has worked for a live audience is quite a bit, actually, that kind of direction, when we are doing a live show, is sensible show, right? but that s not what this was. this was presented as a town hall for the presidential candidate, as if an actual forum in an organic setting with real, unfettered reactions. at least from a perspective of the republicans in the audience, what was portrayed on air did not reflect the reality in the room. quote, there were plenty of people in that room that were ardent supporters of president trump, and no matter what he said, they were ready to jump out of their seats and applaud. there were also people who sat there quietly discussed and bewildered. in a tv seeding, you hear the applause, but you don t hear that discussed. so trump did not have the entire room on his side, make no mistake, even if it certainly came across that way on tv. those observations are backed up by the data we have. donald trump still has a lot of support from the republican pa
clearly, some republicans are catching on. i ve gotta say there is a strange sort of fatalism creeping into the national conversation about donald trump, that everyone should throw on the towel and give up. what that means to me, obviously, is give up on our fellow citizens, the people that we share the country with, as democratic equals. i ve gotta say, it certainly seems like the republican establishment has even more cynical views of their primary voters than i do. but the door is not closed. maybe it will be at some point. maybe donald trump wants a nomination. perfectly plausible and maybe even likely. but it s not inevitable. the future isn t written. people who want him not to be the nominee, they need to get up and make the case to their own voters. get out there. and democracy depends on it. matthew bartlett is a republican strategist who was in the audience for the trump town hall, he previously served as a director of the public affairs in the state department under presiden
jennifer horn served as the chair of the new hampshire republican party, she let the gop in december of 2020. both join me now. matthew, let me start with you as someone who is in that room. i m so interested in hearing your account of that and other nuance to people s reaction. just give us a sense of how you were beating people throughout and what you are picking up that maybe the cameras weren t. sure. i think you had a typical new hampshire town hall, in so much as you had a wide group of republicans, independents, some that were supporters of president trump and there to see him, and some that came with a true deal of skepticism around him. as you mentioned, there was a notion to try to keep decorum in the, room to try to make sure that this does not go off the rails, and that people were allowed to express themselves through applause. that quickly became a bit of an issue. certainly when i turned on my cell phone afterwards, the text messages started coming in. my gosh, that lo