the safety net threatens their Medicare and believes cutting foreign trade and immigration might increase their job opportunities .
What does Trump need to do to win ? I don ’ t think Donald Trump can change anything . He very much seems locked in . I know from my research that his key strategist stopped writing memos for him years ago because he doesn ’ t read anything . He watches a little TV and then , as he says , literally talks with himself . He can change his tone but is unlikely to develop more detailed policies .
And it ’ s interesting : if you look at all his talk about “ they ’ re making fools of us ”… He ran the same exact ads in 1987 against Ronald Reagan . This has been a constant line of his for 30 years now . He doesn ’ t change . He changed talking about Japan to talking about China , but it ’ s the same lines .
Let ’ s switch to the other candidate : What does Clinton need to do to win ? Secretary Clinton , to win , has to give people enough exposure to her talking about the many things you do as president , to get them comfortable with her . I mean , this is an extraordinary , unusual race : 48 percent of people in the country say they would never consider voting for Hillary Clinton . 57 percent of people in America say they would never consider voting for
Donald Trump . So she has a ceiling of 52 percent ; he has a ceiling of about 43 .
The extraordinary thing this year is not just that somebody like Donald Trump got a lot of support , but that the person who came in second was the most despised , disliked senator in , probably , a century in the American Senate : Senator Cruz . It ’ s stunning when you look at what Republican leaders said about him . These are comments you usually hear on latenight comedy shows about a party , or from the other party at a fundraiser , not from distinguished leaders .
I think we ’ ve been hearing a lot of things in this election we haven ’ t heard before . Is the level of vitriol and anger , or populism — or some combination of any of those — new ? The vitriol and the anger come and go . What ’ s new is the lack of anything but bile from one of the winning candidates . Donald Trump has never discussed details of any policies ; it ’ s always been “ I ’ m great and I can do it .” I ’ ve never been in a campaign where there wasn ’ t a little bit more content , not necessarily long policy proposals , but at least some familiarity with the details .
People wrongly thought Ronald Reagan wasn ’ t very smart or didn ’ t know a lot . I knew better . He was a very effective governor . When he was governor , he sat down with former Secretary of the
Treasury George Shultz for lunch in Sacramento . He grilled Shultz for hours about the federal budget , and Shultz was impressed by his detailed questions . In one of the debates , Donald Trump did not know what the nuclear triad was , and I don ' t think he understands what NATO was doing in the Middle East . Now , it clearly doesn ’ t matter to a lot of people , but I ’ m still surprised , whether he wins or loses , that he got so far without expanding his plans .
Do you think being light on content is predictive of the future ? Is this what we have to look forward to in the campaigns of 2020 and beyond ? I very much doubt that . Donald Trump got this far because he broke the logjams inside the Republican Party . His insults , racially charged exaggerations and factually challenged statements were all criticized . But no one called him on a major part of his appeal to voters who feel threatened — strengthening Medicare and Social Security . Now that the logjam has been broken , Republican leaders are realizing that they have ignored many of the problems of their less affluent voters . They either address them by accepting the role of the government in strengthening the safety net , or the Democrats could win many of them back .
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