Ari Fleischer: Trump is Too Hot to Handle

Ari Fleischer, former White House Press Secretary, Fox News Contributor, and author of SUPPRESSION, DECEPTION, SNOBBERY, AND BIAS: Why the Press Gets So Much Wrong–And Just Doesn’t Care, joined the Guy Benson show to talk about cranky Joe Biden, the botched White House cocaine investigation, and the state of the Republican primary.

Listen to the full interview below:

Fleischer had this to say about the upcoming competition in the GOP:

“The strongest argument, in my opinion, is Donald Trump cannot get a Trump agenda through because Donald Trump is just too hot to handle. Donald Trump is the worst thing that could happen to Donald Trump’s agenda.”

Full Transcript:

Guy Benson: Here with us in studio in New York is Ari Fleischer, former White House p ress secretary under President George W Bush, a Fox News contributor and author of his book Suppression, Deception, Snobbery and Bias about the Press. It’s good to see you, sir.

Ari Fleischer: Thank you, Guy.

Guy Benson: I think we’ve had you here many times before on the show. I think this is our first time together in studio on the radio, so.

Ari Fleischer: I’m not sure about that. I remember you were in the other studio…

Guy Benson: In DC.

Ari Fleischer: Down the road, not right on the other side of that wall. And in D.C..

Guy Benson: Perhaps your memory is better than mine.

Ari Fleischer: This would be the first time my memory is better than anybody’s.

Guy Benson: Okay, so we’ll just call that under dispute and we’ll move on. Ari, let’s just start with the 2024 election. You’re an astute observer of politics. Let’s start on the Democratic side. We saw the fundraising numbers for the Biden campaign. They’re okay. They’re lagging behind where Obama was at this stage, lagging way behind where Trump was. At this stage, money isn’t everything. But of the amount that they brought in, only a fraction of it is from the grassroots small donors. There were Democrats whispering about enthusiasm problems. I know it’s very early on. What’s your view of the current president’s position heading into reelection?

Ari Fleischer: He’s weak, I mean, Joe Biden, by every historical measure, by every fair minded measure of job approval in the low forties, people in the country are thinking the right track. Wrong track is tremendously on the wrong track. The fundraising that you pointed out, he is weak. The problem is every one of those things could have been said about Joe Biden in the 2022 midterms.

Guy Benson: Exactly.

Ari Fleischer: And history was defied because it was a vote against instead of a vote for. And that’s what Biden’s counting on, that more people will vote against Donald Trump in 2024 and will vote for him in 2024.

Guy Benson: Which is what happened in 2020. They want to see a repeat of that. They’ll roll the dice potentially. But it does seem like high level Democrats are hedging their bets a little bit. We’ve been going story after story over the last couple of weeks reading little anecdotes about Democrats, maybe whispering to others, saying, hey, just keep your options open here. We might need to, you know, break glass and go for an emergency option. We’re seeing some more criticism of Biden from the media that typically has shied away from such things, to put it mildly. If you were a betting man, would you bet that Joe Biden will, in fact, be the Democratic nominee next year?

Ari Fleischer: Yeah, I talked about this on HANNITY the other night, and I gave a 50/50 odds that he’d be the nominee. And since then, I’ve gone back. I give it 2/3 odds he’ll be the nominee, one third he won’t, and that third will be driven by two factors. One is his obvious health. He has one more fall. Something like that happens again that puts that one third to a growing category. The second factor is going to be the polls. If the polls show that any other Democrat, Gavin Newsom, people to, as you name it, is beating Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s not, that’s going to send panic into the Democratic Party and they’re going to go to Biden and say, you really need to step down. Now, Biden’s stubborn so he might never step down. And that brings me back to his health. His health is probably the biggest thing that would make Joe Biden step down.

Guy Benson: You said that you’ve changed your odds making so you went 50/50 to 2/3, 1/3. What happened in the intervening days that made you or convinced you that it’s still more likely than not that he will be the nominee?

Ari Fleischer: I heard somebody smarter than me say that Joe Biden is stubborn and I thought about that. And I think that’s right. Biden is stubborn. He’s convinced he’s the one guy who can beat Trump because he did it before, but he doesn’t want to leave the scene. And so that’s why I just put Biden back into the equation and his foolishness and stubbornness.

Guy Benson: On the Republican side, you’ve now mentioned Trump’s name a couple of times. You look at the polling, he’s way ahead nationally, way ahead in a lot of the major early states. It seems like Iowa is a big play for DeSantis. He’s got to basically win the Hawkeye state or else Trump could maybe just bulldoze his way to the nomination. Again, that’s how it looks. We’re still five, six months away from any votes actually being cast, although there would have to be something that would seriously disrupt the trajectory right now. What would that be? Or is in your mind, is this a very, very likely Trump nomination, 3.0?

Ari Fleischer: I don’t think it has to be something big that disrupts this. I just think the voters are volatile. I think there still is tremendous volatility, despite the fact that President Trump has a significant lead and he has a significant lead because he’s earned it is significantly because of the things he did as president that endeared him to a huge part of the Republican base. Policy wise, the volatility comes in because a lot of Republicans, even those who like him, will say, I’ll use the euphemism. He tweets too much, which is basically a referendum on his character. Is he too hot to handle as he too big a bull in too many China shops? That is yet to be litigated, and I think that’s going to get litigated as the debate begins in August and then throughout the fall, right up to Iowa when people really concentrate on voting.

Guy Benson: It’s interesting because I talked to conservative and Republican voters all across the country all the time. When I go to events, I’m talking to donors, I’m talking to grassroots activists, a whole swath of people who are really invested in conservative or Republican politics. And you have some people who are absolutely hardcore no on Trump, other people who are absolutely all in yes on Trump still are. There is a large percentage of folks who generally like him, generally think he’s been treated very unfairly. They’re not sure about these other candidates, but they are anxious about his ability to win, even though they might say, oh, I think he can win. Anyone can beat Biden, but they’ll say, oh, but I am a little worried about the midterms, for example. There’s at least that little voice in the back of people’s head and were a bigger voice saying it outright. But there are these nagging, gnawing questions there. Can those be exploited effectively? Because so far, we’ve not seen anyone really do that or even really try to do that, at least among his primary opponents thus far.

Ari Fleischer: I don’t think I would if I were running as Donald Trump, I would not make the issue. Trump can’t win unless the polls all start to show that because he did win in 2016 and he shocked everybody by winning. So I think that is not your strongest argument. The strongest argument, in my opinion, is Donald Trump cannot get a Trump agenda through because Donald Trump is just too hot to handle. Donald Trump is the worst thing that could happen to Donald Trump’s agenda. If you want to build a wall, why wasn’t it done before? He won’t get it done now. You didn’t do it before. Why didn’t he do the things he said he was going to do? That’s where I’d run. And my case would be that we all know what’s going to happen is going to get too many fights. He’s going to lose too many of those fights and nothing is going to get done. So if you want to get the Trump agenda passed, I’m your best bet. That’s the type of case I would make as an alternative to Donald Trump. One thing I’m convinced you can’t beat Donald Trump unless you’re for Donald Trump. There is no Chris Christie wing of the Republican Party. There is no Isa Hutchinson wing of the Republican Party. So if you’re going to beat Trump, you’ve got to be the one who has the right outsider, anti-establishment, conservative policies, but with a persona that gives confidence to people that you can get the job done. You don’t scare suburban, college educated women.

Guy Benson: Oh, there definitely is an anti-Trump wing in the Republican Party, just nowhere big enough to have a chance of winning.

Ari Fleischer: Well, that’s what I mean. Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson have no one.

Guy Benson: Is part of the party, but it’s not a big enough part of the party to matter.

Ari Fleischer: It left the party.

Guy Benson: Some of them, no question did. Let me ask you this question, Ari. Cast your mind back. Your press secretary, you’re working at the White House every day. You’re in the West Wing. It’s busy. And all of a sudden, a bag of cocaine is discovered in the George H.W. Bush White House. And the media feeding frenzy begins. Whose cocaine was it? The speculation starts if a few days later, Secret Service came out and said, “Oh, we got nothing but sorry, we tried. We didn’t know interviews and there were no fingerprints. Oh, well, let’s move on.” How would that have gone over? How do you think that kind of investigation could have been undertaken? Because it seems like they barely did one.

Ari Fleischer: It is part and parcel of a problem, isn’t it? It’s a pattern. The press looks the other way at these things. When they would go into full feeding frenzy mode against George W Bush, against Donald Trump, they wouldn’t do it to Obama. They wouldn’t do it to Biden because they’re Democrats and they know the price of a feeding frenzy. Look, I don’t blame the Secret Service in this instance, Guy. Their job is to protect the president. Physical protection of the President. They are not the Drug Enforcement Administration. Right. Their job is not to search people coming in for pot or Coke. Yeah, if they can find it, you’re going to. Get arrested, but their dogs are meant to sniff for explosives and things that are physical threat, danger, biological, chemical to the White House, not drugs. So when the Secret Service says it’s closed, it’s closed as far as they’re concerned, because there’s no longer a threat to the President. If I’m Joe Biden or if I’m his Chief of Staff, I’m the one who says it’s not closed. I want to know whose cocaine was it because we’re not going to have drugs at the White House. I want every contractor drug tested who was here over that weekend. I want every staffer who was here over that we can drug tested. You work here. That’s the price you pay. It doesn’t have to be over unless Joe Biden wants this to be swept under the rug. So I don’t blame the Secret Service. I do blame Joe Biden.

Guy Benson: Because the Secret Service has limited resources and a specific mission. They have a mission that is not this. Right. But as you alluded to and I’ve mentioned this before, there are other law enforcement entities in the federal government who could have a look at this. And I get it. Like, oh, we didn’t want to take the time Secret Service to interview 500 people. But other people can do that at least a fraction of those interviews and see what they might find. And instead, the answer seems to be, “oh, well, we didn’t do any of that because it could have been a civil liberties infringement.” And that was one of the arguments that was made.

Ari Fleischer: You have no civil liberties if you’re a White House aide. If you’re asked to drug test, you drug test, you have no civil liberties in this sense. If you were a contractor, if they say you.

Guy Benson: Got the test.

Ari Fleischer: You drug test.

Guy Benson: You’ve got that security clearance. That’s correct. That was something that’s not allowed to be in a secure area. If you were in the vicinity that day and someone comes knocking to ask you questions, you should answer them.

Ari Fleischer: I that. There’s one other thing that I do not understand and people aren’t talking about it enough. How did the bag of cocaine with the D.C. Fire Department report was found in the library later get found somewhere else. Why did the fire department say it was in the library? People just glossed over that. They just accepted that. Okay. They said the library, but now it’s somewhere else. So let’s just focus on somewhere else. I want to hear from the fire department more. I want to know why it was first reported in the library and how and who said it wasn’t.

Guy Benson: And this is conjecture. And I don’t love going into speculation, but they’ve given us nothing. So that’s what we have is speculation. If indeed the Biden administration does not want this answer to be resolved and they are pleased that they’ve gotten this sort of swept under the rug. We even had days and days ago the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, saying it’s irresponsible to even ask about the Biden family if they want this to go away. Then you would have to at least draw some conclusions about why or ask some questions about why they would want it to go away.

Ari Fleischer: But I can assure you of cocaine was found in the Bush White House. George W Bush would demand to know how it got there and whose it was. It would not have gone away. And that’s why I called Joe Biden on this. That’s why I felt as chief of staff, this is now an internal issue. We’re not even raising the question about Hunter in this instance. I’m looking at this as good government. Drugs should not be at the White House. No White House, no contractors should be using cocaine and be on that payroll.

Guy Benson: Is there something on the national security side of this? Because everyone’s made the point, if this were a bag of anthrax, there’s no way they say, oh, well, well, shrug, shrug.

Ari Fleischer: We would have detected anthrax.

Guy Benson: If it hadn’t been or some some other substance that could be a threat or turn into a threat. They could have done a lot more. They’re choosing not to because it’s cocaine. If you’ve got someone working in the West Wing, let’s say, with a high level security clearance and this person’s an addict or abetting an addict or so reckless that they’re bringing coke into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. That’s at least in my mind, it just might be wrong, but it could be a vulnerability to blackmail or something like that, someone who’s potentially at risk.  Foreign powers coming in and exploiting the situation or.

Ari Fleischer: Whoever their drug dealer was. You sell drugs to somebody who knows that, you know who works at the White House, then you’ve got leverage over that person. I’m going to tell everybody that you bought drugs from me. Yeah, that’s blackmail. So that’s why, as the president, the chief of staff, the right thing to do is to run this to ground, to figure out who did it, whose it was. And it’s not hard. There are only a couple hundred people who likely would have come in through that executive entrance on a weekend. And that’s not a huge list of drug tests. Shoot sports groups, sports, do it all the time. Olympic athletes get it all the time. Professional athletes by the thousands get tested all the time. The DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration and private contractors could easily drug test a couple hundred people.

Guy Benson: At the very least, someone might really need help. If you’re that addicted, let’s say that you’re bringing this to work or someone might be at least vulnerable to compromise to the point we were just making. It seems like there’s probably a reason there that it would be worthwhile to get to the bottom of this. But it seems like the official word is it’s not going to happen. So we can all move on and the moves that the news cycle will. But I still want to ask your perspective on it because you worked there and you know how this would have gone down under a different president.

Ari Fleischer: Do you remember after the second debate when Donald Trump was sniffing and the microphone was so hot it picked it up and all the Democrats were accusing Donald Trump of doing coke. Now they’re all looking the other way. They fabricated against Donald Trump. They look the other way when we actually did find cocaine at the White House.

Guy Benson: Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, a Fox News contributor here at the network, you can buy his book, Suppression, Deception, Snobbery and Bias. Ari, great to see you. For the first or second time face to face on the radio. Thanks for dropping by.

Ari Fleischer: Now you got it.