Washington Free Beacon editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti said on Monday that individual candidates matter more in elections than some other factors often talked about in Washington.
"There's also the very importance of candidates, and I think that's something we'll see in a lot of the 2018 races this November," Continetti told MSNBC reporter Steve Kornacki. "Candidates at the end of the day matter more than some of these larger tidal wave things we like to talk about in Washington."
Kornacki was leading a segment with Continetti and D.C. bureau chief of Mother Jones, David Corn, about how President Donald Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy and the growing number of Democrats calling for the abolishment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) might affect the 2018 midterm elections.
Below is the transcript of the exchange:
STEVE KORNACKI: Matthew, at the same time, some of the images and some of the policy are so vivid and really, if you look at the polling, cut across party lines on here. Is there an argument to be made that the nature of the family separation policy elevates that to something uniquely damaging to this administration politically?
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: Well, I think you can make that argument based on the speed with which the White House attempted to correct the policy. One can say that they therefore introduced more confusion into what exactly our policy is. The whole idea that the White House found itself on the wrong side of the 70/30 issue when it came to family separation and then has trying its utmost to detain the families together, which is as you said, the more popular option. For the White House, as long as a conversation Steve is about say, attempts to abolish ICE, that they view as a winning issue. If it goes back to the idea of separating families, then they're on the losing side.
KORNACKI: Speaking of that, I think we can put this on the screen. Here's one of Donald Trump's tweets on that subject of abolishing ICE, a call that's coming from the left right now, some Democratic politicians have signed on to, he says, "The Liberal Left, also known as Democrats, want to get rid of ICE, who do a fantastic job, and want Open Borders. Crime would be rampant and uncontrollable! Make America Great Again." David Corn, this does seem to be gaining a lot of momentum, this concept on the left right now, is this something you think is going to become widespread among Democratic elected officials in this midterm campaign cycle?
DAVID CORN: I would be surprised. I think Trump has an easy case to demagogue and to say there's massive crime. He's been trying to portray an America that's overrun by MS-13 and only the shock troops of ICE are keeping America safe. There's nothing true about his presentation. I do think that if too many Democratic elected officials start calling for abolition of ICE without talking about how to control or how to enforce the border laws that do exist – that most people do agree on – that could be problematic for the Democrats. But I don't think you're going to see a lot of Democrats issue that call.
KORNACKI: Matthew, I keep thinking back, and this will sound so dated now, but after the 2012 election when Mitt Romney lost and the Republican National Committee did this autopsy of why they lost and they talked about the issue of immigration and their tone on immigration as being a longterm threat to the party's viability in terms of just the country's changing demographics. Obviously they were able to get Donald Trump elected on the most hardline platform imaginable in 2016, but is there still – longer-term and bigger picture – is there still something to that argument or has that just been completely oviated in Republicans' minds.
CONTINETTI: The best counter argument to that was Donald Trump's candidacy and his success as a presidential candidate running hard on the immigration issue. There are some broader complications with that argument, Steve, about demographics. But I think we can say that demographics, contrary to what a lot of people believe, is not destiny.