Former President Trump face the music at a campaign rally in Iowa Friday amid growing legal woes. The former president took the stage just as the walkout song playing in the background blared lyrics that his opponents hope foreshadow his legal fate. One could end up going to prison on one, despite might be physically so you couldn't make that out. Or if you're been living under a rock and I'm familiar with that song. That is Brooks and Dunn Only in America. And they're talking about all the things that can happen in this country. Talking about someone who could go to prison, someone who could become president. Joining us now to discuss, a former Republican Congressman Charlie Dent, and CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist, Karen Finney. Karen, as you know, as I know that Brooks and Dunn song is played at every single political rally. Folks at both parties use that to pump up the crowd. And we just don't know at this point if those lyrics were intentionally played at that time or if it was just a coincidence. What do you make of that moment? Well, if anything, it's certainly the person who is in charge of production maybe should have paid a little closer attention to that. That's a little bit on the nose just given everything that's going on. I'm just saying, you know,
they could have skipped it forward or gone to a different part of the song. I would imagine, though, within the Trump campaign today, someone is getting there had been off, no question. It right. Because his usual walk out song when he has control over the music is Lee Greenwood. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I well, got to be careful. All right. This hour, Charlie Trump is holding a rally in your home state of Pennsylvania. He, of course, lost that state in 20, 20 In your eyes, what are his prospects there? Well, as long as he has this these legal storm clouds over his head, I think he's got real problems. Now, I get it in the primary among the base. This is motivating a certain element of it. And he's certainly doing well in the polls. But among the general electorate, particularly swing state like Pennsylvania, to be devastating. In fact, the fact that the Trump is in Erie, Pennsylvania tonight is significant because Erie is one of two of six who is one of two counties in Pennsylvania. There are 67 counties, but Erie and Northampton counties are the two counties that went for Barack Obama, Donald Trump and then Joe Biden. These are truly swing counties. So he's there for a reason. But again, Trump's legal problems and his never ending looking backwards and grievance politics about what happened. The 2020 election I think are not going to help in these swing states and marginal congressional districts. It's a real problem for the party. They all know it. They want him. They want Trump to go away. But these leading contenders against them are afraid to say anything to him because they're fearful antagonizing his base. Other than maybe Chris Christie will hurt that Tim Hutchinson Blunt. And Governor Ron DeSantis is facing facing backlash from some of his black belt from black lawmakers in his party over his support for a new education guideline in Florida. Specifically, this requirement that students be taught that black people benefitted from slavery. What do you make of this? You know, it was a real misstep on the part of Ron DeSantis to double and triple down and some in the Republican Party earlier in the week, even, you know, they were attacking Vice President Harris, even suggesting that she was lying about the standards. Well, now, as you see, I mean, as African-Americans, I mean, there is something about the experience of slavery. We don't need to rely on textbook or expert. We have our own stories in our own family. So we know about the horrors of slavery and what the outcome was. It does for the Republican Party, though, in a very complicated position, because you now have conservative black legislators in the crosshairs of Ron DeSantis at a moment when the Republican Party has been trying to make inroads with African-Americans. And so how they are going to try to have it both ways, I think it's going to be interesting to watch. And I think it's another sign that Ron DeSantis just cannot win in a general election with this kind of a message And Charlie, one of the other black Republicans, DeSantis has attacked, Senator Tim Scott, appears to be heating up in terms of the polls. I mean,
his super PAC has brought in around $20 million. And some states poll state polls have him gaming on DeSantis or even overtaking him for second place. DeSantis was once, of course, stopped to be the antidote to Trump. Now it looks like it could be Scott Well, yeah. Well, Tim Scott has a very aspirational, forward looking message. He is kind of like the anti Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in many ways. And that you know, Scott is not talking about grievance and victimization. He he's talking about the future. He's talking about what can happen. You know,
and he's got a wonderful, optimistic message. He's he's got a great personal story. I think people are responding to that. It's as simple as that. And again, you know,
Ron DeSantis has made missteps as Karen just said, with the, you know, slavery and personal benefit and those state education guidelines. Ridiculous. You know, vaccines are a point. Robert Kennedy, Jr. As the FDA leader of the FDA or the Centers for Disease Control, I mean, these are things that just crazy. I mean, so he's had these types of missteps in recent days. And I think Tim Scott is benefiting, you know, again, with his personal story and a very positive message. And Karen, President Biden publicly acknowledged his four year old granddaughter, Navy, for the first time in a statement first reported by People magazine. He said, quote, Our son Hunter and Navy's mother London are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward. This is not a political issue. It's a family matter. If this isn't political, why has the White House been so reluctant to discuss this issue? This young lady is four years old. Well, I think they they did make clear in this statement, I mean, look, a lot of us have complicated family dynamics. And I certainly don't know the machinations of their family. I was most importantly glad to see the president and first lady acknowledge this child because she should be the most important thing in all of this. What I hope is that going forward, our Republican colleagues will refrain from using her as a way to attack Biden. There has to be, even in this day and age, when you can be happy facing multiple indictments and running for president there still has to be something that is off limits. And I think four year old children and children in general must be off limits. There are plenty of other attacks you can levy on. President Biden. Yeah, this is you know that it's the child herself. It's the four years it took them to acknowledge her. But Charlie, obviously the president's son, Hunter Biden, is going to be a prime fodder for Republicans. Do you think that issue resonates with voters actually do, because like Hunter Biden is he's a bit of a train wreck. I think we have to acknowledge that. And I'm not I'm not going to suggest that the president did anything criminal But when most Americans see that Hunter Biden, who acknowledged that he was on drugs, you know,
gets this poor position that pays close to $80,000 a month for a Ukrainian gas company. They raised their eyebrows and they think it smells it smells of insider trading. It doesn't seem right. Same with these Chinese business dealings. So the whole thing smells bad. And, of course, what happened in court in the courtroom the other day, where the prosecution and Hunter's lawyers couldn't come to an agreement on the agreements, I think is also a problem. You know,
this is one Hunter Biden potentially culpable for some foreign agents registration act violations that he could be charged for. I mean,
so I think this story is not going away. It is a major problem for the president. And, you know, and again, I think Republicans have to be careful not to overreach because if you look at the Biden family's story in total, you look at the story and the total U.S., you know, he lost his wife and daughter in a car accident decades ago, his son, Beau, to cancer. And so there's a lot of tragedy. And so I think a lot of voters who look at the Biden family in total and not just at Hunter's many shortcomings. I mean,
I actually think people are looking at Hunter and recognizing again, no one should be above the law, even the president's son. And he hasn't been I mean,
he has been going through a legal process. There has been four years of an investigation which started under Trump. They've never been able to connect this to the president where, you know, he is going through the criminal process. And the other thing I would say that I think in this story is so many of us know or have relatives who are dealing with addiction, and there is no one who will do more harm to that. Person than than that individual. And I'm not excusing any behavior that he may have engaged in while he was an addict, but I think a lot of people have empathy for the fact that, you know,
this is about a president and as a as a man, as a father standing by his child, but having nothing to do with any of his business dealings.
