The Dispatch Podcast - 100 Days of War in Ukraine

Episode Date: June 3, 2022

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started almost 100 days ago. Our hosts are here to discuss the latest from the war and America’s role. Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David then turn to the gun debate at home: Will mass shootings in recent weeks produce different political results than past tragedies? Finally they preview next week’s January 6 hearings on Capitol Hill.   Show Notes: -French Press: “The Tide Is Turning Toward Russia” -The Dispatch: “​​A Marshall Plan for Ukraine?” -TMD: “100 Days of War in Ukraine” -New York Times: “Voters Say They Want Gun Control. Their Votes Say Something Different.” -New York Times: “A Timeline of Failed Attempts to Address U.S. Gun Violence” -RAND: “​​How Gun Policies Affect Mass Shootings” -RAND: “Facts About the Effects of Gun Policies Are Elusive but Important” -The Reload: “NRA Revenue Dropped $47 Million in 2021, Down $130 Million From Just 3 Years Prior” -San Diego Zoo Condor Cam Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and David French. We will start with the latest out of Ukraine, move to what's happening on Capitol Hill around the gun debate. And finally, a preview of the January 6th hearings starting in just a few days. Let's dive right in. Steve, obviously starting with you, President Zelensky of Ukraine, saying that Russia now controls one-fifth of Ukrainian territory. Obvious question, is the tide turning? Yeah, I think the tide really is turning.

David had a terrific newsletter about this earlier this week, in which was sort of a, you know, proverbial shaking of people by the lapels to, to. crystallize what we have been seeing in news reports over the last several weeks. Talking to people who are around the Pentagon and who are following this very closely, looking at what the Biden administration is doing, what the Biden administration still could do, there is this sense that Russia is gradually winning. They are finding success militarily. they are at least sort of fighting to a tie in their own domestic political battles

and that the world is losing interest in what's happening in Ukraine. And that's as much a problem as anything if you're looking at something that looks to be a, you know, the proverbial war of attrition. David, picking up where Steve just left off, A chart about social media interactions on stories about Ukraine, February 27th hits a high of about 17 million. Today, it's about 300,000. Is that having a real effect on the ground? I don't think it's having an effect on the ground because it's not like social media interactions or meaning more weapons are flowing in, more or fewer weapons are flowing into Ukraine.

Well, they could. Over time. But as of right now, that's not the case as right now you know the american military commitment is pretty darn robust it's the overtime part that i'm concerned about and it's always been the overtime part that i've been concerned about after that initial victory because the thought was the initial victory of ukrainian forces in the north of the country because i think the thought was well we just exposed ukraine just exposed the weakness of the russian army and that um you know vladimir putin miscalculated terribly and all of those things are true. And Russia's, you know, the cream of the Russian military is in ruins outside of Kiev.

Maybe a lot of it was, all of that could be true, and none of it means the war was over. None of it meant that Russia wouldn't double down, as Russia so often has done throughout its history. And that's exactly what it did, is it went and it doubled down, and it attacked them a more narrow front in a more militarily sound and prudent way. And, you know, the latest figures indicate from Zelensky and, you know, take all figures from combatants with a grain of salt, as we said in the morning dispatch today, a hundred, a hundred Ukrainian soldiers are dying a day right now, a day. And if you've got a hundred lost a day, then how many are being wounded in a day? And just to put that in perspective, at the height of the Iraq war, if we were losing 100 soldiers in a month and a month, That was a high casualty rate for us, a very high casualty rate for us. And here they are a country, a fraction of our size, losing 100 a day. And then if you look at the weaponry that we're supplying, all of it is defensive and reactive. So everything is designed to try to blunt the Russian advance.

Well, if the Russian advance grinds on kilometer by kilometer and the Ukrainian forces are being ground down 100, soldiers by 100 soldiers, what's the plan here? You know, what is it that we are going to do to assist the Ukrainians and turning the tide? And I think that that's the real question at this moment is, are we entirely content with this war of attrition and trying to stalemate Russia as much as possible and limit its gains? Or is there a plan beyond that? Because if there's not a plan beyond that. I'm not sure the attrition plan is ultimately one that is good for Ukrainians. I'm not sure that it's one that's ultimately good for, you know, a sustained conflict. And it's certainly not one that will reverse any real gains on the ground.

You know, I think we got a glimpse of some of the challenges within the Biden administration in this debate over these high-mobility artillery rocket systems over the past couple weeks. I mean, you've had the Biden administration trying to extract this promise from a public promise, apparently, that they wanted from the Ukrainians, that they wouldn't use this artillery to strike inside of Russia's borders. And while you can certainly understand why the Biden administration would be interested in looking to avoid, anything that creates the appearance of an escalation, this is, I think, yet another example of they're being overly cautious on this stuff. And it reflects, frankly, what we're seeing,

what we're hearing about the debates taking place inside the administration. You know, they basically wanted Zelensky to say, we won't strike inside Russian territory. Zelensky says this. That apparently was a precondition for the provision of this weaponry. But it speaks to the sort of caution that we're seeing from the Biden administration. While the Biden administration, I think, has gotten bipartisan praise from people from elected officials who are supported of the broader Ukraine effort, I think if you talk to people

at the Pentagon and people who are very closely monitoring the progress of the war on the ground, many of them will tell you we need to be doing more and we need to be doing it faster. And I think this is a, this gives you some indication of where things could go. Jonah, it feels like domestically, obviously American News is still covering what's going on in Ukraine, but the actual political conversation has already moved on, whether it's Yuvaldi or baby formula or just inflation in general, nobody thinks at this point that the Biden administration's handling of Ukraine is moving votes one way or another for the Democratic Party. And so then the question becomes, what's the incentive for them to prioritize this?

Yeah. I mean, in some ways, and I say this with some sympathy for the Biden administration and an enormous amount of sympathy for Ukraine, in some ways, this is the worst possible scenario politically for domestic purposes. Because here we have President Biden who is beset by challenges that would bedevil any president, to be sure. But they have a particular political residence because he seems like he's not up to the job. He seems kind of overwhelmed, out of touch, ill-served by staff. Things are spiraling out of control and because of his age or whatever. He doesn't seem like he's up to the job. Inflation is a particularly big problem like that because there's very little a president

can do to fight inflation, but president's getting all the blame for inflation. And inflation is one of these things that, as we've talked about previously on here, makes people feel like the world is spiraling out of control. Gas lines do that, too. Missing baby formula does not necessarily keep a lot of moms on an even keel. And so then you have the situation in Ukraine looking like it's going to descend into a quagmire on the eastern side where Ukraine can't, look, I mean, Ukraine can't let 20% of its territory just be taken. I mean, that's 10 U.S. states. I mean, I understand the square miles might be different, but it's in principle that you just can't.

Mileage may vary. Yeah, but like, you know, objects in mirror may seem larger than that. they appear, whatever. But the, um, uh, and so you're going to start to see an insurrection in the Russian controlled areas. Um, that's going to be ugly. That's going to fuel Russian propaganda efforts about how this is terrorism, not, not war. Um, and because we don't have troops there, Biden has sort of ownership, but very little control over how events proceed. And you can see how it's going to or could sort of melt into this larger narrative

of the incredible shrinking presidency, which comes up for lots of presidents, or how Biden, you know, he can say all the things you want, gun control. I mean, like, we're going to get to that in a second, but mass shootings are another one of these things that make people feel like the world is out of control. And, you know, he can turn all the dials he wants in the Oval Office. They actually don't move anything. thing, any objects on the ground. And, um, and so you're going to have a foreign policy situation that is going to mirror the domestic policy situation, the theme of which is, this guy's not

up to it. Events are spiraling out of his ability to control them. And that's a, that's a bad look for an 80 year old guy. All right, David, some specifics now when we talk about domestic policy, White House Economic Council Director Brian Dease said just this morning, uh, yesterday morning, sorry. that basically prices are up $1.50 per gallon since Putin began amassing troops on the Ukraine border because Russia's supply of energy is off the market, saying that the U.S. economy has a lot of strength. But that, in fact, gas prices in particular are being driven up by Putin and, you know, trying to deflect some of that domestic pressure on Biden to what's happening in Ukraine.

A, is that accurate? And B, does it have any resonance? I mean, in the gas price context, it's accurate. I mean, there's an impact. We don't know exactly how much of an impact, but there's definitely an impact. I don't think there's an impact on bacon. And that's what I'm hearing from people is not just gas prices. It's bacon prices. I think, didn't we talk about that on advisory opinions? Bacon, milk. You know, I'm not... I mean, my issue with it is, like, if gas prices were going up beforehand, then you can't simply measure the gas price that has increased since Putin invaded Ukraine. You have to measure the delta between how it was going up before and what additional amount it's gone up since Putin invaded Ukraine. And that might be hard to do because it's not going to go up evenly, et cetera.

But simply saying, like, no, we measure from this point that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I'm with Jonah that it's not that I'm blaming Biden for all of this. no i mean it's gone up some because of Putin but it's a woefully insufficient explanation for inflation more broadly and the inflation problem more broadly was hitting us well before the russia- ukraine conflict and everybody knows that i mean this is this is something we were talking about well before february 24th when russia launched its attack and you know we've talked about this before i've talked about this before it isn't that any of one thing here that is causing our real sense of national concern.

It is, there are multiple things that make us feel like something is out of control, that there are things are out of control, that this is not quite what America is supposed to be. And it's everything from the supply chain shortages, Americans aren't used to not getting the things that they order for months at a time to inflation. Most Americans who are living now don't remember. member stagflation in the 1970s. This feels really new to most Americans, to war in Ukraine, which, again, we're not used to living in a time of great power war and heightened degree

of nuclear concern. All of these things are things that are not in the norm with people's experience living in this country unless you're much older and add all of those things together. And look, the bottom line is people are going to look at the party in power and say, I don't like the way things are. And the party in power can say all it wants, what's not our fault? There's a lot of big title forces in play. That just doesn't, fair or not fair, that just doesn't work. I agree with David entirely on the substance and the political point. Just a modest pushback. While I think it's true right now that the price of bacon isn't necessarily tied to all of this, this summer, the price of bacon is going to be tied to all this because the lack of

fertilizer, because of the Russia's number one fertilizer exporter, you need natural gas and all these things for fertilizer. The price of diesel for bringing pigs to market is going to be a big deal. The biggest deal is the price, like a huge share of the corn and a lot of, and, you know, and sunflower seeds and all these kinds of things. There are all sorts of energy costs and fertilizer costs that go into that. And the amount of money and cost. that go into feeding livestock crops is enormous. And when the price of those crops goes up, the price of the pigs go up.

China also have to kill a bunch of pigs because the swine flu. Anyway, it's this bizarre, perfect storm of how you see real knock-on effects in global commodities that, again, underscores the point that it's, Biden doesn't deserve all the blame for it, but in a context where he deserves enough blame of a lot of things, like pulling out of Afghanistan and lying to us about, you know, uh, um, uh, inflation being transitory and doing student loan things, which they said, um, you know, uh, a year ago were intended to stimulate the economy by putting more money in

the economy and now they're saying they'll be, they won't infect inflation. They're just wrong footed in every way. And whether it's their fault or not, it's, it's their problem. And, and a quick point. of the politics of all this, I think David's point is well taken. The other reason that I think this will matter is not just the sense that this feels unprecedented to so many people. We can't, you know, you can't get what you want. This is, this is an America that's been used to getting Amazon Prime stuff within two days for, for a couple of years. And the Democrats want to get rid of Amazon Prime. Just by the way, that's true. The new moves to get rid of Amazon Prime. But it's, it's

just that it's this feeling that we, we Americans don't have to do this. This is not what we're used to. It's also the promises that Biden made to return things to normal. I mean, that was one of the main takeaways of his campaign was that we've had this anomalous period for the past few years. Things were sort of crazy. And I can bring the normal back. And he's failing. yeah i wrote a whole piece uh newsletter a month or so ago called can't anything be normal for just five minutes and hitting that that theme that if you run on normal you got to kind of deliver normal and normal isn't entirely in the president's control of course but you know the contradiction between this sort of return to normalcy and what we're enduring right now is pretty dramatic

And Steve, last question on this, just because I'm curious, Russia's foreign ministry says it is summoning the heads of U.S. media outlets left in Moscow, several of them, of course, have pulled out to a meeting on Monday. The heads of the Moscow offices of all American media will be invited to the press center of the Russian foreign ministry to explain to them the consequences of their government's hostile line. in the media sphere, meaning to basically tongue lash them for what the American government is doing to Russian media in the United States. I'm just curious what your take, Steve, is from a journalism perspective on the outlets that decided to stay in Russia, despite Russia's law that introduced a 15-year prison sentence for journalists spreading, quote, intentionally fake news about what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine to denazify Ukraine. You know, is it good that some media folks have stayed there?

What about this meeting? Is it now time to pull out the rest? How do you think of it? Again, just from like a private journalism perspective, not American government? Yeah, I mean, I think these are, you know, among the most difficult questions that people who run journalism organizations have to deal with, right? How do you report from North Korea when you know that any reporting of the truth can get your people tossed from the country

for best case scenario or killed. I think that's what a lot of these organizations were wrestling with with the passage of this law. We've seen some of the organizations that remained be able to report reasonably effectively on what's happening in Russia, on the ground in Russia. I mean, we've read stories about, you know, protests throughout the country

about what what the Putin government is doing. We've seen stories out of St. Petersburg about rallies. So they've done, I think, an effective job of helping the American public and sort of the global public understand what's going on there. And I think if you have the resources, the preferences to stay and to test the law, the challenge is you stay and test the law. The challenge is you stay and test the law, and it's arbitrary. I mean, look at the charges that have been trumped up against. Navalny and other Russian opposition figures, you can imagine that it wouldn't take much to get you

thrown into jail for 15 years. So I think on balance, it's good that they stay. I don't think any of them are likely to be persuaded by the arguments they hear in this meeting next week. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and

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There's this fascinating chart in the New York Times looking at ballot and initiative referendums in four states from 2016 because we look at issue polling on guns. And it's, you know, 80, 90 percent support, for instance, expanded background checks. Sarah, do you like issue polling? I don't. How do you feel? How do you feel like issue polling? And I feel so vindicated.

an awful way right now, because the topic is terrible. But, but progressives in the left have constantly pointed to 80 percent, 90 percent of the American people support this, but it's the gun lobby or it's, you know, people who are single issue voters on Second Amendment rights, for instance. And the New York Times did it actually a great job, and I'll put it in the show notes, totally debunking that. So looking at these four states referendums from 2016, expect supported support based on issue polls in California, 91%, Washington, 81%, Nevada, 86%, Maine, 83%. Actual support from voters? 63, 59, 50, and 48. Hillary Clinton fared better at the ballot box, then expanded background checks

in the same states, most on the same day, among the same voters. This wasn't single issue voters. Oh, and it's worth noting, the supporters of the initiatives outspent the Second Amendment gun rights groups. So it's not money. It's not single-issue voters. It's what? And so then you're left with a few options, right? Is it that issue polling is totally useless? Is it that people are just saying something different to a pollster? Or is it, and this is like maybe my pet thing. Expanded background checks doesn't mean anything when you ask someone that. It just sounds nice. But when you actually have to write down what that means and people think about it,

then they have a different feeling about it than simply being asked on a telephone call when they're making dinner. So, David, starting with you on the politics of what's happening, the negotiations on the Hill, and I've said this over and over again, but if you're betting in Washington, bet for the status quo, which is that nothing will happen, even so this does feel like a moment

whether it's a moment that leads to something or not it's a moment yeah I mean if we're talking about a moment on Capitol Hill I'm dubious I'm dubious

if you're talking about a moment outside of Capitol Hill I think there's more there's more room there so if you look at Florida after Parkland Florida after Parkland raised the age

of purchasing a rifle the 21 and implemented red flag laws. Red flag laws proliferated across Blue America after Parkland. This is something that actually changed on the ground in state after state after state to the point where we have 19 states plus a D.C. with a red flag law. So is there something that could happen on the ground in the states? Yeah. I also think there is a window right now for some limited reform, potentially around the red flag issue in Washington, and then now don't laugh everybody if people are smart about it, which I just probably cut out any possibility that this could happen. Because the question is, how much do people want the issue, having read all that

issue polling, and thinking, well, this is our thing now. Whereas I think if you look at, say, for example, the fact that there was a bill introduced last year, Marco Rubio and Rick Scott introduced it with Angus King, and oh goodness, I'm blanking on who the Democrat was, but you had a bill introduced bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in 2021. You have multiple GOP senators on record saying they're open to red flag laws that would have provided DOJ grant programs and DOJ grants and incentives for states adopting red flag laws.

Then I think you've got a chance to actually do something instead, I worry that we're going to bog down in the same menu, the exact same menu of gun control measures that not only have failed politically, but look, and we can put this in show notes, there's a Rand Corporation study of studies that looks at all kinds, that looked at 18 different gun control policies. And here's what they found. We find no qualifying studies showing that any of the 18 policies we investigated decreased mass shootings. Now, nine of the policies, there just weren't any studies that met their criteria for rigor, and these included some newer ideas like red flag laws.

But for nine of the policies, the studies that did, there were studies that qualified under RAND's status for, you know, appropriate rigor and quality, and that included expanded background checks, that includes bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, that includes waiting periods, that includes age requirements. There was no evidence that they decreased mass shootings. It was all inconclusive. The evidence just wasn't there. And so here's your problem. You're going back to the same well where people are up on this debate. No, you're trying to engineer a change where there's no real evidence that it will fix the problem that we have. And that's, I'm sorry that, you know, as a political matter, as a policy matter, I've got problems

with that. All right. So President Biden gave a speech last night in primetime, primetime address. And I don't know. I'm curious about your thoughts, Jonah. part of the reason that I think we haven't gotten anything done legislatively on gun control is because folks try to do sort of kitchen sink gun bills instead of just doing one at a time, see how many you can get through. Because I promise you can get some through that way.

But when you try to do these, you know, large amorphous bills, people get uncomfortable. They're not quite sure what's in the details. And the negotiations are going on on the hill. John Cornyn, not Susan Collins, not Lisa Murkowski, is leading the negotiations for the Republicans, a conservative senator from Texas, a gun-totent state, if I may say so, and in Republican leadership. And yet, Joe Biden gives this speech that I thought, if anything, will actually derail the negotiations. It certainly, I don't think we'll move them forward at all. He blames Republicans several times. He gives a laundry list

that he wants in any bill, basically giving marching orders to Democrats not to do a piecemeal approach. Why? Why, Jonah? And did you have a different take on the speech? No, I mean, to be honest, I only watch extras of it because if I have to hear him

talk one more time about how dear don't wear Kevlar, I'm going to lose it. And that's part of the, I mean, that points to a larger problem with Biden is he's been talking about this stuff for so long. He falls back on the same jokes in lines and mischaracterizations that most Americans aren't paying attention to, but it antagonizes the pro-Second Amendment side enormously because they are paying attention to it.

More broadly, I got to say, I think he's doing it because they're looking for any messaging environment for the midterms that helps them. And they think that, you know, Rudy Cheshire has written some interesting stuff about this, about how they have this misguided view of the suburbs. And they think pivoting to guns and abortion will win the suburbs for them when the data is not at all persuasive that that's obvious, at least. I got to say, the guy I've been surprisingly impressed by has been Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who used to be, as by his own omission, far more. strident, far more let's get the biggest possible comprehensive legislation, legislative thing through imaginable. And now his argument, I think, is, you know, I mean, you have to strip

it of some of the partisan stuff, is the right argument, or at least the right, it points to the right strategy for Democrats, which is to go for small ball as best you can to, in part, because that'll get passed, because Republicans want to be able to say they passed something. But also, I know when I say small ball, I don't necessarily mean insignificant. I just mean the low-hanging fruit that people can generally agree upon. And also, his point is, if you can get Republicans to vote on something that is mildly restrictive of gun rights or is not preferred by the hardcore sort of purists on this stuff. And you can demonstrate that they don't pay a terrible political price for it, that that is the path towards better legislation down the road. Now, I might disagree with him how he would define good legislation, you know, on guns, or I might not.

The devil's in the details. But right now, whether it's true or not, a lot of Republicans believe they can't vote for anything that restricts, that can be cast as restricting gun rights for fear that they'll lose a primary. And if you can actually dispel that belief by getting a few Republicans to vote on this stuff without paying a price, it changes the conversation going forward. It doesn't solve the problem or anything like that. But part of the problem is that both parties now are so invested in political strategies about not being bipartisan. I mean, look, I mean, when was the last time Biden used the word bipartisan to talk about

his bipartisan accomplishments, whether it was the aid to Ukraine or the bipartisan infrastructure bill? They don't want to talk about bipartisanship because it's a dirty word on each side because both sides think the other side is the devil. But that's actually the way to get out of this log jam is, you know, when log jam is break, it's usually little pieces that go off first and that make room for the bigger pieces. And Murphy's talking about that. He's saying nice things about Cornyn and his fellow and the Republican negotiators, even though I've seen them on MSNBC many times being basically begged to denounce them as not negotiating in good faith. And I think it's a smart strategy.

whether it succeeds in the long run, I don't know. Steve, the politics of this have remained fascinating, in part because it feels like both sides talk past each other, like so many issues that we have in our country right now. And I think, Jonah, was it you who talked about the abortion lobby, that we don't talk about the abortion lobby, but we talk about the gun lobby? So I went back and looked at how much each side spends,

actually on candidates, not on lobbying for a second. but on supporting candidates and campaigns, because obviously that's sort of my wheelhouse. In 2020, Planned Parenthood spent $45 million. The NRA spent 14. It's not even close. But to your point, the left seems to believe that this is a money issue from the gun rights side.

And there's just at this point no real evidence that the NRA has a significant political grounding, that it's actually voters, that there's just enough people out there who care about this issue, and that's persuading a majority of Republicans not to move forward on some of this stuff, similar, by the way, to abortion. It's not that Planned Parenthood gives money to these candidates, and that's why they support abortion. Planned Parenthood gives them money because they support abortion, because their constituents support abortion. At the same time, the gun rights voters, there's often the slippery slope argument. It's not that I object to this. It's that this

could lead to X, Y, and Z. And then we just end up in the stalemate, Steve. What does it matter, I guess? If David says that none of these things will actually make a difference in mass shootings, and nobody seems to care about the number of people dying from suicides, violent crime on the street, you know, yes, the president mentioned this last night, the number one cause of death for children in the United States last year, now mind you, it was during COVID, was gun violence. But not gun violence at schools. If you average it out since Columbine, seven children a year or staff are killed at school per year. Now, mind you, that's seven too much. But 120 are killed in transportation related issues getting to school per year on average. One quick thing on that. That's a bit of a misleading stat because

it includes 19-year-olds and 18-year-olds. For the driving? No, for the shooting. Oh, for the shooting. Oh, for the shooting. Yeah. It's like gang stuff. Yeah.

It's including, it's including adults and they're saying children, legal adults and they're saying children. You mean, wait, sorry, on which statistic? The, that gun violence or that guns are the leading cause of death for children. I got you. But not the seven children a year killed at school. Right, right, right. Versus 120 in transportation.

No, the, the, the, the, the, the one that. says that it's the most deleting cause of death for kids. Yeah. That study includes 19-year-olds. Fair. So, Steve, if nothing's going to stop mass shootings, maybe. But we still have a gun problem in this country and a gun violence problem in this country. Why is it that we can't rally around making suicide not as easy or just regular gun violence?

And the only thing we can talk about is whether this individual piece of legislation could prevent a mass shooting at a school or a grocery store or a Walmart. Maybe that's not the point. Yeah, I mean, I like to think that we'll eventually get back to a politics where we, and by we, I mean, our elected officials, make decisions based on the efficacy of policy. I'm not sure we're there right now. So I don't know that that's, I think it's a very interesting, the RANCity is very interesting that David cites.

And it, you know, it corresponds with, I think, what we've, what we've, what we've, we've learned from these debates over the past many years, or at least what we've seen on these other policies or attempts at limited policy interventions. But I think, you know, to go back to the original point, you know, the New York Times article that you mentioned at the outset, Sarah, is really important. I mean, and we talked about this last week, and I noticed that it got a fair amount of discussion in the comments about both our sense that the voters were really the explanation here and that the NRA was seeing diminishing power. And I just want to read a quick paragraph from that New York Times piece by Nate Cohn. He says there have been countless

explanations offered about why political reality seems so at odds with the polling, including the power of the gun lobby, the importance of single-issue voters and the outsized influence of rural states in the Senate. But there's another possibility, one that might be the most sobering for all of all for gun control supporters. Their problem could also be the voters, not just politicians and special interests. And I think that's, he's arrived at a sort of a fundamental truth there. I think that is the best explanation for, for the reluctance we see of Republicans to, to engage on this in some say, in some sense. And, um, and the concern about, about the slippery slope arguments that you mentioned. There's reporting today as it relates to

the power of the NRA from our friend Stephen Gatowski at The Reload, who points out that NRA attendance at this annual meeting week before last was the worst in 16 years. So was participation in the NRA board elections this year. NRA revenue dropped by almost $50 million. in 2021, down $130 million from just three years ago. So you can actually put numbers to the arguments that the NRA doesn't have the influence that it once did. Stephen points out, and I think it's a good note, that doesn't mean the NRA is not powerful. The NRA is still powerful, still very powerful. But it's not, I think, the boogeyman that the media and the left for years have made it sort of out to be.

They shorthand this, and it's easier for them to explain this, you know, bad, big bad gun lobby in Washington distorting the debate than it is for them to actually have to grapple with the fact that there are a lot of voters who don't want what the progressives are selling in this issue. So real quick, since we're reading from the reload and from the New York Times about this idea that's the voters who shape the GOP agenda on guns, I just want to read a headline from this outfit called, let me look, the dispatch, where this guy, Jonah Goldberg wrote, it's voters, not lobbyists who shaped the GOP gun agenda. And one of the things I did is I went and looked, Steve Scalise, according to Open Secrets, was the number one recipient of gun lobby, broadly defined, money in the 2020 cycle. And it was not, and money from the gun lobby. However you want to define it was not even remotely in the top 20 sources of money for Scalese.

And yet he's a guy who, even though he was shot in a mass shooting event, says that he's all in on Second Amendment rights. You know, the idea that he's bought and paid for, which if you do Google searches or Nexus Lexus searches for the phrase bought and paid for when it comes to gun stories, it is amazing how many people just. by wrote use that phrase as if it explains everything and um and like i feel like i'm taking crazy pills a little bit on this debate because i've been writing this piece for years now we've talked about it a bunch here about how groups like planned parenthood and the nRA and a bunch of other groups including like msnbc and fox right just to pick two other examples um they're all these outside players that do party work by proxy that educate voting voters, that mobilize voters, that do issue framing and policy framing, because the parties are too

weak to do it themselves. And one of the reasons why the NRA, so this thing that looks like the NRA's power has more to do with the fact that the Madisonian structure of how parties are supposed to work, which is that they take members of a coalition who all compromise on what the party's position is so that they get at least half a loaf compared to the other coalition. When the party is so weak, you have these major players like Planned Parenthood and the NRA who take the 100% position and can extort the party to go along with it because the party is too weak to negotiate something more reasonable. And so the NRA does more voting, and so does Planned Parenthood, does more or NRA or NRA, whatever, does more party work than the state parties or the federal party does in many circumstances in terms of modalizing voters, framing, issues, educating voters, communicating to them, galvanizing them. And that looks like the NRA

owns these politicians when in fact the NRA is mobilizing these voters who own these politicians. And it's a completely different dynamic that gets lost because everyone is married. The left loves all of these sort of Marxists, these quasi-Marxist, Kuibono, you know, oh, they're so wrong. They know they're wrong. The only reason they, could have a wrong position is because someone is paying them to. And the reality is that in life, most people have wrong views and wrong positions honestly. And not because they have been paid to. There are people, we know people in Washington who've been paid to be wrong, but they're professionals at it. Most normal people are not paid to be wrong. They actually come to their views

honestly. Did you lock the front door? Check. Close the garage door. Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision. No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection, and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web. Uh, I'm looking into it.

Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit tellus.com slash total security to learn more. Conditions apply. All right. Let's do a quick preview of the January. six hearings, which are starting next week, Steve, what is it that you are looking to happen that could actually be meaningful in American politics at this point? I think that's the right way to frame it.

And it's also sort of a sad way to frame it, right? Because it should really matter to us that we have learned since, you know, people witnessed on January 6th, the greatest manifestation of the attempt by Donald Trump and his advisors to prevent the people. peaceful transfer of power. We've learned so much more about what was behind that moment. It wasn't this spontaneous outburst of anger and frustration caused by a couple of speeches at the Capitol. It was weeks and weeks of meticulous planning by some of Trump's top people, his top legal advisors, and following an attempt to threaten and bully state and local. election officials, to seat alternative electors, to do everything that they could possibly do

to prevent Donald Trump from being pushed out of the White House on January 20th. That's what this is really about. It's not just about the violence of January 6th. And in that sense, the naming of the committee is something of a misnomer. It's really about much more than that. I think we'll learn a lot more than that. The question of whether people will pay attention, I think, like so many things in our public life, it'll be divided.

It'll be polarized, right? I mean, you've seen so many people, including many people who were outraged by what happened on January 6th, decide that either they don't want to talk about it for political reasons because it would complicate the ability of Republicans to take back the House and the Senate or that they're going to, in some ways, rationalize or justify it, which is even worse. That's a huge problem for our politics. And those people, I think, are likely to be successful. I don't expect you'll see a lot of coverage of what's happening on the committee and what the committee is uncovered on places like Fox, in talk radio, conservative websites,

because there's been this sort of collective decision that it doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter. and this is all partisan machinations by Democrats and left-wing media to get Republicans. And while I do think that Democrats open themselves up to accusations of partisan maneuvering, particularly at the founding of the committee, as we've discussed on this podcast before, I don't think that's primarily what's happened here. The bottom line for me is, what have we learned since January 6th, since the establishment of the committee, I think is very important question. And how much will we see that advanced in these public hearings? We know, for instance, that the committee has conducted

thousands and thousands of hours' worth of interviews from people who were involved in the attacks, who were involved in the planning, who had a hand in what followed. And some of that information has been made public, but much of it hasn't. So what more do we learn about this plot to keep Donald Trump in power? I think it's really, really important, and I fear it will be treated like just another news story. David? I have the same concern. It is very, very important.

I do feel like it'll be treated like just another news story. But this also taps into something else that I'm seeing more and more, which is, I think that it's been pretty remarkable the extent to which I see politicians on the right now exclusively concerned about their media portrayal in right-wing media. Nothing else matters. Nothing else. The substance of a report from any other mainstream outlet doesn't matter. What matters is how right-wing media portrays.

them what matters is what is seen on right wing media and that's it that is that and that's one of the reasons i think why we've seen such republican indifference at best to the january 6th investigation it's not just that there are republicans who have a lot to be concerned about in an investigation into january 6th it's that there's an awful lot more republicans who understand that if they're going to focus on January 6th, they're going to pay a cost in right-wing media. And right-wing media dictates their fortunes almost entirely, especially in a heavily, not just heavily gerrymandered, but heavily sorted, the big sort sort of districts.

And so the dominance of right-wing media over your everyday Republican politician, I think it's the larger frame hovering over all of this. And it's one reason why they're increasingly, increasingly indifferent to any other source of news or discussion or commentary or critique about them and their political career. If it is not bubbling up through daily wire, through talk radio, through Fox, through Breitbart, whatever, it's as if it doesn't happen. Jonah, a lot of the media organizations are talking about carrying this live, whether on streaming or on their networks or cable.

that almost seems like a mistake to me. It feels biased, not necessarily in a partisan way, by the way, but in a what is newsworthy way in choosing that this is newsworthy versus perhaps times where some portion of the country thought something else might have been newsworthy for a congressional hearing, and that wasn't getting this kind of coverage. Yeah, I mean, I know what you mean, and I think we can all stipulate that we would be, it would be a healthier country if all of this stuff on the substance was deemed more newsworthy than it is.

That said, I think this could be a, this could be a disaster for the news networks if the January 6th committee doesn't bring the goods in some significant way. And, but I think that disaster is downstream of the calamitous way Congress responded to January 6th a long time on January 8th, essentially, or January 7th. Like, if these had been impeachment hearings, which they should have had for real, with real witnesses and whatnot, within days after January 6th, that absolutely. deserves wall-to-wall coverage, prime time, not just on the cable news channels, but broadcast, right? And by just very nature. And part of my criticism of the January 6th committee is that

both parties chickened out about doing impeachment the correct way. We talked about this a little bit at the 500th Remnant-Pelousa thing. I had tough words for both McConnell and McCarthy as well as Pelosi about this. And so if they don't have, I think historians will look at this as one seamless example of elite failure in our politics and in our culture more broadly, with some people coloring themselves with comparatively more glory than others. But at the fundamental level, this was a failure of leadership. It was a failure of leadership, how they designed the impeachment article after January 6th. It was a failure of leadership about how they conducted that proceeding. It was a failure of leadership about how people voted for various partisan reasons based upon

various assumptions that Trump would just wither up and go away. And everyone wanted somebody else to take the grief that they should have taken upon themselves. And so whatever flaws the January 6th committee will have, and I think it will have many that are very related to all of this. I think some of the partisan Democrats on there are going to be their own worst enemies. and the media and the way that it has covered this stuff I think deserves some blame on here as well but if they deliver the goods right if there is actually new information

that is shocking and important and significant and yada yada yada everyone will say of course you should have covered these things live and done all that I just don't know that that's there I don't know that they're going to bring the goods and I hope they do but I don't know.

Sarah, let me ask you this question. Isn't the question, I mean, so I agree with that as sort of a comment on reality as we understand it. But haven't they kind of already brought the goods? I mean, of course, from a strictly PR perspective, you know, if you want to get the word out or you want to get attention to what you're doing, you want to have new information, you want to bring the goods.

But if you're talking about what the committee is producing, I'd say that given what we've seen through leaks and statements and other commentary that we've seen from committee members thus far, we've already got the good. Like what I described at the beginning in the answer to your first question, that's the goods. The goods is this was a much more detailed plot than anything else. I'd love to learn more. I think we'll learn more. But isn't that sort of the wrong way to look at it?

Well, sure, but then why are the media organizations giving this so much airtime if we're not going to learn, you know, if we already have the information that we're going to have? Is that the standard? Because I feel like I know a lot of people who are, you know, think January 6th was terrible and stupid and criminal and all of the words that you want to have. But they're rolling their eyes at the idea that this is now going to get dawn to dusk coverage. from a bunch of, you know, cable news outlets because, like, this has already been covered. They've already said most of what they're going to say. This is now going to be a media spectacle where they try to get attention for it during a hearing and the media organizations are going to play their part in doing that. Sure. I don't, look, I mean, far be it for me to suggest that members of Congress are going to do anything but anything but performance.

I mean, I think there are some serious discussions to be had here. But there's no doubt that a lot of this will be performative and it will be dramatic. And as Jonah suggests, I think Democrats in particular are likely to overplay their hands, overstate their case. We have Adam Schiff on the panel. He's done this pretty consistently. I guess for me... And it's different, by the way, when it's an impeachment hearing, I think, because that actually

has constitutional repercussions. And even if you think you know how it's going to come out, it is a constitutional mechanism that has been triggered. this is a congressional hearing. It is different. There's tons of them every day. And so you do have to kind of answer the question, why this one? And I, you know, I'm sort of playing devil's advocate here, if you can't tell, Steve,

because I'm torn about it myself. I think that this is a different congressional hearing. Yeah. And I think January 6th was a difference in kind, not just degree. But I take seriously when my friends are rolling their eyes that there's something about this that does feel like it's meant to be theater, so let's make it a theater. Yeah. I mean, look, you can go back and look at the way that some of the Trump-Russia stuff was covered and say a lot of, some of it was meant to be theater. No, I do think there were

serious questions at the heart of some of the Trump-Russia stuff, but there's no question that that the media overplayed its hand. I guess I mean the coverage of the Mueller investigation as someone who was sitting at DOJ watching the coverage. Right. I was stunned. Well, and look, you know, part of the problem today is that a lot of the same people who were making those comments about the Mueller investigation and what it would produce are literally the same people making comments and predictions about what this is going to do, whether it's Glenn Kershner, whether it's Adam Schiff, you know, you name it. There claims that there will be immediate prosecutions and all the stuff that go way too far. I guess for me the bottom line is this is, this goes beyond January 6th. January 6th was just the worst public manifestation of what was happening. Let's just say it's a huge deal when the leader of one party who happens to be the president of

the United States, also the leader of the free world, tries to block the peaceful transfer of power. And that's what happened here. I mean, the revelations that we've seen related to John Eastman and his activities to the alternative electors, to the efforts to threaten the local election workers have huge implications, not just because in sort of a backward-looking way, but because of what we're debating and discussing going into 2022 and 2024. I mean, you have election truthers. And, you know, somebody in Doug Mastriano, the Republican governor to be the Republican nominated for governor of Pennsylvania, who was at the January 6th rally, who participated in all of these things,

who wants to deregister voters and has what I think is fairly described as kind of a wink, wink, nod, effort suggested that he'd be willing to cheat in 2024. Like, this has direct practical application to what we're going to be talking about for the next two years and the next four years and whether we can continue to have

free and fair elections in the United States. I think that deserves a lot, a lot of coverage. All right, and now for our best segment, not worth your time. This week's not worth your time. It was a close call. Obviously, I could have done the Depp heard trial for week number three,

but it was prevailed upon me that perhaps that was turning into a bit. So instead, first, I have something that is worth your time. The San Diego Zoo's live cams of their baby Condor is just a delight. So do check that out. I'll put it in the show notes

for all the baby Condor fans out there. It's breeding season, as you all know, obviously, for the condors. So, yay, for baby condor. But Steve, in thinking about things that aren't worth our time, your text messages are not worth our time. At least they weren't all worth CNN's time. Tell us about your text messages. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people don't think my text messages are worth their time, given to sometimes they go unrespondent to. Yeah, when you send them to me directly. That's right. That's right. I've audibly complained on my podcast about receiving text messages from Steve on more than one occasion.

I mean, I'm happy to communicate less. I can send fewer text messages if you want. Could you? Could you really? I don't think so. I could. I will. I will.

Just now, when I make some big decision in the future, I'll be like, look, go back to the podcast re-recorded on June 3rd. And that's her explanation. No, my text messages have gotten the attention of some people. There was a CNN story published yesterday where the reporters, Jamie Gangel and her colleagues went back and looked at the texts that Mark Meadows, former White House Chief of Staff, had received on January 6th, 2020, and built a story around that really interesting story, I think, actually, not because of my text messages, but because of others. But in their broad sweep of the text messages that went to Mark Meadows that day was one from me. Sorry, January 6, 2021, I had the year on. And I sent a text message to Meadows that evening, 7 o'clock or 9 o'clock that evening about a voicemail that I had gotten my hands on that was from Rudy Giuliani intended to have been left for Senator Tommy Tuberville. urging the senator, after all of the violence as the Senate was back in session as they were

continuing the proceedings, asking Tuberville to slow down the proceedings so that Trump and his team could continue to object. So after all of the violence, they still wanted to slow this down. So I had texted Meadows asking him if he knew about it, if Trump asked Giuliani to call. And if the president was on board for this. And it was like so many of my texts to Jonah, something that went unresponded to. But the more interesting texts, I have to say, were the ones I sent in the weeks leading up to January 6th about the election because they started, you can see like in, you know, November after the election, you know, asking about this election stuff. Are they serious? Where's it going?

And then, you know, who's in which? camp. But then I get sort of increasingly exasperated in these texts, and you can see, Mark, what's the endgame with this election conspiracy stuff? Where does he, where do you think it goes? I can't imagine you're as all in as POTUS seems to be, would love to connect. And then finally said one that was like, it's hard for me to see this as anything but an attempt by the president to cheat. If I'm missing something, call me. He did not, and now we turned among the things that have come out as a result of January. So that means you weren't missing something.

The January 6 committee is, we now know that Mark Meadows was not, in fact, less all in than Donald Trump was. But he was leading this campaign and helping to devise the effort to block the peaceful transfer party. In fairness, he might have just been distracted by all the documents he was burning in the fireplace in his office. Which, as you pointed out to me, Jonah, I mean, that was a story that came out this week. And, I mean, I bet 90% of the people listening to this podcast didn't hear about that story. And just again, for perspective purposes, stop and think about that. The chief of staff, the president of the United States, burned papers, and it's sort of a non-story. Burned papers potentially in connection with all of this stuff.

And it's a non-story. Not a great place to be. And with that, what is a great place to be is this beautiful box that they've built for these baby condors. The baby condor, I will say, looks a little bored, a little sleepy, not a lot to do in the box. But nevertheless, thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you in the comment section. If you're a dispatch member, it's a nice little, it's a nice little condor box we've built in the comment section. Cozy, comfy, and everyone jumps in from time to time to comment.

Just for the record, they're vultures. And we use the name Condor to make it sound like they're cooler or prettier and they're not. I love vultures. Vultures are grotesque. There's so many things I could say right there. Jonah, you know, when India killed off their vultures, they had a huge problem. You need vultures in your ecosystem. Vultures are incredibly important, smart, thoughtful, caring, loving birds.

How dare you, sir? Look, we need gut bacteria, too. That doesn't mean I want to watch a live can of them. And let me just say. I'm looking at the live cam right now and there is nothing in there but dirt and feathers. Okay, the condor's in the little corner right now. He just moved to the corner. He just ate

a dead trash panda and he's digesting because that's what they do. All right. We will talk to you guys next week. Thank you, everyone. Yeah, the end. This is brought to you by the This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

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