The Dispatch Podcast - Bad Week for NatCons

Episode Date: April 28, 2023

When the crystal-worshipping lady and the anti-vax guy are getting a quarter of the democratic vote while spending no money, the possibility of a real politician rising up to challenge Biden increases. Senior editor Mike Warren debuts on the pod to help Sarah and Jonah dissect Biden's announcement and whether the future of the GOP is more Pence or Tucker. Also, a knife-brandishing Jonah responds to critics of last week's swiftly-chilled hot takes. Show Notes: -Watch: Steve and Sarah interview Vice President Mike Pence -Watch: Jonah brandishes knife -Wednesday's G-File Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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That's Jonah Goldberg. And hey, look, we have a new podcast debut. Mike Warren has joined the dispatch. He's now joining this podcast. Mike and I go way back as well. back campaign era where we were on opposite sides of the fence. And now, Mike, here we are, together at last. Friends forever. I feel backstory implied in all of this that I need more clarity on. It's not that. I mean, it's not that thrilling or exciting. Or maybe it was for you,

Sarah. But no, back when back when you were working for Carly Fiorina, I remember distinctly in a parking lot in New Hampshire, sitting in the back of the SUV interviewing Carly when I was at the Weekly Standard, and you almost physically kicking me out of the car because I just, I was like, you know, I wouldn't stop. And, uh, and, you know, I think that is really where the friendship was, was, uh, was born in, in earnest. Honestly, I was so hungry and you were what was between me and that Panera bowl of soup. That's right. And it's all I had been looking at. looking forward to since, you know, 4 a.m. that morning and just get the F out of the car, Mike. Why didn't you eat at the spaghetti dinner at the Rockingham County Republican Party,

whatever dinner? Yeah, you know what? That was the best spaghetti I'd ever eaten because I was so ravenous at that point, too. I still think about that spaghetti. If there were an Italian restaurant that served that, I would go every night. All right, all right. We're a little off topic here. Look, we've got plenty to talk about Joe Biden has officially announced for president. And then this is going to be a little bit of a different style of segment here, but we're going to talk about Tucker and the future of the Republican Party. And we're also going to talk about former Vice President Mike Pence and the future of the Republican Party and what we learn from two different people who are maybe at different ends of that spectrum. Let's dive right in. Okay, Mike, starting with you here, Joe Biden announces for president in an incredibly low-key way.

What does it tell us about their strategy? What do you think is going to be effective about that? What do you think are the potential downfalls? So my initial reaction to watching Joe Biden's very, I mean, how many videos did he really? He released like two different videos. for one for social media, one sort of an ad, more an ad length style video. And, you know, I guess I will echo what Jonah wrote in, uh, in the G file, which is this whole idea of let's finish the job was very much, you know, this, the sense that they're going to continue running against Donald Trump. And that the job is to, uh, sort of put Donald Trump and MAGA is a MAGA republicanism, as they like to call. it on the asheb of history. You know, let me answer the question about sort of their strategy as sort of the

in what they, first by what they didn't do in these initial videos. It's very much a video that focuses on, an announcement that focuses on like the Democratic coalition as they conceive it. This is not a sort of, we have spent the last four years or three years or whatever, sort of bringing the country together. Here is the country as a whole. And let's continue, you know, the great unifying Joe Biden administration. It is very much sort of a, hey, remember us, Democrats, Democratic coalition, you know, young, you know, racial minorities.

Those were the most prominent. I would have been interested and intrigued if they had like put some like MAGA hat looking people in their initial ad. ads. That would have suggested to me that they thought they were in a strong position. I think they recognized correctly that they're not in a strong position to sort of run as a unifying candidate. They're just in a, you know, a couple yards and a cloud of dust. We just got to, we got to get a bare majority. We got to run against Trump again and Trumpism again. That's how they seem to be approaching the reelection. And I don't know if there were wrong to approach it that way. That's where the poll show he is. Jonah, the first word that

Joe Biden speaks in that announcement video that they released is freedom. Is that something we should focus on? Is that supposed to be a code that we're all picking up on? Or is that just the way the script got ridden and nobody changed it? And I ask because traditionally that word has been something sort of co-opted from the conservative side, certainly in sort of a post-9-11 last 23, 22 years. framework that, you know, what guns and freedom are on the Republicans ad and, I don't know, nice condominiums are on the Democratic side, whatever that is. No, this is sort of a, I mean, there's a Harvey Mansfield way of making this point, which I won't do, but like there's a, Chen and the Americans on the left and the right doesn't see it when

the left does it and the left doesn't see it when the right does it. but pretty much all political arguments in America boil down to rights and freedom arguments. And we just have very different views about the things we should have rights to do and the things that we should have freedom to do. And so I think that rhetoric works on all Americans. Like you could take a lot of that stuff

if a Republican had said the stuff about rights and freedom stuff, about 80% of that stuff that he said, you would think, oh, Rod Nassantis is awesome because he loves freedom if he said it. It's the context of what are the policies behind the specific politician or the specific party pushing those sort of bumper sticker gift wrapping, you know, rhetoric that the disagreements emerged from. I thought it was a really, you know, mostly a very patriotic, you know, kind of top line messaging

from the thing, you know, with a few exceptions, you really just had to look at the The only thing that was really interesting about it was subtext. You know, as I, as I wrote yesterday, if you watch that thing and you didn't know anything else about America, you would strongly suspect this country was about 80 to 90 percent black or Hispanic. There were just shockingly few white people. This is not a big racial gripe of mine or anything. I think, but as marketing, it's kind of interesting.

And there are two ways to look at it. One is they're very much, you know, if Biden doesn't get good turnout from the African-American vote, he's toast. But that's been true of every Democrat for a very long time. I don't think that all of that, I don't think the demographics of it were primarily aimed at the African-American vote, except like maybe the like win over, you know, when you have Sharpton in a thing, you know that part of what your strategy is, the co-op, the sort of civil rights industry crowd, the activist crowd.

and that's sort of a sop to them. But generally speaking, I think this thing was aimed at college-educated liberals, white liberals, to say, look, you're on the side of inclusion and wonderfulness and virtue

unlike those other people. But it's amazing how there's just simply no accomplishments in this thing. I mean, like nothing about how we passed this or we secured that or we, you know, implemented whatever, nothing about student loan debt, nothing, I mean, nothing about the actual

things he did as president, which are normally the kind of things that presidents run on. Instead, it's this very mythopoetic, manichaean thing where we are at war with the forces of darkness, and if you don't vote for us, you are part of the forces of darkness. And I think it's just a profoundly risky strategy because it loses like 80% of its effectiveness if Trump isn't the nominee. and it puts an enormous amount of pressure on Biden to be able to sustain this narrative no matter what happens with the economy, no matter what happens with his health, no matter what inanities Kamala Harris says.

So I think it's a risky, risky proposition. But it might work. Mike, it just might work. Mike, as, you know, with your strategist hat on here, you look at 2018, you look at 2020, and you look at 2022, and the narrative is, I think, a little too simplistic for what actually happened in those races. Basically, Democrats overperformed in some races. Republicans underperformed in some races. But Donald Trump overperformed expectations in 2020 in terms of, you know, sheer vote total. I just want to be clear, he lost the election. I'm aware of that. And yet in each of those

races, this was the message they were running on. And so to sort of pick up on Jonah's point, there is something a little bit risky about this. It has worked on the margins, but it hasn't been some blowaway, you know, absolute victory for Democrats in any of these cycles either. Will it work this time? What has made it work and not work in some of these examples? Well, but it's a theory for Democrats that marginal politics is how you win in this in this moment in time or these moments in time, right? That this, it sort of buys into the idea that this is a country that is sharply divided. And so your best strategy is to, you know, obviously turn out your people and maximize that turnout and demonize the, other side as best you can. So in 2020, I mean, 2020 is such a hard race to judge by any kind

of normal metrics because of everything we know that happened in 2020 from Donald Trump being such a bizarre president running for reelection to the pandemic, to all, you know, to the fact that Joe Biden did this front porch basement campaign that hasn't been done in 100 years. So it's hard to judge it sort of on the regular metrics for how does this happen. But I do think the the 2022 midterms were a more validation for this Democratic viewpoint that actually every election Trump gets more and more unpopular. And that actually he's a pretty big motivator because whatever people think about Democrats, Trump does not wear well. I think it is a huge. huge risk. This is a rollout of a reelection campaign that is premised on the idea that Donald Trump

will be the nominee. And it's almost as if the Biden folks are sort of, you know, wishcasting here and sort of making, you know, making it more likely, hoping that their efforts to make the target Donald Trump, make it more likely that Donald Trump will be the nominee. Can I say one thing, though, about the freedom word, because I'm glad you brought it up, Sarah. I took that to be, and maybe this is me being cynical, I took that to be a byword for abortion rights. That, that, like, you don't hear, you're correct, you don't hear Democrats talk about freedom in those terms. It's often justice, and they certainly don't say the liberty, but freedom is sort of pretty close. And you only really hear that when it comes to abortion rights,

because on abortion, Democrats and liberals and progressives are much more libertarian than conservative. So there's a sort of, I took that from the very beginning to say that Biden and the Democrats know that or believe that this is an issue that they're going to run on on all different levels, on the subtle level and then the more explicit level in 24. Jonah, is the Biden camp making a mistake thinking that Donald Trump is the weaker candidate to against. I feel like you have an opinion on this that you are loading into this question. So let me say before I turn it back on you, I don't think so, but I can feel your disagreement emanating through the screen. But I do think they're making a mistake insofar, and this is something you and I have

been pounding our spoons in our high chair is about for a very long time. If you actually believe the things that Biden and these people say about Donald Trump and the forces he represents, it is your patriotic duty not to signal boost them and make it give them a better chance of becoming president of the United States. You know, these guys are literally Nazis, but let's make sure they get the nomination is profoundly cynical. And I think stripped of all of the strategy and the galaxy brain stuff and the four bank shot explanations it's just frigging unpatriotic to think that this guy is an existential threat to america but because he makes him makes it easier to win if he's the nominee you should sort of signal boost him and we saw this

in 2022 and i think it's gross that said i personally think you know the i mean desantis may have flaws. He's feeling very Ted Cruz 2.0 to me these days. But I think when you live in a country where 70% of the American people don't want Biden to run again and 51% of Democrats, and I think all of the Democrats under the age of 25, except for one guy named Todd, don't want them to run again. People are hungry for a reason not to be able to. to vote for Biden. And giving them someone other than Trump is a way to do that. And I think DeSantis is perfectly capable if he got the nomination of throwing big chunks of the right that he courted under the bus and tacking to the center in all sorts of ways. And throwing people

of reason and excuse to vote for him. And Nikki Haley, I think, destroys Biden. I think Tim Scott probably destroys Biden. I mean, I think a lot of these guys have the appeal that they would be able to win over, unless, of course, Trump plays this spoiler on the sidelines and says, don't vote for anybody but me if he doesn't get the nomination. But anyway, I feel like I've tried to bury your response to your own question here. So please, what do you think, Sarah? No, I don't have some, I don't have some grand unified thesis.

I'm rolling out here. I just think that Donald Trump has greater weaknesses than the other candidates and people focus on that. But they don't recognize that he has greater strengths than the other candidates as well. And that's why he overperformed in 2020. That's why he won in 2016. I think, you know, there's a million reasons why Trump won in 2016 and we don't need to rehash them now. But this idea that because he has greater weaknesses, he's easier to beat and we don't me to finish the rest of that sentence, I think is a big mistake. I also probably do disagree with you that, you know, Nikki Haley or Tim Scott blow Biden out of the water. I think you could- I probably overstated that. I think they'd have a very good shot. Sure. But I think that you could

easily end up with a Mitt Romney problem. And I don't mean, you know, a plutocratic problem. I mean, where you get to find so early in the season when you're the nominee or the presumptive nominee, and you're just not talented enough to overcome that and to defy that narrative that the other side defined you as? I mean, Nikki Haley's campaign so far has been confusing. I am confused by her abortion speech. It was built up. Basically, she said,

I'm going to teach the Republican Party how to talk about abortion. Everyone come, tune in. I'm going to show you how to do it. And frankly, I think everyone was like, okay, yeah, you know, the woman in the GOP 2024 field wants to like lay down this marker. By all means, Nikki, what is the message? And the message was everyone needs to accept the consensus position. What is that consensus position?

Tune in next time. Like, no. I mean, that wasn't a speech about anything. That was like a Seinfeld episode. It was all wind up And then at the very last second She she like balked Yeah

It made me think they changed the speech I really think there was a different draft speech At some point and that she watered it down You know I think that the There's candidates who don't know what they believe And there's candidates who don't want to say what they believe For fear that it will close doors Limit opportunities down the road

And I either one is a really dangerous candidate to be working for. Well, but if we're talking in a general sense, not in a specific sense with Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or Ron DeSantis, but if anybody gets through the Republican primary, which goes through Donald Trump, you have to beat Donald Trump to win the nomination, I do think that we'll give the non-Trump nominee some battle scars, but also some armor. that will strengthen them in a general election. They will have slayed a dragon and then they will step up to the plate and say, all right, who's next? Except the next dragon is Joe Biden. I mean, it's sort of like, it's like, oh, this is easy, you know, this is like, go.

So I do, you know, again, generalizing it, not getting specific with the various issues. And I do think that also, you know, where you're starting to see why it's going to be problematic for any of these current candidates to win the nomination because they don't seem to be proving themselves and getting that armor strengthened because they're pussyfooting around the big issue, which is you've got to go through Trump. And just before we then head off to the GOP land, I also, you know, tribalism what it is, partisanship what it is, people, come home, so to speak. And Mike, you and I have, you know, just seen that over and over again on the campaign trail. A candidate might be sort of have high unfavorables in polling. And once they're the nominee and you hit September that Labor Day time, everyone loves them all of a sudden. And it can, you know, everyone's like, what? But I thought nobody liked them. And it's like, that's what happens in September. But fascinating polls that actually shocked me on both Fox News

and Emerson now have pulled the Democratic field, which remember is Marianne Williams. Robert Kennedy Jr. and Joe Biden. And in both of those polls, they're remarkably similar. Marion Williamson hovering at, you know, six-ish percent. That was high to me, but not, you know, game-changing in any sense. RFK Jr., 20 percent. He's at 19 percent in one of them and 21 percent in the other. What? That's weird. I'm just going to assume most people don't know who that is, Jonah. Well, no, I think they, I think they just see Kennedy, right? Yeah, that's what I mean, that they're like, Robert Kennedy, he was great. And it does, it kind of reminds me, so like, one of my gripes that I will never let go of is that Bush is George H. W. Bush's success in the early, in the money primary in 98, 99 during the Clinton impeachment stuff was brilliantly orchestrated by leveraging his,

his high approval in polls, where he has the same name as his dad. A lot of Americans felt guilty about firing his dad. And so people say, would you like to see George W. Bush president? And they're like, yeah, he was a, Poppy was a nice guy. They didn't know anything about W. And, but he took that and brilliantly parlayed into this, like, you know, huge financial advantage. I think Robert F. Kennedy, having the name Robert F. Kennedy,

put aside the fact that, you know, I think he, you know, is loony tunes. I mean, I think he shares with Trump this belief that windmills cause cancer or something. But the name Robert of Kennedy among Democrats is going to be worth 10 points no matter what, right? It just is. And but if I were like Gavin Newsom or somebody like that or or Polis or any of those guys and I'm looking at this and I'm seeing that the the crystal worshipping lady and the anti-vax guy are getting a quarter of the Democratic vote spending no money. I wonder how a real politician might do against Joe Biden. Mike, any thoughts on that before we move? No, just the, I mean, I'm sort of baffled a bit by the

Kennedy thing. And I'm just reminded of Elaine on Seinfeld's rant. at some point in some episode. What is everybody's obsession with the Kennedys? I mean, the name is familiar, but it's also so sort of passe. And so I'm surprised at his endurance because, like, my, my grandparents' generation would be like the ones who would be sort of,

you know, attuned to the Kennedy name. And they're all, like, you know, passing from this earth. So it's just weird to me. And the Kennedys are way, way before, our time. Exactly. Well, I'm not old. I'm not old. Yeah, Mike, you're super old now. See, we weren't old before, but now we old. Oh, that's how that works. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you

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will not change and then three days later Fox News fired Tucker Carlson and there were a lot of dunking in the comments from our members ha ha Jonah shouldn't do

hot takes blah blah blah to which I would argue that Fox News will not change has nothing to do with whether they fire Tucker Carlson or not

that's firing Tucker Carlson Mike just now you have me in the Carly frame of mine as she used to say that's an activity, not an accomplishment. That doesn't actually change anything yet. So Jonah, defend yourself. Yeah, I mean, look, I'm kind of grateful for the Tucker News

because it obscures something I am so much more deserving of dunkage about, which was my whole Biden's not going to run again. And so there you have it. But no, I don't know that, first of all, as it stands now, I know I say I know many smart lawyers who say there will be more firings to come that these shareholder lawsuits are going to require the Murdox to pick off Mary Botaromo and all the end and Piro over time to show that they're making changes maybe that's true maybe that's not I don't know I don't think the case that Fox News won't change is rebutted by the firing of Tucker which admittedly took every by surprise. I do not know a single person. Pro Tucker, anti-Tucker, agnostic Tucker, oddly attracted to Tucker. I mean, you just go down the whole possible list of permutations who wasn't surprised by this. People at Fox were surprised. And the idea that it's

specifically because of the Dominion thing seems now by all the reporting to be just flatly not true. And if it were true, they would have fired, they would have cleaned house. They wouldn't have started with the most valuable talent among the people who were implicated with the Dominion stuff. They would have started with Janine Piro and just put her out on an ice flow or something with a martini. And they, and so it turns out the like the circumstances for Tucker's firing sound pretty unique to Tucker. And who did they replace Tucker with? I mean, the first night is Brian Kilmead. I don't know who did the next couple nights, but, you know, I like Brian, Brian's better than a lot of the folks at at Fox, but he's decidedly Foxy. And, um,

as are, as is the institution. And I don't think that this, I mean, it depends what you mean by change. But I think that the, the general orientation of Fox is going to, is going to remain the same. It's going to be more Hannity like than it was Tucker like, which I think is good for conservatism, even though I'm not a huge fan of Hannity's. But I don't really see why this proves much about the, I mean, my admittedly bad predictive powers, but I just don't think that this is the thing I would focus on. Well, let me just follow up on that. What would happen in the next month that would be dunkworthy on Fox News will never change?

What would be Fox News changing? We'd be like, well, all right, they changed. Well, I got to tell you, if they filled the 8 p.m. slot with Liz Cheney tonight, I would, uh, all right. Let's, I would eat a lot of crow. But no, I mean, I, like, um, uh, if, for example, they greenlit, um, Brett to do special project, Brett Bear to do special projects on the, for the news side that took on the stuff. if they stopped having these uh oh really kind of make me feel unsafe creepy interviews with trump but people like mark levin where you know the questions boil down to how much of a burden is it to be as awesome as you are um uh uh uh but i don't i don't think they're going to be

like doing election denial stuff for a while but generally the tone and tenor of fox isn't going to change because it makes money and it's a dying it's a dying industry and a dying brand and they're going to continue to monetize it while they can and the idea of sort of reinventing the wheel for in an industry that will not look anything like what it is today five years from now is just a bad business decision so mike let's take up the Tucker part of this Tucker Carlson no longer at Fox News you know one of the first questions that came to mind is how does this affect the 24 race, not just because Tucker was the most highly watched person, actually across cable news, but because he was inserting himself into the 2024 election with his show and his

audience, you know, we had talked about his Ukrainian questionnaire that went to every candidate and more or less, you know, nearly all of the potential candidates responded to it in a way that I, you know, assure you various other hosts could have sent them all sorts of. of questions, and it would have been like, uh-huh, uh-huh, that's nice. We'll get to it eventually. That won't be there anymore. Now, some of the candidates told Tucker what Tucker likes to hear about Ukraine. Some of them didn't. And so it's not that I think Tucker was necessarily directing or, you know, the Pied Piper of the 2024 candidates as a whole by any means. But there was a gravitational pull of simply being there and asking those questions and giving those questions. And giving those questions,

air and oxygen. So does being off Fox News change the 2024 dynamic and important ways and what else could happen? You know, could Tucker announce for president?

Could a show on Newsmax have the same poll? I mean, what else should we be thinking about? Or is the Tucker voice gone for the foreseeable future? So let me take the end of that question and just drop a little thing

and then move on very quickly. I am just laying down a marker. I think I laid this down in our dispatch slack that Maine has a Senate seat up in 2024. Tucker has a house in Maine. Angus King is the Independent who caucuses with Democrats. Wouldn't be crazy if Tucker runs some kind of attention seeking, you know, quixotic or maybe not campaign for that.

I don't know about, I don't think about president. it, but maybe to kind of keep himself in the conversation. But on the bigger picture, I do think that Tucker is, was different from so many of the other Fox primetime talking heads because he had a very specific conception of what he cared about, what he wanted to change about, not just sort of what the conversation was among presidential candidates or within this party, what viewers, what sort of the, to use the overused phrase, the Overton window, to sort of shift that on his sort of pet issues, foreign policy, you know, immigration, but also the kind of icky, like demographic, you know, I mean,

essentially racial makeup of the United States that he seemed to be very obsessed with. that I do think not having him there removes this very specific and very determined star around which the rest of this kind of conservative movement Republican Party was orbiting. He, you know, he was smarter than I think many of them. And he had specific goals. You know, he wanted to take down, you know, the neocons and the Uniparty. And, you know, the sort of J.D. Vance viewpoint, he was giving it voice that, you know, the kind of voice that only, you know, that J.D. Vance or Blake Masters were only dream of having. So the fact that that's gone, I think does kind of harm the ability for those viewpoints to have as much purchase. Because that's why, that's why Ron DeSantis is answering the Ukraine question and the questionnaire.

from Tucker as he did. It's not because he has a specific, you know, viewpoint on these things. It's that Tucker had a big microphone and that's gone now. One other thing I will say about the way that Fox News changes because of this. So if my chronology is correct, Tucker comes, Tucker's show starts. I mean, Tucker comes in to Fox a while before he actually gets his show. but it's one of the last things that Roger Ailes has his imprint on at Fox and Tucker for whatever we think of him is made great TV. It was good TV to watch

and that is I think what certainly Roger Ailes likely saw and Jonah you can speak more directly to sort of the Roger Ailes skills set at making good TV. I do think whatever they do plug in at APM, it does not have, I think there's a high likelihood, it's just not as good TV as Tucker was able to make. And I think that's a sort of systemic problem with Fox and with cable news is that it's just, it's not compelling anymore. And there aren't, there isn't somebody at the top, namely Roger Ailes, who is able to make good compelling cable news anymore. And with that,

plus the, you know, the dying, literal dying demographic of Fox. I do think it's sort of, it hastens the waning of Fox's kind of big influence in those ways. Okay, I have thoughts. I knew you would. Yeah. So one, I'm skeptical about this being a huge blow to the ratings of the 8 o'clock hour, certainly to the revenues of the 8 o'clock hour, because in part, a lot of big advertisers wouldn't advertise on Tucker. my understanding is I think the five is the most profitable show on cable news because it's safe.

You can advertise cereal on that thing. Two, the history of Fox is that it's one of the weirdest things that they build up talent. They pick these four story tall banners like you're in downtown Pyongyang of the various on-air hosts outside of their Avenue of America's headquarters. and turns out the talent doesn't freaking matter when Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly. Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly had better ratings

at the end of his run than Tucker did. It turns out that you know, a lot of like this is true of my moms. You know, this is true of lots of people in the older generation. The TV's just on all day long on Fox.

They don't know where else to look. You ask people, do you ever check out CNN or MSNBC? He's like, I don't even know how I would find it, right? And I am convinced there's probably like 2 to 4% of people who watch Fox all day because the nurse hid the remote control. So like they're going to, the ratings on this are going to, maybe they'll fluctuate where I totally agree with you. And I think, I don't think people realize what a bad week this was.

And it's only Thursday for the Natcons. Peter Thiel announced that he's not going to fund any more politicians. So like where is Blake Matt is Blake Masters going to put on his, you know, like his 19th century British orphan clothes and just start handing around, you know, bowls asking please serve for more from a bunch of people that he's demonized? I don't think so, right? The Tucker, the value of Tucker for these people was he was the only guy on cable news who had the ability to make. a bunch of third and fourth ranked weirdos and fringe people into celebrities on national TV. And you could see it when the news came out, all the gnashing of teeth and rending a cloth from these fairly marginal ideological guys about what a tragedy this was. Because what

Tucker was interested in doing was overturning the existing, what he believes is the Republican establishment as if it's like this thing. He also was committed to overturning the libertarian establishment, which he had claimed repeatedly, has been running Washington for the last 30 years, which is always a laugh line at the Cato Institute. So I think that, like, it's funny, the people who thought that Elon Musk getting rid of quote unquote celebrities or the ruling classes, blue check marks, was this massive blow for the revolution are very similar to the people who thought that Tucker was indispensable because there are only a handful of things that amplify a very

fringe group of people into seeming like they are the wave of the future and very large and the loss of Tucker is very good for the Republican Party and for conservatives because Tucker's approach was to take fringe things and I don't just mean the testicle tanning make fringe things into wedges to overthrow the establishment as if it's good for the Republicans to campaign on the idea that the January six rioters were America's finest patriots. That's the kind of brilliant messaging that Tucker wanted Republicans to employ. I think you more clearly said what I was trying to say, which is it's the marriage of the NatCon, whatever, however you want to define Tucker's ideology

with the with his skills as a broadcaster that yeah oh he's a great broadcaster and a great writer rich library's making this point this week is that he could write for tv in a way that you know maybe keith overman at his prime you know there are very few people who can write punchy smart stuff straight to camera like that and deliver it he was good at that i agree with that and that's not that is not an option i think anymore and there's no no chance that there will be a marriage of those two things at the Fox 8pm hour because you're right they can just plug somebody in there and they'll essentially uh you know get the same or similar rates so i want to ask both you guys me one question me no i want to all right fine jonah fine ask your question john padoritz my friend

raises half ingest a third in jest i don't know if we're exactly how much Tucker's not going to run for president but he will be Donald Trump's running mate and there's a kind of evil genius to the idea running mates are supposed to be attack dogs who would be a better attack dog right than Tucker

and Trump cares massively about being on people who are celebrities and people on TV and he's always had this sort of insecurity thing about Tucker what say you guys crazy crazy like a fox not going to happen And Trump actually picks, at the end of the day, he is more likely to be far more traditional than you think he is.

Look at Pence. Look at his Supreme Court picks. Look at many of his cabinet picks, actually, for that matter. And all the crazy people thought he would pick and floated. But he didn't actually do it because he still wants to be president. Mike, what do you think? Clearly, Trump will be hemmed in by the fact that you can't have a president and a vice president from the same state. They're both Floridians.

And that will be- Yeah, Tucker just changes his residency to Maine, the same way Cheney did. No, I don't think that they would do that. I mean, I think these are people who are hemmed in by the rules of the Constitution. They're not going to, no, I don't think. I don't think. But I love the idea. just for, I mean, just for the entertainment value.

It would be entertaining. All right, Jonah, here's my question to you. Can you just riff for just like 30 seconds for me on what I feel are the really apt comparisons between what Glenn Beck's relationship was to a certain wing of the Republican Party at his prime and in the W years to Tucker Carlson's relationship to a certain wing of the Republican party now? because I think I think there's a lot there's like a whole little

undergrad thesis there of sort of a walk down memory lane of Glenn Beck at his prime and the niche Republicans that he brought out and elevated within the party at that point. Yeah so

I'm not sure I can just do it in 30 seconds but I'll try so Glenn who I was good friends with and I he treated me very well for a while he spoke to a more libertarian but then again I think a lot of a lot of these people were no longer libertarian were very libertarian 10 years ago more Tea Party adjacent conspiracy theory obsessed fringy group of a segment of the Republican electorate it was the people who thought we really needed to look a little more closely

into these FEMA camps. There was a black helicopter element to it and all that. But I think the difference with Tucker is, and there's obviously overlap between those groups and Tucker's core constituencies. But what I think that what the interesting thesis to be written about the electoral strategies of this era is that

I think Trump with the aid of Roger Stone and who's the they're turning in the frogs gay guy Alex Jones and Tucker saw a low propensity voter

cohort that no one else saw and tried to turn them on and these are younger, bro, showier, chat roomier, gamer types that are on the, maybe perfectly fine people in their own communities, but are on the fringes of our society in terms of their visibility to a lot of people, you know, like pro wrestling. It is not a coincidence that Tucker spoke at the funeral for the head of the Hells Angels, right? It is this Bikers for Trump kind of world that Tucker

tried to elevate, you know, the, I mean, the Mike was a Chernovich, these kinds of people who, um, who, um, he saw as a, I mean, it's funny, you could actually, it's sort of a fight club constituency, um, that Tucker was trying to bring into the mainstream of the Republican party and, um, or the conservative movement and or the bar stool, uh, sports community. Yeah. And, and Beck was trying to bring in an older demographic. that were some of the original Fox News addicts, but needed more sort of Fox Nation kind of content. And there were a lot of those people in the Tea Party era

who got pulled into politics during the Tea Party era that Glenn spoke directly to. And Glenn knew some of those people because he came from some sort of fringy Mormon talk radio world. And, but it would be, interesting to see if you had the access to the data, just to think about it, how much overlap. Who, who was both a crazy Beck person in their, in Beck's A day, and who's a crazy Tucker person? And my guess is, while there are obviously going to be some, they're kind of different cohorts.

I think they're different cohorts. I just think the relationship to the Republican Party is remarkably similar and the role that they played at Fox News and within Republican primaries and all of that. It's not that their people were the same. In fact, I don't, I agree with you. weren't at all the same, but their role was so similar. It's that American anti-establishmentarianism, populist. And then what's fascinating, I think that's

exactly right, but then Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson are such opposite personas. You know, Glenn Beck builds his persona by crying on television. Yeah. And of course, Tucker's whole thing is like, what is masculinity, et cetera? So in some ways, they

both redefined masculinity in their own context. all right last bit here so steve hayes and i did an interview with mike pence uh jonah just waved a knife at me all fact check true we are not in the same studio to let's anybody think i put her in actual dandria those are really nonchalant like hey look less just a reminder i have one of these well you know you mentioned mike pence and i'm like all right let's go Let's go time.

All right. So we did this interview with Mike Pence. We got 45 minutes with the former president. And I think what? Vice president. All right. All right. Sorry.

I left out a word. What a relevant one. I mean, I think you, we believe you knew that. So, you know. Who knows?

He may have been acting president for those three days when Trump was that's true. And Walter Reed, you know, with COVID. What stood out to me most about the interview was, the republicanism that Mike Pence represents is the same republicanism

that Mike Pence has always represented. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools,

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It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. In 2012, the Venn diagram of me and Mike Pence overlapping on policy issues was pretty small. And today, the Venn diagram of me and Mike Pence overlapping on policy issues is exactly the same. I don't think he's changed one bit. And I don't think I've changed one bit, but that very small percentage is now probably larger

than any other Republican Party in some respects, which is fascinating, I think. And it really struck me that, like, he was very clear about entitlement reform, about Reaganism, about process being more important than outcome when it comes to, for instance, Supreme Court cases. And so we sort of asked him, I'm like, okay, but isn't Reaganism gone? Isn't that a bad word in the Republican Party? Who are your voters then? And I think that's what the Mike Pence candidacy is really testing. And as we just talked about the Republican Party portion that Tucker Carlson represented or activated or however you want to think about it, what is the Mike Pence coalition, Mike Warren?

It is the regular Republican voter, of which there are a lot. And I do think that we have, and we meaning sort of journalists, pundits, people who, you know, jabber on. Like there was a tendency to say that all of those regular Republican voters became Trump MAGA hat wearing people. But what actually happened in 2016, and in 2020 is they, as you said earlier in this podcast, Sarah, they went to the polls like they always have and voted for the Republican who just happened to be Donald Trump. Now, some of those voters may have stayed away. Some of those voters who were Republican, regular normie Republican voters for years, maybe didn't even vote for Donald Trump, but certainly maybe not in 2020. But Pence is trying to get the old band back together. And frankly, it's his only path to the presidency.

So certainly the nomination of the presidency is to essentially say, here I am, I am who I am. I am who I have always been. And it will test whether those people actually do still exist, whether they still believe in the kind of things that he talked about on your podcast with him. You know, whether, I mean, there was a lot of sort of debt and sort of fiscal responsibility talk on the podcast, you guys, which I understand did not get into the foreign policy, but this is also something on which Mike Pence is much more of a traditional conservative on, you know, he went to Ukraine, I guess he went to Poland last year.

He is very much not in the Tucker wing on that as well. it's his only path and you sort of have to respect the fact that he may end up with 3% of the vote but but he's not going he he is betting on something different and and it'll be interesting to see where that actually where that actually ends up leaving but it's landing but it is his only path so he might as well take it Jonah two things on this one my belief is is that policy does not matter in the Republican Party. Policy is secondary to identity. Identity as a Republican,

identity as the right kind of Republican, et cetera. And so you'll hear people talk about policy, but you've got to find a way to separate whether they actually put the policy first or whether the policy is a way of them describing the identity and so the policy can change as long as the identity doesn't change. And I think of that because Mike Pett

of all people, and this is a question that was on my list, but we didn't get to it. Mike Pence's role in 2016 for Donald Trump was to convince a horde of the Republican Party that you weren't electing a pastor, you were electing a president, you don't need a Christian, you need a warrior for Christianity, and those are different. You don't need, in that sense, then, a traditional Republican, as long as he'll fight for our stuff, and I'm here to tell you that he will. And so now, nay, six and a half years later, he now has to make the exact opposite case. No, no.

You don't need someone to fight for things who says they'll fight for your stuff. You actually need someone who believes the stuff. You don't need a president who will fight for Christianity. You actually need a Christian. I mean, literally he's going to have to reverse everything. He then convinced the Republican voters to vote for in Donald Trump. I think that's a tough undo button. Yeah, that's a really interesting way of thinking about it.

I hadn't really thought about it in those terms. I think you're right. I mean, identity is not the word I choose for what you're talking about. I mean, part of it is, but I mean, I know what you mean, I know what you mean by it. I agree that policy doesn't really matter with a few exceptions, right? You can't announce your pro choice, right, in the Republican primaries. if you were pro-life, you know, up until five minutes ago. Actually, let me push you on that a little.

I agree. You can't announce your pro-choice, but you can certainly make abortion not an important part of your candidacy. And back in 2006, let's say, for all those people who were like, abortion is my number one issue, I'm voting on abortion. I think it's at least arguable to say now, no, they weren't. They were using abortion as a shorthand, a shortcut for that identity. And now the similar shortcut is immigration. And it's not to say that they don't think it matters, that they're lying to you, all of that.

No, it's more complicated than that. It's more genuine than that. But that the issues are subsidiary in a lot of ways to that identity. There's a lot of truth to that. At the same time, if you're talking about, I just mean that among the institutional forces arrayed in the Republican Party, there are certain interest groups, pressure groups. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying that they're, or good.

I'm just saying that they exist. And you can't come out wildly for gun control. You can't come out for abortion rights, you know, on demand and all that kind of stuff without some severe consequences as a candidate. That said, I agree that the average Republican voter is voting, you call it identity. I might call it personality. You know, it's like entertainment. value kind of thing. And I think this is the real fundamental problem that sort of related to

your point about for, for Pence, who I got to say, look, the Pence I heard on that podcast was the most compelling Pence I've heard in a very long time. And I kept looking for places to get angry at him and all that and couldn't. Um, um, I got some severe criticisms of Pence's decision tree over the last seven years, but that's either here or there. I think his big problem is, is that he made a decision, which I think was grounded in decency and good character a long time ago, where he vowed he was never going to be like a nasty negative campaigner. Like he ran one says one. He realized it wasn't him. He prayed on and said, I'm never doing that again.

And so he wants to be the kind of politician who models decency and good behavior and not be a nasty person. that is a really hard lane in an era where negative polarization is everything, right? And it doesn't mean he can't criticize Democrats, but he ends up criticizing Democrats in this way. He's a little like Tom Dashel, where he's just constantly disappointed in people. And I just think that's not fit for the times. And what breaks my heart about this,

breaks my heart is probably too strong. But what I think is sad is that, as you were saying, on the issue stuff, Pence is right where I want the Republican Party to be on a lot of things. But he's not an effective messenger on it. And so the ideas that he's representing are going to get, are going to suffer because of the personality. And if you had a Vivek Ramoswamy, who I think is pretty grifty. This is a guy who was announced for president on the Republican side who is a businessman who nobody has particularly heard of before that. He wrote a book about the woke corporation or something and he's another one of these guys who keeps discovering very old ideas and because he's never heard of it before. He thinks it's a new idea. But he has the right kind of energy

to like sell free markets, limited government, assertive rah-rah foreign policy, you know, of America patriotic foreign policy interventionist, yada, yada, but, uh, and Pence just doesn't. And I think that that's, that's a real problem because I think there are a lot of normie Republicans out there who love Tucker Carlson, but don't actually realize that he's against the free market, you know, and there are a lot of people out there who like get caught up in the, the personality and the theatrics of people who have really bad ideas that they don't actually agree with, including Trump himself. And if you had a charismatic personality to carry the flag for normie conservatism, I think it would be great. But as of right now, we don't have

that. Last word to you, Mike. Anything else about Pence and the Republican Party? If Pence does, let's say, garner just 3%. Is that the end of Reaganism? Is this the final holding of the bell? I think you talked about identity, Jonah talked about personality. I think one thing that is sort of a part of that conversation and sort of what Republican voters are looking for or is they, is they're also looking for wins and winning? And Trump's sort of big magic trick in 2016 was that he like all these past Republicans were losers and he was a winner. And, like, then he surprised everybody, including himself and actually won. And everything else since then has basically, except for the Supreme Court, you know, achievements has been a loss. And there is from a Normie Republican, I mean, the MAGA Republicans will insist that there has been.

It's been all wins since. We are, you know, we are not yet tired of winning because of how much winning. But, like, the Norma Republicans are frustrated and are. angry. And they were they were frustrated at where they believe Mitt Romney should have won. And I do think so much of the hopes of the Normie Republicans that Romney would win, the belief that he would. And then him not winning was what gave Trump a lot of energy and a lot of sort of purchase with the Norma Republicans. You do have to wonder if that is, that's where Trump might be at a certain point. Maybe there's not enough of them voting. I mean, Joni, you've talked about the need to get those voters out in a primary? Like, that would be more valuable than, you know, any of the other efforts by billionaires to fund candidates. But that, that to me seems where, if Pence is not the messenger, the message is, of Reaganism is not Reaganism policy necessarily as much as it is or as much as it is the winningness. I mean, who, George

W. Bush is the only Republican nominee for president since Reagan to have won a majority of votes. And that was in 2004. That was his reelection. I mean, the thing about Reaganism is that it won. We're a different country now. But on the other hand, there's a reason why Pence is, you know, occupying this space. And with a more charismatic person, there's something that All right. Not worth your time question mark. I wanted to get y'all's take on a controversial subject in my household. Gum. Chewing gum. G-U-M. So is gum a, you know, low-class, you know, thing to do to chew gum around people? is it something that you should only do in private like other bathroom activities

or is gum something that you can do in public do you judge people who chew gum in front of you Jonah what is your take on chewing gum in society I'm generally anti-gum but I don't think it's incredibly declass A an offense of to be chewing gum per se.

I married a gum cheuer. I've raised a gum chewer. Wow. At the same time, what I do think, first offense, you had a warning. Second offense, you lose a finger. Third offense, you die. Is the cud chewing, mouth open, smacking sound gum chewing

that is, I will admit, is, it's not entirely gendered, but it's highly gendered, particularly in popular culture. And which I just think is profoundly offensive. And I make it, I think the smacking sound, open mouth gum chewing is as offensive as eating with your mouth open. It's just something that civilized people are not supposed to do. Mike, chewing gum in public. Is it having your pants around your ankles? So, one on both.

I can wear my pants around my ankles and chew gum at the same time. It's not quite that, but I'm going to have to take this conversation in a quickly in a different direction here, which is that gum is a point of contention in my house with regard to my kids. So I have an eight-year-old, a five-year-old, and a newborn. The newborn is great. He does not have an opinion on gum, and I love it. Gum was introduced to my children, my older boys, as a way to give them an out for their chewing of other things, the blanket or the shirt. So you had puppies? These are human children chewing on your furniture. Yes, but, but, but, you know, you know, gum is chew toy.

You know, they're watching Star Wars, uh, return of the Jedi for the thousandth time and they're chewing on their, you know, they're, hey, no, no, no, we don't, we don't chew on our shirts. here's some gum to get that to get that fix and like I live in constant fear and I'm like hyper vigilant about like that gum going in the trash can when it's done do not touch the gum all these things give me like the not just because of the furniture and stuff but just the there are germs everywhere with little kids but like you're now like adding this thing that's in your mouth and moving around and now you're touching it and it's oh and then like there are things that have got gum on them because turns out the gum did not stop them from chewing on other things

and now there's gum on that on the clothes or the other things that they've been chewing and so if I had my druthers I would just like carpet bomb Wrigley's you know factories and just get rid of all the gum it's a it's a pestilence but I have to live with it my house that's that's all I'm going to get angry if we keep talking I feel like gum is also dying out.

I think I see fewer and fewer people chewing gum. It's sort of going the way of smoking is like sort of a nasty habit that you can have and it's okay, but it's frowned upon. And there's nothing. I mean, the rage that I feel when I find that I have stepped in gum is so high. In fact, I saw gum on my tire the other day of my car.

And it wasn't quite the same rage as when it's on your shoe, but honestly, it was pretty close. I was pretty mad about it. By the way, most gum chewers I know are smokers as well. And it's nicotine gum that they're- It's an oral fixation. Yes. Well, well, it's nicotine gum,

but yes, it is an oral fixation as well, probably. But yes, I know most of the gum chewers I know are smokers. And it, oh. The single most, it's like I don't do most horror movies. I don't love horror movies and all that kind of stuff. But like my wife and daughter like them and so I'll watch them. with the exception of maybe saw or the human centipede or one of these kinds of things like there's nothing that freaks me out more than the scene in elf where will care will

feral grabs the chewed gum that's stuck on the new york city subway and eats it it upsets me so much um somebody needs to recut the trailer for elf to make it into a horror film with that scene being the jump scare. Yeah, so my confession is that I keep gum in my car and I will chew gum in the privacy of my car. And I just try not to let people see. So here's the argument that my wife and I have about gum is that I'll have gum often after I smoke a cigar because it's just a breath thing, right?

But like, I'll chew gum for six minutes, seven minutes. And the second it is no longer dispensing those sweet, sweet molecules of flavor, I'm done. And I spit it out. My wife would chew gum for really long periods of time. And I don't get it. It's just like not my thing. And they're like, why did I even, you know, my wife's like,

why did I even give you a piece of gum if you're only going to chew it for like four I was like, because I got all the utility out of it, I could. And now it is of no use to me. But anyway, have you ever, have you ever had the, the experience where you've actually been distracted by something while you're chewing gum? And then you realize that it has been several minutes since you've gotten any flavor. And like, all of a sudden the gum like tastes terrible to me. Like, it's like, oh, like I've been chewing this flavorless gum for for five minutes.

It's disgusting. I totally agree with you. All right. Good. All right. So gum, not worth your time. But you said there's an argument in your household. What is what is friend of the pod?

Oh, no, just whether it's a nasty habit, whether it's something that you should be ashamed of. And I'm very torn on whether I should feel ashamed. I think I am ashamed of my gum chewing. Oh, okay. I continue to do it, but I do it in private and I don't let people see me do it, which is why I'm announcing it on this podcast.

As a Catholic, I will say, if you feel shame, it's probably because you should. And with that. Or as it says in the town, It serves you right. With that, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Mike, for joining us. Listeners, thank you for joining us.

Jonah put the knife away. And we will talk to you next week. You know,