In a new “Sunday Special” interview, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro spoke to Dan Bongino about who he thinks will win this year’s presidential election.
Shapiro started their hour-long discussion by asking Bongino to predict who will claim victory in November, President Biden or former President Donald Trump. Bongino is the host of “The Dan Bongino Show” on Rumble and a former Fox News host as well as a former NYPD and Secret Service officer.
“If you had to put money on it today, who do you think wins, Trump or Biden?” Shapiro asked.
“You know, listen, predictions kill me because it’s one of those things, like everybody’s got one. But unless you can back it up with some data, it’s kind of meaningless,” Bongino began.
“I think Donald Trump is going to win,” he said. “But there’s a reason. The coalition is completely different. And this is where I think everybody miscalculated.”
WATCH THE FULL ‘SUNDAY SPECIAL’ EPISODE WITH DAN BONGINO
Bongino said that in 2021 with the “crazy” news cycle and the Left’s “hysteria” around January 6 and other things, people thought about Trump, “This guy’s going to get smoked.” People believed suburban moms and independents would abandon Trump, Bongino said.
“And then this moment happened,” Bongino said.
“Now you see the raw data, the polling numbers. The Trump coalition’s just different. Hispanic voters, black voters, you’re seeing working class males in droves, and most importantly union workers. My brother’s a Local Three electrician. He doesn’t know a single person voting for Biden. When did the Republicans ever win the union vote?” he said.
“In my humble opinion, Ben, I think Trump’s lasting gift outside of the Supreme Court, the Abraham Accords, and other things, I really believe this, I think his real gift to the Republican Party is going to be that he completely altered the coalition moving forward,” Bongino said.
Shapiro noted that Obama’s 2012 victory was notable because he “basically decided to abandon the middle and run directly to his base.”
“The magic of Donald Trump in 2024, shockingly, is that he is the moderate candidate in this race,” Shapiro said. “If you look at him, positionally, Donald Trump has grabbed the middle on every single issue.”
“A hundred percent,” Bongino agreed, adding that, “it’s funny when people paint this guy as this far-right conservative dictator,” especially when his first term had “quite a moderate agenda.”
Bongino went on to note that some “old school” conservatives are sometimes bothered by Trump’s “transactional” political style, especially when it comes to hot-button issues like abortion.
“I always say, we can argue tax policy all we want, but if you’re dead, you’re not really paying taxes. So that’s like kind of my thing. Don’t whack babies,” Bongino said.
“But he’s transactional,” he said. “He looks at something and goes, ‘Okay, you want to save x number of babies. You’re not going to get that done in this state. So how about we do this?'”
“But then you’re like, he’s not wrong about the politics … Maybe the Republican Party needs more of a transactionalist,” Bongino said.
“You had asked in the beginning, can we keep this going, and the answer is, I’m not sure. I’m not sure we have this great bench of people who can blend this new populism with conservatism,” Bongino said.
Shapiro and Bongino also discussed the Biden campaign, Bongino noting that President Biden is not the same now as when he debated Paul Ryan in 2012. Biden is set to debate former President Donald Trump on June 27.
“He’s a different guy now. He’s got this anger issue. It’s a serious anger issue. He can’t seem to control himself anymore especially when his son is brought up,” Bongino said. “So I think what Trump should do, and I’ve said this repeatedly even to him is they need to bring props. I’m not talking about a big rubber ducky or anything. He needs to pull out a copy of that check, that $40,000 check and be like ‘Joe, it says Joe Biden, $40,000, where’d it come from, Joe? Explain.’ He’ll lose his mind.”
I think Biden agreeing to the debate was a really, really awful idea,” Bongino said.
“Every day he changes his mind because he’s too stupid to have a position,” Bongino said. “But the problem he’s going to have on the second point here is none of this is changeable. He’s only getting older. He obviously has some cognitive frontal lobe dementia if you just look at him. None of his policies are changeable. The economy is not going to turn around. The Middle East isn’t getting any better.”
