Trump’s Lies Will ‘Play Very Differently’ and Have ‘Consequences’ in General Election, MSNBC’s Charlie Sykes Says | Video

January 24, 2024 @ 6:28 PM

As the path to the general election continued to clear for former President Donald Trump after he beat Nikki Haley in New Hampshire on Tuesday, MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” reported Wednesday that the embattled politician’s reputation with independent swing voters may be his downfall.

“The things that he’s been able to say and do and be rewarded [for] in a Republican primary are going to play very differently” in the general election against President Joe Biden, contributor Charlie Sykes said.

“Donald Trump has convinced himself that he can say and do anything and there will be no consequences,” Sykes continued. “Well, there are no consequences in this Republican Party. But it is far from clear that there will be no consequences now in a general election where millions of people are going to be tuning in.”

The results at the polls appeared to back up that concern. According to the “Deadline” segment, independent voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, the two states where Republican primaries have been held thus far, have handed their support to Haley, rejecting Trump amid his headline-grabbing legal troubles and ongoing claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged in favor of Biden.

Still, MSNBC host Alicia Menendez, sitting in for Nicolle Wallace, said that Trump “is not changing his tune as he gets to a general election in order to try to persuade a different group of voters.” Coming out of New Hampshire, Sykes said, we “now have this very significant pivot.”

“To the point that we’ve been making here, Iowa and New Hampshire voters have been paying close attention. They have been watching what Donald Trump is doing, and there is a very, very large portion of that electorate now — moderates, independents, soft Republicans — who are repelled by Donald Trump,” Sykes said. “And so we now need, as opposed to now continuing to be obsessed with the MAGA hardcore types and the focus groups and the diners, we now need to pay a lot more attention to these swing voters around the country who may or may not know all the things that Donald Trump has been saying, that he’s been promising.”

He continued: “They’re going to be watching this guy — maybe they’ve become numb, maybe they’ve forgotten who he is — but Donald Trump is going to remind them over and over and over again over the next couple of months [who he his], and that’s a whole new phase of this campaign.”

Watch the full segment from MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House” in the video above.