Geo-Strategy #5: Why Trump Will Win (And Pick Nikki Haley as VP)

Okay, so let's begin class. Today we are discussing whether or not Trump will win in November, and I'm making the prediction that he will win in November and that he will pick Nikki Haley as his vice president. So let's first discuss why Biden won in 2020 and why it's possible that he may lose this year. In 2020 it was a very special year in American politics, because it was the largest turnout in American history since about 1900. 74 million people voted for Trump, 81 million people voted for Biden, and two out of every three American adults came out to vote. So it was the largest turnout in American history. It sounds like a very lopsided victory for Biden, 81 million versus 74 million, but because America has what's called an electoral college system, which is not direct democracy, actually the margin of victory was only 65,000 votes, meaning that if 65,000 people in key battleground states flipped their votes, then Trump would have won. So the margin of victory was very, very close, as is usually the case in highly contested American elections. So let's understand the coalition that brought Biden into the White House.

The first major component of this coalition are black people. 91% of all Black voters voted for Biden, only 8% voted for Trump. That's a huge majority for Biden. So why did so many black people vote for Biden in 2020? Well, first of all, it's because Biden was Obama's vice president for eight years, and so a lot of older black people had a certain loyalty to him. They felt that we owe this man because he served loyally our man Barack Obama for years, and so now we must bring him into the White House. But this year the debt is paid off, so they won't feel so loyal to Biden. Also in 2020 there's something called the George Floyd protests. What happened was that in May 2020 a black man in Minneapolis, George Floyd, was strangled to death by a white police officer. It was captured on video and it caused a national uproar. In fact there were riots and protests throughout the country, and Trump came out and did not acknowledge the pain that black people felt because of this death, and so black people felt antipathy towards Trump. So these are the two major reasons why black people voted for Biden in 2020.

But this year Trump's not in office, Biden's in office, so black people are asking the question, what has Biden done for us these past four years? Unfortunately the answer is not that much. In fact you can make the argument that Biden has really hurt the standard of living of black people. Why? Because inflation has gone up. When inflation goes up it usually hurts poor people the most. The standard of living goes way down. Also illegal immigration has gone up. In 2020, when Trump left office, there were about 10 million illegal immigrants in America. Now there are 20 million illegal immigrants in America, and it seems like Biden's doing nothing to stop this trend. Of course when illegal immigrants come to the country they usually take the jobs of poor people. They bring wages down, and that again hurts black people. And then third, Ukraine. While the standard of living for black people and other poor people in America is going down, America is sending tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine to fight a war that has nothing to do with America. So many Americans see this as just bad leadership. So that's black people, and recent polls show that actually Biden's lead with black people is not as much as it was in 2020.

So this lead is going down.

Young people. Young people tend to vote Democratic in all elections, and they were extremely galvanized to vote in 2020 because they saw Trump as this very hateful racist that they must remove from office. They were driven to believe this because of the George Floyd protests. Unfortunately, this year young people may not feel compelled to vote for Biden. In fact a lot of young people are choosing to sit out this election. Why? You guys know. Gaza. As you know, right now throughout America on college campuses young people are protesting the war in Gaza. So these young people are not going to vote for Trump, but they probably will not vote for Biden as a protest against American policy vis-à-vis Israel.

Now let's look at the college educated. 70% of people with college degrees voted for Biden. These are what we call the coastal elite, the coastal professional managerial elite, and they usually overwhelmingly vote Democratic. This year they will still say the same, but they will be less enthusiastic because of what they perceive to be poor global leadership.

Under Biden's watch Ukraine blew up, but so did Gaza, and many are starting to feel that it's because Biden comes across as too old, too weak and too feeble to S against Putin. So college educated people will still overwhelmingly vote Democratic, that is the core Democratic base, but they'll be less enthusiastic about Biden and they'll vote primarily against Trump.

Women. 54% of women voted for Biden, 44% voted for Trump. Again, because Trump is seen as this hateful figure, we should expect that women will still consistently vote Democratic this year, and also because of abortion issues. Women are very passionate about abortion, and they will come out and vote for Biden to ensure that abortion rights are last.

Let's look at suburban voters. The suburbs are between the cities, the urban areas, and the rural areas. Cities, urban areas, overwhelmingly support the Democratic party. Rural areas overwhelmingly support the Republican party. So the suburbs are where the battleground is. If you look at 2016, when Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, only 45% of the suburbs voted for Clinton, which allowed Trump to defeat her in the election.

Now what's interesting is that in 2020 this flipped and 54% of suburban voters voted for Biden. That's a flip of 2 million voters. In elections it's usually the suburban vote that determines the election, because they're the swing voters. So for Trump to win this year he needs to win the suburban vote. He won that in 2016, he lost that in 2020. So let's examine very quickly why the suburbs went Biden in 2020. There are three major reasons.

The first is the media narrative. What was happening throughout Trump's presidency is basically the entire mainstream media got together and criticized Trump. The first major criticism of Trump, if you remember, is he was a Russian asset. He was a paid Putin puppet, and of course that was just a complete lie, what we call Russiagate. But then they started to say that Trump was a divisive figure, and this idea caught the imagination of the suburbs. Because if you live in the suburbs you tend to be middle class, you tend to be pretty wealthy and well educated, so you like the status quo, you want a leader who's conservative and who's a unifier. And throughout the Trump presidency we saw the polarization of politics.

The left and the right hated each other and they fought all the time, and what really showed this was the George Floyd protests. You had protesters rioting in the streets and Trump was like, let's send in the military to crush the protesters, and so people in the suburbs were very worried about this. They thought that a leader, the President, should be a uniter, and Biden came across as extremely steady, as very establishment, as someone who could unite both the Republican party and the Democratic party. That was his perception in 2020. So that's the first major reason why the suburbs went Biden.

Second was the pandemic. As you know, COVID hit the United States and the suburbs were extremely freaked out about this, because they tend to have children who go to school, they tend to be older, and they thought that Trump's handling of the pandemic was very incompetent. He was an outsider, a political outsider, but that meant he could not get things done in Washington. So that's a second problem with Trump.

And the third reason why the suburbs went Biden is Kamala Harris, and this is key. Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his vice president, to be his running mate.

Let me tell you a little about Kamala Harris. Her father is Jamaican, her mother is Indian, and she has a younger sister, but when she was young her dad left the family, so her mom raised the two girls by herself. Harris is an extremely accomplished person. She went to Stanford, then she became Attorney General of California, then became a US senator. There are three reasons why the suburbs love Kamala Harris. First of like us, meaning she comes across as someone who speaks and thinks like people in the suburbs: well educated, articulate, smart, conservative. Second is she seemed very establishment, meaning that she's not liberal. In fact when she was Attorney General of California she was extremely tough on crime. She was trying to send as many people to jail as possible, and sometimes, quite honestly, some of these people were innocent, and she still sent them to jail. She was very controversial as attorney general, but guess what, guys, people in the suburbs like tough on crime. They want safety, they want security because they have kids.

And the third reason why they like Kamala Harris is because of the redemption story. In 2019 there is a Democratic primary. This is when the Democrats try to get a nomination for the general election, and there were a lot of people who were vying for the nomination, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. In June 2019 there was the first Democratic debate. At this point Kamala Harris and Joe Biden were considered very heavy favorites to win the nomination, and in that first debate Kamala Harris and Joe Biden got into a very nasty argument on television. What happened is that Kamala Harris turned to Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is kind of shell-shocked. He's kind of old, and Kamala Harris is directing her words at him and he doesn't really want to see her, he doesn't really want to confront her. And what Kamala Harris says to Joe Biden is, Joe, you've been in Washington DC for 50 years and some of your policies I don't support. For example, you did not support the integration of black and white students together. Well, you know what, Joe, I'm a black student.

I was a black little girl growing up in the 70s in California, and I got my opportunity to succeed in America because of integration, because I could go to white school, and you opposed my opportunity to succeed. So basically she was calling Biden a racist, and at that point everyone thought that, okay, well, if Biden gets a nomination there's no way he's going to pick her to be the VP. And then he picks her to be the VP. And so what do people think about Biden? What impression do people get because of this? Anyone? Yes. Exactly, he doesn't hold grudges. What else? What else doesn't he do? Hold grudges. He's a very forgiving man. What else? Good, yes, he listens. He's a listener, he's a team player, and he has empathy. He understands that voters want Kamala Harris. And guess what, guys, these three things, doesn't hold grudges, listens, team player, and empathy, this is anti-Trump. This is the anti-Trump. Because of this narrative, women, especially women in the suburbs, went for Biden. Previously they had gone for Trump, now they went for Biden, because as it turns out women want compassionate, empathetic leadership that is decisive and bold but is also tolerant.

This is also why, even though Hillary Clinton ran in 2016 and she was a woman, the suburbs didn't vote for her, because she didn't come across as someone who was compassionate and forgiving and tolerant. Does that make sense? And this is why Biden was able to win.

So this year, what can Trump do to win the suburbs? What can he do? Yeah, he can copy this exact same thing. And it turns out he can do this. Why? Because on the Republican side there's someone called Nikki Kelly, oh sorry, Nikki Haley, and Nikki Haley is very similar to Kamala Harris. Nikki Haley, her parents are Indian immigrants, so she's Indian, she's of South Asian descent, and her family was not very wealthy but she worked hard, and she became South Carolina governor for two terms, and then she joined the Trump Administration as UN Ambassador in 2016. Now what's interesting about Nikki Haley is that Nikki Haley ran against Trump in the Republican primary, and even though she lost to Trump there was a group of people who loved her. Guess who just loved her, who voted for her in droves?

Guess what demographic group, anyone? Suburban woman. Do you understand? College educated suburban woman. So in other words, if Trump brings her on to the ticket, then it's very likely he can swing the suburbs back to him and win the election.

But there's a problem. The problem is that Nikki Haley and Trump got into a very nasty fight during the primary. Nikki Haley said, listen, I served under Trump and I think he's a divisive figure, and right now in our country we need a unifier, that's why I'm running for president, because I want to unite this country, whereas Trump can only divide this country. And then Trump, being Trump, responds and says Nikki Haley is a bird brain, she's stupid. So you see this and you think there's no way Trump will pick her, because Nikki Haley is not loyal to Trump, and Trump likes loyalty. Also, hey, guys, Trump holds grudges, and he doesn't listen, and he's not a team player, and he lacks empathy. So there's no way he would pick Nikki Haley. And in fact this past week there's been a news report that Nikki Haley is in consideration to be Trump's vice president, and Trump came out and said, I am not considering Nikki Haley.

But let me ask you this question. If in August, during the Republican convention, he does pick Nikki Haley, how would people feel about him? How would the media report this? Nikki Haley is an enemy of Trump, Trump called her a bird brain, Trump said I will never pick Nikki Haley, and then in August, three months from now, he says, you know what, I was wrong, I think Nikki Haley is the best person to be my VP, that's why she'll be my running mate in November. How would people feel about him? What would the suburbs think of Trump? How would you feel if you saw this? He's changed. Trump has grown. Remember the narrative about Trump is he is a 5-year-old child, and remember people were like, don't insult 5-year-old children like that, 5-year-old children are much more mature than Trump. So the argument about Trump is he's divisive, but much more than that he's immature, he's incapable of growth. But hey, if in August he picks Nikki Haley to be his VP, then the media will be like, he is a changed man, he's learned his lessons, he's willing to let go of grudges, he's willing to listen, he now has empathy, therefore he should be president.

Do you understand? Then what happens is the suburbs switch over to Trump and then he wins. So if he picks Nikki Haley in August, he will win. I'm not completely sure that he will pick Nikki Haley, I think that this is his best strategic move, but Trump is not really predictable. All right, and who he picks as vice president will give us a good clue as to how he will govern when he becomes president. Does that make sense?

All right, now the question then is, who is Nikki Haley and what will she do as vice president? Now what's important to understand about Nikki Haley is that when she left office, when she left Washington DC office in 2018, she had nothing in her bank account. She had no money in her bank account. Now she has $1 million in her bank account and she lives in a $5 mansion. So where did she get this money? She got this money mainly from an organization called United Against Nuclear Iran, and this organization's primary purpose is to create conflict between the United States and Iran.

They go against any companies or individuals who support Iran, the United States, who does business with Iran. They are a very organization. One of their main donors, his name is Adelson, and Sheldon Adelson is a pro-Israel business person. He owns a lot of casinos, MGM SS. He's a billionaire, and what's interesting about Adelson, he's dead, but he was the main patron of a man named Benjamin Netanyahu. He is the main political patron and financial donor to Benjamin Netanyahu. So Sheldon Adelson supports both Netanyahu and supports this organization called United Against a Nuclear Iran, and United Against a Nuclear Iran hired Nikki Haley and paid her a lot of money. That's the first thing. Second thing is that in 2019 she got a job at Boeing. Boeing is a weapons manufacturer. They make airplanes but they mainly make bombs and missiles, so they love war. She sat on the board of Boeing, an extremely prestigious job, and she was $300,000 just to sit on the board and do nothing. She has also given speeches at an organization called Christians United for Israel, and you may remember that this is a 7 million strong organization that supports war in the Middle East.

They are evangelic Christians, they are dispensationalist premillennialists who believe that war between Israel and Iran will bring Jesus back to Earth and establish the kingdom of heaven, and therefore they want as much conflict in the Middle East as possible. So all this is telling us is that if Nikki becomes vice president, her main responsibility will be to agitate for war against Iran. She'll be the one in the White House pushing for war in Iran, escalating tensions in Iran.

So Nikki Haley, what's also interesting is, in January 2019, basically the primary is over, Trump has won everything, but in January 2019, even after Trump won, Haley was able to raise more money than Trump. Haley got about $12 million from donors, Trump got 1 million. The only explanation for this is these donors knew that Haley would not become president, she could not be Trump, but they were trying to position her to be his vice president by making her stay in the race and giving her as much publicity as possible. In fact, even though she dropped out of the race, she's still getting about 25% to 33% of all Republican votes, so she comes across as an extremely popular establishment figure.

So does this make sense? The conclusion is, given the situation in the United States, it seems very likely Trump will win in 2024, because the Biden coalition will not pull together because of inflation, illegal immigration, what's happening in Gaza, what's happening in Ukraine. Trump looks very strong right now, and the polls suggest that either the race is tied between the two or Trump has a slight advantage. Trump can basically seal the victory if he picks Nikki Haley to be his vice president, because Nikki Haley will turn the suburbs to him very strongly, and it's the suburbs that basically decide US elections. And as vice president, what she will be doing is agitating for war against Iran, which means that she's on the payroll of anti-Iranian forces in the United Any questions? Anything you're not clear about right now?

Okay, so Jack asked a great question. He's like, what if Haley holds a grudge and says no? Quite honestly, she has been asked in the past, are you willing to serve as Trump's vice president, and she's like, no, because he's a divider, he's divisive, and we need to move on from Trump. All right, do you guys remember in class when we studied Trump very closely, his personality, we looked at his days in the WWE, and there was a scene where Vince McMahon, the owner of WWE, a billionaire, challenges Trump to a fight.

Well, guess what, guys, politics is the same thing, it's all theater. Politics is theater. What Nikki Haley and Donald Trump are doing is pretending to be bitter enemies so that their will be so dramatic, you understand? Nikki Haley served under Trump in the first Administration. From 2016 to 2018 she was UN Ambassador for Trump, and everyone says that the two got along really well. In fact, Trump was considering having her be his VP running mate in 2020. He was speaking of dropping Pence and putting her on the ticket. So the two of them together actually have a great rapport, the two respect each other, they get along very well. So that's the first thing. Second thing is that the thing to know about very successful politicians is they are first and foremost opportunists. They have no ideas, they have no principles, all they care about is political power. So why would Nikki Haley agree to be vice president? Because it's one step away from the presidency, do you understand? If anything happens to Trump, she's president, and in four years' time she can run as the Republican nominee for the presidency.

Does that make sense? So that's a thing you need to know about politicians. All they care about is political power. They would do anything to achieve political power, they will sell their own mother to achieve political power. But that's the same thing for rich people. Rich people love money, they will do anything to get money, sell their own mother, fine. You understand? Also celebrities, famous people, all they care about is fame. Do you understand, Jack? All right, any more questions? Is this clear to you guys? Is there anything you're not clear about? I'll explain further.

Okay, so Jack asked a great question. Well, listen, I can figure this out just by reading the news. Biden has an amazing team of extremely well-paid, professional, experienced strategists working with him. They know this, they can see what's going on. So what can Biden do to counter Trump's strategy or the polls? The answer is this. If you look at 2020, everyone thought that Biden could not get the nomination. Why? Because he lacks charisma.

No one really likes him. When Biden goes to speak, there's no one there to listen to him. He's boring and he has no ideas and he's old. I mean, Biden ran for president two times before and he lost both times, and the reason why is he's not charismatic and he has no ideas. But Biden's like, nope, I'm going to stay in the race because I believe I can win. And you ask him, Biden, what is your strategy, what is your reasoning going forward? I don't know, I'm gonna win. So if we were discussing this in 2020 in May and June, I would be like, Biden has no chance, because Trump's gonna go out there and give speeches to 100,000 people and they're gonna love him and they're gonna go and vote for him. Biden gives a speech, everyone falls asleep, and on the debate stage Trump will destroy Biden. So I was sure that in May, April 2020, Biden had no chance. But then what happened? Hey, the George Floyd protests happened, so all these young people who didn't really like Biden were now galvanized to go vote for him, all these black people, all these suburban voters. They wanted Biden to win because they thought Trump was divisive.

And then what happened? The pandemic happened, so Trump couldn't go out to debate, Trump couldn't go out to campaign anymore, you understand? Biden could just sit in his basement and do nothing, do you understand?

So unfortunately Biden learned the wrong lessons from 2020. The lesson that he learned in 2020 is that, hey, if I just sit in my basement all day and make no mistakes, my surrogates, the Democratic party, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, they'll go out and give speeches for me, they'll fire up the base, and I'll win because I'm not Trump. That is the entire Biden strategy: I'm not Trump. The problem with this idea is, in 2020 the American people had four years of Trump and they know he sucks. The problem now is the American people have seen four years of Biden and Biden sucks as well. So it's a question of who sucks more, Biden or Trump. In other words, people are not going to come out to vote because they think both suck, which means that the party with a coalition, with a base, that feels more strongly about the issues is going to come out to vote. And what we know is that the Republican coalition of rural voters, conservatives, Christians, white voters, they feel much more passionate about Trump than the Democratic coalition feels about Biden.

Does that make sense? So unfortunately the answer is that Biden has no strategy going forward, because he didn't have a strategy going forward in 2020 and he won in 2020, so why can't the same thing happen this year? Unfortunately, because Biden is so old, he's 81, he doesn't have the energy to change the way he is, you understand? It's much easier for him to sit around and pray that "I'm not Trump" will deliver another election than it is for him to go out and change who he is. He can't change who he is. Does that make sense? But that's a great question.

All right, any more questions before Okay, so again, I am not sure who will win this year. I think it's Trump. I'm not sure that Nikki Haley will be his vice president, I'm just making a guess. So the question then is, why are we doing this? The answer is this. We try to think, we have to build an analytical model of how the world works, and the only way we know if this model works or not is by making predictions and testing it against reality.

So you know what, it's possible that in August Trump will pick someone else, possibly someone named JD Vance. The only thing you need to know about JD Vance is he's very loyal to Trump. It's possible he picks JD Vance. I think he'll pick Nikki Haley, but I often actually think that there's a very good chance he picks JD Vance as well. But I'll make the bet that he picks Nikki Haley. So it's possible in August he does not pick Nikki Haley, he picks JD Vance or someone else instead. It's also possible that in November he loses. But that's fine, because if I'm wrong, then what I do is I go back to this analysis and I make changes to this analysis so that it's much more reflective and accurate. Does that make sense? And that's how we try to think critically about the world, by building models that we can then test against reality, and then based on what happens in reality we can go and refine our analytical model.

Any questions? Okay, so next week we discuss the war in Iran. Because if you look at this again, if Nikki Haley becomes the vice president, it is very likely she will agitate for war against Iran and Trump will go along, and if that's the case, then we need to understand how America will fight the war and how Iran will respond, and that's what we will do next week.