The Dispatch Podcast - Joe's Woes | Roundtable

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Sarah, Jonah, and Mike discuss President Joe Biden’s immigration executive action and the coverage of his son Hunter Biden’s trial. The three also define “whataboutism” and “both-sidesism”, narrowly avoiding an existential crisis for Jonah. The Agenda: —Biden’s border crisis —Hunter’s gun trial begins —The debate over Biden’s age —The hostage crisis in Gaza —Returning grocery carts Show Notes: —Jonah’s Wednesday G-File —Ronald Reagan on Saturday Night Live —Advisory Opinions’ episode on Hunter Biden —Jonah’s Remnant with Mike Warren The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isgur. And look, there's Mike Warren and Jonah Goldberg. Let's start with Biden's new immigration policy. In 2021, we were told that the border was secure. And 2022, the border secure. the border is still secure and then 2024 an election year the border is not secure shut down the border

with hours notice Jonah obviously this comes on the heels of Congress failing to pass any border security measure I have several thoughts and questions on this can you come up with a non-cynical

way for this policy to exist oh gosh that's hard I think if you gave me a couple hours, I could come up, you know, I could get out the legal pads and the slide rules and I could come up with a non-cynical explanation. But Occam's razor says, Joe Biden needs to say he's done something about the border before this debate. And that's got to be 80% of the explanation. Because in terms of the crisis itself, the numbers actually have been going down. So peak crisis-wise, you would have done this six months ago.

of course, he was saying he didn't have the authority to do this, which is why Congress needed to act, which we've seen over and over again. Barack Obama said that about DACA, the dreamers, and then Congress didn't do exactly what they wanted on that. So he did executive action. We saw Donald Trump do it on several issues, one of which was bump stocks. Congress in both houses was debating a ban on bump stocks. That was seen as politically unpalatable for Republicans to take that vote. So Donald Trump did it through executive action. Joe Biden over and over again on student loan debt forgiveness said he didn't have the power to do it. Then he did it. Then the Supreme Court stopped it. The rent moratorium is a good example. I'd forgotten about that one. And now the border,

I think it will meet the same fate. There's going to be a lawsuit and it will be found that Joe Biden does not have the authority to change asylum law unilaterally without congressional approval. This law says that someone cannot seek asylum and caveats and exceptions and all of that, but cannot seek asylum if they've entered the country illegally. That's simply not what the law says. Even though Section 215 of the INA, the Immigration Naturalization Act, does give the president broad power, it's, you know, has again and again been found to be, you know, broad but specific, not broad meaning blanket.

But that cuts both ways, right? if it turns out that the courts validate Joe Biden that he was right all along about he didn't have the authority that makes the Republicans who said for the last three years Biden can do this on his own wrong too right and and it helps Joe Biden because he gets you know for the people who aren't paying much attention he gets credit for shutting down the border

and then he gets to blame the courts the same thing that he's gotten to do on student loan debt forgiveness on rent stuff on you know Obama with DACA Trump with the bump stocks they all get the political credit. Congress, for some reason, takes no heat. And then when the court strike it down, everyone blames the courts. It drives me in and see, as you'll know. Right. So we should get Warren in here and just...

Oh, Mike. I didn't know you were there. Hi. If you want to be noticed, you shouldn't dress like a potted palm. Anyway, you know, everyone's... You hear the punit you on this is this won't fix the border issue for Biden as if he has to fix the whole of the border issue rather than just because like the people who think the border is their number one issue and that Biden sucks and that Trump is a god for closing the border and all that kind of stuff, they're voting for Trump

no matter what. There's nothing Biden could do to convince them. It's those, you know, low propensity, less engaged people who know that the border is a problem and they haven't paid much attention. Then they hear Biden tried to close the border and he got stymied by the courts and like that, it checks a box for them. And that might work. The mitigation thing might work. But it's still going to be a bad issue for Biden overall. Mike, thoughts, feelings. I agree with Jonah. This is something he kind of needs to fight to a draw, right?

A draw is sort of the best outcome that Biden can hope for. Biden's biggest political issues with his reelection have to do with things that he cannot control at this point. I would say that he could have. made some different political decisions a couple of years ago that might have had some effect on the economy, maybe a Democrat, a liberal Democrat like Joe Biden wouldn't have taken them, but he could have done something to fight inflation better than what he did. Now it's too late. It's too late to affect interest rates.

It's too late to affect inflation before the election. So we can't deal with that biggest policy problem that is nagging him and is causing him to struggle in the general election polls. The other issue was his age. He can't do anything about that. He can't, you know, there's no, as far as I know, there's no technology like what Martin Scorsese used to de-age presidential candidates. So he can't do anything about that. So he's in a political situation where he needs to be seen as doing something. What he's doing is Biden is taking away an argument in that debate later this month. And in the final months, weeks and months of the campaign, Republicans may still make the argument.

He didn't do anything on the border, but he's trying to blunt that argument, bring it all to a drawl. And I agree that it probably will work. I don't think it's going to solve his bigger political problem and deliver the election. I think Republicans have an interesting political dilemma because what I'm seeing right now is the messaging that this isn't enough, that there's exceptions, that it's not a real solution to the border. Instead of the, this is cynical and it's going to get stopped by the courts, he knows this isn't ever going to take effect, for instance. They have, like, a few avenues here.

I mean, Mike, you know, you think this will be somewhat effective for Biden. Will it be effective for Republicans? If Donald Trump wants to take the issue on and make it an issue in, his campaign, I don't see any evidence he really wants to, which is ironic because this is the issue, immigration, a porous border, et cetera, that put him on the map in 2016. I don't get the sense that this is a priority for him politically at the moment. He mentions it. I'm not saying he doesn't mention the border and crime from illegal aliens and Biden's not doing enough, but he continues to be so focused on the other stuff.

Himself. Exactly. So I do think that's a problem. You hear of all of these criticisms about the Biden plan from people who those low propensity voters don't know about. They're not reading on Twitter every single day. So Trump needs to take on the issue if they want to make hay about it. And then maybe again, I think whatever it is, it's all about like a war of attrition

here and bringing it to a draw. Jonah, I also think it's interesting, strategic question for Democrats because immigration is such a lopsided issue in terms of where voters are, who they think is better equipped to handle the issue of immigration so that Joe Biden doing something, you try to blunt that. But if you talk a lot about it and most people aren't tuning in a ton, it's still an issue that you're losing on. And I don't even know that with this, it's going to somehow, like, even if everyone in America was forced to like clockwork orange style, sit with their eyes open and watch a 30 minute news program on what Joe Biden's done on the border, I don't know that it's going to change those underlying dynamics of who Americans think is, you know, quote unquote, best equipped to handle the border. So you blunt some of the blood loss, perhaps, on immigration. But I don't know that this is an issue they're going to want to talk about a lot. No, I think that's probably right. I mean, it's, it's, so my email box is full of all of these left-wing activist groups announcing press conferences and

conferences and get-togethers and confabs and all sorts of other things where people will gather and say things about how terrible and evil and horrible and no good what Biden is doing is. I don't get the sense, maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't get the sense that the average Democrat cares that much, right? I think the average Democrat thinks, you know, we've let in a lot of immigrants into this country in the last 10 years. And a lot of them illegally, and a lot of them don't get sent home, and some of them commit crimes. And I see pictures of that border where I see where, you know, they have Pakistanis and Mauritans and all these people coming in. And I kind of think, you know, we should do something about that. And when they hear the act, when they hear

the sort of squad kind of adjacent people say, this is heartless and inhumane, but there's actually not kids in cages. There's not, there's not like people being picked off by snipers. There's not the stuff that, you know, would actually arouse the moral conscience of people. It's really just people saying, the government saying, you're going to have to wait in line someplace else before you come in here. I just don't think a lot of Democrats who may sort of their heart may be with the activist crowd are going to vote on this in a significant way or get worked up about it. And I also just think that the median immigrant family, first generation, you know, family, the median legal immigrant family, median Hispanic family is moving away from the sort of blue state left on these

issues. And they, those sort of hardcore lefty activist types who want to make this a centerpiece issue and don't want to lose, I would argue in part this has to do with all sorts of very obscure urban funding mechanisms for all sorts of things. They need those people for cover. And so I just, I just feel like this issue is slipping away from Democrats in general. And Biden has been really foolish for waiting so long for the tide to carry him out rather than like rowing a little bit ahead of the wave. And, you know, nautical metaphors are my foret. I think you're 100% right that he could have done this exact thing two years ago. And it might have made a political difference. Because of that sister soldier tension, let's call it, if you're a little bit ahead of the

wave, like you said, Jonah, you get a little bit of credit for pushing back on the extremists within your own party. I'm not even sure he's with the median voter in his party right now. I think he might be just a little bit behind the median Democratic voter. So not only do you not get that political credit, I'm not even sure that people notice. And so this gets back to them that, that reason, Mike, the like, why now, Jonah's point about the debate. It's not just that it's an election year. It's that the debate is in two weeks and you need some answer to that question. And when you're sitting in debate prep and there's, that question is just miserable and you're flim flamming around like, oh, well, I'm president of United States so I can

concoct my own answer to it. I wonder what other issues you think might fall into that category of things you can do something about in the next two weeks to have a better answer at the debate, which is at the end of June. Not many issues. Again, it's why he's using, it's why he's going here rather than the economy. Like he can't, he can't say, the American people know, I just did this last week that I unilaterally lowered the interest rate. I actually, unilaterally lowered inflation. I've been waiting around for Congress to, to do it. But I, I have now used my power. Like, he can't do it. That's ridiculous. He can't do anything like that. He can revoke his pardon for those turkeys. Hey, now we're talking. Now we're talking. Biden's second administration. Here

we come. F those turkeys. Whose names are something like freedom and independence. And then the Republicans will say Biden was killing freedom and independence. They were here illegally from Canada. So, yeah, I mean, I think this is, when you were just talking, Sarah, I was like imagining, I was projecting what I expect Biden to say when the immigration question comes up. And Biden has been in public life for 50 plus years. So, like, it's very easy to figure out, like, how he's, so it will start with Congress. Like, he'll explain how, you know, there was a bipartisan.

group of senators who came together to actually get this done permanently. And he'll sort of do this kind of long, like, explanation about how it all fell apart because the Republican Center from the state of Oklahoma, you know, a very red state tried to do this. And then, you know, the extremists and the MAGA wing of the House Republican Conference stopped him from doing it. Painting himself as coming in as the hero. Like, this is actually a very good, a very good space for him, I think, from a debate perspective. He's able to say, he sort of knows how Congress works or doesn't work, and he'll be able to portray himself as the smartest guy, the guy who was able to come up with the solution when all the petty folks in Congress

couldn't do it. It's all engineered this executive order, all of this, for that moment. And it will be probably a pretty good moment if he can get the words out and remember James Langford's name. I think it'll be interesting if, as I suspect, a court enjoins this between now and the debate, I mean, just listeners and especially UAO listeners who are, you know, double dispatch podcasters, just watch my head roll off my shoulders when he blames the courts at the debate. I will lose it. We will have an emergency podcast and it'll just be me in a scream, just a continuous scream for seven minutes. And that'll be the whole podcast. Screaming like Justice Alito's neighbor.

I'll learn that breathing technique, you know, where you can like breathe in while putting out sound just to continue the scream. All right. Speaking of woes for Joe Biden, Jonah, there was a piece in the Wall Street Journal this week. And, you know, I felt like maybe I was more attuned to it when I was on the calm side of this equation. But, you know, during the Trump administration, it felt like once a week, maybe once every other week. There was one news story that was sort of the thing everyone had to talk about and digest. And that pace has, I felt, slowed down quite a bit lately.

But this Wall Street Journal story is that. It's the news story. Everyone had to read. Everyone had to have thoughts on the substance, but also the process. But also now let's talk about whether it was an overall fair piece. Did they include all the right quotes? Can you walk us through this? Sure.

It was such a much read piece for Washington and even I read it. So it was a, my lips are tired. I even wrote about it in the Wednesday G-File. That's what she said. so I wrote my Wednesday G-file about it or at least in part the piece is about

I think the headline is something along the lines aid say the Biden is slipping or maybe that's the subhead right that his age is showing and that he has good moments and bad moments and I think that

they open themselves up to some legitimate criticism by basically only quoting on the record Republicans who have a deep-seated part as an interest in saying these things. And some of these Republicans have said the opposite, including Kevin McCarthy, in the past, about the impression they got of Joe Biden in private meetings. So it's a little suspect.

At the same time, of course, Joe Biden is slipping a little bit, right? I mean, Senator Rish from, was it South Dakota, Idaho. He had it right. He said, the Joe Biden you see on TV is the Joe Biden you get. And I think that the almost panic-stricken outrage from sort of the MSNBC crowd about how this was journalistic malpractice and this was outrageous and, you know, Joe Scarborough is all in on defending Biden on this stuff just shows you to a certain extent the vulnerability they know is there. And at the same time, you know, it's sort of like we were talking earlier about how

if the courts throw out the Biden plan for immigration, that proves that the Republicans were wrong, you know, all the time saying Biden could do all these things easily. The article actually confirms the fact that he's just an old dude who has bad moments. It doesn't confirm the fact that he's senile, that he's a drooling, you know, basket case or any of these kinds of things. And that's the response, that's the bar that Trump and much of the GOP and a lot of the right-wing punditocracy has set for Biden. They talk about him as if he's completely lost in senility, doesn't realize that today is not lime jello day at the home

and that he is completely at sea. And that's not the Joe Biden you see on TV either. And so it creates, it was such an interesting Roershack test, much like the time interview with Biden, where the people who want to say, he might as well be on a ventilator. He's so brain dead. And the people who say he is the Galileo of our time.

He's so versatile and dynamic. They both look like idiots if you can just take off the partisan blinders for a second and just realize what you see on TV is what you get. Mike, some of the controversy around this story is exactly what Jonah said. It actually didn't really fit the narrative of either side. But you had Republicans. you know, sort of holding this up as like, aha, see, he's drooling in the hopes that maybe you hadn't read the story. And then you had Democrats pushing back really with quite a muddled

message, I thought. Because on the one hand, you have some what I think are pretty smart Democrats saying, actually, this is pretty much right. And it doesn't say what you think it says. And then you had others sort of freaking out that the Wall Street Journal didn't include their quotes that the White House had asked them to give because this reporter, of course, calls around a bunch of Democrats either sort of don't respond or they give kind of like whatever mealy statements. They, those Democratic congressmen call the White House to tell them, someone's calling around with these questions. The White House gives them a statement or a suggested statement or suggest that they call back. So then they call back and say, hey, the White House asked me to call you

back. And the Wall Street Journal didn't include all of those statements. You know, Joe Biden can jump over tall buildings and rescue kittens from trees by climbing them all. What do you think of the Wall Street Journal's decision making here and how you approach a story like this to get it right, but also not have a 6,000 word piece with a whole bunch of quotes that aren't helpful. Yeah, if there are any flax listening to this, working for a member of Congress or a campaign, and there's some kind of, you get the sense that there's some negative story coming out about your principle. My recommendation is don't have a bunch of allies send a bunch of boilerplate, unusable, happy talk statements, and push it hard. I mean,

Like, it's not a, the work is not hard to see for wrestling fans. Like, you can see all of the, of the maneuvering when you're a reporter of people trying to put on a happy face. It actually ends up telling you that your instincts and your sources are correct when, you know, it's all the lady doth protest too much. And that's not just what was, what seems to have been going on before the story was published, but absolutely after the story was published. This is such a stricent effect moment.

Yes, people were talking about this story, but the story had legs beyond the day that it was published, in large part because the White House and their allies were screaming their heads off about how unfair the story was. If you're explaining or you're complaining, you're losing. Particularly in this case, because as Jim Rish said, it's what we see, what we're being told is going on behind closed doors is what we see in front of the cameras. I agree with you, Jonah, that this is not the damning portrait of Biden

that most Republicans would like us to see. He comes across as the kind of arrogant, know-it-all foreign policy dove that he's been for 50 years. He's, in a way, he's the same as he's always been. Maybe just like a little slower because he's in his 80s and we all know people like that. Also, how do Republicans keep doing this, keep lowering expectations? Again, to mention the debate, we're two weeks out and they're like, see, he can't string together a sentence. Just again, from a pure strategic standpoint, quit saying that. If anything, you guys should have been freaking out about the Wall Street Journal story and saying, look, the mainstream media is trying to lower expectations for Joe Biden ahead of the debate. And instead, they're like, oh my God.

It wasn't bad enough. What? No. They're like, oh, they just didn't get the quotes about him, you know, falling over. Right. Which, of course, like it's like it's not, that's not happening. He's not ruling on his tie. That's my main complaint.

I'm not rooting for the Republicans here, but it bothers me that they're not better at this. Sarah, you know who who picked up on this was Donald Trump himself. He didn't tweet. He posted on true social basically that the age issue was. not the problem for Biden, which I thought was brilliant. A little bit of, you know, CYA on behalf of the almost octogenarian Republican nominee. I mean, there is this weird, bizarre thing where Democrats did get themselves. I mean, I agree entirely on the messaging. The Republicans have screwed up this messaging more than Democrats have. But people really don't like to be

gaslit. And the Democratic argument, or the progressive argument, the progressive argument, argument, the pro-Biden argument, is that he's really dynamic and sharp and engaging and in command of things in private. But he chooses to keep that aspect of his personality secret from the public. It's the Ronald Reagan Saturday Night Live skit. Exactly. It's amazing that like someone like watched that and was like, yeah, but like what if that were real life instead of a joke? This is the part of the job I hate. we should put a link to the SNL thing in the show for people who don't know it because it's...

Yeah, no, but there's this portrayal of Biden like he's like doing multiple Sudoku puzzles while doing parkour, all just inside the White House where nobody can see. And if only Gregory Meeks could be quoted saying as much by the Wall Street Journal, then all of Biden's age issues would go away. Or it's like the Grand Meister in Game of Thrones in the Capitol who like,

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It's Biden heavy, but that's okay. We don't do enough Biden stuff, and he is the president. All right. So another thing that has not gone particularly well for Joe Biden this week is that his son is on trial for three felony counts related to possessing a gun while being a user of a controlled substance. We've talked certainly about the legal aspects of that on advisory opinions, but similar to the Trump issue.

I think that the prudential aspects, the political aspects, frankly, are more important to the future of the country and people sort of trust in the rule of law than any of the legal aspects. And this is the idea that if he weren't Hunter Biden, he wouldn't be on trial right now. And how we deal with that, Mike, I'm curious just from a reporting standpoint, point, if you think that the two cases are being treated differently by reporters at all before we get to sort of the White House and the pundit class. You mean the two cases, the hush money case for Trump and the Hunter Biden? Yeah, as opposed, by the way, I want to clarify, like, I mean the hush money case in Manhattan that Donald Trump was just convicted in, not, for instance,

the classified documents case. That's not an example where Donald Trump wouldn't have faced trial but for being Donald Trump. No, no, no, no, no. In fact, if anything, quite the opposite. He was given so many opportunities. So much leeway. Yeah. Like that's the opposite of a crab trap trap. But with, sorry, Jonah just like looked up on that one. Crabs? I was going to tell you my John Lindsay Florence Henderson story. We'll save that for another time. I know that story, Jonah. Do not tell that. Even though Steve's not here, do not tell that one. The, to reorient this podcast, back to your question, Sarah. I mean, from a strictly media coverage standpoint, yes, CNN is also sending correspondence to stand outside the courthouse in Delaware for the Hunter Biden trial as it was, you know, outside the Manhattan courthouse for the Trump trial, you know, there are live blogs at the Washington Post and the New York Times, et cetera, et cetera.

But I would say the coverage is less sensational for Hunter Biden's trial. there's there's kind of a lot less I guess I can't say it's a lot less salacious because we are talking about you know witness testimony from ex-girlfriends one of whom was the widow of Hunter's brother there are text messages we're talking about drug use and money being spent so it's pretty salacious but I mean the coverage of it is it does feel a little bit more in sorrow than an anger from from the media. And I don't know if even though if that's unwarranted, but I would say it's got less exciting coverage. There's no wall-to-wall stuff like it is with the former president. Jonah, then I feel like I've seen a lot of talk from the right, that this is lawfare against Donald Trump, and this is the end of the republic as we start prosecuting our political enemies. And I think on the left, I've heard plenty of, you know, this was political targeting. you know, to embarrass Joe Biden and his family and embarrass someone who has a substance

abuse problem and that he would not, these charges would not have been brought. They're very unusual charges, but for him being the president's son. And I guess I'm confused why nobody is saying both. Yeah. I mean, so Warren and I yesterday on The Remnant, we kind of got into this a little bit as well. I think, I think you're right. And, you know, and this is a point you've made a lot on AO from the beginning, which is that everyone's a little right, depending on how you look at this, you know, insofar as, look, we can all at least credit the argument, the degree to which we all agree with it or not, we can discuss another time, that the Brad case should never been brought. But once brought, Trump was treated better than any normal criminal defendant.

He was given more allowances. He was cut more slack. I am fairly confident that a, and an accountant who was up on charges of false bookkeeping in furtherance of another crime, who kept screaming that the judge was a liar and rigged and corrupt, would have been treated more harshly than Donald Trump was, right? Meanwhile, so, like, yeah, the case shouldn't have been brought. You can make that argument. And so, like, as I was saying to Mike yesterday, there's some polling that shows that, like, a large majority of Americans think that the

Bragg case was politically motivated and correctly founded, right? so that like it was that he's guilty and he should have been found guilty and it was politically motivated. And that's not a contradiction that people think it is, right? Similarly with the Hunter thing, I mean, sorry, you know this better than I do, but how many people are prosecuted every year for lying on their gun forms about being drug addicts? Basically, none without some, what's the opposite of extenuating circumstance? Worsening. Compounding. Yeah. So if you, if the gun was used in a crime, if there's lots of guns, but yeah, not by itself.

And here you have the two felony for lying and the one possession of a gun while being a user of a controlled substance, but they've also got him dead to rights on the facts. So it's a similar thing. Like, you wouldn't be charged with it, but once you are charged with it, that's another reason that they don't tend to charge people

is because it's really hard to prove on the facts because most people don't write memoirs. Yeah. Don't keep diaries that say, while I did this, I was an addict. I was a user of a controlled substance. But, you know, this gets to a larger issue when it comes to gun control as a topic in this country. We can't come close to prosecuting all the gun crimes that we currently have in the country. And I get so frustrated when people want to pass more gun control laws because some of them I agree with that I think fine,

they're good policy. But we don't have the resources to actually get the illegal guns off the street now. you know, this possession, felon in possession of a gun while being a user of a controlled substance, carries a sentencing guideline range of 10 to 16 months. I think that should feel like a lot of time to people to spend in prison. And yet, when you talk to federal prosecutors, they'll sort of tell you like, yeah, I mean, that's sort of on the margin slash below what we would generally bring because we're looking at, you know, in terms of where to put our resources. We've got enough cases that carry more prison time than that related to guns. And so we focus on those. My other point is that in the law, I mean, there's another reason why they're bringing the gun cases is that politically you had that plea deal thing blow up in court.

And there was a lot of pressure to say, we're going to look into these other much bigger, much more serious in terms of public policy kind of considerations, crimes about influence peddling and what his dad was connected to the Biden crime family and all these kinds of things. And it looked like the fix was in. And when it blew up, the DOJ was left in this position of saying, well, we can't just like not prosecute them now for anything. So let's prosecute them for the thing that we can, we have, where we have them dead to write on the facts.

And I just think that like, this is the price we pay for democracy, is that we're going to have difficult cases for people who are in the public eye and their relatives. When they turn out to be scumbag type people, it's going to be very difficult to have hard and fast, you know, one rule fits for everybody kind of approach to this stuff. And at least in the case of Trump, it's worth pointing out, he doesn't believe in one rule for everybody. He wants exemptions from all the rules. He's just pissed that he's not getting as many as he wants. Can I hijack this for just two seconds? I have the thing that I want to ask you guys about. It's weird. I don't want to sound like this is my in-defense of drug addicts segment, but

blaming all of Hunter Biden's behavior on addiction bothers me a little bit. I've known drug addicts. My brother died, large part from his addictions. It's a complicated story. While it's absolutely true, there are people who are mean drunks, right?

For whatever reason, they start drinking and they just become different people and nasty people. A lot of people don't do that. And there are a lot of things that Hunter clearly did that he's blaming entirely on his addiction. or wants people to draw that conclusion, when it turns out, like, just because you're smoking crack doesn't mean you have to sleep with your dead brother's widow. I mean, that just, it seems to me like.

Or say, really mean, hurtful, horrible things about your stepmother who has raised you since you were a child. Yeah. I mean, I would go down a long list of things, right? And so like, and how much, I'm not a big fan of blaming parents for bad seeds and all that kind of stuff. But life's complicated, life's weird. but if every crack addict in America went and tried to sell influence with the vice president to Kazakhi businessmen, there'd be a lot more Americans in Kazakhstan, right? I mean, we can make some distinctions here, and this desire to just sort of sweep it all underneath the rubric. There's something about it that bothers me, and I didn't know where else I was going to get

the chance to say it. So there you go. Am I crazy? Mike, I also would like to take a detour to talk about the terms both sidesism and what aboutism. Oh, I wanted to talk to you about this. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here we go. Because I feel like I was accused of both sidesism by comparing the Trump case and the Hunter Biden case. And I don't think that's what both sidesism means. I think that's when you're saying, oh, I'm going to excuse the bad behavior. of my side by pointing out that the other side does it. But then someone was like, yeah, I think that's what aboutism, not both sidesism. And actually, I think they're right.

And I don't really know the difference now between the two words, maybe. So, Mike, can you help me here with, why am I bad? I don't know if we have enough time in this podcast. We've got to wrap this up eventually, Sarah. Come on. Okay, so let me start with what aboutism. What aboutism is the sort of phenomenon in political discourse, generally online, but also in cable news and other venues and media, where, yeah, where you're presented with something damaging or embarrassing about your side, about somebody on your team, and your response to the question of how can you defend this or what is the defense for this? is to is to redirect it to the other side.

Okay, so an example of this is Donald Trump's a convicted felon and then I would say, yeah, but look at Joe Biden crime family. Yeah, or Hillary Clinton's emails. That's what aboutism. Literally saying like, what about this other thing on the other side, okay.

It's deflection. Exactly. Both sidesism, I think, and this is, This is how I formulate both sides. It is, it is an argument or a rhetorical approach by which you sort of throw up your hands about a particular issue, say, I don't know, insider trading by members of Congress by saying, like, everybody does it. And so therefore, we can't do anything about it. that both sides are guilty of, you know, of devaluing our political discourse because one side

says you're a racist and the other side says you're a communist and sort of placing no value on which one is worse, throwing up both sides. So like there's January 6th on the one hand and Jabal Bowman pulling the first. fire extinguisher on the other. They both disrupted democracy. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. They both, they both cost a security incident of the capital. So, but like, I do think both sidesism is, is, like, is used as a, as a cudgel or as a way to, in a way, like, criticize anybody for saying there's a global problem or there's a cultural problem that, I think both sides is an argument is a way to score a partisan point

to say, well, you're just engaging in both sidesism is a way to say, yep, because the people I hate are the worse are worse, than the people. It's almost like reverse whataboutism. Like, yeah, my side did something wrong, but by comparing it even to the other side, you're a moron because the other side is so much worse. Yeah, well, you're acting in bad faith.

Yeah, so it's... So the reason I'm glad you brought this up is just because I have been calling myself sincerely at both sides are for a while now, insofar as... What about when you didn't call yourself? And so far as, I think, a lot of our problems in our politics are American problems, and they just manifest themselves somewhat differently as Democrat or Republican or right-wing or left-wing problems. And you caused me, when you ask the question, a bit of existential panic because I was like,

oh, crap, if I've been using it wrong? and admitting to something that I'm not actually doing. And I started to overthink it and sweat it. And so I just want to be clear that like whatever people mean by both sides are, what I mean when I describe myself as one as saying both parties are screwed up. They're screwed up in ways that in some ways are unique to them. But really, it's the way the problems, the common problems of our politics and our culture manifest themselves, that's the difference.

There's asymmetry, but we have a right-wing-cancel culture and we have a left-wing-cancel culture. I don't like either. And so when I say both sides, what I'm getting at is I don't like illiberalism in either party, and I see more and more of it on both sides. And it doesn't really matter which example today is worse than the other example today, because big picture, philosophically, both sides are pursuing illiberalism when it comes to speech.

All sorts of things. Industrial policy. Go down a long list of things. Industrial policy. I'm serious. Industrial policy is illiberal. But hey, we can argue. I feel like this is Jonah, like, hearing some word from the kids' lingo and then having

no clue how to use it in a sentence. Like, I'm suss. I thought you meant sustainable. Which word do I not understand the both sides thing? Or, okay. That's what that was I was afraid of. I was like, holy crap, am I been using this wrong? So, okay, in the spirit then of not doing both sidesism, I guess.

Do you think that one of these, do you think it's a false equivalency to compare the Trump-Manhattan prosecution to the Hunter Biden prosecution? Because I can actually argue either one is a false equivalency. On the one hand, Donald Trump was president of United States. So, yeah, maybe he deserves more scrutiny. On the other hand, Hunter Biden's is a clear-cut law with clear facts applying to that law. So when you stumble upon that, when you're investigating him for something else, you end up in a bit of a pickle if you don't bring charges because it's so dead to rights. I guess, so there's that issue.

I'm also concerned about something y'all raised, which is, I think it was you, Mike, who said, this is what's going to happen to people and their families. when they run for office from now on, you're going to get investigated, so you better be squeaky clean. Who's going, what good person, what morally upstanding father, husband, et cetera, is going to be willing to put their family through this. And it feels a little like the incentives in Congress these days. The good people aren't going to want to run for Congress because if you want to legislate, that's not the place to do it. Instead, it's going to attract the bad people who really always wanted to be cable news,

and just couldn't quite cut it unless they had the title congressmen. I mean, the people who are going to run for office in this new era, I'm worried aren't going to be the good ones. Which is why the threat of indictment and conviction should be raised and not lowered. If we're going to have a poor class of public official, they should be frightened. I mean, I'm stealing this from Jonah, as we just, discussed on the remnant, and has he's discussed many times, right? The sort of the way in which the Roman, you know, public, I don't know what you would describe with the sort of the public

official trials that happened in the Roman Republic were sort of a maybe a great way of keeping their, those who were in public office accountable and not, you know, skimming things off the top out in the, you know, out in Gaul or wherever they were. And that's, of course, why the Roman Republic, you know, remains to this day, a, you know, in our current, you know, world. I mean, I do worry about this, right? Like, even if we start, you know, a sort of lawfare to keep our public officials in check, that actually just evolves into something ugly that, you know, that Sarah, you described being worried about and brings about, you know, the decline of, of American and the Constitution.

Because it's not just you. It's your kids. Like, you better hope your kids ever did anything wrong. It's fair. But Hunter is an adult. I mean, he's not a child.

Yeah, but let's slice the onion here a little, or the issue here a little closer, right? I mean, Hunter and Joe Biden's brother inserted themselves in, have been trading on his political positions as a business model. And so like, there is a little bit of f around and find out about it insofar as if hunter were an accountant

or not an accountant a plumber in cleveland and he was getting dragged through this stuff to punish Biden that would arouse more outrage in me than yes like what he's been trying to monetize and how he's been trying to monetize and his brother i mean like i think kinsley's the guy who first said, you know, the real scandal isn't what's illegal, it's what's legal. We can concede for the sake of argument

that Comer could not find a smoking gun that proved that the Biden crime family was in fact a crime family. What they did for a living and how they did it for big chunks of this was gross. Suss. I mean, it was super suss, and I don't mean sustainable, young lady.

And anyway, so like, Like, once you're in the game, you're in the game to a certain extent. And so, like, that's part of the calculation as well. I think that's fair. 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, you're writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one.

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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. All right. With a remaining few minutes, we have our last topic, which is this ceasefire proposal. Again, Joe Biden coming out publicly and sort of bullet pointing the ceasefire proposal. that Israel has agreed to. Then there was all this, like, no Netanyahu didn't agree to that. Well, yes, he did because various Israeli senior officials had confirmed it.

Are we any closer to a ceasefire? And maybe more importantly, are we any closer to getting the hostages back? No. And no. And why did Biden get out there? Like, was it to try to pin down the two sides? Was it to try to make it, you know, people? He's his left base that see, look, I got a ceasefire proposal that then fell apart in his hands.

I mean, I do think a big part of this was a way to kind of pin down both sides and try to sort of, I don't know, get them to come out with, you know, and sort of call their bluff a little, you know, each side's bluff. I mean, I'll say that I was pretty outraged by it. It was like step one, complete and total ceasefire return of some of the hostages. yada yada yada dot dot dot dot some other hostages get returned then more yada yada yada dot dot dot the remains of hostages that they've been keeping i mean they've been keeping the bodies hostage at this point which does matter to israelis right i mean like they oh absolutely i mean that they should have been returning those now um but the idea that you can have a complete and total ceasefire while they still get to hold more hostages? That's a non-starter. Yeah. I mean, yes, I agree. And it does make me

wonder, I mean, is there a political element to this, as you suggested? Is it? How could the Biden administration even get behind such a proposal to agree to a total ceasefire without the return of all the hostages all in one step? Ceasefire, yes, hostages, yes. I'm not even saying that I think that's a good idea. But it certainly is the minimum that you would agree to. Yeah. Well, and again, what I'm wondering is this similar to the immigration, the immigration executive order here, which is you've got to demonstrate that you're doing something. But the difference here, of course, is that you need to demonstrate to your far left flank within your party. I'm skeptical that, that, A, this is going to achieve any sort of, you know, cooling of tensions on that left flank that even really matter

for his political. I think he sort of bought into the BS that this is going to be critical for his reelection is to make sure the far left of his party is on board. I just, where are they going to go other than maybe stay home? So it just looks incompetent. But also, we can't, we can't forget that this is, I mean, this is kind of who Joe Biden is on, on foreign policy. He is always sort of looking for the way out of conflict, no matter the cost. And I think you can look at Afghanistan as a great example of that. I see it, I see this as on that same continuum. It's not great. Yeah, no, look, I think you were asking earlier about other things he could do within two weeks of the debate

to have a political talking point and I'm with Mike on this it's very difficult for me to see where this comes from other than a desire to be able to assert things that will not last that give people the false impression of what the political reality is right

because it's hard to follow for people who follow it for a living and for like a lot of normal Americans they're just going to hear Joe Biden and talking tough to the Israelis and talking tough to Hamas about a ceasefire and ending the war. And I think that the sort of tendency of this administration to have talking points guide policy is really kind of remarkable. In the example I wrote about yesterday was the Gaza peer, they clearly came up with or agreed to do because he needed to say something at the state of the union address. It was like, we're going to get, have to make a peer and we're going to bring aid.

and we don't need to rely on the Israelis or the Egyptians, and we're going to feed the hungry. And that all sounds great, except for the fact, it was an incredibly stupid idea. And it was supposed to deliver 500 metric tons a day of aid. After the first thousand metric tons, so two days' worth, they had to shut it down. And those first thousand tons were stolen.

And now the whole piers had to be towed off back to Israel to be fixed. and, but it served its purpose at the time of providing a talking point. We're doing something. And it feels to me like that's the best case scenario for explaining where this sort of, we're just, you know, like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy, we're going to kind of declare the end of the war and then like just hold them accountable to it. The only complicating thing I would say is that Israel kind of does need to figure out a way to put the Hamas stuff on the back burner a little bit

because it does sound like they're revving up to go after a Hezbollah in the north and that's a much more difficult enemy and so there is an incentive on the Israeli side to have this sort of breathing space kind of thing and how they're gaming this out is a bit of a mystery to me. I agree with Michael like Biden's been bad

at this foreign policy stuff for his entire political career and that's what comes, you know, and I think this is the point of the G-File was that his very very, vacillating, his meandering, his, his unsteadiness, people attribute to his age when in fact, that's him, right? And, um, and that's the mess he's got in a mental self into is like, the way to reassure people he's not too old for the job is to actually stand firm on some policy stuff. Like, he's not going to be able to like run up the, the steps like Rocky, you know,

and dance around Philly but he can like he can plant a flag and stand by it and that would reassure a lot more people about him being up to the job than the physical stuff. All right. We actually need to reserve the remainder of our time for a very important

not worth your time because it is worth our time, the topic. But the question is is it worth your time to return grocery store carts after you've loaded your groceries into the car? Mike, you flagged this for us And I find it really fascinating because on the one hand, there's like the sort of frivolous like

lull, you know, people not returning grocery carts are the worst in the world. But as a parent, I think we've all sort of experienced like, okay, so you've got the kid in the car and the groceries in the card. You get them to the car. It's like a hot summer day, let's say. Now you've loaded the groceries in the back. You've got the kid in the car seat. What do you do? Because your choices are like what leave the doors open and go return the cart close the doors lock the kid in return the cart like sometimes it is far away i will admit that i don't think i'm very consistent on this because if it's too far away i'm i'm just not going to leave my kid alone in the car and frankly in the story that you've flagged which was from the new york post this mom of three i think

it doesn't even make sense to me she was poo-pooing this lady who doesn't return her grocery carts, who is the mom of two, and she's like, I have three kids. They're five, three, and nine months old, and I take the cart to the car, unload the groceries, and then with the kids, I return the cart, and then I take the kids back to the car and load them in. I do not believe you. No, ma'am, that is false. Okay, so I, as a blanket statement, I believe that people who do not return their carts to the cart corral, are they, um, are they in the lowest circle of hell at the end? Who can say, really?

But wait, wait. Does it matter? But there's different, like there's leaving it in the middle of the road or in the parking spot next to you. I don't do that. That is a selfish, a whole thing to do. So what do you, what do you do with it, Sarah? Okay.

Well, in my grocery store, there's like a median between the cars that would face each other. And so I put the cart in the median between those two cars if I cannot return it. Sorry, I'm just processing all of this. And again, I don't mean I do this every time. You think you know somebody. You think you know a person. If I'm with Scott, one of us returns the cart while the other one's buckling in the kid. The question is when you are parenting alone, and maybe this is a gender thing.

Like, as a woman, like, I don't know, I am more leery, I think, in parking lots than probably a man is. Like, I'm looking around a lot more than men probably are. I will concede that. I will also say that so you return the cart when you're with your husband, big deal. It's when it's difficult. It's when it's hard. That character is really truly revealed. It costs you, the kidnapping of your child.

How dare you, Matt, have not returned that cart. So, look, I've been in a situation of big kids with the cart and little kids, babies, the cart. You've got three. I have no, I've got three. They're all kind of spread out in ages. And so, can you make the big one return the cart now? Oh, yeah. That's, that's no problem. Please. Will he, will he push it all the way in so that it nests perfectly? No, but we're working on it. But the, but I have no problem, for instance, putting the kids in the car, in the car seat, even closing the door, locking it, and running the cart back to the corral. That does not bother me one bit. I'm not, I, it's a hot day. So what? It'll, it'll, it'll, it'll, they'll be in there for

30 seconds, 60 seconds. That's nothing. That's nothing. You know, that's, that's character. I've done this, though, also with, I've done this with the infants or the, the toddlers, go ahead. Go ahead. Or hit your head or a car hit you. And now your kids are locked in the car. And maybe it'll take people a few minutes to realize that there's kids in your car while you're unconscious. You're you're I mean okay what if aliens came down and abducted me no as I'm as I'm walking back I mean like something could happen but it depends on the age so point of fact my sister in law Carrie Jessica's little sister in the Safeway parking lot in Sagamore and near where we live uh very hot summer day when her oldest daughter.

was a baby who's loading the baby in and the baby likes to play with the car keys he turns around to look at the cart and the weight of the door closes halfway just like like the latch just closes and locks enough Raina's playing with the car keys and hits lock and then Kerry screams and drops the car keys but she's already in the car seat and so the car is now heating up at about five degrees every three seconds, and it's just getting hot, and Carrie's trying up to do the door, and she can't get the door, but even by jiggling it, she locks it more, and so now it's shut, and she's freaking out, and she had this nice BMW SUV, and she grabs, someone starts screaming, someone help me, someone help me. Someone comes out of the CVS with a

hammer and swings to smash the glass, and the hammer just bounces off this super secure glass and they can't get into the car and now Raina is sweating and Carrie is about to have a nervous brain she's calling people and she can't get anyone on the phone and blah blah blah blah finally a full fire engine comes and they have some tool that just breaks the glass and they get her out and um everyone's never return the cart Mike but so like I was say that was my question when did she return the car and uh this this moment you're like you know how like you know how like You've both probably, like, some way, experienced the kid missing in the department store feeling, and every 30 seconds feels like 3,000 years, and it's geometric, right?

Those were, like, the longest 12 minutes of Carrie's life is, like, watching her kid, like, sweat in real time in this thing, trapped in the car. So I think about that. I'm very sympathetic because that has plagued my imagination for, like, 15, almost 20 years now. And so, but it's been a long time. I would be very cautious about leaving a kid who doesn't know how to open car door or anything like that in a car. At the other hand, I cannot tell you how little I care about this issue.

I agree with you entirely that you should try to return the cart. Different supermarkets, different parking lots have sort of, they're different, there's a different landscape for this question. Like I go to this Wegmans now where you see like eight carts piled up in one spot. It's not an official spot for the carts, but like the dudes who collect the carts, no, that's one of the places you go. And so you get it, right? And I will admit, I'm juvenile. One of the things I like most about returning the cart is pushing it as hard as I can

from as far away as I can as possible to see if I can get it through into the exhaust port of the Death Star. I make it a game. Man brain. That is manbrain. And I like the crashing sound makes. And sometimes I'll turn my back and walk away like as an explosion and not look back to see the carnage I've left. I mean, I live in a fun life. Exactly.

I'm with you on that. You know, if we can make this chore fun, then we can save America. Look, I take your points about this. I mean, literally last week I get a call from my wife. I'm sitting at my desk at Dispatch World. headquarters and she calls to say she locked the kid in the car again in our drive first time the in our driveway the uh the van is locked because the toddler has the car keys and has locked it and can you please come home and uh and open the car um so i get that uh it was not a hot day

but i can understand the the freak out and the frustration about that um with toddlers and babies by the way, I've just done this. Unload the groceries. Take the cart back with the toddler in the little seat. No, that's psychotic. Wait, whoa, hold on. And then you put the kid, you take the kid out, put the cart in the thing, and then carry the baby back to the car.

It's easy. What's wrong with that? With two. With two kids? Okay, so maybe this is showing my situation. I've never had two toddlers at the same time. Yeah, you're not carrying two kids back. Sorry.

You know who we need to have on this podcast as several this question? Mrs. Kevin Williamson. Exactly. With four children. She gets a dispensation. I hereby clear her of all three infants and a toddler like likes to run around in parking lots. Yeah, Mike. Now who's the a hole?

Never said I wasn't. Um, I really would pay infinite dollars, infinite to be able to switch brains to just like put my brain in the like marinating in the juices of a man brain for one hour to know what it is like to live inside y'all's situation because I- Most fun hour of your life. I think it is so weird. It's like I can see through the looking glass darkly. in these moments of what it's like. I mean, the peeing standing up alone and just the knowledge that you walk around knowing that at any moment, you can pee anywhere you want.

I think that itself must give you a certain swagger that women can't experience. On the flip side, to put your brain into, like, my skull, I think would stun a team of oxen. I think y'all would be so paralyzed and so incapable of functioning, for a hot moment with the sort of multitasking that female brains do, the concerns that we have

across the board at any given moment. I mean, I'm thinking about the grocery cart, you know, death situation while at the same time pools, right? I cannot abide the safety issue of pools. So, like, it's important that as soon as humanly possible, like before they can walk, that your kid can swim and not with floaties, right? Because if they have floaties, that gives them a false sense of being able to swim. No, they must be able to swim.

So, like, it's constant, like, looking around the parking lot, imagining the worst-case scenarios. Also, did I get the butter? Like, it's a whole world that you can't possibly imagine, Mike. Two words, Sarah. Calm down.

Then with that, I can't wait for the comments. which will be nothing about Joe Biden or Israeli ceasefires and only be people screaming at each other about grocery carts. In the end, Jonah, I think you're right that the topography of the grocery store situation makes a lot of difference. Some, like, there's grocery stores where you have to go all the way back to the front. There's ones that have it in the parking lot.

There's ones where there's someone walking around sort of collecting carts. It's all different. And so to say that there's a one-size-fits-all, You know, Mike's just a, Mike's just an angle. Yeah, well, I mean, that's stipulated. At some point, you should get my wife started because, you know, she grew up in the supermarket business. She worked in supermarkets, her own grocery stores and stuff. Get her started on people who eat like the produce in the store, taking free samples of stuff.

It's really kind of wild. So that's also interesting as a parent. If your kid really wants something and you're in the checkout line and they're like bugging you for it, do you let them start eating it in the checkout line or do you enforce the like no we must pay for it first? I think as long as you plan on paying for it, it's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm talking about the people who like park in front of like the cherries and eat them and like what, you know, I'm just testing them, you know, that kind of thing. Is there a limit on grapes? That seems like grape is the one potential exception to that rule. The stuff that you want to steal is the exception to the rule. That would be my wife's response.

for treat sometimes we let my son go get a cookie from the bakery section and you know like we've always remembered because we keep the little paper you know that you pull the cookie out of the bakery thing from and that's the reminder to pay for the cookie but there's not like a barcode or anything anyway there is one time that I have forgotten to pay for the cookie and to this moment obviously I feel guilty about that dollar 25 that I owe giant I am, I'll often drink a beverage in the store and then just charge the empty bottle.

I mean, that kind of thing I don't think matters in this life. You and my dad do that, and I think that's barbaric. You guys, you guys live lives of chaos. That's all I can say. When it comes to grocery store, I'm here. This has been an unsettling conversation. With that, we'll talk to you guys next week. You know what I'm going to be.