McCaskill: Turns Out Donald Trump ‘Knew Our Country Better than We Did’

Wallace: “I totally agree, having been on winning campaigns and losing campaigns, that when you sit there at the forums — I don’t even know. I know, maybe that’s another norm that Trump has killed, but you used to go with both sides and sit there and and the campaign that won would get all the accolades and the campaign that lost would have to sort of confess to all their sins. And the truth is usually somewhere in between, right? There’s often something structural afoot. It seems, and again, I’m in the early stages of trying to learn myself from what was told, but it seems that there may be some insurmountable perception and reality of economic rage that was beyond people’s personal household strain and stress and agony of the price of things that cost their family more, but also deep despair about kids that couldn’t find work or kids that have moved back home, or neighbors that were — you know, I mean — it feels like it was widespread and potentially insurmountable.”

McCaskill: “Yeah, I think Donald Trump, it turned out that he knew our country better than we did. And I’m not sure I agree with a lot of what Joy said, but I think a lot of this is not the candidates, it’s the country. And I think Donald Trump understood that what he could do — and I don’t think his mistakes were mistakes. I think his mistakes were strategic and turned out to be right on the money. Because I think our party — I grew up in a party where we were for the underdog, we were for the little guy. We are now the elite. We are no longer seen as the party for the little guy. He was seen as the party for the little guy. He was seen as the ultimate disruptor. And yes, the edges were very rough, but in everyone’s own minds, they sanded them down to the point of acceptability. And as it turns out, there’s a lot of craving in America for fear and anger. A lot of craving for fear and anger driven by lies. But nonetheless, what this election result showed, especially if you look what’s happened in the blue states, I mean, New Jersey turned out to be relatively close. New York, we lost huge ground. I mean, if this is not a gut check moment for the Democratic Party to realize that we need to get back to meat and potatoes and fighting like hell for the little guy. And by the way, he’ll probably help us here because I have a feeling he’s going to burn the house down. I hope he doesn’t. I hope he doesn’t do real damage that we can’t recover from. But — and you know, I got to tell you, Joy, those uncommitted folks, you know, the first call he had this morning with Bibi Netanyahu, they’re going to level Gaza.”

Reid: “Absolutely. And the West Bank.”