The Dispatch Podcast - Trump on Their Minds

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

It's been a week for the former president: new polls showing him beating President Biden, an already notorious CNN town hall, and a verdict on the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. Sarah, Steve, and Jonah gather to collectively sigh at the seeming inevitabilities of the 2024 race, the Biden family's international dealings, and the bipartisan hypocrisies about ethics in government. Also: will someone ever take the economy seriously again? Show notes: -Ben Shapiro's tweet about the CNN town hall -Biden is losing in the polls –Subscribe to The Dispatch and watch an exclusive live Remnant with Jonah, Steve Hayes, and Chris Stirewalt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, leased a 26 XE90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions supply, visit your local Volvo retailer or go to explorevolvo.com. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Sarah Isger. That's Steve Hayes and that weird-looking dude over there's Jonah Goldberg. And, well, we'll see how this podcast goes.

There's the Trump Town Hall, the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case. And sure, George Santos was indicted. We've also got a few 2024 polls that are they outliers? Is this where things are headed? And I don't know. Is the economy still weird? We'll see. We'll just see where this goes.

Let's dive right in. All right, I want to start by reading a post from Ben Shapiro about last night that I thought was, well, frankly, worth our time. CNN did Trump a massive favor last night, and everybody, knows it, here's why. This town hall was billed as a Republican primary town hall, which means that presumably Trump should have been asked about issues Republican voters care about, like say Fauci and COVID, criminal justice reform and Alice Johnson and crime, the border wall, and illegal immigration, etc. Now let me present a partial list of the issues Republican voters

don't care about. E. Jean Carroll, January 6th, Georgia election questions, national archives documents, Alvin Bragg's allegations. These are all Democrats' top issues. Kaelin Collins, the moderator, asked zero of the questions Republicans cared about and all the ones Democrats cared about. So in other words, this was billed as a GOP primary last night and it was just Caitlin Collins asking questions Democrats have about Trump. Republican voters sensed this. So when Trump took out the kitchen sink and began hammering Collins into the wall with it, they cheered. Republicans will always end correctly cheer biased moderators being steamrolled by Republican candidates no matter what those candidates actually say. Trump wins more favor with Republican voters. Democrats remain off

put, independents continue to wonder why we're really litigating 2020 ridiculous failure by CNN on all fronts, unless of course their goal is to re-nominate Trump for the ratings and because they think he's the most beatable. Note, this, by the way, is precisely their goal.

Steve, I want to start with you. There's a lot in there. But what do you think? Yeah, with all due respect, Ben, I think he accurately describes the likely effects of the town hall, but I think it's a profound misunderstanding of what the goal of journalism is, honestly. I mean, Caitlin Collins isn't there to ask questions that Republicans

care about. She's there to ask questions and illicit answers about what the country cares about, what the country should care about. Now, I probably have some differences with Caitlin Colin on what a specific set of, say, 10 of those issues ought to be. But it seems to me it would have been journalistic malpractice if she didn't start the discussion, the town hall, one of the first town halls in which Trump has subjected himself to hostile questioning from, or if not hostile questioning, challenging questioning from somebody other than a Sean Hannity or somebody on Rumble, she had to start with the 2020 election. She had to start with January 6th. If she had simply asked the question,

that Republicans supposedly care about, about inflation, about the war, about these things. She would have been treating Trump as a regular political actor. And he's anything but a regular political actor. He's a quasi-authoritarian who tried to steal an election and provoked a soft coup, a violent soft coup in the United States.

There was a time when Republicans actually cared about that and made an argument again. it and condemned him for it. Virtually every Republican in elective office and most conservative commentators too. But now that it looks like Trump is regaining his mojo, you're finding, you know, not only conservative commentators sort of retrofitting their views to boost Trump, but at the same time, you're finding elected officials making arguments that are precisely the opposite of the arguments they made about Trump, about the elections about January 6th a while ago. So I would have asked some different questions. Undoubtedly, I'm interested in things that Caitlin Collins wouldn't

be because I'm a conservative. But she had to ask those questions. And I think she deserves credit for doing so. Jonah, I think I disagree with Steve on this. I think when you say it's a, you know, for a Republican primary audience that, yeah, you should ask questions that are the divides within the Republican primary. Now, I think there's a reasonable point to be made that she did ask some of those questions. But don't you think Ben has a point here that asking questions that are on the minds of Democrats, actually, or, and for that matter, the minds of Caitlin Collins, to Steve's point, that that's not just journalism. That's not what the show was billed as. Yes and no. I don't know. I'm I'm talking about full disclosure. I'm a CNN contributor. I was there for

the pregame coverage and then when I announced that I got to leave at 8 o'clock, all the people who I was leaving behind looked at me like I was one of the embassy staffers at the American embassy in Vietnam in 1975 who got a seat

on the helicopter. So I was very glad to go. Yeah, look, I think Ben has a point. My problem with Shapiro approach to the question is he has given up any sort of pretense of ever criticizing his audience. And so his premises are correct, but there's no mention, there's no acknowledgment that

shame on Republican voters for having zero concern about this, right, and zero interest in this. And, and, and I'll get to your further point in the second, but like this does, last night really did hammer home for me. What a spectacularly catastrophic decision, the broad leadership of the Republican Party made by not forcefully and universally denouncing the stolen election stuff. Because now the electorate is like 70%, 80% on board with the stolen election. narrative, which makes it impossible for anybody to run against them and say you lost, among other things. You know, it's, I mean, I've used this

analogy before. Each, every individual baseball team has a vested fiduciary interest, and so does the lead, and it particularly does the lead, in making

sure that fans believe the games are fair, that the umps are fair, and that the scores are the actual scores. And if you let the Yankees say, well, I know what the scoreboard says, but the scoreboard is rig, you're going to destroy the game. And the GOP as an institution

has done enormous damage to itself and to its electorate by letting this idea fester. Okay, that said, I was skeptical that this was going to be a good idea for CNN. And I was explaining this to people in the green room yesterday. I was like, I like Caitlin Collins. I think she was given an almost impossible thing to Kobayashi-Maru

insofar as you had a big chunk of viewers and a huge chunk of peers, journalistic peers, all that, who all want her to go for the kill shot journalistically, right? Like hold them accountable, democracy dies in darkness, yada, yada, yada. You got an audience that's full of Trumpy fans. and you've got a new audience that's giving you good ratings of people who are very committed to one side or the other on the Trump issue. And there's no way to please all of these people. And then you've got, you know, the Escape Monkey from a cocaine study that you're actually interviewing on the stage. And that's a really difficult needle to thread.

It's like seven needles to thread that are not quite lined up properly. So I have a lot of sympathy for Caitlin Collins. I don't think necessarily this was good for the Republic. I don't think it was good for CNN, and I don't think it was good for the Republican Party. But where do you draw the line? I mean, it's like, I agree with Steve. She had to ask some of these questions about the election stuff,

and he kind of led with that stuff. She asked him, why should Republicans vote for you again? And he says, well, that's because the election was stolen and it was rigged and blah, blah, blah. And he, you know, he ran with it. He's campaigning on it. And, you know, one of the questions from the audience was, are you going to pardon the January 6th guys? I mean, that's not her fault.

And not just the January 6th guys, the convicted January 6th guys. Right. Well, you're not going to pardon the ones who weren't convicted. No, but I mean, he didn't leave. They didn't, it was a very specific question that he answered in a very specific way that should be more troubling, I think, than it is. But, Jonah, was this, I guess some of this stems from the format itself. Was this a town hall?

where you were having voters asked the questions they were interested in with a moderator who was there to help with maybe follow-ups in case the candidate dodges the question? Or was this an interview with Caitlin Collins? I honestly couldn't tell at various points. Yeah, no, I think that's a fair criticism, and I think that's the

problem with, I agree that the format was kind of screwed up. And it was flawed from conception in that sense. And I think that is a perfectly fair point. Um, but this, I just have such torn feelings about this because Trump is the guy who, I mean, we've talked about this about the album brag context and all that kind of stuff, right? Trump

violates all sorts of norms. And then people violate norms in response. We've had this conversation a thousand times. You can't have a normal event with a guy who lies so brazenly about so much that actually matters. I mean, all politicians lie, but he lies about like some really fundamental and important things. And it's asking people the impossible to sort of, you're damned either way. You're either enabling his lies if you don't call him out on this stuff. And you're distracting from the concerns that real New Hampshire voters care about if you do call him on it. And so, yeah, it'd be better if what we could do is tie him to a gurney and have heart pokers and whatnot

and ask them the questions we want to ask them all night long, but we're not going to get that. Let me be clear about where I'm coming from. I'm definitely not saying just asking them questions that Caitlin Collins and Democrats are thought to be interested in. Of course you want to incorporate. I mean, I would think this would be true without having to state it in virtually any interview

of an elected official, certainly somebody running for president. You want to ask questions about a wide variety of issues from a wide variety of perspective. I think that makes the best interview. But it would have been insane, given who Trump isn't given what Trump does, to not treat him differently than you would treat other candidates. I mean, he is not like other candidates. We shouldn't pretend that he is. I don't really give a shit about Donald Trump's views on inflation today.

And if he gives us an answer, it's an answer that could change tomorrow. He was asked about Russia and Ukraine, which side he was on. He didn't really answer the question, but he said he wants everybody to stop dying and then said, basically, everybody should stop dying and I'm going to solve it in 24 hours. You tell me that asking that question, which is something that Republican voters would care about, gives us actual insight into Trump, the candidate, into Trump. It's just all nonsense. All right, do I get to ask a question now?

No. Actually, let me go further because I've got a point that I want to. make picking up on Jonah's MLB. You're a nasty woman. You're a nasty woman. I mean, since you asked me, I can answer the question and say, no, I want to keep going. Let me just make a final quick point related to this because I think it's a really important one and this is where I'm.

Wait, are you seriously still going? Yeah, I know. I'm seriously still going. My answer there was very short, actually. I have something of relevance to contribute. But it wasn't an answer to a question. No, it was an answer to Jonah's point. And to your mischaracterization of my very.

that I only want to talk about Democrat question. I am feeling more sympathetic for Caitlin Collins. The argument, nasty, the argument that Jonah makes about Major League Baseball and sort of broader consequences of this, I think are quite serious. I was listening to see it in this morning as they sort of chewed over this debate, and they had on Republican Representative Brian Mast, who's a decorated combat veteran, you know, somebody who's served his country, served this country, and sacrificed. for his country in a pretty significant way.

Masked is somebody who condemned in no uncertain terms the violence in January 6th. He was in the Capitol on January 6th. He was asked a question about the 2020 election and whether Trump should be asked these questions about the 2020 election. And he said that we now know that the full force of the federal government

was used to prevent Donald Trump from being reelected. I'm paraphrasing, but that's a close paraphrase. you haven't had people in 2018, 2020, and 2020 to make those arguments and be politically successful. Mostly that you made those arguments and you wound up on the fringe. I fear what's going to happen here is that with Donald Trump as the leading Republican, with him having won the endorsements of,

what, for that, four plus dozen members of Congress, they are going to feel compelled to make his phony arguments on his behalf to stay in his good graces. So masked, someone who condemned the violence on January 6th, again, unequivocally, without qualification, today said he was in effect wrong to have condemned it because we didn't know everything we know now. Now we have the video. And presumably he's talking about the video that Kevin McCarthy supplied Tucker Carlson for exactly this kind of propaganda bullshit. Now we have the video and we know that so much

many of these people were just let around in the Capitol and the Capitol police enabled them. No kidding. I think this is incredibly dangerous. And I think we can say with virtual certainty that it will lead to violence. Well, you lose your question. And now we go to Jonah. That's fine. Jonah, I do want to talk some of the substance of what Trump said last night because Trump was asked questions that are divides within the Republican Party and maybe a Republican primary. if Republican primary candidates wanted to stake out actual policy ground. So I want to run through some of those. You pick out the ones you're interested in.

Trump at one point said that congressional Republicans should let the U.S. government default unless Democrats agree to massive budget cuts. So, you know, debt ceiling fun times. He said that any potential fallout from default would be largely psychological, could be a bad week or just a bad day. All right. Then, of course, he said he was, I'm going to pardon, quote, a large portion of those convicted on January 6th,

but caveat a couple of them probably got out of control. On the abortion question, he actually really never said yes or no about whether he'd sign a national set of restrictions. You know, that federal 15-week ban, for instance, that Lindsay Graham has proposed. Instead, he said in the third person, President Trump is going to make a determination what he thinks is. great for the country. And this comes after, as you know,

the Susan B. Anthony group had initially criticized Trump for refusing to take a position on the ban. Then they came out and said they talked to him and then they believed that he had moved to where they were, but last night he doesn't answer the question. He refused to call Vladimir Putin a war criminal over killing Ukrainian civilians. Quote, if you say he's a war criminal,

it will be a lot tougher to get a deal to get this thing stopped. and then he refused to commit to recognizing the 2024 election results unless he deems it an honest election. And then let's just finish with border wall. He said he did finish the border wall. That's just not true. So Jonah, substantively,

was there anything that stood out to you as politically interesting within the primary context or within even, you know, Donald Trump as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination on policy So I wrote I wrote those down as you went I think the abortion is the most obvious one

Right it's it's Bless their hearts It was really funny before The Town Hall last night CNN's reporters and some other people I talked to in the green room Or on set were saying, it was just in the air all over the place.

Some people were texting me about it. Trump's team, we're talking about how this was going to be this great opportunity for Trump to reach beyond his core coalition to the center and convince and to broaden his appeal because he is focused now. Basically, he thinks he's going to be the nominee. So he's thinking about the general election. And he needs to bring over independence and moderates and the rest. and of course

none of that happened except on the abortion thing where I think he thought he was being very clever in not committing because at least if Maggie Haberman and the other reporters who reported on this are right he thinks that the Dobbs thing

was really bad for the GOP and that abortion is killing him and I'm one of these people who's never thought Trump actually cared about abortion one way or the other And so it was interesting that he basically was telegraphing that he's not where the pro-lifers are on this stuff. I don't think that there's a single pro-choice person

who votes on an abortion or a single liberal or moderate who votes on abortion who caught any nuance in there or gave a rat's ass because those people are not going to be voting for Trump anyway, right? Because like you can't brag about how you appointed the judge who overturned Roe v. Wade, and then all of a sudden, well, he's not saying he would necessarily go along with this, whatever, right?

I mean, he's toast with those people anyway. But the people who were listening or should be listening are pro-lifers. And the question is whether or not those groups and institutions have become so politically corrupted or co-opted that they don't have the spine to sort of realize the path that Trump is putting them on. I will say, I'll skip some of the others, but the one that I thought was the most dangerous

and most bananas other than maybe the election denial thing which is long term dangerous short term dangerous for sure was the default thing look I I would love for them to cut he said five trillion

cut five trillion dollars or the United States needs to default and he says well it's mostly psychological it makes it sound like it's mostly psychological like the pain will be all in your head right which is like no it's like the cause

of very real world things will be psychological he's right about that the cause of most wars oh let me put another way the cause of all wars and all murders and basically all human actions

is psychological that is not really it's not to say that it's immaterial and if you think this guy if he wants to say that he's like the guy who's going to be first of all, make America great again, but never mind, the guy who wants to be tough on China,

if we default, we could stop being the reserve currency of the world. We could have hundreds of thousands, millions of people thrown out of work very quickly. And to dismiss it as no big deal because you don't have any responsibility in this fight is outrageous. and he admitted, he flatly admitted that his thinking about this is because he has no skin in the games. When he was, when Caitlin Collins asked him, why didn't you,

why did you say playing games with default is outrageous when you were president? He was like, well, because I was president then, right? I mean, it's like, there's the most grotesquely irresponsible way to talk about something this serious. And, and I'd go through the others, but I just want to make the one very quick point.

No one gives a rat's ass. The electorate, the GOP electorate right now does not care about policy. It does not care about issues, which is one of the reasons why I have a real problem with the Shapiro thesis. Because Trump could give the opposite answer on every single question he was asked by those real New Hampshire Republican voters. And they would still love him as so long as he made the political and rhetorical equivalent of fart jokes and the rest. So it's a very dangerous place to have the GOP so enthralled to a guy who is so cavalier on a lot of really important things. 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.

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That's E-T-H-O-S dot com slash dispatch. Application times may vary, rates may vary. All right, Steve, I want to know what you think. That's CNN Town Hall. and let's add in the E. Jean Carroll verdict Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

What should that inform other candidates within the GOP primary? What did they learn? Or is the answer nothing? He's bulletproof, Teflon, Don. And, you know, we can stop doing our high stakes podcast

because you now owe me two stakes? I mean, I won't give that up yet. But I would say that your side of the bet that Trump wins the Republican nomination is looking, is looking off. Stephen boning up on the actuarial tables of old people, because that's where the only way he wins. No, I will get that. You know, as we were talking about before we hit record here, you know, I think we should all be pretty humble about straight line projections in American politics these days. and what looks to be obvious and almost inevitable at any given moment doesn't have to be.

And I expect that we're going to see of lots of ups and downs. We'll have some probably surprise candidates enter the race on the Republican side. We could have a serious third party challenge, independent run. I mean, I think there are all sorts. This is going to be a crazy and chaotic election cycle, both in the primaries and in the general.

But the fact that I'm pointing that out rather than tutting about my accurate prediction probably speaks for itself. You know, I don't know, it's hard to know what to make of how other Republican candidates should look at this. You have at this point... I mean, the list of things that Republican candidates and Republican elected leaders,

their response to the E. Jean Carroll verdict, for instance, pretty telling, Nikki Haley, sort of saying like not my problem other people saying what Tommy Tuberville saying I'll vote for him twice now and the whole range of between nobody was like

oh this is a real problem I mean Chris Christie said that how does Nicky Haley run as a feminist candidate well saying well this really isn't anybody's issue I just don't get it I don't get it she's she's running for vice president I mean I think Chris Christie

spoke out about Aisa Hutchinson spoke out about it. Both of them did. And I should give them, I should make, I want to underline that because of what I just said. But look, I mean, I think the fact that, that, you know, you don't think it's that significant is telling it in and of itself. And I don't mean that as a criticism of you. I mean that that's an accurate reflection of so where things are. And I think we, can expect that both of those candidates will, will make critical comments about Donald Trump and, you know, may get some attention for, but probably not a lot. Look, I mean, it's hard to think through how other Republican candidates should react to an event like this when you've seen other than the two that we mentioned very little willingness to challenge Donald Trump on policy grounds, on moral grounds in any substantive way because they're trying to win the same base that is currently enthralled to Donald Trump.

So we won't see much reaction. As I say, my biggest concern coming out of this is if Trump was a marginal figure who didn't get a lot of attention and whom most Republican elected officials in the aftermath of January 6th sought not to comment on, that's not going to be the case anymore. Now he's going to be in the news cycle all the time. He's going to be making these kinds of totally outrageous and absurd comments all the time.

And Republican elected officials will be asked about it all the time. And the difference is that now you are going to have this chorus of people who have endorsed Donald Trump. They're in. They're all in. So it doesn't matter what he says and does. They are going to support it, rationalize it, amplify it, celebrate it, no matter what. And I think that will give the impression, further give the impression that Donald Trump is inevitable

and that the Republican base is rallying around him. Jonah didn't, I don't know, there was something that struck me as funny about the timing. On the one hand, you have Donald Trump with, you know, lots of legal problems, saying kind of crazy stuff, and you have Republicans, you know, into pretzels trying either not to comment on it or not to get into the specifics, et cetera.

And then the same time, you have George Santos indicted by the Department of Justice surrendering to the FBI. And Republicans are like, oh, that whack-a-doodle? If Donald Trump had been indicted for what George Santos was indicted for, identically, they wouldn't be talking about him like they're talking about George Santos. It's incredible to me. Yeah, that's the irony of George Santos trying to do this witch hunt thing, right? I remember years ago I met this guy at the Hoover Foundation who wrote a book about why America should get out of NATO. And every single neocon in the Western Hemisphere rained holy hell down on it. And he was like, I don't get it.

I used to know these people. Why are there so mad at me? And then he realized it was because Irving Crystal also believed the U.S. should get out of NATO. But no one dared attack Irving Crystal. So they found this other guy to beat the living crap out of, to air to prove that where they were on and saying, I think about that with the Santos thing. It's a weird, very dorky analogy in that if you're getting hit from people

or including your own conscious, you know, stinging you, about the ethics of the Republican Party, about your own ethics, about your own, just let's be honest, bald-faced cowardness in not criticizing Trump. or calling out any of these things, having, you know, George Santos as a punching bag to say, look, I care about ethics.

I care about this stuff. See how I'm condemning him? He's really bad. This totally obscure, meaningless, you know, nobody who's never going to get reelected. I am super courageous and moral for criticizing this guy.

And, oh, I had no comment on Donald Trump, you know, killing six cats today. And that's that's that. Okay, I do want to move now to the Joe Biden side of this, the general election side of this. There was a new ABC Washington Post poll that came out. It had Joe Biden's approval rating at 36%. Is that good?

You know polls. Is that good, Sarah? That same poll, 62% of respondents believe Joe Biden is not physically healthy enough to serve. His support among black voters had dropped 30 points since inauguration day from 82% to 52%. He... Well, you're leaving out important one. It wasn't just that physically healthy enough.

Didn't have the mental sharpness to serve as president of the United States was like 64% or something like that. That's not great. Not great, Bob. And then in the head-to-head matchups, Donald Trump beating Joe Biden, 44% to 38%. And Ron DeSantis beating Joe Biden 42% to 37%. At the same time, James Comer over at that Republican House Oversight Committee released a 30-page report of sorts

detailing roughly $10 million in money that Joe Biden's Family members, business associates had received from foreign governments. No ties to Joe Biden himself, but it did turn into this sort of roar shock test where those on the right saying, see, corruption. Obviously, if Joe Biden's family members are suddenly raking in $10 million, he'd certainly know where he'd have been coming from. And those on the left saying, see, Republicans found no connection to Joe Biden. There's nothing to see here. I find it's sort of funny on both sides because if the point is that we should have laws

against presidents, family members getting money and ethics concerns about that, boy, that'd be interesting to apply to both candidates that are presumptive at this point for 2024. My point being, not a great week for Joe Biden either, Steve. Not a great week for the country. I mean, this is a disaster. The fact that these two people are leading

the polls and, you know, if we were making bets today, we would bet that they are likely to be the nominees of the two major political parties. NBC did a poll a couple weeks ago and found that 5% of the country would be happy with a Joe Biden, Donald Trump rematch. Look, I mean, I think Joe Biden has done a lot to earn his low approval ratings. I think he's been a crummy president. He's not made good on his promises to unify the country and in many respects has sought to to further divide the country. Jackie Heinrich of Fox News, who's one of the good, real reporters at Fox News,

pointed out that in his remarks yesterday about the debt ceiling, Biden traveled up to Mike Lawler's district, a representative from New York, who is in a very competitive district. And Biden criticized Republicans, criticized MAGA Republicans for playing games on the debt ceiling and said,

You know, Mike Lawler is not one of these MAGA Republicans that I've been so critical of. And yet, just a couple days later, the White House lumped in Mike Lawler with the MAGA Republicans that Joe Biden has been so critical of. So he is doing everything he can to contradict the themes that he laid out in his inaugural address and seeking to divide the country. I think there's a reason that he's got the low marks he has. And if you look forward and you look at the possibility of an economic slump, six and ten economists think we'll have a recession next year, it makes real the possibility that Donald Trump could not only win the Republican nomination, but this guy who tried to overturn and cheat to win the last election,

could actually win the next election. Jonah, do you think that Donald Trump is still the most beatable candidate for Joe Biden to face? Or do you think Joe Biden is actually weak enough that we should be looking at this from the other direction? That any number of Republican candidates would all be so likely to beat Joe Biden, it doesn't really matter?

I think Joe Biden, I think this is very much a replay of 2016. Slightly different, but same principle, which is that in 2016, we had the most unpopular presidential candidate in American history running against the second most unpopular presidential candidate in American history. They were both so

unpopular in an era of negative polarization where most people are voting against the other person, they both each had a chance of beating the other. And I get a lot of crap for my both sidesism and my false equivalence and all that. I don't think Joe Biden as corrupt

or as morally reprehensible or as dangerous in any way as I do as I think Donald Trump is. But I think it is a profound and dismaying dereliction of duty for the Democratic Party

to renominate this guy who is clearly on a downward slope. How steep it is, I don't know. But, like, he basically doesn't do anything before 10 or after 4. When he has a big day, he starts to slur his words. I'm not trying to be cruel. This is not ages or people age at different rates.

Bernie Sanders still seems totally up to the task of, of seizing the radio stations and nationalizing the, you know, the auto industry. Chuck Grassley's still killing deer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, Don Rumsfeld could probably beat all of us at Seduco or what is Suduco into his 90s, right? I mean, like there's just some people who have just, who aged better or worse. And for a normal person, Biden's aging really, really well. He's a very spry 80 year old. But for the leader of the free world and arguably one of the most taxing jobs in the world, he just seems like he's not doing well. And he's one fall. one more garbled weird or I don't know how many more garbled weird statements away from having people vote for the other guy just

because he's not reassuring us. I mean, it's worrisome. And so anyway, I still think Trump loses the Joe, if we do a straight line projection from today, I don't care about this poll on that. The political

significance of the Washington Post poll and polls like it is that it takes away one of the last arguments against Donald Trump. right because these unbelievably cowardly politicians when I say cowardly I mean I mean it like

in any other primary I mean imagine being afraid to say you'd be a better president than your opponent in a primary I mean that's what the primaries are for is you to explain why you'd be better

at the job than the people you're running against and they're all terrified of saving even that never mind saying he's unfit or disqualified or all that kind of stuff So to the extent they criticize anything, they mostly fall around this, well, he can't beat Biden stuff. Well, if the polls start saying

Trump can beat Biden, what do they have left? And we saw Trump previewing that last night. I mean, I would have loved, if I could have gotten Kate and Collins to ask one question, and I don't give a rat's ass that the audience wouldn't like it. Take that, the axis of Shapiro and Izgar,

is when Trump touted those polls that he's beating Biden in the Washington Post poll I would love for Caitlin Collins to say well the same poll says a majority of Americans think you should be criminally prosecuted and go to jail for trying to steal the election. Are they right about that? You know, I mean like you can't cite a poll

the authority of a poll that says they'd rather have you that you beat Joe Biden when an even bigger majority says you belong, you should be indicted for trying to steal an election. So I think if present trends continue we can't have nice things,

this is going to be really, really bad. And it's just a profoundly unsurious moment where both parties have failed the country and themselves. Steve, how seriously should we be taking the corruption allegations against Joe Biden? I mean, look, it is true that on the one hand, none of this 30-page report has any direct ties to Joe Biden. But it is also true that

this network around him, businesses related to his family members, close family members, right? His son, his brother, et cetera, are taking in $10 million from China, Romania. Yeah. Which side am I supposed to think has more credibility on this argument? Well, look, I mean, assuming all of those things are true and, and validated, I think we should be very concerned about it. I don't think it's new in the sense that we were well aware what Hunter Biden was doing to trade on his father's name. And it was, I mean, we were saying before the 2020 election, this was sort of rank corruption. And it's the kind of

corruption that I think 30 years ago would have gotten a lot more attention and might have proven disqualifying. I think in the current context, and as you pointed out, I mean, looking at the ways in which the Trump children, the Trump family, Trump's son-in-law have benefited and grifted off of his presidency while he was president, it's hard to be outraged about the Biden family and not at the same time be outraged about the Trump family. Now, I think both things are outrageous. I think the level of rot in our government that people see this. And, you know, I think most normal American, Americans don't know what to believe, and partisans are angry about one thing and not angry about

the other. It's a really crummy situation to be in. I think the other problem, and look, this is a problem as we do reporting on this stuff, if the facts are as they've been presented by the Republicans, I think it's a significant story. And I think mainstream outlets should cover it. Joe Biden should get lots of questions about it. His family should have to answer questions about it. And this should be a source of persistent coverage for Biden in the Biden White House. And there are serious allegations. And if, again, if confirmed, serious revelations about actual corruption, as you pursue these stories, you always want to double source or triple source points and revelations about allegations like this. In this case, it's sometimes hard to do that

because so many of the sources on the Republican side have made outlandish claims that later hold up either not to be true or are only partially true. We saw this just a few weeks ago with Jim Jordan put out a letter accusing Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State, of coordinating this letter suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation

with members of the U.S. intelligence community. Now, I happen to think that that letter, in retrospect, and what we've learned about the Biden campaign's efforts to distribute it, about what those former intelligence officials were saying using the authority that they had because of their experience without actually having evidence of the claims that they were making, I think it's outrageous. And I think it reflects poorly on the intelligence community.

And I think there should be repercussions for it. But it simply wasn't the case, as we found out when subsequent transcripts were released, that Anthony Blinken was the ringleader in all of this. And you had Republicans out there making these charges. They put out a partial transcript, and everybody went, you know, everybody on the Republican side went charging after the Republicans amplifying their claims. And then when the rest of the transcript was released and it complicated the claims that they were making, you didn't see the same people say, actually, now that we have all the information,

this is a little more complicated than we had thought. Yes, sir. Can I ask Sarah a question about this? Because my friend Annie McCarthy makes the point, and to his credit, he wants these, you know, some of these allegations to be true. I think I don't mean that in a disrespectful way. I just think he's, you know, he's invested in some of this story. But he cautions.

He says, look, it was bad when Democrats did this with the Russia collusion stuff where you do partial leaks, you do innuendo, you say you have access to information that you can't release right now, that proves your case, but go ahead and be angry about it now. We'll get you the facts later, right? And how good a comparison is that? Because, you mean, you were there for a lot of the Russia collusion stuff. it seems like Republicans are not

revealing the fact that what they're doing is getting payback by doing sort of the same thing. Now, I think and I have another comparison I want you to answer. The

almost all of the stuff with the exception of Clarence Thomas' mom's house is that Democrats are throwing in Clarence Thomas, is all of this innuendo that just simply the appearance of impropriety is really, really bad and proves that he's corrupt. Well, nothing compares to the perfectly

legal, as far as we know, millions or tens of millions of dollars flowing from foreign governments to Joe Biden's son. And the claim that, like, that is outrageous that you think this would influence a hack, ward-healing politician like Joe Biden. Is that a fair comparison? So I don't think that the Russia collusion comparison is particularly apt for me. I mean, maybe at like a 70,000 foot level, I definitely see some similarities. But look, in that case, you had the Department of Justice with an ongoing investigation where members of Congress were putting enormous pressure on DOJ to show them, you know, various things that they had.

DOJ was by and large not sharing a lot of information. And then you had those members of Congress going out and saying that they'd either seen it or they were characterizing it. So like they didn't even have access to it. And it wasn't their investigation. And, you know, some of it was just like, I'm on the Intelligence Committee

and I know this is true. This is different in the sense that at least this is the House Oversight Committee's investigation. Now, here's the part where I think, at 70,000 feet, I kind of see it, which is Comer's like, yeah, yeah, I'm going to get more information from the banks, stuff like that. But even Democrats are saying it's both their criticism, but I think in admission as well, this 30-page report is largely just repackaged stuff from public reporting, i.e., it's true, or at least, you know, has been publicly reported

and to the extent you think it's not true, like take it up with various news organizations, they're just saying it's not a big deal. That's very different than the Russia collusion narrative. On the Clarence Thomas thing, yeah, look, this is like, A, taking money from foreign governments is just different. Like, there's a reason that we have all sorts of laws about the Foreign Agent Registration Act and Siphyas and a thousand other things. But I take the overall point, which is either we have these prophylactics in place to prevent. prevent corruption or the appearance of corruption. And therefore, if you want to show corruption,

you need to show something that has happened or not happened that you could tie to these payments to his son. Or we simply say that the appearance is enough, or not even the appearance. The money is enough. You don't need to have any actual corruption interest because it's icky. I'm actually pretty sympathetic to the icky arguments,

and I've said that on advisory opinions. but I think you're right, do you have to be consistent? Is it corruption that you need, or is it just ickiness that you need? Hunter Biden provides plenty of ickiness. But there's no question that the House Republican Oversight Committee has come up with no even theory, really, of Joe Biden using his powers as vice president or senator or president or anything else to make decisions based on the money that he knew. China or Romania was giving his son or his brother,

whomever the other seven are. And yeah, I guess I do think that should probably matter. You know, in the same way that around Bill Clinton, he had sketchy family members. Yep, they were making money off the fact that, you know, their brother, et cetera, was president of the United States. Let's make some laws about that or some ethics rules about it. Let's enforce them.

But it doesn't mean that the president person was corrupt unless you can show that somehow. starting with the ending, right? He said, well, of course his name's not in this stuff. Criminals never put their name in these documents. I mean, that's what he said on Fox News. So he makes the assumption that he's a criminal and that that sort of explains it.

Can I tell you something funny? I had this, I, there's this case that I am aware of where the police had a confidential informant that said the drug dealer was going to turn left on, you know, Main Avenue. And so when the drug dealer turned right on Main Avenue, they pulled him over and searched his car. And the guy sues, you know, or challenges the evidence and is like, well, wait a second, your confidential informant was wrong.

And the police were like, well, yeah, but clearly you turned right because you knew that we were about to pull you over if you turned left. So no matter what. That's right. You turn left, the confidential informant's right, we pull you over and search your car. You turn right. It's because you knew that we were following you when we could pull you over and search your car. That was not a winning argument.

As an AO listener, I knew this. Sarah, I need to ask you a question. One of the things that happened over the past week is you had Joe Biden being asked about this by MSNBC's Stephanie Rule before the Republicans put out their document. But with the knowledge that DOJ is investigating Hunter Biden, and he spoke to the claims, to the allegations. He said, my son did nothing wrong. I'm proud of my son. This is going nowhere, in effect. I found that outrageous that the president would speak about the substance of an investigation, sending messages to the people potentially prosecuting, the people investigating this, his attorney general.

Is it as outrageous as I think it is? I thought it was wholly inappropriate. No, it's insane. But of course, I'm coming from the era where at, you know, 6 a.m. every other morning I got a tweet talking about throwing, you know, Rod Rosen's stuff. sign in jail, for instance. So, you know, I'm actually, I think I, I don't think I do understand the problem with both sidesism. I understand the problem with what aboutism, as in what they did isn't bad because the other side also does it. That I have no tolerance for.

But if what you're saying is what they did is bad and the other side does it and that is also bad, why is that a problem? I know. So yes. It drives me crazy. I mean, I think that both the, the Gambini and Lou Casey crime families are bad. Both sides of Jonah.

So, yes, I think it is really, really bad. And if you talk to people at the Department of Justice, they will tell you that it is unhelpful and corrosive for Joe Biden to be commenting on ongoing Department of Justice investigations. Why was that not a front page above the full New York Times story? Why haven't we seen the mainstream media reporting about this? I mean, is it just because we've now, our senses are so dulled because of what Trump did for all these years that we don't, we shouldn't spend the time talking about this and pointing it out? I'm trying to lead you there. I'm trying to give you no other answer. Tell me. I look, part of the reason is because Trump did it so much bigger and more blatantly, more outrageously, you know, showing Rod Rosenstein behind jail cell bars.

saying that he's committed treason is a much bigger version of what Joe Biden is doing. And so there's some of this like, well, look, what Trump did was just, you know, so much. And we talked about it so much. But yeah, another reason is that when Donald Trump did it, the vast majority of reporters who fall on the left end side of the political spectrum saw it as a much, much bigger threat when Joe Biden did it. They're like, yeah, but he's not actually going to interfere in the election. he's not, sorry, in the investigation, he's not actually going to fire the U.S. attorney.

So their fears about Joe Biden are so much less because they instinctively trust him more. I think that's right. I would posit one other factor, and I don't have much actual evidence for this, but I do think it's a factor. I think he gets a pass to a certain extent because he is old and he's not sort of, he says these kinds of things all the time. He says things that he doesn't mean, things that have to be corrected, he walks off the wrong side of the stage. They don't take him as seriously

when he makes these kinds of comments as they would with somebody who was 60 and said this. It's the soft bigotry of law. I think it is, honestly. I think that's a big part of it. I mean, I think it's sort of media bias, the Trump doing the senses of this, and the fact that Biden is as old

as he is gives him a pass, which is not a great way to operate. 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. trial. And when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right. We don't have much time left, but I do want to talk about

the debt ceiling really quickly. We mentioned what Trump's response was to that question in the CNN town hall, Jonah. But look, what is the political lay of the land? We're running out of time here. At the same time, I do want to give voice to the other side of this, which is, we've done this before. Sure, maybe there's been small repercussions to it, but they've been incredibly small. The economy's recovered quickly, all of this doomsdaying about how

if we walk up to the line on the debt ceiling or even have a technical default, that somehow, you know, the sky is falling, the U.S. dollar won't be the reserve currency. I don't know. When you keep doing this every couple years, the credibility runs out, a little

like Social Security. You know, if you keep saying, that Social Security trust fund is going to run out of money in 10 years, or climate change is going to flood Miami in 10 years, and then 10 years goes by, you lose credibility over time. And so what is the political landscape for Republicans, and how serious should we be taking this? Yeah, so I am, before I answer the full question,

I do want to just make this point about Trump's answer that I didn't close the circle on, which is simply that Trump, by saying Republicans should hold out for a $5 trillion budget cut. And if they don't get that, they should default. The problem with that is that,

A, it's incandescently stupid. But B, it creates a sort of right-wing echo sphere argument that, like, at least the Matt Gates is going to say, well, the reason I'm not going to vote for this is we need to cut $5 trillion, right? It creates a benchmark, a political safe harbor for a really stupid position,

which I think is profoundly dangerous. That said, it's also annoying because I think Kevin, to answer your question, I think Kevin McCarthy's winning this. And I think he should be winning this. I've been very critical of Kevin McCarthy, but he got his votes together and he passed a bill that raises the debt ceiling. And Joe Biden is going around talking about how we'll have a conversation, but not a negotiation.

And I think the average, I think the polling bears this out, something like two thirds of Americans think that it should negotiate. And I think that McCarthy has the upper hand here. He should have the upper hand. I don't like this brinksmanship. I think it's bad.

I think your analogy to climate change is off insofar as we keep going up to the line and then not doing this thing, right? it's more like we keep going up to the line of the subway platform but not jumping on the tracks you keep saying it's dangerous to jump on the tracks we keep going really close to it but then we pull back

and we're now thinking what's the big deal about going on the tracks who cares and the thing is you go on the tracks you're going to get hit by a train and die and everything cats and dogs living together and all that so I think that this is a really stupid

way to run a country. It's a classic both sides suck kind of point because both sides have done brinksmanship like this. Both sides are to blame for the amount of debt that we have. But if you're just looking at it as inside the Beltway political question, McCarthy has the better argument. He's got something to say in response to Biden. And I think Biden's inability to articulate arguments that normal people understand and don't and don't tune out, right? I mean, is very difficult here. And so I think he needs to come to the table with something. Yeah. I mean, I think Joe Biden's handling this poorly and I'm distressed by the fact that he hasn't really changed his public rhetoric significantly and still seems to be, I mean,

I guess if you squint and you force yourself to be optimistic, you can say there might be some day later. He's leaving cracks open for some negotiating, but it seems to me that he's not. And I think Republicans are right to be skeptical. You know, the White House is saying, look, just do the debt ceiling now and we'll have negotiations with you later about spending restraint.

Well, every other time Republicans have wanted to have negotiations with the White House about spending restraint, the White House has effectively flipped them the bird. You've heard this in public from people like Larry Hogan, who went with other governors to meet at the White House in the early stages of the Biden administration, hoping to impose some spending discipline on the orgy of federal spending that we saw

at the outset of the Biden administration, and they were basically told the pound sand. So Republicans are right to be skeptical that Joe Biden is going to suddenly say, yeah, we'll restrain spending down the road. Having said all that, I do think that this is, it's dangerous. What Donald Trump did is dangerous. I think you have a number of Republicans enough to foil any kind of deal who already don't think it's that big a deal if we default.

You know, these are the sort of, I don't trust any experts on anything anymore. Republicans. And while I think there's some reason to be skeptical of taking experts at their word, challenging them on their claims, this is kind of, you know, low margin for error here. But Donald Trump saying this is, I think, gives them political cover and they know if they want to be in as good graces, they should do what he is saying. The great irony of this, of course, is that Donald Trump spent $7.8 trillion, added $7.8 trillion to our national debt in just four years as president. And to the extent that that reflects his spending priorities, it probably understates it because there were numerous times that Donald Trump pushed for more spending on infrastructure, on you name it. So he has been one of the most profligate, irresponsible spenders in recent American history, as Mike Pence acknowledged in his interview with us just a couple weeks ago, as Mick Mulvaney said on the dispatch podcast,

a little more than a year ago. And yet now he wants to potentially risk the credit standing of the United States and throw the economy into a tailspin because he's suddenly found spending restraint a priority. It's preposterous. But you can also see, I mean, there's a very crass political angle to this too.

I mean, who benefits politically most, potentially, if the economy's in the crapper? Arguably Donald Trump, Joe Biden can point fingers and say Republicans are irresponsible and they never should have gotten to this. But if the economy's in bad shape, people will look back to the Trump years and say, oh, things were better then.

All right, a little not worth your time. For those who didn't remember, this weekend is Mother's Day. And Mother's Day is at this point, mostly at least, an international holiday. A lot of other countries will also celebrate Mother's Day on the same day that we do. unlike, say, Thanksgiving, or the 4th of July. I found out that's really not an international holiday

the way that you'd really imagine it would be. So my question to each of you, and yes, this is a trap, Mother's Day, worth your time? Well, so I will forego the profound Jewish temptation of just dropping giant guilt bombs by pointing out that my mother recently passed away. So, but I think Mother's Day is great. I think Mother's Day is important.

I think Mother's Day is a really useful thing for fathers to guilt the crap out of their kids to make them show appreciation for their mother. Isn't it interesting? I actually thought of Mother's Day and was absolutely not thinking about any of our mothers, but rather your wives. Because in my mind, Mother's Day is for,

you guys to deal with for your wives. Well, that's, so this is the dilemma I have about Mother's Day is I got a kid in college, got no kids at home. Am I obliged to do anything for my wife on Mother's Day? Like, is there, yes, yes, yes, not my mother. She is constantly telling me I'm not your mother. I have feeling this may be something that Joan. the leader goes and says, Adam, can we cut this?

No, no, that's fine. Besides, I think she'll still be in Europe, so I'm safe. Steve? Mother's Day? I love Mother's Day. I think it's, I love Father's Day. I think it's an appropriate time, an appropriate time to stop and, I mean, be grateful for everything that you've gotten from your parents. And, you know, I suppose it's a cliche at this point to say, every day should be Father's Day, every day, it should be Mother's Day. But it's good, I think, I think, I think, I think, like, oh, it's often the case that I'm the center of the universe, and, you know, my mom spends 24 hours in a week driving me

to hockey and dance and this. She's an actual person, and yes, saying she would like to relax for a day. So I think it's great. I've been, the last couple of years, I've not been. with my family for Father's Day, which is frustrating, but I've been lucky enough to be with my dad for Father's Day just because of camp travels, summer camp travels, and things of that nature. So it's a little bittersweet because I miss my own kids and wife, but it's been great to be with my dad and sit around and watch golf and shoot the breeze.

I think my major beef is that Mother's Day and Father's Day are way too close. together and so that already by Mother's Day I'm a little stressed about what all we're doing for Father's Day because you know you might need to order stuff or whatever else I also think that because they're so close together it makes for an easier comparison like we did all this stuff for one of the days and then the other day got kind of short shrifted for whatever sort of family obligation reasons so I would put them further apart I absolutely think that is actually the spouse's job to organize the other person's day and yeah, I think that also the Mother's Day

is actually where mom still does everything, but like the kids are making her bad breakfast and stuff is not Mother's Day. Mother's Day is where you get to sleep in, read a book, the door is shut, maybe locked, and nobody can bother you. So Mother's Day is the day you don't have to be a mother? That's right.

Wow. That is something. you're talking about how these things are too close together my wife's birthday is on May 7th mother's day is May 14th my daughter's birthday is February 11th Valentine's Day is we just combine all the gifts it's great they love that

they love that I've been very very clear to her like from a very young age I was like under no circumstances should you give any time to any boy who tries to combine this is you to Jessica Your, no, to my daughter, tries to combine Valentine's Day and your birthday. These are separate things, you know. All right. Thank you for joining us on that frolic and detour, such as it was.

Happy Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms listening. And we'll totally skip over Father's Day. I can nearly guarantee it. Maybe we should rename this segment, frolic and detour, instead of not worth your time. And with that, we'll talk to you next week. Give me the first question, though, so I can just make a point that Jonah was going to make. That'd be great. Thank you so much.

And then I'm out. No, you don't have. have to you let Jonah do it and I'll just nod my head. Jonah's so wise. Jonah's so rise. He's so smart. I would have if you hadn't steamrolled over me before. Now you get the back end of every good part.

Fair. Post prerogative.