The Dispatch Podcast - The Iowa Chill | Roundtable

Episode Date: January 12, 2024

A bundled-up and quivering Andrew joins Sarah, Steve, and Jonah from freezing Iowa. The Agenda: —It’s really friggin’ cold in Iowa —Trumpworld turning its attention to Haley —Does the U.S. have a strategy for Yemen? —Trump’s political yays and legal woes —We almost made it to 250 years of self government... —Can the president give an illegal order? —Sarah’s trap Show Notes: –Jonah's G-File –Join The Dispatch to catch up on Sarah and Steve's high steaks bet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. You've got Sarah Isger, Steve Hayes, Jonah Goldberg, and straight from Iowa, Andrew Egger, on the ground. Did you have to drag a sexual orientation into this? I want to get to what's going on in Yemen and the Houthis, but first, Andrew, Can you just tell us a little about the weather in Iowa right now? So it's nuts. We got about four inches of snow overnight in Des Moines with a lot more to come.

It's extremely cold in the teens. It's going to be colder by the night. So it's all extremely powdery. And we're supposed to have gusts of wind up to about 45 miles an hour in Des Moines and east of here this afternoon. So, I mean, they usually do a really good job, you know, even with a lot of snow in the winter in Iowa keeping roads clear, but I mean, the Department of Transportation has said they may not even be trying for a lot of roads, you know, this afternoon until the, until the wind dies down, because what's the point? You've got interstate closures already

with some jackknifed semis east of Des Moines. So all the presidential campaigns, you know, they're all out here. We're only three days from the caucuses. But they are, they're all, you know, dealing with it best they can. DeSantis had one event this morning. before the wind really picked up in Ankeny, which is about half an hour north of Des Moines. Nikki Haley's already taken all her stuff online, or online, rather, today. No in-person events for Haley.

Vivek Ramoswamy, he's made bad driving decisions part of his campaign brand this week. Like, it's like none of the other guys have, you know, they don't have what it takes. They don't have the stones to go fish-tailing around on the interstate like my staff and I do. So he says they are doing four events today, which would include a drive, like a three and a half hour drive from Fort Dodge in northwest Iowa, back to Des Moines. It's not quite as bad out west, but it's, I mean, it's bad everywhere.

So I doubt that will actually take place. They're going to at least get to their first event. Trump was back in New York yesterday for the end of his civil fraud trial. So he's not in the state right now. He's expected to fly in tomorrow. And we'll see. I mean, the winter storm warning, the blizzard warning that we have here is supposed to go into. early tomorrow morning, so you could see a lot of trouble with flights, but he doesn't fly

commercial. So, Andrew, is there any buzz or speculation or armchair generally about how this kind of weather could affect the turnout from different parts of the coalitions, right? Like, I'm just spitballing here. It could be the complete opposite, but like harder to get to caucus sites in rural areas because less snow clearance or easier to get to in suburban areas. which are better for Nikki Haley because there's more population density and there's better snow removal. I mean, is there any of that kind of stuff about how the differentials across the state can be affected in terms of turnout? Yeah, so there's been a lot of talk about that. What's crazy is that, I mean, this is not even the main winter event that we were all originally planning for.

I mean, this has turned into what people are calling like a once-in-a-decade storm around here. But it's actually a separate thing from the incredible cold snap that we're going to get later in the weekend. it's uh you know all this snow was really only uh kind of figured out that it was going to be on its way a couple days ago but it should be the snow itself should should be less of a problem by Monday I mean once the winds die down like I said they're they're very good at getting the roads clear around here they do it all the time um so the the bigger problem at least right now what what we expect a bigger problem to become Monday night is just just really really insane cold um with you know temperatures is under zero, wind chill, as low as negative 20, negative 30.

So it's less about people being, you know, unable to get to their cars and more, like, I mean, some cars won't start when the weather is that cold. Some people won't want to venture out. Older people are the group that seems likeliest to be affected because, I mean, I heard somebody say yesterday, you know, it's going to be a question whether people are like, is this going to be my last caucus if I go out and try to caucus in weather like this? And, you know, it varies a lot. There's thousands of caucus locations around the state.

Some are easier to get to than others. A lot of them, you just, you know, you park and you walk 10 feet and you're in the building. Others, you know, it's a little trickier and it kind of pulls in in a lot of the kind of caucus organization that these campaigns have been doing for weeks and weeks and months. Some places have infrastructure set up to drive people to the sites if they might not be able to have their own transportation, things like that. But it's a totally open question, and it adds a lot of variance into the expectations. I don't know if anybody has strong theories on who it's likeliest to hurt or help. I've got a theory. It will make no difference because Iowa caucus goers, this is their identity, and they will be at the caucus.

And you will not see any real drop off from any coalition. I got a question for you about that, Sarah. So I generally agree with you, which is why, like, you would think. really just stipulate really terrible weather, right? Yeah. That is going to deter low propensity Iowa caucus goers far more than high propensity, right? So like... Correct.

But there's no such thing, but okay. Well, my understanding is that like I keep hearing from both pro and consides how Trump has brought all these new people into the Republican Party. And it's this, you know, and it's the, whether it's the Alex Jones types or the young college non-college-educated people, if they've never been to one before, it doesn't feel like a betrayal of their civic duty

to not go to one again, right? But I could be wrong. I mean, I'm just... He's just not relying. I just disagree that that's where his support is coming from or that he's relying on first-time caucus goers to pull this out. No, but not to win.

I just mean, like, the scope... The only thing we're talking about here for Trump is this margin of victory, right? a narrow one is bad for his narrative, over 50% will knock out to Santas, you know, that kind of stuff. But let me throw this out to you, which is that, sure, the most marginal caucus goers, maybe Trump people, but so are the most rabid caucus goers. Sure. So I just, I mean, yeah, I guess I could see that hurting on the margin. I could see it actually hurting Vivek more than anyone else because he's the most likely to have sort of younger caucus goers.

And to die on the road today. Yeah. Yeah. Think of how much practice all his fans will have, you know, getting out to the, in these horrible conditions by Monday night. You know, they'll be practicing all weekend. There was, you know, it's been eight years since I was out on the campaign trail. And there was a blizzard in Iowa.

I mean, this, right? It's unusual maybe to the extent it's happening three days before the caucus, but it's not unusual to have a blizzard hitting the campaign trail. in Iowa. So all the roads were shut down, but we still had one of those candidate forum events. And so we're crossing the road over to the candidate event. We'd gone across the street in Des Moines to get some sushi because Des Moines's known for its fresh fish. And I was in little ballet flats, which is super smart in blizzard conditions, as we all know. And I just went straight back, like straight back on the ground, hit my head square on the pavement, was

out. This explains a lot. Yeah, like full concussion right outside the event location. And, you know, the show just had to go on. Carly, we didn't tell Carly that I had a concussion until after the event because we were worried that she would insist on medical attention, which was simply not going to happen. And I was not interested in that. So we told her after the event, she then immediately in the car on the way back to the hotel,

got on my laptop, went to Nordstrom.com, and found me sort of weather-appropriate but still stylish black boots that had rubber soles and insisted that I purchased them right then and there. And I still have those shoes, and you know what? They are great in the snow. I highly recommend them. So, you know, Iowa is a rite of passage. Did you ever receive medical attention?

No, of course not. That's not how the caucus works. So this explains why ever since you've forgotten the letter L. You know, just a weird micro problem, you know. Steve, what's your take? Three days out from the Iowa caucus. Do you think the polling's right? Do you think the weather changes anything?

Do you think Chris Christie dropping out changes something in Iowa? Donald Trump showing up and speaking when he wasn't supposed to at his civil trial. the immunity D.C. Circuit argument. I mean, any of this change anything for you? No. Yeah, that's... I think the biggest change, I mean, it's interesting. If you go back to what we all thought of as sort of the beginning of the race,

when it was sort of clear that Ronda Santos was likely to get in, the basic contours of the race started to take shape. We had several discussions here internally about how Iowa was likely to be, you know, everything, Make a break, all or nothing. He had all these candidates who were likely to focus on Northwest Iowa as a place where there's a heavy concentration of evangelical voters. It's a sort of dense voting base for the Iowa Republican caucus every four years, and that was a place that Ron DeSantis was likely to try to peel away some voters because of some things that Donald Trump had said about abortion. Tim Scott was, you know, is an evangelical Christian himself, thought that he might be able to make inroads there. And we had several discussions.

I actually thought about getting on the road to go write a piece that was sort of like, is it all about Iowa? And what's interesting for all the reasons you laid out, Sarah, I was setting up to be a lot less interesting than New Hampshire. because Ron DeSantis' campaign has sort of collapsed. Doesn't mean that he couldn't put up a – he couldn't surprise on the upside if, you know, the ground game that we've heard about from DeSantis' world is as good as they claim it is. Maybe that helps get people to the polls, particularly when there might be diminished turnout because of the weather. but in all likelihood, I mean, it'd be hard, it's hard to see him surprising on the upside

in a way that matters. And with Chris Christie getting out, Nikki Haley continuing to pull well in New Hampshire, New Hampshire really looks like a place where if there's a surprise or if there's any change to the trajectory of the race, that's likely where it'll be. So I think it's worth expanding on that a little

because I've gotten questions about when DeSantis drops out of the race. You know, does he run out of money? Things like that. First of all, there's no more running out of money for major campaigns anymore. In 2008, right, Tim Pawlenty ran out of money and it was a big deal. Even in 2016, Scott Walker was running out of money when he dropped out. That's just not going to be an issue anymore in this era of very large super PACs, small dollar fundraising. You may drop out because the money has slowed or something, but you're not literally

out of money the way that you used to be. I mean, Tim Pawlenty was in debt by the time that he dropped out of that race in 2008. So, no, there's not going to be something driving him out of the race, but primaries are about expectations. And so DeSantis has to come in second in Iowa in order to meet expectations. So does Nikki Haley. And that's where the drama comes in, right? Like, the expectation is for both of them to come in second. Haley has to then win New Hampshire. The problem for DeSantis is, even if he comes in second in Iowa, there's no real expectation for him in New Hampshire.

There's no expectation coming after that. And so the question to when does DeSantis drop out is sort of like, well, I don't know why he's still in because I'm unclear of the path that they're arguing their expectations are. And then in terms of like, okay, well, let's see he comes in third in Iowa, does he drop out? Yeah, maybe, but again, why is he in today? Why, like, you know, not meeting the expectations heading into New Hampshire doesn't really matter in a sense for him. I think the more interesting question is for Haley, assume she comes in second in Iowa, then New Hampshire.

Like, what if New Hampshire's tight, but she doesn't come in first? so she doesn't quite meet the expectation. It comes in lower. That's where I could see this getting dragged out. But the problem for all these campaigns is there's not really what comes next after New Hampshire. The Haley team has talked about South Carolina, but the polling in South Carolina isn't good. The other thing I thought would be fun to talk about is what does a ground game look like for an Iowa caucus? And it is crazy.

I mean, it's quite literal that they will drive people to the caucus. they'll be calling individual people showing up at their homes. I mean, this is a true get-out-the-vote operation that's not just phone banks. It's it is a ground-ground game. So expect all of these campaigns to just flood the zone with volunteers and people moving humans into caucus sites. And so in that sense, again, when you talk about expectations, the expectation is that every campaign will do that and that all of their people are going to show up because they're going to drag them out of bed and get them there. there. And that's where I do think that, you know, the polling, particularly the, you know,

sort of good Iowa pollsters polling, regardless of whether it's probably likely to be right, in which case you've got Trump finishing number one easily, Haley finishing number two, tightly followed by DeSantis. That, that, I think, is the best expectation going into Monday. Does anyone disagree with that? One thing that I have heard a couple times while I've been out here is that that, because the get-out-the-vote is going to be so important, especially in these conditions, that might be the one area where DeSantis does still have a pretty significant leg up over Haley,

just because he's gone crazy in organizationally in the state. Whereas Haley, I mean, she came into Iowa a lot later. I think it was kind of a strategic change for her once DeSantis kind of collapsed, and it kind of became clear that she might actually be able to get that knockout punch here rather than just waiting to New Hampshire to pass him. But a lot of her get out the vote, rather a lot of the pre-get-out-the-vote stuff has been done, you know, by the Coke network that endorsed her a few months back and kind of put that operation into place. I've never worked on a campaign. I can't say, you know, like how difficult or easy that makes coordinating the day of stuff.

But, you know, DeSantis has a major, major operation here. And I think to your question about why hasn't he dropped out yet, I mean, I think a big part of it is just, just that they have this sort of doctrinaire thinking that, okay, who can really trust the polls? We don't really trust the polls. We know we have 100 million people on the ground ready to get any voter who's ever thought about Ronda Sannis to a caucus site. And we're just going to roll the dice on Monday and see what happens there. Steve, assume that Haley finishes a distant second in Iowa. Does it help her heading into New Hampshire?

Does that build momentum or the Trump people able to shut that down, with their own narrative slash Fox News slash the Trump industrial complex. They'll try. I mean, to a certain extent, it depends on how people like us and others talk about it. But I think because of what Andrew said,

because this wasn't really, and I was never considered to be sort of a strong place for her to play, and she didn't have much of an operation to speak of six, eight weeks ago. I think if she, vanquishes Ron DeSantis, who's lived in Iowa. I mean, talked about, you know, they've been very clear. They're basing their campaign on Iowa. He did the 99

county thing, the full, the full Chuck Grassley. They've been out seeking caucus commitments for literally months for a long, long time. And they've sort of put it, put it all on, on Iowa. So I think if she, I don't think she has to come in second. I think if she's close to a guy who comes in second because he's he's lived there forever. She's just going on to New Hampshire anyway. So I think there's not a lot of pressure on these results. I think they can be overinterpreted. I mean, if she got, if she lost to DeSantis 13 to 12,

people are really going to say, oh, that's a loss for Nikki Haley. Boy, she's out now. The momentum that she seems to have built in New Hampshire is sort of worthless because she lost by one point to Ronda Santis in Iowa, who's lived there forever.

And if she wins by one point, I think the same, they've got a better spin, I think, the Haley team. They could say, we beat somebody who's been here forever and who staked his campaign on Iowa. But I don't know.

don't think those are that significant differences. Yeah, going back to the premise of Sarah's question for a second, I kind of disagree with Steve. I mean, I think if Nikki outside the margin of error, right, like three points, four points, beats DeSantis by coming in second, the story isn't, Nikki came in second to Trump. The story is Nikki beat DeSantis, right? And the own, and it's, what do you guys call with your bookies when you bet like five different games?

The only way this is going to work is with a parlay, right? Yeah. What they've got to do is basically what Nikki Haley would have to do is if she beats DeSantis, Trump comes down on her like a ton of bricks. Nikki's then got to decide, am I running for vice president or president? Because that's going to influence how she fights back. If she can elicit, forget the parley, dynamic scoring, as we used to say when we were for pro-growth economic policies.

You have to hope that she elicits a response from Trump that benefits her. You know, Trump, as the former campaign manager for Carly Fiorina might be able to attest, Trump doesn't always deal with inconvenient women well. And he can... I love that band name, though, inconvenient women. And he can elicit sympathy for women because he's less than chivalrous. And so she could bait him into some sort of thing that actually made him. makes her even more of a hero.

She wins New Hampshire, which I think is very possible. And then she's got to make the Biden argument in South Carolina. So remember, Biden was looking like he was going to be out by South Carolina. And the Democrats said, slow your roll people. Any of these other people, they're going to lose against Donald Trump. So you got to, like, get serious about what voting is for here and vote for Joe Biden because he's the guy who can beat Trump. in South Carolina,

if Nikki can't make a similar argument that like in her home state, right, where she was two-term governor, if she can't make the case that you need to vote for me over Donald Trump because I can beat Biden, then Sarah's right. The second you get to Super Tuesday, it's all over.

So, I mean, South Carolina is her Fort Sumter, right? It's got to be the, or her Alamo or whatever. Fort Sumter? Fort Sumter is wrong, yeah. Was it over? the Germans bomb Pearl Harbor? But anyway, like, that's the parlay. The Alamo thing also is a bit of a mess because, like, everyone does die at the Alamo. You know that, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but remembered well. Like, if it's her Alamo, that doesn't turn out well. Fair enough. What's, uh, it's her

St. Crispin's Day. Um, uh, the battle of Agincourt. There you go. Um, but no, my point is, it's all there. If she doesn't, her Agincour is a real turn of phrase. Um, so anyway, you get the point. It's a lot of ifs there for anyone to pull this out because it does it look like Trump's going to take it all. Can I add one thing on, because you briefly mentioned that the Trump coming down on Haley like a sack of bricks. Like that is going to be really ugly. Like, I mean, it's the stuff with DeSantis has already been plenty ugly. And DeSantis is a guy who is liked by a huge portion of Trump's base, you know, and he still, you know, he hit him on everything. And they, I mean, Nikki Haley, they are gearing up to make her.

you know, so much more hated than Mitt Romney, so much more hated than Liz Cheney. I mean, like when I was at Turning Point USA conference a month or so ago in Arizona, it was already there. I mean, they were just, she was easily the most reviled rhino establishment cuck on stage for speaker after speaker after speaker, which is funny because, I mean, that's not really her history or her record, but that's the role that they have assigned to her. And if she becomes a real threat, I mean, it's going to be. it's going to be a brutal, a brutal thing.

I mean, they're already starting with the birther stuff with her. Oh, I know. But that's fringe compared to what I think we'll see after New Hampshire. If she were to win New Hampshire, it will be correctly because independence in the state decided to vote in the Republican primary because there isn't a Democratic primary. And they're less likely to support Trump, more likely to support Haley, I think. So if she wins, they'll say it's because Democrats supported her, not Republicans. Again, that's not totally true.

It'll be independents, not Democrats. But, you know, that should be a good thing because, you know, this is all to win a general election where the independents actually do get to vote. We don't, you know, put them away for the evening. And yet, it's very easy to see how that attack will really resonate with Republican primary voters in other states that she's trying to steal the Republican primary.

The Democrats are trying to have their candidate to choose from. So you'll have Joe Biden, and then Joe Biden light, Nikki Haley. Again, I want to be clear, I'm not, that's not my take. I'm saying that's what the message will be. And I think that'll be very hard coming out of New Hampshire. If, you know, as you say, Steve, for instance, Trump wins Iowa by a lot. Maybe she even comes in a competitive third in Iowa, then wins New Hampshire.

That's going to be hard. Yeah, I think it will be. You know, I think one of the other open questions is whether Trump claims that the New Hampshire primary was stolen. We've already seen in advance of the Iowa caucus. I mean, I don't think anybody alive thinks Trump is going to lose the Iowa caucuses. And yet his team is sending out mailers suggesting that Ron DeSantis has rigged the Iowa caucuses. In the old days, if we were using more traditional ways of political analysis, we would say, boy, Trump risks being the boy, who cried wolf here. If he's he's claiming that the Iowa caucuses are going to be rigged,

and then he wins him by a lot, will anybody believe him when he says New Hampshire was rigged if he loses? And I just don't think those rules really apply. And we can bet that if Trump loses New Hampshire, he will say that it was stolen. And he'll raise all sorts of questions, and that'll be part of the messaging. And, you know, I think they would, the Trump team would use that in South Carolina to say, look, it's really important that everybody go out and vote because, you know, we know that she's going to try to rig the election there. She's the former governor. She's the establishment.

They always cheat. So I think Trump will try to use that as motivation. I mean, the real question, take the long view here. I mean, Sarah, you've pointed out before. Following South Carolina, Nevada, you've got Super Tuesday states that are overwhelmingly red, which set up very well for Donald Trump, right? he's very popular in a lot of the states that we're going to see on Super Tuesday. So the real question is, and I'd be interested in how each of you see this, is, would a win, let's say she comes in a stronger second than people expect.

I mean, this is all an expectations game. So, you know, will she come out of, could she come out of Iowa saying with people saying she did better than anybody expected? And this is really a two-person race, whether DeSantis actually gets out. or not, I would think he probably would to save some future viability as damage as he would be. But she comes out of Iowa, people are saying this is effectively a two-person race. She wins New Hampshire. Is that enough? You know, let's say by five points, which I don't think is likely, but for the purposes of this discussion,

is the only thing that could change the long-term outcome of the race, I think, at this point, from potential legal issues, is does that change the dynamic? Do voters then think about this differently? Do the people, does the voters who have said for months that they're open to a Trump alternative, that they, you know, remember the Trump presidency and those times, well, aside from the tweets, do those people say, ah, actually, there's another person who could beat Joe Biden in the fall? and I'm tired of the chaos to use the Haley term. Can the dynamic change that way?

I think that's sort of the fundamental question of the Republican primary. Andrew, I've got a question for you. Chris Christie dropped out this week. His speech was carried live by most cable news, certainly talked about in our neck of the woods. Is anyone on the ground talking about Chris Christie, about what he said or about the effect he had on the race?

It's a little hard to know the effect he had just because in Iowa in particular, he was never a factor. He never came here. He never spent money here. So it's not like he was a big part of like the constellation in the minds of Iowa voters. I'll tell you at the Trump town hall on Tuesday or on Wednesday night, he was brought up a few times because Donald Trump, I mean, it was kind of an energizing moment for Trump backers. You know, another one bites the dust sort of situation. But as far as like, you know, the Nikki voter, the dissentist voter, the kind of stereotypical caucus goer who you were talking about before, who's the kind of person who sizes up every candidate and tries to hit every event.

I mean, Christy has not made a pitch for that voter at all in Iowa this cycle. So very little here, but I imagine as we turn the corner next week, I'll have Mike Warren reporting from New Hampshire. And I'm sure he'll have a lot to say to you on that. All right. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Where are you staying in Iowa? Oh, I'm just hanging out with my aunt and uncle in Urbondale. Oh, because we can see you here and it's like not a hotel room. There's cabinetry and things on the counter.

Right, right, right. A better place than a hotel room to get completely snowed in if, in fact, that is what ends up happening today. Also, a degree of frugality that management at the dispatch highly appreciate it. It's not the Urbandale rents. And I have met said aunt and uncle, and they're wonderful people. Do your aunt and uncle have a go-to casserole that's particularly delicious that you're getting while you're snowed in in Urbondale? That's a good question. They made chili the other night.

It was good. But I don't know about casserole. That's a little bit stereotypical. This is Des Moines, Sarah. It's not Fort Dodge. The best restaurant, I think, outside the coast of the country, is actually in Davin. Port Iowa. So, you know, suck it, Andrew. I feel very strongly about my Iowa restaurants. Maybe my favorite steakhouse in the country is in Montour, Iowa. Rube Steakhouse. There's one of the

best steakhouses in a town called Lamar's, that if I had made it to Iowa last weekend, as I had planned, I would have eaten at Archie's Wayside, which is spectacular. I don't know, I think you guys are underestimating the Pella Applebee's. You can't underestimate the Pella Applebee. Sorry, Pella Applebees. Wait, Andrew, very important, though. Did their chili have beans in it? Yes. It was definitely. It's good. Incorrect. Yeah, they weren't, they weren't trying to impress you. But they should be. Beans are good. They weren't, they weren't bending to need a Texan cultural hegemony.

Nah, beans are good. All right, Andrew. Stay safe, drive safe. Be warm, but also keep giving us lots of good information from the ground. And to the extent those contradict themselves, definitely get us the information. right we'll see how it shakes out thanks guys bye stay for uble oh and before we move on to the next topic if you want to hear more on this topic i gave steve a call yesterday and we recorded one of the most fun high stakes episodes we've done this is about our running bet over who the two nominees will be it's for members only but you can become a member of the dispatch for just ten dollars we talk about chris christie quite a bit and what his campaign will mean does mean

and a lot on no labels, that potential third-party bid, where Steve has a change of heart. Quite interesting. Anyway, on to the next. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is, the consequences of not having life insurance can be seen.

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That's ethos.com slash dispatch. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. All right, Steve. We launched a military action in Yemen this week. Can you explain why Yemen? Yemen is home to the Houthis, which is an Iran-backed splinter group in Yemen that's been part of the civil war, the ongoing fighting in Yemen for a long time. And the Houthis have been very active in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in Israel, stoking regional tensions, choking off commercial shipping lanes, committing attacks against American. Rayleigh and allied interests. And this series of strikes comes after a much longer series of warnings that seemed to have done virtually nothing. I think you talk to to most national security experts, certainly most center right national security experts, and they will say this took way, way, way too long. You know, we had a weak statement out.

last week from the Biden administration, coordinated with allies, in effect saying, hey, Houthis, you really need to let up on your attacks on commercial ships. And if you don't, there will be consequences without actually really spelling out what the consequences were. I think that warning, even as a warning was seen as very weak. And at the time, I think you had serious people, including some Democrats, saying, why are we giving this kind of a warning? Why are we not striking the Houthis now in response to their attacks on American interests? And it was pretty clear that it wasn't going to do anything.

I think it may have had the sort of paradoxical effect of pushing the Biden administration into actually having to do something. because the statement itself was so weak and seen as so inadequate that when more attacks came, despite them having put out a statement and despite these warnings, they really felt compelled to act. This is, you know, the Houthis and the attacks from them, the chaos that they are trying to create is just one piece of the broader set of provocations that we've seen from Iran. And we've seen, you know, Iran-backed groups attacking in the north.

We've seen Iran-backed groups attacking in the south. We've seen Iran-backed groups targeting U.S. bases and facilities in the region, including in Iraq and Syria. Iran has shown that it's not afraid of escalating. And everything that we've seen from the Biden administration has demonstrated that they're deathly afraid. of escalation. And I think the irony of what we've seen in the Biden administration reaction is that because they're so afraid of escalation and telling people that they're so afraid and showing people on the daily that they're so afraid of escalation, we've seen escalation because weakness invites further provocation from our enemies. What's the end game here,

though? As you say, the Houthis are funded in an arm of Iran, but we're not attacking Iran. I'm curious how you think we would even be able to take on Iran directly. But we're not going to also end the Houthis, I'd imagine, what we're just trying to scare them back into being small ball annoyances rather than slightly larger ball annoyances. To be quite honest, I don't know that there's a strategy. So I can't hazard a guess at what the strategy would be. I would love to think on the optimistic side that what we've seen overnight

is the beginning of a strategy that we're going to say to the Houthi's, You can't do this. And if you do this, you'll be severely punished. So stop. I think we can send the same message to Iran in a strategic way without, you know, having to resort to kind of over the top, heavy provocation, something that look like the United States is getting enmeshed in a deeper war in the region. But we can't be so afraid of that possibility that we just say, yeah, do whatever you want. had a really terrific piece from a Georgetown professor last week, Matthew Gronig, laying this out and saying, in effect, we have to show them that we're serious about this and that this

won't, we won't allow this kind of aggression to go unpunished. And I think it was a, look, I was in the same place before I read the piece, but it was a very persuasive piece, I think, to people who weren't. And we've seen, I think, the problems with this kind of wishy-washy non-leadership, you know, in the Obama administration, there was the phrase that became famous. It was, I think, used by a top Obama advisor on background to describe Obama's approach to second term diplomacy, and it was leading from behind. I'm not sure we're even doing that in this current situation, and I think it shows. I think we're seeing the challenges. Jonah, this feels like Iran whackamol to me. Iran funds.

all sorts of these types of groups. And so as these groups, again, like, annoy us and affect our shipping lanes, et cetera, then we whack that group. But we're not getting to the root here. So the groups are still going to keep popping up. They're still going to keep harassing Americans and American interests.

And is that it? We just, we whack the moles occasionally. Like, what would be a better system? Well, I agree. Well, like, I frankly think a better system would be attacking Iran and ignoring the Houthis. Because the Houthis, you know, there are a bunch of people who have been making this argument.

The Houthis benefit from this attack. They've kind of, you know, they, they've been screwing up domestically. This gives them more prestige in the region than they've ever had before. Like the Americans and the British are coming after us. That means we matter, right? And it's always worth printing out. It's not entirely germane to this, but it's worth point in other people that the Houthis, their slogan is death to America, death to Israel, and a curse upon the Jews. So, like, they've got, they've got an ideological thing going on that is bolstered where the world's biggest power is attacking them for attacking Israel.

I mean, it's like the line in Hamilton, Burr, you disgust me. Oh, so you've discussed me. right exactly yeah and and so if you're going to go all founding fathers on this it's also worth pointing out that we would not have a freaking constitution where it not for the need to open a can of whoop ass on the barbary pirates and this is so central to i mean forget being the world's policeman and world's superpower and all that stuff leader of the free world like this is so integral to the the understand the self-understanding of america from its founding and is a commercial republic that cares about the free movement of commerce around the world and open shipping lanes. We had to stop this, and we should have stopped it a lot earlier. Should we do letters of market and reprisal again? Because that could be pretty fun.

He loves his letters of market reprisal. But, look, at the end of the day, if the Houthis benefit from this, you got to go after the people who would not benefit from being attacked, and that's Iran. And I don't think the problem, I agree with Steve, entirely. I think Israel has, there's a point that a couple people we're making on the commentary podcast. Like, Biden has an okay and defensible strategy about Israel. And you can criticize it, but it's a real thing. He's letting Israel do what it needs to do, even if he makes noise that makes

it sound like he's madder than he really is and all that. They don't have a strategy about Iran. They just don't know what to do. And it's containment. I mean, there is a strategy. It's don't get into a war with Iran. Yeah, but the thing is, if you're the one with a lot of nuclear weapons and a giant-ass navy, and they should

be afraid of us escalating. We shouldn't be afraid of them escalating. Correct. And that's the mess that we're in, is that they've concluded... Wait, why should they be afraid of... Why should they be afraid?

Of us escalating? Yeah, what do they lose? This isn't a democratic society where they might not win the next election? I don't know. For the last 15 years, every few years, there are mass street protests that threaten the stability of the regime inviting a war with the United States that they would lose, right? I don't want to have a war with Iran, but they should be more afraid of a war with America than we should be afraid of a war with Iran. They would lose that war. That war would be conducted virtually entirely in their neighborhood, not necessarily all in their –

land but our soil because they would do things in Israel and whatnot. But the war would be over there. It wouldn't be over here. And if we were serious about it, it would end fairly quickly on our terms. And they should be more afraid of that. They knew Israel. Well, they don't have one yet. You know, give the Obama plan time and they'll get one.

Are you sure about that? Yeah. No. But, you know, look, do I think the Israeli, the Netanyahu government, would they be upset if we went to war with Iran? probably not but anyway my only point is I don't want to have a war with Iran my only point is that

we have more options to say don't pull on Superman's cape than we've remotely applied in all of this and that that vacuum of decisiveness is what is invited

these people to attack the shipping lanes you know the second most important waterway in the world I mean the Suez Canal matters it's like the Panama Canal and the Suez Canal

So that's like, I don't know, $20 trillion of trade is impinged one way or another through all that stuff. You also have to put this in the context of the broader Biden administration approach to Iran, which was a failure. I mean, it was foolish from the beginning. They sort of undid the Trump administration's maximum pressure efforts, pulled back sanctions all over the place, didn't and chose to not enforce other sanctions, gave Iran access to, billions and billions of dollars that Iran didn't have access to before that had been frozen. Every signal, including on the record statements from senior administration officials, was we are looking for this kind of rapprochement with Iran because we want to get back to an Iran deal, because we think that that's what will slow their nuclear progress.

That didn't work. I think we could pronounce that. We can announce that a failure at this point. The problem is the Iranians were paying careful attention throughout all of that and understand this is a Biden administration that wants that kind of outcome and has made very clear that it doesn't want any serious provocation or any deeper entanglement there. We can all understand why the United States might be reluctant to become further enmeshed in military conflict in the region. Totally get it. but you can't let that drive you into to making non-decisions or bad decisions. And I think for a long time, we made bad decisions.

The Biden administration made bad decisions for the better part of three years. And now it feels to me like they're choosing not to make decisions. And by choosing not to make decisions, that's a decision. And it's obvious to everybody what they're doing and why they're afraid. I would disagree with you in this respect. They weren't making bad decisions. they were making easy decisions because the easier thing to do

and the more politically expedient thing to do is to ignore the problem because you don't want to get into an aggression with another country like Iran, for instance. And so you ignore it and you ignore it because you can. And this is the problem

is that you end up in a far, far more dangerous position, a worse position. Because now what are your choices? To go to war with Iran? No, but you've still got to stop this versus if you went back in time, of course, there were much easier decisions, sorry, much better decisions, but not

easier ones to be made three years ago. But by bad decisions, I mean things like pulling back on sanctions enforcement. I mean, whatever you thought of the Trump administration. It's easier not to enforce stuff. It's easier not to have to do, right? This is like entropy. Yeah, to a certain extent. But then you pile on that, the bad decisions to take affirmative steps to free up Iranian frozen funds, six billion dollars. I mean, you know, everybody, we said every time we talked about it, we said money is fungible. That money can be used to cause trouble in the region. I mean, it's like all of these things that everybody understood. And the Biden administration very defiantly said, no, no, no, you don't, you're not sophisticated. You don't understand how this works.

And it turns out maybe the critics did understand how this works. And maybe the Biden administration didn't. Yeah, I will say that I think Sarah's point is right in the, this regard. It's like the smart decision is often the harder decision, right? And so like the analogy to me that comes into mind is with Trump. How many times did the GOP have the opportunity to say, let's just be done with this guy. Let's go along with the impeachment, right? That's whatever. And those exit ramps presented themselves and they had short-term immediate pain that they that they decided to avoid in favor of longer-term, more intense and horrific pain in the future. And that's where we are.

You know, it's the same thing with Iran. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, your writing, or a new project, Squarespace brings everything together in one. place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick intuitive and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and

email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Let's talk a little bit about Trump's legal. We've got to stop calling them woes. I'm so tired of seeing people say Trump's legal woes. He does not see them as woes.

They are yays. So let's talk about the weak in Trump's time in court. He was in two courtrooms. Can I ask you about your complaint there? Just real quickly, because I take your point about the politics entirely, right? Could you say that his legal challenges are political yays, but they may still get proved to be legal woes, no? How so? jail?

He could be found guilty of... Not anytime soon, right? That March trial date's been blown to hell. But my question was about the future, right? So, like, you think... Well, but there's so many things that can happen between now and the future. So all of his Republican rivals have said they would pardon him.

If he wins, obviously, he's in no legal jeopardy for the time that he's in office at minimum and probably thereafter. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying there's not some jeopardy in the future in different versions of it, but like, my year's a long way off. Okay, all right, right. I mean, we'll let the discussion flow and we will circle back to some of these points. Okay, so Donald Trump shows up in a D.C. courtroom where the D.C. circuits hearing his appeal about whether he has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution after leaving office. his lawyer in that case, and we talked about it extensively on a little podcast we like to call,

the flagship advisory opinions. His lawyer was forced to concede that under his theory of the Constitution, a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, but then left office before being convicted in a Senate impeachment trial, could never be charged with a crime thereafter. Donald Trump sitting in the audience for that. Again, he doesn't have to be there. In fact, most people don't go to their circuit appellate arguments.

So unusual for a client to be there in that case. Then in his civil fraud trial in New York, there had been rumors that somehow he was going to give the closing statement, which is insane. This isn't a criminal trial. You don't get to represent yourself. That's not how this works. The judge said no to that, but never to be deterred.

Donald Trump stood up anyway and started speaking the judge at one point saying, uh, counselor, control your client, which you really only hear on television legal drama. So congrats to everyone involved in that nonsense. I guess this almost falls as a not worth your time in the sense of, did we learn anything? Is anything new? Does anything matter? Steve? Um, I don't know. I don't think it does. I haven't followed this at all. so that actually tells us something right like that's relevant to me i mean i get i get all of my information on what's happening with trump's trials because it's so confusing and hard to keep track of um from the collision um so if things have been covered in the collision at some length

then i understand them and if things haven't then i basically don't that's that's where i am thanks for the plug steve it's good it's really good so thanks to Mike Warren. So this is less on the news kind of things that we learn thing and more about, but we did learn how sometimes the law can be an ass. It was a nice reminder. When you find the legal counsel for a past president of United States and someone who has at this stage something just around a 50%, maybe a 45% chance of being the

next president of the United States, when that person's lawyer is in court, sounding like Claudine gay saying it depends on the context, in effect, about whether or not the president can order the assassination of his political opponents, we are in some weird-ass territory, right? And like, the idea that everyone thinks this is just sort of this amusing thing, and I get it, appeals courts where hypotheticals, you know, that is there, the Elysium fields of hypotheticals are, Appeals court members, right? He walked in and said, let me tell you what presidents can do in my world. Right, right. But given the flow of the argument and the conversation in that room, it was not in and of itself an unreasonable question of the lawyer. And the lawyer didn't respond

by saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. Under no circumstances could the president order SEAL Team 6 to murder his opponent and get away with it. Instead, he was like, well, if he's only, if he's not, if he's not, if he's not, if he's not impeached and removed, then he cannot be prosecuted for the political assassination of his opponents. That's his position. That's crazy town. That's, that's bananas that this is considered a normal conversation to be had about the president of the United States. And I get it. Lawyers do this, but like, come on.

By the way, the fun result of that, Donald Trump is not. currently president. So if he ordered, you know, a hit on Joe Biden, he would be arrested in charge of the crime. But according to his own theory, Joe Biden can kill him with impunity. So I have a friend of mine who's a lawyer at my cigar shop and he said, okay, well, here you go. Biden should declare that contingent upon the ruling of the appeals court, there's a standing order that if the court approves this, seal team six will murder Donald Trump at Marilla. and just see what Trump says. Does Trump think that's okay?

Well, it's out of my hands. He's got every right to do it. He's the president. I'm laughing because otherwise I'd be crying. We almost made it to the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution. We really, sorry, of not the U.S. Constitution. We're actually still a little ways away from that of just declaring independence, which somehow is notable in this regard. Yeah, I mean, we get the, the, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we,

can laugh about this now because these are hypotheticals and it seems they're crazy like the way Jonah framed the argument I think is correct and it and it's insane. I think one of the reasons that we had this prolonged spasm of national discussion on Trump as a dictator is because of stuff like this, right? I mean, we all would love to believe that if he were in office, you know, his lawyers and people around him and others would say, oh, that's crazy, Mr. President. But you push his logic on some of these things to their, to the endpoints. And these are the arguments you're left with. And I think it's, you know, it's for me, it's one of the reasons that I don't think we're alarmed enough about the possibility of a, of another Trump term.

because these kind of crazy hypotheticals that we can all laugh about, you know, the president could be seriously wanting to make them policy. I think it would be great if he has people who tell him, Mr. President, you can't do that. I have a lot less confidence that we would have people around him saying that in a second Trump presidency than we did in the first one. Well, also, there's a broader thing, like the Biden campaign going quote unquote full Hitler, right? You have this, you're going to have this national conversation, as we're supposed to call these things, about whether or not the president can be a dictator, what it means to be a dictator, whether a president can murder people, whether he's above the law, all of these really high-minded civic Republican conversations, right? They're going to go on.

Biden is going to insist that Donald Trump would do all of these terrible things. If Trump then gets elected, Trump can plausibly say, hey, America, you were warned. And will. You know, we told you, like, I didn't tell you. Joe Biden told you I was going to do this stuff that I still got elected. So, like, you know, Joe Biden, please report to get mo by tomorrow morning or kind of come get you or whatever it is. You know, but like rhetoric matters and how we talk about things. And if you tell people over and over again that this guy is going to be a monster and a dictator and a tyrant and all these kinds of things and then the American people elect them anyway, it gives a certain, it moves the overton window in ways that it shouldn't be moved.

But it's not reason to avoid making those arguments if it's what you truly believe, right? I mean, I think we've got plenty of problems with Joe Biden as both a president and a candidate. But I think some of the warnings he's given about what Trump would likely do are actually true. I mean, I think he's right. Yeah, my point is you should be careful about how you do it and you shouldn't do it cheaply, right? I think that's right. I mean, you had a good, was it a G-file or a column about this? And it was a G-file, Wednesday, G-file.

Everybody should go look at it. We'll put it in the show notes. It's definitely worth reading. I think that the advice that you're giving, at least the way I read it, was more appropriate to 1999 Democrats than it is now, who you're saying Bush's Hitler and all that, I think, lessens the sense of alarm when you say it about somebody like Donald Trump, who I do think actually is a risk of some of this.

I mean, it's not hypothetical. We don't need to speculate that he's a risk. We saw him try to steal an election. We saw him be part of. I know, but, Steve, you see, I mean, it's not theoretical. Well, first of all, the argument is he wasn't part of the violent uprising. Yeah, the argument's wrong.

He was part of the- Yeah, but you see why people think that actually, like, you're, you've just moved over to the side of the people who thought that George W. Bush was, in fact, a real threat, right? That it's not that the threat's different. It's that you've moved over and that they see it exactly the same. Yeah, well, that's crazy if I can just be that blunt about it. it's not the case that George W. Bush was Hitler and that he was doing all of these,

you know, extra constitutional things. Sure, we can have a debate about enhanced interrogation or torture or whatever you want to call it. Make that argument. He wasn't doing the kinds of things that we've seen Donald Trump do, like trying to steal an election, and that we've had Donald Trump campaign on. I think that's the other difference. And this is to Jonah's point. I mean, I think there's risks in Joe Biden building a campaign around Trump being a threat to democracy. I think it's sort of obvious to see why he would do it because I think they believe that it worked in 2022. They believe that it's an argument that resonates not only with the Democratic base, which might not be enthusiastic about a Joe Biden candidacy,

but also the kinds of independence and disaffected Republicans who could produce a victory for Joe Biden in November. So it's obvious to see why they do it. I think you're right that he ought to be somewhat cautious about it because, you know, you say it too often and people start to just tune you out. Number one and number two, it is the case that it's, you know, the Biden DOJ that's going after Trump on some of these things. Now, I happen to think they're very justified, both on stolen election grounds and unclassified document case.

but it does carry some risk. I don't think that that's a reason not to make the argument because I think the threat from Trump is real. Hey, Sarah, can I just ask you a basic legal question for like normal humans? Can the president give an illegal order? Flesh out what you mean by that. Like, what do you mean, can he?

Like, is it an order if the president gives it and it's illegal? I guess. Is it illegal if the president orders it? yeah oh i see your point yeah can an order be illegal yeah right from the president for sure right and so it's the illegality of the order does it only apply to the people he's ordering or does it apply to him giving it well an officer is supposed to refuse an illegal order right correct but a commanding officer or commander-in-chief is supposed to not give illegal orders Right? So like forget assassinate Joe Biden. Let's do something that everyone could agree was bad.

Because apparently some people don't think that's necessarily too bad. Yeah. So it would be illegal for the president to order it. The question is what's the punishment for it? And the Trump lawyer would argue the punishment is impeachment. Then if the Senate agrees that it was a high crime and misdemeanor, then an Article III court can determine that it was also a high crime and misdemeanor, including criminal punishment. but that that's we have this higher bar for presidents to have to have basically a body of their peers judge them first is the but but whenever presidents get impeached the impeachers say impeachment's not a punishment all you lawyer tv lawyers say it's not a criminal procedure correct but it's almost like before you can bring the criminal process you have to again i'm using you have to get them out of the office right i i i have to get him out of the office but you Also, his argument is, everyone agrees, every side agrees, that you cannot charge a president while in office. Now, there's arguments that that's wrong, but every side in this oral argument argued at that. But the Trump attorney argument is that you cannot simply go straight into a criminal process against a former president for an official act he took while president. That, in fact, the Senate has to first also agree that it was a crime, basically.

the House and Senate. And so Trump's lawyers back in the day when he was impeached twice particularly the second time they said, yeah, right? So that's clear, right? They said,

and so what is, because I thought there were better hypotheticals to ask of Trump's lawyers, like what if you murder Taylor Swift, right, something everyone can agree is bad? and then resign or murder in the last week of your presidency before Congress has time to reconvene because the old argument was you can't impeach someone

at the end of the calendar of his presidency because he can't impeach someone who's out of office which was actually like Mitch McConnell's position and he was very wrong about that I would argue for precisely these sorts of reasons. Yeah, that you can impeach someone at any point after they've left office because one of the things they said is what if someone is impeached and even convicted for A, and then it comes out later that

they actually also did B. Can we charge them with crime B? They were impeached and convicted. And the answer was no, you have to be impeached and convicted for the thing that you're being criminally charged with. So you could impeach someone again 10 years later, potentially, 50 years later if you wanted to somehow. So yeah, they changed their mind on. when impeachment can happen and they change their mind on the order of operations, whether it's crime first, then impeachment, et cetera. But I will say that I think this argument is much more constitutionally sound than the arguments they were making around the impeachment,

which were banana town made no sense, had no bearing within constitutional structure. I still think this one's incorrect, but at least I can make this argument for you with a straight face as to how it, why it works and how it works. So, but, so the part that you think is constitutionally defensible and all that, tell me how, because I hear this in impeachment all the time, and I hear this in political scandals all the time about presidents, the president is not above the law, but he's not below the law. And now you're saying, or they're saying, that there is a constitutionally necessary political step that will make it very difficult to charge a president.

with a capital crime, that seems to me that's two-tier justice. That means that the president is, in fact, maybe not completely above the law, but above everybody else when it comes to the application of justice. Sure, for official acts. But we have that already. Judges have absolute immunity. Legislators often have absolute immunity. Governors have absolute immunity over all sorts of things.

In fact, the lawyers for the Department of Justice didn't argue that a president doesn't have huge swaths of immunity for official acts while president, the example of, could Barack Obama be charged with capital murder for killing Americans in a drone strike? He said, no, he cannot be charged, not simply he cannot be found guilty, but rather he does have immunity from those charges. So again, actually, everyone agrees that presidents are quote unquote above the law for something, same as all sorts of other government officials when they're acting as that government official with a discretionary, something within their discretion. There's some bootstrapping or question begging here insofar. as we're all stipulating, including the people who ask the hypothetical, so it's not fair to sort of hold this against them.

They stipulated that it was an official act. It is not established that what Trump did on January 6th was an official act, right? I mean, I know they claim it, but that doesn't mean it's true. They actually weren't looking at January 6th during this argument. They were talking about the DOJ part where Trump is discussing whether to replace his attorney general with a different attorney general who will do the things that he wants. it's hard to argue that's not an official act that's appointment's clause stuff right

like that's a good clarification heartland official act yeah yeah okay fair as ordering a drone strike would be even if the drone strike is illegal itself ordering a drone strike would be an official act it's why the seal team six example wasn't Donald Trump can go shoot someone on fifth avenue

Donald Trump gives an order to seal team six that's an official act that order is illegal that's where then the crime is so but you need both in order to come into our world of hypotheticals. The reason I got this wrong was because I saw that Trump has claimed, it was a political piece about this this morning, Trump is claiming that his actions on January 6 were official acts because the campaign was long over, right? That was his phrase on some true social posters. I'm like, that the campaigning was long over. So that's why I thought

they were trying to claim that this was an official act. And that's why I thought it was relevant to, right, okay. They will. But if basically there's a world in which if D.O. If Jack Smith's team wins, the next step is to now litigate what's an official act and what's not. And there's, I mean, it gets really messy, right? Because the line might be between official act and not official act. I actually don't think it will be because I think under Marbury v. Madison and a bunch of other precedents, it's actually between, like, we sort of assume everything's official because we don't want courts necessarily looking into those sort of details. but what was discretionary

and what was ministerial meaning required. And that was why one of the questions that the oral argument was if the president's, you know, the very beginning of Article 2 says, take care that the laws be faithfully executed, isn't that ministerial meaning aren't you required then to abide by all the laws

which would sort of get rid of the distinction between ministerial and discretionary if all of a sudden that one line means that Nothing is within your discretion as president. Of course it is. Okay, well, I do have one not worth your time question. It's mostly for Steve, but Joan is welcome to get into it. Steve, Bill Belichick, and Nick Saban, both retiring, announcing their retirements, similar to so many members of Congress. I guess my question is, will Alabama continue to be a powerhouse? Will it prove that Nick Saban was the magic or that Alabama's the magic? Because I feel like in Boston, we,

We kind of learned that maybe Belichick wasn't the magic. Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I mean, losing Nick Seamus is going to be a huge blow for Alabama, full stop. I mean, I think if you look at what he has done, six national championships, I think, sort of SEC title after SEC title, he's an extraordinary coach. So it'll be a hit. I do think that, you know, if you're Alabama, you have the luxury of looking for another coach. They're going to try to fill the position pretty quickly.

They're likely to have their pick of potential coaches. You know, they're going to be choosing from some of the best because coaching at Alabama is a real prize job. Yeah, the Patriots have really struggled since the departure of Tom Brady. And part of that, I think a good part of that, goes to Bill Belichick. personnel decisions, and that ends up being, I think, one of the main reasons that he's not going back to New England is he had a huge say on personnel issues and draft issues and didn't do very well. So it would be interesting to see, apparently he wants to continue coaching. Apparently, there are teams that want to bring him in. Do you know that Nick Saban

and Bill Belichick once coached together on the staff of the Cleveland Browns? This is a long time ago, but can you imagine that? And then they, they weren't very successful back in the day. It's a, there's a lot of turnover. In the NFL, eight, I think we have eight head coaching vacancies. We haven't really seen anything like this, including some long time coaches like Pete Carroll, who was a 9-11 truther and others. I'm sure Joan has already noticed this. This was a trap that I laid for Steve after Steve said that he hadn't followed any of the news around Trump's trials because he'd been so busy. and then he was fully up to speed.

This is the kind of thing that you can't help, but take in, you know, it just kind of comes to you. You don't have to go and get it. It doesn't require... You watching the game this weekend, Steve? Green Bay Packers on Sunday? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I didn't have the opportunity.

There was a lot of smack talking from our colleague Declan Garvey before the game last weekend because the Chicago Bears had a chance to block the Green Bay Packers. the rebuilding Green Bay Packers from making the playoffs, which is something that very few people expected at the beginning of the year. And Declan was pretty sure that Justin Fields and the Matt Iberfluse-led Chicago Bears were going to block the Packers. That didn't happen.

You know, I think Declan has a lot to look forward to in the coming years with Matt Eberfuss, remaining the head coach of the Bears. They tried to take a bunch of Packers coaches and I think wishing that. by osmosis, some of the 30 years of dominance that the Packers have had in the NFC Central would rub off. It didn't really work, so they've let those coaches, let those coaches go. But yeah, look, we don't have high expectations for this week. We're seven and a half point underdogs against the Cowboys. We're playing our former coach, Mike McCarthy, who, you know, the one thing I think that gives the Packers a chance. Again, he literally didn't even know what had happened with Trump's

leaves. Mike McCarthy. Yeah. See, this is a lot like. If they score a touchdown on the first drive, Mike McCarthy might try to just run out the clock for three plus quarters. This is like when an employee says or student says, I was too sick to come in today.

And then you see them posting the pictures from their great time at the Taylor Swift concert. That's right. Yeah, the frat party. We just know where Steve's priorities are. You told me last night on the phone. I got this board thing. I've got to get this budget together. And now he's like talking about, you know,

with granularity about the bowel movements of the alternate wide receiver. As I say, this information comes to me. I mean, we all have, you know, little email groups and text groups that we talk to about various things that we're interested in. I've got this great four-person email chain that's been going on for 20 years where we get all these details. So it comes to me. And it's really helpful.

At my house on Sunday, husband of the pod is going to do A-B testing on beer brats to determine whether the boiling actually makes any difference. Oh, it does. What's the alternative? Just soak them?

I guess. I'm not totally sure, to be honest. Yeah, the boiling does. But he's told me that we're doing anti-testing beer brats. Yeah, it's interesting, interesting thought. What is this boiling thing? I'll come back to you next week.

All I know is that he's going to do this and I'll report back. Yeah, you got to boil with onions. Onions are key and you can't overboil because if you overboil and you really cook them all the way through or even too long, they dry out on the grill. So that's what

I was saying like, the boiling seems like the worst possible way to cook something ever. Maybe he's talking about actually the full boiling versus simmering and then grill. Maybe that's the AB testing. Like just actually cooking them just totally in the blue. So Steve, you boil brats before you put them

on the grill? I do. Yeah. I caramelized onions. And I use a combination of fresh onions and caramelized onions. And it's pure. There's no water involved. It's just beer. You get better beer flavor if you have stronger beer, which is, you know, you can pay more. I've gotten a message from producer Adam that is simply all caps. What is happening? when you say you get stronger beer flavor with stronger beer but you don't use beer I don't understand you're boiling in beer only use beer yeah you're only boiling in beer you're not boiling in water um and that you soak them first then you boil but you have to be really really careful not to I mean I try not to cook them all the way through and then kind of finish

them on the grill relatively low and then you get the sear in the grill marks if you cook them all the way through or overcook them. Brots can dry out fast. And there's not much worse than, I mean, there's a lot worse than dried out brats. A lot of things are worse. Yeah. I mean, dried out brots are still brots.

But brain cancer. Good brats. It's much worse. That, you know, sometimes when you're grilling brats, they just open and they make that, they sort of explode and they send their juice. That's a problem. You don't want that.

Do you want me to keep going? I would encourage Scott to include some kielbasa in his, in his grilling. The POD has confirmed that it will be boiling in beer before grilling versus no beer treatment at all to determine how much of a flavor profile difference you're really getting. So I will report back on that. Interesting. Interesting. We're going to want results on this. I have a hypothesis.

Yes. I think the boiling will, the beer will matter. It should matter if it's done well. Not to put any pressure on him. Wow. Wow. All right, well, Adom turned off the recording hours ago at this point, but nevertheless. We can cut that stuff about the hooties.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point, actually. He also has now sent a message to Declan. Declan, make sure to ask Steve why he's late for the editorial meeting. No, I'm actually, I just, I sent a message to Declan saying, I can't possibly make the editorial meeting because I've got to send this budget email, but before I go and have lunch with the source. So going on. about the Packers and Brots

was really inexcusable because I don't have time and I need to shower before my lunch too. Showering can go like the Hoosies conversation. Showering and the Hooties both can go by the wayside.

Thank you listeners. I'll give you the results of the beer brought test after the Packers get demolished by the Dallas Cowboys so I don't even root for because Dallas sucks. But, you know,

when we're outside the state of Texas, I am fully loyal to anyone wearing the Texas flag. So we'll report back. He's not going to be. no he's not okay now he's just fucking with us he's doing a stupid joke now it's not stupid it's hilarious let's be honest that was hilarious for a second you both were just like wait are we gonna have to is he gonna have to go out you're right you're right you're right