Washington Free Beacon editor Matthew Continetti spoke on a panel discussion about the Donald Trump effect on the 2016 GOP primary fight with MSNBC's Chuck Todd, Jamal Simmons, and Amy Walters.
The populist Trump could be in the position, Continetti argued, of being able to attack Hillary Clinton from both the right and the left if they wind up being the nominees.
Todd asked Continetti, "Do you feel as if the Republicans are drawing these tougher lines, that it's a response to sort of Trumps out there feeling as if they have to get tougher?"
"My first reaction to your intro there was, Chuck, it's not like Republicans have been particularly cooperative with Obama over the last seven years," Continetti said. "I'm not sure you can blame Trump for this one. I don't know. I'll blame Donald Trump for degradation in relations when Paul Ryan starts personally insulting the President. You know, starts calling him a loser ... the Trump effect is less about these policy disagreements or gridlock than it is just ‘I'm the winner, everyone else is a loser’ and I am going to make fun of you personally until you accept that you are a loser."
Further, on the topic of attacking Trump with ridicule, Todd asked, "why do you think, Matthew, that the Cruzes and the Rubios and Jebs haven't gone the ridicule route?"
"Well, I think they're afraid of the blow back," Continetti said. "And I think they each have strategies that depend on everybody else getting out so they can get it into a one-on-one situation with Trump. It hasn't been the effect. I'll say this about Trump. Typically a Republican moves to the right in the primary and that limits his support in the general. Trump hasn't moved to the right. He's only moved to the right on one issue, and that was abortion and he did that several years ago. So, he's going to be in this weird position. He will be attacking Hillary Clinton, who I assume will be the nominee, from the right and the left.
"And, yes, $750 million in negative advertising is going to have an effect. He already has high negatives. So does Hillary Clinton. What will her negative ratings look like after six months of Donald Trump every day finding new ways to insult her?"
Full transcript below:
CHUCK TODD: It does feel increasingly like decorum is being thrown completely out the window and you have to wander, ‘is it sort of the Trump effect?’ and does it end up actually serving to reinforce the Trump narrative, by the way, that nothing gets done in Washington and at the same time, he gets stronger. Let me bring in the panel on this one. Jamal Simmons, Democratic strategist, cofounder of crate.com. Amy Walters, national editor of the Cook Political Report and Matthew Continetti, editor of the Washington Free Beacon and a contributing editor of the the Weekly Standard. Hello to you all. Matthew, I'm going to start with you on this. Do you feel as if the Republicans are drawing these tougher lines, that it's a response to sort of Trumps out there feeling as if they have to get tougher?
MATTHEW CONTINETTI: My first reaction to your intro there was, Chuck, it's not like Republicans have been particularly cooperative with Obama over the last seven years.
TODD: There's a line. He took it to another step.
CONTINETTI: I'm not sure you can blame Trump for this one. I don't know. I'll blame Donald Trump for degradation in relations when Paul Ryan starts personally insulting the President. You know, starts calling him a loser and things like-- the Trump effect is less about these policy disagreements or gridlock than it is just ‘I'm the winner, everyone else is a loser’ and I am going to make fun of you personally until you accept that you are a loser.
AMY WALTER: Yeah.
TODD: What do you think of it?
WALTER: I think that's a very good point. I agree with the way you ended up that sentence when you said I think it's only helping to build him up, which is the more that Congress looks dysfunctional, the more that things look like they're not working the more people say why not take a risk with Donald Trump, why not go in--
TODD: We've gone with these guys.
WALTER: Exactly, we tried it with these guys. the difference -- what donald trump can do is what very few other candidates can do, elected officials can do, is they do it and it looks staged, it looks phony, it looks political. He does it and it looks authentic and genuine and like he's actually going to be able to follow through on these threats.
TODD: And some would argue it's just as phony, that he's doing an act, too--
WALTER: Of course.
TODD: But for some reason his act seems-- authentic.
WALTER: Yes.
TODD: I had somebody say to me actually that he's authentically phony, meaning like he's in on the joke, he lets you know he's in on the joke and that's why it works.
JAMAL SIMMONS: Well, I think that's probably true. i also think that there is a reality that the parties are now becoming base turnout operations that fight over a very small sliver in the middle of people who are left. And so, the republicans know they can't anger their base. they've got to be as loyal to them as possible. Looking for these symbolic ways of doing that. I think that's what you saw in the Mitch McConnell last week was, ‘I'm going to prove that we're with the base so, with Trump or without Trump, we're going to be on their side so we can turn them out in November.’
TODD: Is there a point that this damages, Republican Senators? Do you worry about that?
CONTINETTI: No, not on Guantanamo. For one thing, the public is with them on Guantanamo. So, that's not going to damage--
TODD: They will do the hearing, to have it, is probably good politics.
CONTINETTI: On the Supreme Court, I agree with you there. I've always said that they should actually have waited until the nominee comes out and have hte hearings, then vote against it. That might hurt them. At the end of the day, it's going to be the two Presidential contenders.
WALTER: better that they drive all of it.
SIMMONS: I think the President gets one chance to get a supreme court nominee through, it's Loretta Lynch or somebody else like her. Because either they're going to embarrass the Republicans to the point where they have to go ahead and go through the process with her or they're going to be a base turnout operation.
TODD: Ryan Sandoval, the Governor of Nevada, decided he -- he didn't enjoy being in the political football for 24 hours. For Brian Sandoval's career that's not a surprise. He is a bit risk adverse.
WALTER: He's very risk adverse. And that's why nobody thought that he was going to run-- well, people who were in nevada, or our good friend John Ralston was skeptical he was going to run for the Senate, which he did not. Listen, I agree withJamal's point, too, about Sandoval. which was there are two problems with Brian Sandoval just on paper. One, he's too liberal for most Republicans whether it's on abortion-- right?--
TODD: Probably to the left of Anthony Kennedy.
WALTER: Absolutely, so he was never going to be able to get their votes in the first place just on ideology and he wasn't going to motivate the Democratic base--
SIMMONS: There would have been a massive disruption in the democratic party had that happened.
TODD: Alright, let's talk about the trump affect in another way, Mathew, you've written about this a little bit which is does he -- does he, is he -- turnout is up in all Republicans primaries. He's bringing in new voters. Why is this not a plus for the Republican party?
CONTINETTI: Well, because I think so many republicans are frightened by the prospect of him being president. But, i'm out there saying that Democrats should be frightened of him, too. as I listen to Democrats and they sound exactly like Republicans when Donald Trump --
TODD: Oh, it will never --
CONTINETTI: Never happen. He's going to be so easy to defeat. He's such a joke. No one takes him seriously. That's whistling past your grave as far as I'm concerned. Donald Trump is just playing at a different level than most political actors. And, Hillary Clinton has shown, I think, to be a weak candidate in some respects.
WALTER: But, i think republicans are not -- I'm sorry, democrats are not going to do what republicans did, which is let him build up this head of steam and wait. The minute it looks like he's getting the nomination, there will be millions and millions of dollars going after him. Everybody assumes, well, he's tough, he can take the punches because nothing defeats him. We don't know if he has a glass jar or not because nobody's punched him.
SIMMONS: I've seen people get under his skin. I mean, he looks sometimes like, you have to stand there, take the heat and hit him again.
TODD: I was having this conversastion with somebody, there's one politician that has gone up against Trump and won. A showdown. It was President Obama. And, how he went at him he went at him-- he went at him with ridicule.
SIMMONS: You got to get him the way he gets you.
TODD: Yeah, which is sort of the way he goes.
WALTER: Yep.
TODD: Why do you think, Matthew, that the Cruz's and the Rubio's and Jeb's haven't gone the ridicule route?
CONTINETTI: Well I think they're afraid of the blow back. And I think they each have strategies that depend on everybody else getting out so they can get it into a one-on-one situation with Trump. It hasn't been the effect. I'll say this about Trump. Typically a Republican moves to the right in the primary and that limits his support in the general. trump hasn't moved to the right. He's only moved to the right on one issue, and that was abortion and he did that several years ago. So, he's going to be in this weird position. He will be attacking Hillary Clinton, who I assume will be the nominee, from the right and the left.
TODD: Right.
CONTINETTI: And, yes, $750 million in negative advertising is going to have an effect. He already has high negatives. So does Hillary Clinton.
TODD: They're the two highest-- they're the two most unpopular presidential candidates we have.
CONTINETTI: What will her negative ratings look like after six months of Donald Trump every day finding new ways to insult her?
TODD: What about this bernie sanders effect? Look, Clinton supporters, after a bitter race with Obama, did come around and support Obama. And I know the assumption in Clinton world is Sanders supporters will come around. But boy, if you've spent any time with Sanders supporters they're defiantly anti-Clinton. They're very anti-Clinton. They may go to trump.
SIMMONS: Barack Obama was a movement candidate. he had to get the pragmatists in the party to join him. hillary clinton is the pragmatic candidate, she has to get the movement people. And it's a much harder thing to do. Her having a message to appeals to them and her maybe having a VP nominee that appeals to them as well could also be helpful.
TODD: You think it needs to go younger or more progressive?
SIMMONS: More progressive.
WALTER: Progressive and that's where Sharon Brown can be somebody that fits into that category.
TODD: None of us would have thought somebody like that would be with Clinton.
WALTER: Right.
SIMMONS: Democrats have been saying that for a while.
TODD: Especially with trump though--
CONTINETTI: Sharon Brown would be a good match-up against Trump.
TODD: About the only way you would
CONTINETTI: Trump will go for the unions. He's going to make the trade arugment against Hillary. He's going to make the foreign policy argument against Hillary in a way no Republican can because they're all internationalists. He's not. He's going to attack her from the left on foreign and trade policy.
SIMMONS: If he picks John Kasich might need a Sharon Brown there, too.
TODD: I just don't buy the conventional Republicans for all the things they said will they be willing to be on his ticket.
WALTER: Fair point.
TODD: I'm going to pause the conversation.