The Dispatch Podcast - The Power Washer Approach

Episode Date: October 9, 2020

Donald Trump is trailing in the polls by roughly 4.2 points in Arizona, a state Republican presidential candidates have won consistently in recent decades (with the exception of Bob Dole in 1996). Our podcast hosts are joined today by New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin, who explains the demographic changes that have resulted in such a quick political realignment in Arizona and the Sun Belt more broadly. If the polls are all correct and the GOP is at risk losing Arizona, then why is Trump spending so much time campaigning there? “The difference between a modest Biden victory and an electoral landslide is the Sun Belt,” Martin tells Sarah and Steve. Beyond demographic changes in key battleground states, public opinion surveys have continuously shown that the American public is much more cautious about the coronavirus than the president. For months, President Trump has downplayed the pandemic by holding in-person rallies, refusing to wear a mask, and railing against the efficacy of mail-in-voting. Do Trump’s advisers simply not have the guts to tell him that his mishandling of the coronavirus is losing voters? “It’s just hard to use polling data to get him to act in ways that he does not want to act,” Martin argues. Listen to today’s episode for some thoughts about online campaign fundraising, Mitch McConnell’s last ditch effort to save the GOP’s Senate majority, and the life expectancy of “Anti-Fake News” Trumpism in the Republican Party. Show Notes: -Today’s Morning Dispatch about Mitch McConnell’s GOP strategy, “Trump's Path to Victory (With a Nod to Washington State)” by Sean Trende in RealClearPolitics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to our special Friday Dispatch podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Isgird, joined by Steve Hayes. This podcast is brought to you by The Dispatch. Visit the dispatch.com to see our full slate of newsletters and podcasts. And, of course, you can subscribe to this podcast so you never miss an episode. Today on the podcast, we are very lucky. We found Jonathan Martin wandering through Arizona today and have forced him to call in way too early. Jonathan Martin is the national political correspondent for the New York Times. Before that, he was with Politico. He is all over the place. He's also the co-author of the bestseller, The End of the Line, Romney v. Obama, the 34 days that decided the election. But most importantly, J-Mart's kind of everyone's favorite campaign reporter for people who are in the business. So this is going to be a real treat.

Let's dive right in, joining us today, the Jonathan Martin, it's like the Ohio State. He is known among his friends and enemies as J-Mart of the New York Times. You are currently in Arizona. What is most interesting that you've seen so far going on in that state? Well, besides the fantastic chicken burrito I had, what I found most interesting, just the quickening realignment here politically. I came out for a couple reasons. One, three of the four members of the ticket were in the Greater Phoenix area yesterday.

Pence, Biden, and Kamala were all in town. So that was kind of interesting. And the reason that they're all here, though, tells the kind of bigger story. which is that the Sun Belt is changing politically and no state is changing as rapidly as Arizona. You know, Democrats have only one Arizona once in modern times, and that was in 1996 when Bill Clinton, obviously, won re-election easily over Bob Dole. Besides that, this has been a Republican state. They elected a series of senators and governors, mostly Republicans, they have had control of the state ledge. you know, it is a red state or it has been.

Two things have happened. One, a rising Hispanic population. And then two, demographic changes with more white voters moving in here. And especially in and around Phoenix, white women sort of shifting away from the party of Trump. And that obviously had drove the Senate race in 2018 with Pearson Cinema One. And it's driving the election this year. And up and down the ballot is what's so effective. It's not just impacting the presidential.

This is shaping the entire ballot this year and it has a lot of folks in the party award. Here's what I don't understand. And I'm curious what the Trump campaign folks that you talk to say. If the polls are all correct and they're in risk of losing Arizona, then the whole race is gone anyway.

So, you know, spending time campaigning in Arizona and Florida, I don't mean that they need to skip it. But from a strategic standpoint, If Arizona is actually tight, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin are already way, way gone, maybe double digits. So why then spend so much time in Arizona, concentrate so much in Arizona? What is their explanation for how that, you know, I look at it more as like a snake map where if Arizona's gone, all these other states are long gone. Because they think that if they can salvage one of the three Great Lakes states that tipped the election their way in 2016, that all they have to do is hold. hold the rest of their map.

And so, you know, some days it's Pennsylvania, other days it's Wisconsin, but they do think that it's still possible to hold one of those three states along the Great Lakes, either Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. And if they do that, then they just got to keep everything else. Now, that's easier to said than done, but that's the strategy. That's why they're in Florida. That's why they're in Arizona because they've got to retain the rest of that map. And that gets the story that we did today about the Sunbelt.

Look, the difference between a modest Biden victory and a electoral landslide is the Sunbelt. If Trump loses re-election because the three blue wall states, Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin flip back, he and his allies are going to be able to say, look, it was the virus. Nobody could overcome that. These three Democratic-leaning states return to form like they have for the last 30 years. years. This was not a repudiation of me or my politics. It's tougher to do that if you're losing from North Carolina to Georgia to Florida to Arizona and potentially even Texas. Steve? Yeah. So one of the most interesting developments this week, I think, that hasn't maybe gotten

the attention that it should have is the Trump campaign pulling down some of its advertising in those must have critical Midwestern states. What's the explanation for that? It's more of a cash flow thing, I think. They don't have a lot of money. I think they're concerned about not having enough money to even be on the year at all in the final week of the campaign. And so they're having to husband their resources.

Look, the president has been pretty explicit. He does not want to do online fundraisers. He does not want to do what Biden and Connoll have done for months, which is like, you know, sitting in front of a computer like what we're doing and raise money. And so because of that, it's been harder for them to raise. So there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to the TV advertising, Steve, I think besides, they just got to save their cash. But, you know, that then opens the question of, well, we'll save it for when because

the early voting is starting in these states. There's not a lot of days left. But so there's just not a lot of cash flow is the issue. The other thing we had to say, some reporting in today's morning dispatch about what Mitch McConnell is doing and the comments that he made yesterday about the White House, about Donald Trump, where he said in effect, look, there's a reason that I haven't left Capitol Hill to go to the White House because we're being smart about the virus. They haven't been smart about the virus. That's probably a little

more aggressive than McConnell's actual words, but not much more aggressive. I mean, it was pretty clearly a shot at the White House. And doing some reporting, you know, we've been talking to people all along who said that McConnell has been increasingly making the case to potential donors to his super PAC that the White House is likely gone. We need you to give money to the Senate, to vulnerable senators so that Republicans keep the Senate. How much has he been leaning into that argument, and to what effect in your mind? Because they're, I mean, they still have some money. Republican Senate candidates are being badly outspend, but.

Yeah. I mean, my understanding is that McConnell has been intimating that, but I don't have it, at this point at least, as that explicit of Trump's going to lose. We've got to save the Senate. I mean, I think that's clearly the inference. I just haven't heard of that directly yet. But look, I think in Connell's public comments, the last few days, indicate how frustrated he is about the virus and the recklessness of the White House.

And he said as himself, we have very different rules in the Capitol that we've been following for months here. And, you know, he pinned the blame on the White House for his own senators getting sick. I do know that he is really concerned about the money disparity, Steve, he told Democrats yesterday. Between Democrats and Republican campaigns and super PACs. Exactly. And what Act Blue, which is the sort of Democratic fundraising hub that gives people an ability to go online and click a few buttons and give cash to various Senate candidates has done is create this enormous gap between the two parties when it comes to down ballot fundraising and the Republicans have not figured out a way to catch up. And so that's created

a challenge. And especially in these Senate races where I think Republicans didn't think there would be that big of a problem. Look, they knew that McConnell himself would face challenges because he obviously is a boogeyman. They knew that Lindsey Graham would be a fundraising sort of target because of his relationship with Trump. But I think people like, you know, Joni Ernst in Iowa and Tom Tillis in North Carolina, they didn't expect them to be so badly outraged because they're not these sort of villains that are sort of easily

caricatured by the left. And I think that's been surprising. Like, Cal Cunningham and Theresa Greenfield are just drowning in cash. It's remarkable, you know. Moving toward the debate, you know, I think most folks thought Harris and Pence both held their own,

but there was this sort of returning awkwardness that has occurred in the first presidential debate and the vice presidential debate over whether the Biden-Harris administration would move forward with adding justices to the Supreme Court. Biden wouldn't answer it. Harris wouldn't answer it. And so finally, Joe Biden came out yesterday and said,

quote, you'll know my position on court packing the day after the election. And a lot of reporters, I mean, just to summarize, you know, maybe blue checkmarked Twitter, it was head scratch emoji. Yeah. And what's great. is that, like, privately, I think a lot of people in the press corps

and also those who work in politics have been wondering like how long Biden can sustain that answer because the answer previously was I don't want to say because I don't want to make news. Which like is a pretty remarkable rationale for not answering a straightforward question about your potential administration. And so I think there was like, how long can he sustain that?

And then, of course, yesterday he tries, he tried to be all, I'll tell you the day after the election, which just, like, creates more of a challenge for him. Like, that's Joe Biden. He's just, he's not going to be able to keep saying the same thing over and over again. Eventually, he's going to say what he actually thinks. I mean, if we know anything about Joe Biden, right, that's the case. So I'm skeptical that in the next 25 days between now and the election, he's not going to at least intimate where he actually stands on the issue. I find it perplexing because the notion that they're scared of, like, offending the left by being honest about his opposition to court packing doesn't fully compute, given that he's totally willing to, you know, do victory laps about how he kicked Bernie Sanders, his ass in the primary, I'm the guy who beat the socialist.

which you said both at the debate and then in Miami, where they don't cut in much to socialism last week and talking about, you know, like why he's for fracking. So like the idea that he somehow doesn't want to inflame the left, I just don't totally buy it. I've heard speculation, guys, that he wants to keep maximum flexibility to see that the Republicans don't work with him.

Does he have to go that far? I don't know. I just like Joe Biden can barely even muster skepticism about the filibuster, like, let alone radically changing the composition of the Supreme Court. I just, I'm skeptical that he really would entertain this, given everything we know about Joe Biden, you know. So, I mean, so what's what's the answer then? I mean, if Joe Biden wants to return the Senate of Old. He wants like norms. He wants to work with Mitch McConnell.

I mean, um, so I just, I guess I think it's more, I guess I am more sympathetic to the, to the, um, the idea that he's a bit afraid of, a surge of, um, negative response on the left if he doesn't embrace it because, because, in fact, precisely because he's done the stuff that you said, precisely because he's run around and said, like, do I look like a socialist? I crushed Bernie Sanders. I did all this stuff. You're seeing some grumbling from folks on the, left from Sanders supporters and others saying, man, he's like rubbing our nose in it. And if he does it a little more, particularly because I think it's something that he's, you know, that they're pretty passionate about. Okay. So let's say like he chafed the party of folks a little bit more by saying that. The next day, Trump will have said or done two or three more things that will have changed the conversation back to Trump.

Like the idea that anything Joe Biden says can survive a news cycle before Trump takes back the news cycle is just folly, right? It's like, it's like snow hitting the ground. Um, it's like, when it's like, you know, 45 degrees outside. I'm like it's, it's melting on contact, bro. I think that's right, except for one thing. His, I would, I would argue, and look, you're, like, following the cam, you're out there, campaign, you're out there, you're listening to every single word and you're talking to, to Biden advisors. But from an outside observer who's not doing those things, it sure feels to me like Biden's central argument, effect is, I can return this country to normal. Like, look at the crazy over there. I'm not crazy.

You may not love me, but I can return the country to normal. And if he then embraces something like court packing, which while there is some history of, you know, accordion like changes in the composition of the court, and this has been done and discussed before, he chips away at that case, right? He's like, elect me, I'm the country, I'm the guy to return the country to normal, but I'm also going to dramatically alter the composition of the Supreme Court and affect the way that one of the three branches of the federal government operates. Like, it erodes his case. I take your point.

I mean, and I also think he thinks he has a wide berth because, you know, Donald Trump is still not released his taxes. I mean, the New York Times had him, but this is like five years later. And we would like to know when Donald Trump had his last negative. COVID test. And the White House is basically saying, you know, we're not telling. So I think Biden thinks he has some room to operate. I do agree with you, though, that Joe Biden keeping this secret for the next, you know, two and a half, three and a half weeks, unlikely. I think it's unlikely too. What does it look like in two different scenarios? One, the polling today is the polling on

November 3rd, and it's accurate. So it's a Biden blowout. And two, it's a, you know, a Biden small win. Is that a different mandate for the Biden administration in their own minds? And what do you hear from Republicans about how they would approach their own party and policy platforms, et cetera, in those two scenarios? I think I will take the second question first, as they said. They once have is on the record, but just talking to Republicans the last few days. I call it the power washer approach. Like, there is an appetite just like take a power washer, just like unleash it and clear off everything on the deck, right?

Just get our, you know, behinds kicked, repel Trump and Trumpism. It's going to suck, but we're going to lose some folks that we actually like, but we got to clean up the party. and the only way to do that is to humiliate Trump and then hope the dams overreach and we'll come back in 22. So, look, again, they'll never say that on the record because nobody wants to open a cheer

for like your party being totally humiliated, at least when you're working in politics. But like that's definitely a school of thought that you hear. Like that's for the best, like the mass cleansing approach. As for the Biden people, yeah, like I think there would definitely be a different mindset if he gets, it's like 285 electoral votes versus like 3-8, right? If they're keeping Trump below 200 electoral votes and they're winning like North

Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and maybe even picking up Georgia, that's a very different approach, I think, for Biden. And I think for Biden, that's more of like, you know, like we now have an opportunity to sort of like pursue our agenda. But again, you know what's going to happen in January. Even if Biden wins that big, the Republicans will say, your mandate was not for a liberal agenda. Your mandate was get this inflammatory president off the stage and bring back normal, right? People voted for you because they wanted a steady hand that was going to stop this idea of like daily tweeting and eruptions.

They didn't vote for you because of X, Y, and Z policy agenda. So you can see the sort of battle lines being drawn already, even in the case of Biden winning big, you know. What I think is interesting about that is there's actually maybe a better argument for him lacking a mandate, the larger the win, if that makes sense. The more it's a blowout, the less of a mandate, the more of an anti-Trump vote, you can assume it is, because I don't believe that, you know, Texas all of a sudden actually went Democratic if it voted for Biden. It voted against Trump. I can see somebody like Mitch McConnell making that exact same case. January. It's almost like I used to do it for a living. Mr. President, they weren't voting for you because they wanted the Green New Deal.

They just wanted to go around of Donald Trump. That's pretty good. Pretty good. That is pretty good. So our friend Sean Trendy has a piece out today. I won't get into all the details of it. He goes back and tracks the performance of candidates in the Washington State primary and then projects those results onto the general. election and finds that the Washington state primary is somewhat predictive of the outcomes. It's an interesting piece. It's worth everybody's attention. We'll put it in the show notes. But I want to ask you a question about the way that he starts the piece. The way that he starts

the piece is he says, if we're on the other side of November 3rd and we're looking back at this conversation now and the weeks between now and the election, and Donald Trump has just won the election, What if we missed? Like, what is it that we're not seeing right now if Donald Trump somehow wins the election November 3rd? Enduring hidden support that's bigger than we see in the surveys among working class whites, men and women both.

Because some of Trump's problems have been because working class white women have started to slide away from him. Yeah. And to be candid, college plus whites just not being totally straightforward about their true preference.

And that being like a much more modest difference than what it is right now. And then lastly, he makes, Trump makes real inroads with Hispanic voters that reflects something approaching like Bush 2004. And he gets,

That's like more black men to vote for him. And so instead of losing like 92 to eight among black voters, he loses like 8515, you know? You remember that stuff about how like people named Dennis are more likely to be dentists that was in Freakonomics? Sometimes I wonder if Sean Trendy is like that. Like he looks at trends. I love that so much.

That's the Keynesian. Isn't that the Keynesian? Like, well, you know, where your name like about Cratchett or, or whatever? Yes, yes, yes, quite. Guys, this is so literary, you know. That's what we do? You say, what does that mean about me that I'm constantly operating in a haze?

I mean, maybe, right? The dispatch is so highbrow. I mean, this is, you know. I think they disprove that, by the way, because we're going to get listener mail that that turned out not to be true. No, I know, but it's so fun to think about. So I have talked to a bunch of college students

in the last couple weeks. you know, speaking in guest lecturing, et cetera. And the question that I get most often with the most concerned look is discord after the election, unclear results, civil unrest, long legal battles. Here's what I'm confused about.

If the polling is accurate, we're going to have this thing wrapped at like 8 p.m. It's going to be a crazy early election. And so then when I tell them that, they're like, well, then, Why are we seeing all these headlines that are different than ever before that are screaming about this? I've said this that many times. Like, yes, it's possible that we have a very messy election that the ballot count is troubled because there's a lot more early votes cast.

Yeah, it's totally possible. And it could last for days or even weeks. But it's also possible that, like, it's a pretty clear result on election night. The country has rejected President Trump. And, like, Biden is winning North Carolina. and Florida, like, in pretty obvious ways, that leave little drama left by 10 p.m., you know? Yeah, but I think it's interesting.

So Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, all start counting their mail-in ballots ahead of time. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin don't. So if it's a clear win, it will be a very clear win. If it's not, it will very much not be, if that makes sense. No, it's important to emphasize that, that Florida and Arizona into a lesser degree North Carolina, These are male-heavy states, and I mean mail, M-A-I-L, not like Steve Hayes' mail.

So what that means is, like, they're used to actually counting ballots as they come in the Postal Service. And in fact, it was Republicans, especially in Florida, that mastered mail-in ballots. That was their thing. I know for a fact that there have been very prominent Republicans of Florida who, when Trump had started going off on how universal mail-on ballots were all a scam, we're, like, totally perplexed because that's what they do. Like, they have created a decades-long majority in Florida politics, in part because they have, like, gotten seniors wired to mail on their ballots ahead of time

and not show up at the polls. And Trump is unwittingly hurting his own cause in Florida and Arizona by scaring Republicans about using the ballot or the mail-on ballot, which is what they're accustomed to doing. them. It's really remarkable. And by the way, it's risky because let's say we're in the midst of a worse corona outbreak on Election Day itself in some of these states. You basically bet that your seniors are still going to show up on Election Day itself and risk waiting for some time to vote in person because you scared them away from mail and ballots.

Yeah. And the average case per day four weeks ago to today has risen first. from like 37,000 to nearly 50,000 per day. So we are seeing, I mean, that's not distributed evenly across the country, of course, there are pockets, including in my own state of Wisconsin, where that's a real problem. But I think it's a really, really important and interesting point because survey after survey after survey show that the public in general is much more cautious about the virus than the president and his supporters have been. I mean, pretty much everybody's much more cautious about it.

than the president. Fair. Fair. We don't need polling to show that. It was the biggest Steve miscalculation that Trump made this year, assuming that his party was as cavalier about the virus as he is. And every survey suggests that he was wrong about that. Like much more willingness to like wear a mask, much more willingness to like socially distance, like taking the steps to being to take. And, you know, the hardcore people that he sort of is in this bubble with, maybe didn't care about like rank or didn't raise it with him that's what so this is i think we will look back if trump goes on to lose and particularly if he loses by a big margin i think we'll look back on this question in particular did did he just disregard that advice did his advisors not have the guts

to give him that advice to point that out i think that is the meaning of the Mitch McConnell argument it's not just hey i don't want to be blamed that some of my senators have caught the virus because we've kept the Senate clean and the White House hasn't been clean. I think what Mitch McConnell is saying is actually a post-election defense. I mean, it certainly landed with a thud during this election, but it's a post-election argument where he says they didn't take this stuff seriously forever, not just on this outbreak at the White House, but throughout this whole thing. When polling showed that the country was nervous about it. I mean, one of the biggest, I'm sympathetic to some of the arguments about the lockdowns

and not needing to be as strict as the country was in those early months when we were still learning about the virus. But polling showed that it wasn't the lockdowns or the mandates that kept people from going out. It was people's own sense that they were vulnerable. And that I think is true to this day and will be true through election day. Yeah. I mean, Trump didn't get it after Tulsa. I mean, I think there was some hope that after his ill-fated Tulsa rally in June, that he would have gotten the message that, hey, even some of your own people are scared to show up because of this virus.

But it just never penetrated with him. Look, I think it's just hard to use polling data to get him to act in ways that he does not want to act. And especially when you tell him that he can't do rallies, that he can't sort of have in-person fundraisers. He can't act business as usual. He just didn't want to do that, right? I mean, in every regard, he refused to accommodate what everybody's having to do, which is like, you know, live on Zoom and, you know, skip, skip parties and celebrations

because that's dangerous, right? And as recently as this week when the debate commission said, let's do a virtual debate, he wouldn't do that, right? He just, he wants to keep going as usual, and it was not possible this year. Yeah, so that's my last question. What is happening with the debate? Where do you see this landing for future debates? I think it's still up in the air.

I'd be a fool to hazard a guess right now that a debate is or is not going to happen. I think it's totally possible that we've seen the one and only debate of the cycle. I think also possible that you know if Trump has medical clearance and test negative that they will do something here at some point. But I got

to say I think the Biden people are going to have real misgivings about putting him anywhere near on stage with Trump given their suspicions about when Trump was actually diagnosed what his current standing actually is. I mean this is the thing guys

there's just no faith that even the White House doctors are being totally candid about the nature of Trump's diagnosis. And I think it's also not Biden's the one in the lead. He doesn't need the debate. Well, and that's the politics out of it of like you did that one debate. It was what it was. Like, why would you want to do more after that? And sort of give Trump a chance to act more normally, right? Let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsor, the caucus room. If you've tried to share your political opinions on social media lately, you know it can be a frustrating experience. Between the anger, the virtual shouting, and even fake accounts, it seems like civil conversation is a thing of the past.

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played host to over a dozen virtual Republican Party conventions this year. You can You can also share news, jokes, and find ways to get involved with caucuses near you. Caucus Room is made by conservatives for conservatives to get organized and make a difference. That's caucusroom.com. C-A-U-C-U-S-Room.com. So my final question is a big-picture question. You had an interesting path to the New York Times. You came, worked at National Review magazine, sort of cut your teeth there, did some really terrific reporting there at a conservative magazine then went to Politico, now at the New York Times, regarded as one of the best political

writers, political correspondence in the country. This past five years, and really going back longer than that, you've seen this kind of seething anger on the right at the media. And you and I have talked about this offline on many occasions. I think a lot of the skepticism that you see from the center right of the mainstream media is deserved. I want to I wonder if you can give us your thoughts, having come up the way that you do on just why there's this disconnect between voters on the right and the media and why it's, I mean, aside from the obvious, why it's escalated in the past several years. Well, I think the reason it's obvious because it was being stoked for the last five years by the President of the United States. I mean, well,

George W. Bush and his people obviously will complain about the press. And I can remember going back to You know, 1992, there was a bumper sticker that said, annoy the media, reelect Bush Quail. Right. This is not a new phenomenon, but it was more of like a, in the spirit of working the rafts and sort of grumbling about the coverage, which they felt was more tilted towards Democrats. It was then what it is now,

which was a much more pungent and sort of obsessive, focus. Look, Republican presidents and lawmakers have mostly believe that like the Democrats are their opposition. We now have a president

who's more interested in the press than he is the media than Democrats or even his own party. I mean, his focus is the press first and always. And so when he's not getting the coverage that he craze,

he tries to delegitimize the press, denigrate the press. And I I think that is then echoed not only by his supporters, but it's echoed by other lawmakers who, you know, try to sort of act like him. I think of Martha McSally, the senator from Arizona, in the hallway telling off, my friend, is a really good reporter at CNN, Manu Razu, telling him to buzz off and calling him a hack or

whatever she said. Would that have happened before Trump? Maybe has it had, do those folks have more licensed now because of Trump? Absolutely. So I think it's driven by it's driven by the president. And, you know, because he's covered in a way that reflects his aberrant nature, he complains about the coverage, which then stirs up his people even more. And so there's sort of a circular nature to it also of like the coverage is tougher because what he says and does demands tougher coverage, which then prompts him to say the coverage is. too tough, which then promises an outcry outcry from his people. What I'm curious about, Steve, is where this goes if Trump does. In 2022, are we hearing, you know, candidates for the Senate and governor talking about the fake news, you know, denigrating the free press,

kicking reporters out of their meetings, not talking to the press? That's why I'm curious about how lasting this is. And by the way, this is a longer conversation because, you know, what's happening on social media by then, are they able to sort of like message mostly on social media and avoid local and regional papers? But that's a whole different question for a different day. I think the bottom line is that this is being driven right now by a president who is uniquely fixated on the press, always has been much more so than conventional politician. Well, we'll be happy to have you back for that.

longer conversation. Here we get. Let's do it. Thank you. Because what people want is like more media naval gays. I know what? Actually, so let me make one final point before we go. People do want that.

I'm amazed at this. When I would give speeches around the country from the pre-COVID era and, you know, at end of the speeches, I would go out of my way to avoid talking about the media because I was working on exactly that assumption. And I think we're wrong about it. I think people do want to talk about it, particularly center-right crowds. Trump supporting crowds, non-Trump supporting crowds, because it's an interesting, there is an interesting issue. The stuff that you teased at the end of your answer, I think is exactly right.

And it's as much the proliferation of information, the democratization of our information streams, that I think makes it likely that this will live on beyond Trump. And people are sort of more interested than I would have suspected in what that means. Yeah. I mean, especially if they're smart people and they care about public affairs in the country and they're living in a sea of information and they want to know like what's true and what's not and that's why there's going to be a place for a strong free press I think strong newspapers because if you're living on Facebook and you're seeing links to this and that you don't know what's what I think you're going to want something that you know is the gospel something you know is real and you know I think

the antidote the conspiracy theories of any kind is You know, read more newspapers, man. Like, we're not going back to, you know, three network newscasts a night and, like, the newspaper on your doorstep every day being the entirety of your media diet. But I do think that the original recipe does have its merits, you know? Last, last question, we have about 30 seconds. Yeah.

Pulling the curtain back on being a campaign reporter. Every campaign reporter I know prefers Dunkin' Donuts over, is there a reason i love dunks i have an affection towards dunks i will always choose dunks if i have the option of that or starbucks typically i would put a local coffee place first if i can't do that or do dunks if i have to i'll do starbucks but i'm pissed at starbucks though because they stop selling the print paper and in a lot of cities in america the only place that you can find my paper or the journal once out at a Starbucks and you can't

find it anymore and I'm a printhead. I need my print paper in the morning and you can't get at Starbucks anymore so I am down on Seattle. Thank you so much for joining us back on the campaign trail, J-Mart. See you later. Thanks guys. Thank you.