Elijah visits with "Super Lawyer" Henry Elster

From the spacious KWTO studios, it's the Elijah Harshow, 93am 560, KWTO. Welcome back to KWTO, one hour down, one hour to go in the show. We had a conversation yesterday after the Tuesday primary. You had primaries in California, New Jersey, and Iowa. In Iowa, Donald Trump's endorse candidate, Randy Feenstra, went down to defeat. Then you had a war powers vote in the U.S. Congress where several Republicans joined the Democrats and said, we want to end the war in Iran. They thumbed their nose at the president. President nominates Bill Pulte from the Fair Housing Board to become the Director of National Intelligence and Thom Tillis and Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn and several come out and like, ah, this is this DOA. He's not getting confirmed. So the question is, is Donald Trump losing his grip on the Republican Party, joining us now on the show for this conversation? St. Louis super lawyer, Henry Alster. Henry, welcome back. Good morning. Thanks for calling me again. Absolutely. Okay. First thing's first question of the day. Did you go to camp as a kid? And if so, what kind of camps? I did. I went to a camp called Canacuck camp, Christian camp. You did. I did. And then I have multiple answers for you. So that's the one. And as I think I've talked about before, ice hockey played that a lot growing up in South St. Louis County. Now you don't, it's not like a traditional camp. I let me know that where like you spend the night away and all. But like it would be full days there. And we would go back home. But that was called a quote camp. How many times did you go to Canacacacac? I think three summers. Fascinating. It's funny because I'm from Southwest Missouri. I've heard about Kanekuk, obviously been in the news a little bit, but it's funny because I don't know anybody that actually goes there. Now, I've heard tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people have gone there and still continue to go there. I don't actually know anybody that's gone there. Now, this was that my younger sister did too. She went a lot more than I did. I mean, this was like over 25 years ago. So this is not, I don't know. Over 30 years ago. It's over 30 years ago, actually. So I don't know what the attendance is like now, but definitely I did do that. All right, Henry. I rattled through a few different facts as we kick things off in regards to Donald Trump having kind of a challenging week, little choppy waters out there for him. loses, you know, it's his first candidate this year that he's bet who lost the primary. Then you've got House members voting against, you've got senators that are lame duck senators, primarily because Donald Trump made them lame duck senators, killing his nominations. Today, he announced he's picking Todd Blanche and you've already got people out there like, no, I don't think we're going to approve Todd Blanche. What's going on with the president right now?

I don't think, you know, we had talked about this before, I don't think his influence in the primary, whether his endorsement carries weight in the primary has really waned, or as you say, he has lost his touch on that. The Iowa vote, for example, it was 0.8%. He lost mine. It was a later endorsement. The candidate who did end up being prevailed very much a Maha candidate. And then Randy Feenstra, he barely won his own district. for my understanding. It was a 0.8% less of a percent difference. When you compare that to the election we had also very recently in Texas, which is a lot higher profile election because of just the size of that state, where you had a decade, many decades. I can't even recall to how long John Cornyn has been there, either as a Supreme Court judge in Texas. Four terms. Yeah, well, but even before that, I think he was a state senator and I'm pretty confident he was a state Supreme Court judge. They've got to run, unlike in Missouri. They've got a run statewide election. So how many statewide elections he's on? He lost by 27%. Yeah, we got to. That election was over. And then in Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, I believe, came third. Yeah. He was another incumbent on the private. He didn't even make the runoff, lost to a congressman and the state treasurer. So in the primary voter mind, no, I don't think that has waned at all. I mean, this is one very small minor defeat for someone who identified with someone very closely in the Trump administration Robert F. Kennedy Jr., MAHA policy. Now, in terms of the political appointments, probably a little bit for the reason that now you have senators, you have members of the House. I mean, I don't know if you mentioned the War Powers Revolution. I mean, Thomas Massie, who Trump famously has been after for quite some time and he lost, he voted for it. Then you have people who are essentially lame ducks in the Senate who have a potential axe to grind, like Senator Corn and Bill Cassidy. You need their votes to get those confirmation. So you are in a unique period where he's not going to have the same influence over the centers that he did earlier this year, certainly earlier in the administration. But this happens where he's had to withdraw nominees before. We saw that with Matt Bill Gates. very early on, like right when he won, um, election again, I didn't even know if he, he made it past January that he might have been withdrawn in December. And then Ed Martin, US, another two, another Missouri person. Um,

you know, certainly a Ron DeSantis, but even a few others, like a Mike Lee, I think they'd be much harder for them to come out and say, oh, yeah, I can't, I can't pick this person. Well, you remember Pam Bondi also represented Trump personally. She did. So it's not as if we haven't had it in his impeachment proceedings. So she was personal counsel to him as well. So I don't think that's disqualifying. I think what I'm hearing you're saying is, though, that they're going to be a little more mindful of it because they're very close to an election, many people in Keyless. So they're going to be looking. A lot more mindful of it. Certainly. And that's true. And that's going to happen at all of that. At the same time, I don't understand the same time. Okay, he didn't represent him personally, but he's still going to have quite a few positions he's taken as Florida governor, which is going to not be attracted to the lot of these purple. Let's take a guy. Let's take Bill Cassidy from Louisiana. Like, obviously Bill Cassidy is personally burned by the president. But I think Bill Cassidy is a getable vote if Ron DeSantis is nominated. I think John Cornyn's a getable vote if Ron DeSantis is because like he could sit down. He's a what a Harvard law degree and a federal clerk? Like he could sit down and impress them with his legal skills. I'm not saying Todd Blanche is not a good attorney, but he's clearly Donald Trump's hatchet man. And I don't think they would perceive Ron DeSantis quite in the same manner. You know who just as we're talking about? Because they were trying to think of people in the Senate who have had positions in the cabinet recently, Markwayne Mullin. I can't remember his vote margin. He sailed. I don't even remember. It was, I mean, I don't think it was in the, it was in the low 50s, but it was, there was never a question that it was, he was going to go through. There is somewhat of a senatorial privilege for being nominated. There is. And then because I don't, I think Marco Rubio was like close to unanimous. Yeah. Yeah. Secretary of State. I, I don't know if I can't recall anyone voting against him, which is very usual nowadays. So yeah, I mean, if you could find someone like him, maybe you put Marco Rubio in there, but who's a lawyer? People forget about it. I don't think he'd be, he'd be, I don't think he'd be, I don't think he'll take Secretary of State and he's going to be interested in it. Yeah, I don't, you know, it's funny because I don't know which one of those is more premier position. Probably AG, but Secretary, I mean, there's not a lot of promotion from Secretary of State. No, I don't think so either. You know, me, domestically, AG, absolutely. But in terms of international affairs, obviously, that is the, that's the wheelhouse of the sector. He's always been interested in those international affairs diplomacy and all. I don't. And that's just me. I've never, I've not read that anywhere. I've heard that anywhere. I just thought about what I was listening to you speak. We've only got a few minutes left that I know you're just itching to talk about it. We've talked a lot this week about primaries going on around the country. We got primaries coming up in August. You're from St. Louis. I know it's a long ways away, but you guys have a big St. Charles primary for county exec. You've got Steve Elman, the incumbent. You've got a two-time loser Bill Igu, who lost the governor's race and lost the race for state chair. What are you? This is negative. Sorry. Sorry. Former state senator, Bill Igo. I'm just razzing you because he knows you guy.

And then a newcomer, Jason Law, how's that race shakeout? You know, they just had a debate a couple nights ago. And it's a lot of the issues they were talking about that debate, or a lot of the issues, I think Missouri is going to be talking about it is now, but statewide. So it's not just something localized to St. Louis data centers was a big, big topic there. And I think St. Charles County is the third most populated county in the state. Most Republican primary voters are in St. Charles County. So you always see that as an interesting bellwether on that. I think if the polls are to believe the averages of them right now, Elman, who's been there for forever, kind of like the John Cornyn of St. Charles County, who was a state judge there too. He's probably on the lead on a few average points. And if you average all of the polls together, Iigel's probably in second law, I think is a distant third, least amount of money, at least the amount of name ID. I would bet on Igel. I think he's going to have a little better messaging. You know, Elman's kind of running as a business as usual guy. Hey, we've been prosperous for this. There's really no specific things. But Igo's running like we ran in the governor campaign. Like he ran in the governor campaign, very specific messages that I think are going to appeal to a primary voter. I think he's going to win. Maybe someone drops out the race that can shift things. But certainly that could set up things statewide. Well, and that's the reason I ask you is because I think it's very likely that if I go wins, and I'll be honest, from an outside of perspective, he seems to have the momentum in the campaign. If I go wins, it's very likely that he then mounts a primary challenge to Governor Gio two years later. Yes, and he's in the off-year elections. Like our state auditor, he has the ability where you basically get the free shot in order to do that. And it's an interesting hypothetical poll. I mean, if it was just one-on-one primary voter statewide, Mike Kehoe versus Eigl, who would win, I mean, close to the election, last election, I think a lot of people say Eigle would have won. I don't know, you know, in two years from now, certainly Mike Kehoe, if he chooses to run again, probably would, would have a huge fundraising advantage. But I don't know where things are going to be, where gas prices are going to be, if there's just going to be discontent with all the income. I think a lot of it depends on these ballot measures. Well, and if the governor has the courage and suspends the gas tax this summer, that would certainly ingratiated. I haven't heard Trump's called for that. I don't know if he's heard for that. Trump called for it. Josh Hawley is putting the legislation together. We'll see if it actually gets through the building. All right. We're out of time. Henry, you're still on social media, are you? I'm still in the dark incognito. It's so hard for people to jump on and tell you why you're right or wrong on every issue. I know. Well, people be yelling at me all the time. Yeah, probably so. Super lawyer, Henry Elster. Thanks so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. We've got lots more to go in the show. We've got to talk about this Marco Rubio hearing. Man, it was a clown show. We got lots more to go. I'm Elijah Har here on KWTO, and we'll be right back.