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Reported Speech: The Grammar Gameshow Episode 25

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Reported speech: the grammar gameshow episode 25.

Welcome to the Grammar Gameshow! Test your knowledge in this crazy quiz! The presenter is a bit strange, the points don’t make sense and the prizes could use some improvement, but at least the grammar is correct! So Bill passes his first test! That was lucky! He’ll need more than luck this time round though! This week our contestants answer questions on reported speech grammar! That he-said, she-said construction so useful for gossip, rumour, hearsay and conjecture! Will’s in for a bit of an unexpected surprise when a family member who’s not used to being disobeyed turns up. Is this the end of the show for Will? Will Bill manage to pass this round? Why is that contestant carrying a glass of milk?

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Reported Speech: The Grammar Gameshow Episode 25

Reported Speech: The Grammar Gameshow Episode 25

  • سایت زبانشناس

Reported Speech- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 25

  • 1. Present Simple and Present Continuous- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 1
  • 2. Adverbs of frequency- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 2
  • 3. Used to and Would- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 3
  • 4. The Present Perfect Simple and Continuous- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 4
  • 5. Modal Verbs- Have to and Must- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 5
  • 6. Be Going To- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 6
  • 7. Verb Patterns- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 7
  • 8. Some and Any- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 8
  • 9. The Past Continuous Tense- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 9
  • 10. The First Conditional- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 10
  • 11. Relative Clauses- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 11
  • 12. Relative Clauses 2- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 12
  • 13. So and Such- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 14
  • 14. The Past Perfect Tense- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 13
  • 15. Comparatives- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 15
  • 16. Present and Past Passives- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 16
  • 17. Will- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 17
  • 18. Adjectives- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 18
  • 19. Prepositions- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 19
  • 20. Second Conditional- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 20
  • 21. Superlatives- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 21
  • 22. Question Tags- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 22
  • 23. Questions- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 23
  • 24. Can- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 24
  • 25. Reported Speech- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 25
  • درس بعدی : 26. Should- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 26
  • 27. Countable and uncountable nouns- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 27
  • 28. Articles- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 28
  • 29. Present Perfect and Past Simple- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 29
  • 30. Phrasal verbs and highlights- The Grammar Gameshow Episode 30

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Welcome to the Grammar Gameshow! Test your knowledge in this crazy quiz! The presenter is a bit strange, the points don't make sense and the prizes could use some improvement, but at least the grammar is correct! So Bill passes his first test! That was lucky! He'll need more than luck this time round though! This week our contestants answer questions on reported speech grammar! That he-said, she-said construction so useful for gossip, rumour, hearsay and conjecture! Will's in for a bit of an unexpected surprise when a family member who's not used to being disobeyed turns up. Is this the end of the show for Will? Will Bill manage to pass this round? Why is that contestant carrying a glass of milk? Find out in this episode of the Grammar Gameshow! For more information, a quiz and other episodes, visit- http-//www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/tgg/ Do you want to learn how to speak English? Then join us here on YouTube for great grammar, drama, news, study, pronunciation, vocabulary, music, interviews and celebrity videos. Every day we have a new video to help you with English. We also produce regular 'extra' videos across the week so come back every day to see what's new. We like receiving and reading your comments - please use English when you comment. For more videos and content that will help you learn English, visit our website- http-//www.bbclearningenglish.com

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Hello, and welcome to today’s Grammar Gameshow! I’m your host, Will! And If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! You know, I can’t stand bad grammar. And of course, let’s not forget Leslie, our all-knowing voice in the sky. Hello, everyone! Tonight, we’re going to ask you three questions about… Reported speech! That he-said, she-said grammar that’s useful for gossip, rumour, hearsay and conjecture! OK! Now, let’s meet our contestants! Hello, all. My name is Bill! And contestant number two? Hello, schnookums! I’m Nana Will! Nana Will! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since… but that was such a long t… I came to see how you’re getting on, poppet. Your mum tells me you’re doing so well. Are you wearing clean underwear? Nana! Not cool! Willikins! Answer your nana right now! Yes, Nana! Clean-ish underwear, Nana. Very good. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend? Nana Will this is Bill. Bill this is Nana Will. Leslie, Nana Will. Nana Will, Leslie. Hello, Nana Will. Hello, Nana Will. Can I get on now? Yes, of course dear. Who’s stopping you? OK. Let’s get going and don’t forget you can play along at home too. Our first round is a straight-up questions round. What are the three most commonly used verbs in reported speech grammar? Say, tell and ask. Correct! Tell me one verb pattern for say, tell and ask. Say something to someone. Tell someone something. Ask someone if or whether or question word. Correct! Final question in this round. Give me an example of say and tell. No. I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind, dearie. I remember when you were just a little sprite, and we went to the zoo, and we saw an ostrich for the first time. And do you know what he said? He said it was a big chicken! He told me it was a big chicken! Nana! Really? Just answering the question, pumpkin. Leslie? Well done! Reported speech is used to inform the listener what was said by someone on a different occasion. The three most common reported speech verbs are say, tell and ask. Say is commonly used without a personal pronoun - Will said it was a big chicken - while tell must be followed by one. Will told Nana Will it was a big chicken. Finally, ask is used in reported questions. Ask can be followed by a pronoun and then if or whether for a yes/no question, or a question word for a question word question. Good work, Bill. Have Fifteen points for you. And, er, twenty points for Nana Will. On to round two. Answer this. What usually happens when to the tense of a sentence when it changes from direct speech to reported speech? It usually gets rolled back one tense! Correct! Well done. Let’s have a practice, shall we? I’ll tell you the sentence, and you give me the reported speech version. Ready? I love my Nana. He said he loved his Nana. Correct! Who’s been playing with my question cards? It’s a mystery dear. Keep reading. I wanted to be an elephant when I was a child. He told me he had wanted to be an elephant when he was a child. Correct! I will always listen to Nana Will. He said he would always listen to Nana Will. Correct! Well, answer this one then! One of those sentences does not need to have its tense changed in reported speech. Which one is it, and why? It’s the first one. He said he loves his Nana. This is because the situation hasn’t changed from when it was said. It is still true. Correct! Now, don’t test me young man, or I’ll give you a smack on the botty bot-bot. Leslie! That’s absolutely right. When changing speech from direct to reported, remember that the tense of the direct speech should be rolled back one step towards the past. For example, present becomes past, and past becomes past perfect. However, there are one or two exceptions. Firstly, some tenses and verb types don’t change, such as the past perfect, and verbs like would and could. Secondly, if something which was said is still true at the time of reporting, no tense change is necessary. This is also true if the reporting verb say or tell is in the present tense. Well done, you get 11.2 poi… Oh, Will! Before I forget, I brought you some milk. Nana Will! You’re not supposed to come ou… Drink up, dear! Nana knows best! Well done! Let’s move on to our final round. Along with these tense changes… Oh, she’s gone to sleep! OK, everyone let’s…right. Along with these tense changes, certain subjective words must also change when converted to reported speech. Have a look at these sentences, and tell me which words need to change. He said “I’m here now.” Yes, Bill? He said he was there then. Cor… Correct! I said “I got this last Tuesday.” Yes, Bill? You said you had got that the Tuesday before. Cor… Correct!! They said “We’ll be there next year.” Yes, Bill? They said they would be there the year after. Correct! Leslie? Great stuff! In speech, certain words such as pronouns, place and time words will be relative to that context. Later, when these are transferred into reported speech, they may need to change, so be careful! And that brings us to the end of today’s Grammar Gameshow. Let’s count out the points… And the winner is… Bill! Yay! Woo! Well done! Here’s what you won! Young man. Blood is thicker than water. I’ve combed your hair. I’ve taken you to school. I’ve even changed your nappy. So, don’t tell me I lost. Nana! You’re awake. How wonderful. And the winner is Nana! Well done! Here’s what she’s won! It’s a nice cup of tea! We’ll see you again next week, where you can play for another prize. And Bill… sorry old pal. I can’t play anymore. Nana’s orders. Whoops! I must have pushed the wrong button! Unleash the ravages of time. Will! Did you just… to your Nana! Oh, don’t worry. She’s tough as old boots, that one. She’ll be fine. It’s the animals that I feel sorry for. It looks like we’ll need another contestant. Thanks for joining us. Say goodbye, Leslie. Nagaatti, Leslie See you next time.

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Grammar | Reported Speech

by Danny Ballan | Apr 27, 2021 | Grammar

Episode 345

Audio Episode

What is this episode about.

Learn the basics of reported speech in this new Grammar episode from English Plus Podcast.

Support on Patreon

I am using an automatic transcript service as it is not possible for me to do it on my own and I cannot afford human transcription at the moment. The service claims to have about 95% accuracy, which means there will still be some mistakes, so my apologies for having a less than perfect transcript, but I hope I can afford human transcription soon and I will solve this problem. However, the service is pretty good, and the transcript is almost perfect.

Welcome to a new episode from English plus podcast. Today’s episode is about grammar and we will talk about reported speech. We will talk about the basics of reported speech so that you can use it in your own conversations. And now, without further ado, let’s start talking about audit speech in this new grammar episode from English plus podcast.

[00:00:28] Now, let’s say that you sold Paul yesterday and you want to tell somebody what he said. There are two ways of doing this. You can repeat Paul’s words. And that is what we call direct speech. For example, we say, Paul said, and then you have quotation marks and say, I’m feeling ill, or you can use reported speech.

[00:00:47] You can say Paul said that he was feeling ill. Now the great benefit of using reported speech is that when you are not writing. It’s easier for the listener to understand, because when you’re writing the quotation marks, we’ll explain everything. The reader will understand that this is exactly what Paul said.

[00:01:06] These are the exact words of Paul. But what if you’re talking, if you’re talking and say, Paul said, I’m feeling ill. Who are you talking about? I can see the quotation marks it’s speech, right. And here. What does that mean? Does that mean, Paul said that I am ill or that he is ill. So reported speed solves a lot of problems in speaking and saves you from a lot of confusion.

[00:01:31] So that’s why it is important to learn about reported speech. So let’s get started when we use reported speech. The main verb of the sentence is usually passed. For example, we say, Paul said that instead of Paul says that. I told her that instead of I tell her that, for example, we can say both said that he was feeling ill.

[00:01:55] I told Lisa that I didn’t have enough money. Now you can leave out that if you don’t want to use it, you can say bull said that he was feeling ill, or Paul said he was feeling ill. Both are fine. You don’t need that, but you can use it if you want. In general, the present in direct speech changes to the past in reported speech.

[00:02:18] So M is, becomes, was R becomes, were, do, or does becomes, did have, or has, becomes, had, will, would, can, would you get the picture? And for other verbs, obviously we can use the past simple, like want like, no, you can say wanted like new, et cetera. Now we will compare direct and reported speech and we can see how we can transform the verbs to be used correctly in reported speech.

[00:02:44] Now, let’s say that you met Ana and here are some of the things she said in direct speech, indirect speech. She said I’ve lost my phone. So here, if you want the report that you can say, Ana said that she had lost her phone. So here you can notice that it’s not only the verb that turned to the past. We changed the pronoun as well.

[00:03:06] Now here to make it clear, obviously we don’t keep aye. It’s Anna. So we should say she, Anna said that she had lost her phone and yes, she said I have lost my phone, but because in report his speech, we usually use the past form of present verbs. So we bought the past here and Ana said that she had lost her phone.

[00:03:29] Let’s take a look at some other examples, not in direct speech. She said, I want to buy a car. And here in reported speech, we can say, she said that she wanted to buy a car. She said in direct speech, I can’t come to the party on Friday and reported speech. She said that she couldn’t come to the party on Friday.

[00:03:52] Kent becomes couldn’t in direct speech. He said, I don’t have much free time. Now here in reported speech, we can say, she said that she didn’t have much free time in direct speech. Ana said, my parents are fine now in reported speech. She said that her parents were fine. Now, here, you can see why it is important to use reported speech in speaking, because what if we use direct speech with this one?

[00:04:19] And we go for something, like she said that my parents are fine. Or even if we say my parents were fine. Now here, the listener will assume that Anna is talking about my parents, not about her parents. So you see if there is no writing. If there is nothing you can read and see those quotation marks, it’s going to be confusing.

[00:04:41] So report’s speech is much better. Now let’s take a look at one last example. What Ana said in direct speech. She said, I’m going away for a few days. I’ll phone you when I get back. So here, if we want to make that reported speech, we can say, she said that she was going away for a few days and would phone me when she got back.

[00:05:04] So everything turned into the past. I am going became, she was going. I will phone you became, would phone me and I get back became I got back now. That’s okay about the present. If the person in direct speech uses the present, but what if the person uses past in direct speech? The past simple did saw a new et cetera can stay the same in reported speech, or you can change it to the past.

[00:05:32] Perfect. Had done had seen, had known both are fine. Now, for example, in direct speech, Paul said, I woke up feeling ill, so I didn’t go to work. Now you have two ways to report that you can keep it in the past simple, and that’s fine. You can say Paul said that he woke up feeling ill, so he didn’t go to work.

[00:05:55] Or you can use the past. Perfect. You can say Paul said that he had woken up feeling ill, so he hadn’t gone to work. Both are fine, but remember another very important thing is to change the pronouns to make it work. So you just don’t use. I, because I refer to Paul when I want to report that I need to use he, because Paul is a heat, obviously.

[00:06:20] Now let’s talk more about other cases in reported speech. We do not always change the verb in reported speech. Yes. I said at the beginning that we usually change the verb and the present becomes past the past can become past perfect if you want, or you can keep it as past simple, but we do not always change the verb in reported speech.

[00:06:40] If the situation is still the same, it is not necessary to change the verb to the past. For example, In direct speech. Paul said, my job is boring. How hearing report is we can say, Paul said that his job is boring because it is still boring. It is still the same. We can do that. We can keep the verbiage present because the situation is still the same.

[00:07:04] Another example, Helen said, I want to go to Canada next year. The situation is still the same. It is still happening next year. So we can use it in reported without changing the verb to the past. And we can say Helen told me that she wants to go to Canada next year, instead of using wanted. And now saying that we’re just saying that we can keep the verb in the present, but you can change it to the past if you want.

[00:07:30] That’s not a mistake. You can still say, Paul said that his job was boring and the meaning is exactly like the first one. And Helen told me that she wanted to go to Canada next year. That’s fine. So here, if the situation is still the same, you can still change the verb to the past, but it’s not necessary.

[00:07:48] You can keep it in the present, but pay attention to this one. To this situation. If the situation has changed or finished, you need to use a past verb. It is necessary. Let me give you an example. Paul left the room suddenly. He said, I have to go. That’s direct speech. Now here, if I want to report that Paul left the room suddenly he said that he had to go here.

[00:08:12] We can’t use have, or obviously here has, because the situation has changed. Or finished. So in this case, when the situation has changed or finished, remember you can’t keep the verb in present. You have to, you need to use a past verb. Now you need to use the past in reported speech. When what was said is different from what is really true.

[00:08:38] And that is another situation where you can’t keep the verb in present. For example, you met Rachel a few days ago. She said, Have you heard, Joe is in hospital. Remember the situation here you met Rachel a few days ago. She said direct speech here. Have you heard Joe is in hospital now, later that day you meet Joe in the street.

[00:09:02] So obviously the situation is not true or maybe it’s not true anymore. Maybe he got out of the hospital. So here, Joe, this is a surprise. Rachel said you were in hospital. Now here, because Rachel said, Joe is in hospital and the situation is different from what is really true. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she didn’t know, or maybe she meant someone else or maybe he was actually in hospital, but he left.

[00:09:30] He got out. So here, because the situation is not true anymore. You can’t use the present. You have to use the past. Well here again, if you meet Joe like this, you can say, Joe, this is a surprise. Rachel said you were in hospital, not, you are in hospital. It’s clear that he isn’t he’s in front of you and you’re not in a hospital.

[00:09:50] Right? So now let’s move on and talk about something very important as well. When we talk about reported speed, and that is the two most common verbs that we use to report speech say and tell now, if you say who somebody is talking to you still, for example, Rachel told me that you were in hospital. Not Rachel said me, or you can say, for example, what did you tell the police?

[00:10:14] Not what did you say the police now, otherwise you say, you can say, for example, Rachel said that you were in hospital, not Rachel told that. Remember if you want to use still, you have to say who somebody is talking to tell somebody, tell me, tell the police, et cetera, but here say you can say, Rachel said that you were in hospital.

[00:10:37] Or what did you say? Not what did you tell and stop? You can say, what did you tell John? What did he tell Simon, et cetera. That’s fine. Now you can use say something to somebody that is close to the meaning of tell if you don’t want to use still, obviously you can use still for that, but you can use say something to somebody.

[00:10:55] For example, Anna said goodbye to me and left, not Anna said me goodbye. It doesn’t work this way. Or you can say, what did you say to the police? What did you say to the police? Or remember, you can still say, what did you tell the police now for imperative, we can use tell somebody to, or ask somebody to, for example, we have a direct example, like drink, plenty of water.

[00:11:20] The doctors said to me, That is indirect speech. We have quotation marks around drink, plenty of water. And then we have the doctor said to me, what if I want to report this? We can say, the doctor told me to drink plenty of water, because that is imperative. If you look at the direct speech here, it’s drink plenty of water that’s imperative or another example.

[00:11:42] Don’t work too hard. I said to Joe, You can say here in reported speech, I told Joe not to work too hard. Another example, can you help me please? Jackie said to me, that is a question or it’s not actually a question. It’s a request, but here, since it’s a request, it’s in the form of a question we can use asked me to help her.

[00:12:03] So we can say it in report speech. Jackie asked me to help her. Now you can also say somebody said not to do something or said to do something say is also used here. We can say, for example, poll said not to worry about him. The direct speech here is. Don’t worry about me. Well said, so here we can still use, say, and we say it like Paul said not to worry about him now here, before I finished, because that’s the last point of this episode.

[00:12:31] I want you to be careful when you want to use, tell someone to do something and tell someone not to do something now here, when you want to use that in negative. Put not before too. Don’t say tell someone to not drink. Okay. We don’t say the doctor told me to not drink. It doesn’t work this way. The negative form of that is the doctor told me not to drink, not comes before too.

[00:12:54] Now that being said, that’ll be everything I wanted to share with you about the report speech. I hope now you have a better understanding of report his speech, and most importantly, why it is important to learn how to form reported speech, because it will save you a lot of confusion, especially in speaking and the listeners will understand, or the people you are talking to will understand you a lot better.

[00:13:17] Now with that being said, let me remind you that you can find a lot of extra activities. The transcript of the episode on our website, English plus podcast.com. There’s a link in the description of the episode, take the link and take your English with it to the next level. And there’s also another link that will take you to our Patreon page.

[00:13:32] Go to our Patreon page, support English plus, and get our exclusive mini series. The first mini series we released was business English marketing, an eight episode mini series with a booklet you can use to practice the things you’re learning in the mini series. With that being said, I would like to thank you very much for listening to another episode from English plus podcast.

[00:13:52] This is your host, Danny. I will see you next time.

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Unit 1: The Grammar Gameshow Test your grammar knowledge

Select a unit

  • 1 The Grammar Gameshow

Welcome to the Grammar Gameshow! Test your knowledge in this crazy quiz! The presenter is a bit strange, the points don't make sense and the prizes could use some improvement, but at least the grammar is correct!

በዚህ ክፍል ያሉ ክፍለ ጊዜያት

ክፍለጊዜያት 26 ነጥብ።.

  • 0 / 3 Activity 1

Episode 25: Reported Speech

So Bill passes his first test! That was lucky! He'll need more than luck this time round, though! This week our contestants answer questions on reported speech grammar! That he-said, she-said construction so useful for gossip, rumour, hearsay and conjecture! Will's in for a bit of an unexpected surprise when a family member turns up. Is this the end of the show for Will? Will Bill manage to pass this round? Why is that contestant carrying a glass of milk? Find out in this episode of the Grammar Gameshow!

Watch the video and then test yourself below with our quiz

reported speech the grammar gameshow episode 25

Will Hello, and welcome to today’s Grammar Gameshow! I’m your host, Will! And If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. You know, I can’t stand bad grammar. And of course, let’s not forget Leslie, our all-knowing voice in the sky.

Leslie Hello, everyone!

Will Tonight, we’re going to ask you three questions about…

Leslie Reported speech! That he-said,she-said grammar that’s useful for gossip, rumour, hearsay and conjecture!

Will OK! Now, let’s meet our contestants!

Bill Hello, all. My name is Bill!

Will And contestant number two?

Nana Will Hello, schnookums! I’m Nana Will!

Will Nana Will! What are you doing here? I haven’t seen you since… but that was such a long t…

Nana Will I came to see how you’re getting on, poppet. Your mum tells me you’re doing so well. Are you wearing clean underwear?

Will Nana! Not cool!

Nana Will Willikins! Answer your nana right now!

Will Yes, Nana! Clean-ish underwear, Nana.

Nana Will Very good. Aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?

Will Nana Will this is Bill. Bill this is Nana Will. Leslie, Nana Will. Nana Will, Leslie.

Bill Hello, Nana Will.

Leslie Hello, Nana Will. Will Can I get on now?

Nana Will Yes, of course dear. Who’s stopping you?

Will OK. Let’s get going and don’t forget you can play along at home too. Our first round is a straight-up questions round. What are the three most commonly used verbs in reported speech grammar?

Bill Say, tell and ask.

Leslie Correct!

Will Tell me one verb pattern for say, tell and ask.

Bill Say something to someone. Tell someone something. Ask someone if or whether or question word.

Will Final question in this round. Give me an example of say and tell.

Nana Will No. I’ll take this one, if you don’t mind, dearie. I remember when you were just a little sprite, and we went to the zoo, and we saw an ostrich for the first time. And do you know what he said? He said it was a big chicken! He told me it was a big chicken!

Will Nana! Really?

Nana Will Just answering the question, pumpkin.

Will Leslie?

Leslie Well done! Reported speech is used to inform the listener what was said by someone on a different occasion. The three most common reported speech verbs are say, tell and ask. Say is commonly used without a personal pronoun - Will said it was a big chicken - while tell must be followed by one. Will told Nana Will it was a big chicken. Finally, ask is used in reported questions. Ask can be followed by a pronoun and then if or whether for a yes/no question, or a question word for a question word question.

Will Good work, Bill. Have Fifteen points for you. And, er, twenty points for Nana Will. On to round two. Answer this. What usually happens when to the tense of a sentence when it changes from direct speech to reported speech?

Bill It usually gets rolled back one tense!

Will Well done. Let’s have a practice, shall we? I’ll tell you the sentence, and you give me the reported speech version. Ready? I love my Nana.

Nana Will He said he loved his Nana.

Will Who’s been playing with my question cards?

Nana Will It’s a mystery dear. Keep reading.

Will I wanted to be an elephant when I was a child.

Nana Will He told me he had wanted to be an elephant when he was a child.

Will I will always listen to Nana Will.

Nana Will He said he would always listen to Nana Will.

Will Well, answer this one then! One of those sentences does not need to have its tense changed in reported speech. Which one is it, and why?

Nana Will It’s the first one. He said he loves his Nana. This is because the situation hasn’t changed from when it was said. It is still true.

Nana Will Now, don’t test me young man, or I’ll give you a smack on the botty bot-bot.

Will Leslie!

Leslie That’s absolutely right. When changing speech from direct to reported, remember that the tense of the direct speech should be rolled back one step towards the past. For example, present becomes past, and past becomes past perfect. However, there are one or two exceptions. Firstly, some tenses and verb types don’t change, such as the past perfect, and verbs like would and could. Secondly, if something which was said is still true at the time of reporting, no tense change is necessary. This is also true if the reporting verb say or tell is in the present tense.

Will Well done, you get 11.2 poi… Nana Will Oh, Will! Before I forget, I brought you some milk.

Will Nana Will! You’re not supposed to come ou…

Nana Will Drink up, dear! Nana knows best! Well done!

Will Let’s move on to our final round. Along with these tense changes… Oh, she’s gone to sleep! OK, everyone let’s…right.  Along with these tense changes, certain subjective words must also change when converted to reported speech. Have a look at these sentences, and tell me which words need to change. He said “I’m here now.” Yes, Bill?

Bill He said he was there then.

Leslie Cor… Correct!

Will I said “I got this last Tuesday.” Yes, Bill?

Bill You said you had got that the Tuesday before.

Will They said “We’ll be there next year.” Yes, Bill?

Bill They said they would be there the year after.

Leslie Great stuff! In speech, certain words such as pronouns, place and time words will be relative to that context. Later, when these are transferred into reported speech, they may need to change, so be careful!

Will And that brings us to the end of today’s Grammar Gameshow. Let’s count out the points… And the winner is… Bill!  Yay! Woo! Well done! Here’s what you won!

Nana Will Young man. Blood is thicker than water. I’ve combed your hair. I’ve taken you to school. I’ve even changed your nappy. So, don’t tell me I lost.

Will Nana! You’re awake. How wonderful. And the winner is Nana! Well done! Here’s what she’s won!

Leslie It’s a nice cup of tea!

Will We’ll see you again next week, where you can play for another prize. And Bill... sorry old pal. I can't play anymore. Nana’s orders. Whoops! I must have pushed the wrong button! Unleash the ravages of time.

Bill Will! Did you just… to your Nana!

Will Oh, don’t worry. She’s tough as old boots, that one. She’ll be fine. It’s the animals that I feel sorry for. It looks like we’ll need another contestant. Thanks for joining us. Say goodbye, Leslie.

Leslie Nagaatti, Leslie

Will See you next time.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Did you like that why not try these,    .

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Reported Speech

Use Reported speech is used to tell a listener in the present what a person has said in another time and place, most likely in the past. Reported speech verbs The three most commonly used reported speech verbs are say, tell, and ask. Each verb has its own verb pattern. Say and tell can be followed by 'that' to introduce the reported speech clause. Say Say is usually not followed by a pronoun. We can say something or we can say something to someone. We can use that or not. I said I didn't want to go to the party. He said that he didn't want to go to the party. They said that they didn't want to go to the party to me . Tell Tell must be followed by a pronoun. We tell someone something. We can use that or not. I told you that I didn't want to go to the party. She told him she didn't want to go to the party. Ask Ask is used to make reported questions. If the direct question is a yes/no question, we use if or whether in the reported question. If the direct question is a question word question, we repeat the question word in the reported question. We can ask someone something, or we can ask something. Do not use a question mark in a reported question. You asked if I wanted to go to the party. They asked me whether I wanted to go to the party. We asked what time the party started. She asked him what time the party started.

Tense change When changing sentences from direct speech to reported speech we roll back the tense of the direct speech one step. This means that direct sentences which are in a present tense become past tense and past direct speech becomes past perfect. There are some exceptions. Direct speech which is already in the past perfect does not rollback, nor does direct speech using some verbs, such as would or could. Tense changes may not occur with speech which is still true - please see the next section. "The train arrives at 6pm" He said the train arrived at 6pm. "It has been a lovely evening" They said it had been a lovely evening. "I left very quickly" He said he had left very quickly. "We will go " They said they would go . No tense change - still true When something which has been said in direct speech is still true, it is not necessary to rollback the tense in reported speech. In these cases, two sentences are often possible. In addition, if the reporting verb itself is in the present tense, no tense rollback is necessary. "I love you" He said he loved me. He said he loves me. He says he loves me. Context Certain words that relate to person, time and place in direct speech will need to change in reported speech. This is because the context has changed.  "I will see you here tomorrow" She said she would see us there the day after . "Did you put the cups here yesterday?" He asked if I had put the cups there the day before .

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What If a Candidate Dies? Your 2024 Election Questions, Answered.

Tackling the big unknowns — and what we do, mostly, know — with “The Run-Up” podcast.

  • Share full article

A large group of people seen from behind, with one person holding up an American flag.

By Frannie Carr Toth

Featuring Astead W. Herndon ,  Reid J. Epstein ,  Maggie Haberman ,  Nate Cohn and Alan Feuer

There’s the one big question when it comes to 2024: Which presidential candidate is going to win in November?

Then there are lots and lots of other related questions.

“ The Run-Up ,” a weekly politics podcast from The Times, is trying to answer as many listener questions as we can — on the show, which you can subscribe to wherever you get your podcasts. And here .

What else do you want to know? Email and ask us, ideally in the form of a voice memo, at [email protected] . We’ll keep updating this post periodically.

What if something happens to Biden or Trump that disqualifies them? Like, I know this is morbid, but what if one of them dies?

Let’s start with President Biden and the Democrats.

We asked our colleague Reid Epstein , who is covering Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, for insight into how the president and the Democratic Party are thinking about this question:

There is no Plan B. Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee unless one of two things happens. Either he suffers a major health calamity between now and November, or Mr. Biden himself decides that he’s not going to run.

On the first point, you know, we all hope that the president remains in good health. He seems to be. He rides his bike. He rides the Peloton. He is a very healthy 81-year-old man.

There’s also no reason to believe that he’s going to wake up one day and decide this is not for him. Like, the man has wanted to be president of the United States for most of his adult life. He first started seriously considering running for president in 1984. He ran for president three times. He has already raised more than $200 million in this campaign for re-election. There’s no reason to think that he is going to change his mind.

The Run-Up Poster

Your Biggest 2024 Election Questions, Answered

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[PHONE RINGING]

This is Amy.

Hi. Thank you so much for picking up and for, more importantly, sending in a question to us. Can you first just tell me the question that you sent in to the show?

Yeah, so the thing I wanted to know, given the age of the presumed candidates, what does happen if one or both of these candidates dies before the election? I know that sounds harsh, but statistically speaking, it’s possible. And then what?

I guess, like, when did this question get on your radar? I know that’s a weird way to ask.

Oh, that’s a good question. I think because probably, like a lot of other people, this sounds weird, but just looking for a way out of this. And obviously by no unnatural ending, I don’t want that to happen to anyone. But I just thought is there any circumstance where it’s just not Trump-Biden again? Just what is every possibility of what could happen to set this up any differently whatsoever?

Amy is not alone. For the past few months, we’ve been asking our listeners to send in questions. And as November gets closer, there’s an increasing sense of desperation reflected in these questions. You’re asking about third party candidates, health emergencies, criminal convictions, death, things that could alter the inevitable rematch.

It kind of feels like, as a country, we all fell asleep on the train, and now the conductor is announcing that you have to get off at the last stop, that you have no other choice but this one. And you have this moment of panic. You’re like, this is it? This is my only option?

So today, we take on your two biggest 2024 questions. What if something happens to Biden or Trump? And is anyone else coming? From “The New York Times,” I’m Astead Herndon. This is “The Run Up.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Yo, what’s up?

You’re wearing a tie?

Just for you.

Do I need to go change?

No, I did CNN this morning. To start, we turned to some highly qualified friends.

My name is Reed Epstein, and I cover Joe Biden’s re-election campaign and the broader Democratic universe for “The New York Times.”

In the time since Amy sent in her question, the age issue had only gotten more real. Scrutiny of President Biden’s age intensified after a recent special counsel report described him as quote, “An elderly man with a poor memory.” I wondered how, in your work reporting on the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party, how did that report land in Biden world, and what’s the campaign’s response been?

It landed like a ton of bricks. Think of like the old “Far Side” cartoons where an anvil would drop from a tree on somebody, and it was kind of like that.

I’m glad I got that. I was worried where that would go.

They were furious at the inclusion of the broadsides against the president’s memory, which they universally felt were out of bounds from his assignment to determine whether charges should be brought against the president on the documents retention issue. And they were also mad at the coverage of the special counsel’s report. We saw in the immediate aftermath, the campaign blasted reporters with the number of stories written about Biden’s age compared to stories about Donald Trump.

They were clearly taking this as a license to go to war, not just with the Attorney General’s office, which they did, but also the media for covering what the special counsel said.

As this kind of news cycle on age was developing, I totally see how the Biden campaign can make this argument. They made those arguments to us directly when we went to Wilmington, kind of saying that the concerns about Joe Biden’s age were overblown in a kind of insidery conversation I remember them framing it at the time, rather than the ways that people are actually going to experience the election. But like there are voters who are concerned, like the caller who sent in this question. What is the campaign doing about the legitimate voter issue regarding age looking ahead to the summer and the fall?

Well, I think you’re right. Do not have to ask voters about Joe Biden’s age. I ask a lot of open ended questions to people I talk to. And it usually starts with, what do you think of Joe Biden? And inevitably, as you have heard, too —

They say he’s old.

The answer is he’s so old I can’t believe he’s running again. I mean, I will tell you this. I was on vacation last year in Morocco, and we were in a car being led by a tour guide to the Sahara desert. And in that place, the guy asked — we were talking about — he was asking us what we do for a living.

And I told him I’m a reporter, and he said, “Of all the people in America, is there no one younger than 80 years old who can run for president?

And so this is truly a global concern that people have about him. And so I don’t believe that the media is overplaying the issue and concern that voters have with Joe Biden’s age. I do think that — and we do know that the campaign is trying to reframe the age question every day into a choice question between a return to Trump or Joe Biden and not a referendum on Joe Biden. In part, because we have seen in polling for years at this point, that a referendum on Joe Biden alone, the president would almost certainly lose.

And so part of that is them pushing stories about Trump being old, too. And when Trump said that Nikki Haley was in charge of security on January 6 when he met Nancy Pelosi, like they pushed that on their social media platforms. And they pushed that out to reporters, and they tried to make that into a news cycle about Trump’s forgetfulness and his predilection for getting things wrong while speaking to rallies.

And they’re right that he does do that, and he’s 77 years old. He’s gotten a lot of things wrong as well, but the fact of the matter is voters receive Trump and Biden differently when it comes to their age and their acuity. And while Trump is also slipping, quite publicly, that has not baked in for voters in the same way that it has been for Biden.

I mean, but that description of what you’re saying the campaign’s plan is, which is to reframe the age question into a choice question, it doesn’t actually go at the heart of what voters think about the president, right? Like is there any plans to put him out there more? Is there any plans to have him talk?

I was with someone yesterday who says that he should call his economic plan like grandpa economics and kind of embrace the older person kind of mantra. I guess I’m wondering, is there any plans to legitimately reframe him on his age rather than just say Donald Trump is also old?

I mean, they’ve gotten a lot of advice along the grandpa economics lines. I’ve talked with advisors to the campaign, donors to the campaign, other Democratic elected officials, and many of them have offered unsolicited advice, both directly to the campaign and through the press to the campaign, about how the president should lean into his age as a way to answer that question. They have not done that, in part because the president doesn’t want to.

Like he doesn’t want the age to be an issue. And so they haven’t done it aside from he will make jokes about when he was with the founding fathers. But they don’t engage in a serious way, the way that some of their allies would like them to. And that has led to the scenario that we’ve been talking about where voters are concerned about his age and acuity, and they don’t do a whole lot to answer those questions.

I want to really focus on the heart of the question Amy asked us, though. Does the Democratic Party have a plan if, for whatever reason, Biden became unable to run? Does a Plan B exist somewhere in some secret lock vault?

So there is no Plan B. It is — Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee unless one of two things happens. Either there is a major health calamity that he suffers between now and November, or Joe Biden himself decides that he’s not going to run. And for the first thing, we all hope that the president remains in good health. He appears to be in good health.

Yeah, there’s no wish — we’re not wishcasting.

There’s no reason to believe that his health is deteriorating. He seems to be — he rides his bike. He rides the Peloton. He is a very healthy 81-year-old man. There’s also no reason to believe that he’s going to wake up one day and decide this is not for him. Like, the man has wanted to be president of the United States for most of his adult life.

He first started seriously considering running for president in 1984. He ran for president three times. He has raised already more than $200 million in this campaign for re-election. There’s no reason to think that he is going to change his mind.

Let’s slow this down, though. The only two things that could derail what seems like the inevitable path of Joe Biden becoming the Democratic nominee would be a major health scare that would cause him to be unable to run.

Yeah, that’s right. This would be a really serious, calamitous health episode.

I mean, Bernie Sanders had a heart attack in the 2020 election and took a couple of weeks off the trail, if I remember correctly. Of course, there was the situation with Senator John Fetterman as he was running, but you’re saying it would have to be something that would completely shift his ability to go out on the campaign trail or do his duties as president.

It would have to be worse than those episodes, I would think.

The other option is for him to decide independently that he would not want to run anymore. Let’s say Joe Biden were to say, in two months, I want to step down. What would even be the process? Like what would even have to happen? Would it automatically go to the vice president? Like, I actually don’t know what would happen.

So I had to make some calls on this.

Nice, thank you for doing that.

When you all told me that I had to answer this question, I didn’t know, either. So there’s two different scenarios, and it depends on when either a decision would be made or an episode happened. If it was before the Democratic Convention in August, the delegates to the convention would choose both the president and the vice president if there was a vacancy. It would be a free-for-all at the convention. And based on what we know generally of the makeup of who those delegates typically are, it would be hard to imagine a scenario where it didn’t go to Kamala Harris just because —

Those are party people. Those are people who —

Party people, the biggest caucus is women. The second biggest caucus is African-Americans, and those are two groups that are generally pretty loyal to the vice president. And also like in a scenario where Biden is not the nominee anymore and there is chaos at the convention, you have to wonder like what Democrats are going to step up and challenge the vice president in that scenario.

Further adding to the chaos.

Further adding to the chaos. She could be in some of these scenarios. She could be the president at that point, and then you’d be challenging a sitting president and not the vice president. That’s a very steep political lift for anybody in that type of chaotic environment.

The second scenario is something happens with Biden after the convention. There’s no precedent for this. But the Democratic National Committee chair, who is Jaime Harrison, would confer with the Democratic leadership in Congress and the leadership of the Democratic Governors Association.

And that group would then basically be authorized to fill vacancies on the national ticket with some conferring with the broader DNC membership, which is about 440-some people.

And again, this is a scenario where it would be like virtually impossible for them to pick anybody but the vice president to fill that spot based on what we know of those groups.

One, I so appreciate you doing this kind of reporting because I have not thought about these scenarios. But there’s a couple things that jump out to me. In both of those situations, either before the convention or after, this becomes an elite process. The leadership of the Democratic Party, whether at the DNC or at the Congressional level or the gubernatorial level, would essentially get the power to choose who replaces Biden. Correct?

That’s right. That’s the way it would work.

And importantly, because of that, because of the who the people are who would then be making the selection and their investment in the top levels of the Democratic Party, it becomes very difficult to see this becoming a situation that would lead to someone outside of the vice president.

It just is a very difficult scenario to figure out how it would be anybody else, assuming that she wants it, which there’s no reason to believe that she wouldn’t want it. You talk to Democrats, and people say, what about Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom or any of the people who ran for president in 2020? And it’s just it’s hard to fathom a scenario where anybody in that crew of Democrats could muster the sort of organization and fundraising, essentially on a moment’s notice, to compete in a serious way with the vice president.

Right. I mean, it’s interesting because on one hand, this is really expected. That is the reason the job of vice president exists. But at the same time, it’s super interesting to me that because of the unprecedented nature of this scenario, and because it would only come up in a moment of chaos — like inherently, if Joe Biden is not going to be the person on the ballot in November, or if something were to come up that were to trigger some of these scenarios, it would inherently be a chaotic moment for the party.

That it does seem as if the only answer to what happens after that is more chaos. Like it doesn’t seem — like even if they were to hand it over to the vice president, I can’t imagine that being a thing that happens really swimmingly. To answer Amy’s question of is there something that very neatly takes Joe Biden off of the path of being the Democratic nominee? The answer to me, from what you’re telling me, seems to be no. The only reason that can happen is mess.

If — yeah, if, I mean, an alien abduction, anything that took Joe Biden off the stage would be immensely chaotic and — for the political system and the American government in general. And it’s, frankly, a situation that we’ve never seen before. You have to go back to 1968 when Lyndon Johnson decided after the New Hampshire primary to get out, but that was much earlier.

It was later in the calendar than we are now, but it was much earlier in the process of nominating a president than what — where the Democrats are at this point. And everybody remembers that 1968 ended with riots at the Democratic party convention —

Also in Chicago.

And also in Chicago.

Where we’ll be this year.

And a victory for Richard Nixon in part because of chaos that was — sort of engulfed the Democratic Party in that cycle.

Thank you, Reid, for your time.

Thanks, Astead.

Are we still in here? Are we — when is Maggie [INAUDIBLE]?

Next up, someone to field our questions about Trump, who himself is 77 and is appearing to coast in the Republican primary after winning contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. He’s also favored in this weekend’s South Carolina Republican Primary, as he’s polling well ahead of Nikki Haley, the state’s former governor. Hey, Maggie. How are you?

Hi, Astead.

Naturally, I called Maggie Haberman. How’s it going?

This has been a crazy morning because of these hearings.

Yeah, I’m sure.

Hang on, let me just — all right, we’re good.

We just talked to Reid Epstein, our colleague, about Biden’s age and if there was anything that could happen that can kind of change the course of his kind of path to the nomination in November. And he said there was two things. One is a big enough health event, and two would be something that would cause him to wake up one morning and decide that he doesn’t want to run anymore. But both are very unlikely scenarios.

Now, we know that Donald Trump is also of advanced age. I guess I wanted to pose the same question to you. Is there anything that comes up in the kind of Plan B category that could mean that Donald Trump wasn’t the Republican nominee or that the campaign wouldn’t kind of continue its inevitable march to the conventions in November?

It’s a really good question. So, Astead, thinking about what Reid said about does Biden wake up one day and decide not to go forward? The chances of that happening for Donald Trump are close to zero, if not greater than zero, less — whatever negative integer you want to use. The campaign is so intertwined with his fight for staying out of jail, given that he has been indicted four times and is now facing a certain trial starting at the end of March in Manhattan.

So that comes off the table. In terms of whether there would be a health event, that’s not an impossible thought. He is somebody who, when he was president, we know from the White House doctors he had a form of heart disease. It’s unlikely that that has changed dramatically in a positive direction. We don’t know what his health is like now, but I do know that at the end of 2022, when they were looking ahead to a campaign that he was about to run, there was private discussion about not holding too many events in part because he’s old.

And they didn’t want to cause him damage by running him into the ground. And I do think that that’s part of why we have seen less of him. I think there’s other reasons, too, like it saves them money not putting on events and so forth. But his age is a factor. That having been said, it would have to be a catastrophic event to keep him from running. If it was something mild or something light, I think he would try to push forward, and I’m not sure we would even know it was happening.

Well, let’s try to separate these two things. The first thing you said is that because of the kind of legal questions swirling around him and the fact that his political campaign is, frankly, his response for those things, that that kind of decreases the likelihood that he would ever kind of voluntarily step out of the race. We’re talking to you on the day when those things are jumping off.

As you said, there was just a trial set for his criminal case in New York. I guess I wanted to just underscore that. Part of the reason you’re saying that there is — not — there is very little likelihood, next to zero, that Trump would voluntarily step out of the race, is because he needs the campaign as an answer to his legal troubles.

Correct, and as an answer to his legal troubles both in terms of a shield during the cases. Remember, he has claimed presidential immunity, although that’s been struck down by an appeals court and is likely to go to the Supreme Court now In the January 6 federal trial. But in Manhattan where he’s facing trial at the end of March, and this is related to hush money payments to a porn star in 2016 and in Georgia where it’s related to his efforts to subvert the transfer of power that he’s been charged, he is claiming pieces related either to his duties in office.

In Georgia or in Manhattan, this is being done to distract from my successful Republican presidential primary campaign. And I shouldn’t have to face this trial because we’re in the middle of campaign season and so forth and so on. So the presidential campaign has become a set piece.

Got it. Yeah, and so that makes a lot of sense. The second part you’re talking about, regarding his age, I do think it’s a kind of underrated point, the point about heart disease that you made, we learned when he was in office. And that just as we had spent a lot of talk about Biden’s kind of visible decline, there has been more instances of Donald Trump. I think about him confusing Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi in reference to who was running January 6 security.

I mean, when you think about the question of Trump’s age, how do you think that is going to be a factor on the campaign’s mind heading into November? Reid used the term that the things that would trouble the Biden campaign is a health calamity. When you think about the Trump campaign, is it that similar standard when we think about what could cause them to kind of alter their direction?

Yeah, it is. I mean, I think that what you’re talking about specifically — that Nikki Haley, Nancy Pelosi moment — that was really, really pronounced. And so pronounced that Trump felt the need to try to clear it up at a rally in South Carolina this week. When he’s trying to rewrite the history of it and insist he really did it on purpose — which he clearly did not if you watch the tape — then you can see that he knows this is a problem, and that this is sinking in.

But I do think it’s the same issue if — it would have to be something significant. And I would put it, actually, even in a separate category, which is a little different than Biden, because we don’t see an incumbent president or at least this incumbent president as often as you might see a challenger because challengers need to be out on the road more. Presidents are protected by the armor of the office —

Doing the job.

And doing the job and don’t have to be seen as much and always seem to be busy, even if we don’t have visibility into that. In Trump’s case, I think it would have to be something that literally could not be hidden. It would have to be an extended hospital stay, or it would have to be something that happens on stage or in front of a crowd.

That’s interesting. I mean, you’re kind of pointing to if they could keep it away from the public, they would if something were to happen under that kind of public standard.

Correct, and what I’m basing that on, Astead, is it’s not like we have no predicate for that with Trump. He was really, really sick with COVID, and they were, to put it mildly, less than candid about what was going on with his health. So I have no reason to believe it would be different this time.

Yeah, I guess I wanted to ask you also about some things that came up in our conversation with one of our listeners. Does the Republican Party have a Plan B if it were not to be Trump, or if something were to happen? We asked this question also of Reid and Democrats.

It’s a good question, but I mean, I would — I don’t know what Reid’s answer was. But I would imagine it’s similar, which is there they. There is no party absent Trump. Trump is literally in the process of ousting his own hand-picked Republican Party chair to try to get another one who he thinks will focus more on his false claims of widespread election fraud.

So there is no they. The process works this way. If something happens ahead of the convention, there would have to be a change in the rules. And it would have to be that the delegates process changes because Trump is the person leading delegates right now. And Nikki Haley wouldn’t necessarily get those by default just because she’s the person still actively campaigning. I think you would see a lot of other candidates who have suspended their candidacies suddenly start campaigning again, and then it would get decided at the convention.

Just because Nikki Haley is currently the other candidate still actively running would not inherently mean that if something were to happen to Trump, Nikki Haley becomes the nominee.

Correct. That is not how this works. If something were to happen after the convention, then the 168 members of the Republican National Committee would have to meet again and decide on what happens. And even then, Astead, it gets murky because depending on when something would happen, you could end up in a situation where it’s a write-in campaign in a lot of states because a lot of states will have printed their ballots already.

That would already say Donald Trump.

Correct, and so it just gets — it gets hairy.

So if something were to happen before the convention, then the delegates who formally nominate the party’s nominee would have to — there would have to be some rule change that allows for them to back somebody else, but that doesn’t inherently mean Nikki Haley. It could mean other people try to woo them, including the people who have previously dropped out of the race.

If something were to happen after the convention, then the insiders of the Republican Party or the 168 members of the RNC would then have to select someone. But to your point, there’s not real clarity on any direction that would go. It sounds like either before convention or after, if something were to happen, it leads to enormous amounts of questions and somewhat inevitable chaos.

It is definitely going to be chaos. What level of chaos, we don’t know, but yes, it would be chaos.

So to sum it up, in answer to our listener Amy’s question of if there’s anything that takes us off of this road of Biden-Trump — we asked kind of specifically in relation to age, health, and the legal concerns. We asked Reid on the Democratic side, and his answer was extremely unlikely that anything would take us off this road. I want to pose the same question to you. What is the likelihood that this ends in November with someone other than Donald Trump at this point?

As a Republican?

Extremely unlikely, and can I add an asterisk to that?

It’s going to be a long asterisk. There is an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” where Larry David is at a table, and somebody spills on the table. And his mother-in-law sits still and doesn’t move and says somebody get a sponge. And Larry David says, why don’t you get a sponge?

And this sort of somebody get a sponge approach to Donald Trump, I mean, we hear this a lot about it won’t really be Donald Trump from including Republicans who don’t want to deal with him but also from Democrats who don’t want to deal with him anymore. And somebody get a sponge, somebody else take care of this has not been a solution. And so that extends to all manners of things that could happen to make him not the nominee.

It is extremely, extremely unlikely that he will not be the nominee. It’s not impossible. Anything can happen, as we’ve seen.

Yeah, no, I appreciate it I think about just talking to you and Reid back to back makes me think of just the interconnected nature of this like.

Like, I’m not sure if it wasn’t Donald Trump that we would have Joe Biden, and I’m not sure if it wasn’t Joe Biden that we would have Donald Trump on this side. But they both seem to at least politically need each other in this one.

I completely agree with you. And I think we’ve talked about this, but this race is going to feel a lot less like 2020, at least as it’s shaping up, than 2016, when it was two nominees with — who had — neither of whom had been president with high negatives. Now it’s a former president and an incumbent president, both with high negatives in an era where every president has bad approval ratings at this point because that’s just how voters are toward elected officials.

Voters have not given anybody high marks, but they’re giving these two people, especially low marks.

The national numbers are a unique situation. That is true.

Thank you, Maggie. We really appreciate your time, as always.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

One more question after the break.

Hey, Astead.

Hey, Anna. What’s up?

Nothing much, another beautiful day in the office.

Another beautiful day in the office.

So I’ve been producing this episode, the question and answer, listeners reaching out, and I actually ended up talking to a listener who had a question, this guy named Elly. Hello?

This is Anna from “The New York Times.”

Hi, this is Elly.

Hi, Elly. How are you doing?

I’m doing well.

And his question was kind of in line with the broad beam that we’ve been talking about. What could possibly happen that would rock us off the course that we’re barreling towards? So far we’ve talked about what’s happening within the parties, like what’s happening with these candidates — party infighting and bylaws and all that sort of thing. His question was more about outside forces that can make a difference in this race.

I wrote a question asking, basically, how voters and different people in more critical positions are thinking about third party candidates. There’s — I mean, primarily around RFK. I’m a big supporter of RFK.

Oh, you are.

Yeah. I’m a big supporter of RFK, have been since beginning of this summer.

Basically, Elly’s question was, what about all the people who aren’t Trump or Biden who are or might get in this race? Because he doesn’t see what he believes represented in either the Democratic or the Republican Party.

I, in general, have a philosophy of positive politics and not negative politics. I try to resist the urge of doomsday politicking, like you have to vote for this person or the world’s going to end because that just incentivizes negative politics. And I want to try to find candidates who I actually support for what they’re saying, even if I don’t support everything they’re saying.

So like, yeah, if RFK wasn’t in the race, I probably would have been supportive of maybe Cornel West. Maybe I would have looked for someone in the Green Party or Libertarian Party.

It’s very much a question in line with what we’ve been talking about this whole episode, right? People want to know is there anyone else coming? Could anybody spoil the match between Trump and Biden? Like how would all of that even play out?

And so when I was thinking about all of that, I realized that there’s actually quite a few candidates or people in this bucket of potential third party, potential independents, and it’s been a while since we’ve talked about them on the show. So what I was hoping to do to help this listener with his question is to do a lightning round update, basically where each of these candidates are and what challenges they face.

Yeah that sounds great. Am I the — I’m the lightning round answerer.

Yeah, I didn’t mean for this to feel like a pop quiz, but now I’m realizing it kind of feels like a pop quiz.

It definitely feels like a pop quiz.

I’m so sorry. Did you like pop quizzes? That’s a crazy question.

We both know I did not like pop quizzes. Now, you and me both know. I was a mid student. The representation Joe Biden gives is for the real C students of America, and so I didn’t like quizzes of any form, told before or pop.

And I got a little crafty with all of the candidates. And so I made something.

Oh my. Oh, this is a wheel.

A Wheel of Fortune wheel.

Yes, with all of the people that I could come up with. And so I figured we could spin it, and you could give an update.

This is so cute. I like this.

[WHEEL SPINNING]

Oh, that’s — oh, God. I’m sorry. This is so funny. It has little like —

Confetti. Cornel West.

Yeah, what’s up with him?

Well, Cornel West is a pretty famous Black Studies professor who has taught at the Harvards and the Yales.

We need you to be part and parcel of wrestling with this corporate duopoly, this two party system that impedes. It gets in the way of the unleashing of the kind of policies of abolishing poverty and homelessness, of dealing with working —

He announced a Green Party presidential run last year. But then after receiving some criticism, he got off of the Green Party ticket and is now trying to start his own party, which is called a Justice for All party. The problem is — and I think this is going to be an issue that comes up with several of these people — is when you’re not in one of the major parties, it’s a lot harder to get ballot access.

When you say ballot access, are you talking — you’re talking general, right?

Yeah, I’m talking about in November will their name appear as an option for people to vote for? So obviously, that’s step number one to actually have a tangible impact on the race. So Cornel West is in the position where I’m pretty sure he’s only kind of at this point focused on Florida. I think there’s an intent to focus on North Carolina, but for the purposes of like will this be a person who affects the November race, I would say at this point, that’s looking unlikely because of the real ballot challenges.

But as always with third party candidates, they can push issues to the top. They can push sentiments to the forefront that go beyond their importance of actual votes. So I do think Cornel West is someone who could highlight

Biden’s potential struggles with Black voters. He’s someone who can highlight, particularly the war in Gaza and the progressive kind of leftist group who is really upset with Biden. And I think that is a candidacy that threatens to stoke some of those concerns, but its Cornel West going to be on the ballot in all 50 states? It’s not looking likely.

Jill Stein.

Jill Stein. Well, this is helpful because Jill Stein has taken the place that Cornel West left on the Green Party.

Democrats have betrayed their promises for working people, youth, and the climate again and again while Republicans don’t even make such promises in the first place. And both parties are a danger to our democracy, expanding —

Unlike some of the other candidates we’re going to talk about, ballot access is not Stein’s biggest problem because she is the Green Party candidate. And so she has ballot access in several states because the party already has access. Jill Stein threatens to play the same role she played in 2016 when she was on the ballot at that time.

Now, remember, in that close election, there was a lot of talk about whether third party votes really pulled away from Hillary Clinton and helped spur the victory of Donald Trump. And while there’s some kind of evidence or data to that, I think that all of the one determining factors are overblown. It was a really close election in 2016. It was a really close election in 2020, and it threatens be a really close election in 2024.

So in that reality, all of these other impacts matter. And certainly the possibility that some people could follow a trend from 2016 and maybe back a Green Party candidate over one of the two nominees could be possible. And I think for Jill Stein specifically, there will be a fear that she will pull from Joe Biden. But I would say on the scale of potency relative to other candidates, I have not heard the Biden campaign or someone involved in Democratic politics be particularly concerned about Jill Stein this time around.

Well, this one’s easy.

Marianne Williamson.

Marianne Williamson has dropped out of the presidential race. I don’t know if that’s information that maybe has cut through, or if people even knew Marianne Williamson was running. But the candidate that went kind of viral in 2020 about being a kind of vibes-y chacras-y version of Democratic politics. She was running again last year as someone who was ostensibly trying to challenge Joe Biden in the Democratic nomination alongside Dean Phillips, the Congressman who’s also taken up that mantle.

But as we’ve reported, there is very little appetite in the Democratic party to have a competitive primary and specifically not so for the two candidates who are trying to mount that. And so Williamson formally dropped out a couple of weeks ago and suspended her campaign.

Yeah, so this is a kind of tricky one. RFK, Jr is by far the most prominent non Trump-Biden candidate who has entered the 2024 race. Now, remember, originally RFK, Jr was running as a Democrat. So like Marianne Williamson, like Dean Phillips, he was in the Democratic primary and trying to run against Joe Biden.

Several months ago, towards the end of last year, he dropped out of the Democratic race and announced that he would run as an independent. And that creates some possibility and some challenges. On the possibility side, as I was saying, running in the Democratic primary has not proved really successful for folks because you have to run in this kind of process that Joe Biden functionally controls through the DNC. And there hasn’t been real motivation from base Democrats to replace Joe Biden even if they express some satisfaction.

What there has been is real kind of polling data that says that people want an option outside of Biden and Trump. And that is now where RFK, Jr is trying to position himself. As people remember, his Super PAC paid a lot of money to have a Super Bowl ad that was a carbon copy of an iconic Kennedy ad that JFK ran in the 60s and kind of updated it to say you should think about someone who was not a Democrat or Republican — [MUSIC PLAYING]

(SINGING) A man who’s old enough to know —

(SINGING) And young enough to do.

— who’s younger than these other candidates and is kind of pitching himself as the free thinking person’s candidate. If you look at polling, RFK is in a different category than the Williamsons or the Dean Phillips or the Jill Steins or Cornel Wests. Because of his name recognition, you can see sometimes 10 percent, 15 percent of voters, even upwards of that, say they will be interested in that candidacy.

But I would also say that RFK would not just represent a challenge for Joe Biden. Donald Trump is usually the person who that type of Libertarian or cranky or doesn’t fit in a conspiratorial voter flows to, and that might not be the case if RFK is also on the ballot. And so that has created a lot of fear from top levels of both Democrats and Republicans, who think it’s not clear exactly who he would play spoiler for. That’s the first thing.

Second thing is, like Cornel West, he also has ballot access problems. The benefit of running in a Democratic primary is, of course, if you were to beat Joe Biden and become the nominee, you’re on the ballot. Because he is now saying he’s running as an independent, he is currently engaged in a very expensive and difficult effort to get his name on the ballot and across the states. And that’s the real thorn in the candidacy side is the kind of logistical question of will they be able to get on the ballot?

But if he can overcome the ballot access problem and become a legitimate candidate in this race, this is the person that will keep [? DNR ?] up at night. Because if you can combine name, money, and message, that’s the ingredients of a Ross Perot or someone who can take a third-party candidacy and really go far.

Last one. Do we still spin the wheel or no?

I feel like for — to complete the wheel, we have to.

Yeah, this is a literal follow up to the work we did last year, but No Labels is a non-partisan, independent political group in Washington, DC that has tried to brand itself as the organization that’s above partisanship and polarization, tries to encourage bipartisanship through lawmakers and both parties rejecting their extremes. In the last year, No Labels has made a very public effort to try to entice a candidate to run a third party campaign for president that they would support and help get on the ballot.

They called it a unity ticket.

Exactly. They called it a unity ticket, and the premise was that they were going to have one party at the top, a different party as vice president, and that that’s what Americans needed was a kind of joint ideological ticket. Now, I think it’s important to point out the differences between that and the kind of RFK. That’s talking about independence in terms of picking and choosing different ideological buckets but isn’t saying I’m strict right or left.

What No Labels is talking about is having one Republican, one Democrat in a specific ticket that’s centered around unity. And so that was their premise. Now when we talked to No Labels, it was clear that they had not fully thought through how a unity ticket was the solution to polarization. And one of the things I really remember about that reporting is that it made clear that the kind of top-down, ideologically-driven premise that No Labels works in is not necessarily the language of people who hate both candidates.

So when you ask, why do you hate both candidates? They might just say because they’re old. They might just say because they don’t like the system itself. It’s not clear that the type of candidates No Labels was pitching as the solution — the Joe Manchins, the Mitt Romneys, the Larry Hogans — are even people that these folks know or would be people they come to. So that’s important to say.

Now, to update in the last year, No Labels has kind of had a tough go at it, partially because their entire strategy is premised on the idea of attracting a top tier candidate to join their ticket. Now, the person they have most tried to float is Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who is the more centrist Democrat who has already announced that he won’t be running for re-election in November. He just said last week that he would not run as a third party candidate and close the door on the prospect of working with No Labels.

Now, this was their top choice. This is someone who is doing a listening tour, talking about the need for bipartisanship, and is really the avatar for centrism in DC as a whole. But because of the low likelihood of success from a third party candidate and considering that Manchin is someone who does remain close to President Biden, it’s not particularly a surprise that he decided not to eventually join the No Labels ticket. But it does strike a big blow to the unity ticket that they wanted to project because their top candidate that they wanted to lead that has now bowed out.

The other candidates they’ve talked about have also made different decisions. So Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor of Maryland, who No Labels is trying to entice, he just announced that he was going to be running for Senate in Maryland. So that’s going to be a tough race, but more importantly, he’s not taking the presidential option. And the drop off between those type of candidates and who else they could get is so big that it’s really created a difficult position for No Labels to be in because if they don’t have a candidate to actualize a lot of that signing work, a lot of that ballot access work, it all kind of crumbles.

So if you’re recognizing a theme here, it’s that our system makes it very difficult for these third party options to succeed. If you want to be president, the hardest thing to do is to try to do that without the Democratic or Republican parties. This unique situation, because of the distastefulness of candidates, has created a different space so the RFKs, so the other parties can garner more interest. And the closeness of our elections mean that that interest might really matter.

But for the broader question, for the listener question of will these third party options mean that we don’t have Trump v Biden, I think that answer is clearly no. What they can do is complicate the calculus of how Trump versus Biden might play out or impact the type of issues they have to address. Or they could become a vessel for people to lodge their distaste.

It would not surprise me if we end this year with the highest number of third party votes we’ve had in a long time, and that will certainly matter. But it is overwhelmingly likely, because of the way that our political process works, that the next president is either the Democratic or Republican nominee.

Thanks, Anna, appreciate it. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Thanks so much for the questions. We’ll keep answering them regularly on the show, so keep sending them in. And we’re game to tackle whatever you’re curious about from the top of the ticket on down, from the serious to the political trivia you’ve always wondered about. Here’s a couple of mine.

What’s with the donkeys and the elephants? Do celebrity endorsements actually matter? Email us at [email protected]. That’s [email protected]. And tell us what you think of the show, too. Have a great day.

That’s the run up for Thursday, February 22, 2024. Now, the rundown.

Now, to the race for the White House. The South Carolina Republican primary is set for this upcoming Saturday.

Former President Donald Trump and former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley have been campaigning all over the state ahead of this weekend’s contest there. Trump goes in as the overwhelming favorite. In one recent poll, the former President leads Haley 63-35 among those very likely to vote in the primary.

In a Fox News town hall with Laura Ingraham in Greenville, South Carolina, on Tuesday night —

She’s not working. She’s here. She’s down by 30, 35 points, and everybody knows her. You’re not supposed to lose your home state. Shouldn’t happen anyway, and she’s losing it bigly — big, I mean, really. I said bigly and bigly —

Losing it bigly, but —

— Trump took on Haley directly. Meanwhile, Haley continues on her bus tour throughout the state.

I refuse to quit. South Carolina will vote on Saturday, but on Sunday, I’ll still be running for president. I’m not going anywhere.

Instead, she plans to continue campaigning beyond South Carolina no matter the result. We’re three days away from the South Carolina Republican primary and 257 days away from the general election. See you next week.

“The Run Up” is reported by me, Astead Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O’Keefe, and Anna Foley. It’s edited by Rachel Dry, Lisa Tobin, and Frannie Carr Toth with original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Lanman, and Elisheba Ittoop. It was mixed by Sophia Lanman and fact checked by Caitlin Love.

Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halbfinger, Maddy Masiello, Mahima Chablani, Jeffrey Miranda, and Jennifer Poyant. And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, y’all.

How would the Democratic Party pick a replacement?

Scenario One: before the Democratic convention in August.

In that case, the delegates to the convention would choose both the president and the vice president if there was a vacancy. It would be a free-for-all at the convention. And based on what we know about who those delegates typically are, it would be hard to imagine a scenario where the presidential nomination didn’t go to Vice President Kamala Harris. The delegates are loyal to the Democratic Party. The biggest caucus is women. The second biggest caucus is African Americans. And those are two groups that are generally loyal to the vice president. It’s unlikely that other Democrats would step up and challenge Harris under those circumstances. She could even be the president at that point — and then that would mean challenging a sitting president. That’s a very steep political lift for anybody in that type of chaotic environment.

Scenario Two: after the convention.

If something happens to Mr. Biden — or he changes his mind — after he is officially nominated, there is no precedent for what happens next. But the document officially calling for the 2024 convention outlines the process. Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, would confer with the Democratic leadership in Congress and the leadership of the Democratic Governors Association — and that group would be authorized to fill vacancies on the national ticket with some input from the broader D.N.C. membership, which is about 440 people.

In both scenarios, before or after the convention, the decision is up to the leadership of the Democratic Party, which makes it a relatively elite process.

For related reporting on this question, click here .

On the Republican side, is there any chance it’s not Trump?

We called Maggie Haberman , the Times senior political correspondent, to talk through the hypotheticals that could impede the 77-year-old Mr. Trump’s path to the nomination:

The chances of Donald Trump waking up one day and deciding not to go forward are close to zero. The campaign is so intertwined with his fight for staying out of prison, given that he has been indicted four times and is now facing a certain trial starting at the end of March in Manhattan. So that comes off the table.

In terms of whether there would be a health event, that’s not an impossible thought. We know from the White House doctors, he had a form of heart disease during his presidency. It’s unlikely that has changed dramatically in a positive direction. We don’t know what his health is like now, but I do know that at the end of 2022, when they were looking ahead to a campaign that he was about to run, there was private discussion about not holding too many events in part because he’s old. And they didn’t want to cause him damage by running him into the ground. And I do think that that’s part of why we have seen less of him. I think there are other reasons, too, but his age is a factor.

[You can follow “The Run-Up” on the NYT Audio App , Apple , Spotify , Amazon Music , YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.]

Could anything keep Trump from being on the ballot?

It would have to be a catastrophic event. If it was something mild, I think he would try to push forward, and I’m not sure we would even know it was happening. I think it would have to be something that could not be hidden, like an extended hospital stay, or something that happens onstage, or in front of a crowd. It’s not as if we have no predicate for that with Mr. Trump. He was really, really sick with Covid, and they were, to put it mildly, less than candid about what was going on with his health. So I have no reason to believe it would be different this time.

As for whether the Republican Party has a Plan B, let’s be clear: There is no party absent Donald Trump. He is literally in the process of ousting his own hand-picked Republican Party chair to try to get another one who he thinks will focus more on his false claims of widespread election fraud. So there is no “they.”

The process works this way. If something were to happen ahead of the convention, there would have to be a change in the rules. And it would have to be that the delegates process changes, because Mr. Trump is the person leading in delegates right now. And Nikki Haley wouldn’t necessarily get those by default just because she’s the person still actively campaigning. I think you would see a lot of other candidates who have suspended their candidacies suddenly start campaigning again, and then it would get decided at the convention.

If something were to happen after the convention, then the 168 members of the Republican National Committee would have to meet again and figure out what to do. And even then, it gets murky because depending on the timing, you could end up in a situation where a lot of states have already printed ballots with Donald Trump’s name.

So to summarize, I think it is extremely, extremely unlikely that he will not be the nominee. But it’s not impossible. Anything can happen, as we’ve seen.

What if Trump goes to prison and then is elected?

Donald Trump has been indicted on 91 felony charges across four criminal cases in state and federal courts. On paper, he is facing some 700 years in prison — and yet he’s also on track to win the G.O.P. nomination. So what happens if he is convicted and sent to prison — but then wins the election?

A lot will depend, obviously, on timing. (The first of Mr. Trump’s criminal trials, over hush-money payments made to an adult film star in 2016, is scheduled to begin on March 25 in Manhattan.) But regardless of the precise timeline, Mr. Trump’s legal status is one of the biggest wild cards of the 2024 presidential election.

Our colleague Alan Feuer , who is covering the criminal cases against the former president, joined us last fall to talk through some of the possibilities:

Once the election-interference federal trial gets underway, it likely will last between two and three months, something like that. And I would probably say at this point, barring the unforeseen, Mr. Trump will be convicted in that case.

I have watched hundreds and hundreds of these Jan. 6-related cases in the Federal District Court in Washington, and in over 500 cases, only two have resulted in acquittals. That amounts to 98.9 percent guilty verdicts — and, I think, playing the odds, Mr. Trump will end up in the same position.

And so once there’s a conviction, there’s a sentence. Period. There’s going to be a sentence. So, it is absolutely possible that Donald Trump will be sentenced to a significant amount of federal prison time before the 2024 election is held.

Then, if Mr. Trump wins the election, even with a conviction on his shoulders, and even with a sentence hanging over his head for significant prison time, he could attempt to pardon himself, commute his sentence and effectively have the case nullified.

Now that, too, is untested ground. That may be another issue that the Supreme Court has to weigh in on. But what if Mr. Trump wins the election? The political power and the levers of control that will be at his disposal could, in theory, absolutely reverse the significant consequences that the election-interference case imposed on him.

Could a third-party candidate make a difference?

The answer , according to Astead W. Herndon , the host of “The Run-Up,” is pretty clearly no:

Third-party candidates — even with the name recognition of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — face significant challenges in terms of ballot access. The centrist group No Labels hasn’t managed to attract prominent candidates to join its efforts.

But what third-party candidates can do, even if they’re not on a ballot, is complicate the calculus of how Donald Trump versus Joe Biden might play out, or affect the type of issues they have to address. Or they could become a vessel for people to lodge their distaste.

We could end this year with the highest number of third-party votes this country has seen in a long time. And that will certainly matter. But it is overwhelmingly likely, because of the way that our political process works, that the next president is either the Democratic or Republican nominee.

So, how does polling work? And can I trust it?

To answer the biggest question of all when it comes to polling — can we trust what the numbers say? — we turned to Nate Cohn , chief political analyst for The Times:

Trust is an interesting word to use. At The Times, the standard for what it means to trust our journalism is super high. We present ourselves as providing something like an objective truth to readers, true facts. And the truth is, polling does not reach that standard. And it never has. Even when response rates were very high, polls are random samples. They’re fuzzy statistics that are deeply imperfect and subject to all different kinds of error.

What you can do is learn quite a bit from polling even though it’s deeply imperfect.

Take the recent elections. As bad as polls were in 2020 and 2016, the national polls were only off by three and a half points in 2020 and two points in 2016. Now, in an era of close elections, three and a half and two points is a lot. It’s the difference between victory and defeat or, in the case of 2020, between a landslide and a fairly close race. But it gets you in the ballpark for a lot of things.

But what about very low response rates?

It is fair to ask, how do we even know polling is in the ballpark? How do we reach voters in an era when people screen their calls? We have a mix of evidence that tells us that this stuff is still useful. Some of it’s based on hard research. In 2022, The Times did this study of Wisconsin, where we mailed voters financial incentives to take a poll, and got 30 percent of people to take that survey, and ran a telephone phone poll in parallel that had a 1 percent response rate. And the answers were basically the same.

So the differences between this group of people who take a telephone poll and the broader population may not be that great. And then on an individual poll-by-poll basis, we can scrutinize the poll based on the handful of facts that we do have. Does it have the right number of Democrats or Republicans by party registration? Does it have the right number of young people and old people? Does it have the right number of white voters or Black voters and so on? And those characteristics help give us confidence as well. None of it adds up to being perfect. None of it adds up to being objective fact. But it does add up to being useful.

Astead W. Herndon is a national politics reporter and the host of the politics podcast “The Run-Up.” More about Astead W. Herndon

Reid J. Epstein covers campaigns and elections from Washington. Before joining The Times in 2019, he worked at The Wall Street Journal, Politico, Newsday and The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. More about Reid J. Epstein

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

Nate Cohn is The Times’s chief political analyst. He covers elections, public opinion, demographics and polling. More about Nate Cohn

Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.  More about Alan Feuer

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