The Dispatch Podcast - Lindsey Graham's New-Old Abortion Ban

Episode Date: September 17, 2022

At long last in the same room, Sarah, Steve, David, and Jonah debate whether the conversation around abortion is changing, why it doesn't feel like Republicans are out of power, and whether lawmakers will ever do the right thing on border security. Plus: Sarah offers a troubling glimpse of the gents' problematic footwear. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to a special recording of the Dispatch podcast because we're all together. It's Sarah Isgher, Jonah Goldberg, Steve Hayes, and David French. Plenty to talk about as politics heats up once again in the fall. We have Lindsay Graham introducing a 15-week national ban on abortion. Was it good politics for Republicans? And we have Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, chartering. two planes to drop off illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard. A troll or just policy that makes sense? And I'm sure we'll touch on some other subjects along the way before we get to

not worth your time. Let's vibrate him. Let's start with the Lindsay Graham bill that was introduced. David, can you run us through a little bit of the details? I mean, look, Lindsay Graham has been introducing abortion bans. When I say abortion bans, like 20-week abortion bans. This has been a Republican. policy for a long time to introduce in the Senate, you know, late-term abortion bans and in the Senate and the House. The only real change here is the move from 20 weeks to 15 weeks. Now, to put this in some context, the polling indicates that late-term abortion bans, including 15-week abortion bans, are really pretty popular with people. That the sort of the sweet spot of public opinion in the abortion argument. And this is something that, you know, for somebody like me,

who's been a pro-life lawyer for a very, very long time, an uncomfortable fact for me is the abortion bans that I favor tend not to be popular. The abortion bans, a 15-week ban, or a late-term ban, a 20-week ban, they tend to be popular. And so when you have an abortion argument in this country, what you often have is an argument between two competing unpopular positions. The hardcore pro-choice position, which is abortion should be legal up to birth, and the my pro-life position, which is abortion should be legal except in cases of danger to the life and health of the mother. And also, I'm very squeamish about exerting state power to force women victims of rape and incest to have children. So that's my position. That's also a

minority position. So it's been two minority positions contesting each other. Lindsay Graham's position happens to be a majority of position. Now, the complicator here is that a lot of Republicans are on record saying abortion should be left to the states. And this is a federal 15-week ban that does not leave the issue to the states, except it does if you're going to be more restrictive than a 15-week ban. So it doesn't entirely remove it from the states. It removes part of it from the states in much the same way that the federal partial birth abortion ban removed part of it from the state. So, you know, as a matter of policy, I like it. As a matter of politics, it remains to be seen if it's wise or not. But the fact of the matter is a 15, if our Democrats are opposing a 15-week ban, they are adopting an unpopular stance.

for once in the last two, three, four months, five months of the abortion debate here in the U.S. Joan, I'm curious if you agree with what David said overall, but also Lindsay Graham introducing an abortion bill to Congress is about as efficacious as David French introducing an abortion bill to this room in a sense that Republicans are in the minority. So this isn't actually a legislative proposal in any serious way. This is a political proposal, presumably so that, what, Republican candidates can have something to lean on in their campaigns without getting sort of lost in their own sticky mess, maybe. But this issue, as best I've seen, and again, set aside what David's talking about, which is smart and interesting about if you ask Americans what policy they prefer, fine. But in terms of it, just as a political issue heading into the midterms, this is an issue that is motivating for Democrats, and it doesn't seem to be particularly motivating for Republicans. And as we've learned over and over again from both sides, if you introduce a specific into a general conversation, you're also going to divide your side because there are some people who will want more or less or greater or smaller, twirling toward abortion. So, Jonah, politically, what you think?

Yeah, so first of all, I think, so first of all, I think one of the biggest political screwups in this is not actually Lindsey Graham's fault because he didn't know that there was going to be a really bad inflation report coming out to coincide with Biden crowing about signing the Inflation Reduction Act. and a lot of Republicans are very mad because they would much rather be talking about bad inflation, bad optics for the Biden administration. And so Lindsey Graham kind of screwed up with the timing. And you could say, you know, if they had their ducks in a row more, maybe he would have waited a day to see what the report said or whatever, or two days, whatever the amount of time was. But is it ever more helpful for Republicans to be talking about abortion than inflated? crime, immigration, the Biden administration writ large, why would it ever be a good time?

Right. So that's my second point. The first point was just simply like the bad serendipity of the inflation stuff just sort of highlighted how, you know, a lot of Republicans on the Hill felt like we can't have nice things. Like we just were given this wonderful talking point to get the conversation back to inflation in Biden. And here comes Lindsey Graham sucking up all the oxygen and giving this huge gift essentially to Democrats to allows them to put meat on the bones of the claim that they always had, which was that the Republicans are full of it when they talk about federalism and that and that the election really is and that the election is about abortion, right? And because it, and I think this is, it's a little bit sort of downstream or

analogous to this thing that we've talked about a lot, which is that abortion until Dobbs was kind of like a free position for all of these politicians because they couldn't do anything. So it was all performative. So yeah, Lindsay Graham has issued a lot of performative bills in Congress before along these lines. And they didn't matter and they didn't get a lot of attention. There was a sort of fan service for a certain constituency. It's still a performative bill that he's putting in or a symbolic bill that he's putting in now that has no chance of going anywhere. But the stakes of doing something symbolic now are just completely different because we're going into a midterms where Democrats are desperate to make it, say, the right

to abortion is on the ballot. And here's Lindsey Graham writing in saying, you're right, Democrats. And I think that's just a huge problem for them. But couldn't you also make the argument? And presumably this is some of Graham's thinking. people are going to be talking about abortion anyway. Democrats are already talking about it. This is not like he's introducing a new topic that would otherwise not have been part of the debate. And by introducing it in this fashion, to go back to David's point, I mean, these kind of late-term abortion bans are reasonably popular. So it gives Republicans who would be talking about this anyway a position to say, no, we're against these extreme things that Democrats want.

setting aside the federalism issues and the inconsistencies there, he gives them something to say that makes a case that allows them to frame it against democratic extremism. Except don't you think if your goal were to force Democrats to actually take a position on abortion? Because I take your point, if Democrats are going to be talking about it anyway, make them take the unpopular position, then make it 24 weeks. They're going to be against whatever Lindsey Graham suggests on abortion, don't make it 15 weeks. Make it something far more indefensible that's not maybe a plurality position like David says or a majority position. I'm not sure I agree with you that it's a majority

position, but plurality maybe. Take one that's actually the firm majority, 24, 25, 26 weeks for elective abortions, with all the exceptions, Democrats will still have to be against it. Make them take that position. And then I still am not sure that Lindsay Graham would be politically correct because I still think Republicans should be talking about inflation and nothing else and make Democrats be the ones to try to talk about things other than the economy. But at least then you'd be forcing them to take the true minority position, which is not what this is. So I think a 15-week abortion ban is a majority position. And I like it because was it David Schor who coined the term popularism, which is distinct from populism. He at least made it popular.

He made popularism popular, which my definition of popularism is advocating for popular policies that are consistent with your principles, which is different from populism, which is sort of, where are their people going? I must follow them for I'm their leader. Whereas popularism is what are popular policies that are advanced and are advanced your principles and values. And to me, when you're talking about these late-term abortion bans, those are popular positions that in adventure positions and values. And really blunt the Well, at least can, not really blunt, but can, at least to some degree blunt, the democratic argument that everything that wrote what Republicans want to do is deeply unpopular to Americans, a majority of Americans reject, and make them defend why they want to circle the wagons around late-term abortions. I mean, the 15-week number is right consistent with the European, with, you know, France, Germany. I mean, this is right in that neighborhood. So for the Democrats to say it's in any way extremist, I think completely misses it.

So if you're going to have an argument over a specific policy, now the complicator is exactly what Jonah said, because there's a lot of people on the pro-life right who say, do not ever advocate, support anything that is incremental. Because incrementalism consents to abortion to some degree. And so you would actually have, if this was real, if this was more effective than me submitting it, for example, you would see that split. And you'd see it come, that split emerge and be pretty, and with a lot of vitriol. Sarah, can I ask a question? Don't notice that Steve keeps preempting me from asking Steve a question. Well, I need to probe on an assumption built into your question.

you said, Republicans don't want to be talking about abortion. Why would Republicans want to be talking about abortion? You argued persuasively in previous cycles that Republicans were the ones who really wanted to talk about abortion more because it was more motivating for Republicans. There were more pro-life single-issue voters. Is it just now established that that's flipped because we're in this post-Dob's world? So that actually was my question. So, I hate you a little, but I find it to be a really interesting question because you're not only right that I said that abortion was a bigger motivator on the right than the left heading into Dobbs, but that even after the draft leaked and in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs opinion being issued, that we just didn't have a lot of evidence that this was going to affect the election one way or the other, that it could balance it out, it could have effects, but that the effects would not. help or hurt one side. And, you know, in doing that, I was pointing to the Texas special election where in a Democratic primary there, the last pro-life Democrat, won his primary against a pro-choice

Democrat. Like, Democratic voters had a choice, and they were like, no, we like the pro-life guy just fine. It was the runoff, by the way, primary, not a special election. And then we had Kansas in that ballot referendum, which was weird in several respects. Kansas is a weird state. It has a Democratic governor, but it votes Republican in presidential elections. There's lots of states like that. New Hampshire has two Democratic senators, a Republican state legislature, a Republican governor, and votes Democratic in every presidential election since 2004. I mean, so there's weird flippy, floppy states that we might consider blue or red, that in fact are more complicated than that.

Ballot measures start out with status quo, probably having at least a five point, maybe 10 point head start. Yada, yada, yada. Even so, we can certainly see this big shift that happens in special elections where Democrats start winning after Dobbs or do they start winning after gas prices come down.

We see the voter registration for women tick up, which is interesting as a talking point, but won't actually really affect elections because the numbers are so actually small, like the number of humans that we're talking about when we're saying a number who are newly registering to vote and that shift to women while statistically significant is just not that many actual people. But interesting. And then we see Democrats answering pollsters about their most important issues and abortion skyrocketing up that list. here's why though I'm having a hard time balancing whether that's real the democratic enthusiasm is real the special election results are real the abortion answer for democrats though and maybe this doesn't matter I don't know that they're actually saying abortion itself is important or if it's the other way around that because enthusiasm is going up because they feel a momentum shift abortion is a stander for a bunch of other feels, if you will, the same way that Citizens United became a stand-in,

the same way that on the Republican side, abortion used to be a stand-in. I don't know how many of those people were genuinely pro-life warriors compared to, like, that was a quick thing you could say that signaled who you were in the electorate. And a little bit of the same thing feels like it's happening on the Democratic side. So, Sarah, can I ask you another question? Yeah. You don't hate him a little bit? No, it's weird. I think it's totally understanding. so here's my other question is abortion in this context a stand-in for drama in the sense that what we have was in 2020 in many ways an anti-drama vote a one of the things that shook Biden's support has been there's been a lot of drama since he was elected and one in

and one of the most dramatic things was this incredible this incredible self-inflicted wound of this catastrophic exit from Afghanistan, which personified drama, then you have the supply chains. And when things start to even out, and people are starting to feel like the pandemic is starting to get in the rearview mirror, here comes stops. And so is there sort of, is this a stand in for I don't want drama? I actually don't think so. I think it's a stand in for the actually pretty far left. And my evidence for that, is that the thing that was there before they were answering abortion was voting rights. And again, I don't think that was ever about voting rights.

I think that was about, for lack of a better phrase here, really, really disliking the right. What is the issue that makes them the baddies? Right. It's voting rights. Oh, what is the issue that makes them the baddies now? It's abortion. But it was never about voting rights because, again, I covered this at some length. those voter restrictions that were supposed to be Jim Crow 2.0, it just wasn't what they wanted

it to be. It wasn't what they were saying it was. And this idea that, you know, Republicans just wouldn't work with them. Democrats wouldn't work with them either. They never talked to Mitt Romney. So it was never about the thing they said it was about. It was a rallying cry. I think that's a little bit of what abortion is now. Steve, you're not out of your question. Nice try. I've got another question for you, Sue. Oh, my God. No, he doesn't. Steve, if this election is about what it looked like it was going to be in the spring, the economy, the Biden administration, versus it's about these other issues that people have a lot of feelings on. More emotional issues, I guess, is a better way to say it, like economic issues versus emotion issues. How does that play out?

if it's more about the economic issues. I mean, I think, look, the economy's better for Joe Biden than it was in the beginning of the summer. But it's not great, right? I mean, there have been a spate of economists in the last four or five days saying that we're looking at, certainly looking at a recession or likely looking at a recession, maybe a long-term recession. You've heard notable investors saying that we could be looking at sort of a decade of stock. market stagnancy, things are not great right now. Gas prices are down and remain down. That's, I think, what people use as sort of a proxy for inflation when they think about inflation,

when they talk about inflation. So in that sense, I think it's Joe Biden is fighting on better turf today than he was in June. But I don't think those are great. So I understand the arguments from people who say, from Republicans who say, don't complicate this, make it simple. make this a referendum on Joe Biden. There is another big factor complicating this whole debate, and that's Donald Trump, who is much more in the news today than he was earlier in the spring, and gives, I think, Democrats, if you're a Democrat and you're making a case that Democratic activists should be sure to go out and vote, and that independence or independent leaning Democrats should participate, should show up.

Abortion is a pretty good argument, I think, for the reasons that you laid out. But so is Donald Trump. This is the Donald Trump Party. He's back. Look at what he's doing. He's defying the Justice Department on these documents. He's making outrageous statements. He's saying the 2020 election should be rerun or he should be reinstated.

This is who you have to vote against. And this party in the Republicans, they will. want to bring him back. That's pretty good argument, I think, for Democrats to make. I just, I mean, two quick comments. One of the point I made it, I think, last week, but I think it fits into all this, is that midterms are supposed to be, I mean, there are very few trends left in an American politics that hold pretty constant. And since the Civil War, that midterms are bad for the party in power is one of them. And it's only been violated three times for specific reasons. And part of that is it's it lets the Republican Party, it lets the party out of power

be all things to all people, just backseat drivers. You're going the wrong way. If I were driving, we'd be going the right way. And you don't actually have to have concrete plans. You just get to nitpick and throw brickbacks and all that kind of stuff. Lindsay Graham introducing, I think he's right that the Republicans really, really need something to fill up the space being filled by the most extreme people who are saying, well, of course, you have to force the 10-year-old girl who's raped by her uncle to bring the child to, you know, to term or whatever, like they can't, because they're the ones the Democrats want to have to be defining the Democratic Party. So I think he's right as a general proposition, Republican, the saner, more

moderate, more popularist Republicans need to start saying something about abortion that helps. The problem is, is that one of the reasons why I'm convinced the Republicans, the Democrats are doing better and better, and I think was it Wasserman? Someone now says that they have a one and four chance of holding on to the house. And part of that is that because of the Trump stuff, Dobbs, the state legislature is doing all of this stuff. It just doesn't feel like Republicans are all that out of power and and it feels like it's a legitimate argument for Biden to say this is a choice between voting for the party of Trump and the election deniers and the abortion extremists and all that kind of stuff or us and that's just a crappy place for the Republicans to

be in particularly compared to where they were in June um where all the winds were blowing their from their way. It was all Biden. Biden was the issue. Inflation was the issue. The economy was the issue. And through a combination of Trump, some successes from Biden and some post-Dob's stuff, it just now feels like we're in a parliamentary system where you're voting for one party or the other party to be in power. And that's just a bad place to be. And there's another argument I would say that Republicans can't make, and it's a limited government, size and scope of government argument. They can't point to Joe Biden and say, look at all this spending. I mean, they just went along with four years of profligate spending. You don't hear Republicans generally making

size and scope of government arguments anymore. And absent that, it's hard for them. I mean, it's interesting to me when you look at what we've seen from Joe Biden and spending, if you total this up, it's extraordinary that Republicans aren't. making an argument. Like, this is sort of big government liberalism on crack. Oh, my gosh, FDR redux. There's just silence on that. Well, I mean, Trump's closing argument in the Georgia Senate election was Mitch McConnell screwed it up by not voting for the $1,400 additional dollars per person in the U.S. I mean, you know, that's absolutely true. And I think Jonah raises a good point about when you, anytime you are placed in a situation where voters are reminding,

that there are times in places where the Supreme Court is the actual sort of apex predator in American politics, it really doesn't feel like Republicans are out of power. And maybe, you know, that's part of the Dobbs stand in is who really is out of power right now, who really is in power? It does, let's just put it this way. the Republican sort of grievance victim narrative doesn't hold a lot of water when you've got six justices on the Supreme Court. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly

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Totally fair. It's an atrocity. Yeah, it's... I'm not going to defend it. It's totally fair to hit me on it. I was exhausted. I tried to take a nap before this. And I'm so off my game, I failed at taking a nap.

So I had really warm socks on and threw on flip-flops. It looks really uncomfortable. But you know what? At least they're matching. Not to brag, Sarah, but I'm more than compensating for Steve's problematic footwear with my how stark Adidas shoes that have winter is coming on the tag and the stark sigil on the tongue of the shoe. Why does that exist? He's not lying.

No, I thought he. I'm not lying. Wow. No, I remember when he got him and how excited he was that he got them. I want to know the premium, like, how much extra one pays. Like, what is the, yeah. But David, like, it's also important to note is covered head to toe in stuff that he got for free from places he's spoken. Yes.

I'm aiming towards the all-swag wardrobe. Yeah. Hey, I won't defend my, I won't defend my flip-flops and socks in a general sense, like in a vacuum. I'll defend it against those. Those are hideous. Okay, Jonah. Just for the record, I am wearing my t-shirt that I earn from completing a 10-K in Fairbanks, Alaska. Is it a 10-K run?

I said I completed it a 10-K. I said nothing about running in a 10-K. I walked aggressively. The color combination is interesting. Oh, it's very like Austin, 1994. Sort of fluorescent yellow, fluorescent orange against the blue backdrop. and then underneath your flannel, which is sort of a ground and red. Yeah, all right.

People might have thought you were colorblind. That's totally fair, but like I was going for the look of waking up on somebody's couch that you don't know and don't know how you got there. And just grabbing clothes off the floor of some stoner's house. Jonah, all right, next topic. Speaking of who the baddies are, when it comes to the illegal immigration debate right now, I'm having a hard time recognizing the baddies. As in... I will flip that around.

I'm having a hard time recognizing the goodies. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Baddies implies, I mean, who are the bad guys compared to who are the good guys? I don't know. Everyone looks like a bad guy right now. Right. Yeah, no, I agree.

I struggle with this because on the one hand, I hate trollish stunts, right, in politics. On the other hand, it is just simply, and let's put it this way. I also think it is just a general proposition using poor, desperate people as props in a political stunt is immoral on some level. Okay, I mean, at the same time, I totally get where the,

where the supporters of Greg Abbott or of Ron DeSantis say, well, wait a second, Democrats have been using waves and waves of illegal immigrants or refugees, whatever term we're supposed to be using as props for their politics for years.

and now we're just playing the same game and they're right on the substance i got to say i don't like it but intellectual honesty compels me to just say that like if you've been running a sanctuary if you've been virtue signaling that you that your city of chicago which was mayor lightfoot or new york city under under adams that you've been preening about unlike those retrograde troglodytes down in texas we're a sanctuary city everyone's welcome them. We won't work with ice. We won't check people's papers. And then because a Republican sends a bunch of refugees who volunteered, these weren't compelled, right, to your city. And you were saying that, I think, was it Hillary Clinton? Someone said that this is literally human

trafficking. And this idea that like these, these cities or Martha's Vineyard, which is the latest thing, which is like up to the stunt trollishness to 11, um, to say, that this is outrageous, this is a humanitarian crisis, the mayor of D.C. called, begged for the National Guard to be sent in. And imagine living in a border town in Texas, listening to these people bleat about the inhumanity of sending literally handfuls, statistically speaking, compared to what is going on in Texas and Arizona, handfuls of people to these cities that have been proclaiming for years that the people in Texas, Texas are monsters for complaining about tens of thousands of people coming in, that they're monsters

for sending dozens of people to places that have been saying for years that they're welcome. So it's like a pox on all their houses as far as I'm concerned. It's just a mess. I think, David, the part that bothers me the most as a Texan is, I would say insinuation, but it's not an insinuation. It's explicitly stated that the people. in Texas who are not welcoming tens of thousands

of people into their towns and feel overwhelmed that they're racist in towns that are 80 plus percent Hispanic. This isn't about race in Texas. Texas has welcomed hundreds of thousands, millions of immigrants,

maybe more than any other state in the history of the country. They're like ninth generation Mexican American families in Texas, right? Well, and in fairness, like some of them were there first. First, fair, fair, true. Some Texians might have some thoughts on all of this.

Texians, by the way, different than Texans worth a little historical note there. But that part, I think, is also, to Jonah's point, incredibly frustrating when you're listening to Eric Adams, realize that these, quote, unquote, waves of people being sent. And again, we're talking dozens, are going to, quote, affect. health care in the city, education in the city. Oh, really? You think it might? Huh. I wonder what's been happening in again, these border towns that you hear from these folks. And it's so frustrating because they are the first line. They recognize the humanitarian crisis that it is. And also because it's been going on so long, they're exhausted and there's no help coming and they don't know what to do. and they're saying there are there are dead bodies people are killing their dogs to eat potentially

and and there's no help and then and then both sides using this as a political narrative with no actual intention of doing anything to help either the people coming across the border who again i think you can make an argument they're not the good guys either today homeland security announced that they apprehended a convicted murderer he was convicted in Florida in 1996 has been caught illegally entering the country twice before. These aren't all good guys coming across the border. They're not all just looking for economic help here. Some absolutely are.

They're still violating our laws when they do it. They're not all refugees. That has an actual definition under the law seeking asylum. And at the same time, David, it feels like, To Jonah's point, who are the good guys? Yeah, I mean, look, here's where I am. Number one, I'm against trolling with human beings. Full stop, period, end of discussion.

And the Martha's Vineyard thing, I think what bothers me about this is that unlike New York, Chicago, San Francisco, the only reason you choose Martha's Vineyard is the trolley aspect of it. Yeah, there's a bunch of progressives there. We're going to send the, yeah. Which isn't even necessarily correct. it during the summer. People have summer homes there. It's September now. There's people who actually live on Martha's Vineyard, who, by the way, I will say they acquitted themselves quite well in all of this. They sound very nice. Yeah. They were fantastic and responded fabulously. But I'm against trolling with human beings, period, full stop. I'm a huge fan of immigration, legal immigration. I feel like

this is one of the ways we are going to continue to grow the economy, to grow the American nation. By the way, as a Christian conservative, guess who is immigrating to the United States? A lot of people who are people of deep and profound faith. Okay, so I am very much for legal immigration and also at the same time, my goodness, you cannot have waves of people crossing into a country illegally and being hyper-concentrated, especially in border communities that simply cannot handle it. And to not respond to this because we cannot seem to pull enough political will together when the broad outlines of an immigration compromise have been known for a pretty long time in this country, but to not adequately respond to what isn't a real humanitarian crisis. And then for some people on

sort of on the far left as you're saying, saying, well, your objection to waves of people that are straining resources, people who are in desperate straits when they arrive, that your objection to this state of affairs is got to be rooted in racism is deeply offensive. I mean, you could have any way, you could have a million Swedes descend upon Maine. And it would be an absolute ever-loving nightmare. Okay. And so you just, it's not a fundamental, it's not fundamentally rooted in race to say that waves of desperate people arriving in hyper-concentrated specific geographic areas, that is a real problem and a competent government that's seeking the public good and critically the good of the migrants themselves is going to do something about

that. Instead, it's all props, it's all trolling, and it's all hurled Twitter accusations. And I'm with you, Sarah. It's not the, it's not that I can't find the baddies. I can find baddies. I can find baddies. It's harder to find the goodies, but I will say the people of Martha's Vineyard who were surprised to find 50 people there that they didn't expect, they were some goodies. They did some really good things and responded with open minds, I mean, open hearts and generously to those folks, and good for them. So can I just have one point on this, because in part, because we know Steve is trying to avoid talking. Let's just say in a hypothetical scenario, you're reading about a different era in American life back when both Democrats and Republicans thought it was part of their job to actually have policies to do something about an immigration problem, right?

Which wasn't actually that long ago. And let's say you had a massive refugee crisis at the border. It would be entirely reasonable for the presidents of the United States, Democrat or a Republican? Republican to do what some of these governors are doing, which is to say, we can't have all of these refugees just in Texas. It's overwhelming the system. So let's send buses and bring them to other parts of the country where social services can handle the load. I mean, that's what, that would be a policy thing. But to be clear, so when it's not like all the migrants are are kept in that location. There has been transportation of migrants across state lines. And

you know who really freaks out about that? A lot of the red state governors. Right. Don't you dare do that. Right. Don't you dare do that. And so it gets, again, you crack this open and you're like, we're the good guys. Steve, some of this debate has turned into an argument over whether we have open borders or not, in part based on an interview translated, of course, by, um, one of the men who ended up in Martha's Vineyard, and he basically gave an interview saying, of course, the United States has open borders. That's what we were told, and that's what we've seen. And then that's what we've experienced. And now we're here. And everyone has been so nice to us. Thank you. And the folks on the left arguing that, no, open borders has a legal definition,

and our borders are closed legally? And folks on the right saying, are you kidding? Since when is this about legal definitions, the reality is that the border is very much open. And having Vice President Harris say, you know, we don't have open borders, again, based on the legal definition, it's two sides, having a totally different conversation at the top of their lungs toward each other. And it totally misses the point, which is, I haven't heard anyone propose what can actually be done at this point, probably since we've talked gang of 12 back now 10 years ago. So when you think about the Hill or either party and some of these conversations that I think just stopped in 2014, really, sorry, gang of 14. Did I say gang of 12?

Gang of 14. Yeah, sorry, the gang of 14 that was working on immigration. There's been a lot of gangs. There have been some gangs. I'm sorry. But I'm thinking of these sort of Marco Rubio-led immigration talks in 14. Is there anything that could possibly, is anyone interested? in being a goody.

No, I mean, I think we've talked about this before on this podcast. I think for people in both political parties, particularly people, on the extremes in both political parties, this is a much more useful issue than it is a path to solve the problem. So depressing. It's very depressing. I mean, I think on the question of open borders as a practical reality, we don't have open borders. You can read stories on the daily about how many apprehensions there have been at the borders. If we had open borders, we wouldn't have apprehensions.

But I take the point of people who make that case, and certainly it's fair. Overwhelmed borders. Yeah, unquestionably. And I think that the criticism of the Biden administration on this is entirely legitimate and probably should be coming from more than just Republicans. I mean, it's been almost two years. Remember, they came in and they were asked about this repeatedly throughout the closing months of the campaign.

the 2020 campaign. And then in particular, this was a big issue during the transition period. And Joe Biden and Jake Sullivan and others were asked questions, specific questions about what they were going to do. And they were going to, you know, the answer is varied, of course, but they were going to try to address the inflow, but also address the root causes. Where's the evidence they've been successful on any of it? The problem is every bit as bad today as it was two years ago. And if you judge them by their results, they have failed and failed miserably. Well, one interesting point on that is that if you just look at the border and the numbers, I think that case makes itself.

However, if you dig in a little further on who is coming to the border, it does change over time. And unless you have a super nuanced conversation about what's happening, you can miss that. So obviously, I think a lot of people still believe that we are dealing with Mexicans leaving their country to try to go over the border, largely all male, things like that. That has not been the case now for a decade plus. We then enter into the sort of Northern Triangle era where there's a lot of violence going on in those three countries. And we're seeing then a lot more families. Still, obviously, majority young men looking for work, but a lot more women and children all of a sudden, or women by themselves. The cartels doing that work for, you know, anywhere from $3,000 to $10,000 a person, making huge sums of money, undermining the governments in Mexico, causing enormous violence on both sides of the border, frankly, and fueling all new drug cartel wars as they turn more to humans than drugs, fun times. We are actually moving past that era now. It's not really the Northern Triangle countries predominating the way that it was even just four or five years ago. It's why we're seeing more Venezuelan, just more diversity as a whole. And so when we think about the root cause issue, which the administration has tried to emphasize several times, that they're looking at fixing those root causes. This is what Vice President Harris is supposed to be doing. It's a little bit of whackamol, right? Unless you're going to say

that the whole world's economy has been fixed. But they haven't solved the Northern Triangle problem. I mean, that is still a huge part of this entire problem. And while it's true that we've added more, I mean, Venezuelans are the things that we hear about most. That's what they said they were going to address and they haven't done it. Or they haven't solved the problem anyway. With the diversification of who's coming to the border,

which I think is driven by this incentive problem that if your friends got through, if the cartels are telling you people are getting through, and if it's a three-for-one deal, you pay $10,000 and you get three tries that they'll help you to enter the country, yeah, there's going to be a lot more people taking you up on that deal. And then to David's point about legal immigration, I mean, my God, this just, even if you wanted to increase the number of legal immigrants to the current number of illegal, entrance. This isn't the way that you would do it. It's incredibly dangerous. It's incredibly unfair. And it's not for the people here looking for a better economic life, that's not the way

they should be coming either. We should already have, you know, where they're going to be, who their family is going to be, or sponsoring them, or that we know we need plumbers in Dubuque. So all, everyone with plumbing skills, go to Dubuque. We're doing none of that. Instead, it's an over. border and a legal immigration system that now nobody seems to be in favor of Democrats or Republicans. I mean, think of the contrast with the wave of Afghan refugees. So with the wave of Afghan refugees, you immediately had Airbnb saying all Airbnb families, if you want to open up your home, just fill in here. And so many people did it that, you know, we offered up our place and nobody contacted this. And they didn't need us. And it turns out there's not a whole lot of Afghan families in

Franklin, Tennessee. So they didn't want to like have the first Afghan family, you know, in Franklin, Tennessee. And so, you know, when you have a wave of refugees, we know how to handle that. We do know how to handle that. And you use the national resources. And that goes to Jonah's point, a national response, national resources. What we have right now is a overwhelmed to border where the cost of that is incredibly localized, just incredibly localized. And that is deeply unfair to those local communities and requires a national response. And that's why, you know, I totally understand the frustration. But as with so many things, frustration does not justify immorality. You do not troll with people. I agree you don't troll with people. But I mean, I heard some remarks from

Governor DeSantis, sort of making the point that Jonah was making, you know, the Biden administration, this has been, I think you could describe this accurately as a crisis from the day that he was inaugurated. They even treated it like a crisis. You know, the reports that the president is scrambling the cabinet to address this issue of 50 immigrants going to Martha's Vineyard. And DeSantis asked, I thought actually very effectively, why didn't he scramble the cabinet on this? Why didn't he scramble the cabinet on this? Why didn't he scramble the cabinet on this? They're now treating it as a crisis because he doesn't like being trolled. And I think unfortunately because I think this can now be a political issue, once again, serving both sides.

With Amex Platinum, access to exclusive Amex pre-sale tickets can score you a spot trackside. So being a fan for life turns into the trip of a lifetime. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Pre-sale tickets for future events subject to availability and vary by race. Addition supply. Learn more at mx.ca slash yMex. Uh, lightning round. What has been the best part of having the dispatch staff together for this retreat? Steve, as our fearless leader, we've been a COVID startup in so many ways. We did start a little before COVID, but this is like,

the first time that we're even meeting some of each other face-to-face. A lot of people, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I won't go on and on. I'm pretty fired up about what we've done here. I think it's been a pretty good few days. We tried to limit the time in actual meetings pretty severely.

So I think it's a total of four and a half hours or something spread over four days. We did it on a purpose because we wanted everybody to be able to spend time and talk to one another and have the kinds of conversations that we would have in formal structured meetings, in informal, less structured meetings. And with more alcohol. And with more alcohol, probably more productively. Consumed completely in moderation at all times. That's right.

That would be my choice. I mean, it's a fine answer. But the correct answer is all of the babies. Oh, yeah. We got so many dispatch babies here. and you didn't even bring the brisket who could have kind of like dominated like the prison yard of babies

in a way and but like Steve and I from the beginning of the dispatch when we were asked by Valerie and you know we were trying to figure out what our like parental leave kind of policy was was like we were trying to hire people we just say look our basic position is were pro-baby.

And it's just been a lot of fun to have all the babies all over the place. This weekend really needed the flagship toddlers from the flagship podcast. And neither are here. Neither are here. I know.

Lila and Brisket both missing. Fun fact, Steve, I don't know if you remember this, but before you hired me, I told you that I was pregnant. I was still very morning sick, and I actually put off my start date until my morning sickness passed.

I was like, don't know that it's my best foot forward to be nauseous every day for this podcast. And that was sort of the leading edge of the babies. And then the baby wave. The baby wave came. It has been really fun to meet all the babies. So I have an answer. Yeah.

So I will never forget walking into a borrowed conference room in AEI to meet the initial dispatch staff. And I think there was maybe five of us or six of us in that room. And then walking into this. conference room with almost everyone, not everyone, and it was 30-ish people. I mean, that's a very quantifiable measure of our growth. And then also running into a friend who y'all will get to know quickly. That's true. We were maybe you can't even have him join this podcast. I know. We can't, we can't go too far because then this would become an announcement. We're not going to do it. We're not going

do an announcement. But I will say, I will say, one of the best things when David French joined us was that we didn't do any internal staff announcement. He just popped up in Slack one day and Andrew Eggers saw, you know, it's like, David French has joined the conversation. And Andrew Eggers said, wait, David French is here? And I, without giving too much away, I will just say something very similar happened this weekend, except the person was actually in person in the flesh yeah uh well this has been really fun anything we're missing me we're sitting here together we can talk about anything we want David wanted to talk about Ukraine but we're not we're not throwing the car in reverse now I know him every time I know it was it was really

shocking it was like he wasn't fair yeah I wasn't it was like nothing's no sound was coming out of my mouth yeah um no I mean I think I mean this was fun um it's not helpful that we're also friggin tired but uh like i like normally i would say i i would say figuratively that i almost nodded off during one of steve's answers but like but only figuratively like today i like i caught myself actually my head bobbing from just exhaustion oh well tonight or tomorrow night is the talent show and um i do think that we should each say what we're doing for the talent show because Steve's daughter, his five-year-old daughter, has went around and demanded that each of us participate in the talent show,

although I have to say I watched and each of you just got to say what you were doing for the talent show. Not me. But I had to audition. Like when I told her what I was going to do, she was like, let me hear it. Well, I gave her like three different answers and she said, no, you're going to be doing a cartwheel. So apparently I'm going to be. Steve offered to do a roundoff and she said no. I was like, wait, wait, let's put that to a vote.

I feel like I'd like to see that roundup. I'll be attempting a cartwheel, no video, please. We'll see about that. Yeah, I want to know what happens to your equity in the company after you try to do a cartwheel, because I'm putting money down now that it will not remotely look like a cartwheel. I don't know what you're planning on doing. What Houdini, like, clever thing, but like. I'll move it

this way. The only person less capable of doing a cartwheel at this entire thing is me. And like I am so incapable

like so even if you're half as incapable of doing a cartwheel as I am, you're still completely incapable. You might as well levitate.

Jonah, what are you doing? I've made no claims about being able to do it. I mean, I was there. He was just assigned cartwheel. I offered to do several

other things and she just said cartwheel. But you said, you said, You told me that you were going to do a cartwheel. And I just was like, I'm waiting to see how you, it depends on the meaning of cartwheel. Do you know what's your performance going to be? I have no idea.

Like, I kept telling Nora, I have to think about it. Because I really don't have a lot of like performance related skills that work on a, a lot of little kids and grown up. I mean, like, I don't. It's kidding. The caveats are making it too. Yeah. So, like, I don't know. I have no freaking clue what I'm going to do.

I mean, um. David? what's the classic operatic vocal performance from Luciana Poverati Nesson Dorma I'm going to sing that

a cappella Okay That sounds great Okay So I'll tell you what I told Nora Which is then why I had to audition I told her that I was going to do a screech owl impression

Really And I think that the word screech She was Very hesitant to let me do it Yeah Did you audition? I did audition I auditioned with both my screech owl and my bard owl.

And I think she was favorably... Can we get it for you? No, I don't have to wait for the talent show. This is all about the sizzle, not the steak. The best is, I think we, can we cut Jonah's answer and just keep that so that we can just drop it in every once in all? I have no performance-based skills. Just like drop that in. We're reaching the banter phase of a podcast where people are wanting to throw their iPhones.

Yeah, no, pretty much. And with that, nobody's, nobody's listening here anymore, right? Thank you for joining this special episode of the Dispeth podcast where we're together and asleep at the same time. And we will talk to you next week. I can type double spaced in front of everybody. Is there a nap? This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online.

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