Before you sit down,
in case people missed it, can we...
What does that say?
(cheering and applause)
-Okay. -Yeah, you know, since it's Halloween,
I thought I'd come dressed
as a first lady who really does care.
(cheering and applause)
-Welcome back to the show. -Thank you. It's been a while.
-Thank you for being here. -Welcome to Mi...
-Bienvenidos a Miami. -Oh.
-(cheering and applause) -Muchas gracias.
-Have you had Cuban coffee? -Have I had...?
-Cuban coffee. -I've had Cuban coffee.
I've had Cuban sandwiches. I've had, um, Cuban friends.
-I've had Cuban nights out. -(laughs)
-Cuban everything. -Stop right there.
(laughter)
Um, this is quite a time.
You know, you know, what's interesting is, I mean,
I have a lot of people who come to the show,
and we talk about politics, and a lot of the time--
I won't lie-- many of the people who come to The Daily Show
have political views that match with mine or the audience.
But you're in an interesting position
because you are a Republican.
Are you still a Republican?
You know, here's the thing.
I was a Republican when Donald Trump was a Democrat.
I was a Republican when Donald Trump was an independent.
And I'm a Republican
now that he's pretending to be a Republican
and so many other Republicans are enabling him
and allowing him to pretend.
(cheering and applause)
So, that-that presents an interesting dilemma for you
-and for many Republicans out there, right? -Yeah.
-Because a day like today's... -Like Paul Ryan.
Yeah. A day like today's a perfect example.
So, you have Donald Trump, who comes out and says,
"I want to change the Constitution.
"I want to say that birthright citizenship
is no longer part of the Fourteenth Amendment."
And Paul Ryan comes out and says,
"Hey, that's-that's not something that you can do.
That's unethical. It's impeachable."
And Donald Trump replied, and he said to Paul Ryan, um,
"You need to focus on maintaining the House.
"I'm gonna do
what the new Republican party needs to be done."
-(booing) -And that's... No, no, hold on, hold on.
That's an interesting space for many people to be in,
because it does feel like in some ways,
Donald Trump is redefining
what the Republican party is all about.
-What does that mean to you? -I, uh...
Look, I think Donald Trump,
in a very short time, in less than two years,
has redefined the Republican party.
He has redefined the presidency.
It is now a place that is used to bully other Americans.
It is a place that is used to lie and spread fear.
And he has changed America. He has changed the country.
He has polarized us in a way
-that's much greater than we were already. -Right.
He has fabricated culture wars.
He has sown discord.
And he's handed the keys to the kingdom to the Russians.
(cheering and applause)
So...
But I-I grew up--
You know, to answer your question, look,
I grew up in the Republican Party.
And many of us here in Miami understand this,
where, uh, it-it was--
you know, we-we tried to be more inclusive,
tried to win, have a bigger tent.
Dinosaurs were not roaming the Earth
when George W. Bush got 44% of the Hispanic vote.
That was way before they were doing things
like separating children at the border
and putting them in little pens.
If you-- if you look at-- if you look at the situation
that-that America's in now,
in many ways, you see Donald Trump and his effect
mirrored in politics on a local level, you know?
For many Republican politicians,
it has now become a clear choice:
either you are with Donald Trump
or you have to see your way out of the Republican Party.
And people like Jeff Flake have chosen that.
People like Paul Ryan are saying, like,
"I'm out of the game."
Um, and then you have people,
like, politicians locally like DeSantis,
who have run specifically on a message of
"I am everything that Trump embodies."
-Are you seeing that connecting with people? -(loud booing)
Certainly. Certainly so in primaries.
Look, um, Ron DeSantis is Donald Trump's parasitic twin.
-But for Donald Trump, -(cheering and applause)
-Ron DeSantis would not have won the Republican primary. -Right.
And even after the primary,
instead of distancing himself from Trump--
as, for example, Rick Scott has done,
who's treating him like a Zika mosquito--
Ron DeSantis embraces him.
Uh, Donald Trump is going to be rallying for Ron DeSantis
in Florida today and again before the elections.
And so he's, you know-- he's modeled himself as a mini Trump.
He is now saying that he, too, agrees
with, uh, repealing the 14th Amendment
through executive order, which is ridiculous
and unconstitutional.
And, uh, that's just the way he's playing it.
Look, Donald Trump had so much to do
on both sides in deciding primaries.
Often, the ones who won in Republican primaries
-were the ones who embraced him the most, -Mm-hmm.
and the ones who won in Democratic primaries
were the ones who opposed him and confronted him the most.
And, you know, unfortunately, many of the Republicans,
so many of the Republicans who tried to stand up to Trump,
who tried to rebuke him when he merited it,
uh, are either retiring,
like Flake,
have lost elections,
or have died.
And so you are-- you are left
with a Republican Party
that is more and more like Trump
and that depends on him and knows him more.
If Ron DeSantis wins in Florida,
he owes it to Donald Trump.
He is indebted to Donald Trump.
At that point, Donald Trump owns the guy.
But then here's a question I have for you as a Republican
who says you've been a Republican your whole life.
We always speak about it as if Donald Trump operates
in isolation, as if...
Politicians operate in isolation,
-but somebody has to vote for them. -True.
And if Republican voters are voting for these people,
and Republicans are choosing people who go with Trump,
Republicans are choosing to oust people like Jeff Flake,
choosing to oust people who stand up to Donald Trump,
then do you think that maybe there was a side
of the Republican Party that either you were not seeing,
or you were choosing to not see?
-Both. Both. -(applause and cheering)
And, um...
Look, there were 15...
I think two things happened. I think you're right.
I think there was a shift in the base,
and a... and a side of it that many of us didn't see,
including the 15 other Republicans
who ran for the Republican primary,
people like Jeb Bush, people like John Kasich.
But I also think Trump brought out a, uh...
a-a different type of people,
a different class of people, diff...
He brought out people who had not been engaged
-in politics before... -Right.
...who had not been motivated to vote.
Well, we saw that with the mail bomber, funny enough.
People said he wasn't political,
-and then, Donald Trump ignited something in him. -So, he...
-Look, I-I think... -(laughter, groaning)
That was not intended.
I'm... That was not... Sorry.
Excuse the pun.
The, um...
You know, like him or not, I think
he has awoken something in America on both sides.
(indistinct shouting)
Uh, I think, you know, he has brought out people
on one side, but on the other--
you know, on the Democratic side--
we're also seeing people more engaged.
We're seeing candidates running for the first time.
-(applause and cheering) -We're seeing more LGBTQ,
people of color, women running as candidates
because... because they got, uh, energized,
because they got enraged,
and because they decided to be part of the process.
I think you, uh, you owe the #MeToo movement
-in large part to Donald Trump... -(applause)
...and women said, you know...
Because women were silent and didn't talk
-about the Donald Trump issues before... -Right.
...we ended up with his as president,
and-and that ignited a frustration and anger in women
that motivated them to speak up, and not remain silent,
and, you know, and-and stick together in numbers.
So when you look at, let's just say Florida itself,
let's look at the-the governor's race.
You look at race between Andrew Gillum, Ron DeSantis,
and you see Gillum exciting people
in a different way.
You see people who are engaged with him,
not just on policy, but also in the way
that he actually, you know, I guess conveys his message.
When you look at that race
as a Republican in Miami, what do you make of it?
Look, I... You know, for me... It's a very...
For me, I'm a centrist.
I'm a moderate Republican, I'm a centrist.
And so when I look at that race, on the one hand,
I've got Ron DeSantis, who is increasingly...
Or forget increasingly.
-He's not an option. -(applause and cheering)
-(cheering, applause) -And on the other hand...
I've got Andrew Gillum,
who is a progressive Democrat
who is much further to the left than I am on policy issues.
I had not met him before.
I met him a couple of days ago, and I got to tell you something,
part of the reason that guy is awakening something
is 'cause he's likable.
-(cheering) -I had forgotten what it was like
to have a likable person running in Florida.
He... he's, uh, you know,
he could charm a cat out of a tree.
-(laughter) -He actually likes people.
You know, he's relatable.
He tells jokes. He smiles.
He inspires.
He's working through a message of unity and being positive.
-(cheering) -And so, you know, look,
I think...
I think it's a...
it's a huge contrast
that Florida voters have to choose from.
They're going to have to choose from a message of...
-fear... -Mm-hmm.
and, uh, scare tactics.
Like, for example, one of the things
that's got me really upset, um, in the last few days is--
and I know there's somebody here from Venezuela--
-(indistinct shouts) -Donald Trump is out there
saying that Andrew Gillum-- and by the way,
he's also saying it about Beto O'Rourke in Texas--
but he's saying that Andrew Gillum is going to turn Florida
-into Venezuela. -Right.
People are dying in Venezuela.
It is ruled by a murderous dictator
who beats, kills,
jails, harasses his opponents,
who expropriates property.
There is no food in Venezuela.
There is no medicine in Venezuela.
People are starving. It is a dictatorship.
So to be... to-to...
to incite that level of fear in people
and to cheapen the trauma of the Venezuelan exiles
who live here in Florida,
-(cheering, applause) -the Nicaraguan exiles,
the Cuban exiles, who have actually fled communism,
who have suffered under those systems,
by casually and cavalierly saying
Andrew Gillum is going to turn Florida into Venezuela...
Well, if he does, we've got a real problem,
'cause you know what, we got a Republican legislature
in Florida, we got a conservative Supreme Court
in Florida, we've got checks and balances in Florida.
That is not going to happen.
And I hope Florida voters reject a campaign of fearmongering
-(cheering, applause) -and scare tactics.
We can't fall for that again.
Thank you so much for being on the show again.
-Thank you. -Always wonderful having you.
Ana Navarro, everybody.
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