Hello there. I'm Kristen Welker. I just wrapped up this week's broadcast of Meet the Press live from Miami, where on Wednesday I'll be co moderating the third GOP primary debate alongside NBC, Celeste Holt and Hugh Hewitt at the Salem Radio Network. This Sunday's broadcast featured my exclusive interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Notably, I asked him how he plans to maintain US Support for the war. It's also gearing up to a very busy week in domestic politics. Former President Trump will skip the GOP debate for the third time in a row as our poll out of Iowa shows former Governor Nikki Haley catching up to Governor Ron DeSantis for a distant second place tie. And on Tuesday, you're also looking at elections in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio and Virginia, all of them giving us some hint of where the presidential election stands now, exactly one year away.
To break it all down, I'm sitting here with the experts on all of this. Amy Walter, publisher and editor in chief of the Cook Political Report tv thank you for being here in Miami. So fun. I really do think January through March, Meet the Press in Miami.
The press, Miami, it would be a big hit. I agree. They could take B roll of us strolling the beaches. We could do so much coffee.
It would be so great. I am totally here. It would give the panel a new energy in January. I love.
It's a beautiful state. It's a politically important state. So just the fair all the way around. Let's pick up where we left off on the show.
There's a lot to unpack today on the show. My conversation with President Zelensky, he is obviously speaking out to make the case. Do not forget about Ukraine. While the world has its eyes on two foreign wars, you could see how, how challenging this is for him.
And he knows that this war, while they have been successful in thwarting Russia's advances, that it is going to be a grind. And he basically told you that, that there is not a silver bullet solution to this when you asked him, okay, is there a change in strategy? Is there a new way of thinking about pushing Russia back, winning this war? It was basically, we've just got to keep grinding.
And the challenge, and this is in your NBC reporting, I think, is that not just the worry on the part of American leaders and European leaders about the money piece of it, but that the Ukrainian manpower, literally, you can send many, many more pieces of ammunition and equipment, but Russians have an unending supply of men that they are either conscripting or pushing into this war, Ukrainians do not have that ability. You could hear the toll that it's taking on him. And he said, we don't want to be fighting this war. Right.
We don't have a choice, effectively. And it did. His message to lawmakers I thought was so stunning when he said, the price is going to be much higher, you're going to pay in sending your daughters and sons overseas to defend NATO countries, because Putin's not stopping. And of course, as we discussed, it's very, very powerful words.
President Putin, he called him an expletive terrorist. He's not stopping. He says he's not stopping with Ukraine. That's been his message from the start, but he was very passionate about it in this conversation.
He wasn't trying to make that link between what's happening in the Middle east and what's happening in Ukraine, that these are not separate events. Not only does he say that there's a Russian fingerprint on what's happening there, because that was their support, yeah, for Iran, for Hamas, but that when the world is destabilized, which is what Putin wants to do, which is what Hamas wants to do, which is what Iran wants to do, then none of us are safe. You could be, yes, you're all the way across the ocean from these events. But much like we have seen at other times in history, when the rest of the world is in chaos, America is also going to need to be engaged.
And do we want to do it in right now and literally writing a check, or do we want to be to a place where we're going to have to send men and women over there? And the other thing that stood out to me about the conversation is he had some powerful words for President Trump. If you think you can end this war in 24 hours, come on over, see for yourself. And he says, I'll explain to you, former President Trump, why, in just 24 minutes, why it's not realistic to end the war in 24 hours.
True. And yet, as your reporting showed this weekend, there is conversation going on. That's right, The United States and Europe about trying to find some sort of whatever we're going to call this solution to ending this war. So I do think this is also what Zelensky is up against, is reporting like this, suggesting that Americans and Europeans are looking for, looking for a way out for, for Ukraine that doesn't involve continuing to support a war, but trying to find an end to it.
And that number, that's another number. We talked a lot about polling on the panel today. But the number of Americans now who say, you know, let's, let's look for solutions rather than let's support Ukraine just no matter what until they defeat the Russians. The gap used to be pretty large of Americans saying, that's right, let's support Ukraine no matter what.
They need to defeat Russia. They need to push Putin out. Now that gap has narrowed significantly. I think it's something like 10 points still in favor of Ukraine fighting to the end, but not as big as it once was.
It really is. When you look at how it has just depleted over time, it makes perfect sense. A war is not over in a minute. And these are horrible, tragic things that do grind through.
And staying, that's the hardest thing, right, is keeping your momentum, keeping support around the world. And the spirits that you asked Zelensky about that, how do you keep yourself from feeling defeated, feeling stuck? And he had, that's where he had very powerful words for you. It was a real human moment.
It was the way he responded, because you could feel that it's a struggle. This is, of course, the entire backdrop to the debate which will take place on Wednesday night in this new polling which shows Iowa caucus goers won a candidate who can beat President Biden. But of course, here you have Trump with this huge lead. That's right.
That was the number one trait that Iowa caucus goers said they were looking for in a candidate. And Trump is ahead by a significant margin on that question. When you look at even the other traits that caucus say are important to them, Trump's ahead on every single one of them now by smaller margins on things like we would like someone who could maybe compromise or work with the other side, somebody who's the adult in the room. Things that we know for so many, even Republican Trump supporting voters, they see as weaknesses for him that we wish he wouldn't tweet, we wish he wouldn't lash out at people.
We wish he would, you know, reach out his hand every now and then to somebody that he disagrees with. But at the end of the day, it's not enough to get them to vote for one of those other candidates. And that, to me, has been the struggle all along for a candidate not named Trump, which is Donald Trump has his base of support. You see it in this poll, let's call it 40% hardcore with him no matter what.
So there is a big pool of voters willing to vote for somebody else. But those voters break into two distinct camps. One camp is the camp that Nikki Haley's getting. I think those are the group we call the Never Trump voters or voters who are absolutely, they are committed to turning the page.
They're not just looking for an alternative, they are going to vote for alternative. But that's only about 16, 20% of the vote. Right. The biggest chunk is the group of voters.
They say, I'm looking, I'm willing to look around, but I still really like Donald Trump. And so Trump, it's hard to win them over and it's hard to make an alliance between those two groups of we're going to turn the page. And maybe I want to turn the page because there's not a lot that brings them together, either policy wise or I think the one thing that was going to bring them together was the issue of winning. We may not agree on policy, but we do agree we have to be Joe Biden.
Right. But now you look at all the polling out there, and Donald Trump doesn't look like he's losing. He's taken that argument. That was his ticket Ron DeSantis argument.
And the polling shows it's just taken off the table. And we did have this new reporting today. NBC Dasha Burns. Breaking today, the fact that Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is now going to endorse Ron DeSantis.
If DeSantis had slowed Trump's moment in Iowa, that would be a game changer potentially. But this picks up on where we left off in the panel. Is it too late? I mean, Trump is 30 points ahead.
That's right. That's right. That is a really good question. Had she done this earlier, would that have made a difference?
I just don't know that it will because the distinction now between local and national politics is so significant that voters can really like their governor and vote for her for reelection as they did in the last election, and say they think she's doing a good job, but they don't translate that to well, she should be weighing in on a vote for president or on my vote on a federal office. Right. I'm putting those into two very separate categories. As a voter, I think what it may do if I'm Nikki Haley is, is it going to blunt any momentum that Haley may have had in trying to win over some of those skeptical Trump voters who do still like Trump, but maybe I can.
That keeps him in the hunt. Look for, for second place. I think for Haley, why Iowa is important is that if she gets momentum from Iowa to go to New Hampshire, which is a really a picture perfect state for Nikki Haley, that has a lot of Trump skeptical voters and a lot of Independent voters. Right.
And that to me is where she could really have a moment. But she needs Iowa to give her that bump there. It's a much better place for her than DeSantis, for example. Yeah.
So she has probably the most to lose from that endorsement. I don't know if again that it matters, but more so than say, Donald Trump. That's a really good point. That this is not just endorsement that impacts the Trump DeSantis dynamic, but Nikki Haley as well.
Of course, she has taken each of these moments where foreign policy is, she's capitalizing. She really is gaining momentum. But could this be said. And that's what I'll be very curious on the debate stage because as we just discussed on the panel and we went through a little bit at the beginning of this podcast, where Republican voters are on Ukraine is very different from where Zelensky would like to be, certainly.
And the divide within the party is going to be front and center with folks like Chris Christie and Nikki Haley taking that sort of what we used to think of as a traditional Republican position on we are the United States piece of strength. The Reagan, the Reagan esque. They are holding up that Reagan era foreign policy. That's not where the party is.
And you know, Haley has been making the case pretty forcefully, not just on the debate stage, but in speeches as well and on the campaign trail. But that appeal is TO that again, 15, 20% of the Republican electorate who would still like to have a return of a Reagan esque sort of leader. It doesn't help her move into those voters who she needs to get right. She needs to get Trump voters in order to build her coalition.
Always, always the wall that these candidates run into. We're like about a year away from the actual election, but we have elections. I know. What are you going to be watching for on Tuesday?
This cannot be overstated. Abortion is going to be central Virginia in Ohio. Absolutely. And turnout, I think that's another question because we know we're looking at a lot of national polls, especially presidential polls, showing the Democratic base is unenthusiastic and they're especially unenthusiastic about Joe Biden.
And in 2022, we learned that even though Democrats were unenthusiastic about Biden, people, including Democrats, were feeling pretty terrible about saving the economy. They still voted for Democrats. So a place like Mississippi, you don't think of that as a battleground state. It's not usually.
But there is a competitive governor's race there. And the key for Democrat there is to have really robust black turnout. What will we see there? And is that a signal that even as right now black voters are saying nationally not feeling great about Biden, that when it comes down to election day, when it comes down to a choice, that they do come and turn out.
And same in Virginia. I'm looking not just at the abortion issue, but is it playing differently in Northern Virginia, in the suburbs of Northern Virginia versus a blue area and in areas that are whiter versus going down to Southside or Hampton Roads where you have competitive state Senate races with significant African American vote. And those are the places that Biden did really well. Yeah.
But where Youngkin also did well, where in 2022 Republicans did pretty well because turnout was down. Right. Presidential turnout, you might get that. So it is going to help give us maybe a little hint for where when the issues are out of either abortion or a lot of these Democrats running on the anti maga messaging, is that enough to turn out those voters that say, yeah, I may not be excited about Joe Biden, but I definitely can't stay home because of the other things that are at.
And that's the central question of 2024. And in addition to everything you're saying, what I'll be watching for Virginia's governor is trying to own offense. On the issue of the portion where you have a lot of Republicans going on defense in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned.
Yeah, Governor, you can say, no, we can't do that. Let's talk about a 15 week limit with exceptions. Let's own it. And so we'll have to say I think that's.
That's going to be. You're exactly right. And trying to tell Republicans that you just hiding from this issue is not going to help you. And there are specific races where the Republican candidate is, they are talking only about crime and safety, an issue where they do have an advantage.
But the Democrat is talking almost exclusively about abortion. And so you'll see those two meet up, those two issues meet up. While Youngkin is saying actually we're the reasonable, we can do both things. We can say we're going to protect you.
We're going to talk about crime and safety and we're also going to have reasonable limits on abortion access. Is that going to work? It's going to be too much. I know.
And it's going to be such a great backdrop to Wednesday night. Go into Wednesday night with all these. A lot of stuff to cover. Good luck.
Thank you, Amy. Thank you for being here. It was incredible. You made the trip to Miami.
Hope you get to stop by the each other. Thanks. You're welcome. Appreciate it.