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– Greetings and thanks for joining us for this PJTV special, our favorite political moments of the year. I'm your host, John Phillips. Joining me here in studio is PJTV contributor and stand-up comic Stephen Kruiser, and right next to him is the very fair-minded, civil rights defense attorney, Leo Terrell. Today we're talking about our picks for favorite political moments of 2015, and Kruiser's up first.

– My favorite political moment of the year involves Republican presidential hopefuls Jeb Bush, extreme hopeful, and Marco Rubio. The drama between these two unfolded in the CNBC debate, which was an otherwise, a complete trainwreck of a debate, but this is one of the most watchable things in it, and to me it epitomized the old-school establishment Republican approach to things that are still very much rooted in the 20th century, and the fact that they don't know that there's new stuff happening in the party now. So Jeb's handlers decided that he should go after Marco Rubio directly because he was starting to lose some of the Florida money and Marco was the heir apparent to Jeb, and it wasn't going well so they said, "You gotta attack Marco now, you gotta attack Marco. "That's gonna be your new thing." So he's gonna attack Marco on not voting enough while he's running for president, which all politicians don't do when they're running for president. And then it unfolded very uncomfortably and Marco basically handed Jeb's lunch to him after, beautifully. – I think it's possible to go from nowhere to somewhere when you're running for President. – Yeah. – If you weren't the heavy favorite to begin with. – Yes. – If you're the heavy favorite to begin with, and then you end up at 2% or 3% in the polls, and then you're trying to claw your way back up, I don't think it's possible. I think the public knows who you are. I think the public has seen you, they don't like you, they've rejected you, it's over for him. – Yeah, and well executed, and also he's rusty. Jeb Bush been outta politics for like, what? Six, seven years since he was the governor of Florida. He's rusty and I think his reliance on his name, Bush, it was a mistake and it just seemed like Marco Rubio has run roughshod over Jeb and I just think Jeb's name in and of itself is not gonna be enough to get him moving. – Yeah and you point to the obvious big problem with him right now, is he is the heavy favorite — – By the way, that's the Jeb Bush campaign callin'. That's Mike Murphy. – Yeah. There was supposed to be the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and he keeps having to reboot himself and re-message himself. (laughs) I'm tryin' to talk over — – I apologize. – That's ok. – I apologize to the world. That's not normally happened. My phone went off. – Jeb Bush just sexted Leo Terrell. (laughs) That's what just happened there– – So true. – But Bush, I've maintained all along he doesn't look like he wants this, he doesn't look like he ever wanted this — – No. – Everything he does is half-heart, this has all the makings of Daddy wants me to do this, so I'm doing it. – Here's another question. Why is it that you're attacking the guy that's number three in the polls, don't you go after number one? – Well, because the obvious answer would be Florida. Jeb Bush would be totally embarrassed for him to lose to the junior senator — – He's not gonna make it to Florida. – Well, that's the key. He figured Florida was the state that he had to win, and Marco Rubio is outpolling him in Florida. That to me was the key. – First four states, you got Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada. – He's not gonna make it to New Hampshire. – Well, as long as the money will last. – All right, moving on to my favorite political moment of the year, it comes from the first GOP debate on the Fox News Channel. That's when we saw Donald Trump take on Megyn Kelly, and slam my arch-nemesis Rosie O' Donnell, let's go ahead and take a listen. – You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals. (audience laughs) Your Twitter account — – Only Rosie O' Donnell. (audience laughs and cheers) – No, it wasn't.

– You know, Leo, out here we learned that the only people that hate Rosie O' Donnell more than her children are Republican primary voters. – Very true, John, because Donald Trump had an excellent comeback when he mentioned Rosie O'Donnell. (laughs) That was why he escaped from Megyn Kelly. – See, I'm not even a big Megyn Kelly hater, I did not like the way she handled herself in that debate, though. I didn't like the way overall that debate was handled. I thought she was a little too smirky and muggy for the, I don't like it when purported news people mug for the camera, okay? If you wanna be part of a sketch comedy troupe, then go pay for your Groundlings classes, work your way up the chain, but don't go into news and then sit there and smirk and wink and, that just starts to wear on me. – But John's selection is an outstanding one because they were trying to derail Donald Trump at the first debate, and guess what? It did not happen. Megyn Kelly tried to get Trump to get a pledge that he would not run third party, it didn't work, the backlash is on Megyn Kelly. – And since then Megyn Kelly's kept the heat on Donald Trump. – Oh, she has — – But it's worked for her too. Her ratings are big since then, his poll numbers are big, it's like this big happy, you know me, back then I said this on the air with you I said, "I don't buy that this is actually a feud. "I think this is a little kabuki theater dance being done "between Fox news and Trump" and I still maintain. – Okay I want you both of you on the record for this. – Yes. – I need a prediction. Is there gonna be a day where Donald sits down with Megyn Kelly on her show on Fox and it's nine zillion people tuning in to watch? – I don't, you have read my mind, the answer to that is yes. I believe there is gonna be a mega show with Kelly and Trump, it's gonna have 15, 20 million viewers. – And it was on Roger Ailes' calendar two months ago. (laughs) That's what I've been sayin'. – I was thinkin' the same thing. – He's had it in, he's sent out the Evite to all the upper, yeah, that's been there all along. – All right Leo, what do you have for us? – Well, my favorite political moment is for 2015 is Donald Trump leading the Republican field, and as we speak right now Donald Trump is making worldwide recognition and name recognition regarding his position on the Muslim issue, allowing them in America. I think Donald Trump is the story for 2015 and the political story of the year, should've been person of the year. – No question, now here's the problem that the GOP establishment is facing. The guy who's polling number two right now is Ted Cruz, who they hate just as much as they hate Donald Trump. Jeb Bush who was the establishment pick, is not gonna be the Republican nominee, it is over for him. What do they do, do they put all their chips on Marco Rubio, or do they hope that someone like Mitt Romney jumps in at the 11th hour and can take over that Jeb operation and maybe knock those two off the top? – Let me be as clear as possible, there is a total disconnect between the Republican establishment and the Republican voters, the Republican voters hate the establishment. That inside the beltway strategy does not work. Trump has proven that, Carson's proven that, I think if the Republican establishment has any hope they'd better rest their eggs in Cruz, because Cruz might be the only one close to the establishment to be on that ticket. – The evangelical base is all gonna go to Cruz after a while, Carson's people are already flowing there, Santorum's people are gonna go there, Huckabee's people are gonna go there, so if you want that, and they're very good at get out the vote, they used to be, when you weren't annoying them at elections, they used to be very good at getting out the vote, so I agree with Leo, they're gonna have to go with Cruz and they're gonna hate them, and I'm gonna love watching them, although in the end if it becomes this second tier which is starting to shape up to be a thing between Rubio and Cruz, I don't think that's bad for the party either. – I agree. – So I love the way it's going and I love the fact that Trump forced the issue so hard that the GOP establishment couldn't delude themselves or the public any more. – Okay, let's look at the map here. If Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum don't win Iowa, do we all agree that they're out of the race? – Exactly, their whole base is Iowa, they have to win Iowa for them to have any leverage. – All of their chips on Iowa? – They're gone. – Well…

Santorum's the anomaly, we know why, there's one very wealthy man who's — – Foster Friess. – Who funds him and Foster Friess, Foster Friess has money like you would not believe. – Move on to – Trump is a pauper compared to Foster Freeze. Santorum can stay in as long as he wants. – New Hampshire, if Kasich, Christie, and Paul don't win New Hamphire, those three are out, correct? – I agree, and don't forget Graham has already declared he's out if he doesn't do well, so Graham is out. – In New Hampshire? – In New Hampshire. – Okay, so we'll add him to the list. Do you agree? – Christie, especially New Hampshire, the Northeastern Republican has to win New Hampshire if he's gonna — – Okay. – be viable in the race. – So that has six or seven of them out after the first two, do any of them endorse Donald Trump?

– No.

Not at that stage.

– Graham just to be annoying, I think — – Graham, no way, get him outta here. (laughs) – Graham is gonna be so petulant about being forced out, no, I don't think so, I don't think any will endorse Donald Trump, it's gonna be interesting, but the thing this year I wanna see play out, and they keep saying it's gonna play out, a lot of these guys are hangin' around this long because there's super PAC money now, they don't have to spend their own campaign money for TV ads anymore, and the super PAC people are all so loaded, I mean normal people like us try to sit around and go, oh they're gonna get sick of spending this money, a guy who's got 100 million doesn't care that he just spent two, okay? And if he wants to spend another two, he will. – But the math is the math, if Huckabee loses Iowa, he's not gonna catch fire — – Huckabee's not gonna win Iowa, Cruz is — – in New Hampshire or Nevada. gonna win Iowa. – But listen I wanna make sure this is clear, they will review this election and say the political model to win elections is over, you don't need big money, Donald Trump has proven social media is the alternative and the neutralizer to big PAC money. – Trump, to his credit, and a couple of the other Republican candidates like Cruz especially, have adopted the 2008, 2012 Obama model. You don't ask somebody for 100 bucks, you ask 'em for five. You know what, a lot of times people don't have 100 bucks. Everybody's always got five bucks, you just keep sending, Obama would send out emails asking for three dollars, and you know what, you get 1,000 people giving you three dollars, it's the same as one person giving you $3000. – But it's not the money per se, it's the method. Trump goes on Twitter, he sends out a message, it's covered by the media, that's the new business model that neutralizes big PAC money. – His approach to social media will be studied in political science classes in years to come. – It's unbelievable. – All right, that's gonna do it for today's show. We wanna know what you think about our picks for favorite political moment of the year. Be sure to leave your comments in the comment section below. I'm John Phillips for Stephen Kruiser and Leo Terrell. Thanks so much for watching.

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– It was John's fault, because John told me to check my phone.