The Dispatch Podcast - The New Three Legs of Conservatism | Interview: Matt Lewis

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

In Jamie Weinstein’s final Dispatch Interview Podcast, he invites Matt Lewis, podcaster and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, to grade President Donald Trump's foreign policy, national security, and economic policy objectives. The Agenda:—The raid of John Bolton’s house—The new three legs of conservatism—D.C. crime and the national guard—California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s trolling—Who will be the presidential candidates for the 2028 election? The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of our articles, members-only newsletters, and bonus podcast episodes—click here. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member by clicking here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. www.ca.com. Did you lock the front door?

Check. Close the garage door? Yep. Installed window sensors, smoke sensors, and HD cameras with night vision? No. And you set up credit card transaction alerts, a secure VPN for a private connection and continuous monitoring for our personal info on the dark web.

Uh, I'm looking into it. Stress less about security. Choose security solutions from TELUS for peace of mind at home and online. Visit TELUS.com. Total Security to learn more. Conditions apply. Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein.

My guest today for the final episode of the Dispatch Podcasts interviews is my good friend, Matt Lewis. You know him from CNN, where he formerly was a contributor. He formerly was a columnist for The Daily Beast. Now he contributes all over the place, including a recent article in the Los Angeles Times. I thought it was fitting to close things out by bringing Matt back on one more time to talk about the state of the Trump era, never Trumpism, and we get into Gavin Newsom and how he is trying to emulate Trump and whether that makes him the frontrunner for 2028 on the Democratic side.

I ask you, as I mentioned, this is our final episode and my final episode for interview show here at the dispatch to stick around at the end as I have something to say about my time. and what comes next. Don't worry, the dispatch podcast, particularly the roundtable part of it, isn't going anywhere. But for now, for my final dispatch interview, I give you Mr. Matt Lewis. Matt Lewis, welcome to the final episode of the final episode of the dispatch interview podcast. My letters of complaint have been answered. Total loser.

No, it's an honor to be here, man, and love your show. Thanks for having me. I thought you would be a perfect guest to bring on for a wind-down episode, both being a good friend and an incisive observer of our modern politics. And particularly something that I have been talking to people about from the beginning of the show and really from the beginning of my long-form interviews is the state of Trumpism, the state of never Trumpism, where are we almost, or I guess a little over 200 days into the Trump administration? So since this is not my first rodeo, Jamie, I anticipated that we might

for a third time, I think it's my third appearance. We've talked about this, the first two. So I broke it down. As you know, the conservative movement used to consider itself a three-legged stool. So there was national security conservatives, social conservatives, and there were fiscal conservatives, right? And so with Trump, I break it down a little differently. I look at this, sort of the economy, the fiscal economic side of Trump. I do look at foreign policy and national security. And then the third thing, it's not so much social conservatism. I would think of it more as culture wars or even authoritarianism. I've lumped them together. So I've got these three categories that will help me, you know, process how I think he's done. So,

If we start with the economy, really the two big things that I think come about during the first six months of his presidency are the tariffs, which are kind of hard to get a read on because he tacoed there, you know, he sort of pulled back on the so-called reciprocal tariffs. So I don't think we really know yet how the tariffs would have played out and how they now might play out. So that one is an asterisk. I have a piece at the Hill today about food prices, Jamie. You know, Donald Trump said on day one.

he was going to bring down grocery prices. He obviously hasn't done that. So when it comes to the economy, I don't know, maybe I give him a C so far. The next category would be foreign policy, national security, that kind of thing. I think it's a mixed bag, right? I'm one of those people that I think it was probably a net positive, the bombing of Iran trying to halt or at least slow their nuclear ambitions. On the other hand, he just had this meeting with Vladimir Putin, where I think the meeting end of itself may have elevated Putin. And additionally, even though he hasn't been horrible on Ukraine, the Oval Office dressing down of Zelensky was just a low moment, I think, in diplomacy and foreign policy.

So for foreign policy, I don't know, maybe I give him a D or a C or a D, something like that. Of the three legs of the Trump presidency, Jamie, the one that we always knew was going to be the F. And I would actually, maybe it's a zero, is the third. It's the authoritarianism. And among the things, you've got these ice rays, you know, masked, jackbooted thugs, basically grabbing people, deporting them to El Salvador. We saw that happen early in the administration. What's happening in Washington, D.C., where effectively they're sending in militarizing and taking over the police.

I see that as a mixed bag. Crime in D.C. actually is a problem. but it concerns me that someone who tried to overthrow an election is now taking over the police, even if it's temporary in D.C. You've got the Texas gerrymandering, which fits into this category. I think his personal enrichment with crypto fits into this category. And how about the raid of John Bolton's home, the FBI raid, which is part of the retribution umbrella? So to me, that's the third category. That's what makes him a horrible president. And that's what gives him a failing grade, I think, overall. We're going to delve into many of the things you mentioned, and it was an

interesting way you put them in different buckets. You were very negative when we last talked. This was right before the inauguration. Maybe I was a little bit more hopeful that we would see the better lane that Trump might go down than the catastrophic lane. Has anything positively surprised you since your initial pessimism before Trump was inaugurated? Yeah, I mean, I think we mentioned Iran. Now, this is an interesting thing to bring up, right? Because there are a lot of people on the right that that would be like a low point. Tucker Carlson might think that bombing Iran is Trump was great other than that, you know? So, but for me that, look, I don't want to just like wantonly bomb people and kill people. That's not what I want to do. But, you know, Iran is a state sponsor of terror. They are obviously trying to go nuclear attempts to to stop. that have not, have not succeeded. And so it seems to me prudent to stop those nuclear ambitions or to at least try to stall them. So that's an area that I think probably surprised me back in January before Donald Trump took office. I think we had a conversation where we both said maybe

that might be something good that would come from this and it actually did. Probably a little surprised by that. But honestly, I think it's kind of playing out mostly the way that I thought it would, which is scary. But look, he literally ran a campaign on retribution. That was like his opening, you know, slogan or something. So I'm not surprised by what happened with John Bolton. Is there any Trump official that you think is doing a good job? That someone who you're happy is there, that he has done things that are while maybe much of the administration is doing things you don't like, this one individual seems to be doing the Lord's work in the Trump administration.

I mean, I can't think of anybody that fits into that category. I think I oscillate back and forth on, say, like a mark of Rubio. You know, sometimes I'm like, it's probably good he's there. And sometimes I think he's more evil than the true believers who actually didn't ever have a worldview or an ethos. So I go back and forth on that. But really, I don't think there's anybody who has conducted themselves truly heroic or admirably. Maybe we'll find out later that there was someone who did, or maybe there's someone, you know, maybe not top tier, not a cabinet official, but someone in the administration who's doing important work in that regard. And it may be that those people are honestly being drummed out, right?

I mean, Laura Lumer alone is probably trying to weed out anyone who doesn't, isn't fully committed to kind of the darkest version of MAGA. I want to stick actually with your first answer. I wasn't planning to go here. but you've been covering Marco Rubio forever. Who is Marco Rubio? I don't know. I think that he is a striver. If he is someone who probably always was a little bit of a shapeshifter,

I remember back in like 2008, there's a picture of Rubio holding up a Mike Huckabee for president's sign. He was campaigning for Huckabee. That's not something that you might have guessed if you were following him, say, in like 2010 or 2020. 12 when he was more of like a T-party fiscal conservative candidate. And so I suspect that he has been somewhat ambitious, smart, but, you know, he's from an immigrant family.

So I don't think that he had all the advantages of some of the presidential candidates, like even a Donald Trump, who obviously comes from a wealthy family, Jeb Bush, who obviously comes from a political dynasty. So I think that Rubio, as a striver, you kind of have to live off the land. You have to learn as you go. Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it. But I do think in his core, when it comes to national security issues and a foreign policy worldview, I really do think that he truly believed the rhetoric that he espoused when he

was a senator and when he was first a senator and when he ran first a senator and when he ran for president, which I think would be sort of Reagan model of foreign policy. And now I think he's probably doing what he has to do to survive. But at some point, you know, you become the mask that you wear. Be careful who you pretend to be because you will become who you pretend to be. I think that's Kurt Vonnegut. And it might be advice that Rubio should listen to. Well, I think there's an interesting vein. So I'm going to stick on it because I think Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance are similar in that they have had very different personas in their public life. And they also happen to be probably the top two contenders, certainly to come from

this administration and in the Trump wing of the party now to be the presidential nominee in 28 should Donald Trump not run for a third time, which he is supposedly constitutionally ineligible to do, which we'll get to. They could be elected president. And they no longer have a boss that they, you know, have to adopt some of their viewpoints. Who are these people? Who would they be as president? Who would J.D. Vance be as president? Would he be like this administration?

Would it be different? Who would Marco Rubio be as president? Would he be the Marco Rubio of pathway to citizenship? First, I think that's a really great question. I think it's a smart question partly because, yeah, Rubio and Vance both are, you know, very prominent right now, possibly the era parents to Maga and the Trumpism. And both of them, not when they were kids dabbling with neo-conservatism, but as fully formed professional adults had a very different political philosophy and worldview than they do today. So I think that's

a super interesting question. Would they revert back to their what they used to believe, or do they stick with where they are today? And does that mean that it's all fake? Or maybe they evolved, actually. They really are true believers now. They're real converts. And I don't think we quite know. I think the one possibility that you didn't mention is that much like Medvedev, who was briefly president of Russia, but he was really a puppet of Vladimir Putin. And we've had other incidents. My friend Bill Sherr was recently telling me about how Huey Long was a governor of Louisiana, elected senator, but continued to control, effectively control the governorship. There have been other examples where down in Alabama, George Wallace's wife got elected governor because he was no longer permitted to, I guess, constitutionally or whatever, according to the state law. And so it's entirely possible, right, that someone else becomes president, but that Donald Trump,

is really pulling the strings to some degree and through intimidation, through his ability to communicate to the masses. This is interesting. What you're saying is that Donald Trump may not run for a third term, but your contention is that he may be so control the party and the base may so be adhere to him that tweeting from Mar-a-Lago will provide so much pressure that whoever is the Republican president, especially if it was someone that he endorsed, will not have as much freedom as we, you might think, a president. Is there no, you know, after Trumpism then? I think it's entirely plausible and it's something that I think is underrated, right?

Now, of course, there's a possibility that whoever becomes president becomes president and then says, F you, I'm the man, I won, old man. And maybe, in fact, Donald Trump's age may be the one saving grace of all of this. that imagine if he was 50 when he had gotten elected in 2016 or something like that. His advanced age may be the one saving grace. But no, look, I think it's possible that the person who becomes elected takes over and is their own person. But I definitely think it's an underrated and highly plausible scenario that Donald Trump continues to exert great influence. And so the worry about him getting a third term is not a literal worry.

It becomes more of a, again, like a medvedev type situation. You mentioned as we speak this morning, we're recording on Friday. John Bolton's house seems to have been raided by the FBI. We don't have kind of clarity over what it's over. I think there is some indication it's over. His book that he published for the first term that I think the Trump administration was trying to stop be published and maybe claiming not everything was authorized to be published and some of it was classified.

What do you make of the raid? Do you think this pretends that there might be more raids of figures that Donald Trump threatened to do while he was campaigning, raid while he was campaigning? Yeah, look, I guess we always have to have the caveat that perhaps there's some compelling reason that Bolton is guilty of something that we don't know about. And that a judge did issue a search warrant, yada, yada, yada. Having said that, it looks superficy from a guy who, again, started his campaign promising retribution and has clearly weaponized, you know, the Department of Justice, the FBI, is attempting to

really roll up law enforcement, intel agencies, all of these things, to be not really independent agencies, but part of his personal fiefdom. So it seems to me to be very suspicious. And, you know, whether this is a harbinger of things to come or not, it's definitely a warning, right? Think about how we saw universities cave to Donald Trump in his demands. Look at how we saw media outlets who sort of rolled over and, you know, paid off Trump by virtue of settlements that they really didn't have to because, you know, they were worried that he would go after them or stop mergers or. other things like that. So I think that a raid of Bolton's home may be the beginning of a vengeance tour, or maybe it's just like another flex to remind all of us that we'd better be watching our P's and Q's, or maybe we're going to be next. Let me play devil's advocate a little bit,

not on John Bolton necessarily, but clearly Donald Trump has weaponized Bill Pulte, one of the, I forget his official role, but he's certainly found Latita James mortgage issues. He are at least claims to have found, found it with a Fed governor now. They may be legitimate. They may turn out that there was not, all the T's and all the eyes weren't crossed on the application, or they may have been dishonest. But does he see it as, does he have any justification? You know, he had these array of cases against him. I think some were very legitimate, like trying to overthrow the government on January 6. And then there were some tenuous ones in New York where had he not been president or someone in the public eye, people would not have looked at

exactly what he said to get a commercial mortgage that ultimately didn't harm anyone, but probably wasn't entirely above board. And now he is using the presidency to hold people to those standards. Now, I don't like that the president is focusing time on that. But it is somewhat hard to say if they did violate and put a break that the law, technically with mortgage standards, you know, why go after Trump for some of this stuff? And some of these officials didn't clearly have a clean background if it turns out to be the case. I think Trump is probably rationalizing that to himself. Very few people think that they're the bad guy. I mean, just psychologically, most people think that they're the good guy. And I think he sees himself in some cases as a victim

and he will rash make, you know, it's a coping mechanism to justify really what is indefensible behavior. I think in it from a logical standpoint, it's very difficult to make that argument. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, I'm using the term loosely right now, but appears to be guilty of a whole bunch of bad things and in many cases, illegal things. In some cases, charges that were brought against him would have been brought or should have been brought. should have been brought against anybody. In other cases, he was probably guilty of them, but they probably, you're right, if you weren't a prominent political figure, then nobody would have even noticed maybe

or they might have overlooked it. I think that's fair to say, but that's what happens when you run for political office. I think that especially when you run for president, that you become a target. Hillary Clinton, the Clintons, I think, certainly have done a lot of very questions. things, but I think they also invited scrutiny just because that's the game at that level. I think it's really sad that now you can be like a staffer who is just trying to work in the White House or work for some department, and you will now undergo. It's clearly what we've seen is that this has expanded beyond just people running for

president to almost anybody in politics now. And it's going to keep a lot of people out of politics, I suspect. You mentioned troops in D.C. certainly, I don't know what the numbers suggest, but when I left D.C. a year ago, that's all anyone really could talk about is the crime situation. Where do you saw? I mean, you mentioned there is a crime issue. On the other hand, there is a concern of the federal government using, or the president using the military. How do you fall on this? You know, at the end of the day if he makes D.C. safer? Was it all for good? Or where do you see the risk being here? Well, first of all, I think this is, I mean, a really good political issue for Donald Trump. You know, people really care about safety. And if liberal politicians and liberal cities

cannot keep people safe, they will turn to illiberal politicians to do that. And so I think that If you are a liberal, you need to get the trash picked up on time, you need to keep the streets safe, do all that stuff so that you can then do your other liberal things that you want to do. It's an issue that I'm really torn over. I think that D.C., you know, the crime rate has fallen, but it's still way more dangerous than Washington, D.C. It's somewhere in the Detroit, Memphis range. And so I don't think that's acceptable. It is the, you know, it's the capital of the United States of America.

We have people coming from all over. I understand Donald Trump who loves imagery and status and that there would be like a pride he might take, rightfully so, and having the capital be pristine and be safe. So I get that and I think that's winning for Trump. But, you know, look, you have to think of the context. We live in a world where Donald Trump literally summoned a mob to an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th. If Barack Obama or George W. Bush or Bill Clinton or Joe Biden did this, would you be okay? Would you be cheering it on?

And is the concern primarily because it's someone who has done things that tried to overthrow the government in the past? Yeah. And also Donald Trump says, we're going to do this on other cities too, which that actually would be, you know, he's allowed to do this in D.C. for a limited amount of time. He cannot do this in Los Angeles. And yet he is saying he can. Look, I think if Bill Clinton said, I just care so much about people. And we're going to, for a limited time, we're going to bring in the troops to keep people safe. Because big balls, because big balls. Because big balls. That's the other problem. The impetus for this is that a guy named Big Balls was attacked. That appears to be the reason that Donald Trump has decided to do. It's ridiculous on his face. But if a different politician, if a leader, if a political leader, gave a speech and said, what I said, like Washington, D.C. has a special relationship.

It's not just a city. It's also a capital. Although we know that crime rates there have been falling, it still is an unacceptable rate. And I've been talking with Mayor Bowser, and we have determined that it would be appropriate for a limited time to do something of a surge where we will temporarily take over the metropolitan police and in conjunction with the FBI and the National Guard. We're going to target problem areas and communities and make it safer. I'd be like, sign me up. That's a great idea. That would be awesome. Like, I, I, you know, I don't live in D.C. anymore, but I go there, like, frequently,

I want D.C. to be safe. And look, I, look, I was in, I don't know if I ever told you about this. Like, one time I was in CNN, and this was not in the middle of the night, it was like at 8 or 9 o'clock at night doing a TV segment, you know, like Anderson Cooper or something. I came outside the D.C. CNN studio, and there were like five cop cars because someone tried to carjack my driver. It's a dangerous area. And, you know, and this was like right before COVID. So it's a few years ago. So it's a real problem. And yeah, I think if, see, that's part of the problem with Donald Trump is I think he's just poisoned the well. 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

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You mentioned he has the authority in D.C. If you wanted to go to Chicago and do, you know, clean up the city, try to make it safe. And they do have even more serious problem, I think, than D.C. Is he able to do it? I mean, I'm not even saying legally. Is he able to do it, just do it? And how is this stopped? My understanding is he can always call up the National Guard.

and federalize the National Guard and use them. What he cannot do is take over the local police except in Washington, D.C. for, I think it's 30 days. So that's the distinction. And I think the only recourse if he tried to do it would be either some sort of a resistance, which I don't think would be a wise idea, or, you know, filing an injunction and trying to take it to the Supreme Court. Yeah. But what's interesting here is, and I don't ask you a political question on this, is I think your legitimate concern is the person doing it because of his past actions, moderately January 6th and what he'd said. But how, if he does it in D.C. and called up the National Guard in Chicago and, you know, was able to use the National Guard to make the city safer and then retreat and didn't then use the National Guard to overturn the 2026 election. or intimidate people in 2026, so the Republicans win. Do you think he will be remembered fondly?

I mean, if he doesn't try again to overturn the election and uses this to actually make some cities safer, what do you think the political consequences of that would be? Would they be positive or would they be negative? They would be positive. They would definitely be positive. Americans want safety and probably have some authoritarian tendencies to be frank with you, increasingly. The problem is it's almost implausible to imagine Donald Trump not using this power for evil. I mean, he's tried to stay in office. He is turning ice into a personal military.

Is the fear 2026, the election, I mean, obviously what he doesn't want is the House to go Democrat because he will almost certainly be impeached again. What would it look like for him to to, if it's not steal the 2026 midterms, it's intimidating his way to victory. What does that look like using these powers? Because I think that is the fear that I hear a lot of people express. Right. Well, and I mean, I'll go to 2028. If you have a military that no longer has any independence, and then you just say,

I'm not leaving, right? What are you going to do? But you asked me about 2026. I mean, look, one thing you could do is just deploy ice to any precinct that is going to have a strong minority turnout that you might think is a democratic stronghold. And you just put them there. And I just think it would probably lower turnout, which could be the difference in winning or losing. and some. Remember, right now, Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the house. We're talking about just a handful of seats. They just gerrymandered Texas, so they're going to probably pick up,

well, they could pick up as many as five seats. California is probably going to retaliate. So it's going to be close, okay? And so if you were able to just put a bunch of ICE officers and 10, you know, 10 or 15 of the biggest precincts with the most minority voters who tend to lean left, maybe you eke out enough to hold on to the House. And that would truly defy historical norms. I mean, that seems likely, doesn't it? I mean, I was going to ask you how likely that Trump does something like that. Doing that, even with no arrests, just putting in there, how likely does that seem to you. Right. You don't even have to do anything. You just have them there as a show of force to deter people from voting. Yeah. I don't think it's a question of whether Trump will do it. It's

probably a question of to what degree. I'm not even asking. It seems like a certainty. There's going to be something like that that's done in a legal, technically legal way. Well, yeah, because we just want to make sure, Jamie, that the ballot integrity and that, you know, everything's on the up and up and all that. Let me ask you. You mentioned foreign policy where he has had some areas of success. And in fact, I would argue incredible success. If you talk about the Abraham Accords the first term and the striking of Iran's nuclear. Is there any foreign policy achievement in this century from any president that has matched the setback of Iran's nuclear program through military force in such a successful way and the Abraham Accords? No, but the bar is so low, Jamie. You said in this century. I mean, this century has had George W. Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan. We had Barack Obama, who was a disaster in terms of foreign policy, in my opinion. He had Donald Trump and Joe Biden, who was also a disaster in terms of foreign policy. Although, you know, I mean, I think he did a good job, a relatively good job supporting Ukraine. But the Afghanistan withdrawal, enough said. So, yeah, no, I think Donald Trump definitely deserves credit, but it's just a low bar, I would say. So what you're saying is he's the best foreign policy president of this century.

Yeah, I think it, well, I'll put it to you this way. I think that if you, let me try to find a good analogy here. Now, maybe I can't find one. Look, I think if you're going to say, like, did it, has any president done anything better? in terms of foreign policy, then what Trump has done as it pertains specifically to Israel in the 21st century, I would say no. So his greatest hits are great. But how about for the U.S. and Europe? I mean, taking out Iran's nuclear program, I don't view it specifically for Israel. I view it as for us. I mean, if we could have had

someone take out the nuclear Korean program, if South Korea could have done it with our help or something, that would have been an enormous success. How do we judge the bad and the good, I I mean, some days, I'm like, geez, this is really horrible. On the other days, wow, what an achievement that Iran's nuclear program set back. It seems very polar opposite. Sometimes you get really, really good. And other days you get really dangerously bad. And I also think, and I hate to be this guy because it's not good commentary.

It's certainly not good punditry. But we have to kind of see how things play out. So first of all, it seems to me that we probably cost Iran a couple of years. I don't know that we wiped out their capacity, like, indefinitely, but that we set them back, certainly. So, but we'll see how that plays out. But I think that we can give him, like, a checkmark with Iran. With Ukraine, it is so unclear. I mean, what he did to Zelensky in the Oval Office was utterly, like, a low, maybe the lowest point of, like, American diplomacy, certainly that I have witnessed.

It was embarrassing and humiliating and disturbing. Now, we'll see. I don't know how it's going to play out with Ukraine. There's China. China is another thing. But I think you brought up, you're bringing up an interesting question. And that is almost a long-term consequence. The things that he's doing, do they weaken America over time by having allies try to find

alternatives to America? And I think that was one of the risks I was concerned about, not only with Zos, Zelinsky, but trade. And let me ask you, did he maybe not knowingly or knowingly play a game that America is just so powerful? And there's really no other alternative other than China in this Western hemisphere. And on trade and on, you know, Zelensky and everything, you're just going to have to bend. Did he win that? I mean, I saw that. I'm going to put in the context of the picture in the Oval Office with Zelensky and like all these European leaders that flew there. and they're just like sitting and Donald Trump is in the command position here.

Is there no attorney to America that no matter how much we humiliate our allies and how much we just kick them that they're going to find a way to work with the American president? Well, I think that, you know, he has definitely illustrated that the United States is powerful. There's no doubt about that. But to me, that was never in question. I mean, to me, the question is going to be. During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design

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Seven time winners Champions out again by the seven time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. Are we better off now than we were four years ago? Like at the end, when all is said in Don, are we better off as a result of Trump having been president?

And when I say we in this capacity, I mean, America, but also the Western world, are we better off? And I am still strongly of the opinion that Donald Trump is a net negative and will ultimately be a net negative. Now, at a certain point, it's very hard to really judge that because Donald Trump has now for over a decade been the dominant political figure in America, and at a certain point it becomes almost impossible.

There is no control group. Like, there's not another America that we can look at, like, or Ruby O'Brien. one or where Hillary or Rubio won in say in 2016 that we can compare. And so at a certain point, it's hard to say, would we be better off? Because again, it's messy. There's some things that Trump has done that are good. I think overall, if you factor in the toll that he's taken on our allies, our reputation, the social fabric values, all of that, that we are worse off because of him. is certainly now being emulated. You have a piece in the Los Angeles Times about the governor of my new home state, California, Gavin Newsom, having a Twitter account that is very Trump-esque. I don't

know if this is satirical, I think it is, or he thinks this is the way to win. Some of them is very funny. But what do you make of this? Is this the new politics? Is this a way to get back to the normal politics by shining a mirror in the face of the Republican? party? Well, what I make of it is it's good politics for Gavin Newsom. Look, Gavin Newsom is running for president. He's got some problems. I think he comes across as a little too slick, maybe a lot too slick, as ambitious. He's governor of a state of California, the same state that Kamala Harris hails from, a state that's seen as a little bit too left, too far left, a little out of touch with Michigan and Ohio. And he was also mayor of San Francisco that makes him even more out of

touch. So Gavin Newsom has some problems. So the question is, does this help Gavin Newsom? So he's putting up all these memes. One of the things he's doing is sort of imitating Donald Trump's ridiculous tweets with the all caps letters. He's also putting out just weird imagery, right? So there's one picture. It's like a Photoshop. Actually, this is an AI generated picture where it's Kid Rock, Tucker Carlson, Hulk Hogan, and Hulk Hogan, right? Laying hands on and praying over Gavin Newsom. And there's a whole bunch of images like that are just as ridiculous and absurd as that he's pushing out.

Some cases I think. You say absurd, but I think I've seen similar images that are, there's actually artists in the Maga world that paint around Donald Trump. Well, they're absurd too. Well, look, so that's what I think kind of brilliant about what Gavin Newsom is doing. is because on one hand, I think memes are powerful, M-E-M-E-S, memes. I think they're powerful because I think that actually we think they're absurd, but if you see enough time, so there's one image, it's Gavin Newsom, who's a handsome guy,

and it's his head, and it's the body of a famous 1980s, 90s, Calvin Klein model. It's a black and white photo that's been Photoshopped. When you see these images over and over again, I think at some degree, subliminally, they do change our perception of people making us like some people more and like some people less. So I think that they're more powerful than we think. Is he sincere? I mean, is this, I mean, is this a bit that he's just trying, he's going to stop kind of to show, you know, Republicans, how can you be mad I'm doing this? Your guy does this all the time? Or do you think this is actually, as you mentioned, because memes are powerful, creating these

images that we're going to see this all the way to 2028 with Gavin Newsom. If it works, and I think it's working so far, if it keeps working, he'll keep doing it. But Jamie, to me, the brilliant says that they work and there's plausible deniability. So they work, but you can also say like, hey, man, I'm just trolling. Like these are, you know, these are parodies of the ridiculous stuff Trump puts out. I'm just doing this to be funny, man. This is just a troll. So they work on two levels, you know?

Like, they actually work. But a normal, well-adjusted person wouldn't have the audacity or the hoodspa to put out an image of themselves like that. Like, there's one that's like, it's Gavin Newsom on the cover of a romance novel, like Fabio. And just in case people haven't seen it, the tweets, the words are very similar to the capital that Donald Trump. would write, you know, I'm the greatest Gavin C. Newsom, you know, he thinks, things, it's actually I think it's pretty funny a lot of it. So he's doing this with words as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he's also going after J.D. Vance and Mockingham. So it's not just the positive Gavin Newsom sort of making himself look glamorous. Or it's also him using these memes to attack others,

including Trump and J.D. Vance has been one of his targets. And it's also him imitating Trump's language, use of language in all caps. So, but again, it works because it works, because as much as we tend to think that we're too sophisticated to fall for this BS, the truth is, we tend to believe the things we see. And if you see these images over and over and over again, I do believe they have a subliminal effect. But then you have this plausible deniability because it's like, hey, man, this is just a parody. This is this fun.

We're making fun of what, you know, Trump does it. It's a parody. And look, he's getting attention. And as I said, I think that Newsom needed to show that he is a fighter. That's what this is all about. Do you think he's the frontrunner? He's the only one doing this kind of thing. Well, he is the frontrunner now.

Like just statistically, I think if you look at the early polling, which means nothing, but I think he actually is the front runner, right? And it's not just the memes, but it's also matching his defiant attitude. Like he told Trump or, you know, when ICE was, you know, coming out. Los Angeles. And they said, you know, if anybody tries to interfere with our operations, we'll arrest them. And Newsom said, we'll arrest me. And then Trump's trying to shake down or the Trump administration's trying to shake down UCLA, get them to pay all the settlement money. And he's saying, hell no, or we're going to fight like hell. We're not going to do it.

Last question on Newsom, you know, Trump and him seem to have, they're similar in certain ways. and not only because Gavin was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle and Trump's son was engaged at Kimberly Gilfoyle. They seem to have phone calls and chats. Do you think they're laughing? Do you think they're talking to each other doing this stuff? And it's almost humor, like they're laughing with each other. I mean, not together and the same thing, but Trump's making fun of him and he's making, is there like a buddy comedy to be made between these two, even though when they're posing to their parties that they're attacking them? I don't know about that, but I will say this.

I think that what Trump and Newsom both have in common is a shamelessness that makes them capable of doing this. Like, I don't think I could pull this off, but I think they can. And I think some of it, it's, you know, in wrestling, they have this term called K-Fabe. And it basically means you commit to the bit and you play the role and you don't break character. And I think, like, Trump and Newsom are both good at K-Faib. And look, I think that might matter more than governing. Gavin Newsom's record of governing, you know better than I do. You live in California now, but I don't think his record is that great.

But if he can show, look, I'm a fighter and I'm entertaining and I'm willing to go just as low as Trump and be your warrior, like, that could be enough for him to be the nominee. Just as a side note, you mentioned K-Fave in the WWF, WWE. I don't think it's unrelated that Linda McMahon is in the administration and that Donald Trump's friend is Vince McMahon who's been involved in wrestling. I would love to hear the conversations that he and Vince McMahon had over the years and how that might have applied to his political persona. Let me close on this question.

And those listening, stay a little bit after, if you want, for my farewell little oration to the dispatch. But let me close on this with you. If we were having this conversation three years from now, it's 2028, the end of Trump's term. What does America look like? And who are the front runners when we're speaking three years from now going into the 2028 presidential election? Great question. We have flying cars. I can't tell you what America will look like. I think it will be similar to what it is today, but just more so. But who are the frontrunners, I think, is a question. I'm more capable of handling.

On the Democratic side, I think it's like AOC, Mark Cuban, Gavin Newsom. I think those are your top three. Although, you know, watch out for this Tala Rico kid down in Texas. I think maybe he'll be a senator or a governor or something by them. We'll see how Texas goes, but he might be someone to watch. But anyway, no, I think it's AOC. I do think, I don't know if he will run, but I do think Mark Cuban would be an interesting candidate and Newsom.

On the Republican side, I think that the frontrunners are J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and Tucker Carlson. So no one from the non-Maga world? No, I don't think so. I really don't. Even if Donald Trump ends with, you know, a huge recession brought on by his tariff policies and a big, you know, a huge backlash, which totally could happen. I don't see, I don't see any normies sneaking in there.

Like, the most normal you get is probably Rubio. With that, Matt Lewis, thank you for joining the Dispatch podcast. Thanks, Jamie, man. you're in Cooperstown as an interviewer. Thanks for having me. And now, allow me a brief point of personal privilege as I end my time here at the dispatch. At the top of the show, I mentioned, this will be my last episode hosting the dispatch's interviews on this podcast. Hosting these conversations has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my media career. Long before the dispatch, I hosted the Jamie

Wyerson show, both for the National Review and independently. And the opportunity to carry on that work here has been a real gift. During my time at the dispatch, I had the privilege of speaking with some truly remarkable people, whether it was General David Petraeus or George Will or Steve Balmer and many more. Those conversations, I think, were enlightening. But we also had an opportunity to talk to people I disagreed with strongly. Even people I thought had views that were in some cases you might call Beyond the Pale. We've had people like Medi Hassan and just last week, Kurt Mills. I began my immediate career nearly two decades ago as an opinion journalist and TV pundit, appearing on all the cable news shows, real-time with Bill Maher, et cetera, et cetera.

But being in the chaos of the 2016 campaign, I found long-form interviews, and nothing since has been more fulfilling. This body of work is something I am proud of, and one day I believe I will be proud to share it with my three children. I believe these conversations matter in a polarized political world. They can clarify differences, humanize people we disagree with, and at times expose the intellectual weaknesses of professional argument makers. The dispatch audience has been the smartest and most engaged I've had the privilege of speaking to. I mean that sincerely. So to all of you who listened, whether you love the show or challenged it, thank you. I do have a few more media projects in the works, including a new kind of interview program that, if it comes

to fruition, I believe could be one of the most unique and most important interview shows out there. If you like to follow along on that journey, you can follow me on Twitter at Jamie underscore Weinstein. As for this show, the Friday roundtables with Steve Hayes aren't going anywhere. So make sure you join us for that later this week. If you don't already follow this show, hit the plus button on your podcast app and you won't miss the next episode. episode. And I hear the podcast team here at The Dispatch has a lot of exciting things in the works, both for the Dispatch podcast and the others in our family. So stay tuned, as they say. That's all for me. Thank you, as always, for listening.

I'm going to be able to be.