remains in this election is do people who like Trump, who haven't caucused before, do they show up? And so if at this late date there's any uncertainty about the results, it's because of that. But let's presume that things do turn out the way that the polls anticipate that they will, which is that Trump will prevail in the Iowa caucuses. How is Lance, no doubt a bit crestfallen by his inability to convert his friend Nate, how is Lance thinking about the prospect of Trump prevailing in Iowa?

I asked him about that. Let's say that Nate's right, and this is what polling shows too, which is that Trump is the likelier winner in Iowa. How are you going to feel if he ends up being your party's nominee? Well, I'll have some disappointment for sure. I mean, who wouldn't, right? But I think that that disappointment needs to stop right there. He says if Trump wins the Iowa caucuses, he'd be not particularly happy about it. But...

I would definitely support Trump rather than Biden. When it comes to the general election, he'd vote for him again, even if a bit begrudgingly. And how would it feel to find yourself back in the voting booth voting for Trump one more time? It's kind of like rats. There's some disappointment there. It's like the cows got out. Dang it, now I've got to go round them up again, you know?

I don't know if that's a great analogy or not. Another flat tire, we've got to fix this. It just seems like it's another maintenance item, I guess. All right, last question. What kind of effect is all this having on your friendship? None. None at all. No.

No. Just another thing to argue about, right? I'm going to get to go. Told you so, Nathan. I told you so. Yeah. All right. So, Shane, what Lance's experience with Nate, I think, demonstrates what your own reporting has also found is that in 2024, Republicans in general, and really DeSantis in particular, they basically may just have gotten their math wrong, right?

They misunderstood how many Republican voters were ever really available to them. Yeah, Michael, if you look at polls, now I'm in Iowa, but I can also look at national polling. Donald Trump is at 60%, 70% in a lot of these surveys. That means that those bucket presumptions, they weren't quite right. That the number of people in that soft Trump category, either they all decided to go with Trump or they were diehards all along.

And so now, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the reality is that there seem to be a lot more Nates than Lances. And that, more than anything, explains this lopsided state of the race as Iowans get ready to caucus. Well, Shane, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you, Michael. A quick note. We'll be back to analyze the results of the Iowa caucuses next week after the holiday. But on Monday, you can get caucus day coverage from our colleagues over at The Run-Up.

They'll have a special episode with more about the campaign strategies, get out the vote efforts, and about what Iowa voters are thinking. You can look for The Run-Up and that special episode wherever you listen. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. The U.S. and its allies carried out military strikes against more than a dozen targets controlled by the Houthi militia, an Iranian-backed group in Yemen that has, for weeks, been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea in protest of Israel's war against Hamas. The U.S.-led airstrikes against the Houthis,

who are allies of Hamas, represents an expansion of the war in the Middle East that President Biden has sought to avoid since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7th. And... Israel has a genocidal intent against the Palestinians in Gaza. On Thursday, officials from South Africa made their case to the United Nations top court

that Israel's military bombardment and siege of Gaza has demonstrated an intent to commit genocide against Palestinians, a claim that Israel categorically denies. The level of Israel's killing is so extensive that nowhere is safe in Gaza. On the first day of a historic two-day hearing, the South African officials cited as evidence the words of Israeli officials, including Defense Minister Yoav Galan, who said that after the October 7th attacks by Hamas, Israel would impose a complete siege on Gaza because, he said, it was fighting, quote,

human animals. Israel will present its defense today. Decisions by the court, known as the International Court of Justice, are binding, but there are few means of enforcement, and a final ruling could take years. Today's episode was reported and produced by Rob Zipko and Carlos Prieto, with help from Luke Vanderplug. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Paige Cowett, with help from Luke Vanderplug. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Paige Cowett, with help from Ben Calhoun. Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Marion Lozano,

Dan Powell, and Will Reed. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday from Iowa.