Call Me Back - with Dan Senor - Should the Democrats have won the House too? With Howard Wolfson

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Most of the post-midterm commentary has been focused on how the Democrats pulled off a surprise win in holding the majority in the U.S. Senate, and only lost the U.S. House of Representatives by a slim margin. But former Clinton and Schumer strategist -- and current Bloomberg senior advisor - Howard Wolfson is asking something entirely different: why DID the Democrats lose the House? Suggesting that they could have bucked history altogether and won the House too. Howard answers this question in a provocative piece he penned for The New York Times (https://tinyurl.com/2zeh87a2). While a red wave may not have materialized nationally, there was a red wave in New York State, the bluest of blue states. Howard thinks it has major implications for Democrats nationally. Howard was the New York City Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communications, under Mayor Bloomberg. Previously, he served as the communications director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Earlier, he was Chief of Staff to Congresswoman Nita Lowey, Executive Director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and worked on campaigns at every level of government, advising Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, and former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Today he continues to work for Mayor Bloomberg, advising him on a number of political projects and overseeing education programs through Bloomberg Philanthropies.

What is particularly infuriating to me as a New York Democrat is that had New York Democrats not screwed it all up, the House Democrats would have actually stood a good chance of retaining the majority, not just losing a small number of seats, but actually retaining the majority. Over the last couple of weeks, most of us have been focused on how the Democrats pulled off a surprise win in holding the U.S. Senate and only lost the House by a slim margin. But former Clinton and Schumer strategist and current Bloomberg lieutenant Howard Wolfson is asking something entirely different. Why did the Democrats lose the House?

Suggesting that they could have bucked history altogether and won the House too. Howard answers this question in a provocative piece he penned for the New York Times. While a red wave may not have materialized nationally, there was a red wave here in New York State, the bluest of blue states. New York delivering Republicans a narrow house majority was not on anyone's dance card for these midterms. And yet, here we are. Howard thinks it has major implications for Democrats nationally. And I always like

bantering with Howard about politics, as he's an independent thinker and an experienced political hand. For some background on Howard, he was the New York City Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communications under Mayor Bloomberg. Previously, he served as the Communications Director for Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign. Earlier, he was chief of staff to Congresswoman Nita Lowey, and he was executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. He's worked on campaigns at every level of government, advising Senators Schumer and Gillibrand and former Governor Andrew Cuomo. Today, Howard continues to work for Mayor Bloomberg,

advising him on a number of political projects and overseeing education programs through the Bloomberg philanthropies. Howard Wolfson on lessons learned for the Democrats. This is Call Me Back. Schumer and Clinton, and I think even Nita Lowey pedigree, and then up through the Bloomberg era, where he currently works for Mayor Bloomberg to this day. Howard, thanks for coming on. Thanks. I actually had lunch with Nita and Steve Lowey last week. For our listeners, Nita Lowey was a longtime congresswoman from Westchester and was the was a major player, not only in New York politics, but national politics on the House Appropriations Committee and was a force in New York politics, now retired. So how is she doing, actually? She's doing very well.

You know, she is enjoying her retirement. She had a I think a very long and distinguished career. She and her husband, I think, recently celebrated their 60th anniversary, so they are enjoying their time together. I actually know her son a little bit, who's a terrific guy. It's a wonderful family. Okay, Howard, I want to get into this because we have a lot to cover. The big headline coming out of these midterms, well, there are several headlines,

but one of them that I want to focus on with you today is Democrats overperformed. Democrats beat expectations for a variety of reasons. History, meaning the president's party, typically does quite poorly in the first midterm of an administration, especially when that president has approval ratings that are comparable to what Joe Biden had. Barack Obama, 2010, had approval ratings close to what Biden has now, and Obama lost something like 60-plus seats. Democrats lost something like 60-plus seats in the House in 2010. 2018, President Trump had comparable approval ratings, and the Republicans lost something like 40 seats in the House in 2018, the first midterm of President Trump's term, and here we are in the first midterm of President Biden's administration, and the Republicans are barely, barely north of 218 seats in the House

after these midterms. When there was talk about winning 20, 30, 40 seats, they are going to hang on to the House. They're going to win the House majority by a very narrow margin, and of course, they're not going to win the Senate majority. So the big news is, wow, Democrats completely beat expectations. Before we get into what happened in New York, you're like, hey, we're bearing the headline. The headline is the Democrats actually could have completely bucked history and defended the majority, not just let the Republicans win it, let alone by a hair, but actually won the majority. So can you explain why that would have been so consequential?

Well, yeah, you explained it well. History suggests that the president's party in a midterm election typically loses 24 House seats and typically loses four Senate seats. That's on average. There are obviously years that are worse than that and some years that are better, but that's the mean. And if you look at Joe Biden's approval rating and you look at the, what we call the wrong track, right track number in polling that we ask people, do you think country's on the wrong track or the right track? All of the indications would have suggested that the Republicans would have had a historically strong night, and they did not. It looks like the Democrats are very much on track to hold the Senate. They may even expand their majority in the Senate, depending on what happens in Georgia.

And the House majority for the Republicans is going to be excruciatingly small. It could be as few as three or four seats. So as you say, that's all good news for Democrats, significant overperformance, both by historical standards and by, I think, the expectations that many people had going into the election. What is particularly infuriating to me as a New York Democrat is that had New York Democrats not screwed it all up, the House Democrats would have actually stood a good chance of retaining the majority, not just losing a small number of seats, but actually retaining the majority. And I explain in the piece that that I think is due to two reasons. One is that the redistricting process in New York, that's the process whereby every 10 years every state draws its congressional maps, was royally screwed up by Democrats who significantly overreached, tried to draw an extreme gerrymandered map in defiance of a constitutional amendment that had just been passed. OK, before before you because I want to stay New York State, there are 27 congressional districts, right?

Right. And that, because of the census, went down in this midterm to 26. Correct. Okay. So New York is now going to have 26 congressional districts. A lot of people have been leaving New York State. So big win for, you know, Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott and, you know, governors of other, shall we say, more economically friendly parts of the country. New York is shrinking population.

So New York has 26 congressional seats, and there are currently 19 Democrats, eight Republicans. You're saying that the Democrats should have been able to do much better than the number of seats that they actually won this midterm. How many did they actually win? It depends. I mean, there are still a couple of races that need to be called, but we could be down as few as to 15 seats. So that means Republicans would have 11 seats. Now, just again, to be clear, these are there are a bunch of seats in that number that if you add them up, exceed the size of the Republican margin in the House, meaning but for these seats going this way, New York could have been the difference in the Democrats keeping

or losing the House majority. Yes. Another way to think about it is that there are six seats currently with the new map. So there were six seats that were up for election this past November in New York that were won by Joe Biden. All of those six seats that were won by Joe Biden that will be represented by Republicans in the House of Representatives. There is no other state in the country that has nearly as many seats in that category. Seats won by Joe Biden in 2020, seats won by Republican House members in 2022. Every single one of those seats, in theory, could have been won by a Democrat. And that was the trend elsewhere in the country where Republicans thought they had a shot at winning seats that Biden had won, not maybe the seats

that Biden had won by double digits, but that Biden had won by kind of low, mid, high single digits, which you typically have in a wave election when a lot of seats go, even seats that the president of the other party had won. The party not in the White House has a shot at those seats. That didn't happen in this cycle most places in the country, but it happened in New York. Correct. So as we say, redistricting was a part of this. The New York Democrats who controlled the entire redistricting cycle here in New York could have drawn a map that I think would have benefited New York Democrats, but been somewhat more modest than the map that they drew. Instead, they significantly overreached. The court

struck it down and said, you have violated the state's constitution by trying to draw an extreme gerrymandered map. So that was the first- And that was the, that was the, just, just so folks understand the history. So there was, there was an amendment passed, the voters passed an amendment in 2014. Yes. To the constitution that said what? That said that the, there was going to be a commission that was going to come up with a map that was not supposed to look at partisanship, that was supposed to try to respect logical geographical boundaries. Republicans on the commission, Democrats on the commission, they were supposed to get together and compromise on a map. The commission didn't work. It failed. And the legislature then drew a map. And why did the commission fail? Because they couldn't reach consensus? They couldn't reach a consensus. My guess is that the Democrats on the commission,

this is a guess, total guess, the Democrats on the commission thought that they would punt it over to the legislature and the legislature would get a better map for Democrats than would have resulted from a commission map. That's just a guess. So under your guess theory, under the theory of your guess or the guess of your theory, Democrats just sort of overshot and blew it up. You don't know this, but that's a theory. Would have blown it up and said, all right, it'll land in the legislature. And the legislature is golden for us because the Democrats have a super majority. So they can get anything through. They can get anything through. And instead of sort of sitting down and saying, okay, we have this constitutional amendment. It says that the map is not supposed to be

gerrymandered. We really do want to gerrymander. So what's the sweet spot that we think the court will bless? And instead, they basically tried to absolutely maximize Democratic performance with a map that was an extreme gerrymander. The court looked at it and said, no, no way. This is not even close. Okay. So the extreme gerrymander would realistically, again, you never know until the election happens, but by your lights, there would have been about four Republican districts right that was their extreme gerrymandered version yes right and and then and to your point the court said are you crazy uh this is you know 26 congressional districts and four of them are are set up you

know to be advantageous to republicans is totally unreasonable and then the judge handed over to a special master to get to work on a more reasonable map. Correct. Now, just parenthetically, I think it's worth noting that, because you mentioned Florida and DeSantis, the good people of Florida also passed a constitutional amendment that essentially made gerrymandering illegal. The legislature in Florida, the Republican legislature in Florida, also completely disregarded that amendment. And the court in Florida basically allowed it to go through. So in fairness, maybe the Democrats thought that Democratic judges in our state would be just as partisan as the Republican judges were in Florida to allow an extreme map to go through, but that's not what happened in New York.

The flip side is, fair enough, the flip side is DeSantis won by 20 points. Florida does certainly, in terms of recent electoral behavior, seem like much more of a red state. It's not to say New York isn't a very blue state, but Hochul's win was, the top of the ticket was much more narrow. So it just seems like the congressional piece was really out of balance. Oh, there's no, there's no question. I mean, to be clear, I think that, that New Yorkers, as I said, really screwed this up in a number of ways. We've talked about redistricting. We can also talk about some of the policies and the messaging that were critical for the campaign. But just to the point, there are other states around the country that, Florida being the best example, that were aggressive. Yes. Yeah. Fair enough. So, okay. So New York, so the map gets thrown out, it gets redrawn in a way that puts many more parts of the state in play for Congress

than otherwise should have been by your lights, and certainly as we've seen by the results. And two, then let's get to the substance and policy agenda that you also think was a big driver of the election in New York. So in 2021 in New York, we had what were essentially our off-year elections. We had a county on when they occur. So 2021, you have these elections, Long Island, it's a swing part of the state, but it is trending Democratic. And the Democrats lose the county executive's position in Nassau County, and they lose both DA races in Suffolk and Nassau. All of the races hinge on the issue of crime. And these are generally, I get that they've been trending Democratic, but historically they've been swing counties. No question. Swing, but trending Democratic. Yeah. Okay. And so Democrats lose all three of these races. The Republican case against the Democrats in all three is based on crime and specifically the bail reform that was passed in Albany. at those results and think, okay, voters are trying to send us a message. This is pretty clear

that voters in this swing part of the state are not happy with the direction of the legislature, with the fact that these bail reforms were passed, and with the growing crime problem. At the same time, Eric Adams, in the same election cycle, is elected mayor of New York. And he's elected on a message of fighting crime. I mean, he basically says, I'm going to come in. I'm a former cop. I'm also a guy who was a victim of police brutality. And I can lower crime aggressively while also ensuring that we have respectful policing. And to be clear, he not only articulated that message in the general election, which didn't matter as much, he did it in the Democratic primary. It's a message that resonated in the Democratic primary. Exactly. So I thought, okay,

swing voters in Long Island are sending us a message. They're not happy about the direction of the state. They're concerned about crime. And isn't this wonderful, we have a Democrat winning in heavily Democratic New And on the other hand, in the same election, you have a positive example of how a Democrat can talk about this issue and be successful. So I thought, great, you know, the good people, our legislature in Albany will look at this, and they will course correct. They will recognize that they need to do something the voters have spoken. And instead, they did basically nothing. They made some very they need to do something the voters have spoken. And instead, they did basically nothing. They made some very, very, very minor cosmetic changes in the bail law that didn't satisfy anyone, and basically either argued that crime wasn't a problem, argued that it was a problem, but it was a problem everywhere, or argued that it was a

problem, but the bail reforms weren't the cause of the problem. So we had a substantive problem where crime is up significantly in New York post-pandemic, and you had a message problem where Democrats had no idea how to talk about this issue, ignored the clear intent and interest and will of the voters. And so going into this election, Republicans running in Long Island and the northern suburbs outside of New York City absolutely hammered Democrats once again on the issue of crime and bail reform and successfully prosecuted those races based on that issue. So I want to quote from your piece, your Times piece. You say here, New York remains the only state in the nation where in setting bail,

judges cannot take into account whether a person arrested in connection with a crime may pose a danger to the community. Democrats in the legislature failed to offer any other alternative solutions to the problem. So can you just dwell on that for one moment? Because I think the significance of that is sometimes lost on folks. New York remains the only state in the nation where judges can't set bail based on concerns about whether or not the person being convicted is a danger? That is correct.

So if someone is arrested in New York for a crime that is not deemed bail eligible, a judge can cannot otherwise say, hey, I think this person is a threat for the following reasons, and we ought to remand them into custody and set bail. And then can you just also explain how the cashless bail law or provision works? Well, there is an argument, and I think there is some, I have some sympathy for this argument that your income shouldn't determine whether or not you spend a period of time in jail waiting for your case to be adjudicated if you are arrested. So, for instance, you know, the idea that if I go out and I commit a crime and bail is set for me, I will have the money to post it. But if a someone down the block who doesn't have money commits the same crime or is accused of committing the same crime, they get the bail set, they would not have the money to pay for it. And so people say that's unfair. So I understand that. I do have some sympathy for that. But on the other hand,

I think in New York, what you have is a situation where we have now a number of crimes that are not bail eligible. So if you, supposedly the definition is nonviolent crime. So if you go shoplift at a CVS and the police pick you up, you're released right away. The judge has no ability to hold you for on bail. That's true even if you've been arrested 10 times, you know, shoplifting before. You're a repeat offender. Still can't remand you for bail or set bail. And it is also the case that, let's say, you have in your past committed a violent crime or been accused of committing a violent crime, the judge can't look at that as a pretext for setting bail for a nonviolent crime that you are currently being accused of. Okay, so now you're saying now crime is up something like 30% year over year in New York City. Not sure about New York State, but something comparable. But it's being felt much more New York City.

Why do you think it had such resonance in Long Island and the northern suburbs, given that it seems to be much more of a New York City phenomenon. We hear these horror stories about what's happening in public transportation, on the subways, you know, on the streets of Manhattan, on the streets of Brooklyn, and yet it's an issue that's resonating in Suffolk County and Nassau County, where Lee Zeldin won nine points, 11 points in Westchester, even though Democrats won in parts of Westchester, but not everywhere, the issue seemed to be resonating. Why was it resonating out there?

I think there are two reasons. I think, in fairness, there are a lot of people who live in New York City suburbs who have moved from the city to the suburbs for reasons that it's cheaper. They can pay lower taxes in some instances. They can have better schools in some instances. And to some extent, they have moved or their parents moved or their grandparents moved because of a perception of crime in New York City. So these are folks who I think are in some respects particularly sensitive to the perception of crime in New York, because it's one of the things that drove their decision not to live in New York. But at the same time, most of these folks or many of these folks either come into

New York City themselves to work or to play, so to speak, to go to dinner, to see theater, to go to a Knicks game, a Rangers game, Yankee game, what have you. Either they're doing that or they know someone who does, right? So just because you live in Suffolk County doesn't mean that you're not- You're not engaging with New York City. Yeah. You may be in New York City every day or you may be in New York City every day, or you may be in a couple of times a month or three or four times a month. Your kids may come in on the weekends. This is a place where they want to go see concerts or whatever.

So the idea that just because you live in Rockland, or I know you weren't suggesting this, but the idea that you live in Rockland or you live in Suffolk, you don't care about what happens in New York City. You absolutely care about what happens in New York City. It is the engine of the region, and it is a place where either you're working in, your spouse is working in, your parent is working in, your kid is working in every day, or you're a place where you want to come and you want to see a movie and enjoy the advantages of the city. So you are sensitive to it. Right. And the media you're consuming about your daily life is largely being driven by,

directly or indirectly, the New York Post. So the New York Post is covering the hell out of this issue, the crime issue in New York City. And that, you know, if you're local cable affiliate or whatever, various news outlets outside of New York City are making editorial decisions often based on what's in the New York Times and the New York Post. And so the New York Post is hammering the issue of crime. A, you may be seeing the New York Post because you're commuting in and out of the city every day and that's what you're reading, and B, the local news coverage you're getting outside of New York City in these Long Island counties and northern, I guess, northern suburbs counties is driven by the Post. Yes. I don't think there's any question that the

Post decided to go whole hog on the crime issue in the run up to the election. And Democrats spending a lot of time complaining about that. My view is if you are running for office in New York, you have to live with the New York Post and you have to learn how to deal with the New York Post. Right. And if you don't have a New York Post strategy, it's like political malpractice. Correct. And the second point I would make is that, you know, the editors of the New York Post are not out there committing crimes. They're, you know, they're not pushing people in front of subways. They're not, you know, they're not robbing people or shooting people.

So, you know, the Post could may decide to focus on something or shine a spotlight or even hype something, but they're not inventing it. You know, these are crimes that are actually occurring. Yeah, you say in your piece, the New York Post is highlighting this news. It's not manufacturing it. Yeah. I should say, you know, to be fair, we talked about why somebody in Suffolk and Nassau would care about crime. There is another reason which I do not believe is the driver here, but I think in fairness it should be said that there is also a racial component to this, right? I mean, you do have white voters in the suburbs who may be particularly

sensitive to questions around crime because they may harbor racial animus towards people they perceive as the criminals. And that is not, I don't believe that that explains all of it, but I should mention it. You know, we like to think we live in a colorblind society. We do not completely live at all in a colorblind society, and there are elements of that in this conversation. But as you said earlier, the data is the data. Crime had gotten worse. That's indisputable. And the Democrats almost, it seems, in the legislature, in the state legislature, and Governor Hochul assertively chose not to really do anything about it. Now, I presume, I don't ask you to disclose the conversations you have with your fellow partisans, but I know you talk to a lot of Democratic politicians in the state and nationally. So I'm sure you were venting to them before you vented in that New York Times piece after the midterms, like, hey, guys, you got to do something here.

Yes. What was their – I mean, what you lay out in the Times piece is very reasonable. Let me put it this way the analogy i give is mark melman the democratic pollster who you know are you know we know in common he he gave me this great formulation a while ago uh related to the issue of inflation but but it also applies to the issue of crime which is the worst thing a politician can do when voters are seeing and feeling something in their daily lives that isn't working is to tell them that they're wrong yes you you to to you essentially to get into an

argument with voters about what they're with about their experience correct like it's like the analogy he gives is like someone goes to see the doctor right and says hey doc my shoulder's really hurting i need some help here on like getting my shoulder fixed and the doctor, right, and says, hey, doc, my shoulder's really hurting. I need some help here on, like, getting my shoulder fixed. And the doctor says, no, your shoulder's not hurting. And you're like, no, no, no, I'm not here to debate whether or not my shoulder's hurting. My shoulder is hurting. Now, we can talk about the best way to deal with my shoulder hurting, and I'm open to your ideas, but I'm not visiting you for you to delegitimize the pain I'm feeling because in my, because I'm feeling paid. Correct. Getting into an argument with voters is a losing strategy because at the end of the day,

the voter always wins. They always win the argument. Um, so yes, uh, as I said, I, you know, the, the, the democratic messaging strategy was to say, crime isn't a problem voter. You're wrong. Crime isn't a problem, um, to say, well, it's a problem, but it's a problem. Voter, you're wrong. Crime isn't a problem. To say, well, it's a problem, but it's a problem everywhere, which to me is not an answer because so what if it's a problem everywhere? I live in New York. I want you to fix it. And then the question of whether or not, yes, crime is a concern, but bail reform is not the solution. Okay, so if bail or not the problem, if bail reform is not the problem, what is the problem? Come up with another solution. So none of these, from a messaging perspective, worked. The legislature didn't fix the problem, didn't

address the problem. And the reason is that the vast bulk of legislators in the state senate and in the state assembly do not have to worry about running in general elections their seats are overwhelmingly democratic they only have to worry about running in very low turnout democratic primaries so therefore and in those primaries just to be clear not only the low turnout but in many of these primaries, not all of them, in many of these primaries, the sort of harder ideologically edged you are, the more competitive you are. Yes. Yeah. That is certainly the perception among Democrats. Whether or not that's true or not, I think is an open question. Right. I mean, Adams actually may give lie to that, but you're right.

That's the perception. That is certainly the perception. And so the Democrats in the assembly and the Senate are basically setting policy on crime for Democratic primary voters. And they are not at all taking into account the fact that if you are running in a competitive district in Long Island in a general election, the policies set to appeal to primary voters in New York City don't work. They don't work. We saw that quite clearly. They do not work politically in places where people have to defend them in general elections. And this is a, this is, you know, and by the way, I say this with Republican states too. I mean, you know, but obviously we're talking about New York now, which is largely a democratic state. In these one-party states, you know, New York, California, you know, it creates for unhealthy

politics across the board. And your case study here is just a manifestation of it. Look, I see, I think that is true in New York with regard to crime. I think that's true in some of the red states with regard to abortion. I mean, they are passing these really extreme abortion laws. You know, basically, you know, anytime the abortion is banned at the first sign of a fetal heartbeat, with no exceptions for life, rape or incest, that is not anywhere close to the majority opinion, even in a place like Mississippi. But yet a lot of these states are passing these laws because, again, they are one-party states on their other side, and they are appealing to people who vote in low-turnout primaries. You know, you look at Republican governors, not to digress,

but you look at Republican governors who did well this cycle, despite what happened nationally. DeSantis in Florida, Kemp in Georgia, Mike DeWine in Ohio, extraordinarily well. I think won by something over 20 points. Abortion was not a big theme in their election. In fact, DeSantis in Florida, I know a lot of people think he's a little too hard edged culture on culture warrior issues. But on the issue of abortion, the bill would put like a ban on abortions up to 15 weeks and then kind of, you know, took the it seemed to have they took the issue off the table because that that's a position where a big chunk of the country is. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see whether he can sustain that going through a presidential primary. Yeah. Uh, okay. So, um, I want to move now to, well, first of all, so your piece comes out. I want to, I want to just to get your take on, on the national scene. And then I do want to

ask you one question about Israel and then, and then, um, we'll wrap up. But, uh, before we wrap up on New York, what is the re what has been the reaction to your Times piece from Democrats in the state? A lot of people calling me saying that this is not something that they could get away with saying themselves, but they were glad that I said it. Got it. And you think they do have an opportunity to get their act together heading into 2024 and could actually win back some of these seats? One of the things that actually has surprised me is that the governor hasn't used the results as something of a mandate, right? So she won narrowly, but she could say, I won narrowly because the voters are looking to us to course correct on a couple of issues and try to use that as a way to compel the legislature to act in a more modest, moderate direction. She hasn't done that.

I'm surprised that she hasn't done that. And she won by what? Just about five points, right? Yep, yep. Which, comparing to 2018, Cuomo won by, what, 25 points or something? I mean, significant Democratic underperformance. We've talked a lot about, and I think quite correctly, about the outrageous failures of the Democratic Party in New York. One thing I would say about the Republican Party here

is that had the Republican Party not nominated a Trumpist and an insurrectionist in Lee Zeldin and instead nominated somebody more like George Pataki, that person might well have absolutely won. Right. It was very winnable. Absolutely winnable. There were lots of Democrats who I think would have been willing to vote for a relatively moderate alternative to what they saw as extreme democratic rule in New York, but Lee Zeldin was not a moderate alternative. He was not a safe alternative. He had disqualified himself based on he did on those particular issues you cite, which is also a reminder of the degree to which voters subordinate, at least some subset of voters, subordinate whatever they find abhorrent on these other issues when they just feel like their daily life is, at a very practical level unsafe. Well, I think that's true. And I think it is very much a sign that voters in New York are deeply unhappy with the overreach and excess of democratic rule.

They are not happy about the increase in crime here. And it's not just crime in many respects, because, you know, murder is actually down this year. And we have many fewer murders here than we do per capita than most other places in the country. In many respects, it's a disorder problem. You know, it's sort of the homeless guy living on the block who will occasionally yell and scream and seem threatening. It's that guy on the subway who, you know, you have to wonder whether he's going to go crazy in the subway car and you're trapped in there, or, uh, he's going to push somebody on the tracks or what have you.

Um, there's just, there's just a sense that New York is, is out of control in a way that it wasn't, you know, five years ago or 10 years ago or 15 years ago. Uh, and that it's trending in the wrong direction. Um, and so it's both a crime and disorder. Yeah. So I had a while ago, a couple months ago, John Podhoretz was on our podcast. We were comparing this period in New York City to the 1970s and the crime in the 1970s. And he made an interesting observation that in the 70s, the crime was largely fueled by economic deprivation, not justifying it,

but just that there were some subsegments of the population that were stealing, right? Stealing things, because for economic gain, they were stealing things, which is a different kind of crime than what you're describing right now, which is crime of insanity, which is people just on the subway platforms

doing crazy stuff, not fueled by, oh, I just got to grab that guy's wallet or I got to grab his phone, but I'm going to randomly just push someone into the subway track for no gain to myself other than no gain. I mean, it's all downside. And that's just a break. That's a whole other level of breakdown that it's not, these aren't rational calculated crimes, the crimes of insanity. Right. Um, I think two things, one, um, you know, somebody who lived in New York during that period, as John did, uh, he is right that it is that the, the, the level of crime is

certainly very different, right? I mean, the, the, the number of murders, we had over 2000 murders during that period. We will have somewhere in the range of 400 now. It is just, it's not comparable. Um, but I do think that, and I do think that there are some people in the city now where you have, because the economy hasn't quite come back, uh, you do have significant unemployment where you do have some people who are committing crimes, um, because they are, you know, because the economy hasn't quite come back, you do have significant unemployment, where you do have some people who are committing crimes because they are, you know, they're not jobs. But more to the point, I think we are still dealing with the impact of the pandemic. I think we all know in our personal lives, people whose mental health has been affected

adversely by the pandemic. And I think if you were somebody who was prone to some degree of mental illness pre-pandemic, there's nothing in the pandemic that has made you healthier or happier. And so you have a lot of folks who I think are just, have been driven over the edge and are doing things that are very destructive to other people and self-destructive. And it does not seem more to the point to our conversation that the state has any real solution to how to help these people help themselves and make sure they don't hurt others. Right. If, if, if we, if we recognize that there are more violent, crazy people in New York, it seems incumbent to me, uh, on government

to do something about that, to help solve that problem. And you don't see that leadership coming from Albany, that's for sure. Okay, so I want to, I agree, I want to move to spend a moment on national politics. So I do not want to get into, you know, a parlor game on what's going to happen to the Republican conference, such a narrow margin, it's extremely stressful. I'm just, you know, at this point, just praying that, you know, Kevin McCarthy is not going to be the Liz Truss of U.S. congressional politics. I think he'll hang on, but it's going to be a stressful period with such a narrow margin, because he has the aversion of what Speaker Pelosi had

with the squad having much more leverage than I think any of us thought he'd have to deal with when we Republicans thought he would have a bigger margin. I do think gridlock, I'm glad there's a divided government. I'm like team gridlock. I know people talk about team normal. I'm for team normal too, but I'm also for Team Gridlock. I do think just slowing things down is good. You and I may probably disagree on that, at least given some of the folks who will be in charge in Congress, but we can leave that differing interpretation aside.

What about presidential heading into 2024? If you would have told me before these midterms, like literally on the eve of these midterms, if you had told me that coming out of these midterms, Donald Trump would seem diminished diminished and Joe Biden would look stronger and emboldened, I would have said, no way, because the Republicans are going to win big majorities in the House and Senate. A number of the people are going to win, for better or for worse, are people that Trump birthed, created, endorsed, often over the objection or concern of of mitch mcconnell and mccarthy and um and he's gonna he's gonna but the republicans are still gonna win majorities they may win big majorities and trump as he thought by planning his announcement of his presidential campaign days after the midterms just

assumed he would have this big momentum story and instead it was like uh it it was it he just seemed, at least for the time being, diminished and Baldwin and Biden gives this press conference the day after the midterms, basically saying I intend to run in 24. And he all but said, not in these words, but he all but said, you know, I was effectively on the ballot in 2022. This was the Republicans chose to make this a referendum on Joe Biden. And we exceeded expectations. And in fact, we beat the historical pattern precedent, as you and I discussed in the

Senate. And we came damn close to the in the House. So why shouldn't is running in 24. I think that in the last week or so, the presence of Donald Trump on the campaign trail made the race in many respects a choice between the MAGA vision for America and the Biden continuum in a way that was very disadvantageous to Republicans, right? The election should have been a referenda on Joe Biden. Instead, it became a choice between Biden and Trump. And Biden won that one in 20 and he essentially won it in 22. I think Donald Trump represents a completely unique threat to American democracy. I very much hope that he is not on the ballot because should he become president, I would fear for our future in ways that I wouldn't if another Republican were to win, even though I won't want that Republican winning. But to be clear, Donald Trump is not the strongest Republican candidate who can be nominated by the Republicans. I think we have seen that now on several different occasions, that this is not a guy who actually does all that well when given given the opportunity he did win in 16 so that's a big

deal he lost in 18 he lost in 20 and now let's just spend a minute on 2016 he he like managed to pick a lock that was like a once in a i mean he he he barely he won with that with like you know tens of thousands of votes in like three states. I'm not taking away from him. It was extraordinary. But the idea that it was a formula for future Republican success that can be easily recreated is not exactly realistic. I would agree. But I just was giving credit where credit is due. He did win. But since then, it's been a pretty long losing streak. I mean, he lost, he lost in 18, he lost in 20, and now he lost in 22. So if you think that that's going to change, I mean, you know, I'm not sure I would want it. I'd want you gambling with my money, but he's clearly running. He clearly has a base of support within the party.

And I don't know how your part, I don't know how your party adjudicates that. Yeah, I would just say, obviously, we got a long time to go. You've been involved in presidential campaigns. I mean, first of all, the amazing thing is that Trump has declared candidate. Usually candidates don't start getting into like, you know, at the earliest, like, Labor Day of next year, but, like, probably later, the idea that he's now just going to be, like, hanging around for the next, you know, six, eight months before he is, like, obvious foiled, it's just, I can't quite visualize it. Like, what is he going to do all, like, I don't know.

It's just hard to maintain energy and momentum and dominate media cycles for that long stretch of time, especially when he doesn't seem to have a clear second act. You know, it's it's it seems to be a grievance campaign, which which could change. Obviously, he can innovate. There's plenty of time to. But, you know, the conservative media seems to be getting a little tired. So they're they're not covering him as obsessively as they used to so far. It's just it's's not clear to me what he actually does for the next few months. Well, look, conservative media seems to have had its fill of him. Republican elites and donors have clearly had their fill of him. Question is whether Republican-based voters

have, and I guess we're going to find that out. Right. Now, Democrats, so Biden intends to run. I guess if he doesn't run, I find it, and I'm not an insider in Democratic politics, I think the experts are discounting, I think underestimating, the strength of a Kamala Harris candidacy. I'm not saying she'll be formidable, but people are acting like she's not even going to be a factor. It sounds like, A, if Biden doesn't run, she plans to run. B, I just don't, you know, we all kind of, you know, snicker about these little clips that fly around Twitter showing her sounding sometimes not like a little bit of an empty vessel. But I don't know. I can imagine her being formidable and difficult for other candidates in the Democratic primary field or prospective or interested candidates and ambitious

candidates to challenge her. I think it's going to be a pretty wide open field if Joe Biden doesn't run. Even if she runs? Yes, without a doubt. Wow. And so you think like a massive, you know, like like sort of like, you know, 10, 15 candidates jumping in? Yes. And do you think it's generational where it starts to feel like these young up and comers? Because that's what I'm saying, the Republican side, like it's what is it? What is exciting to a lot of Republican activists? And you see this in the polling, you see this in focus groups and you just see this in anecdotal, is, you know, the Yunkins, the Tim Scotts, the DeSantises, the, I mean, I can go on, these younger next generation candidates contrasting with Biden and Trump

are what is turning on voters on the Republican side. Well, I think our last nominating process, you had, um, several candidates who were, uh, you know, late sixties into their seventies. Um, I think, uh, if Biden does not run the only candidate who would be at that age, I think would be Elizabeth Warren. My guess is that everyone else is, is younger. All right. I want to pivot before we let you go to Israeli politics, which you normally don't engage in rank punditry on, but I think you have a unique vantage point right now because probably unbeknownst to most of our listeners,

except for those who read the acknowledgments in Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent memoir, Bibi, My Story, if you make it all the way to the acknowledgments and you read the acknowledgments, you will see in the acknowledgments that Prime Minister Netanyahu pays tribute to Howard, our guest. And the reason he does is because Howard agreed to read Bibi's manuscript while it was in production.

Howard and I talked about it at the time when he was reading it. I think Netanyahu wanted a different perspective and a different reaction than I think many of the people who are reading the manuscript. So just curious, Howard, for your... I know you're sort of... Rarely is someone thanked in the acknowledgments who's invited to read a book that they may disagree with large parts of,

but are... I mean, that's rare, and it's particularly for a guy like Netanyahu, who I admire, but is certainly a polarizing figure, both in Israel and the US. So I'm just curious, any observations or reflections based on that that experience? You didn't really know him before, right? You know, I had met him a few times. I had I had meetings with him a few times and certainly knew him through our mutual friend, Gary Ginsberg, who helped him very much with this book. I guess I'd say a couple of things. One, I would really

recommend to people that they read it and engage with it. I think the first half of the book in particular is really a masterpiece. I would recommend the first half of the book to anyone, regardless of their views on Bibi's politics, because it is a tremendous window into an incredibly interesting family. His family is fascinating. The early history of Israel, the history of Zionism, and the history of the Israeli military, conflicts with Arab states and with Palestinians. So I think... And he grew up, you know, in a home that was,

obviously his father was this giant figure in the founding debates of the state, but also the people in his father's world, like the people he was growing up, like the adults that were around when he was a kid were some of the most important figures in the formation of the state. Yeah, it is, again, I think if you are a progressive, by the time you get into the period of the prime minister, the prime minister periods, you probably begin to get annoyed with the book um but uh but certainly the

first half of the book i i think is just really really interesting and can be read almost regardless of your political inclinations um i still think it's worth reading the whole thing but i certainly would would recommend the first half yeah i mean you told me it's like it's like he's he again regardless of what you think of his views on certain issues he's he's lived a political life that's on the scale of like uh in terms of to the degree he's been such a dominant figure in international politics and geopolitics and obviously the life of his own uh country of like a he's like a Bill Clinton or a Thatcher or, I mean, he just, yeah, he has a, he has a world historical figure. Um, so in terms of my, in terms of my involvement,

first of all, I have, I've had the privilege of, of reading a number of manuscripts, uh, and giving feedback, um, in my, you know, in the recent years, uh, it is a, in my view, an enormous privilege to be able to do that. People are obviously very proud and proprietary of their writing and their works. And when somebody is willing to share that with you for feedback, I think it's an opportunity and it's a privilege. And so I've been glad to do it for other people and was glad to do it for him. There's a lot of in Bibi's political life that I disagree with. I'm really concerned, for instance, about the coalition that looks like is coming together in Israel. Very concerned about that as an American Jew and as somebody who believes very

deeply in the state of Israel and a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. But on the other hand, I have to give Bibi an enormous amount of credit. The guy is an intellectual force, and he understands the value, at least in conversations with me, of an intellectual give and take. I mean, he's not afraid to hear, at least in my conversations with him, dissenting views. He wanted a perspective on the book that was not his, that was coming more from the center left. And he was willing to engage with my perspectives very respectfully. And he's a really, really smart guy. And it was an interesting and enjoyable experience to engage with him on the book. I do not agree with everything that he has done. I don't agree with everything in the book, but I respect, at least again, in terms of his willingness to engage with me, his willingness to have that kind of give and take around intellectual difference. All right.

That is, I didn't, I know I just sprung that on you. I brought you on to talk about New York politics and here we are ending with Israel, you know, the, the, so I appreciate your, your weighing in. I know you haven't spoken much about it publicly. Howard, we'll leave it there. Thank you for doing this thank you and we'll post the times piece uh uh in the show notes i highly recommend uh people read it it's it's a you know as i said to howard before we recorded that it i know him so i know it was a little bit of a vent but it's also a very succinct, you know, point by point

explanation of what actually happened in New York that regard whether you're a Democrat or Republican or you're just an observer, it's like a very it's a very worthwhile read. So thanks for the piece. And thanks for for joining the conversation. And I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for having me on. That's our show for today. To keep up with Howard Wolfson, you can follow him on Twitter at Howie Wolf, H-O-W-I-E-W-O-L-F. And you can find that piece he wrote for The New York Times. We'll post it in the show notes.

Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.