Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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What's on the mind of the country's biggest, most influential and most innovative business leaders? You get to find out every Friday with me, Alan Kohler, as I sit down with the people influencing the markets, the economy and the ideas shaping our world.
The housing supply situation is completely out of whack. And if we don't act urgently about this, we will end up in a world where it doesn't matter how big the pie is and how much your slice is, you won't have anywhere to eat it.
Chapter 2: What roles is Marco Rubio currently holding in Trump's administration?
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Marco Rubio is hitting his stride. He's Trump's top national security advisor and his Secretary of State. He's taken over the White House press briefing, sat down with the Pope, and is now in China for Trump's showdown with President Xi. So, no wonder speculation is growing that he could be the next Republican presidential nominee instead of the one-time favourite, J.D. Vance.
Today, Jeff Cabaservis from the centre-right think tank, the Niskanen Centre, on the new political battle in the US. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily. Geoff, there's this story during the rounds in Washington, D.C., and it's been reported by a number of news outlets, that Donald Trump is musing aloud and posing this question to staff, to his friends.
What do you think, Vance or Rubio? What's he up to?
Sam, in a way, Donald Trump has made the 2028 Republican presidential nomination part of his crowd routine. He'll sort of say to a crowd, so what do you think? Who should be the nominee? Should it be Vance? And then he'll hear the cheers there. Yes. Or how about Rubio? I think he's just really doing it to sort of play up a bit of attention at this point.
It's really quite far out from 2028 and the nominating contest. But on the other hand, you know, what Washington insiders call the invisible primary is already underway in both Republican and Democratic parties. And you're starting to see some signs that different people are maybe jockeying for support for the nomination.
As you say, yes. He was posing this question initially, I think, behind closed doors, but then he turned up this week, of course, in the Rose Garden and just put it to everyone at a public function.
Who's it going to be? Is it going to be JD? Is it going to be somebody else? I don't know. Does anybody have... OK, let's go. You ready? Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio? All right. That was a perfect ticket. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstances.
Is he suggesting here that these two men should run together on the same ticket or is he pitting them against each other? What do you think?
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Chapter 3: What speculation surrounds Marco Rubio's potential presidential candidacy?
He has since, you know, said he supported it, but largely as a means of keeping a nuclear bomb out of Iran's possession. He hasn't been as enthusiastic about this intervention as Marco Rubio has. And there's some evidence that the Republican Party is starting to show some splits, even among its MAGA base, on the Iran issue.
So we're all sort of waiting to see what happens with this Iran war and its resolution, if there is going to be one. The high price of gas in this country, as well as the unsettled state of the world, are going to actually discomfort some of the megabase in ways that might put a damper on either Rubio or Vance's aspirations.
There have been also, though, Jeff, haven't there, a few gaffes, if you like, from Vance recently, including when he lectured the Pope about being careful with discussing theology at a Turning Point USA event in April.
I think it's very, very important for the Pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology. If you're going to opine on matters of theology, you've got to be careful. You've got to make sure it's anchored in the truth. And now...
Now, he is a devout Catholic, but yeah, only converted, what, in 2019. So, I mean, those comments didn't go down particularly well.
Well, you know, it takes a certain amount of hubris as a new Catholic convert to lecture the Pope on what the Pope really ought to be standing for. Nonetheless, for those Catholics who are Republicans and Trump supporters, I think, you know, this is just one more of the things that you would imagine would put people off of Trump advance and yet somehow doesn't.
Right. And he went to Hungary to campaign for the former leader, Viktor Orban, who actually lost. I mean, it doesn't seem like it's going that well for Vance right now.
Well, you know, he doesn't have a lot of pull in various segments of MAGA. That's true. He did not seem to be able to pull Viktor Orban across the line.
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Chapter 4: How is Donald Trump using the question of 'Vance or Rubio' in public?
Of inside Washington's speculation is that if Trump genuinely thought Orban was going to be reelected, he would have gone himself to support his man. So, you know, I think J.D. Vance is forced to take on some thankless tasks.
All right, so, Geoff, while J.D. Vance was initially seen as a shoo-in to become the Republican nominee in 2028, things are shifting and, of course, there has been these increasing reports surrounding the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and whether he will put his hand up.
Now, a reminder, he actually launched a presidential bid in 2016, didn't he, but suspended that after losing the primary to Trump. So he certainly has leadership ambitions.
He does. He notoriously flamed out when he was running against Trump and did not put on an impressive performance there. Even his attempt to outman Trump by making fun of the size of his hands really backfired on him.
Ah, yes.
He's always calling me Little Marco. And I'll admit, the guy, he's taller than me. He's like 6'2", which is why I don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2". Have you seen his hands? And you know what they say about men with small hands? You can't trust him. You can't trust him. You can't trust him.
There is a feeling among people in the White House that Rubio has matured. He's more at ease with himself than he was back when he ran then. He's also seen as having a somewhat independent brand from Trump. Maybe one that actually reaches back a little more to older versions of republicanism like the kind that would have been familiar to Ronald Reagan.
But yet he's actually been very adept in both channeling that kind of support from the business community, for example, while not forfeiting his support from the more populist MAGA people. But of course, he hasn't really had to make much of a difficult balancing act because he's not officially a candidate for anything at this point.
So the pressure is much lower than it would be if he were to actually throw his hat in the ring.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of Trump's 'invisible primary' for Republican candidates?
Well, Jeff, as you say, the 2028 election is a way off, of course. But the question of who will come after Donald Trump, it is occupying the minds of quite a few people at this point.
The president has been toying this idea of a joint ticket between you and Rubio. What do you think about that?
There are a few topics that I want to talk about less. I just don't think it sounds like the President of the United States to have a televised competition for who would succeed him as his apprentice. I just think that's not at all what you would expect the President to do.
Of course, before then, though, there will be a real test for Donald Trump and that will come in the form of the midterms in November. What are we expecting will happen there? Donald Trump is falling in the polls, isn't he?
So, you know, politics will drive you crazy if you let it in this town. It is true that Trump has been falling in the polls and Republicans generally have been falling in the polls. Historically, what would happen in that case is what we call a thermostatic reaction where the other party starts to rise in the polls. We haven't seen that.
So even though people don't like the Republicans, this does not mean at this point that they like the Democrats any better. Now, you certainly would expect that the Democrats would do reasonably well in these midterms because that, again, is a historic pattern that the party in power almost always loses in these kind of midterm elections. So it's really a volatile situation right now.
Democrats had been very up just a week ago. Now they're very down. It's really not entirely clear what the midterm results will be.
OK, but Donald Trump, if he is increasingly unpopular among the American people, do you think it's good or an actual hindrance for a Republican nominee for the president to be closely linked to Donald Trump? Will that work in Rubio or Vance's favour or actually work against them at this point?
Again, this sort of depends on things we don't know right now, like what the price of gas will be a year from now, what the state of the world will be like, whether China will have taken advantage of a perceived moment of American weakness to militarily intervene with Taiwan. There's just a lot of unknown unknowns here.
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