The Dispatch Podcast - At the Edge of War

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David launch their new podcast with a look at the situation between the U.S. and Iran, the latest with impeachment, and the president's proposed tariffs on European wine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Dispatch podcast. My name is Sarah Isger, and today I'm joined by Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and David French. Up today, talk about the president's latest address on the Iran situation, as well as fallout. What's happening with the nuclear deal from this point? Then we'll touch a little on impeachment. Does Mitch McConnell have the rules for the trial to move forward in the Senate? And finally, a little bit about tariffs? or is it about wine? It's hard to say. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it. the speech. What did you go in wanting to hear any, any things you were particularly pleased with or disappointed with? Yeah, I mean, I'd say overall, I thought it was, you know, pretty effective in part because he didn't take questions. So the stories coming out of this will be about what he said in his prepared remarks. The most striking thing by far, I think, was that before he began his real formal remarks, he opened by saying, Iran. will not get nukes on my watch.

Is that a promise he can make? Well, it is. Depending on what he wants to do, it is. Make or keep, right? But he, yeah. He can make it and keep it, I think, theoretically. But what's interesting is thus far, so much the conversation has been about the nature of the regime

and about terrorism and about Soleimani and about long-term U.S. interests and prospects in the region. And we haven't spent as much time talking about the Iran deal. I thought it was very interesting that he started that way, introduced it, and then came back to it about five minutes in and had a section about the Iran deal in which he talked not only about what Iran had been up to, but the effects of the Iran deal. He made claims, I think some of which are not supportable, that these missiles, I mean, unless he has intelligence that he's going to share with the country, these missiles. these missiles used in the attacks last night were funded directly by the Iran deal, money from the Iran deal. I mean, I think there's a huge problem with the kinds, with the ways that Iran used funds from the Iran deal and something that John Kerry even anticipated and acknowledged would likely happen to fund terrorism, to fund these other things.

But I certainly don't have, haven't seen any evidence that what we saw yesterday was funded by the Iran deal. Anyway, I think that's the most notable. To me, that's by far. the most notable thing to come out of this is the discussion of the nuclear weapons because it has direct relevance on, I think, the next steps of this on and off hot war, cold war and what's to come. And so, David, the president has had a fraught relationship with NATO, at least rhetorically, in these past three years, and yet he does bring them into this speech today. What do you make of that?

Well, I mean, there were more than two relevant parties to the Iran nuclear nuclear. deal. The J and JCPOA was joint. And so there is a, there are relevant European parties here. There isn't, this isn't specifically a NATO mission. The, the effort to isolate Iran is not specifically a NATO mission, but we do need NATO partners to make the isolation successful. So, you know, this is one of the, you've seen on Twitter some cracks like, well, wouldn't it be awesome to be going into this confrontation with Iran with a rock solid relationship with our European allies. And some of that's a little bit snide, but there's some real merit to the concern that we've been spending the last three years, not exactly building up that relationship.

And now we actually, it would actually enhance our position a great deal if we were able to present Iran with the United Western Front. And it's just not clear that we have that right now. But what the president would say to that is, yes, maybe I've been tough on some of our allies because they haven't been paying their fair share, and now they're paying at least more of their fair share, and that actually is good for NATO, and it's good for the long-term health of NATO. Well, sure, I totally agree that our allies paying more of their fair share, reaching that 2% number is important. It's important over the short-term, medium-term, long-term, especially as Russian military power continues to grow, but at the same time, that the 2% threshold

in NATO defense spending is a side issue compared to will they lock arms with the United States in this confrontation with Iran. That makes them very, very, very nervous, and most of them were perfectly happy with the Iran deal. It was something that they wanted for their own economies to some degree. It was something that they thought turned down the heat. If the the conflict between Iran and the United States and the rest of the West. And so there isn't a whole lot of unanimity in the larger alliance about the way in which we should confront Iran. Jonah sanctions. Will this be effective moving forward?

Have we basically just gone back to a pre-Sulamani-Iran relationship as of today? Yeah, I don't think so. First of all, just to respond to a couple things. And first of all, I did think the nudity was tasteful and indicted. to the plot, but, and I do think the smartest thing that he did was not, as Steve mentioned, was not take questions because often he'll have passable, defensible, sometimes even moderately good opening statements, and then he'll take 10 questions and start talking about, you know, crazy things. You know, not quite Joe Biden, get these squirrels off of me kind of stuff, but crazy

things. And so to stay on message and only giving out that statement, I thought was a smart thing, At the same time, I am just utterly not convinced that last night's strike is the end of the retaliation from Iran. And this could have been a faint. This could have been a way to test Trump. This could have been all sorts of things, a way to lull us into complacency. Who knows? But the more we talk about it as if, wow, we really came out the winners of this exchange, the more it guarantees there'll be some other strike.

And lastly, on the NATO alliance of stuff, you know, we still, I know we have like memories of fruit flies because of the way the news cycle works these days and because Trump jumps from one moment to another, but our allies still remember that we just bugged out and screwed the Kurds. And among our allies, we had two NATO partners who were flying in that zone as well that we screwed when we, you know, off the cuff decided to pull out of that operation. And so the idea of that our NATO allies are going to come running to work arm and arm with us on this stuff when there's just an incredibly long list of these unpredictable, mercurial, you know, sort of glandular changes of mood and position by the Trump White House, I just thought, I think is fanciful. So I'm still in a wait and see mode. Maybe we go back to a pre-Sulamani mode, but I just, I'm very, I'm skeptical of it. Steve, you're nodding a lot, yeah. There may be reasons for...

As Steve does whenever I speak. Oh, all of us, Jonah. All of us. There may be reasons, strategic reasons, for the president to want to portray himself as somebody who thinks that this has come to a conclusion, either short term or long term, to sort of give a sense of security that this is somehow settled.

That's what he did after North Korea, right? He said, oh, we prevented a war. war, it's all settled down, peace in our time? The question is whether this is, you know, Trump listening to the advice of advisors saying, hey, it's time to, let's cool this all down a little bit, or whether this is Trump being sort of triumphalist, as we know he likes to be. I mean, North Korea, he tweeted that that basically there was no threat anymore because he had had some conversations with Kim Jong-un.

He did this after health care when Republicans in the House passed the sort of non-repeel, repeal of Obamacare. He had a ceremony in the Rose Guard, gave speeches and had a band, had a band, you know, and said, and in fact, this is the end of Obamacare. And, of course, it turned up not to be the end of Obamacare. Here, he said, Iran appears to be standing down and appears, I think, is doing a ton of work there. If Iran stops its hostilities toward the United States in a covert asymmetric way, it'd be the first time in 40 years that that's happened. And I just I think I, to Jonas' point, there's very little reason to believe that that's what happened. And it's not consistent with the way that we've seen the regime operate over all these years.

Some interesting reporting this morning. One, that our intelligence officials believe that Iran intentionally did not use the missiles to create American casualties, that they intentionally missed the consulate, that they could have hit it and did not. And second, the Ayatollah's speech, where it translated at least, to me, said this was a slap in the face, meaning that exactly to your point, Jonah, the more we downplay what they did, the more it undermines what the Ayatollah has said to his own people. But it can sound almost like the Ayatollah also wants, is in a wait and see mode. David, you're nodding along.

Yeah, so I think Steve hits a key point. We have to look at this in the context of the 40-plus year struggle. because this is just one phase in the 40-plus-year struggle. And what we have seen from the past is that American responses will cause Iran to perhaps change a particular set of tactics. It will not cause Iran to back away from the larger struggle. So I'm thinking of, you know, let's go all the way back to the Reagan administration in 1988. We had this major surface naval confrontation with the Iranian Navy culminating.

an Operation Praying Mantis where substantial portion of the Iranian Navy was sunk. We then had this really tragic incidents with USS Vincennes, where we shot down, accidentally shot down an Iranian civilian airliner. And what ended up happening in the immediate aftermath of praying mantis and all of this was Iran began to back away from a particular tactic, and that was the targeting of neutral shipping in the Gulf. But the idea that Iran backed away from the underlying confrontation from the U.S. was answered pretty clearly with the Kobar Towers bombing that happened a few years later. So these guys play a long game. And I think what may happen is that we see Iran back away from a particular tactic, which is using proxy militias to fire missiles at U.S. or fire rockets at U.S.

troops in Iraq, maybe, maybe not. We may see them back away from a particular tactic. but the idea that they've sort of given up on larger vengeance or are moderating in a larger struggle, I think that would be wildly optimistic. And there are two things in play right now that could result in this being a longer term win for them. One is this non-binding, yes, it's non-binding vote of the Iraqi parliament to try to push American troops out of Iraq. If over the next few months Trump decides to leave Iraq, Iran would train, 800 Soleimani's for America getting out of Iraq again. And then the other one is what does Iran actually do to advance its nuclear program after it has said it's going to abandon all the

restrictions in the nuclear deal? And if over the long term they end up with a much reduced or non-existent American presence in Iraq and much closer to a nuclear weapon, I think they'd call that a win. So, Jonah, what does this administration do now on the nuclear side of the Iran problem? that I think is probably to actually answer the question that you asked me originally that I dodged so definitely wasn't that deft damn it

that I think kind of goes back to pre-Sulamani because there's just really not much to do I mean Iran one of the things one of the major takeaways from this is that Iran has now announced they're just fully out of the nuclear deal and so I don't

I think we're back to the the same problem that we had for the last 10 years with the Iran nuclear program. How do you stop them from doing something they're capable of doing? And then they have the willpower to do. And they have hardened targets that make it very hard to use military options to get rid of it. So I honestly, I don't know. I think that's sort of where we are. Steve, I don't necessarily want to leave Iran permanently in this discussion,

but I do want to get your thoughts on what North Korea is thinking today, what China's thinking today. It's a good question. Let me quickly answer Jonah's follow on, on Jonah's point because I've done a little reporting on this question. I think one of the things that's underappreciated in the current national discussion of Iran is the extent to which the Trump administration had had active discussions about Iran's nuclear program and potential preemptive strikes on Iran's nuclear program before all of this.

I'm not, I don't want to be misunderstood as saying that there was something inevitable, or something. But I think it was a much more active discussion than has been reported to this point. And I think the concern is, if you have concerns about sort of the way Donald Trump makes decisions, is that even with this, you know, what appears to be this temporary pause, that the next steps are more and more significant. If it is the case that they were having more active discussion about targeting Fordo and other Iranian nuclear installments before this. And then the response from the Iranians to the Soleimani killing is to announce publicly that they're no longer bound by the restrictions on uranium enrichment. Does that put Iran's nuclear

program sort of at the center of these debates and at the center potentially of additional military steps. And I think that's a, I think that's a live question and something that I suspect will be discussing a lot more. I mean, if you're Iran, you want your nuclear program more than ever now, not less, right? And so I don't know that the fundamental dynamics of anything have really changed. You know, the idea that killing Soleimani in this supposedly, you know, this theological quest to bring about the, you know, the 12 imam or whatever, and one guy gets martyred. in that struggle, that doesn't change your thinking on the religious side of it either. So, I mean, I just, I think the fundamental interests of the, of the Iranians haven't changed

at all. I think David's point is exactly right, is that the tactics may change, but this reinforces everything that they wanted to do even more. It doesn't deter any of it in terms of the strategic goals. You know, we should remember the words of, I believe as the chief of staff of the Indian army after Desert Storm wrote that the lesson of Desert Storm was that no power should confront the United States without nuclear weapons. And I think Jonah's 100% right. All of this, including Iran's feeling of weakness in the face of the United States, Iran's weakness and inability to really truly up the ante without facing, withering counterattack, all of this is telling them they need nuclear weapons. And but this, you know, I don't know that the Trump administration was going to

move the needle all that much on that thought one way or the other. I mean, this has been a long-term goal for a while. I mean, this has been, this has been a what they want to do as part of their long game for a while. So. Well, and that's my question to you, David. If, if they were going to abandon the nuclear deal regardless in the coming days and weeks, I don't want to phrase this too crassly, but did we just get Soleimani for free? You know, I, from the moment they entered into the nuclear deal, I felt like their abandonment of it was, it was inevitable. It would be clandestine. Abandonment of the deal, abandonment of the deal, not the program. You would the implement of, from the moment they signed the deal, right. I thought their abandonment

of the deal was going to be, yes, was going to be nearly inevitable. It would be clandestine, it would be gradual, but it was going to happen. I mean, that was my assessment from the beginning. I do think at the end of the day, if you're talking about no real change in American and Iranian relations, no real change in the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and in the absence of a withdrawal from Iraq on our part, or the absence of Iran's really breaking out,

out on its nuclear program. I think on balance, yes, getting Soleimani was a net plus. I just don't think if you're going to look at the big sweep of American history of our interactions with Iran, this is going to be a signal or cardinal moment. I think getting of Soleimani, perhaps some of the fallout from it, perhaps, but we have to wait and see. But I think the fact that we can have this discussion

and we understand that this probably accelerates Iran's interest or makes them more eager to have a nuclear weapon. Now, the U.S. intelligence community is going to make similar assessments. The Trump administration, I think. We're just always like a step or two ahead of the intelligence community here on the inaugural dispatch podcast. The Trump administration, national security team will come to the same, I think, conclusions, which makes my point, right? So that sort of in and of itself ratchets up the pressure on these next steps.

So it might feel like we're in this sort of pause or this moment where I think people look at the strikes from Iran last night as a face-saving gesture. And foreign minister, Zerif said that these things had concluded and people are putting a lot of weight on certain words to make it look like everybody's stepping back. And I think that may well be true for the moment. Right. I definitely don't think it's true for the long term. in terms of asymmetrical warfare, which I think we can and should anticipate from the Iranians, but also with respect to the nuclear program. The Iranians, I mean, your question to me, which I inadvertently dodged, was about North Korea. Yeah, yeah. Well, if you're waking up

in North Korea today. You're saying, thank God we have nukes. I mean, that is the lesson. Well, hold on, hold on. If you're waking up in North Korea today and you're not part of the elite regime, you're thinking, man, I am hungry. Well, that's true. If you're Kim Jong-un, you're thinking, thank God we have nukes. Yeah, from a strategic point of view, the lesson is have nukes. I mean, is what David mentioned with the official from India. And I think that is going to be the lesson for the Iranians.

Look, it's one of the reasons that they've wanted a nuclear weapon for all these years, was to avoid the situation that they are currently in with the United States and to be able to leverage nuclear power as one of the tools in its arsenal against the United States to avoid this kind of thing. So the question that I think returns to what does the United States do?

What does the Trump administration do? If you assume that the Iranians are now going to, as they have announced publicly, resume and presumably accelerate their nuclear weapons program. And so what about the second part of my question that you inadvertently dodged, more of a rising adversary and more of almost an equal at this point, but China, how are they watching this? Well, it's a very interesting question. I mean, I think the Chinese are perfectly happy to have

us be preoccupied with Iran and with events in Iran. One thing I would watch, it's very clear that the U.S. sanctions have done tremendous economic damage to Iran. It's part of the reason that we're in this situation. The maximum pressure campaign has. to that end, just in the short term, tactically, it worked. It's been effective. One question if the Chinese want to keep us preoccupied with events in Iran is whether they step up their buying of Iranian oil to help provide Iran with relief. And to some extent, counter those sanctions monetarily. sanctions, give the Iranians more flexibility to maneuver.

Does Putin do that as well? I don't know. I would look at China first before Putin. Putin's not going to buy a lot of oil, though, right? Not oil, but some other version of carpets, caviar, statues. All right, Jonah. Jonah's in a feisty mood. So I want to get Jonah.

take on the 2020 Democrats' reaction to Biden, some more to Iran, some of the more domestic reactions to what has gone on the last few days. Joe Biden had a tweet. I'm going to hold off on commenting on the news tonight. This was after the airstrikes last night, until we know more.

But there is one thing I will say, Jill and I are keeping our troops and Americans overseas in our prayers. We hope you'll keep them in yours. I think that's remarkably old-fashioned and it tastesful for a tweet. I mean, that's a left-wing Twitter wasn't, you know, welcoming that statement. Yeah, I mean, I think, to take a step back for just two seconds, I think the, when the history is written about all of this, the enormous disservice left-wing Twitter has done to the left and to the Democratic Party is going to be one of the big stories of this time.

it is so distortive so it's like putting it just a giant magnet next to the compass of political common sense for the Democratic Party you know there's that line from the Kamala Harris pre-obit right it was a piece came out like a week before in the Times that was basically saying you know look we're not pulling the plug yet but you know send flowers now um saying how a lot of the staff just paid way too much attention to Twitter And so I think it's, it's something that, you know, particularly here at the dispatch, we're trying hard to do is not take all of our cues from Twitter. Not take very many of our cues at all from Twitter. No, no, but Twitter needs also, but because, but there's a, I don't want to get super meta here, but because it is an objective fact that Twitter on the left and the right distorts the political process, you have to pay attention to Twitter.

You just have to understand that it's not real. It's kind of fake. Back to the actual question that you asked. I think that would, I mean, if Elizabeth Warren hadn't been already sort of coming apart at the seams for a while now, this would have been a pretty bad week for her. The way she just kept trying to sort of catch up with how to describe Soleimani. You know, it sort of began like the New York Times obit. He was a sultry charming former construction worker who. like long walks on the beach, who also happened to run this thing called the Goods Force.

But for Bernie, I mean, it really has divided, provided a more stark relief to the differences in the Democratic Party. Sometimes they've engaged each other in debates, but sometimes they haven't. But this week, I feel like you have, on foreign policy, two very different parts of the Democratic Party coming forward than I thought Biden's tweet so clearly demonstrated the one side versus the other. I think that's right. I think that's right. And I think that I think Biden and Bernie probably benefit from talking about foreign policy with their own constituencies. The question is, who do they bring from some other column into their column because of all of this? And I just don't really have a great answer to that. The people who don't like Biden and Bernie reversed. You know, the, the anti-Bernie people who

weren't that keen on Biden, now we'll see that they really need to show up to that caucus on February 3rd. Right? It pulls everyone out from this. And look, I mean, I think there could be a little opening here for Buttigieg, too, right? I mean, because he's, he had a response that what I think was similar to, and if I'm not mistaken, a little earlier than Biden's, but for gracious and thoughtful and isn't saddled with the long history of errors that Biden is, that Biden's career. represents. So I think you know, there's a possibility. I mean, it's a very interesting and difficult sort of tightrope to walk because

on the one hand, you don't want to be seen to be exploiting this moment. That's the serious and grave moment for the country. On the other hand, you know, we look to political leaders to have, to exercise judgment and to tell us what they think about how they would act in moments like this. And I think if Buttigieg, he's got to fight his youth, I think fight the fact that people at times like this often look to somebody who's got more experience and maybe is

older. But unlike Bernie and Biden, he does have more experience in that specific. You know, you can speak to some of the specifics. One thing about, one thing about Buttigieg is Biden, when he's talking, there's so much sort of word salad. He doesn't come across as in command. Bernie comes across as sort of in command, but in a really radical way. But when Buttigieg speaks about these issues. He's got these perfectly composed, perfect, sort of, he speaks in a way that for an awful lot of Democratic voters just communicates knowledge, awareness, competence, thought. And that way he's kind of the moderate contrast to Biden, who's more communicating, I've been around folksy, but don't really pay attention to all of my

words, I'm still going to kind of get things done in the way that you can trust. But he sort of scratches that itch in the Democratic primary of the young guy who knows what is up. The young guy who can inspire, the young guy who's hyper-competent, the young guy who is able to communicate ideas, to articulate ideas. I was talking to somebody not long ago who's in the national security establishment. And they said something very interesting. They said Buttigieg, alone among the leading Democratic contenders is the kind of person that you would like to brief because it seems like he would absorb the information and respond to the information. And I thought that was an interesting comment. Well, a topic for another time of what

Buttigieg has to do in Iowa in order to even survive past that. But I, I, American voters have not voted on foreign policy in a long time, Jonah. It has not been their number one issue. It hasn't been their number two issue. Maybe 2008 is the last time that foreign policy really ranked as a most important top issue for voters. Polling out today said that Republicans overwhelmingly support killing Soleimani, and they overwhelmingly don't want a conflict. Despite what we've just said about the Democrats coming out and saying,

things on Iran. We were also looking at questions from town halls in Iowa, New Hampshire, and some of these early states that they were campaigning in, and very few, if any, of the questions at the candidates' town halls were on foreign policy, let alone Iran. Will this put it more in the forefront going into 2020, or will we see a repeat of 2012, 2016, where they talk about it because they have to, but no one is showing up to vote or not to vote because of it. Yeah, I think if Iran has the strategic patience to sort of make everyone think that this strike was the strike and there's not going to be any, the retaliation and there's not going to be anything else for a while, then it probably goes into the back burner. At the same time, you know, I agree with you that voters in a general election haven't really voted on foreign policy in a while. I'm not even sure that they did in 2008, not because the Iraq War didn't.

leave a bad tasting people's mouth, but because the financial crisis sort of crowded out everything else right before. In 2004, they definitely voted on foreign policy because the rec war was just starting. Both in the primaries and the general. I mean, it may have boosted John Kerry, who was sort of an also-ran in December of 2003 and then, you know, did well in Iowa, maybe in part because of his foreign policy. Yeah, I think the reason why Democrats voted for John Kerry was because they thought other people would vote for John Kerry. You know, all the exit polling showed that, or all the polling in early 2004, not to get too deep in a rabbit hole, showed that his polling went down whenever he showed up in a state and went up

after he left. And when people ask people why they were voting for Kerry, they said, well, I don't really like him that much, but I think he'll do well in the general election. So it was a foreign policy thing, but because they thought that he would be appealing to sort of centrist voters because he had very important hair. And, but that said, the primaries in 2008 was definitely. from foreign policy in the Democratic Party. And you could see how if the drama gets built up,

it could be very good, in fact, I think, for Buttigieg. Because the qualities that David was talking about, that is his most striking similarity to Obama. You know, there was that whole no-drama Obama thing. Buttigieg, I think he's wrong on a whole bunch of ideological and policy questions and all of that kind of stuff. And I think he's got real cultural problems in terms of actually winning in a general election. But he has that unflappable demeanor that I think in a – and if it does seem like the world's on fire would be very reassuring.

If Biden could fake that for a little while rather than seeming like his orderlies lost track of him and he wandered out into the snow, he could reassure people a lot too. But he doesn't seem to have that ability. You know, I think that's exactly where we want to end on this topic. It's such a good visual, and it's perfect because it did snow in D.C. yesterday. The snow is sticking on the ground a little. And David, that brings me to the rules of impeachment, which sounds like, I don't know, like a young adult novel. Or an industrial rock band or something like that, right? So last night, just before, you know, the missiles in Iran started being reported, we had some skirmishes on the hill where it looked like there had been an agreement on the rules for the Senate trial.

And then there was not agreement on the rules for the Senate trial. And then Pelosi came out and gave a statement that nothing had changed. We wake up this morning and that's sort of where things are. But I would say in that skirmish last night, Republicans gained a few feet on the ground. McConnell got out there that he has all the votes he needs. And I want to just read you this from Politico about the rules package. Under the tentative rules package, which is the same as those used in President Clinton's 1999 Senate trial, the House will be allowed to present its case against Trump, and then

the president's defense team can respond. At that point, McConnell or any GOP senator could move to end the trial and call for a final vote on the charges against Trump, or Democrats could try to seek witness testimony. testimony, or the introduction of new documentary evidence. It will be up to a majority of the Senate to decide. Romney has, for instance, come out and endorsed this idea that he doesn't need to decide on witnesses right now. That can be put off later. Is this going to move forward? Will Pelosi send over the articles? And does it matter whether she sends over the articles? I think it's a technical legal matter. It should matter whether she sends the articles. But the fact of the matter,

this is a political process. There's not going to be a judicial intervention here. And so I can imagine a scenario where, if Pelosi continues to withhold him, McConnell says, I can read the articles for myself. We know what the articles of impeachment are. Let's start this trial. But, you know, a lot of this has been this jockeying back and forth. Jonah talks about the weird influence of Twitter. It's hard to escape the conclusion that this gambit, this tactic of withholding the impeachment articles to try to swing a better deal when there was really no leverage seems to have been born almost entirely on Twitter. It was a bad idea from the start. It doesn't really give leverage unless the president is so upset about

impeachment that he's furious that the trial hasn't started yet to go ahead and clear him. But one wildcard here is when we're talking about witnesses, the John Bolton question. and hopefully if people are being diligent, they are trying to talk to John Bolton to get a sense of what he might testify to. And if they can get any kind of sense of what he might testify to and if it is a substantive advance in the state of the evidence, this framework where a majority of the Senate can vote to hear would give an opening for that testimony. But at the same time, there's nothing to stop the House, which again sets its own rules, from reopening proceedings to accumulate additional evidence, to attach that additional evidence with whatever package of evidence

its impeachment managers are going to present. And so we've got two political branches here in charge of their own affairs, and it would be odd, although odd things happen all the time now, it would be odd for Bolton to say, well, I only agreed to testify in front of the Senate and respond to a Senate subpoena, I'm not going to respond to a House subpoena. So there's a lot of options that the House has here to supplement the record because we're not actually operating under the federal rules of civil procedure right now. So obviously McConnell holds – Thank God.

Yes. Although it would introduce a level of rationality, and it would put – you know, it would make your and I commentary a little bit more valuable maybe. But the bottom line is – I love SIF Pro in law school. The bottom line is that that basic outline you articulated seems pretty fair. If a majority of the Senate wants to hear more evidence, then majority hit the Senate can hear more evidence. Steve, I don't know that I agree that it has been a clear mistake for Pelosi to withhold the articles of impeachment. Yeah. I mean, I just don't see the

downside at this point. And to a certain extent, it has resulted in additional pressure on Republicans and Mitch McConnell to allow witnesses. Now, it may not succeed. They may not end up doing that. But I'm not sure I've seen a cost. No, I don't think there's been a cost. And I thought there could have been at the very beginning. Yeah. But somehow, and again, I've said this, but I think Nancy Pelosi is underestimated as a political strategist. She has not borne the sort of ridicule that I thought there could be from this plan.

And if there's been, so with no cost, all she needs is any net benefit. And it's worth it. I think she risked looking hypocritical. And she risked looking hypocritical because she was being hypocritical by saying, saying again and again, this is somber. We have to do this in a professional way. We have to take this seriously. And then at the end.

And move quickly. Yeah, and move quickly through the process. And then at the end saying, yeah, I'm not so sure. I'm going to do this thing that isn't what anybody expected and we'll slow the process down. So I think she's guilty of that. And to the extent that that's a downside, you could see that having some costs if it's seen as Democrats not looking terribly serious about this. But I would argue that if you look at the process.

in the House that preceded that. Democrats already didn't look very serious about the way that they were conducting these things. And to an audience of whom, this is something, you know, I teach college students, and it's something that I try to emphasize to them. Nancy Pelosi's audience is not Steve Hayes.

And so you... Big if true. So you have, you know, Trump and McConnell speaking to a entirely different, like the Venn diagrams don't overlap. And so it's, okay if the two strategies don't overlap. But I think it has, it has had the effect of putting Republicans in what I think ought to be a difficult position. They seem perfectly capable of

not acting like it's a difficult position of saying, now we want to proceed with less information. You have John Bolton now saying, I'd be happy to testify. You know, I'm happy to share with you what I know. We've heard from him and his lawyers before that he has a lot to tell that he does have. And from the other witness testimony is very clear that he was president disagrees. The president said yesterday, John Bolton knows nothing, which of course made me think, John Bolton really much. So you'd like to have John Bolton. I would like to hear from John Bolton. I think Republicans look petty and partisan if they're out there making the argument that they don't want to hear from John Bolton just because the House didn't hear from

John Bolton. He's got relevant things to say. We should hear what he has to say. Rubio's position is that as tragic as it may be, they have no choice but to only take what the House. gives them and they cannot try to get more information, which is what political scientists call garbage. But, uh, um, remember that time magazine cover Jonah with Marco Rubio on, on the front? Those are simpler times. Simpler times. But Blumenthal has come out and said that he now believes that Pelosi should transmit the

articles of impeachment at this point. It's time to go, et cetera. If anything, this is actually just put, I think, Collins Murkowski and Romney in, the only difficult position. The other Republican votes, to Steve's point, are doing just fine. The Democrats are doing just fine. It's like these three Republican senators who are like, please make this stop. Well, I'll say, just to back up on one thing, because this is one of the things often drives me crazy,

is Trump's defense on this specific point about Bolton, which Steve brought up, is that Bolton doesn't know anything. And I think you're right. That's like, that mother of all tells that he knows a lot. But if the defense were true, that would be very, very bad because he was the national security advisor and the idea that he was completely out of the loop and knew nothing about any of this stuff. And what was really going on is not a sign that he was running the railroad too well. Yeah. And we know from the testimony that Trump had said everything has to flow through Rudy Giuliani.

And Bolton was very skeptical of what Giuliani was doing. Yeah. So it may be the case that he doesn't know as much as he ought to. who have known, but he surely knows enough to share with us things that would be relevant and enhance our knowledge of the overall scheme. But do you assume that Bolton's testimony would be negative for the president? I'm not sure I do. No.

I mean, so now we're off into speculation, and I will label this as speculation rather than reporting, so nobody makes the mistake that it's reporting. If I had to guess what Bolton would do, if he's allowed to testify, I would think it would look a lot like what Tim Morrison did, which was. stick strictly to the facts of what happened. Morrison was a fact witness. He provided a lot of detail about what happened. And then he offered his opinion. And his opinion was, I didn't see the president do anything illegal. And it allowed people on both sides to seize on what they wanted to seize on. So the Democrats looked at Morrison's testimony and said, wow, look at all

of these. He's corroborating person X. He's corroborating person Y. He's added new information here. This adds to the cumulative weight of evidence that is an indictment on Donald Trump. what happened here. And you had Republicans saying Tim Morrison said he didn't see the president do anything illegal. Why do we care about any of the other stuff? That's what really matters. That's what this is all about. He didn't see anything that was improper. He didn't see

anything illegal. I think that's the way, if I had to bet my mortgage, I would probably bet that way. But a couple other variables are important. One is Bolton's pissed off. Right? He does not like how he was treated by the president. Bolton is a, and he's a former colleague of mine in AEI, I'm friendly with them.

Cabiott, caveat, caveat, caveat. But he is, you know, he's the kind of guy who swims motes with a teeth with a knife in his teeth, right? I mean, there's a certain amount of. With the mustache, then the knife. It's like a whole, it's like a sandwich. There's a certain amount of Sicilian vendetta stuff going on. He wants payback. And third of all, he's also a really good lawyer.

And that's what he really is, is he's a serious lawyer. and he took notes. He wrote stuff down. He memorialized things. He is not going to perjure himself. He's not going to lie. And if the Democrats were really good at these kinds of things, they would say, did you take notes? Can we see the notes?

What did your notes say? You know, and really make it difficult for him to do the strategy that you're talking about, which I think might be his instinct, not to protect Trump, but to protect his future as a political. player on the right because the people on the right who love Bolton also want to support Trump and if he pisses them off that's bad for him as a political thing since why Trump I mean why Bolton would be if he decided to offer a series of facts that cast the president in an even more negative light or fill in some of the details about what's happened it's why he would be such an effective yeah witness I mean

I have argued and would argue that a lot of lot of the people who have done the most damage to Trump throughout this process and throughout this debate about what happened with respect to Ukraine are people who were close to Trump and can't very well be cast as deep staters or what have you as Republicans have tried to have Sondland was hand chosen you have Bill Taylor was asked to come back out of retirement a number of them were Trump administration people but nobody more than John Bolton and John Bolton has a reputation and a constituency that predates Trump and is outside of Trump. You know, he is respect. John Bolton goes on on Fox News tomorrow and gives a big

interview saying, boy, these are the four ways I was really frustrated with what Donald Trump did on Ukraine. He will get people to sort of sit up and listen to that in a way that none of the other people that we've heard from have been able to. David, during Andrew Johnson's impeachment, Thaddeus Stevens was going to be the head of the House team that prosecuted it in the Senate. he became too ill and they ended up with Ben Butler who was a poor

poor substitute for the leadership and gravitas of a thadias Stevens as the Democrats and Republicans are looking for house managers

who is the thadiest Stevens of 2020 who is the fat I'm looking around answer the question answer it now can I say

there is none I mean I think if the look I don't think it's all that material who the Democrats select as an impeachment manager. I do think that if it's Adam Schiff, they should not select Adam Schiff. I have a feeling that they may well select Adam Schiff, if one of them. I think Justin Amash would be a wise choice.

But, of course, you know, Trump World hates him so much now that there's not, you know, it's not as if he's going to be lending sort of an, he's going to be lending a persuasive voice out into, you know, out into the larger Trump base. So I think the clear mistake is to put Adam Schiff in charge of this. I think a clear, I think a good decision would be to put Amash as part of the team. But can I stand up for my point that I think there was still some mistake and withholding the articles of impeachment? Because, nope, we got to wrap up. Nope. I'm going to stand up for this argument. And here's, here's my case for why it's a mistake. I think, you know, This whole dynamic of Trump support is a, it's a contrary to sort of, you know, the way it's

interpreted on cable news often, it's a spectrum. There is the rally trumpist, the sort of major donor class support that's with him through thick and thin, nothing else matter. You know, he is their champion. But there's an awful lot of people who support him as sort of the lesser of two evils don't pay a huge amount of attention are actually kind of worried about this whole Ukraine situation, and I can tell you from talking to some of those people, because I'm, you know, out hanging out here in Super Red County, Tennessee, a lot of those people have sort of bought

this talking point that says, well, if this is a big emergency, why is Nancy Pelosi sitting on these articles impeachment? We charged through, we charged through, we didn't wait for court decisions to find out if these, you know, decisions to defy subpoenas were going to be valid. We charged on through because it was urgent. was conducting, had been conducting diplomacy according to conspiracy theory and to damage a political opponent. And then everyone presses pause. And that talking point has seeped through to an awful lot of people or exactly the kind of people who would be sympathetic to Mitt Romney, who would be sympathetic to Susan Collins, to Murkowski. And so I do think there has been a cost.

There is a very quick and easy talking point to respond to Pelosi's gambit that works that says, I thought this was urgent. And so I do think there is a cost. I don't think it's been zero cost at all. And I think the bigger factor in whether or not Republicans are willing ultimately to allow testimony, it's going to depend a heck of a lot more on the John Bolton factor, in my view, than the Nancy Pelosi factor. But that's my defense. That's my defense. Make of it what she will Well, after all of this, one might feel the need to have a drink. And that brings us to our last, mostly, well, it's not frivolous to a lot of people, actually. It'll feel a little frivolous to us, perhaps.

But American, and by that, I mean mostly California and Oregon, wine shop and vineyards, are very afraid that the president is going to put a 100% tariff on French wine and champagne, saying that it would actually devastate their industry and raise prices across the board. So, Steve, will we all be buying California wines at twice the price next year? I mean, this is the moment I've been waiting for since I came back from Spain

where I had an excuse to talk about Spanish red wine with Jonah, who's rolling his eyes and is exasperated, but have it actually matter in a non-frivolous way. I got, I got an email about a month ago from a guy who owns a wine shop in downtown Madrid saying, as one does. You know, you know. Well, we took a tour in Ribeira del Duero, and he was the tour guide when we went to these vineyards. And he sent me an email.

Please name drop further. I don't. We had talked about this. We had talked about this when we were there. Is it possible that there could be tariffs on European wines? And I was very dismissive. I said, now, I can't imagine that'll happen. The rich people, the people that Elizabeth Warren talks about who have wine caves would never let it happen.

People would sort of lean on Washington to prevent it. And here we are. I mean, I was not, I guess, cynical enough. It could have pretty significant and devastating effects on the U.S. wine industry, from importers to processors. to distributors, and you could see, I think, an overall price spike for people who want to consume wine. Now, there are many other tariffs that I think are doing much more significant and important damage in a sort of national sense, whether you're talking about steel and aluminum tariffs

or what have you. But look, I mean, people in the wine industry have to make a living like everybody else. And those of us who have to talk about this, we want an occasional glass. of good Spanish wine. Jonah, the early states, in order, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina. Does any voter care about the wine tariffs, but perhaps to your point that it raises larger questions on the trade policy? California is next, by the way.

It is March 3rd. You can make a super-duper Tuesday argument. I don't know. I have to just, you know, fully declare my biases here. I pretty much completely shut down the second Steve starts talking about Spanish wine. Jonah was actually holding his head like a teenager was asking him to stay out late. Really. So pretty much like, I mean, just so listeners understand and listeners of my podcast, The Remnant, will know some of this because I've complained about this often. In the now year, close to a year that we spent sort of building this thing up, you know, half of it Steve was still in Spain.

and he was like, what was the movie with the little kid saying, I want my $2. It was a little stalker kid. I want my $2. Oh, the newspaper delivery. Yeah, we're going to get, John Cusack is in it. We're going to get inundated. That's the only thing people are going to have a takeaway from this podcast is people chastising me for not being able to remember the name.

In fairness, they tuned out as soon as he started talking about his Spanish wine. As one does. Yeah, so anyway, I honestly, I don't know. I don't know. Stand alone. As for subscribers. Remember that scene in Apollo 13 where they have to, like, figure out the sequence to get the, the air filtration, yeah. No, the fuses, so they don't blow out the fuse.

Oh, yeah. Like, it takes me a good 15 minutes to restart my system after I shut it down when I listen to them talking about Spanish wine. I do more Jurassic Park for that, where they send Samuel L. Jackson to flip the breakers and then she goes to find him and it's just the arm. It's just the arm. Yeah. So I certainly think a deft politician could. Remember, there was that moment in 2008 where Obama had this line where he says, where he shot back at like, I think the filling up your tires thing or something like that and said,

it's like these people think we're all stupid because I think you could do a kind of stop playing on a, stop trying to make this a class card thing. this is the agricultural sector. Iowa understands fully well that protectionism is killing them in the agricultural sector, that this is all a bad idea. It would give you an opportunity to pivot to the fact that Republicans are hypocrites for complaining

about socialism and corporatism and the auto bailouts. While at the same time, we've given now more direct subsidies cash payments to farmers than we gave to the auto industry. So there's all sorts of ways you could turn it into more than just a wine caves kind of thing. but the simple and overriding fact in all of this is that California wine is better than French wine. Strong object.

And Spanish wine's better than both. And a better value. No, no, no, no, I can't hear you. On the 2016 campaign, Carly Fiorina's favorite thing to do was if we could find a bottle of Rombauer Chardonnay, which is a California wine. And I think the proudest I ever made her, It was not getting into the CNN debate.

It was not really anything else, except that in North Dakota, I found a bottle of Rombauer Chardonnay in Fargo, and it was as if, I mean, this was like wintering. You used the wrong definite art one. You found the bottle. I've been to the Rombauer. And I've been to Fargo. I actually like one of them.

They do a big cookbook. I'll screw it up. Is it joy of cooking that they put out? They put out a good. Joy of cooking is not what it is. That's not theirs. That's like a really famous cookbook. It's like the second or first most famous cookbook in American history.

I can picture that. It's like has a little soft. They have one and it's in a lot of kids. Okay. Can I just say that as a guy who grew up not far from the bourbon trail in Kentucky, I have zero to add to this wine conversation. Yeah. No, I'm a brown liquor guy.

This is not a wine conversation. It's a terror conversation. Oh, sorry. Is it? was it when we do that when we do the the uh postmortem on this inaugural episode of our flagship podcast david and i are going to press hard for more pop culture as the wrap-up question rather than tariffs on wine well y'all should have emailed me last night one person emailed me somebody did yeah somebody did just so you know i'm not the one who found this story

a good story and on that this is this is a steve's fault yes oh i'm sorry i was being all diplomatic because I thought this was your fault. No. No. This is a terrible ram-up question. That's a great wrap-up question. In fact, I should have. If I liked you more,

I would have brought in a bottle of Pintia to share with you. Oh, my God. He's even pronouncing it. This is the problem that Jonah has. This is flatly terrible. And we're done. Thank you so much for listening

to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger. This has been Jonah Hayes. Whoops. Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and David Fred. We hope you'll rate us on iTunes, and we look forward to talking to you again next week.

Oh, yeah.