Joining us now is our political panel, Washington, Tom's opinion editor, Charlie Heart, and Democrat strategist, Leslie Marshall. Both are Fox News contributors. Leslie, everybody expects me to show my favoritism to my old friend, Charlie Heart, the guy I call the handsome one of the Heart brothers. I'm going to trick them, and I'm going to start with you. People saw a young, vibrant governor with pretty decent hair last night. Do you think that's going to help Democrats while they are questioning whether the current candidate, the current President, is too old to run?

Look, I don't think a debate actually changes the needle on anything. It could be argued that Hillary won three debates out of three with Trump, and certainly with John Kerry and Bush back in the day, and neither Kerry or Clinton were President. I think Gavin Newsom was spot on when he said, One thing we have in common is neither of us will be the 2024 nominee. I think that not only to be true, the numbers show that to be true. Look, I woke up this morning and I said, Look, I know what I'm going to say. I know what Charlie is going to say. I love you, Charlie, I know what you're going to say. He's going to say DeSantis kicked Newsom's butt. And you have all over Twitter, even Republicans going, I don't like California or Gavin Newsom, but I understand why California is like him. Wow. And that's really what I saw. Do I have some bias being in California and a Democrat? Absolutely. But I was trying to be subjective. And I have to say it didn't help Ron DeSantis. Gavin Newsom isn't running, Trey, and Ron DeSantis is. And when you look at the numbers, even in his own state, as my governor pointed out, he's not doing well.

I don't think this helped him. Not that the debate would necessarily, but it might have even hurt him.

All right, Charlie, I'm going to elevate you. That may not be the right word, but I'm going to make you a debate moderator for now. You're moderating a debate between two leading political figures. I wonder what your first question would be. I want them to tell me the role of government, contrasted with church and community and the individual. But what would you ask? If you had the nation's attention and two leading political characters, where would you go?

Well, I think that that's a great question. I think I would probably start with something about immigration, just to answer your question. But I have to say, I thought that the questions that Sean Hannity asked, they were perfect questions. They were great questions, and they were about the issues that people care most about. They were about crime. They were about taxes. They were about illegal immigration. All of that stuff is fantastic. But what I thought was so fascinating about it, and Leslie's right, I do think that Ron DeSantis did a better job, but the reason I think he did a better job is because he was talking about the issues. He was talking about his philosophy about governing a red state compared to a blue state. What I thought was so interesting about that debate was the degree to which Gavin Newsom strained himself to never talk about any of the issues. When he did talk about the issues, literally, Sean Hannity would put up a chart that would show actual facts about crime or immigration or California is fleeing the state. Then Gavin Newsom would just start lying about it and then change the subject and say things like, One thing that's for sure is that neither of us is going to be on the ticket next year.

He was just trying to score cheap points off of Ron DeSantis instead of actually defending his philosophy. The answer to that is they can't defend their philosophy. Their philosophy is suicide.

Well, you raised the point. That's my frustration with what we call debates now. They're really just one-liners. Look, what I want is boring. I know people don't want day-long debates, but these are serious issues, one of which is health care. So, Leslie, much to the Republican chagrin, Obamacare has proven probably more popular than maybe what they thought. So why bring it up as an election issue when there are so many other things that are currently not going well in the country? Why would Republicans want to bring back up health care unless they have a replacement strategy?

I don't know. I'm not a Republican, and maybe that's one of the reasons because they always want to point to Democrats and say this isn't working, but they never have a plan that says our plan is this, and this is the plan that would work. Look, pulling health care from people, whether it is 1,000, 10 million plus, which we have on Obamacare, is stupid. It's unwise, and I would even argue it's immoral. They have to get things right, the Republicans, not only with regard to health care, Social Security, Medicare, but certainly abortion. One of the things I love that Nicky Haley said, I will always say and give her props for, is we can be pro-life and pro-woman at the same time. I want to say something to Charlie's point, though, and I find it interesting. Ronald Reagan was a Republican here from the state of California. And when he was President and when he was elected President, the state of California had the highest homeless population and had the highest gas prices, just like now was brought up in the debate last night. Something else that I would add is even though Gavin Newsom is governor of California and Ron DeSantis is governor of Florida, Joe Biden comes from Delaware.

I never saw anybody looking at Delaware and trying to compare that state with the rest of the country. When somebody becomes President of the United States, they don't govern as President on a federal level with 50 states as they do with one state because they're different. That's the last thing. As a California, and I'm adopted California, I'm originally from Massachusetts, I'm a Boston girl, but I have to tell you, you cannot compare. I'm going to say two things, Ron DeSantis and even Sean, and I love him, what you didn't show, and guys, you can Google this, there are as many people coming to California as there are leaving, and interestingly enough, from the crisis. Then secondly, you just cannot compare populations and you can't compare real estate prices, which really feed into homelessness, not just here in California, but in many states in the country. I felt there were a lot of omissions last night that would have brought more clarity to some of those issues. Then lastly, I think the governor, my governor, did speak to the facts and he wasn't holding up pictures of feces.

Charlie, before I let you go, Ron DeSantis is smart, he's thoughtful, he's also way behind. Do you think his performance helped him catch Nikki Haley first or catch former President Trump?

I don't think it's going to do... Ron DeSantis's problem is that on the campaign trail, he doesn't connect with people. The people who love Ron DeSantis the most are Floridians who have benefited from his policies in Florida, and he has a great record. The problem is that doesn't necessarily translate to voters who don't live in Florida. That's his problem now, and it's going to be his problem going forward.

Charlie Hart, Leslie Marshall, always collegial and civil with one another, for which I am very grateful. Thank you for joining us on a Sunday night. We'll see you both soon.

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