ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp on MSNBC: 10/26/2016

Let's watch Trump. Congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing game. We don't play games, Newt, right? We don't play games. I'm joined right now by USA Today's Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page, the Trump surrogate Matt Schlapp, and the chairman of the American Conservative Union. He has both those hats. And Democratic pollster Cornel Belcher, his new book's called A Black Man in the White House. Thank you all for joining us. I want to go right now with Susan Page, who I rely on a lot for common sense reporting here. And this is this, Newt versus Kelly. Why on earth would Trump want to? The polls are mixed right now. They're bouncing all over the place. I trust this Fox poll. Who knows if he can still win this thing? But he ain't going to win this thing if he focuses on battles with Megyn Kelly. He's got to keep saying over and over again, if you like the way things are in this country on trade, immigration, on wars, vote for Hillary Clinton. That's the status quo. He's got to say that every minute of the campaign. And maybe he can streak, find a victory in all this mess. But if he keeps wasting his firepower on these intramural battles with the media, I don't get it. I don't know why he cares about Newt Gingrich's peeing match, basically. Why does he get involved in these things? You know, and it's not only a distraction from a message that would be more productive for Donald Trump. It also is not appealing to the voters. He needs to get back with your women. Yeah. You know, this this kind of language, you're fascinated with sex to to a highly respected journalist is not really designed to appeal to some of the college educated women who have been moving away from the Republican Party this year in a big way. And I think people who would like to get ahead in life like Megan's gotten ahead, they're thinking, well, here's a successful person and he's dumping on her. What would he do to me? You know, I don't have the firepower that she has. Anyway, that's going to match slap list. Why is Trump fighting these stupid? I'm not knocking, certainly not knocking Megan Kelly. She's a pro. But why is he getting involved with these fights? I don't get it. Well, I think when he talks about the issues and I think his speeches have been focused like a laser. What is he going to do that? No, I agree with you. I think he did in North Carolina. I think it's a much smarter things. I mean, he focuses on the issues. This race should naturally tighten. He is the candidate of change and the American people want change. And when he doesn't talk about those key issues of terrorism, the economy and change in Washington, it's a day he loses. I agree with you. I think the country's 50 50. It could be a close election if he were together as a candidate. Didn't have that history that he keeps bringing back up every time he fights on the front with on one of these sex discussions. He's just reminding everybody of the access Hollywood stuff. Anyway, Cornel, I don't know whether you agree or not, but I think this country is divided politically fairly closely between left, right, between now and something different than now. And Trump keeps wasting his time. In fact, deluding himself into thinking the real battles between him and some a woman, anchor woman. What's that about? Well, at some point we've got to you know, Trump is exactly who he keeps showing us he is. Right. And, you know, we can talk about him wanted to talk about issues and be a change agent. But consistently, he shows us, in fact, who he he really is and is absolutely ridiculous for him to be getting into these back and forth fights that actually expand sort of his his problem with women. But you're right, Chris. The problem is that structurally we are a country that it's going to be hard for one candidate to blow another candidate away in the battleground states. At the same time, we're seeing Clinton expand her her overall lead nationally. We know in the battleground states, you know, go to Nevada, go to go to go to Florida, go to North Carolina. Structurally, it is really hard for especially for Democrats structurally to open up a six or seven point advantage in those states. So it's going to be three or four points. So, you know, what he does now and what she does right now, sort of on the issues and generating turnout really important in these battleground states, because this is not going to be an eight point race in Florida, it's not going to be a point race in North Carolina and Nevada. Anyway, I just think there's a couple of things we're learning in the biographies of both these candidates. One, that Trump we're getting focused on his biography, which is important thing to do, but it's killing the message that could be coming as a protest in this campaign over trade and war and a couple of other things. We're losing that message of protest and Hillary Clinton, you know, Trump's doing the best favor in the world. He's keeping the focus away from her. Anyway, an interview with Bloomberg's Mark Halpern today, Trump said he liked his chances heading into the homestretch. Let's watch. What's your general sense of where you are in the battleground states, Florida, Iowa, Ohio? I think we're winning Iowa. I think we're winning Ohio. So do you. I think we're winning Florida. I think we're winning Florida, actually, by much more than your poll says. You'd have us two points up. I think we're going to do fantastically well. I think we're winning North Carolina. I think we will soon be winning New Hampshire. Look, it's jobs. It's fix our military. It's take care of our vets. It's don't let the world take advantage of us. I mean, I don't know if I'm a great messenger, but the message is absolutely the right message. Susan, what's the smart aspect of saying he's way ahead in Pennsylvania? Nobody, no poll finds that at all. Well, he says something that's true. I mean, Iowa, Ohio, Florida, those are states that are very close and that he could definitely win. Pennsylvania seems to be pulling away for Hillary Clinton. And so does New Hampshire, South Carolina and North Carolina also. And maybe Nevada will because I mean, the race has been a little scrambled by his candidacy and some of the changes we've seen in the demography behind the two parties. But it is now hard when you put together the states where he's competitive. It's hard to see how he gets to 270 electoral votes. That's been tough for some time. It gets harder now as we get in the homestretch and some of these states open up leads for Hillary Clinton. How do you explain the difference between a Fox poll and it's a good Fox poll generally at three points today just came out and a 14 point difference on AP. Matt, you want to answer this? How can two polls be that different? Fourteen and three. Well there's the endless chatter. Why do we bother reporting them? They're so different. Your thoughts. There's this endless chatter about what the is and are they skewed asking too many Democrats and will the Democrats turn out certainly the African-American vote and Hispanic vote like they did for Barack Obama. You have all of that. But I do think there's a big dynamic that we don't know how big it is this time. But because Donald Trump has been so excoriated for the last four weeks and he's had an October in presidential politics, we've really never seen anything like it. I do think there's a lot of voters who like to put him in timeout and there's a lot of things about Donald Trump they don't like. But in the end, do they move back to him when the coverage of the race is more serene or at least as serene as this race could possibly be? So I actually think he's much closer. This race is going to get tighter. I think that Fox poll or that Investor Business Daily poll, which called it right last time, which says Hillary Clinton's up one, I think that's much more indicative of this race than these double digit polls. Cornell, I have this sense watching this thing like all of us have been doing now for so long that there's a sort of a situation that develops if nothing bad happens to Trump for like two or three weeks or two weeks and it settles down, it gets much closer. It's like his bad behavior, whether it's historical or current, is what makes the race easy for Hillary Clinton. The minute he doesn't screw up for like a week or two, it seems like it gets much closer. He hasn't screwed up now since what, a while ago. Well, I think that's right, Chris, because part of the problem is if you look at that USA Today poll that came out right now, I mean, he's running nine points behind among Republican performers where she is among just flat out Democratic performers. So a lot of the vote that's left him, I mean, it's not like, you know, Hillary Clinton's all of a sudden winning, you know, over vast majorities of voters who've been breaking Republican for all this time because she's not, she's doing a little bit better. But his problem is when you look at, you know, go to, he talked about Philadelphia, go to Philadelphia and look at the suburbs around, you know, in Pennsylvania where those college educated white voters, especially those college educated white women are so critical and the college educated whites, they've been, they haven't been voting Democrat for the last couple of years. They've been voting Republican and he's struggling with them right now. Moment if, if he can get them back, the moment he gets them back, it's a, it's a tight race. I think Susan's right, Cornell, Susan, I think you're dead right. Picking fights with successful professional women like Megyn Kelly says to a woman in her twenties, thirties or fifties or one who missed the opportunities in her generation. They didn't have the opportunities there are today in larger form. That person says, that guy doesn't care about people like me. In fact, he's against people like me. Yeah. Susan. Yeah. I think that's true. And Cornell made a great point in our poll that came out today, 89% of Democrats are supporting Hillary Clinton, 80% of Republicans are supporting Donald Trump. Now that's also an opportunity for him because if he doesn't have some turmoil, self created wounds over the next 12 days, we, we, you would naturally assume some of those Republicans to come home to Donald Trump. And that would tighten up this race. Well, here's more Michigas, a new Yiddish term I've heard, I've learned this year. Here it is on CNN today, Trump had a strong reaction to a reporter who dared to ask him why he wasn't out campaigning, but was attending the opening of his new hotel in Washington, DC. Let's watch that fight. To people who say you're taking time out of swing states to go do this, you say, I say the following, you have been covering me for the last long time. I did yesterday, eight stops and three major speeches, and I've been doing this for weeks straight. I left here. I left there for an hour and a half. I'm going to North Carolina right now, then I'm going to Florida. I'm going up to New Hampshire for you to ask me that question is actually very insulting because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then she goes home and sleeps. And yet you'll ask me that question. I think it's a very rude question, to be honest with you. And what I do is I want to back my children. Matt, bingo. It is a tough question, but it is interesting that he took time out for a commercial enterprise in the middle of a within two weeks of a presidential election. He's got something better. You know, let me tell you, I worked for President George W. Bush, and one of the things we all complained about is he kept saying, I want to have my head on my own pillow in my own home at night. And we were like, geez, if you just get out there and spend the night and do some what we call our own ends, we could be in more cities. And Donald Trump has done twice as many events with three times the crowd. So he does have a fair point to make that nobody can look at Donald Trump and say, you know, you're not having enough events with the people. Of course, as someone who supports him, I think he needs every minute possible. I'll try again, Matt. Why do you accuse her of insulting him? That's what he did in that conversation. You're insulting me by asking that. Quite. That's not an insult. Chris, we could he could have spun that back. You know what? I still have a responsibility to my company. And this is one of the response I have to me when I'm running. You could have said that. Yeah, no, look, he's he's thin skinned right now with the press. He feels like he's not getting the fair coverage and it comes across. And those kind of prickly answers. Well, he's not getting positive coverage. And that's not helping. Anyway, Cornell, your thoughts on that last minute. Why does he keep picking fights with whatever woman's nearby? Because that's exactly who he is, Chris. I mean, I'm sorry, Matt, but but he's not a disciplined candidate. And in the narrative about him not being a disciplined candidate and him being a little unhinged and particularly prickly with women, when he he keeps reinforcing that narrative over and over and over again. And it's absolutely killing him with women voters. And by the way, unhinged is being used a lot lately, and it's not helping. It's not a word we hear a lot in politics that the presidential level unhinged. Anyway, thank you. Americans don't use that word. OK, thank you, guys. Thank you, Susan. You're so smart. And you know the history of this stuff. Anyway, thank you, Matt Schlapp. You're a reasonable guy. And Cornell, I'm looking to you for brains.