A discussion on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on comments made by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who said he didn’t see Donald Trump successfully winning the 2024 presidential election, led to an agreement by host Joe Scarborough and marketing expert Donny Deutsch that the GOP could reclaim the White House that year — as long as Trump wasn’t the Republican Party candidate.
Speaking with Axios, the Louisana Republican questioned whether Trump could even be the nominee, saying, “President Trump is the first president in the Republican side at least to lose the House, the Senate and the presidency in four years. Elections are about winning.”
Using that as a springboard, host Scarborough asked Deutsch whether Cassidy was off base with his comments.
“Does Donald Trump still own the Republican Party? Yes,” Scarborough began. “But that Republican Party is a lot smaller and a lot less influential in suburbs across America and more educated Americans if you look at the polling number. Again, I know everybody is scared of Donald Trump, it just does not seem like the trend lines are going well for him in terms of putting together a coalition that can win.”
“Here is the fact,” Deutsch exclaimed. “If the Republicans ran anybody but Donald Trump, they would win in a landslide. Anybody just right of center.”
“Anybody?” the MSNBC host prompted.” Donny, nobody has said this enough. You go back and look at 2020, Democrats were shocked by how badly they underperformed in the House and shocked how badly they underperformed in the Senate. Donald Trump had to work overtime to make Mitch McConnell the minority leader in Georgia — they had to work overtime to lose that. You look at state legislatures across America that were less connected to Trump and they did very well. You look at governorships less connected to Trump and they did very well. Republicans had a pretty, darn good election cycle in 2020 despite the fact they should have been wiped off the face of the political earth because of the insanity and the neo-fascism Donald Trump was pushing.”
“If anybody except for Trump ran, they would have won by 20 points,” Scarborough added.
“I would like to to see polls, a poll of Trump against Biden, which I think Trump would eke out a victory, ” Deutsch claimed. “But then I want to see pools with Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis or fill in the blank and they’ll win by double digits. You know, I live in this bubble and this very kind of blue state and I can’t tell you the unrest with the feeling the Democrats are in control and running things and Biden is not putting his hands on the wheel and nobody on deck. That is the concern the Democrats have. If Republicans are smart they would move away from Trump. Can they and will they? You and I don’t know that. But, clearly, if they did, it would be a landslide.”
Watch below: