The Dispatch Podcast - Apples and Pink Flamingos

Episode Date: June 3, 2020

Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David discuss the president's walk across Lafayette Square, protests around country sparked by George Floyd's death, Steve King's primary loss and what it says about the future of the GOP, protesting in the age of social distancing, and journalism ethics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgir, joined as always by Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and David French. This podcast is brought to you by The Dispatch. Visit The Dispatch.com to see our full slate of newsletters and podcasts and make sure to subscribe to this podcast, so you never miss an episode. Today we're going to talk about the president's speech in the Rose Garden and his walk through Lafayette Park. Why his approval numbers haven't moved even while a majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of recent events. Republican Congressman Steve King's primary loss last night and what it says about the future of the Republican Party and how social distancing measures appear to be taking a back seat to protest. Plus, the guys and I get into it a little bit on a question of journalism ethics and some surprising answers when I asked them what dish they would pick if they could only eat one thing for dinner for the next six weeks. Let's dive in. Earlier this week, the president gave an address in the Rose Garden, fully dedicated for

the first time to speaking about the death of George Floyd and the protest that have sprung up around the country. In the background, you could hear protesters being cleared from just north of Lafayette Park. and the president from there and a group of cabinet members and his senior advisors walked through Lafayette Park to visit a church that had been damaged the night before. This has sparked numerous conversations around the country, around kitchen tables. Jonah, starting with you. I know you love it when I do that.

Is this the iconic moment of the Trump presidency so far? For now, yeah, I think it probably is. It just, you know, it can always get worse. There can always be another iconic moment. I still, in some ways, because I'm a big fan of sort of magical realism, think the orb touching was the iconic moment of the Trump. presidency. But it, I think it does sort of crystallize a whole bunch of aspects of Trump's presidency. And I think, you know, the conventional wisdom is that the way you beat a challenger

is do what Obama did. You do what Clinton did in 96, is that you define your opponent really, really early and go after him negatively in May and June before they have a chance to really get their campaign up to speed. And I think that in a twist, Donald Trump has done that with himself. He has defined himself negatively in a way that I think could have lasting ramifications. I just hedge on this because I think, you know, the quote unquote enemy and I don't like calling them the enemy, but for the sake of the phrase, gets a vote here. And the rioters and the Democrats could mishandle this so badly that Trump's schick, you know, his sort of strongman schick, could actually end up retrospectively playing well. It's just right now, it's very hard for

to me imagine how much war society has to get for that to happen. And I really would not like that to happen. But, you know, people, lots of people, people say, why can't Trump be more presidential? Why can't Trump do this? Why can't Trump show compassion? In a lot of ways, it's sort of like people asking me, you know, why can't you win international ballroom dancing competitions? It's because I can't. You get that a lot? I get that a lot. And the thing is, I just, I don't have any of the skill sets or capabilities to do such a thing. Trump is like a basketball player with one move. And it's to do the this strong man strutting stuff. His conception of the office, his conception of how media works

is to convey these very simple, you know, strong man images, even if he doesn't actually want the responsibilities that come with actually being a strong man. He's a strong man light. He's strong man ish. And I think at the end of the day, it's going to end up, I hate being so inarticulate. I was just so disgusted by the entire spectacle of it, and I'm so disgusted by how America is behaving during all of this. That's very hard for me to sort of just say this is all about Trump, and it's not all about Trump, but he is living down to all of my expectations here. David, there's been a lot of comparisons to 1968 in the last week.

And that, at least historically, in a very simplified version, is to some extent credited Nixon's win is credited for what was going on in 1968 in the country. The law and order really was, restoring law and order, was a very important thing for a lot of Americans. Do you see differences today? I see big differences in, at least in the sense that who the law and order candidate is and how this would play out. I mean, in 1968, the law and order was breaking down under a Democratic

president Lyndon Johnson. Nixon was challenging Johnson as the law and order candidate, as the person who could bring order and could activate that silent majority. Although, was he using silent majority in 68 or 72? That's 72, I'm pretty sure. 72. Okay. Scratch the silent majority comment, but he was running as the, as the guy who could bring order out of chaos. And, you know, I think this is not you know, we're learning, here's the standard caveat regarding political prognostication these days, who knows what will happen. But if I had to give my best guess, I don't think that the law and order argument is going to work for the person for whom law and order broke down during his presidency. I mean, this is a person who was calling what was going on in 2016

American carnage. And what that was even at the height of riots in Ferguson or Charlotte or some of the Antifa violence in Portland was nothing like what we've been seeing over the last four to five days. Nothing like it. I mean, this is where the 1968 comparison for the first time in my life has become at least somewhat in the ballpark. I mean, 68 was still worse. 67 was worse. But, you know, this is, this is far worse than the carnage that Trump decried. And I think even worse for him, I think an awful lot of people look at his leadership as things are breaking down and saying, wait, that's the opposite of a steady hand. That is the opposite of calm under pressure. And, you know, to go back to the photo op, I think the photo op moment reinforces a lot of

that. Here was a extremely reactive decision in response by many accounts to the stories that had put him in the bunker the day or two before underneath the White House, where he wants to show some strength. The whole thing is botched. And all of his, all his defenders are left with is an argument over whether or not pepper balls are tear gas and whether or not it's the fake news media is exaggerating what he did because pepper balls were used to help clear the path rather than tear gas bombs or tear gas canisters. And that's what we're left with now. And so I think that it's still a long time before the election, but it's tough to run as the law and order candidate when law and order broke down under your watch. And it's easier to run, even if you're a Democrat

who's traditionally not going to be arguing for this sort of overwhelming force to say, if I wasn't this guy, I'm not this guy. And if this guy wasn't here, tension would not be so high in the United States. So I just don't think it works in his favor. Steve, broad question to you on the reaction from inside to this event. Bill Barr, through a department official, does not appear to be a leak, has said that he was, the one who ordered the clearing of Lafayette Park when he saw that it had not been cleared in time. Defense Secretary Esper initially said he did not know where he was going and just now

has had a press conference where he has sort of backtracked off that as that he did know that they were going to the church. He just didn't know what they were going to be doing there. You have Republican senators pretty split. You have some defending and some saying that it was inappropriate. Ben Sass comes to mind as one of the ones who put out an inappropriate statement. Tim Scott did as well, though, which was meaningful, to me at least. Does this, are we seeing a divide in how Republicans are going to be reacting to the president moving forward, or will this coalesce in the next 24 hours? And my question is silly.

No, it's a good question. And I think actually Jonah made a very good point early on, in part. Rare, though, it happens. Partial responses. I know I hate to acknowledge that. Look, there was a note in political playbook this morning about Steve Scalise and Tom Emmer, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, talking about what a great moment it was for Trump.

I can say, having spoken to several people on Capitol Hill, that's not the consensus view of Republicans on Capitol Hill, including office holders. people are worried about it. They think it didn't play well. They're worried that it was, I mean, it was so bizarre. If you actually took the time to watch it, I've been covering politics for more than two decades, and I've seen a lot of weird things in that time. I've never seen a photo op that was as bizarre as this one. Nobody knew what was happening. The president takes this Bible and kind of thrusts it in the air and everybody's looking around at each other. Nobody knows who's standing up with the president or if they should just leave him up there alone. And then he kind of beckons others to come over, including cabinet secretaries and Kaylee McEnany. I mean, the whole thing was incredibly bizarre. And I think for people who watched it, it suggested a White House that wants to project strength, certainly wanted to try to touch base with the evangelicals that are the part of the president's base. But ultimately, looked like they didn't have any idea what they were doing.

I mean, I think what they were trying to do, if I'm understanding correctly, is try to frame the coming days with a promise, a strong promise, a strong sounding promise, to restore order. And I think in that sense, you know, Trump is defining this on his own terms. And if he's able to, if we see some semblance of order, if it looks, you know, Last night was a better night overall than the night before, even though it was still looting and rioting. If things gradually calmed down, I think the president will be able to look back and say, see, I said I was going to restore order. I ordered this military presence. I suggest that I might invoke the Insurrection Act, and here we are, and it's all worked.

And I think he'd be in a position to make a pretty good case on his behalf. The flip side of that, though, is if he's wrong and if the violence continues or, you know, worsens even, he's going to be under intense pressure because he went out and made this declaration that it was going to end to really end it. and I think that's when things could potentially get really ugly. So I think it was a gamble. It was a calculated one. There's, I think, skepticism among elected Republicans generally. But it's something that you could see in a matter of days or a matter of weeks the president being able to say,

I took this bold action and, you know, his voters certainly believing that he was right to do it. can i just a couple quick things on this um on the 1968 thing i agree with everything that david said uh the the the reason why law and order worked for nixon in part was because it was an indictment of the incumbent and so i think david's right about that but there's so many other things that i mean this is one of the problems with these these analogies and i think it's particularly a problem for trump because he is surrounding himself for a very long time in politics with basically Nixon retreads starting, you know, Roger Stone, Roger Ailes, a lot of these people who cut their teeth in 68 and 72 with Nixon, and they've got this nostalgic

BS-y understanding of how all that worked. People forget, 68 was a three-way race, and George Wallace was the racist guy in the race. And Nixon, law and order appeal did not really have a overt racial overtone to it. Lots of left-wing historians like to retroactively, you know, impose that on it. And I'm sure there was examples of subtext because Nixon played these kinds of games. But Nixon was the safe choice if you wanted someone who was for law and order and restoring stability because he wasn't trying to appeal to races. He was trying to let Wallace have those guys.

Nixon was still the, he was the, they brought him basically back from the wilderness to get over the Goldwater Yahoo stuff and have someone who actually had a history of the old Republican Party, which had been in favor of civil rights. The equation these days are right now is that this is a very much a racially loaded thing. It's not the campus longhairs and hippies that Nixon was going after. It's about race. Trump doesn't have remotely the ability to talk about race. that Nixon did, which is not exactly, you know, extremely high bar.

And his idea of law and order, it's like he is tweeting out promos for the reruns of law and order on TNT. All he does is say, law and order. And he thinks that's like an argument. And I honestly don't think it works. I don't think the comparisons to 68 make a lot of sense on a whole bunch of sort of granular demographic ways. I mean, the country is a lot less white than it was back then.

And the issues at play are much different. We've now lost more people to COVID than we had to Vietnam War in its entirety, never mind, up until 1968. But also in 1968, America was a lot more violent than what we've seen so far. We saw major assassinations in 68, you know, MLK, Bobby Kennedy. we saw, you know, lots of much worse urban rioting than what we have seen during all of this. And I don't think Trump has any sense, and the people around them have any sense of the granular nature

of what's actually happening and how to pitch this appeal, which has been done very carefully, in a way that is actually going to bring over independence and moderates. I just don't see it working. David, is our suburban dad. I want to go over some polling with you.

And listeners, as you'll know from my rants and TMD or my own pieces, never trust one poll. So I've got a couple here that I'm going to smash together. Leco Alunsa was pretty trustworthy. Sorry. Jesus. I'm just a dad joke. Dad joke interlude.

I've been stuck with my daughter for weeks on end. I'm a dad joke guy. He's been telling dad jokes all morning. I asked for a lighter topic, and he texted me back the word helium. That's how my morning started. You've been punishing me ever since. I like it. So, David, no question that more Americans in multiple polls, CBS, Reuters, Morning Consult,

disapprove of Trump's handling of the events, protests versus approve, roughly speaking, on the Reuters poll, 55% disapprove, CBS, 49% disapprove, 40% by the way, strongly disapprove, and it's in the mid to low 30s on the approval number. Also, right track, wrong track. 31% of voters say the country is headed in the right direction. The lowest since morning consults started in Trump's presidency. Sixty nine percent, say wrong track. Now, that being said, here's the issue when you dive in. Of Republicans, 65% say the country is in the right track. So almost the exact reverse.

And when you actually look at the president's approval rating, it is largely unchanged, statistically at least unchanged. Despite COVID, despite urban unrest, a lot of pundits are saying, you know, this is all going to come down to the suburbs and the suburbs are deeply unhappy with the president. Biden's lead over the president nationally has not particularly changed either. It's maybe ticked up a little, some of that might be noise right now. You're in the suburbs.

Yeah. What do you see and how does this sort of, unhappiness with the specific, but no change in the general, sit with you. Yeah, what are people saying at your Pilates class? Now, this is a heart of red America suburb. I mean, there are Pilates classes. People just aren't proud of it. So, yeah, that's a really good question.

You know, there has been, and I'll say this about the approval rating real fast before I move on to sort of this taking the micro-temperation. of the suburbs. One is, as I've been saying, I'm just going to be a broken record on this. He has a high floor, much higher, much higher floor than other presidents in similar circumstances. He has a super loyal base, but if that's all he has, he's losing, and he's losing pretty decisively. He's got to have more than that 43%. You know, I have found it really interesting. And to be clear, my little subculture of suburban America is evangelical suburban America. And the anguish over the George Floyd, the killing of George Floyd has been palpable. I was on a text thread with several

conservative Christian friends last night from my church. And one of them was at the local rally last night in Franklin, Tennessee and a multi-faith rally in our little. suburb. And there has been real palpable anguish. Now, of course, there's also anguish at property, at the looting, at violence, at, you know, the physical destruction of people's businesses. There's real concern over that as well. But the level of, I, what seems to me, like genuine revulsion at what happened to George Floyd has surprised me. It's, it really has surprise me. And combine that with this real background degree of embarrassment that you have over the president's actions. There's sort of this almost, certainly there are the MAGA types out there.

No question about that. But this sort of view that we are doing this again. We're going into election where I don't feel comfortable with either candidate. This sort of sense of real resignation and embarrassment is also there as well. And I have moved from a rural part of Tennessee into this suburban part. In that sense of anguish and embarrassment is much less pronounced in rural Tennessee, much less pronounced. And so you know, you've heard me, Sarah, described the suburbs as sort of the Justice Roberts of this election. It's the, I know, they're the swing voter institutionalists. You moved from a Justice Thomas district into a Chief Justice Roberts district.

Exactly. That's a great way of putting it. I went from Thomas to Roberts in districts. And, you know, to a great degree, suburban voters strike me as sort of like they're institutionalists, whether they might be conservative institutionalists or more progressive institutionalists, depending on your region. They want things to be calm and okay. They want things to be normal.

and they're not revolutionary. They might want to push the ship of state in one direction or push the ship of state in another direction, but they want it to be done in an orderly fashion. And what's happening right now is completely contrary to that culture, to that ethos. And I don't think that helps the president. I just don't think it helps,

especially when he's not seen as a calming force. There was nothing about that photo op on Monday that was calming. It was deliberately provocative by clearing the protesters 30, 40 minutes before it occurred. It was a deliberate act of state intervention against using pepper balls and smoke grenades against peaceful protesters to clear a path for a photo op where he waves a Bible in a purely demagogic fashion. That is not something that says, oh, you know, he's got this. It does not, does not say that at all. Steve, we haven't talked much about Joe Biden yet in our, you know, 20 minutes in here. Interesting number to me was that Joe Biden on how effective he has responded to what's been going on,

has the exact same approval number, statistically speaking. 33% approve of Joe Biden's, quote, you know, handling statements on what's going on. But here's the number that really stood out. Nearly half said they just haven't heard enough. You know, politically speaking, when you look at everything that's been going on for the last month, and I, for one, feel like aliens must be invading next month because this keeps escalating into crisis after crisis. Is Joe Biden fine with half the country not really hearing from him still?

Sure. Yeah. I think that's completely fine. But he hasn't done much, right? I mean, he visited a church. I don't know whether that came before or after. I think it probably came after that poll was completed. So he hasn't done much.

He's given a statement. He put out a statement late Saturday night. But he hasn't been involved. He hasn't been looking for the cameras. And I think that's probably the right move for him here. Unless he thinks that he could say something that would change the situation on the ground and actually help. bring people together. I think he's right to want to stay out of this as a political matter. I think that he's also said, he's also said, though, that he probably will not pick a VP

candidate until August. Do you think he holds to that, or is this going to force his hand on picking a VP? I don't think there's any reason for him to rush that pick. You know, there's been a lot of talk about how this changes the calculus around that pick and, you know, puts additional, particularly in the context of the Democratic Party, puts additional pressure on him potentially to choose a black running mate, a black female running mate. The rise of Val Demings. Yeah, you've heard a lot more about Val Demings. You've heard a lot more about Kamala Harris in the last few days.

You know, I think the talk about Val Demings, having had some conversations with people in the last couple days about this, is I think initially, I don't think you, were in this group, Sarah, you have been talking to rehearsal from the outset. But I think a lot of people thought out that would really be kind of reach. She's just a member of the house. This isn't somebody who's probably in that top tier of potential running mates. And I think there's a growing sense that she really could be, given her background and what she's done. And she has respect from Republican colleagues in the house. She tweeted, she sent a tweet over the last couple of days. It was pretty aggressive, calling for people to resist, to really backing the protesters

in a way that some red is going too far. But I think we'll hear, we'll be hearing a lot more from her in the coming days. And I think we're likely to see her start and continue to rise. Jonah, is this the end of clobementum? I kind of feel like it is. Again, unless the aliens land next month and then we're on a whole different track. Yeah, no. I mean, again, it is, you know, making long-term predictions is really difficult, especially about the future. But, you know, I wrote this column.

I stand by the reasoning. I wasn't planning on race riots and mass protests and urban unrest, which does kind of change one's equation about things. And so I do think if we were talking two weeks ago, it would have been a mistake to pick, you know, as Stacey Abrams or even of Val Deming's, or really an African-American woman as a running mate, just given the range of options,

I'm not against having an African-American woman as a running mate, because it would have given Trump the ability to do a lot of demagogic, nasty stuff, play the reparations card and all that kind of stuff. But the equation just simply changed. And you can see the case for Val Deming's much more strongly now. I think there's a much better case for her than, say, Stacey Abrams. Because what you want to do is you want to check some boxes about how it's an African-American.

You want to, you know, it's got to be pleasing to the base. But you also want some reassurance to, you know, the Justice Roberts, Burbs. and having the former chief of police of Orlando is a good way to sort of have your cake and eat it too, you know, politically on that. It makes a lot of sense to me. All right, David, we have two members of Congress who are not, who are leaving as of January 2021.

And one is Steve King, who lost his primary last night. And one is Will Hurd, who retired. Right. Two sides of the same political party, if you will. Steve King's district, by the way, just for those who are waking up to the news that Steve King lost his primary, it's a district that Donald Trump won by 27 points, so there's a good reason to believe that will stay in Republican hands, less so for Will Hurd's district, which is actually one of the top-tier districts in the country.

I'm interested in how, but all three of you really, think of Steve King's primary loss and for that matter. And I mentioned Will Hurd, not just because he happens to be retiring, but he also gave a very, I thought, important message when he marched with protesters in San Antonio as one of the only black Republicans in Congress. Steve King had been controversial really since he started in Congress, and yet he loses only in 2020 in this primary,

and probably because he was abandoned by the party more than any individual thing he said. He didn't have any money to run. He didn't really have much of a campaign to speak of. The comment that he made, by the way, that sparked all of this and lost him his committee assignment was white nationalists, white supremacist, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive? But even back in 2016, he said the whole business, and he's speaking here of multiculturalism, the whole business does get a little tired. I would ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?

And that's not even. I mean, this goes all the way back. So there's sort of this, I think, line within the Republican Party this morning that, like, see, you know, we've cleaned our own, we've cleaned our own house. He's out. This was a primary. I'm not sure that I'm fully buying into that narrative of Steve King losing with Will Hurd also retiring. Well, I mean, look, we can unequivocally celebrate the demise of Steve King's political career. I mean, that is a classic example of addition by subtraction in much the same way that the loss, Roy Moore's loss in 2017 was addition by subtraction.

This was- But, David, let me give you another example. Ron Desjardet won his primary in 2016, I believe it was. you anticipated my next sentence oh david you and i we're doing too many podcasts together we're in my help partners yeah there is need for more addition by subtraction including scott de jarlay scott de jrlet who is in my neighboring congressional district he is in fact i was at one point i lived i think two miles from his congressional district i wanted to vote him out of office so badly. Part of me wanted to just move two miles to vote him out of office.

But he's still in. And this is a guy who his legacy of personal scandal is far, he has a legacy of personal scandal that is one of the more, you know, grotesque records of any politician. I mean, as far as, you know, the scandal of, of, of, of, the, you know, the scandal of, of threats of violence, of plying patients with drugs, of being on tape, urging people to get abortions to, I could go into all of it, but it's extremely, extremely sorted. So, yeah, there are still unsavory people on the GOP side. I think, however, the main problem with the GOP right now isn't so much that it's got these, you know,

it's got people like Steve King sort of seeded in the elected ranks. That's not the main problem of the GOP. The main problem of the GOP is it's orbiting Trump like IO orbits Jupiter and that it, the gravitational pull of Trump is having the same effect on the GOP that the gravitational title forces of Jupiter have on that on IO, which is it's turning it. into a volcanic mess. And that's the main issue right now. Not this person or that person who's got this checkered past or these awful views that are scattered in the delegation. It's the incredible gravitational pull of Trump and Trumpism.

That's the issue. I mean, look, if a Democratic politician, I mean, we can say this a thousand, thousand times. If a Democratic politician had done what Trump did on Monday or if Democratic politician had tweeted any number of things that Trump did. The GOP would be united. It would have voted unanimously to impeach a Democratic president who did exactly the same things that Trump did regarding the Ukraine. So that is the real issue. It's you want to take the Desjardes out and the Steve King's out and keep the will herds in and fend off the Roy Moors. You absolutely want to do that. But that's not the core of the GOP problem.

Steve, why does Steve King lose his primary when Scott Desjard-Lay doesn't and the Republican Party loses through, you know, not running again, someone like Will Hurd? Well, look, I think- Explain, draw a through line for me here of how this is consistent. I mean, I'm not sure there is a through line, and that's part of the problem. I think I agree with David on that. I mean, if you look at, give credit words. do. I mean, some Republicans finally spoke out about Steve King increasingly over the past five years. I mean, some of the things that he said, you know, there was back at the weekly standard, we reported on comments that he made comparing immigrants to dirt the day before the election.

And those drew condemnation from his colleagues. People spoke out more forcefully about the kind of crazy things that Steve King was saying, Liz Cheney at one point, call them racist. Well, you don't hear that very often. So I think in one sense, there's been progress that those denunciations were stronger and quicker, even if some of the leaders were late to coming to them. But then they also took the step of stripping them of his committee assignments. And if you look at how Randy Feinstra won, that's the candidate who defeated him in the primary, His focus was not so much on Steve King's incendiary language and the fact that he's an embarrassment to humanity.

But he ran against him as an ineffective congressman, said, basically, this guy doesn't pass any bills. He's not on any committees. He can't actually do anything for Iowa's fourth district. Why would you want him in Congress? So it was a practical case, and I think probably the smart case to make, if your goal is to win, the primary, which his goal and the goal of his advisors, no doubt was. You know, there is a bigger problem here, though. And, you know, my concern is not only what happens with the kind of Steve Kings of the Republican Party, you know, is this the beginning of a broader trend? And it's hard

when you look around to believe that it really is, in part for the reasons that David spoke about. And I think one of the concerns is as you as you see these primary Republican primaries take place around the country, I worry that you have more and more candidates who are trying to sound like Donald Trump and, you know, in some ways sound like Donald Trump's bigotry. And that's a problem for the Republican Party. I mean, the demographic projections don't make that a sustainable path politically to say nothing of the moral problems that embracing bigotry has. Jonah, George Will took this on earlier in the week before this primary, and he basically says throw all the bums out, including all the congressional bums. He says it with lots of big words and says that the Republican Party chose to stock Congress with invertebrates whose unswerving objectness has enabled Trump's institutional vandalism who have voiced no serious objections to his Niagara of lies and whom T.S. Eliot anticipated,

we are the hollow men, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless as wind in dry glass or rats' feet over broken glass? Well, first of all, as someone who once worked for William F. Buckley, I cannot stand opposed to polysabalic sesquipedalianism. But on a practical matter, I agree with George Will's indictment of Trump. I am not sure that I would go as far as to say, let's vote out the Senate Republicans.

If I were a, even if I were an anti-Trump, even if my anti-Trumpness and my voting were the most important things in my analysis, I am not sure that that's the best idea. But I certainly agree with the thrust of what he's saying. And I certainly agree that there's a terrible indictment of the, there have not been a lot of profiles of courage. among the Republican leadership over the last few years.

I want to take a step back, though. You know, when you asked about the herd and the king thing, you know, my initial response was going to be, so one left the party in disgust and one was kicked out of the party because he was disgusting. And there's some truth to that. But there's also part of the problem is that the GOP coalition was all,

already changing dramatically, which is another reason why 68 doesn't work, because the coalitions are different than they were. But, you know, the beating heart of the FDR coalition, the white working class, non-college educated, you know, Joe six-pack crowd, had been moving Republican for a long time, and Nixon was part of that. The Republicans have struggled to hold on to the suburbs, particularly suburban college-educated women for a while now. And going into 2016, Ted Cruz had this theory of the electorate, which is sort of like the white Republican conservative, the white right-wing version of the Obama theory of expanding the base, expanding the electorate. There were these 10 million-hitted voters and all of the rest. It turned out

that Trump took that theory and ran with it and brought out all of these new voters who aren't all bad people, they're not all deplorables and all of the rest, but they are more populist, they are more receptive to stuff that the old Republican Party of Reagan and Bush would just never tolerate. And the theory is, I think a lot of people have, is that, man, well, Trump is chasing away these suburban voters, particularly these suburban college-educated women anyway. And he managed to win by pulling in these new voters. This really is the new GOP now. I don't know how to talk to these people. Trump does. So I'm going to talk like Trump on the assumption that it works. And when you talk to a lot of Republican politicians who go to

these rallies and they just see these new crowds of people that they've never seen before at Republican rallies, they, you know, the normal Republican round, they go to, you know, fish fries in Wisconsin or to, you know, to the Shriners in the Knights of Columbus meetings, they've known these people all of their lives and they know how to talk to them. And then all of a sudden a whole new crowd shows up that loves Trump, that doesn't care that he sounds racist, doesn't care that if he is racist, and they think, ah, so I got to talk to, these are my new constituents now. And even if they don't believe it, they don't know how to talk to these people other than the language of Trump is awesome. And I think that's a huge part of the problem. I don't think

the entire GOP leadership has gone, populist, nativist, racist, or any of these kinds of things, but they're scared that their voters have and they are slaves to their voters. And the last one I make is that Trump, in 2016, I have it on very good authority from people who talk to him about this stuff. It's not that Trump is, you know, he is not a Klansman, right? He didn't spend his days cutting eye holes in the pillow cases of Mar-a-law. He may be insensitive. He may be sort of a, you know, a bridge and tunnel, racially insensitive guy the way he talks about the blacks and all that kind of stuff. But he wasn't a real clansman. He thought a big chunk of the GOP was. And that's why he didn't want to disavow David Duke's endorsement. Because he thought it would

cost him a huge number of votes. That's why one of my favorite scenes of all of Trump anecdotes is at the 2016 convention where Trump passionately condemns the wanton slaughter of a bunch of people at a gay disco in Orlando and by a jihadi terrorist

and the audience applauds and cheers and he's like, go watch the video. He's like, noticeably shocked. And he's like, I got to, and he leaves script and he says, I just got to say, I'm particularly proud

of you for applauding that here today or some words to that effect. He was shocked that the GOP rank and file were actually opposed to jihadi terrorists murdering a bunch of gay dudes, gay Americans, and he thought he was taking this brave sort of woke position or something like that. He doesn't know, he didn't know his own coalition, but he's changing the coalition, he's making the coalition into his image. And the rest of the GOP is still grappling to figure out how to deal with it. Steve, I'm going to come to you because I come to you on all things, COVID, which we haven't talked about yet, which is incredible when you consider the last three months of our lives

that, you know, 40 minutes in, we haven't talked about coronavirus. And I guess the way I want to enter it is through the protests. Talk about lack of social distancing, as many people have noted. On the one hand, you have a group of infectious disease experts at the University of Washington who starts circulating a letter. And remember, Washington, of course, is where, you know, the biggest first hotspot was. And their letter says that basically the risks of congregating during a global pandemic shouldn't keep people from protesting racism. Here's a couple of quotes. White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19. Racism is a social determinant of health. It affects the physical and mental health of blacks in the U.S.

I would weigh these crises separately. And to paraphrase, local government should not break up crowded demonstrations under the guise of maintaining public health, they said in their letter. On the other hand, I also want you to address what happens when you? there's not a real uptick in positive coronavirus cases two weeks from now, despite thousands and thousands of people across the country in every climate and every part of states with open and unopened and different infection rates. What happens if we don't see an uptick? Yeah. Either way, it's not good for our country's faith in experts. I mean, I think this is a, This was a pretty extraordinary letter and a pretty extraordinary thing to say after having told Americans for three months that they couldn't have contact with anybody out of their bubble, that they couldn't even sit and hold the hand of a dying loved one, that they couldn't keep their businesses open, you know, businesses that in some cases people had worked their entire lives to build, watch them go bankrupt in the

interest of public health and in the interest of stopping the spread of this disease, and then suddenly, I mean, seemingly overnight, because it's a cause that they favor, they decide it's okay. I find this absolutely extraordinary and totally infuriating, and it's not just those experts from University of Washington. It's other people, including politicians. I mean, at, at one of his coronavirus briefings, Governor Cuomo said that he supported the protests. I mean, these are people who are doing precisely the opposite of what he had said for weeks could not be done. And he said he supported them.

Governor Murphy, in neighboring New Jersey, said, actually said these words. It's one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening. And it's another to come out and peaceful protest about somebody who was. murdered right before our eyes. Now, look, I'm incredibly sympathetic to the cause of the protesters. And obviously, you look at what happened with George Floyd and there is near universal horror. I think it's good that we're having a bigger discussion about it, separating out the riding and looting. The protesters here have a righteous cause. But you can't say what he just said. That's absolutely appalling.

You know, for the people who own those day nail salons, that matters as much or more, probably, in many cases, to them than an abstract protest about police violence. And I think you are going to see such a major backlash on this if you continue to have the very same people who said for months, I think, with some justification, look, we got to do everything we can to stop the spread of this pandemic, suddenly say, yeah, you know, maybe it wasn't as bad as we thought. Things are, we're sort of ready to open up. And this is a cause that justifies people getting together and taking those risks. It's a bad, I think we're at a bad moment on this stuff. And it'll come back to bite these folks.

David, I think this has some legal implications, too. On the one hand, you have public health experts saying that you can get together to protest, and you have those same public health experts, let's use your pet cause here, saying you cannot congregate in a church. You're pre-channeling me again, Sarah. This is what I do now. I speak David Frenchism. Yeah, I mean, one of the first things I would do if I'm, if I was still in the daily practice of religious liberty law, is I would be filing motions. in cases where Democratic governors, Republican governors, Democratic mayors, I would say Republican mayors, but they don't exist, that in cities of any size anyway, I would be saying, no, okay, all of your arguments about your prohibiting mass gatherings on a neutral basis, on a neutral basis are now over. you're permitting mass gathering. The evidence right now on the record would be that you have a written policy that is apparently viewpoint neutral, but you have an actual policy that is not. And the actual policy says if you are protesting in a cause that I support, then you can gather. And you can gather in basically infinity numbers with zero social distancing. And that's now your de facto policy. And I would like

my chances, honestly, in court. I would like my chances. There are, you cannot. There's also a selective enforcement argument. Oh, they're saying they have limited resources to arrest all the protesters. Fine. But then if you do take any adverse action against someone at a church, selective enforcement is nearly impossible legally to ever win. This may be your chance. Right. Exactly. And so, you know, especially if you're one of these churches who are seeking to open with social distancing. And I'm not even, you know, there's a class and category of churches on the fringe who are saying we're going to open and we're not going to do so. We want to open without any social distancing. But the vast bulk who want to open want to do it with masks with, for example, my church is opening

under our Tennessee guidelines. And we're going beyond that. And we have a reservation time for families so as to not overcrow the church. We are being asked, though not required, asked to wear masks. We're going to maintain, we have one entrance, one exit. We have all of these measures to protect the congregation. And I think it's all prudent and it's fantastic. But, you know, in other parts of the country, churches are going into federal court and asking to open on that very responsible basis. And as we just talked about in our Monday advisory opinions, they're being denied. I mean, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court did that on Friday. And so I do think that there is a civil liberties issue here. And then I also want to echo what Steve said about

experts. Okay, so we have seen in the last three, four months, a huge debate about scientific expertise and the role that scientific expertise should inform public policy. And then we just had, as Steve references, these scientists using their science credentials to add additional heft to what was a blatantly political statement. And that, in many ways, sort of sums up a lot of the critiques we have of the expert class in this country. And that is, they're using credentials that they have to imbue them with authority on matters outside their narrow set of expertise, because I'm sorry to say that in the middle

of a pandemic, that you're going to risk perhaps many, many more death. because white supremacy is more of a public health issue than a pandemic, that smacks of politics a lot more than sort of the precision of epidemiology. Well, so just one quick point on this. It's also, there is such a, it's not even apples and oranges. It's, it's apples and pink flamingos. Because the idea, like, I would actually give the, how these ways. public health people writing this thing, some benefit of the doubt if what they were suggesting

was, if you let these protests take their course, we will solve the problem of white supremacy and racism in this country, right? But it's not going to do that. So what they're basically just saying is you should allow performative stuff, even though it's not actually going to fix anything in the long term. And it's just that it's like with the pandemic thing, there's actually a measurable metric for what success looks like. Letting more people burn up Korean grocery stores for another week or clogged streets in protests spreading the pandemic. There is no metric for how that reduces racism and police brutality in this country. all right i want to do a quick journalism topic for each of you a hot take if you will i'm actually

very curious in what each of you will say and then we'll do our lighter topic at the end so here's the quick question uh and steve i'm coming to you first you uh you handled these issues for us at the dispatch initially almost universally reporters in the lafayette park movement of protesters said that the park police used tear gas. I think now we all probably agree that the park police used smoke canisters and pepper balls. Pepper balls are an irritant and smoke canisters are, you know, create smoke, but it is not tear gas, per se. Tier gas is a different thing. On the one hand, you have then reporters having to decide editors, I guess,

having to decide whether to issue corrections on that. On the other hand, you have some right-wing media saying, you know, look, fake news, they got this whole thing wrong. And then you have, I think, a lot of reporters on Twitter sort of mocking that it was incorrect and saying that, well, pepperballs plus smoke canisters equals tear gas in effect, and therefore it's, you know, eye-roll silliness

to say that that there's any distinction. I'm curious you've been in this business for a long time. Where do you fall on that conversation? Yeah, you know what? I mean, I actually don't think this is that complicated. You should be as specific as you should as you possibly can in describing what's being used and as accurate as you can, make it as clear as you can to your readers who might not be sophisticated on these various distinctions, and if you get it wrong, you should correct it. In this case, I mean, there's an interesting, it is an interesting back and forth,

and it is sort of an interesting journalistic question. People, reporters who were in Lafayette Park and surrounding areas, you know, felt the burning sensation that they had associated, particularly those who had been, you know, hit with tear gas in the past, with tear gas. So they used tear gas as sort of a general term. There's an interesting Washington Post story out this morning about this, pushing back on the Trump campaign demands that journalists correct or retract their claims that tear gas was used. And the Washington Post piece reports that the CDC includes the pepper spray that was used in Lafayette Park.

as a form of tear gas. So tear gas is sort of the bigger picture. I wish I remembered my biology better, and I could do it that way. Tier gas is the rectangle to pepperballs square? Sure, yeah, that works. I mean, just so I'm clear, that's not biology. I don't know where you went to school.

But did they teach you that at Harvard? Actually, in the law school, they probably did, frankly. They were like, biology. It's all the things. It's all the right. I was thinking of species, genus, things that I still confused. But, you know, tear gas is the sort of bigger category and then the more specific claim was this particular kind of pepper spray. So I don't think, given what the CDC has said that you have media companies that would have to run corrections or retractions on it, if certainly.

If the CDC and others has also been mentioned in medical journals classify that this pepper spray as a kind of tear gas, I think they're fine. And I think, look, I mean, I think just from a strategic point of view, I think what the Trump administration is doing is trying to discredit the media. They're trying to do this at every single step so that people don't believe the reporting that comes from the media. The media have, I think, in too many cases, many journalists have made the Trump campaign's job easier than they should have. I don't think this is one of those cases. David, Jonah, anyone disagree? I have one gripe about it. I really don't.

So part of my complaint with the people who are making this their hill to die on is, much like the Trump campaign, is They want to make it seem like the real controversy here is that the media described pepper spray and smoke canisters as teargrass when, ha, ha, ha, ha, we are so experts in the means of aggressive crowd control. We know it wasn't teargrass. The thing is, just think for a moment if all the initial reports got it right and said, the president, in order to stage a photo op at a church, tried to dispel a crowd, dispelled a peacefully protesting crowd with pepper spray and smoke canisters

so he could hold up a Bible and a photo op. That's the issue. That's the bad thing. And they would find something else. They didn't smoke canister. They were smoke, you know, jars or whatever. Who gives a rat's ass? This is like rings in a freaking thousand-year-old tree.

Every single time we have one of these things, the effort by certain people who don't want to actually defend what Trump is doing, but want to lend aid and comfort to his defenders, they do this anti-anty-Trump nonsense where they make it sound as if this choice in this election is between voting for President Donald J. Trump or President New York Times, as if they are actually running against each other. I'm with Steve entirely. If you got some facts wrong, correct the record. It's not a big deal. But the underlying issue of what the administration did, lying and misleading or duping, even a member of its own administration, to go on this walk so they could create some freaking video at the Republican convention of Donald Trump's heroic victory in the Battle of Lafayette Square.

and talking about battle space on the American homeland with, you know, the Secretary of Defense and using pepper spray, but not not tear gas because that would cross the line. That's the issue. And they want to make the one issue that they don't want to talk about is the actual issue. And that's why I find some of these debates so frustrating. Can I take your rant and raise a rant? Sure. This is the ultimate example of how on certain segments of right-wing media, every story has to be a media story.

Every story. Ultimately, ultimately everything is going to be about what did the media get wrong. And this is taking it to the most absurd lengths. Because to be very clear, what the media messed up is that by referring to tear gas, tear gas can only mean CSK. gas, and it cannot mean CN gas, which the CDC disagrees with. I mean, that's how much we're picking this apart. And what's remarkable about it is the idea that it would be unfair that it's somehow fake news for a person who is suffering the effects of the CN gas to then immediately go,

you know what, I need to check and see if that was CN or CS. as to what is making me cry and putting that burning feeling on my skin and making mucus come out of every orifice, is that CN or CS because I don't want to be fake news? I mean, that's absurd. That's absurd. They were suffering from the effects of a riot control agent. A riot control agent is colloquially referred to as tear gas. There are forms of tear gas, CN, CS, others. It's entirely fair to describe that as tear gas. Now, where would it make a difference? Sometimes, if you have not ever been exposed to tear gas, I could see that with smoke rolling over you and you've got some choking and burning sensations that you might mistakenly think of that as tear gas.

But if you've ever been tear gassed, you will never, ever mistake smoke with a riot control agent. You just will not, because it's a completely distinct thing. But there has to be a way to make a, to transform a negative story about Trump into a negative story about the media. And this was the way. And it's an extraordinarily absurd way to do it. And one of the leading stories about it, what was fascinating to me is they did a, the writer Molly Hemingway, did a block quote of the explanation of what was used, bolded no tear gas candidates. canisters, but did not highlight pepper balls or explain what they were at all and leaving the reader who knows nothing about riot control agents with the impression that the only meaningful

riot control agent is tear gas, is CS, not this other kind of riot control agent that the CDC calls tear gas. So, I mean, it's, you just, when you recognize the pattern, you can't unsee it anymore. Trump will do something that is any other president, these exact same people would be up in arms about. And then wait a beat. Just wait a few hours, maybe wait 24 hours, and you'll figure out that somehow it's really a media story. And it happens time and time and time again. I agree on the media story aspect that you're raising. And I certainly agree that overall, this does not, to Jonah's point, does not change what the story should be coming out of this week. However, I think reporters should have been more careful.

I think it's not that hard to say, you know, as someone on the ground, you know, the, you know, irritants were used or smoke billowed, like, describe it. But if you a reporter are not an expert on various types of CS versus CN gas, then don't say that. Because I think it turned out, again, to your point, that, like, well, it's pretty close and all of that. You know, I think some of that is luck, frankly, David, that that ended up being the case. And I think it's not that hard to have some humility, which I don't see a lot of on Twitter from blue checkmarks right now, to say, yeah, this is easy to correct. It doesn't change the overall point that, you know, the story made. We should have said pepperballs. We should have checked.

We should have asked. There's not even necessarily. I don't think, I think we're making a point here, but I think for a lot of the reporters, they weren't actually. even making a point. They were just conveying information. Some of them in real time, right? They were there. They were hit with these riot agents. What the CDC, what the CDC considers tear gas, they described it as such in real time. I mean, I think it's, first of all, I don't think it's inaccurate. And secondly, I don't think you can ask reporters who are, you know, literally wipe away their eyes, this irritant from their eyes to pull out their iPhones on live television

and say, all right, now let me get into the CS versus CN thing here. Yeah, but they could have just described it. They could have described my point is they could have said. They could have described there is an agent being used that is making my eyes burn and smoke. And a bunch of people would have said, that's tear gas, you dummy. But it's not up to the reporters to classify what it is. And I think, for instance, I was watching this live and I was very confused as a watcher because if you've used tear gas, people walking through it, like the president and the cabinet

members, should have also been affected. And they weren't coughing. And I was very confused why everyone on Twitter was agreeing it was tear gas. It turns out there was a really easy explanation to my question, but no reporters were asking that question. I think you make a good point. And I think it would have been better if they said they were using, you know, I didn't know what pepper balls were. I looked it up. And it turns out it's a way of using pepper spray.

And I think no one would be any less outraged if they had used, if they found out that the president cleared a field of peaceful protesters with pepper spray and smoke rather than what they think tear gas is. But so, but to me, it's a little bit like, you know, writing about how they, you know, this didn't happen, but just hypothetically, you know, the police released vicious German shepherds on peaceful protesters and it turns out that they were actually

Belgian Malinwa which are often I think that's actually a really close thing because actually I have dealt with German shepherds and Malamois

and like the things of security detail that I've worked with and you know what a reporter should say in that case? Dogs. No, I agree.

And I think if you don't know what kind of dog it is. But to Steve's point, I think that a lot of people use teargrass colloquially, not technically. And I think that's where everything gets sort of hung up. It's like I don't want to

get into assault rifles, whether they're a thing or not, but a lot of reporters who don't know the technical jargon about guns, sometimes mess up technical jargon about guns. It doesn't change the fact that a bunch of Michigan protesters brought guns to a protest, even if they got the descriptions of them wrong. Yeah, I mean, and when you don't get much more technical than the CDC. Yeah. But they didn't know that at the time. David. Like, I hear both you and Steve that, like, the, the rectangle square point, genus phylum point, but that came out later, thankfully for the reporters in question. They could have described what was going on.

Right. You know, look, I mean, I think it would be similar, as Jonah was saying, to a reporter saying, we're receiving AK-47 fire when it's really, M4 fire, okay, is, but they're all, they're all semi-automatic, they're semi-automatic rifles. And should you have said semi-automatic rifles, but what is the umbrella term? I guess it's the better umbrella term we're receiving riot control agents. We're under the influence of riot control agents. I mean, I don't know. I mean, this is splitting it pretty finely. I do think that, you know, when you have the after-action report, you know, these long. things other than the real time, that real time in the moment. I'm being tear gassed right now.

And then 24 hours later, you have the 6,000 word New York Times explanation. Yeah. And to be clear, I'm not mad about tweets that said tear gas or anything like that. I'm mad. Mad is even the wrong word. I'm annoyed with today's eye rolling that they even should have to think about changing the term from tear gas to what it was and how silly the whole conversation is when I don't think it's that silly to now that you know use the correct term. Yeah, but there's bad faith on the other side, again, because the whole reason why they're talking about it wasn't tear gas is to make it sound like, but for the accusation of tear gas,

what Donald Trump did was absolutely fine. And what Donald Trump did was discussed that. Totally agree. And can I, I'll make, let me make one quick point. And then, Sarah, you have the last word in time. No, you get the last word. No, you do. What they're doing is what you recommended that they do.

You said, well, they should use dogs instead of German shepherds or whatever the other thing was that Jonah said. That's what they did. They used tear gas instead of the more specific term. So if you want them to use dogs, you know, in the broader description, I think it's actually better. If you don't know, you know, they probably didn't know exactly what it was, but understood that it was some broad, under some broad understanding it was tear gas. gas, so that's what they used. That's why I don't think you could say it's inaccurate, particularly with the CDC backing on it. Interesting, because I don't think they knew they were using the term

dog. I think they thought they were using the term German Shepherd. It may turn out that they were using the term dog, but that has been sort of a 24 hours later we found the CDC page. No reporter at the time knew that the CDC classified them the same. And now, I will ask you each. We ran a little long on that topic. Sorry listeners, but I thought it was kind of fun. I mean, it's fun when we all yell at each other, right? Okay, ending question. I'm going to take a version of something Jonah asked here. We're still all stuck inside. We're still all at our respective homes. If you could only eat one dish for the next six weeks, every night, same dish. You don't have to eat it for every meal. Just dinner.

One dish. You don't, and this does not have to be you cooking it. I'm giving you infinite dollars to purchase said dish and have it, you know, delivered with social distancing to your door. What is that dish starting with you, David? Now, when we discuss this in the green room, it was category of food. That's right. I changed it. Oh, you.

Oh, well. Yeah. You know, I didn't like your answer on the tear gas. Yeah. When I don't like your answers, I changed the question. You actually made it easier for me. Okay. All right.

So in the South, we like our casseroles, right? And so there is a particular casserole dish that my mom made when I was growing up that my wife has refined and improved with the addition of a little bit more onion. and that is a casserole dish called chicken tetrazini. And if you've never had it, it's life-changing. And it's the best combination of, it's Southern Comfort Casserol food at the apex of the genre. And, you know, it provides you with meat. It provides you with carbs. It's just fantastic.

And it definitely provides you with calories. And in fact, I think of the eight or ten weeks that we were under a shelter in place, I may have had chicken tetrazini for a full one-third of those meals. So this is not a hypothetical for you. Okay, Steve. I mean, I'm tempted to just invite myself over to David's because that sounded good. If we have to eat it for every meal for six weeks, it does change the thinking. Just for dinner, you said. Sarah's a question. Yeah, but even for dinner. Like if it's your dinner every night for six weeks. I mean, in a less specific question, I would probably choose some kind of

steak. Probably don't want to have red meat every night for six weeks, although I've had periods of my life where I was close. So I think I would do tuna steaks. You know, whoa. Wow. Did not see that coming. Wow. Lightly seared tuna steaks with sort of Saracha and maybe cut them up on, put them on rice crackers and with some cream cheese. So do we, do we have now settled once and for all who is the man of the people and who is the elitist in this podcast? Wait, it got weirder when it went to crackers with cream cheese. Yeah, I know.

I'm just, I'm like, really. I'll make them for you sometime and then you'll be begging me to come over and he. I am rethinking my entire decision to join. forces with Steve and start this thing. This is disturbing. I just, I didn't see that coming at all. Yeah. Wow.

It doesn't go with Spanish red wine very well, to be honest. True. No, I'd have to have some kind of verdejo or something else. Oh my gosh. One last question on the parameters of this era. Yeah. We are, for the time being, throwing aside any concern about carbs or, you know, weight loss regimes or any of that kind of stuff.

It's just, you got to do this for six weeks. What meal would you want to do, right? That's how I intended it, although Steve's, you know, non-red meat thing, he certainly seemed to have taken to account the possibility of a heart attack. No question. Yeah. So.

You have to factor it in, I think. I, uh, this is a tough one for me. I'm very tempted to say some version of, chicken rice and beans because I think that is like with like just rice and beans alone you get all of the

sort of amino acids in the world you have there's some umaminess to it that I just love but I think beans for dinner for six nights is six weeks is probably not something that most marriage counselors would would advise um so

um I think I mean, it's nice to say that you're going to have some restaurant, deliver it, and all that kind of stuff, but that just tempts you to get something really grandiose that you would get tired of pretty quickly. You know, lobster thermidor on day five is like, so I'm thinking, so I'm of the school that says that the chicken thigh is the best part of the chicken, maybe the most underrated cut of meat in America other than hangar steak. And we do a really good, arugula salad with different kinds of, you know, different kind of proteins, but I would say with chicken thighs, maybe some various grains, some feta or casso-fresco cheese in there. This is the guy who just made fun of me.

Yeah, I agree, actually. I could eat that. Well, it's different than asking me, I had the cuisine question. This is a difficult planning problem of, like, what could you, like, maintain an appetite for for six weeks? And I think you need some variety in it so that you can, like, focus your brain on different parts of it. So something like that. If not that, wings. Just do wings.

Okay. And off salads for lunch. Okay. Well, so I guess part of me asked that because for the last, my husband got a smoker. about a month ago now. And so every Saturday, he has smoked more meat than could feed, like, all of us for a long time. And so every night for dinner, basically, for the last month, we have had smoked meat. And so I'm reflecting on what I wish we were having every night for the last month.

And the answer is a resounding beef fajitas. Ooh. That's a good answer. That's a solid choice. And beef. And beef instead of steak? Because actually correctly done, it's fajitas. They were invented by Ninfa Lorenzo in Houston, a family that I know pretty well, Steve,

and the history of fajitas. So I'll call them whatever I damn well. I know, but it's like dogs and German shepherds or two-a-half-s NCN. Beef instead of steak. I mean, it's fine. You call them what you want. I just, you seem to be preferring the jet. I'm a general category now.

Because there's no such difference. All fajita correctly described is the specific type of meat used. So therefore, whether you describe it as meat or the specific steak, it's really just fajita. I mean, really, you should criticize me for putting anything before the word fajita. I just wanted to be clear that chicken fajita is not a thing. mushroom fajita is not a thing. Vaca martini is not a thing, just on the same principle. Yeah, same principle.

And to Jonas' point, I think that I've really won this because my fajitas involve all sorts of different pieces that you can, to Jonas point, concentrate on. You've got your rice, your beans, your great tortillas, your meat, some queso or cheese, depending on what way you're going. Pico, I like a little pickle jalapeno with mine, some hot sauce. Are you a corn tortilla or a flour tortilla go? Interesting question. So I make my own corn tortillas, and they're delightful.

If I'm at the right place, which is Lupe Tortilla in Texas or Ninfa's, then I'll usually go flour because their flour tortillas are incredible. But correctly done, you go corn. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not, I'm just not, I'm very rare I've had a corn tortilla that hasn't detracted from the experience, I have to say. But maybe I'm just having the, you have to have them. Yeah, if you're having store-bought corn tortillas, those aren't even, I don't know what they are. I don't know what they're doing to them.

Like, that's, come over, you know, we'll social distance on the deck and I'll make you some real corn tortillas. And by the way, due to the smoked meat situation, we've now renamed this, this, appendage that I have, the little brisket. So the little brisket has nine more days to cook. Cook little brisket. Cook away. And thank you listeners for joining us on what we sort of, you know, we took some detours there towards the end. This has been a longer podcast. We thank you for making it this far. And we will see you next week. Or if you are a member of the dispatch, we'll see you tomorrow night for Dispatch Live, where we do this with video. and alcohol.

What could go wrong? Bye. You know,