The Dispatch Podcast - All By Herself

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

The fight over who is in and who is out within the GOP leadership has reached a boiling point. Rep. Liz Cheney, who survived a vote in February to oust her from her leadership position, may not be there much longer. Sarah and the guys break down what’s happening and how much of a chance Cheney has to survive another attempt to replace her. Also, the special election in Texas shows a weak spot for Democrats, Jonah asks the group if competitiveness even matters in the global economy, and the gang discusses what happens next in the fight against COVID-19 now that the U.S. seems to be hitting a vaccine hesitancy wall. Show Notes: -Steve’s piece on GOP leadership fight -Former President Trump’s statement on Liz Cheney -Audrey’s piece from the GOP retreat in Orlando -Texas 6th District special election results -The Sweep on the Texas 6th special election -Declan’s piece on cancel culture -Jonah’s column on the “New New Deal” -“The Liberals Who Can’t Quit Lockdown” - The Atlantic -Mali woman gives birth to not seven, but nine babies Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isger, joined by Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and David French. Today, we are going to talk about the leadership fight in the House. It's Liz Cheney taking on the world, it seems. Then we'll talk a little bit about what the special election in the Texas 6th Congressional District tells us about whether Republicans can take back the House in 2022. Is Biden correct to emphasize competitiveness? And where are we on this whole COVID thing? Let's dive right in. Steve, I know that the Liz Cheney topic is your topic, but I want to read a statement that was just put out by Donald Trump.

Warmonger Liz Cheney. Cheney, who has virtually no support left in the great state of Wyoming, continues to unknowingly and foolishly say that there was no election fraud in the 2020 presidential election when, in fact, the evidence, including no legislative approvals as demanded by the U.S. Constitution, shows the exact opposite. Had Mike Pence referred the information on six states, only need two, back to state legislatures, and had gutless and clueless minority leader Mitch McConnell, he blew two seats in Georgia that should have never been lost, fought to expose all of the corruption that was presented at the time with more found since,

we would have had a far different presidential result in our country would not be turning into a socialist nightmare, never give up. Take it away from here, Steve. Yeah. There's been a big debate in Republican circles about whether Liz Cheney could continue to be outspoken in her criticism of Donald Trump and his his amplification of election-related lies. And one of the arguments that's been made against her is that she keeps looking backward. I think with that statement, we can understand why she keeps looking backward because Donald Trump is determined to, uh, win the election that he lost in November. And he's not stopping.

So just to level set of it, listeners will remember that in February, Liz Cheney survived a vote of no confidence as the House Republican Conference Chair 145 to 61. It was a blind vote, and Kevin McCarthy supported her in that, despite the fact that she voted to impeach Donald Trump. That was the big question.

Fast forward to the Republican retreat last week in Orlando, where our Audrey Falberg talked to Representative Cheney and others. And this was a big subject. Liz Cheney was asked questions about the wisdom of a commission. She was asked about the president claim that he lost the election. And Liz Cheney did what Liz Cheney always does. She was blunt and straightforward and said the election wasn't stolen, and I think the commission should focus on January 6th, since that's what we're discussing. So the ball was already rolling last week, and this weekend, a McCarthy lieutenant, Jim Banks from the House Republican Study Committee, reached out to Axios to say Liz Cheney needs to go. That accelerated this momentum, and then Donald Trump put out a statement

Monday, I believe, saying that the election was stolen, it would forever be known as the big lie. Liz Cheney tweeted that the election, in fact, wasn't stolen, and those who claim it was are injecting poison into the democracy. And then all hell broke loose. You had Kevin McCarthy say he'd lost confidence in her. You have Steve Scalise, the number two in the House of Republican Conference saying that she should go. And Liz Cheney is almost certainly in my view to be removed from her position

when the House gets together next week. So my question, having given you the correct answer on the first, I have two questions. Is Liz Cheney gone when the House gets together next week? And is Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise right to want her gone, given that her views on Trump are so plainly out of step with many House Republicans. And I guess I'll go first to Jonah. Jonah, you were at the off-the-record session that AEI had, which was an interview between Paul Ryan and Liz Cheney earlier this week. Can you give us some direct quotes from that section and tell us exactly what was said?

You're not a good person. For listeners who don't know, I had just told these guys before we started recording that it was an off-the-record session. I am an AEI guy. I'm bound by the non-disclosure stuff, so I cannot do that. I will say in somewhat oblique terms, I think a lot of the chatter, and I suggest as much on Twitter the other day when I saw Paul Ryan was trending, a lot of the chatter about how Paul Ryan is doing nothing to, and is totally not supportive of Liz Cheney, I don't think is

accurate. But beyond that, here's my view of it. I kind of think Eric Erickson's right about this. The issue isn't about January 6th, per se, and the stolen election thing. The issue is that Liz Cheney and others, rightly, in my view, believe that the GOP cannot write itself until it stops being basically the plaything of Donald Trump, which is one of the reasons why these 10 congressmen who voted for impeachment, if they win, that will be a massive blow to Trump, because the whole point is that Trump is supposed to be able to use his superpower to screw with people in the primaries to impose his will and impose loyalty on people.

And if 10 people can vote for impeachment or seven out of 10 can vote for impeachment and still win, that would be deadly to the perception that Trump has power over the primary system, which is Israel control. And so I think the real, anyway, the real issue isn't so much about January 6th. It is this thing about Liz Cheney thinking that the party can't be a cult of personality to Donald Trump and needs to move on. She can't say that explicitly all the time because that would be even more divisive, rejects. this buffoon who is like ruining our party. So instead she focuses on January 6th, which is in effect a symbol of the problems with Donald Trump. And she's very effective at pointing out that

her voting record prior to January 6th was very Trumpy in the sense that she voted with like Trump like 94% of the time, 93% of the time. And so in many ways, the January 6th stuff is just simply a, it's a placeholder for this larger argument about whether or not Trump should still be able to dictate what the party says and doesn't

say. And she's kind of stuck in this Joe Manchin dilemma. Like Joe Manchin doesn't want to spend every day talking about the filibuster. But every day, journalists ask him about the filibuster. And so he says things about the filibuster. Liz Cheney doesn't want to spend every day talking about January 6th necessarily. But every day she's asked about January

6 and she's not going to lie to her credit. And she tells the truth. And from the Republicans I've talked to, and for the Republicans I've talked to, we've talked to a lot of Republicans. They're okay with her thinking the January 6th was bad and thinking that Trump didn't win the election. That's all fine. But they wanted to be like Mitch McConnell, say it once, and then move on. And that would be fine if the issue was January 6th, but it's not.

The issue is Trump. And Trump keeps lying about the election being stolen and using that as a litmus test for his control over the party. And that's what she's really fighting against. And she's going to lose. At least she's going to lose this conference thing. I will take bets, give me odds. She's going to lose it. That will make me sad.

The fact that people are more outraged by Liz Cheney telling the truth about an insurrectionary mob, then Matt Gates or Marjorie Taylor Green makes me want to cut myself. But that's where we are. So that's my take on it. Is she going to lose, Sarah? Yes, although what we're all going to be looking for is who votes with her for her. for her. Will it be more than the 10 who voted to impeach?

Will it be a different, you know, minority conglomeration? And then we'll sit there and go through each of those names. Obviously, I'm very interested to see what Chip Roy does. Someone who is, you know, on the one hand said some things that are good. And on the other hand, sometimes said some things that maybe I don't agree with. I think that, look, on the one hand, you have the House Republicans replacing their number three with someone who is just patently less conservative, comes from a more moderate district, whose voting record is far, far less conservative than Liz Cheney's, and who just personally is less conservative than Liz Cheney. I mean, it's hard to get to the right of Liz Cheney on any policy issue, much to the complaint, I think, of some people. However... If, you know, she's not there as conservativer in chief, she's there in a leadership position. And I think that that's where this becomes a little bit of a more complicated question.

You know, Audrey Falberg, our reporter who reported out of the GOP conference that was down in Orlando, when she was talking to Mike Johnson, who, you know, is the chair of the Republican conference that was down there, he kept emphasizing unity to her when asked what the message going into 2022 was his answer was unity, which is not a message to voters, I don't think, but like I have paragraphs that I'm looking here of Audrey's notes that she shared with me

and it's just like unity this and unity that. Well, then Liz Cheney presents a problem because as you said, Steve, whether she wants to be the one talking about it or not, reporters are going to keep asking her about this thing that divides the caucus. And it's going to keep providing disunity within the caucus. So I think there is an argument that she can no longer be effective as the number three in the House. I think that sucks.

I think that's a real shame. I think Liz Cheney has an enormous amount to offer. I think she is by far the best leader that House Republicans have. right now on everything except this. The fact that she's out of step with the majority of House Republicans also is a big problem because what she's saying is true and what they're saying is false. And then you have all these people in the middle who just don't want to say anything at all, which is cowardice. She's going to lose the election. I understand why she's going to lose the election. I'm very curious to see which House members vote for her and their statements,

which I presume the vast majority will say something like Liz Cheney voted her conscience. She's expressing an opinion about what happened, and we're voting her out of leadership because the former president who lost doesn't like it. I thought Steve Scalese statement was actually very telling. He told us to Axios last month. The idea that you just disregard President Trump

is not where we are. Oh, yep. I guess that's true. David, is it that simple? First of all, do you think she's done? And second, is it that simple? Is this just all about Donald Trump? Yeah, it's all about Donald Trump.

I mean, look, you can phrase it however you want. We want unity. We don't want division. And we want our voters to understand that we support the people that they support. I mean, there's all kinds of ways you sort of filter this, unconditional support for Trump through normal political language. You know, normal political language as we want people rowing together. Normal political languages, we don't want to feed the media talking points that undermine the

party. That's all normal political language centered around an extremely abnormal political figure in the face of unprecedented historical events. And so what we had was a violent attempt. to overturn the results of a lawful election. We had the seizure of the Capitol. Those things, the seizure of the Capitol hadn't happened since a foreign invading army did it.

A violent attempt to overturn the results of election, especially for part of the country, hadn't happened since 1861. So what you had was an horrific historical event that was preceded by a series of brazen lies. and Liz Cheney is calling that out because it's true, because it's necessary, because it's one of the, if you're a leader, if you purport to be a leader in this country, this is what you should be doing, and yet you have dozens and dozens of Republicans who are truth be told, more annoyed and angry by this on a day-to-day basis than they are by people like Matt Gates or Marjorie Taylor Green. That's just where that party is right now in the House of Representatives. representatives and maybe in certain parts of the Senate. So that's why I have zero confidence that she's going to survive the vote. I have zero confidence that this fever, especially at the grassroots, is going to break anytime soon. I mean, heck, I'm in a community where many of the sort of grassroots Republican leaders are furious at Marsha Blackburn for not being sufficiently

Trumpy and supporting Trump enough. Furious at Marcia Blackburn. That's where we are now. I mean, this is so you know on the one hand if you're somebody who you all your consumption of media all your consumption of political analysis is sort of what you see on twitter where you've got you've got um media figures bombarding republic republicans with questions about trump where you've got fact checked after fact check just obliterating the election lie etc etc and you're not a republican politician who is hearing constantly and loudly from many people in their grassroots constituency, not only that Trump was right, but that you did not do enough for Donald Trump, I mean, that is a drumbeat. It is intense. It is constant.

That's the world that they're inhabiting. That's the world that they live in. And it's not the world that you live in, but that's the world that they live in. And in that world, Liz Cheney is a huge problem. And support for Liz Cheney is a huge problem. It's become another litmus test. You have to oppose her if you're going to be with Donald Trump. And we already know, we already know for most of these guys when push comes to shove, they have already answered where they stand. Steve, I have a question for you. One quick thing, Sarah, is your cat angry, is your cat pro-Lis Cheney or anti-Lis-Cheney?

Because she's clearly complaining about something. I have the impression that the Cheney's are dog people, in which case, anti, very anti. Okay, fair enough. But it has nothing to do with January 6th. So, you know, I think it's a principled position. I understand. Steve, I have a question for you. The reporting is, in my own understanding and talking to people, is Liz Cheney is not fighting this.

Her take is, if you want to vote me out, so be it. She's not going to lie and she's not going to stay quiet to keep her leadership position. She just doesn't think that's worth it. Why do you think, okay, don't lie, don't stay quiet, but fight this. not fight it. She's not whipping the leadership position. I think there are several reasons about it. One, I think, you know, it's sort of hard. I'm amused by the analyses that wonder whether Liz Cheney understands this might not be good for her career in the short term. I mean, you really have people wondering that, saying that aloud in public. Of course she understands that it's not good for her

career. She was talked about as potentially the next speaker of the House, a challenger to Kevin McCarthy, you know, a vice presidential nominee. Now, I think, I happen to think the long-term politics of this actually will be good because people will respect somebody who stands up and tells the truth, regardless of its political implications. But she's well aware of the short-term politics of this and of those implications. I think that, you know, the statement from Donald Trump that Sarah read earlier, it's so interesting for so many reasons. And among the most interesting is Kevin McCarthy. You know, McCarthy was aggressive in telling his story, both about going after Donald Trump, taking on Donald Trump in the aftermath of January 6th. You know, he's told,

part of the problem with Kevin McCarthy is he's told so many different stories that contradict each other, it's hard to know what he actually meant. But on January 6th, he said he talked to Donald Trump and urged him to have his, have the rioters stand down. He told a newspaper, his hometown newspaper, the Bakersfield, California, a few days later, that he had called Donald Trump personally and said it was time to stop the election lies. He stopped this, told him, enough, this is over. Kevin McCarthy told Dave Wasserman of, NBC News and the Cook Political Report that he knew Trump hadn't won the election, that this was all crazy. In fact, Kevin McCarthy, before the election, told that same Dave Wasserman that if Trump

loses McCarthy and Mitch McConnell would have to put out a statement declaring that Joe Biden had won the election because he knew that Donald Trump would claim to have lost. So Kevin McCarthy is well aware of what the truth is here. And yet, he was not only the man who oversaw what happened in the House of Representatives when 140 Republicans objected to the election, Kevin McCarthy by Jim Jordan's telling and others helped lead that effort. So this is somebody who was saying publicly at the time saying it to Dave Wasserman, that he knew that the election wasn't stolen, and yet he was leading the protests for people who thought the election was stolen. I think that just gives a window into who Kevin McCarthy is and how he thinks. Fast forward

to February 3rd, when the first no-confidence vote came up, Kevin McCarthy gave a speech on behalf of Liz Cheney, and his aides and allies aggressively leaked to the fact that Kevin McCarthy gave a speech on behalf of Liz Cheney. There was a political story either the next day or the day after, it said Kevin McCarthy saved Liz Cheney, sort of a damsel in distress theme. He wanted Liz Cheney in leadership. And I guess one of my questions is, did Kevin McCarthy think at that moment that Liz Cheney was likely to just slink away and let this all go? Because if he did, he's a moron. Liz Cheney said in announcing her vote to impeach that Donald Trump had committed I don't have the exact words in front of me, but, you know, something like the most grievous betrayal of his oath to protect the Constitution in American history.

It's clear that she took this pretty seriously. The idea that Kevin McCarthy would lobby to keep her in her position and expect that she would then just go silent on matters of, you know, the stolen election or the things. that led to the assault on the Capitol is absurd unless Kevin McCarthy was engaging in what in the intelligence profession they would call mirror imaging, which is making the mistake that other people would act like you do in a similar situation. And I think that's what's going on. And I think this is about the future of the Republican Party as much or more than it is about the past. All right. So let me push back on that a little bit, maybe because maybe I was incoherent before.

I think that Kevin McCarthy, look, again, I very rarely stake out a position that Kevin McCarthy is one of a world historical genius, but I honestly think that the debate about January 6th, look, stipulated. Liz Cheney thinks what happened on January 6th is very, very, very bad, and she's being sincere and truthful and all that, and she's also correct in all of that. But politically, I think the thinking is among a lot of these people that Liz Cheney's position is the party needs to move beyond Donald Trump. And that's the real issue here. January 6th is the best argument for that.

Because first of all, it lets her off the hook for having voted basically the Trump party line, having voted for him, all of those things. She gets to say, hey, look, I'm a loyal Republican. I've been with you on all of this stuff. but this is different. Personally, I'm of the position that Trump was unfit for office and should have been convicted on the first impeachment

and that he's never been nominated, never by elected. But Liz Cheney made a choice as a politician, which I don't necessarily begrudger, to like deal with the reality that Donald Trump was president of the United States and that the Republican Party supported him.

And then the January 6th thing was just the last straw. And she wants to use that as a cudgel, as a means by which the Republican Party divorces from Donald Trump. And McCarthy, my assumption was, saw this as no, no, no, she's got this weird constituency that cares about telling the truth. She's got this weird constituency that actually, you know,

wants to make a big deal about mobs chanting Mike Pence. And she was really upset about it. I was upset about it too. So she wants to have her say and then move on. And the problem is, is that if it was just having your say and moving on about January 6th, she shouldn't keep talking about it. If the goal is actually to divorce the party from Donald Trump, then that's the only thing she can really talk about. And plus, she's going to get asked about it by the press anyway, because she can't say, both because she'll be accused of being a hypocrite, but also because it will be even more damaging to fellow Republicans. Donald Trump was disqualified, unqualified for office all along.

He's ruined the party. We made a huge mistake getting along, you know, lining up behind him. And so instead, she has to say January 6th was different. This was a fundamentally different thing than anything else Donald Trump did. And this should be for all of us who went on the ride for so long, this is our excuse to get off the bus. And that argument, which I find utterly valid and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, good as a political argument isn't working and the conference wants her to drop it that's how i don't think i don't think mccarthy's a moron for thinking that she was going to like let it go

because he thought this was just like get out of your system and then we'll go on being you know sycophants and going down to marilago kind of crap and it turns out that no that's it's a different strategic and moral vision. And so, like, the reason why she was voted with the conference supported her the first time was they were under the assumption that this was just a conscience thing. And then we're all going to get on the team and work together. And she was like, no, like, first of all, I'm not going to stop telling the truth when asked about it.

And second of all, the real issue here that we can't say is that Trump is bad for the party. Yeah, I mean, I guess I think it was abundantly clear, both because of who Liz Cheney is and how she's conducted herself in the past and because of the words she used that this was not just going to be a shrug of the shoulders move on moment for her. I mean, she voted to impeach the president. She took on her entire party

or almost her entire party and, you know, made incredibly aggressive statements about her views of what Trump had done and why it was sort of the point of no return for her. And, you know, Kevin McCarthy's worked with Liz Cheney. he knows how she operates. He'd been frustrated with her before on other things when she had spoken out about Donald Trump. I just think the idea that she was going to say this and that it was going to be done,

he may have made that judgment. He may have thought, you know, if I swing in and behind her and give a big speech on her behalf, I can go to her later and say, hey, Liz, pipe down. Like, this isn't that big a deal. We all need to move on. And what's most important is taking on Joe Biden and winning in 2022. I think the problem is that assumes that she would believe that the Donald Trump thing is sort of in the past. And she doesn't.

And I think it's pretty clear that it's Donald Trump. That it's not. Yeah. I mean, I think that to me is among the most interesting. Yeah, that to me is among the most interesting aspects of this case. because, as I said, you have McCarthy allies who have been saying, oh, she just wants to look in the past. She's obsessed with this thing that already happened. We need to move on.

We need to focus on Joe Biden. We need to look at 2022. Donald Trump is part of all of that. He's not going away. And it's why Kevin McCarthy, two weeks after giving a speech where he claimed that Donald Trump, quote, bears responsibility for the insurrection, went to Mara Lago to break bread with him and ask him to support Republicans in how. house races. I think it's not very complicated. Kevin McCarthy's not very complicated because I think he's not very bright. The thing that Kevin McCarthy wants is he wants to be speaker. He's wanted to be speaker forever. He blew it when he was initially likely to be speaker because he said in a Fox News

interview that Benghazi was about getting Hillary Clinton and it succeeded in that. He's blown it in several other ways. I think he sees this as his turn, and he thinks Donald Trump is the key to that. He's probably right about that. I think Republicans are likely to win the House of Representatives in 2022. I think Kevin McCarthy is right that it's probably good for Donald Trump to help raise money, certainly. But I think the long-term consequences of this, particularly if you lose more people like Liz Cheney, not just in Congress, but people around the country who look and say, this is a guy and this is a party who, as you say, he's done nothing about Paul Gossar. Paul Gossar attended a conference thrown by a white nationalist. Kevin McCarthy's done

nothing. He made some tepid comments about it. He's done nothing about Marjorie Taylor Green in all over conspiracy theories. He's done nothing about Matt Gates. And, you know, the increasing evidence, I think credible evidence, that he's paying for sex with someone underage. Kevin McCarthy can't be bothered to spend his precious time on that, but he's going to focus on getting Liz Cheney out of leadership because that's the problem right now. All right. That's a pretty good segue. I'm sure we will talk about this again next week. And like I said, I'm very interested to see what happens with what I'm calling the Chip Roy caucus. These are the folks, and Chip Roy was sort of leading the charge on this saying the election

wasn't stolen after the election. He, if you remember, introduced legislation that kind of followed the logical concept if the election was stolen to its logical conclusion, that that would mean all of the Republican congressional members had also been illegitimately elected, and that was, of course, voted down. But then he didn't vote to impeach after January 6th.

There's a caucus that I think Chip Roy kind of leads of people like that, and I'm very interested to see where they're going to fall on the Liz Cheney thing. But, Steve. One quick point on that. It's possible. My understanding, just in doing some reporting around this, is that it's possible we won't get a vote tally on this.

Well, that would be smart. The way, I think it's what Kevin McCarthy would prefer, honestly. Of course. The way that this is likely to go down is somebody in the conference has to make a motion to remove her. Kevin McCarthy then would have to affirmatively approve the motion and move to have the vote. He can, I believe, attempt to have a voice vote and then just declare it. My understanding is that there are, if five Republicans then object to the voice vote and say they want a roll call vote, they can do that. I'm not sure, you know, what of that is going to happen.

But it's possible that we won't have a number to compare against the 145 to 61 from earlier. Surely, surely there are five Republicans who will raise their hands in that moment. If there are not, that's a whole other. For different reasons, right? I mean, I can see their motivations being diverse, but adding up to more than five. 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

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The congressman who represented that district passed away due to COVID. It was 23 people on the ballot. So let's start with the fact that, like, it's a little hard to read tea leaves when you have 23 people on the ballot. One of them was the congressman's widow, who shared his last name. She was endorsed by Donald Trump about six days before the election. As I wrote in the sweep, I thought she was very likely to win this whole thing and a shoe-in to make the runoff with or without Donald Trump's endorsement at that point.

She did. She made the runoff. She was the vote leader going into it by quite a bit, actually. What was more interesting and where I think you can start looking at tea leaves. And just one more thing on that. It's not that I think that Donald, that this is proof that Donald, that this is proof that Donald Trump's endorsement is irrelevant. It's that it's just not proof that it is relevant in terms of her making it into the runoff as the vote leader. The guy who came in number two, though,

was a little unexpected. He was also a Republican. State rep Jake Ellsley. He had raised the most money beating out by actually just a couple hundred votes. The leading Democrat who had gotten the nomination before. The D-CHCC wanted at least this to be a competitive seat. They thought it had been trending their way, and then they don't even have a candidate in the runoff election. That, to me, is something, perhaps we can read into. Last other thing, we have quite a few House Democrats retiring. Charlie Christ said he's not going to run for re-election in the House. He's going to run for governor in Florida against Ron DeSantis.

You have Tim Ryan in Ohio, a very popular congressman, Democratic congressman there, who's going to run for the Senate seat. being vacated by Rob Portman. You have the redistricting lines that are causing some retirements. Overall, just for memory's sake, in 2018, the first midterm after Donald Trump was elected,

48 House Republicans didn't seek re-election. Democrats won 14 of those vacancies. David, are we seeing signs of a wave election for Republicans? Wave? I don't know about wave, but at this point, you have to think the Republicans are prohibited favorites to take the House.

I mean, you know, look, I know it's past performance is not always a predictor of future results, as any good prospectus will say. But if you're looking at past performance, the party in power tends to lose seats, and the Democrats have virtually no seats to lose to maintain the House of Representatives. It's one of the things that is creating all of this sense of urgency to right now get as much done as possible. I think all the smart money would say that the Republicans would take the House, even when the Republicans are still dedicated to the lie of the election. I mean, one thing that we have learned in the last five years plus is that, look, partisanship is extremely strong. And you cannot, it's almost impossible to alienate your own voters and your own tribe,

so long as your own tribe sees you as fighting for them to some extent. So I think that the stability, the Republicans are going to start with a very high floor. After the census, you're going to have some additional advantages given to the Republicans. And you're going to have an all likelihood this kind of the normal seesaw unless we have something very, very unusual. I mean, what was the last time that these trends were, that these trends both in the House and the Senate didn't hold? it was what, 2002, right after 9-11, when Bush was riding high, the Republicans picked up in the House, Republicans picked up in the Senate. That's one time in decades, in decades. So I don't see any reason. I think the interesting case to make, the fascinating case to make, the one

that I would like to hear and would be skeptical of would be the one that Republicans, that Democrats gain. That would be the aberration. Steve, Republicans take back the House. They need five seats. What do you think? Yeah, I think they do. And I do think the special election in Texas was a reason for Democrats to be concerned. You had Democrats saying this. You know, the Democrat who didn't make the runoff, Janeline Sanchez, said, I'm sounding the alarm bell today. We really have to work hard because these are exactly the kind of districts where Democrats are going to have to do good if they're going to, if they're going to win. win if they're going to be competitive. You know, I think it's probably too early to to even talk about a wave at this point. President Biden's policies are thus far polling reasonably well, despite their size. Some would argue maybe because of their size. But I think the challenge for Republicans,

and this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, is what is their positive message. what can Republicans run on? I was talking to a very senior Republican official yesterday, just checking in about a variety of things, and said, what does a Republican Party stand for? And this person who's been active in Republican politics for his entire life said, I don't know. I don't have any idea.

And, you know, there's the sort of joke about the 2020 Republican platform. being this letter that was basically whatever Donald Trump thinks the Republican platform is. But on big issues, Republicans really aren't united. In a policy sense, Republicans really aren't united. I mean, free trade, not really. Republicans against big government, I mean, vaguely, they're more concerned about debt and deficits now than they were over the past five years. Strong national defense, eh, I'm going to be fine.

everything's going to be fine. They're mostly united against big tech, I suppose, and they're mostly united against cancel culture. Declan Garvey, where they can't do anything, where they can't really do anything. Where they can't probably do anything, but if they do something, it's not consistent with small government, with limited government. I mean, what they can do would be significant. But they can do all such a stupid thing. Right. And I think would probably try. if given power. So that's the problem. Declan Garvey had a very good piece on Republicans in cancel culture.

And his basic conclusion was, look, Republicans, this could be a potent political issue, but be careful if they get the power. Jonah, quickly, and then we'll head on to your topic. Yeah. And so the funny thing is that this kind of makes a glancing, it comes in a glancing temporary orbit of the topic. we talked about me doing, which I didn't do, which is the basis of my LA Times column, about how this isn't a progressive era, this isn't a new, new deal.

David mentioned that, what, 2002 was the last time a president's party gained in midterms in the first midterm of their first administration. I believe the time before that was 1934. And this is a point I made all the time back when Obama was president, and everyone was saying it was a new, new deal then, too. the New Deal was popular the New Deal what had massive ground level support

across the country and for political nerds the size and scope of the FDR wins and coalition really starting two years before he was elected president are just staggering right so we're talking about a five-seat

difference between the parties right now this is from my column today it's up the dispatch in 1930 Democrats picked up 52 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. Then FDR comes in two years later. He won a landslide, 42 states, 57% of the popular vote. Republicans lost 101 more House seats and 11 Senate seats. And then in 1934, midterms, you'd think all the low-hanging fruit had been taken out.

They gained nine more seats in the House and nine more seats in the Senate. that is you know so people hit they had a super majority in the senate which is why like they didn't really worry about the filibuster in 1934 um and if we were actually on the cusp of a new new deal or if that this was a new era progressive era where everyone wants the government to do anything that Biden wants to do and spend trillions of dollars we wouldn't be talking about how it's pretty clear that the republicans have at least a really good shot of taking back the house and in 2022, we would be talking about, you know, the Democratic Party being a majority party, a super majority party for a very long time. That's not in the cards. And so to get to Steve's

point about what the Republicans have to do, it's really pretty obvious to me. Don't be idiots. Like, that's it. It's like both parties, I mean, I'm saying it's what both parties seem determined to be minority parties. Both parties seem determined to get caught up in dumb ideas and lead with the craziest stuff that their base wants to do. Maybe not, in terms of policy, but in terms of messaging. And like, it's just stupid, objectively stupid, so stupid you can see it from space to talk about abolishing the police. And yet it just keeps bubbling back up.

Same thing on the Republicans. It's really stupid for the Texas GOP to talk about seceding from the union. It's just stupid. But it's like they want to focus on the stupid stuff because that gets you the clicks, it gets you the outrage, it gets you the tears that you can drink. like with a little champagne and making a mimosa and it's ridiculous

and so I and this is the problem I have with the whole Cheney flap basically Cheney's position at the end of the day is the Republican Party shouldn't be stupid that's it just don't be stupid and that's it everything else's commentary as they say in the Talmud

and and this is like this is treasonous heretical point of view it's like we how dare you say we not be stupid right um and and the democrats have similar issues and and it's a sign of the weird way social media and base politics and primary politics conspire to keep both parties locked in a near orbit to a giant planet of stupidity all right jona tell us your question okay so uh we just talked about i just mentioned new new deal and Biden progressive agenda and all that kind of stuff. The part of the core, if you go back and you look at that address to Congress,

which was what, like 75 years ago at this point, he does something that Obama did. There's something that Trump did. He does something that even Reagan did and Bush did. Presidents love this argument about competitiveness. And the idea is that we are competing in the economic realm. I'm not talking about, I don't want to trigger Steve. I'm not talking about. geostrategic stuff about where the sixth fleet should be or protecting Taiwan and those areas in the in the international competition for status and political a geopolitical and geostrategic influence there really is competition between nations but economically you talk to most economists who haven't lost their mind there really isn't this thing called economic competition

between nations because there's comparative advantage in nations um moreover like look at this way. If China, second richest country in the world, if it had an economic catastrophe tomorrow and its GDP dropped 50 percent, under the logic of competitiveness, that would be very good for us. But under the logic of planet Earth, that would be terrible for us. It would cost us trillions of dollars. It would plunge the planet into at least a recession, if not a depression. It would screw up all of our supply chains. It would screw up a lot of our exports. it would be very, very bad. In Coke versus Pepsi, if Pepsi all of a sudden loses 50% of its market share, that's good for Coke.

In an interconnected global economy, it's just not the same rules. And yet, the fascinating thing to me is how competitiveness is such an enduring concept. And so, and use to justify everything. And so my question basically is, one, should presidents talk, where should presidents talk about competitiveness? But two, does competitiveness that's really justify lavish spending on social welfare programs and education spending and all these kinds of things? You know, where's the beef? What in there actually makes us more competitive? And no one's going to Sarah first, so that's where I'm going first. Jonah, I agree that competitiveness is far more complicated than Coke versus Pepsi.

There is no world economic macro version of Coke versus Pepsi. At the same time, it seems like the most relevant. example in the last 20 years of economic competitiveness within the United States actually making a big difference was energy competitiveness. We brought home a lot of our energy production here. And of course, there's the shales fracking. And it's dropped oil prices here. It's made the United States an enormous amount of money. Would you say that doesn't fit into your definition of competitiveness or just that it's an outlier or that like, sure, competitiveness does make a difference on some things. It's just not so simple as flip the switch

here and you get competitiveness. Yeah, look, I think there are all sorts of things that are good economically that one can say we've improved our competitiveness, but the competitiveness is just like an abercadabber word that we put on top of it. It was good that we had domestic production of oil because it was good to keep those dollars here at home. It was good to, I mean, we weren't compete, what were we competing with Saudi Arabia about? I mean, like, Saudi Arabia is a rounding era does. It's like, if something makes economic sense, it makes economic sense for our country. Like, and there are certain things like, I suppose if you buy into the competitiveness thing, like having a really low corporate tax, that would make us more competitive in the sense that

we would have dollars coming here rather than going someplace else. But the main reason to do that isn't like, so that we can yell, suck it Japan. It's like, It's because it would be good economically for America. Well, maybe it's not your reason, Jonah, but for some of us. It's like, think about it this way. The way the left often talks about inequality, which we hear a lot about, is like, oh, we have a lot of, we have more billionaires today. That means the billionaires are taking money because there's a finite pool of money

and they're taking it from the middle class people. It doesn't work that way. What you want to do is living in a society where everyone's getting richer and we're generating more and more billionaires all the time. we would all be better off our immigration problems would be solved not solved but they would be much improved if all of latin america got crazy friggin rich tomorrow um even though that would according to competitiveness make us less competitive with south america um it would still be better for them and for us because we want the world to get richer i mean i i i david or steve uh we'll do it as

a as a i'll drop the hockey puck because you guys care about competitiveness in this sort of macho testosterone aircraft carrier way. What am I missing? I would say I think a lot of this was born in the aircraft carrier macho era of the Cold War where it was truly we had competing economic systems. We had competing cultural systems. It was a giant competition between two very different world views about how you order society. And we became, I think, kind of, that just sort of became a part of the discourse, and it was a part of the discourse that mattered. I mean, heck, in theory, it didn't matter one bit if the Russians were better than us at swimming, for example. But by golly, I can remember in the Olympics, when the Soviets and

the East Germans were better than us in swimming, I would sit there in my teenage self wondering, what does this mean for these competing systems? Everything was a competition. And I agree with you post-Cold War. There are ways it doesn't make sense, but here's a way that I do think it's not really a competition so much as a comparison. You have a lot of arguments about the differences between health care systems, for example, social safety net spending, military spending, and all of these things sort of adding up into this stew, sort of called standard of living, quality of life, etc. And there's a lot of people who will look at other countries and say, look at the mix that they

choose or the policies that they choose and what they have done is they've created a standard of living or a way of life that is superior than ours and x y and z and i do think that in that standpoint what you are involved in is it's not a competition it's not like you know suck at japan or suck at germany but if you're wanting this wealthy powerful nation to have the best standard of living and way of life for the most people there is a kind of constant comparison how are we doing with all of that wealth and power? Are we compared to other wealthy and powerful nations? And I do think that comparison, whether you want to call it competition or comparison, is interesting and it's worth looking at, and if you are consistently falling behind them in income growth and GDP growth,

etc., you do ask yourself, are we squandering some of these? Is our public policy bad? Are we squandering some of these immense natural resources that we have? Are we governed more, you know, are we governed as well as these other countries? And I do think those comparisons can matter. I just really think that Bhutan should be in our conversations more. Why not gross national happiness is our metric? They don't pass laws unless it improves their citizens' well-being. What a metric. What a brilliant marketing campaign. I mean, that sounds to me like some of the ways that our friends talk about the common good, as if it's just obvious what it is and who determines it.

I guarantee you there's no Torchies-Caseau in Bhutan, okay? So think about that. You're right. I'm staying. Jonah wins. With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and varied by race.

Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at mx.ca.com. David, I walked from my car to an outdoor restaurant. I sat down across from a friend who had also been vaccinated. No masks were seen. And baby ducklings, an armada of them, was coming down the Potomac towards us. It was as if COVID had never happened. Well, so my topic, vaccines.

And the reason I'm raising vaccines is for a long time, people have, we've been talking about vaccine hesitancy. We've been talking about is the process of persuasion. America's been one of the leading countries in the world. This has been one of our few success stories. We're going to talk competition, Jonah, in the competition to get the most people vaccinated the fastest. We've been doing pretty darn well, and it looks like we're hitting a wall. It looks like now that the supply of vaccine is outstripping demand. We had the lowest number of new doses yesterday.

Then we've had since February, the seven-day rolling average of doses is the lowest since early March, so in more than two months. And that's when we are now open for basically anyone over 16 getting this vaccine. Demand has plummeted after the J&J pause. But here's my question. The more data we get in about hesitancy, it looks like this is just round two, round three, round four of the same fight that we've had since March of 2020, which is if you think COVID is serious, you're getting the vaccine. If you don't think COVID is serious, you're not getting the vaccine. Much the same way, if you think COVID is serious, you're going to wear a mask. If you don't think COVID is serious, you're going to be against masking.

Is this just the different verse of the same song that has been sung since early March? And is a lot of the other stuff about Mark of the Beast or injecting nanobots or safety or all of those things just sort of side shows to the main show, which is, do you still believe COVID is serious? Go to you, Steve. Yeah, I think it is. I think that's the debate. I think this is a different version of that same debate. There are some interesting new wrinkles as it relates to vaccine. But we're seeing, you know, you're seeing the most heavily vaccinated states are the blue states. And you've seen blue voters basically from the beginning of this treat COVID as more serious and more threatening than red state voters. It's been consistent between states. It's been consistent. in-states, and you're seeing it now. There are New Gallup pulling out, I believe, this morning, showing that Republicans are far, far more hesitant, something like 95% of Democrats say that they either have gotten or plan to get vaccinated.

And that number is considerably lower for Republicans. If I remember correctly, it's 59%, but I could be wrong about that. So I do. I think this is basically the same thing. There are some, there are some nuances here. I mean, I do get a little, I'm vaccinated. I think everybody should be vaccinated. I'm worried about the fact that we're likely not going to have enough people get vaccinated and what the implications are for our society. I'm frustrated with people I know who haven't gotten vaccinated. But I'm a little resistant to this push that, that, that, I think you see coming from some public health types and prominent Democrats, that it's somehow unpatriotic to ask questions about the vaccine. I think it's fine to ask questions. I think not in the sort of old school Robert F. Kennedy anti-vaxxer conspiracy theory way, but this is a new vaccine. It was developed pretty quickly. We don't know a lot about some of the long-term effects. I think it's fine to have those questions. I think the people who have them and have

arrived at them from sort of good faith concerns should be treated seriously and talked to about the tradeoff here, the cost-benefit analysis here. But I don't think that those are necessarily crazy questions to ask. And at the same time, the mask mandates and the masks, the performative mask stuff that we're seeing, it seems to me, has shifted from the right to the left in a pretty pronounced way over the past six months. I remember we talked about it on this podcast, the anti-mask right, going into stores, pointing fingers, yelling at employees, you know, basically the chest thumping that came along with the anti-mask movement, I thought was really off-putting, inconsiderate and foolish.

now seeing mask insanity from the left. There's a very good story in the Atlantic about lefties who say that they just want to follow the science and then go way, way beyond what the science says to do in order to show people that they are really serious about this. You've got the CDC in effect recommending that kids who go to summer camp, much of which will be outside. These are younger kids, not likely to be affected as seriously with the virus, have to mask the entire time, can't do anything. Washington, D.C., I didn't even realize how ridiculous Washington, D.C. was until I went down and had lunch in D.C. with Jonah last week. And all these people walking alone with masks on throughout the city. And I said to Jonah, what the hell are these people doing?

And he said, there is a mask mandate in D.C. You have to wear masks at all times, inside or out. That's crazy. That is crazy. And I do think that shift accounts for some of this. this push and pull that we're still seeing on these issues. We could not live in more different places, Steve. David, I just want to make a note on this because I think we have problems on both sides, as we have, well, on almost every issue in this country. On the one hand, I also highly recommend that Atlantic peace by Emma Green, the liberals who can't quit lockdown.

As Steve said, it's about people on the left who, despite CDC guidance saying, can reopen, you don't need to wear masks outside, insist that if schools reopen, you are sentencing teachers to death, or if you don't wear a mask outside, you're selfish. At the same time, I'm seeing people push back on that by saying, and I don't just mean the crazy right, I mean like very responsible people, saying that basically now that the vaccine is available to everyone, we all need to stop wearing masks. And if you are still wearing a mask, you are simply preening, you are virtue signaling. And I just want to I'm going to give one example as the lady podcaster today. So I have a friend who is six months

pregnant, actually two friends who are both six months pregnant. They're due within just a few hours of each other. And as Steve said, the vaccine was quickly produced. They did not test it substantially on a lot of pregnant women. There's some preliminary evidence that it is fine to take if you are pregnant, but certainly if you're due in late July or early August, you also only have a few more months left. One of those women decided to take the vaccine. She's doing great. One of those women has decided simply to wait until after she has the baby and then take the vaccine. I think it is totally a responsible choice that both of them made for their own families, and everyone needs to calm down, mind their own business to some extent, and don't assume that you know

everything about someone else's life, their choices, and their risk factors that they're choosing to make. And so for my friend who has not taken the vaccine, we are incredibly cautious around her because we're supporting her choice that I think is a totally reasonable and valid one. And for my friend who did get the vaccine, you know, obviously we're just drinking all the time because, you know, once you've taken the vaccine, you might as well like do some shots with the pregnant lady, right? Just kidding. So that's, I would just urge everyone. I guess to like don't you don't need to be up in everyone else's business on this stuff it's really okay you just don't have to so alternative point of view which let's just call the

Tucker point of view is that we should call child services on this woman um you know like I I agree entirely like I think my assumption is that most people wearing masks outside when they're alone or jogging or riding bikes are making enormous I remember. making a dumb mistake and they look foolish. But I also have enough, you know, epistemological doubt that some of them might have some crazy immune compromised, you know, condition that makes it necessary or they may have someone at home who has that kind of thing. And moreover, it's none of my business. If I can't judge you for having a freaking neck tattoo, you know, I shouldn't have to, like, have, judge you about wearing a mask to the extent that, you know, beyond what I think in my own mind.

But, like, the idea that I should call cops on you is bizarre. And I do think there's a, there's just a, I mean, to get back to David's original question, there is so much performative madness taking over on both sides of these things. that i think you know the the the was it john barry the great the great influenza book which is a fantastic book if people haven't read it um one of the points he makes is that it's actually for historians a difficult thing to write about because at least in certain aspects because no one wanted to really talk about it the news didn't really cover it very well and then once it was over no one people really didn't want to talk about it because

So many people were ashamed of how they behave, towards their own loved ones, towards their neighbors, about themselves, whether they were paranoid about it or they weren't paranoid about it. And then they feel guilty because it led to something. I think the amount of psychological, I mean, I hate using the word trauma, but the amount of psychological stress that has come from this pandemic is so different from these sort of Algeus Huxley kind of comfort. life that concertos normally complain about, that we don't have the vocabulary for it. We don't know when to martial empathy and when to martial criticism in reasonable ways. And there are some people who have just gotten addicted to COVID life and don't want to let go of it. And then there are some people who've gotten addicted to outrage over COVID life and don't want to get rid of it. And the best thing, one of the best arguments for just taking the

freaking vaccine is that that is the only way we will put this whole strange, weird, ugly thing in the rearview mirror. And so we don't have to have these arguments. And if people want to have arguments about wearing masks a year from now, that will be seen as like getting into arguments about, you know, whether or not it's okay to put Star Trek next generation booths next to Star Trek original series booths at Comic Con. I mean, it would just be this weird boutique thing that most of the people won't pay attention I do think Jonah has tapped on something where like there's a certain amount of like Munchausen syndrome that people, the extremes on both sides have. It's been a way to get attention for yourself. And now they're like, oh no, I'm not going to get the attention. So, you know, if you have Munchausen by proxy for instance, like you're going to then hurt the kid more type thing so that you get even more attention. And I think I think we're seeing sort of, you know, oh no, the kid's getting better. I need to find a way to to make sure the kid gets sicker.

You know, and one of the simple things, relatively simple in this very complicated situation, is ask ourselves, what are these decisions that people make that hurt no one or hurt other people? If somebody's jogging with a mask on, you know, again, given that what Jonah said, somebody might be wildly immunocompromised, but as a general matter, that's completely necessary, unnecessary. But you know what, it does not do? It does not hurt me in any way, shape, or form. It doesn't. If a mom is being super cautious with their eight-year-old outside, it doesn't hurt me. If a whole pile of people don't take the vaccine, that has real potential to hurt a lot of people, including those who do, and not just the people who refuse to take the vaccine, not just them,

because what you do is you create a greater opportunity for mutations and create a greater opportunity for the virus to spread from that community. So it's not just that you've sit there and said, I've only made a decision that impacts me and nobody else but me. That's a different thing. And by the way, I have much that same feeling about the school closing issue. I think the school closing issue is one that hurts kids. It's an anti-science maintaining these closed schools as an anti-science position that hurts other people, as opposed to someone who's deciding I'm going to be hyper-COVID cautious and wear two masks while I jog. an MSNBC host was talking about that.

That's a little strange, whatever. But keeping the schools closed is something that is hurting people contrary to science. Not taking the vaccine will kill people contrary to science. And I think it's really, I think it's really important to draw those distinctions between what is it that is my quirk versus your risk. and we've done a terrible job about that

throughout this pandemic where we've treated often and where I live and a lot of this is shaped where you live what's the culture surrounding where you are a lot of people have sort of treated their own decisions about COVID which enhance risk to other people

as simply their quirk or their call about their lives when it's not just their lives And that's a fundamental reality about the pandemic. And I think drawing those kinds of lines in a clear way would be helpful to the debate. All right. We're going to wrap up. But I have one last piece of news since I was talking about pregnancy.

There was a woman in Molly who was set to give birth to seven babies this week. She delivered all seven babies very healthy, except it turns out there were nine. there were two more that they didn't see on the ultrasound so she is going to head home with nine babies and as the mother of one baby God bless you

Halima and good luck I thought you were going to say and it turned out that she was a cat and this was a litter not to wait into old culture wars but that will take a village. Truly, truly. So I do like that the story starts with, you know,

they were delivered by C-section. You think? All right, thank you, listeners. We will talk to you again next week, where no doubt we will once again be talking about leadership fights in the Republican Conference in the House of Representatives. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

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