President Trump’s 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale spoke with Brian Kilmeade about President Trump’s rally in Orlando, FL where he officially announced he is running for re-election. Parscal gave a sneak peek on the 2020 reelection process on internal polling which leads him to believe they are winning in New Hampshire, New Mexico and Nevada. Parscale pushed back on reports that the Trump campaign fired several pollsters after their internal polling numbers leaked showing he’s trailing potential Democratic challenger Joe Biden. Parscale called the reports fake and misleading and said they have nothing to do with their internal information. Parscale predicted President Trump will have more electoral votes in 2020 than he had in 2016. When asked about Texas possibly turning blue, especially after the strong showing from Beto O’Rouke against Senator Ted Cruz in 2018, Parscale said he doesn’t think Texas is anywhere close to a win for the Democrats. Parscale believes Texas is a red state and will continue to be a red state because of its low taxes, pro-business economy and President Trump’s stance on the border being very important for Texas voters.
Listen here:
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX HOST: And joining us now is the man who put it together, chose — helped choose Orlando, Brad Parscale. He’s in charge of getting the president four more years and eight overall.
Brad, what did you think?
BRAD PARSCALE: Hey, Brian.
KILMEADE: Thanks so much.
PARSCALE: Oh, my God, what an epic night. I mean not even epic, it’s historic. I mean this night was amazing. I mean from — from the fundraising to the — to the crowds inside and outside, to the energy in the room, to the president’s energy himself and just everything, it was the — it was the perfect start for the race for 2020 and get the president four more years.
KILMEADE: So why Orlando?
PARSCALE: Look, I think that there was a lot of things to look at. I think Florida’s a key state. I think Orlando is a great venue. It could support the kind of — I mean we’re talking tens and tens of thousands of people. It was in a — in a — you know, and the I-4 corridor is important for Florida. It just — Orlando’s a great city to have this kind of large event. There’s not — there’s not a lot of venues that can support this type of — of event. And I think Orlando did an amazing job and I — and I think it was the perfect place to (INAUDIBLE), you know, what the president could do for four more years.
KILMEADE: So one thing I loved that Fox did last night, I don’t know what the campaign had to do with that, is we saw the crowd. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was in 2016 for every candidate, we never saw the crowd. But we had them in boxes.
PARSCALE: Yes.
KILMEADE: Describe it. Because you had done such a good job on your contacts list of everybody who has shown up at live events to get them informed. Describe the feeling in the arena and what it took to fill that place.
PARSCALE: Well, I mean, look, I — I mean the president actually can fill large arenas, you know. You’ve got to get that many people down there, though. You know, you’ve got to find and that takes tens of thousands of parking spots and everything.
I mean, look, I mean most games don’t have this many people inside because you’ve got the, you know, several thousand people on the floor as well, you know, playing the (INAUDIBLE). And then on top of that, you’ve got 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people outside. So just the logistics of getting — one of the funny things about last night was the line was so long where we had the bus stop, we had to move the bus stop back because the line passed the bus stop miles back. You know, these are logistical issues we had to work though.
But the energy inside was –I mean something I’ve — I’ve never felt before. I — this was our 550th rally and, I’ve got to tell you, you would think it was the first because this was the most energy. I mean — I mean the president sometimes — it was so loud inside. I’ve been to NBA playoff games. I’ve been to all kinds, and I’ve never heard this type of just cheering. I mean they were ready and they are ready to fight to help the president win again.
KILMEADE: So, Brad, you’ve been with the president so often before these events. You don’t — you — probably one bleeds into the other. Can you bring our audience behind the scenes and talk about what the president was like behind the curtain, before he went out?
PARSCALE: Look, I mean, I think the president is always a game-time player. He has one of those kind of just, you know, energetic personalities. I’ve always said the man, you know, just never stops going. He was ready. He was ready to get out there. He was excited when the — when the vice president was speaking and — and as — and you could see the (INAUDIBLE) with him standing with Melania, of coming out there and being with his supporters.
This is a president who always said he did this for all — all Americans and for the people in the crowd, not for, you know, the people in D.C. or, you know, kind of lobbyists. He’s always done this for the people. And I think the energy you can feel, he was pumped and he was ready to go out there. And I think you could see that from the minute he walked on stage.
KILMEADE: So what you’ve done, Brad, there’s no question, even your greatest critic, you’ve excited your base, you get them involved. They’re not going to sit back and say, well, we know this guy, we’re not going to show up again, like many people perhaps stayed home with Hillary Clinton. But the — but the criticism is, are you expanding your base? What do you say to critics who say you’re not expanding the base?
PARSCALE: Yes. Look, the — the base is gigantic. I’ve always said, there’s over 100 million people that will vote for the president. And it’s about finding them and getting them to show up. And this campaign has — has — one of its main things to do is data mining. And what we’re trying to do is make sure we find out who every single one of those people are, their cell phone numbers, their e-mail addresses, how to contact them and get them to show up.
The — presidential races and national politics are about turnout, who you can get to show up and how many of them you can. And the huge advantage this president has over any election efforts, he was smart and he — and he did the right thing and said, what’s our finding (ph), you know, 2020 voters the day after he came in office, he understood the power of marketing, prospecting and the understanding of — that this is — understanding who your supporters are. And anyone that thinks that there’s not enough voters to elect Donald Trump has zero idea how — how this thing works.
There — there’s — and we’re continuing to expand that base. As I said lately, I think we’re winning now in New Hampshire, you know, New Mexico, Nevada. We’ve even looked at starting to do data mining and field staff work in Oregon as we — as we see, you know — as things fall apart in some cities there, we’re starting to see, you know, that kind of support and people starting to register and the traffic coming across the website. This is what it’s about. It’s about data and it’s about getting people to show up.
KILMEADE: I’m going to show some — I know you’re dismissing the polls, but those — those internal polls they released last week that show the president’s trailing in 12 — in 12 states that you need to win, what do you have to say about that? Was that true? Was a pollster actually fired for leaking this out?
PARSCALE: Look, I’m not going to speak any more about this whole event because (INAUDIBLE) comment. But I will tell you that, you know, everything — everything you see, it’s just — it’s just — it’s misleading, it’s fake. It’s — it’s nothing to do with our internal information, the way we actually really do polling and the way — the actually way we actually do it, which is that voter scoring and data research. We don’t — we do not use these kind of individual numbers that this was not true information the way they did it. And so what we have him as winning right now more electoral votes than he did in 2016. We have our turnouts going to be, you know, higher than ever and, you know, this was — this was just, you know, misleading information and just kind of a scam.
KILMEADE: OK. Just some of the polls that came out yesterday, Trump is down to Biden by 6 points in Wisconsin, by 3 in Michigan, by 1 in Pennsylvania and by it looks like 4 in Florida. That’s the Firehouse Optimist Poll. Do you — have you seen that?
PARSCALE: (INAUDIBLE). Brian, why — look, I continue — and I’ve said this to you and I say this all the time, I — and I said this — when I — when I was walking down the — the day before the 2016 election, a couple Fox News reporters said, what’s — what’s going to be the story of 2016? And I said the real story is if you report tomorrow is going to be polling in America dead (ph). I said, you can’t do it anymore. You can’t just take and sample size a few hundred people and decide that what you think 200 — almost 200 million people are going to vote and go do. It’s a complex country. We don’t — there’s all kinds of things. We are now connected by cell phones to each other and more integrated into society than ever.
KILMEADE: Right.
PARSCALE: And you can’t — you can’t continue to use a system from the 1950s and ’60s to determine what’s happening today. It just doesn’t work. And it was wrong in 2016 100 percent. It will be wrong again in 2020. And we’ll turn out the numbers to make President Trump a victory for — towards — for four more years.
KILMEADE: We probably have the top guest outside the president on right now to talk about what took place last night. And I will say this, I don’t know, are you a fan of the “Rocky’s,” those “Rocky” series? I don’t know any — do you like —
PARSCALE: I don’t know.
KILMEADE: Like “Rocky 1,” “Rocky 2”?
PARSCALE: No, no, I — oh, “Rocky.” “Rocky,” sorry. I’m walking around Durrell (ph) right now and there’s, you know, there’s guests everywhere so — down at Del, Florida.
KILMEADE: I feel so bad for you.
PARSCALE: Yes, feel so bad for me.
You know, look, I was a “Rocky” fan.
KILMEADE: All right.
PARSCALE: You know, I mean like everybody else, that grew up with — grew up with “Rocky.”
KILMEADE: Do you remember the scene — do you remember the scene when Apollo was taking his — his fight against Rocky on July 4, 1976, for granted and his trainer is sitting in front of the television and he’s watching Rocky Balboa hit the meat in the — in the butcher shop, punch the meat, and —
PARSCALE: Yes.
KILMEADE: People say, you’ve got to take — you’ve got to check this guy, you’ve got to look at this guy. And he said, no, no, I’m taking it serious. I sense there are 23 people on the left who feel as though, if they get the nomination, they get the presidency. And I just find it hard to believe that you watched that on any of the networks last night, the president’s launch, you heard the crowd, saw the size and thought to yourself, ah, we got this. The president is no threat.
I have never really seen anything quite like that as a launch. I’ve seen it with Barack Obama in Berlin when he was a nominee. I saw it at Grand Park after he won. I’ll give you that.
But there was something enormously intimidating, I thought, about what I saw last night.
PARSCALE: Look, I think most of these events, the Democrats haven’t even gotten close to these numbers. They are actually the second act to a — to a famous singer or somebody else. This is the president himself, by himself, and for the people. And — and I think that the movement they feel is these people — finally forgotten people, the men and women of this country, fell this man’s fighting for them and the voice (ph) and he loves to fight and they love to fight.
And, look, I think — it’s unbelievable what people think. If anyone saw us — a record fundraising, $24.8 million in fundraising. You know, the majority — you know, the event in campaign dollars, twice, three times what most of those candidates raise on their first day. I mean the president is a juggernaut of turnout. He’s a juggernaut of fundraising. And, you know, we’ll probably have hundreds of millions more dollars with an infrastructure that’s ready to do turnout with — with the best — you know, data science in the country right now. We’re — we’ve — the launch of Win Red (ph) and our small — smaller fundraising is just going to even (INAUDIBLE) our fundraising even further. We have the infrastructure. We’ve got everything in place. We’re doing everything right for this president and this president is a leader who knows how to build a team, who knows how to win. And that’s what he’s doing. He built a team right for 2016 to win. Now he’s building a team right for 2020 to win.
KILMEADE: You don’t have an opponent and I know things change and you will factor that into your message. But one thing is true, “The Boston Globe” reporting that GOP and I imagine maybe your re-election team is watching Warren. They say she has a long way to go to catch Biden, but she’s caught Sanders. She’s really the only one on the rise on the less — on the left.
PARSCALE: Yes.
KILMEADE: What does — what does that say to you?
PARSCALE: Look, I — look, I don’t like to get into what’s going to happen over there. I mean, look, right now I have one focus. I mean this is my job. My job is to build the best apparatus for him to attack and defeat any one of those and get the best turnout model we can. You know, look, I think that they — there’s a lot going on over there. I think as they start to establish their messaging, I think you’re going to see things and numbers shoot all over the place. You know, I mean, as they run towards, you know, free health care for immigrants and all — illegal immigrants and all these other things it’s going to happen.
But I also think that, you know, there’s a (INAUDIBLE). I think Warren is a — is a tough candidate. I think, well, these debates coming up next week, I think we’re going to start seeing the rise and the fall of stars. I mean, if you remember correctly, at this time in 2015, the president — polls came out and said President Trump was at 1 percent, and we clearly know how that — that wasn’t true.
So I — I think they’ve got a long ways to go and I think that, you know, the — everyone’s trying to predict everything by polls, and polls are dead and — and it’s — this — it’s a new world and we’ve got to figure out, you know, some day in the press office to figure out how to find a new judgment system for it.
KILMEADE: So this is what Joe Biden said last night in New York City. He was at a fundraiser. He said, by the way, you know, remember, I got in trouble with some people on my team on the Democratic side because I said, you know, what I found is rich people are just as patriotic as poor people. I mean it. We may not want to demonize anybody who has made money.
Is that the type of message that blue collar Joe wants out?
PARSCALE: Look, I — I’m not going to talk about his messaging.
I — look, I know this president is — is for all Americans. He — he wants all Americans to win. He wants — he wants from the blue collar worker to the — to the businessman, to the educated guy, to however that is. He wants everyone to win. He — he thinks that we’re — we — if we all should — instead of getting a hand out get a hand up and I think this president, you know, you know, you know, with his message and with what he’s doing will resonate, I — I think these guys always struggle and I think when they have to go head against — all of them have to go head against the president —
KILMEADE: Right.
PARSCALE: It will be hard for them to ever garner the kind of excitement and just overall patriotism and the feeling that, you know, life is going to be better under this president. I just don’t think they can compete with that (ph). I think you saw that last night in this event. I think you saw it in the rally. I mean these crowds — I mean I — they were standing by for the first 30 minutes they — the crowd didn’t even, you know, sit. And I — you know, I’ve never even seen that in a — in a championship ballgame.
KILMEADE: And, lastly, I was in Nevada Monday and now we’re in Texas today, in San Antonio, where — where you grew up.
PARSCALE: Hey.
KILMEADE: And — and I was talking to a prominent Republican yesterday and they say Texas is changing. The president’s going to have to spend time here. How do you — I’m in San Antonio specifically right now, going over to Houston tomorrow.
PARSCALE: Yes.
KILMEADE: But you do — you do acknowledge that Texas is changing than it was eight years ago. Nothing to do with you. but what does that say to you in terms of your campaign stops?
PARSCALE: Look, I don’t think Texas is anywhere close to — to going into the win column for the president. I do — if you think that some — some races, and House races, have gotten tougher there, you know, I think people implanted (ph) from California hating the tax structure moved to Austin and — and then vote like they’re still in California, which I’ve always thought is — is unbelievable.
Look, I still think Texas is a — is a red state. It’s going to continue to be a red state. I think as people stay more time in Texas, they become red. They see what, you know, Texas, kind of low tax, you know, a pro-business economy is doing for them as well. It’s a well-run state.
I also know that, you know, the president stands on protecting the southern border. It’s going to be important to Texas. In San Antonio alone you have over a million illegal aliens living there and, you know, one-third I think of people don’t have car insurance. There’s all kinds of stuff in San Antonio that I — I experience with — for the several decades I’ve lived there. And I think Texas will still be red.
Look, I think Austin, you know, the Republican Party’s got to be smart and it’s got to keep going and doing voter reg. And I — and I believe there’s a tremendous voter reg thing going on Texas and I think it’s going to — it’s going to add up to more votes and keep us solidly in the win column in Texas.
KILMEADE: Brad, I know it’s not a time to take a bow, it’s the time to say hello, but you have to — even your opponents would have to say, that was a hell of a kickoff last night and it is official game one.
PARSCALE: Thanks, Brian.
KILMEADE: Congratulations. And I — hopefully we can continue to talk along the way.
PARSCALE: Thank you, sir. Yes, Brian, just give me a call any time, bud. Good luck. Thank you.
KILMEADE: You got it. Brad Parscale.
