The Dispatch Podcast - Ben Sasse, Barbara Comstock, and the State of the Union

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

On today’s podcast, Steve is joined by Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, our response to it, and his thoughts on the State of the Union. Steve is then joined by Barbara Comstock, former representative of Virginia, for a conversation about President Joe Biden’s speech last night and the future of the Republican Party.   Show Notes: -French Press: “Questions and Answers After Six Days of War” -Jonah “Gradually, Then Suddenly: How the World Stood Up to Putin” -TMD: State of the Union -From The Dispatch: “GOP Reps Slam Greene, Gosar” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. We have two guests on today's episode. First, we will talk with Senator Ben Sass, Republican from Nebraska, about Ukraine and of this American political moment, Joe Biden's State of the Union address, and more. And then we'll talk with Barbara Comstock, who represented Northern Virginia in the U.S. Congress from 2015 to 2019, the 10th congressional district. Ms. Comstock also serves as an advisor to Adam Kinsiger's country first pack. We'll have a discussion with her about the state of the union as well and the fighting inside the Republican Party and what comes next.

And before we jump in, we had some audio issues at the end of my interview with Ben Sass. We've decided to include them despite some of the challenges, we think the discussion was worth fighting through. Senator Sass, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Thanks for the invite. Good to see you. Here you, Steve. Of course.

I want to start with the State of the Union last night and a line from President Biden that really jumped out at me when he said it, and I'll just read it briefly. He said, throughout our history, we've learned this lesson. When dictators did not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos, they keep moving, and the costs and the threats to America and the world keep rising. Have we, in fact, learned our lesson? You know, Steve, I am trying real hard the last eight days to stay as far from anything that can sound partisan as possible because I think this needs to be a national moment where we all try to move together. But the state of the union was just weird. It seemed to be plucked out of,

I don't know, the internet, people tuning into a war, but with no sense of history and no sense of the future. And I don't just mean like, you know, Vladimir Putin history that he's pissed, not just to get about pre-1989 and 1991 or desirous of going back to a pre-1989, 1991 world, or, you know, go all the way back to what he's mad at Leninists about because they didn't maintain a Russian empire. I don't mean like distant history. I mean the history of the last seven years. There was no sort of 2014 and no consequences to the present moment.

And it doesn't also feel like there's any history future that starts a month from now when things are uglier than the euphoria of some of the places where the Ukrainian military has overperformed to date. So, no, I don't think we've learned that history. And I don't think it was clear what President Biden's view is of what we should do next and how you have to bring the American people along to why this matters. I think this moment matters a lot. And President Biden didn't speak like a guy who's trying to leave 330 million people toward a common cause of action and understanding of the coming weeks and months. Yeah, how do you think about public criticism of the administration in a moment like this?

This is actually a question that I was going to ask you before you said what you just said. I mean, on the one hand, there are things that they're doing that seem to indicate less urgency than the situation requires. I would say less serious reflection of history, picking and choosing history, as you just said. And in that sense, public pressure can be helpful. On the other hand, it is important to present Vladimir. Putin with the United Front to the extent that that's possible. How do you think about that

as you think about what you're saying? Yeah. So the bad guy in this case, Vladimir Putin, wants Americans to be divided. Like Chairman Shee, he thinks that one of the, he thinks one of the giant downsides of Democratic-Republican market-oriented systems of government is that people can have different views and they can argue about them in public. He thinks that weakens people. And they're in general wrong about that, but it is the case that we have a bad virus of tribalism in our time. And if people start to decide, people in a domestic political audience, start to decide how they think about the completely unjustified, unwarranted, illegal, immoral Putinite, Russian invasion of Ukraine based on who in American politics has said something that they do or don't agree with, because. they do or don't agree with those people's partisanship. That is bad and that does weaken us. So I want to do everything we can to talk about what America ought to be doing

and not just what is the loyal opposition political party that's out of power say about an administration that often does lack urgency in my mind. There's so many things that this administration's national security team did wrong last April to August in the Afghanistan debacle. I don't want talk about any of those things. I don't want to bring up any of those things. I want to just figure out in this moment, praise where I can, and push good policy where I can in private and only push publicly when I think it's urgent and necessary because it's not working in private. And again, I don't want to linger on this, but one of the problems we have with this administration is they seem to not recognize that they were elected, that President Biden was

elected because they promised to be sane and moderate and not addicted to frenzies of Twitter. And yet pretty much all they've done since Ron Clayne became the junior president of the United States, a job that's way, way over his head. All they've done is live in Twitter at Cumber's about what the farthest left, always online, really angry, two to eight percent of Americans want. And you see that played out in their administration's prioritization. over and over and over again. And so I think it's why they don't have any coherent view of a national security strategy

because they mostly want to talk about far-left domestic politics, and they just hope national security won't get in their way. Well, last night for a state of the union, there was no chance that the president could ignore the fact that we're seeing heroes be birthed right before our eyes in the Ukraine, freedom fighters that Americans instinctively identify with and understand people who would take great risk to fight for their freedoms. And so the president and his team realized they had to pivot and they had to talk about it. But all they really did was just lop on 12 minutes of a Ukrainian rah-rah story at the beginning. And then they went from there right back to a domestic

political agenda, which is the typical laundry list of the state of the union. And those 12 minutes didn't have a coherence about sort of stealing the American people for what's going to come next, when you have lots more images of civilian populations being shelved, and when you see dying babies and moms and grandmas on images, which is nearly inevitable, they didn't tell the American people, here's what's coming next, and here's what we're going to do in response to what comes next. So I'm mostly still just pushing in private for there to be more clarity about the plan, about how we need to arm the Ukrainians to the teeth with intelligence and with munitions. But we also have to have a lot of sobriety about the fact that though the military

has radically, the Ukrainian military, has radically overperformed to date, at some point, it's highly probable that what we're going to be doing is trying to arm an insurgency, not a military. And at that moment, everything's going to get so much harder. We will look back and say, did we do every conceivable thing we could do when we could still partner with an army that had pretty open resupply lines from the West? And right now the administration just isn't very serious about that. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's one of the things that really stands out. I mean, every time I read a reporter, I talk to somebody about what's taking place now. I'm encouraged and heartened by the ways in which our European allies are stepping up, the arms that they're supplying,

what the Biden administration is doing and announcing on a day-to-day basis. But you look back and say, the administration publicly released so much intelligence about what the Russians were planning to do. I think that was clever. I think it actually was pretty effective. But it does raise the question, if we knew a lot of what we knew then, why weren't we doing the things we're doing today a month ago, three weeks ago? And that's a big challenge.

Let me ask you one question about some place you have been pushing publicly. And that is for the U.S. government to provide better real-time battlefield intelligence to the Ukrainians. The mere fact that you're saying we need to do this and we need to do more of it and we need to do it better suggests you believe we're not doing enough now. Why do you believe that? And I understand you're on the Intelligence Committee and there are things you can't say. but to the extent that you can give our listeners an understanding, why is that not happening? Yeah. So you're right that your qualifier there is a big deal because most of what I know I can't talk about. But I think it's worth distinguishing between the three lanes of sanctions, as you were, military support and supplies, material, and Intel.

And on, I'll get to Intel third. But at the level of sanction, there's a lot of stuff that we should have done earlier, and we didn't. But now that we did, it has been good that they were able to bring along Europe. I mean, to a certain degree, parts of Eastern Europe have led us. And obviously, the hero in this story is Volinsky, who's led freedom fighters in an unbelievably courageous public stand. And that, Zelensky is the guy who changed Switzerland. Volinsky's the guy who changed Germany, who changed Sweden, Finland, et cetera. But I give the administration some credit for the way they've done the sanctions work post-invasion,

but we should have done it pre. And at the same level, at a military reply level, three administrations in a row, three administrations in a row have done a crappy job of arming the Ukrainians adequately when 2014 happened. And 2014 wasn't just the annexation of Crimea. it was also shooting down a civilian airliner, and it was the predicate of Putin believing when the West says something, we don't mean it, so he could bomb civilian populations in Syria for years and years and years after that. So at a material level, we've always been late as well. And so at an intelligence level, the story is very similar in that we, it is true,

the administration will tell you if you're interviewing them right now that we are getting the Ukrainians' intelligence. That's true. My objection is that we, We are not getting the Ukrainians enough intelligence, and we are not getting them lethal targeting intelligence. That's my core problem. The NSC has danced around this issue repeatedly and hides behind words about, you know, policy versus lawyerly sign-off and which agency, and was it the NSC or was out at one of the cabinet-level agencies. And they do all this bureaucratic shuffling, but the direct, simple question that they don't answer

because they're not being asked it enough by the journalistic community. Have you, Mr. President, directed the active sharing of real-time lethal targeting intelligence with the Ukrainian? Have you directed your administration to expedite all the real-time lethal targeting intelligence you can? And I want to be clear, there are behind the scenes some really important intellectual debates that matter. There are debates about things that could expose sources of methods. We shouldn't do any of that. There are important questions about targeting information that's about a particular known individual as opposed to a military convoy that has a bunch of commanders in it. But the truth of the matter is, Nebraskaans who call me over the last 48 hours watching TV or following the war on the Internet and they see a 40-mile convoy, they say, wait a minute, I don't.

understand why more of this convoy isn't blown up. Why are the invaders not being killed? Are they short of intelligence? Are they short of material? Can they not get to the air? Well, the good news is the Ukrainian Air Force didn't collapse in anything like the manner. Almost every analyst thought they would. And so there are lots of opportunities to target some of these invader forces. and Nebraska's asked me a bunch of questions about why that, why they kill rate, the good guys isn't. And underneath that, there are a bunch of things that the administration should have a lot more urgency about. And right now, there's a lack of urgency. Yeah, I've gotten that question so many times from our members and from friends as well about that convoy in particular. Last question,

if I can. President Biden insisted last night that the state of our union is strong. And when I heard those words, they surprised me. Then I watched Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds giving the Republican response, and she said the same thing. She also said the state of our union is strong. I can come up with a lot of ways to describe the current state of our union, and strong would be low on the list. I wonder if you think the state of our union is strong. I think Americans are strong, and I think we are blessed with an amazing heritage that our creole documents affirm true things about universal human dignity. And, you know, over the course of the 200 years since the miracle at Philadelphia, you've seen more and more people across the world.

And this is some of what Putin's upset about, frankly. When he talked about history from 105 or 120 years ago, he's pissed that Philadelphia ideas spent off the globe. And so when we have a heritage of explaining that everybody is created in the image of God and government isn't the author or source of our rights, it's just a shared project, just a secular tool to secure rights that God give us via nature, that's pretty great. That's pretty strong. And I think in the long term, a decentralized, market-oriented, Democratic capitalist republic like ours, beats any centralized system. This is the best one of government. But this best form of government only beats a system of centralization if we have a shared understanding of that heritage.

And we can go through lots and lots of examples of where our union is fragile and imperiled because we haven't done civics for half a century. And we got a whole bunch of people who would rip us apart for clickbait, for identity politics, for division for the sake. of not just money, but their own small performative relevance. We've got jackasses everywhere in this building who respond to the incentives of politics to sort of live out the old adage that Washington is just Hollywood for ugly people. And there are a bunch of people here who really want attention and they want a grandstand. And there's not a lot of adult leadership in our government for a number of years in a row. But the core point that you start with, and I didn't hear him's response, but that both she and the president, if they want to get to a way that you say the state of our union is strong, the true way to do that is to say humans are strong.

Humans have great dignity, and America has the best tradition ever of affirming that. We just need to get back to a restoration of that understanding of America and embrace a digital revolution in every future. It would be pretty damn cool if we could make synthetic biology and the supercomputs that all of us walk around in our pockets as tools that support and augment human dignity as opposed to fracture. Senator Bancass, thank you for your time at what I know is a very busy day, very busy days these days. Thanks for your time. Thanks, man. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly, let you know, can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of

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slash dispatch. That's eth-h-o-s dot com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. It's Mayvery. Barbara Comstock, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Great to be with you. I want to start by asking you a question that I asked Senator Sass. And it's one of the things from the State of the Union and the Republican response last night that sort of caught me off guard. President Biden, as he was wrapping up his speech, declared that the State of the Union was strong. And then in her Republican response, Iowa governor Kim Reynolds also said the state of the union is strong.

Now, I've got a lot of descriptors for the state of the union, tired, frustrated, polarized, tattered. I could go on and on and on. Strong would be about 500 descriptors down my list. Am I just too pessimistic or do they have a point? Well, I think President Biden followed that with because the American people are strong. And so I think that is very much sort of in the spirit of what we're seeing broad with, you know, the voices for freedom, for democracy, joining with Zelensky, you know, Germany turning on a dime, Switzerland, everybody coming together. And I wish President Biden had done a better job of connecting those. to, but I do feel there is a strength in the country there that's still untapped, a maybe silent

majority strength that wants to see this division and this ugliness and this disinformation and all the nonsense from the 2020 campaign and the tragedy from January 6th. I think there is a reservoir of strength there that is rising up and the more we've voice that, the stronger we will be. So I think it's there to be tapped. And that's why, you know, when leaders like I'm a fan of Senator Sass, and I know he's been out, you know, very aggressive on first voting for impeachment for, again, you know, President Trump, but also very supportive of President Zelensky. Well, also, you know, offering the usual criticism and disagreements that we as Republicans have with a lot of Joe Biden's agenda.

Yeah, it was interesting. We talked a little bit about that because it was clear he was reluctant to criticize the president in terms that were too strong because it's so important to present a united front as Vladimir Putin is looking back here. On the other hand, there are, I think, some things that are not happening in our response to what's taking place in Ukraine that where time is of the essence, these things are urgent. If they don't happen now, you know, it may be too late when we try to happen. And it was interesting to talk to him about how he sort of straddles that or addresses, you know, public criticism at the administration without going too far.

Let me ask you a question about that untapped, that untapped middle or that untapped majority. David French has written quite a bit about that for the dispatch. And I believe he's right. I believe you're right. You're a one-time elected official, represented Northern Virginia from 2015 to 2019 in the U.S. Congress. How do you awaken that? Because the people who are most passionate about politics, the people who are loudest about politics, are typically people on the fringes. So you've got this very valuable set of Republicans that are the sort of the Trumpiest Republicans, and they're the outrage Republicans, egged on by the, you know, infotainment complex on the right.

And on the left, you've got the squad and the online net roots left wing. And because they're so passionate about politics, because they're willing to put in the hours, they have a disproportionate influence on our debate. How do you get that, the people who haven't thus far been fired up to take on that challenge? Well, I actually think those people, you're right, they are the loudest, but they're also kind of lazy. They aren't good at putting together coalitions and getting things done. And it's the people who you often don't see on TV and out there who are, you know, putting together, you know, an infrastructure package. or they're putting together a bill to, you know, deal with opioids.

You know, somebody like Fred Upton, who for years has been a great advocate on NIH cancer research and does all that work. You know, he's getting abused because he, you know, because he voted for impeachment. But this is a serious legislator who year after year is always at the top of the heap in terms of getting things done for his constituents and for the country. So I do think people recognize that. And I think as we move through these primaries, I think people, I mean, look, yesterday you had Texas and Ken Paxton, who got the endorsement of Donald Trump, who has a lot of, you know, he's under indictment for one thing.

But he's, you know, one of these performance artists. He didn't, you know, as an incumbent, the other incumbents, you know, were 20 points ahead of him and he'll have a runoff now. Hopefully he won't. win. Some of the other people that Trump has endorsed are kind of flailing. And so I always, you know, I encourage those people to get out there. Yes, it's harder to win a primary when you're a principled conservative and focused on issues and doing the hard work. But you should do that

anyway. You know, it's like we tell our kids, you know, yeah, you may have to work harder than somebody else, but it's not going to kill, you know, a little hard, never killed anybody. And so I do think, you know, when I would go out and knock on doors, it wasn't those loud voices that you heard. It was those people door after door as you talked to them that would give you that sense of where people were at. And I mean, my first race was during the Tea Party. And you had these people who'd run down to Washington to go to Tea Party events. And they'd drive me crazy. I'd say, the way we're going to win elections is knocking on doors and talking to people and hearing about what their concerns were. And they're what they usually.

are. It's, you know, their kids' future, the economy, you know, on the state level, it's bridges and roads and things like that and crime. And so when you cover those basic issues, you are rewarded. But that's not what's necessarily rewarded on TV. But, you know, when you look at the people who are on, you know, Marjorie Green will never pass a bill. And I certainly hope she will lose her primary. I'm working to help her primary opponent, Jennifer Strayhan, and I do think she has a path to win. She's probably more, I'm pretty sure she's more conservative than I am, but I think she fits the district both in tone and seriousness as a small business person, as well as

being, you know, the kind of conservative that you and I always traditionally thought of as within the norm. Marjorie Taylor Green has raised more money, I think, than anybody other than Kevin McCarthy and maybe Liz Janie. she is she is sort of perfected this politics as performance more than anything else she tried to pull a stunt

last night at the state of the union where she caused a ruckus and interrupted the president she's not punished for it she went to this this you know basically white nationalist conference opposite CPAC last weekend gave a speech gave a speech as the host of the event helped to lead cheers, pro-Vladimir Putin

cheers, shrugged off the Holocaust as he's done many times in the past. Kevin McCarthy came out and said that's unacceptable. But when he was asked questions about it by our reporters, by disparage reporters yesterday, he seemed frustrated that he was being asked again because he said it was unacceptable. If she's not punished and if she's given these platforms by talk radio, by cable, what have you, why should we believe that she's not ascendant, that that actually is the future of the Republican Party? Well, I think that's why it's important to beat her in the primary. I mean, you did have Herschel Walker, who was going to appear with her now said, you know, Herschel Walker, an African-American man, decided he didn't want to appear with someone who

appeared at a racist event, good for him. I mean, I don't think he's the best candidate of himself either, but when you have somebody who's been, I mean, he's been endorsed by Trump, yet he is now walking away from her. He also has refused to engage on the governor's race in Georgia, and he has not endorsed Purdue, who I think is going to lose. I think Brian Kemp is going to do pretty well there. And I think a lot of people resent, you know, and Purdue lost and lost for reasons, you know, mostly Trump. In fact, when I think he was, I can't remember exactly when it was, but he was at a senatorial event that I was at last year. And he said something to the effect of, hey, we all know why we lost. This was Senator Purdue saying, yeah, blaming Trump for his loss,

which is certainly what most people think, and saying we have to move on. Yet then he turns around, very opportunistically. And I think people see that. So I think we've got to trust that voters, American people, when you appeal to them honestly, that they see that. And even if they don't, then, you know, you've done the right thing. I mean, I know in six, you know, I couldn't spend all my time fighting Trump when I was in because I actually was passing bills. I'm happy to say I was named one of the top 10 Republican legislators when when I was in for passing a lot of bills, including a sexual harassment bill that, ha-ha, Donald Trump had to sign because we had a veto-proof majority on it.

So, you know, that's how you, you know, work together and get coalitions and get something past that, you know, even if he doesn't want to sign it, I don't know that he didn't want to, but he signed it privately. But, you know, we have those opportunities now to, because Trump has done such bad vetting of his candidates. You know, in North Carolina, I don't think his handpicked person for Senate will win. You know, you're going to have Purdue lose. He's already scared to endorse anyone in Ohio and is talking about, maybe I'll endorse a bunch of

them because he wants to claim credit for whoever wins. So I think he is becoming less of a power. And I think when you see people, they realize, well, maybe I'd like somebody else. Now, interestingly, you know, the name you have. hear most often is DeSantis. And, you know, he came in second at CPAC. Well, that's probably the worst place to be is second place to Donald Trump because you are now going to become the target, which DeSantis already has, of the Steve Bannons,

of the Trump grifters, of the people who want to make money off Trump running again. And if there's another viable alternative that they think mainstream, center right America might support, then they're going to do them in. I don't think DeSantis is going to be that person. I think it will be some yet unnamed mystery date who can put together a coalition of not just, you know, regular Republicans, but anti-Trump, as well as, frankly, pro-Trump, because he got to have the base, but do it in a way that turns you a few clicks away from the toxic ugliness of Trump, maybe turns it towards what I think has been uplifting everybody on the international front with somebody like Zelensky. It was just, you know, in a, you know, just in a weekend has inspired millions across the globe to say, we can have a good guy and we can win. Yeah. You participated in a conference over the weekend sponsored by Principles First, an organization of mostly Republicans and or former Republicans that is opposed to Trump.

They've been described as never-Trumpers, run by Heath Mayo, who I think has done some really interesting and important work in sort of inside the Republican coalition. And you participate in a panel discussion sort of about Republicans and Trump. And Joe Walsh, who's also former member of Congress, former talk radio or talk radio personality, said if Trump runs again in 2024, the nomination is his. We all know that, and no one will challenge him. Sounds like you don't think that's correct. I don't, and I think, you know, one man or one woman with courage can make a majority. You know, I think we're seeing that on the international stage now, and I've always sort of believed in that. And, you know, we'll still hitch my wagon to that concept because I do think, you know,

de Tocqueville got it right. You know, the American, you know, America is great because they, you know, are good. And we can, you know, now we have to actively, you know, address the disinformation campaign that Trump and his acolytes. Hopefully people like Bannon will go to jail when there's a trial for his refusal to work with the January 6th committee. And so he won't be around to do his disinformation campaigns. But it's upon us to show why it's all wrong. You've had, you know, you know, Bill Barr, who was certainly revered not just by conservatives, but by the Trump conservatives, has now come out, you know, as he did at the time, but now in more detail,

saying that, no, he lost the election. And I think when you scratch the surface, most of these people, they'll say, but Biden, but Biden, he's terrible. It's like, well, that's not going to be your choice in 2024. I don't think Biden's going to be on the Democrat ticket, nor will vice president Harris. And I don't think, you know, if Republicans choose to put Trump on the ticket, I think he will lose again because he got 47 percent. He at least lost some of that in January 6th. There's no demographic where you can look and say Trump is gaining. You know, his vote is older. It shrunk from January 6. I think this Putin, you know, I mean, he said, I have no message for Putin. He was asked, what's your message to Putin? I have no message.

Well, you know what? Conservatives and American people across the board are saying, we have a very strong message. You know, we stand with Ukraine. We stand with Zelensky. We're standing with those moms who are giving birth in the bomb shelters. We're standing with these citizens, what Miss Ukraine who's taking up, you know, arms and out there to protect her country. That's who the American people and most Republicans stand with. And all they need to do is have an alternative that is sane and a nice guy. And I do remind people, I don't think I did on that panel, but in Virginia. Now, I know some, you know, I've known Glenn Yonkin for a while and I know he is a good and decent person, even if I disagree with him

on some of the issues of the campaign. And I did support him. And one of the interesting things, because he and his wife and his family, just good, decent people, friends with Paul Ryan. You know, we just as a good guy, self-made, very philanthropic. He did, had higher percentages in the red, red southwest Virginia coal mining areas than Trump did. Now, he still didn't win, say, Loudoun County or up in these suburbs that I used to represent because they're still skeptical. But he was able to cobble together and turn around by 12 points, really just by being a good guy. You know, his con—and I tell people, you can have tax cuts, a strong defense, low regulation, innovation, Republican policies that we all care about without having a jerk. And so, you know, when people say to me, but Trump would have been better than Biden, they said, that's over.

Now it's, hey, wouldn't it be a lot easier to win and have a strong majority with a good guy or I'd love to see a good woman? get in there and do that, somebody who can take, I mean, I think, I mean, have confidence in the conservative principles. I think you can put together a center-right coalition and independent that gets you into the 55, 60% area. I mean, in 2014, I won by 56% in northern Virginia with that kind of message, as did Governor McDonald. I mean, it was back in 2009, and I think that's the coalition that Glenn is rebuilding and working to. It's a coalition that Chris Sununu in New Hampshire has built because he won by double digits in New Hampshire, a state that Trump lost. So there is a path. So when I ask people, okay, I get you voted for him.

I'm not, you know, anyone who voted for him in 20, I'm not picking on them. I understand why you did it. But after January 6th, after now, after Putin, you just have to realize he can't win. So are you just going to keep doubling down on somebody who lost the House, the Senate, the Georgia seats, the White House, never got the popular vote when there's somebody else? And that person, by virtue of not asking Donald Trump for permission to run, will demonstrate that they're a leader. The guys who are saying,

oh, I'm not going to run if he runs. You've just told me you're not a leader. You're not qualified to be president. And I won't be supporting you. Nor will a lot of other people, because they don't want a mini-mee. I mean, Jeff Roe, who did Yonkin's campaign and Ted Cruz guy, Anna DeSantis,

he himself has said the people trying to be mini-me Trumps aren't effective because a leader, you know, you're a follower, you're a sycophant, you're not a leader. And at the end of the day, even the people who, like Trump, want somebody who's their own woman or their own man. Yeah, I'm pretty confident that if Trump, I think it's far from certain that Trump will run in 2024. But if he does decide to run again, I am confident that there will be several alternative Republicans who run for the nomination and don't really care, including some folks who might surprise people who have been pretty closely identified with with Donald Trump at his movement.

Let me just go back to something you said because we've talked about it on this podcast a number of times. And it's a hard thing, it's sometimes a hard thing to convey because as a report of somebody who's covered members of Congress, top Republicans throughout this whole, you know, going back to 2015, it's hard to communicate to people, this bigger truth. about how elected Republicans feel about Donald Trump. Because they will say in an off-the-record conversation with me, I can't believe this guy.

This is terrible. Do you believe he said this? Nightmare for the Republican Party, et cetera, et cetera. And sometimes literally within a minute be standing in front of microphones, praising Trump and praying. And it's, you know, on the one hand, it would be, it's tempting to just blow all my sources. and say, well, okay, here's the list of people who have said this.

But I can't do that. I make a promise to keep the conversations off the record, and I keep those promises. But it's harder to convey that bigger truth. And I think it contributes to this sort of collective sense that Republicans are uniformly behind the president when many Republicans, most Republicans, are not. This is true of elected Republicans. It certainly was true of, you know, my first. former colleagues at Fox News, some of whom would say, I can't believe I had to defend that guy.

And I would say, I'm not sure you did have to defend it. And January 6th is going to have a lot of probably, the committee will probably have a lot more of those texts and emails we've already seen. Undoubtedly, including, I believe, some of mine to two folks as I was trying to do some reporting on that. what was it like as a member of Congress in those early days? Because, you know, I've heard from other members of Congress. I've talked to other members of Congress about this who said, look, I am not going to stop and talk to reporters every time Donald Trump says something silly. You couldn't even keep up with the stupidity.

Exactly. Exactly. And we wrote, when I was helping to run the Weekly Standard, we wrote a, very, very critical, this is in early 2017 editorial, long editorial, critical of Trump's Republican enablers. He said, you've got to speak out about this stuff. You can't afford to sit back and not say anything. And I got a response from a member of Congress, lengthy response, angry response, who said, look, I am doing my committee work all day every day. I'm doing the kinds of things that my constituents sent me to do. I am helping to increase defense spending

because it's something I ran on. I am helping to, you know, cut government spending because it's something that I, that I emphasized in my own campaigns. And, you know, your argument about the Republican neighbor's enablers looks past all of that. How did you handle that as a member of Congress? Yeah, well, you know, I, I, I certainly. can relate to what the person you're talking about said, and that probably is very common. You know, I, when Trump was elected, I had, I had not endorsed him and said, I didn't know if I would. And then the Access Hollywood tape came out. And I actually was hosting my son's rehearsal dinner that night. I didn't know what had come out. I came out, heard the story,

was fired off the response and went back to the party and said, I'm out. You know, So I expected that would be what a lot of people said. I mean, that was where I was. And at that point, I just said, well, this is what I, you know, okay, I'll lose. He loses, whatever. I'm not sticking with it. So, yes, I was surprised when there were not many other people who joined me that evening, really didn't find that out until the wedding was out.

You know, the next day I was busy with the wedding and all. But then when he came in and was elected, that was also a shocker that was like, oh, gee, I survived and darn it. He did too. So that was, but I think that, you know, Adam Kinsinger has said this. He said, you know, he likes that scene from the band of brothers where he's dressing down this guy who wasn't doing his job and he has something to the effect. You've got to understand you're already dead. And once you understand you're dead, you can do your job. And that's kind of how I felt in that campaign. Okay, okay, I'm a dead person. this is where I am. I've got to do it. And then actually the next three weeks of the campaign were pretty easy. People were yelling at me, but I was like, listen, you know, Hillary's going to be president and I've got to fight back against her bad policies. Then to my shock, Trump was in there. Then when he was in there, and I will burn some sources, because I was part of the Tuesday group, which is the moderate group, you know, you had people like Elise Stefanik who actually was heading up, you know, she was always going for whatever leadership role she could find.

and everything. And it was not the Trump camp. And she certainly would roll her eyes. And, you know, one of the first things as freshmen, even before Trump, we were Ken Buck, who was one of the, you know, Trumpy kind of folks. We were, when he was our class president and voted against Paul Ryan, she was part of the cabal that was, we were thinking of let's get rid of Ken. So, you know, she was very much in a different camp. And like, she's not even recognizable anyway. So that's one group. But the people who are trying, particularly those in some pretty conservative districts who are trying to get their work done, I get, you know, you couldn't possibly keep up with all the stupid things Trump said. And, but that's where I think leadership, you know, and I certainly

think Paul Ryan did this more in the vein of Mitch McConnell and what he's doing. And I do make a distinction of how Paul handled it and Mitch McConnell and many senators still handle. And, and Mitch McConnell, and many senators still handle it, and of course, Liz and Adam, versus how House leadership handles it now. I think there's a big difference there. And when the leadership doesn't kind of, like, hey, that's what you're there for. You have to expend the, you've got to cover your team. And when they don't do it, it does make it harder for everybody. And then everybody just kind of crouches and does what they're going. And they're sending the opposite signal right now. I mean, they've gone after Liz, Jay. Exactly. They've gone after Adam.

Kinsiger. But people resent that they're, that Marjorie Green's being protected, that they have to deal with Gosars and people like that. And there is a site, there still is, I think that first vote for Liz, that was two-thirds of the caucus. I think that's the caucus that's had it with Trump and it's kind of disgusted. And I have said many times, you know, if he disappeared, these electeds would not be in the search party. Most of them would not be looking for him. And they would be happy to see him disappear. And actually, one of the ways they should do it, I think, is pass a bill that says you have to turn over your taxes and turn over all these documents related to all of his business arrangements that he's had going on now. And then you'd probably never see him either

because he's been fighting that in court all along. So if he said a requirement, that's also why he probably will wait in terms of announcing if he's going to run. I kind of agree with Jonathan Carl that I don't think he will. I think this is all mostly about making money and the grift right now and trying to be the kingmaker. But the members who are, you know, it is a struggle every day because I had, when I had to deal with it, like, you know, I was always fighting, please don't shut down the government. Those are my constituents. I support, you know, defense spending and things like that. So you have to have a relationship that someone's going to sign your bills. You know, so if you're out every day calling them names, disagreeing with everything, I mean, the first,

week or so he's in, I was at a mosque denouncing what he had done on the Muslim ban. And I didn't go out to the airport. I wasn't doing the performance art. I was with my Muslim community saying, I'm standing with you. Let me know. We did a lot of casework on that. So I tried to, you know, Charlottesville, the same thing. You know, a lot of us made statements. but it was never enough for those who were attacked, you know, because now Trump was my fault. I was like, I didn't support the guy. I didn't vote for him. I tried to get others elected. But then you have to go to work. You know, I mean, when I was in this General Assembly in Virginia and Terry McAuliffe was the governor, I had subpoenaed Terry back in the Clinton days. You know, we were always on the opposite side of everything. But then he was someone I wanted to sign my bills, which he did.

So you have, there's a difference when he's elected, but that's why I draw the line at January 6th, actually at November 20, because he lost, it's over. You don't have to have a working relationship or somehow, how am I going to do right by my constituents and still get things done? He lost, you got to move on. And that's where the fear of what Trump created. And then January 6th, not making the dividing line there. That's where I really think it's the problem. I understand before that. Listen, Adam and Liz voted for Trump. I guess I think they've said they have. I didn't. But now it's much different after January 6th, after Putin, after the disgraceful things he's done to continue the big lie throughout this. And that's why I think the more we all from the outside, obviously I can say, I'm saying more as a former member, but I still have people say, hey, I mean, I work in Washington. I work in government affairs, you know, hey, if you're doing this or some people mad at you, yes, but I have a lot of people, people who didn't vote for the January 6th committee, people who even voted to decertify the election, who say, way to go, good work. And so for those people, I feel like, well, I wish they do more, but that tells me they are open to somebody else. And when that, no, I think the person who's going to come along needs to be somebody kind of maybe away from all of this, a governor, somebody who, you know, has just been out there getting stuff done is Joe Wall. So the panels, I mean, that's what you have to do when you're in this.

I don't think you said stuff, did he? I think you might have said something else. Do you think Glenn Yon considers running? I think, no, I think, you know, when you're a new governor, when you're a new elected anything, You need to put points on the board, and I think that's how he's thinking. And having worked with Governor McDonnell, when I went in, who was very effective, unfortunately had some problems later in his administration, not really of his own making, but I think, you know, you go in as a governor and you're just,

you can actually get things done as a governor and putting points in the board. And then what you do doesn't meet the moment. And I think that's going to present itself, you know, the way it, has to Zelensky, you know, no one would have picked him out. And so I think who will be the American Zelensky who at some moment is able to bore in on an issue and inspire the American people that there's another way to go and that they can fight this ugliness. And, and I happen to still think center-right issues have a very big majority, you know, like some of our Republican, you know, Larry Hogan. I mean, gosh, you know, my sister's,

In Berylund, she is pretty much left of center. She's voted for Larry Hogan twice now. He's a pretty conservative Republican. Because he speaks out against Trump, people don't appreciate that. But this is somebody who came up through the traditional conservative economics and social policy. He's pro-life. You know, this is somebody who is a very good conservative. Just because he says Donald Trump isn't a good leader, doesn't mean he's not conservative. You know, like me, Hillary Hogan was fighting in the conservative trenches when Donald Trump was golfing with Bill Clinton and inviting Bill and Hillary to his wedding and writing checks to Chuck Schumer and supporting partial birth abortion and certainly supporting gun control and all these things

that he's turned on a dime and I think would turn on a dime again. So Donald Trump isn't a conservative. Oh, the judges. He didn't pick the judges. Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and Mitch McConnell picked the judges. So if you like the judges, thank them. If you like the tax cuts, thank Paul Ryan and Kevin Brady. If you like the low regulation policies, thank the Chamber of Commerce in the NFIB and Republicans have been working in that for years. Donald, you can have all of those things without a jerk who embarrasses the country and as a more just a morally horrible human being. And that doesn't mean the people who support him. That's what people say, well, I voted for him. You think I'm bad. I don't at all. And I, and that's what I try and

say right phrase. Would it be that awful having somebody who could like win Virginia instead of lose it by 10 like Trump did? Wouldn't you rather have a consensus building? who brings people together for conservative causes. You know, that's pretty exciting when you can do that. I mean, that was my experience when I was in the Virginia General Assembly. Bob McDonald always was reaching out to, you know, he had been a legislator himself, and he was always reaching out to Democrats and independents. When he could get them on board, he'd maybe, you know,

bring the bill back a little in order to get more support. Because if you can get a, you know, a single or a double or a triple instead of a home run, get the next hit the next time up. Right. And that's how real legislators and real leaders work. And Donald Trump was always, you know, just throwing the bat around and, you know, walking away from a game and hurting the country as a result. We've seen in recent weeks more elected Republicans show a willingness to

speak out against Donald Trump. And we've had Mitch McConnell criticize him directly, pretty unsparingly, even though I think Mitch McConnell's position has been, for the most part, to try to avoid criticizing Trump. You've had John Thune, you've had more than a dozen Republicans criticized as president by name of late. And as we discussed earlier, he seems to be really out on an island on his pro-Vladimir Putin position. I mean, even Tucker Carl. who has basically shield for Vladimir Putin in some respects for the better part of a couple of years, literally said I'm on the side of Russia, spent the last several days scrambling to get away from his propion. Yeah, it's incredibly dishonest. But he's isolated on that. It's the dominant issue right now. I suspect it's going to be the dominant issue for a while. You've seen elected Republicans more willing to speak out against Donald Trump. do you anticipate that this sort of murmur will rise to a crescendo, or will this be like we've seen so many times in the past where you've had people speak out and then sort of recede into the background? Well, I think it's, you know, I think you got to be a little bit of a student of history.

It's always, you know, when we're fighting the civil war, you know, you thought you were making progress and you had people out there. you know, anti-slavery coalitions, then you know, had the, you know, and it retrenched, you know, and it went backwards. Then you had, you know, Lincoln. So it's always gone that way in history, you know, with, you know, Ronald Reagan, bring down the wall. I mean, everyone, you know, forgets how long that took and how abused Ronald Reagan was that whole time. So, you know, I'm, you know, gets inspired by, you know, leaders in history that we're able to turn things around like that. But that's also what I think, you know, you work on particular races and cases. You know, when Brian Kemp, you know, again, I'm sure I disagree with him on some of the things he's done or whatever.

But I think it's very important that he prevail against David Purdue. And when he does, that diminishes Trump. when Governor McCrory in North Carolina prevails over Ted Bud, again, that that helps. The fact that Ken Paxton could, 40, whatever he got with the Trump endorsement in Texas. You know, so people look and say, boy, okay, I'm voting for Governor Abbott, but then they went down the ballot and 20% or more fewer voted for the Trump endorsed guy. So the candidates matter. So the candidate running against them matters too.

I wish George P. Bush hadn't been a Trump suckup too. But, you know, at the end of the day, he wasn't the endorsed one. I hope he just, you know, in this runoff doesn't try to be. So and then there are cases like that all across the country. We'll win some. Well, you know, we won't win them all depending on quality of the candidates. But I tell people, you know, have the courage to go out and do it. And the more of us who do it, the more successful will be.

You know, Michael Wood, who ran down in that first special election in Texas, who was there with us this weekend, he, you know, he was the only anti-Trump candidate in the race. So obviously he didn't win. He didn't get a huge amount of votes. But what he did was he pulled votes away from other candidates and from the Trump endorsed candidate who then got thrown

into a runoff and the non-Trump candidate won. So I said, I was telling him, you were part of that win. You never know how it's going to go, but he was part of that win against Trump. And now I think you have Trump, and particularly the Trump grifters

are lousy campaign people. People underestimate that. When you talk about, oh, they're raising all this money, sure, they raise a lot of money. It goes into their own pockets. It doesn't go into the races. I don't like the grifters. I don't like that that happens.

But if they're running against you and they've got Corey Lewandowski, Corey Lewandowski is not spending that money on doing a good campaign or whoever the grifter is. You know, Brad Parskell blew all kinds of money, put a lot of money in his pocket. You know, he's like the oligarchs, you know, in terms of relative to, you know, campaign. history, people making the kind of money that he made is unusual in presidential campaigns. Certainly George W. Bush didn't allow that kind of grift on his campaigns from what I could see where I was on that. So those people aren't good at what they do campaigns. They're good at grift. They're good at making themselves wealthy. But don't be afraid of them. And if you go out

and talk to the people, talk about the issues that the people care about, and you can, you know, raise enough money and be, you know, and you've been engaged in your community and done things, then you can beat these crackpots and fly by nights who come in. Because a lot of, like, Liz Cheney's opponent, they're, oh, you know, Trump's supporting her. She's a lousy candidate. She's already lost. She does not know the detailed issues of Wyoming that are just embedded in the Cheney family and that they know and deliver for that state. after year and a lot of quiet people, I think, you know, as well as independents who can vote in that, will come in and support that kind of person, but you have to be willing to

stand. It's a lot more aggravating to do what Liz is doing, to do what, say, Tom Rice and South Carolina is doing or, you know, these candidates who are willing to run as their own man. And that's what I did respect about. Glenn Yonkin ran at his own man. Now, I think they also, So behind the scenes, did some, somebody told me recently that Rana McDaniel, so this is secondhand, but, you know, take it for a grain of salt, but that she went down and told Trump, oh, stay out of Virginia. So they all kind of play and handle Trump, which I think is amusing too, because they all want to keep him away in some way. They all kind of, okay, I'll hire this Trump person, just be a Trump whisper and keep him out of my race, keep him away from me. So they all play him like a child.

And, you know, with Virginia, you know, I'm told that the pitch was, hey, stay out of it. Because if he loses, it's really close. If he loses, you'll get blamed like you were for Georgia and you don't want to have that. And he threatened to come at the last minute and then didn't. Yes. Did stay away. And nobody wanted him. Nobody, there wasn't, you know, none of the candidates were saying bring him in here.

And that's why when I advise candidates, I say, be your own person, run on your own. still depresses me when some of them show up at his rallies because I was like, you don't need to do that. Do you not have any confidence in what you've done for your constituents and your record that you feel the need to go to that? Those people aren't going to vote for some liberal Democrat who's going to raise their taxes and do bad things for them. Have confidence in our ideas and our principles.

Put the principles first, which was what our conference was on. Barbara Comstock. Thank you for joining us on the Dispatch podcast. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks for all you do and appreciate your leadership in, you know, leaving Fox News and having to make that break. And I think, you know, more and more people are standing up and doing that.

And when you do that, as you probably have found out, find out a lot of people who quietly agree with you who will come around and maybe be more vocal down the road. So, you know, we're, you know, we get to be the first ones out there doing it, which isn't always fun, but, you know, somebody's got to do it. Not always. Yeah. Yeah, but it's, but you know, you can live with yourself too. So it makes life easy.

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