Frank Luntz - Republican pollster HARDtalk


Frank Luntz - Republican pollster

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So those are the latest BBC News headlines. Now it is time for

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President Trump or President Clinton?

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It's still a month until the Republican and Democrat parties

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formally nominate their candidates, but that is all but certain to be

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the choice for Americans in November.

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My guest on HARDtalk is Frank Luntz, one of the best known pollsters

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A Republican, he has spent his career listening to how

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Americans think and feel about politics and politicians.

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He says voters are angrier than ever before and the fracturing of both

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the right and left in American politics means "any

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There is a 'dump Trump' campaign that claims to be gaining followers

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Do you think it is still possible that Donald Trump might not be

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I don't think it's possible, and there are three reasons.

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He won the most votes and he won the most by far.

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And this is not a guy who takes criticism lightly.

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For better or worse, he does not back down.

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He is determined and he has won the votes and he has won the states

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While there will be fussing, because that is the way American

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politics is, he is the nominee, Hillary Clinton is the nominee,

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and we will have the ugliest, meanest, most vicious campaign

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in the modern history of American politics.

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But even before that, so we get to the convention,

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there are those who say having Trump as the Republican candidate

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will mean it is "The end of our party".

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Republicans talking of a moral obligation to stop him.

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Even the house speaker saying, "The last thing I would do is tell

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anybody to do something contrary to their conscience,"

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in other words, you may feel free to vote as you like rather

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We have never had an election like this.

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We have never had so many Democrats abandon someone who was so clearly

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the front-runner as what happened with Hillary Clinton.

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We have never had Republicans be so acrimonious towards each other.

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It is happening in both parties, but it stretches out a bit

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It is no different in Britain, France, Italy, Austria.

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We are electing people we never dreamed would lead our countries

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We are saying things in politics we never expected to say,

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and the problem is, frankly, we have lost our civility.

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We have lost our respect, the decency politics

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Yes, it has always been a rough and tumble world,

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but at least at the end of the day you could compromise

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Hillary Clinton has the numbers but still doesn't have

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Bernie Sanders rowing in behind her yet.

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Does she need to do something to bring him onside and make

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The key for him is not about personality,

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As someone who does not agree with what he says,

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I did enjoy listening to him say it, because it was policy-oriented

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rather than this viciousness you have seen on the Republican side.

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The Democratic party is not the same party that existed

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It is much more liberal and progressive.

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Much more likely to support higher taxes, more spending,

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and for her, I think she can't move to the centre because the grassroots

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The problem is will any of those people vote for Donald Trump?

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Something most political observers don't realise.

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This is not just about Republican or Democrat,

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This is also about change versus status quo, and how much

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And once again, in all of these European countries,

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and being led by America, there is a segment that rejects

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politics as usual and rejects the same traditional politicians,

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and they want to vote for the most extreme candidate,

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I think 15% of the Sanders people will vote for Donald Trump.

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People who move from Bernie Sanders...

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Because he is the most radical candidate.

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However, you will see some Republicans who have never voted

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Democrat before voting for Hillary Clinton this

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You talk about any outcome is possible, and there

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is an argument it is in your interests.

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You've seen The Godfather III - "Just when I think I'm out,

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OK, you may not be being paid by a candidate,

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but it is your business, the predictability.

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You are asked to go on television programmes to chart a way

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What I want to ask is if we have Clinton versus Trump, she has a

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We saw Doald Trump down by 12-15 points six weeks ago.

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Then when he clearly got the nomination, he went to dead even

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You have 40% definitely voting for him,

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For all of you out there, in whatever language you speak,

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only in those states who can go either direction.

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In reality, they are fighting over about 4% of the vote.

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We will come back to what they need to do on that battleground.

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But one of the things I know you have polled

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There are people who love Trump or Clinton, but there are also

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And they are the people who actually say I will not vote

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And these are the none-of-the-above voters.

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Demographically, they are much younger and 2-1 female.

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Attitudinally, they preferred Mitt Romney over Barack Obama

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and give the Republicans better numbers.

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How they look, you think they are Democrats.

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How they speak, you think they're Republicans.

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I want to ask you about those two candidates.

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You talk about the favourable versus unfavourable.

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Donald Trump's negative ratings are the highest of any candidate...

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Malaria has a higher favourability rating in some places than Donald

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But Hillary Clinton has that same, just a hair less, dislike.

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In the end, this is the saddest thing of all, the American people

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will vote for the candidate who they distrust the least.

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This is not just an election of the least evil of the two.

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The public has decided they don't trust anyone.

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So when you say this is actually about who they distrust the most,

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I have to tell you, first and foremost,

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However people take it at home, I'm American.

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I'm watching my country getting torn apart.

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I've seen violence take place in other countries

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I'm scared to death it will happen in America.

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People are going there not to be heard, not just to disrupt,

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Explain something to those of us outside the States who can see

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Donald Trump almost deliberately setting out to offend.

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But we don't see that from Hillary Clinton.

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They don't go to Democratic rallies and throw chairs and disrupt.

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They don't go yelling and screaming and disrupting.

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All of the disruptions are on the left!

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But he is saying things that are offensive.

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I will acknowledge something I haven't before.

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I initially felt Donald Trump was responsible for the protests.

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I initially felt what he was saying was causing the problem until I went

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The people outside were pushing people around, throwing stuff,

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It wasn't the Trump people or the Sanders people.

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We have an organisation in America called MoveOn.org.

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These are professional protesters who want to disrupt

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They are the ones who are responsible.

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He has said things that are impossible to defend, yes.

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If you say what he has said about Muslims,

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A lot of people outside America can't understand why

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Number one, she reads everything from the teleprompter.

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There is nothing new or original about her.

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Do you say what you mean and mean what you say and do

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Has she told the truth about the Clinton Initiative,

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or Benghazi, or about campaign financing and the money

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The public looks at her and says, "I don't trust you".

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And number three, they feel like she doesn't understand

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the day-to-day concerns that they have, and they believe

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Trump, even though he is a billionaire, does.

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All of those things you could say of many other politicians.

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Some would say of any other politicians, yet

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There seems to be something where she is more hated.

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She may have higher positive records, but she is more hated.

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That is a strange thing for those outside the States to understand.

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They want to look you straight in the eye and know you mean

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This is someone they believe says what the polls tell her to say.

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We have a show called Saturday Night Live and they have

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sketches of her becoming Bernie Sanders because she is taking

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After 25 years in American politics, you would think you would

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Let's turn to the battleground itself.

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It's eight or nine states they are scrapping over.

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Let's think about who they are voting for.

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It's not going to be Muslims, given what Donald Trump says

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about Muslims and wanting to stop them coming into the country -

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African-American vote, typically goes Democrat,

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I will give you the three segments she would do better

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Even though there is so much in Bernie Sanders' camp,

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they don't like Donald Trump's language or his tone.

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You are never supposed to draw an age line,

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women under the age of 40, Trump is doing worse than any

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And then Latinos, who are making up a bigger percentage in central

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states like Nevada, Colorado and Florida.

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His insistence on supporting a wall, his communication

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That is where she is doing better than a typical Democrat would do.

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And where Donald Trump is doing better is class voters -

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And where Donald Trump is doing better is WORKING class voters -

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people below the average income who do not have a college education,

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Republicans have always done badly among them.

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It's similar to here, between Labour and Conservative.

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Donald Trump is getting those people and no Republican ever has.

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This is the blue wall, which is a term coined

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by the journalist Ronald Brownstein, which refers to 18 states which have

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And Trump, in a state like Pennsylvania, which is very

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below the average in terms of economic recovery,

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There are millions of Americans who have never voted Republican

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before but will vote for him because he is their voice -

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his anger is their anger, and they feel betrayal

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that Washington and Wall Street not only let them down but took

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They benefited, and these voters were hurt, and Donald Trump

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He has those three weaknesses and one strength.

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On betrayal and what he says, what they are responding to,

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you sit with focus groups to see how they respond.

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You have no commercials here and that's a blessing.

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I can't get the commercial break in my focus groups.

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In my ear they're telling me, "End the segment -

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I can't stop them yelling at each other.

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Once they start talking about politics they won't stop.

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The rudeness and incivility is so horrible.

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In a way that it hasn't been before, in your focus groups?

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I've been doing this for 25-30 years, forever.

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So when Donald Trump says, well, perhaps whether it's about Mexico

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sends its people, they're not the best, they're sending people

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with problems, bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists.

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If Hillary Clinton were a man I don't think

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Whether it's Republicans or Democrats, how do people respond?

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There's a segment of people that want politicians to look them

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straight in the eye and tell them exactly how they think and feel,

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even if they disagree with it, and Donald Trump is appealing

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There is a segment, about 10-15%, among the Republican Party

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that doesn't like it because they want to be

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representative of all people and they don't

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On the Democratic side, they are desperate for

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Hillary Clinton to step up onto the podium and just say

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what she thinks and acknowledge that she hasn't been perfect.

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So we do testing, and again I'm going to do this on the show,

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I've never talked about this, I think one of the big segments

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will be an interview that she did on network television where she says

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You don't make an effort, you just do or don't.

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So she doesn't understand the damaging nature of that.

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It isn't my job to trust either, my job is to tell

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Because Donald Trump has said many things.

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Does he stay by all the things that he has campaigned on?

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No, he changes his positions on issues like minimum wage,

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There are too many occasions where he has changed his positions

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and too many occasions where she hasn't told us

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My advice, and I will do both because we want to keep this

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balance, my determination is to instil a sense of civility

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where there is none and keep it balanced where there is none.

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For him, he has to tell people exactly what he will do on day one.

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What is the first thing you will do as president?

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What is the law, what is the regulation, what exactly

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He has to do it because he has no political background,

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he comes as a businessman - so we have the right to know.

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Number two is we should know who he will appoint.

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Because his voters tell me that they assume he will put

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brilliant people around him, that's how

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Not political people, people who know how to do their jobs.

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Those are the two things he needs to do.

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In Hillary Clinton's case, because she has such a bad

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she needs to demonstrate whether she can work with Congress

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I'm not convinced that either of them can work with anybody.

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I can't believe my country is in this situation.

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You are at the centre of it and you have been accused of bias,

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but bias towards Marco Rubio, who you have worked for in the past

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and who has paid you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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I work for seven of these candidates.

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Trump accused you very early on in the campaign,

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after the first debate, you said that he had...

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Referred to him guaranteeing the destruction of his campaign.

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You called him wrong and Trump called you on it and said

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I am a clown, you can see how I'm dressed,

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and I am a slob, the tie isn't perfect, but I'm not an idiot.

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I did not get acknowledged by Oxford University at the age

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By September I realised and I went to so many political people to say,

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We all have the right to make a mistake, the question

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When he answered that question about women and Megyn Kelly

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challenged him on it he turned it into a question

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of political correctness, that's brilliant.

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I would never talk about who I vote for,

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ever, because that automatically colours everything I do.

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It's not an appropriate question for someone who does what we do.

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My own opinions, with the exception of civility, don't actually matter.

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If Marco Rubio was the nominee would you have worked for him?

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No, because I love bringing people together around tables like this.

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I love conversations where I get to give and take.

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You said you were finding it more difficult.

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Are you still loving it, despite the...

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You have no idea how depressed, not that anyone cares,

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but please understand the system isn't broken,

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And I don't necessarily believe that it can recover itself.

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I studied history at university and you can't show me an example

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of a country that gets into the situation that the US

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is in and then finds a way to come out of it.

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When you make the commitments that it has made in budgets,

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in spending, when you have a government

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that is so little trusted and an economic system...

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We did a survey for Snapchat among 18 and 29-year-olds.

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A majority now think socialism is the best

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We are, as a country and as a system, we are broken

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You did a profile, or the Atlantic did one of you in 2014

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when you sounded so disillusioned with politics.

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I wanted to ask you, you have written, "It's not

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And you wrote a book, 'What Americans Really Want'.

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There is an argument that you have spent years telling politicians,

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So the politicians say it and then when they don't deliver,

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which they arguably can't, funnily enough the voters get angry.

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And it's the responsibility of the politicians and the people

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who advise them to not only know what's possible but to know

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what could be done with the right kind of leadership.

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I have never advised a politician to say anything that

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I never advised them to change position on an issue.

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In fact, one of the things I have been trying to clarify is that I do

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think politics is too negative and I think you find what's wrong

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with our opponents and go with that rather than focusing on what's right

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The essence of good politics is good communication.

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Based around fundamental philosophy and a commitment to principles that

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accept that you can make a mistake, but you have to fix it,

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and the most important value is accountability and admit

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when you get it wrong, as I did with Donald Trump

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in August, and you can't just plan for today,

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So many interviews on shows like this are confrontational

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because you're trying to get them to do

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You're trying to get them to say, "I messed up".

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It's the advice I gave Hillary Clinton.

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Admit you made a mistake in Benghazi, admit that your reset

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with Putin didn't work, admit that what happens

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and what has happened in Syria is wrong.

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And then say, and this is what I have learnt and this

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In May you wrote, "I'm fearful of expressing my concern

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publicly about the poison and toxicity of American politics.

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Not for my safety, for my business relationships.

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Also for people taking advantage, for people using it...

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The inability of people to connect to each other,

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to work out their differences is destroying the body politic that

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for the last 240 years has been essential in moving

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If you want to understand the core of the challenges they face

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emotionally and intellectually, it is that for the first four

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decades of my life I could find a solution and a way out.

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For the first time in my professional life I don't know.

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Frank Luntz, thank you for coming on HARDtalk.

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Hello there. For those of you suffering with the storms over the

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last

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