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BONUS: Landslide incoming, with Sean Spicer
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We are 10 days out from the most important US election of our lifetimes. Of course that’s what they always say, but this time it feels like it may just be true. In this special bonus episode, Will chatted to Former White House Press Secretary, and now host of The Sean Spicer Show, Sean Spicer. Sean reflected on the campaign, and gave his prediction for who will win on the 5th of November. And spoiler alert, he thinks he'll win bigly.
Follow Will Kingston and Fire at Will on social media here.
Read The Spectator Australia here.
Watch The Sean Spicer Show here.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Fire at Will'
00:00:19
Speaker
G'day and welcome to Fire at Will, a safe space for dangerous conversations. I'm Will Kingston. If for some reason you are not already following the show on a streaming service, you can find us everywhere from Spotify to Apple Podcasts to YouTube. If you like what you hear here, please consider giving us a glowing 5 star review. If you don't like what you hear here, please forget I said anything.
Importance of the US Election
00:00:46
Speaker
We are 10 days out from the most important US election of our lifetimes. Of course, that's what they always say, but this time it feels like it just may be true.
Interview with Sean Spicer
00:00:58
Speaker
In this special bonus episode, I chatted to former White House Press Secretary and now host of the Sean Spicer show, Sean Spicer. Sean reflected on the campaign and gave his prediction for who will win on the 5th of November. Roll the tape.
00:01:16
Speaker
Sean, both candidates are flawed in this campaign. Trump comes with a lot of baggage. Harris is perhaps the most limited politician in modern American history. What are your reflections on what this choice says about the state of politics in the US in 2024? I mean, look, I think We're in a very interesting dynamic, right? You've never, you haven't seen in over a hundred years ah a former president run for office. So there's so much that's historic about this. You've never seen a and ah nominee pushed out the way that they did with with Joe Biden. You know, it's interesting for for all of the narratives though, we went through a process. There was a primary process, at least on my side, on the Republican side, and people chose Donald Trump over and over again. He's got a record of results.
00:02:05
Speaker
And I think for most Republican voters, they liked what they saw and they wanted him back. And and that sort of defied the media narrative. But but the results speak for themselves. I mean, you you know people actually have to cast ballots and win, unlike how the Democrats handled theirs. We actually went through a process. There was plenty of people who ran, very competent politicians who challenged him and lost.
US Election Dynamics
00:02:31
Speaker
In your personal opinion, do you think the U.S. would have been better served with a presidential race between J.D. Vance and Joshua Pirro? So, you know what's interesting? i I know why you're asking the question, I think, and I know, but but if the like I said, I am a believer in in in the game, if you will, right? I get asked a lot of times, I spent six years at the RNC and people would say, like, who do you want to win?
00:02:55
Speaker
And I don't know about you, but like in in in America, we've got the NFL, right? Or the MLB, the the league, right? that and And I know and in, guys call it football. So, um but like, you know, there's always a league. And the league wants a good game, right? They want they want people to to tune in and they want a great game. They don't want to blow out there. I want a good game.
00:03:16
Speaker
And so I got asked all the time, you know, who do you want? And I'm like, I when when you work at the party, if you really are a true believer, and i I believe in the system and everything, I want the voters to make a decision about who they think is best. And then I want to go fight it out in the general election.
00:03:32
Speaker
And so what I want, I mean, like, you know, I actually get asked all the time about Trump and I'm like, as a conservative who has been involved in politics for 30 years this year, I want results. I want and and I look at Trump's record and I think sometimes the the personality piece overshadows it.
Trump's Challenges and Preparedness
00:03:52
Speaker
But if you're a true conservative and you look at stuff that we have been talking about for literally decades, in terms of tax policy, in terms of the the cultural aspects of of life, I can't think of another candidate who's put up the points on the board that he has.
00:04:09
Speaker
Some people would say and many Republicans would say that his instincts and his policy settings in his first term was spot on, but he had trouble doing the basics of government and he had trouble with, say, a failure to take on the administrative state. You worked with him very closely. Do you have confidence that he'll be able to do the the nuts and bolts of administration better if he wins a second term?
Critique of Harris's Campaign Strategy
00:04:31
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, we were.
00:04:33
Speaker
We were we were building the plane in midair last time. You know, it was new. And and you think about this, like, if you're a senator or a governor, when you run for president, and and if you win, so like, you know, Obama was the senator, Clinton was a governor, George Bush was a governor, you have a team around you. And usually you've been in for a while. So you've got You know, it's like a family. It's not just your immediate family. You got cousins and second cousins and whatever that you can kind of call on. Trump didn't have that. And so there was a lot, there was some, some disruption at the, at the front end, admittedly, but I think it all worked out. And this time he understands the system better. And what I mean by that is I don't think he was like naive about it. I think he just trusted people to do what they said they were going to do, who I think in a lot of cases had their own self interest at heart, not his.
00:05:22
Speaker
On Harris, she's been in this awkward position of having to defend the Biden administration's achievements, not admitting that Biden is unfit for office, but still arguing that they need a change candidate and that she's the change candidate. It's been messy. You're a comms guru. How would you have got that messaging right on their side?
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's a really great question that you're asking. The thing that's so funny is she's been asked, what would you different? And she's like, well, I'm not going to comment in on that. I don't, that's not, so if you're asking me as a comms person, how would I do that? You huddle with the Biden team, you say, Hey guys, there are like four policies that she really wants to articulate that I don't think are offensive. I mean, look,
00:06:01
Speaker
I'm trying to think of the the easiest example. Like you and I both go to dinner, look at the menu, we're gonna order different things. it doesn't It doesn't say anything bad about us that we chose different things, right? If if I'm in charge,
00:06:13
Speaker
And we're doing a you know your show today. I'm going to say, hey, we should talk about A, B, and C today right off the bat. And you go, yeah, I'm going to be in charge today. And I want to talk about C, D, and E. So you you find some stuff that's overlapping, whatever, but you have different priorities. There's nothing wrong with that. nobody Nobody in their right mind thinks that different people aren't going to have different priorities. And she has failed to articulate that. It's not a tough thing. I mean, that's what to to to the nut of your question,
00:06:42
Speaker
It's not hard to say, Hey, I love Joe Biden to death. I agreed to be his vice president. yeah I was honored to do it. But if I were in charge, I would have probably led with these three things. You know, I get asked all that all the time and say, well, you were as prescriptor and it's great. I worked for him. Now that I'm not, I can say, here's my personal belief on this issue. Like I would do this differently. I would go start with this policy. I would take this tack on this. If you're speaking for yourself, no one expects you. Like I'm a hundred percent supportive of Donald Trump.
00:07:11
Speaker
in this election, but that doesn't mean that I agree with everything he says and does. There's different priorities that we'd have. And that's, that's true in any relationship. And I don't know why it's, it's literally befuddling that she can't answer that question. Cause she acts like somehow it's massively offensive to Biden when it's not.
Campaign Strategies and Effectiveness
00:07:30
Speaker
Do you think it's a problem with campaign strategy or her political ability or lack thereof?
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, the latter. it's It's her ability to be authentic. And in what I mean by that is she is, you can almost see in her head every time she gets asked a question, the the wheels moving, right? It's this balancing act with, okay, the progressive wing of my party, that's absolutely crazy left wing. We'll get upset if I say this, this or this, but then I want to win over new voters. And so I don't know how to balance it. So I'm just going to say nothing.
00:08:01
Speaker
It's it's she is she is so inauthentic and phony. That instead of taking a position that might offend somebody she comes off kind of pissing both sides off. Who's playing the ground game better at this stage and how to saw simple that big. If you ask me this question two weeks ago I think I would have naturally historically defaulted. to To Harris. But the beautiful thing will about where we are now is that you know um ah the people who work with me know that I've got a saying which is data doesn't lie.
00:08:30
Speaker
Right. You, you, when you walk in, I don't know if you guys, you guys have the ways app. Yeah. Okay. So when when I get no car, if the ways app tells you go, right, go left, go left, it's, it it doesn't care, right? That you've got a favorite route. It says this is where there's less traffic. Go this way.
00:08:47
Speaker
And I've tried to tell people all the time to go, oh, Waze is wrong. I'm like, Waze doesn't have an opinion. It's all data-based. And the same thing with right now. like Look at the early voting. I was not bullish. Of all the seven battleground states, Nevada was the one that worried me the most. And you look now at at just the overwhelming Republican response in early and absentee voting in Wisconsin, in Georgia, in North Carolina. Republicans are crushing this.
00:09:12
Speaker
and you know Winning has a ton of fathers, so I'm sure everyone will take credit. Some of it may be attributable to just Donald Trump's message and their or they're just like him, but the ground game gets some credit. And so right now, I would say like we'll know more probably beginning of next week. like We'll be on a lot more solid footing, but right now, the our side is crushing this.
00:09:36
Speaker
We're approaching the final week. What are the key messages that both candidates need to land going into this final stretch? I think Trump needs to do two things. One is just remind people like they keep trying to make him the bogeyman. He was president. He has a record.
00:09:50
Speaker
So everyone keeps thinking, well, he's going to do this. He's going to do this. And my answer to people is like those stock commercials that say past performance is no guarantee of future results. When you look at a stock, if it's crushing it you know you you or or anything, you know when i actually when people ask me about a job and say, should I take it? Should I not? The way I always look at a job is I'll look at the people who held the position in the past.
00:10:11
Speaker
Doesn't mean that if if they've all gone on to success i'm gonna go on to success but it means that there's something there that you have the ability and opportunity if you do well to probably do better. Conversely if everybody has been in a job has flailed afterwards you might not want to take it doesn't mean you'll fail no but it means that is very it's it's the track record is there.
00:10:30
Speaker
Trump has a track record me articulate that and say hey here's what i did as president. And similarly she is a track record and here's what hers is but make this entirely about my record versus your record cuz never in modern american politics if we had a contrast that we have like we do now. And and so and on the flip side if i were her.
00:10:49
Speaker
I would distance myself from that record. I mean, do you really want to be talking about the economy and the border, the two most important things when you don't have a strong record to do it on? So if I were her, I would break away from Biden. I think but try to articulate a new vision that doesn't sound contrived. I don't know that she's got the time to do that, but that that's where I would be if I were her.
00:11:09
Speaker
indulge an irritation for me. Something we haven't heard from either candidate is debt and deficit. There is now more money going towards- You're saying it. You're preaching. This is my thing. When I have politicians on my podcast, I'll ask them, where where is this? Why on the Republican side, where have we gone? I have this number, hold on, if you'll if you'll indulge me one second, but this is one of the questions I've been asking on on my podcast because the debt just hit The deficit just hit $1.83 trillion, dollars the highest since the COVID year, and no one's talking about it. and My party used to be the champion of debt and deficit and reduction in smaller government, and now we're just less bad than them. I think it's an existential threat to our our way of life and our government here, and I wish it got more attention. I don't
00:12:00
Speaker
Of all the things um that that I think Trump will do for the conservative cause, I don't hear that as one of the issues that he's championing because it's not as sexy. No one ever wants to come home and tells you what they cut. It's just not, but but we need to get serious. And I hope that if there was something that we could do, we've had commissions in the past, I've never been big fans of them, but I think that sometimes you have to do things that give political cover and and that's what sometimes commissions do is they give you political cover to do things that you didn't quote want to do, but you were kind of, and so we do that with our base alignment commissions where we go out and we close bases and say that it was, well, we was an up or down vote.
00:12:41
Speaker
So I wish, I wish it got more attention. I talked to Eric Hubde. He'll be on the show tomorrow. No, he was on last, last week from Wisconsin, the candidate in ah running for Senate and same kind of conversation that you and I, I was like, why are you not? And he was like, it's the number one thing I care about. and done it up So hopefully it gets more attention.
Predictions for Trump's Victory
00:13:01
Speaker
Hopefully some of these guys start doing it, but I tell you, it's a big disappointment to me. Final question, Sean, who's going to win?
00:13:08
Speaker
Trump by a lot. I do something on my podcast called the road to 270. And every week I run through every state, all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and and using polling and data, assign either a solid blue, light blue toss up light red or solid red to each candidate. Today, I've got the latest episode coming out. I'll give you the headline 312 electoral votes for Trump.
00:13:33
Speaker
I had it below that. I got to 306 a week ago. I'm at 312 now, and I've got 33 that I think he could potentially still pick up. This could be an unbelievably amazing night for Donald Trump. There is not one of the seven battleground states that I don't think he'll win. And i don't this is not coming from somebody who, you know that's not just because I have good good feelings and vibes. It's all based on data that I run through on the show.
00:13:59
Speaker
And I'm telling you, it's the trend in every one of these states. I mean, I'll just, I'm going through in Arizona, Trump's up 1.8, but the last several polls, Trump plus three, a tie, Trump plus three, Trump plus two, Trump plus five, Trump plus two. Like Harris doesn't actually have a poll in October where she's leading Georgia plus four, plus four, plus one, plus two, plus six. There's not a single poll.
00:14:25
Speaker
that trump is not leading in in the state of georgia in the month of october on the real color politics average every single one of them he's off right you go down the list trump spread in north carolina is a little concerning to me i think that's probably one of the ones that i'm a little skinnish but the trend the registration the early vote same thing all give me a good feeling i told you about nevada i feel very very good about i mean the dems are wetting their pants in nevada that's how bad it is clark county which is their their stronghold, they're getting swamped in. And even Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the those the Blue Wall states, I feel very, very good about it. You heard it
Subscription Pitch for The Spectator
00:15:04
Speaker
here first. Sean Spicer, thank you for coming on Fire at Will. You bet, Will.
00:15:08
Speaker
Thanks for listening to this episode of Far at Will. If you enjoyed the show, why not consider a subscription to The Spectator Australia. The magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivalled books and arts reviews. A subscription gets you all of the content from the British edition of the magazine, as well as the best Australian political commentary Subscribe today for just $2 a week for a year. No, I'm not joking. $2 a week for an entire year. A link is in the show notes.