The Dispatch Podcast - Trump or Baby Hitler? | Roundtable

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have agreed to a debate and no one knows who benefits. Steve and Jonah join Sarah to make some predictions about the upcoming presidential debate and discuss how you should think about your vote. The Agenda: —The debate —Why did Biden agree to this? —White House operatives’ blind spots —RFK Jr. not invited to the debate —“Never Trump” vs. “Never Again” —Would Jonah vote against American baby Hitler? —How you should think about your vote —Jonah for President —Official judicial ruling: tacos and burritos are sandwiches Show Notes: —Nick Catoggio: Let’s Get Ready to Bumble —NYT: Biden’s approval ratings —High Steaks —Axios: Biden’s polling denial —Biden accepts the debate —Biden’s “Free on Wednesday” T-shirts —Pod Save America with Jen Psaki —Polling on who people trust with info on Ukraine —The Bulwark with Steve Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm surprised I got invited back after you guys had Megan McArdle. If she were available, you wouldn't be here, Steve. Very good. Very good. Biggest news, I think, from this week is that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have agreed to debate one another. One in June, one in September, no live audience, and the mics are going to cut off the second your time's done from what we understand. Steve, what is the metric of success for these two candidates?

Yeah, I mean, I think the obvious metric of success for Joe Biden is to appear on stage. and conduct himself without having a senior moment or without having extended senior moments. If he can sort of pass that very sort of basic threshold test, as Nick wrote in his newsletter yesterday, it helps him reframe the race as a choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden rather than just a referendum on Joe Biden. It reminds people and reminds people early that this is, a two-person race. I think it's a hugely risky strategy for Biden because, you know, as we've seen in recent days, he struggles.

He doesn't do this well. I think I've mentioned on this podcast before. I talked to some of the people who were involved with debate prep for Joe Biden in 2020, and they were worried about his ability to avoid these sort of verbal cul-de-sacs that he sometimes find himself in. And I think their concern has to be heightened in this case. So I think that's the most important thing for Biden, for Trump. I don't know. Who knows?

I don't know what the answer for Trump is. I would say to be on better behavior, to avoid talking about campaigning on retribution, you know, all of these things that I think in normal times with a normal candidate would matter. But I don't know that they will matter if I'm being totally candid about it. So on the one hand, Jonah, these are the rules that Joe Biden wanted, the no live audience and the microphones cutting off. On the other hand, one could argue that the reason that Donald Trump lost the first debate

against Joe Biden in 2020 was because he was unable to contain himself and that it sort of showed a lack of discipline and all the other things so that these rules pinning Donald Trump in, on the one hand, I think empower the moderator, making it a more watchable debate. Part of the problem with the debates last time is that when Trump made them unwatchable, there was an argument that that then just like canceled out the debates. Now, in the end, it appears that that probably hurt Donald Trump. But it did make the debates pointless because nobody got to really say anything. And it was just two people talking over each other.

The moderators had no power. So this time, if there are these rules, I think it will empower the moderator. It will be a moderator-run debate. On the other hand, is Joe Biden actually helping Donald Trump here with these rules? I think so. I mean, I think, you know, to sort of piggyback on what Steve said about or didn't say about what Trump's interests are. I think they both have the same interest, which is to be the less threatening, more normal one.

And for Biden, that means not seeming like he's got cognitive decline and all that. And for Trump, it means not acting like. a bully and a jackass and and someone that you should be keeping away from the white house and um these rules i think help trump in so far as they make it harder for him to do that but i and it's weird because i did this CNN morning show this morning and um they played you know they they played the clip a lot of other shows play this clip about how these rules will prevent this from happening again. And it's where Biden says, will you please just shut up? And the thing is, that was a good moment for Biden. That's right. And, but I suspect, and this is pure

rank speculation on my part, that they think that if Trump keeps interrupting Biden, it will flusker him so much that he will get so rattled that it's not worth giving Trump the ability to do that as much. And so it's worth, you know, figuring Trump's going to behave like a jack as anyway. I'm sure this is what they're thinking. But if they can limit the amount of time where Trump can rattle Biden, given that Biden's so easily rattled now, it's probably worth missing the opportunities for the Will You Shut Up Man moment? How much should I read into the timing?

Having a presidential debate in June is unheard of. Now, on the one hand, having the two nominees totally set this early in the game is actually not particularly unusual, but a little unusual from recent years.

No, it's really not. I can't even really make that claim. I mean, it's mid-May. We've pretty much always had our nominees are presumptive nominees set by mid-May, 2008 being an outlier. Even Trump in 2016 was the presumptive nominee by this point in May. But the early voting thing is different now, right? Early voting's different.

But look, the one thing that people are all saying is, well, gosh, this happens to be nicely timed before the Democratic Convention. So if Joe Biden falls on his face and the polls still show him losing by double digits in some of these swing states, the Democrats can, and, you know, pick Michelle Obama. So goes the Twitter conspiracy theory. Do you all think there's any evidence for this? Evidence? No. Does it have a certain superficial plausibility? A little.

I think the Michelle Obama thing is nuts. I don't think that's going to happen under any circumstances, though I have some very good smart friends who just can't let go of it as a possibility. But I do think that the pull ripcord, break glass, whatever metaphor we want to use, emergency, replace Biden stuff, is a real enough thing that it's in people's heads. I just don't think it's in the Biden campaign's head. That's right. Mr. President, we have to do a debate really early. Why is that? Because if you really blow it, we need time to replace you, right? That's not the conversation. There's no way they said that to him.

That's to me the biggest reason why this can't be why the Biden team proposed a June debate. because Joe Biden would never have agreed to, let's make sure that everyone has an out from me. Right. But, Sarah, do you think it's possible that Biden was bluffing and they didn't think Trump would accept the terms? No. Okay. Because that's another thing you hear. Yeah. I think it is interesting to see Trump people now saying he's made a mistake accepting this. and I will bet 20 shiny dollar coins that between now in the debate, Trump teases that he's going to pull out so that there's some drama over whether he will show up or not, because literally that's happened every time. And also, I will double down on my 20 shiny coins and say that he will, in fact, show up. Do you want to do double or nothing on our other bet? No, I do not, Steve Hayes.

Okay. All right. I don't blame you. So I think there's actually a pretty plausible explanation for why the Biden team wanted the June debate and Nick lays it out in his newsletter, which will, willing to in the show notes, you know, there there was this spade of really bad polls, including in most especially from the New York Times over the weekend about Biden's performance in swing states in particular. There are all sorts of caveats to be issued. You've had the Biden team sort of pushed back on some of them. It's true that the worst numbers are registered. voters and likely voters, when they showed likely voters responses, the races were closer in those six, seven states. But they were bad polls for the Biden team, and they come on the heels of other bad polls for the Biden team. There was an Axios story that said, in effect, Biden team doesn't believe these polls. They don't find them plausible.

They're confident that he's, you know, winning the race, that he's likely to prevail, and they're unconcerned about this latest set of bad polls. I think this suggests that the Axio story was wrong, that the Biden team understands that they are in trouble, that they look at Biden's approval rating still in the stuck in the high 30s, that they look at the mixed numbers on the economy, and the broader issues. said, and they think they're losing. And I think they're right that they're losing. And they look at this, as is typical of candidates who are losing elections, as an opportunity for a reset, as an opportunity to change the trajectory of the current election. I think that's likely why they decided to do this. It was interesting to me, I think it was foolish. Nick thinks it was smart. I'm interested, Sarah, and your thoughts. Biden put out this video. Short video basically accepting the debates. Trump had said he'll debate anywhere, anytime Biden wants

to. Biden said he's happy to do that, claimed he'd beat Trump in the debates in 2020, and then took a shot at Trump saying, I understand your free on Wednesdays, which was a reference to the day that Trump is not required to be or isn't in court in New York, sort of of a schoolyard taunt. And then the Biden campaign apparently printed t-shirts saying something about Trump being free on Wednesdays. I think that's sort of foolish in the extreme when you listen to the concerns that are being raised about, sort of by Trump world in general, about these trials being an effort to keep Trump from being able to campaign. It's like Biden is confirming all of their suspicions. Trump is making direct accusations of the Biden administration that they're

coordinating with prosecutors in New York and that this is meant to keep Donald Trump from winning. I don't think it was a smart move. I don't think it helps him in the election, but I think it also has potentially damaging consequences beyond the election and seeming to affirm the worst fears of some of these Trump supporters. Yeah, I mean, luckily, I don't think it matters. because very few people will see any of this. But from a philosophical standpoint, I actually think it's a great example of the bubble that the Biden team has built around themselves

that they thought that was funny. Right? Like, that's a thing that, you know, you make the joke in the room and you sort of like laugh at the gallows humor of the whole thing and then you move on. But when you're totally surrounded by people who are in this bubble

and we've seen many other examples of this bubble, right? I mean, I think the college protesters are a great bubble example of what's going on in that room. If you're in this bubble, then someone's like, oh, my God, you guys, that's an amazing line. And we should put it in the video and we should print T-shirts and everyone's going to love it because it's so funny. And nobody's sitting in the room going, hey, guys, isn't that exactly what they're accusing us of? The fact that we find that funny is exactly proving their point that we think that the rule of law, that finding crimes that Donald Trump, you know, can be charged with, that all of that is a joke because it helps us politically. Nobody was in the room saying that. I listened to the crooked media

podcast, Tommy Vitor interviewing Jen Saki today. And they thought it was hilarious. Tommy Vitor thought it was really funny. And, you know, this is, this is sort of, that's who it was aimed at was the base. I guess the counter argument to the ones that the one that we're making is this riles up his base. He knows he needs to need to. to get his base excited. They're frustrated with him in all sorts of other ways, Gaza in particular,

and they need a pugilist. Yeah, here's the problem with the base move on this. The underlying joke is that Donald Trump is so wounded, tied down, whatever you want, that he can't possibly win.

And so it gives them, I think, also this very false sense of confidence. Donald Trump is winning. If the election were held today, Donald Trump would win the election. So making jokes about how he's only free on Wednesdays, ha, ha, ha, ha, like we're running around, crushing it on the campaign.

How are you using those other six days, guys? Because it doesn't seem to be very effective. Maybe fewer jokes in general would be a good idea. And so I don't think it's a good base strategy because their base is feeling weirdly somewhere between total bedwetting and serenely confident because how can they lose? And it's like a Trotinger's cat of the Democratic Party right now.

So there was something else in the video that I just thought was interesting. It's like, I don't know, 200 words, this whole statement that he gives. Yeah, it's like 13 seconds with five camera cuts is what you're going to talk about. Yeah, there's so many cuts, right? So clearly he couldn't get this thing done in one or two takes, right? And I don't think that's right. I think it's another example of the Biden bubble problem, the Biden team bubble problem. This is how the young kids cut their videos for TikTok.

I think so. You have to have a lot of cuts. It makes it fun and it keeps people's attention because they literally don't have an attention span for longer than two and a half seconds. So after two and a half seconds, you need to cut the video and have another one. And nobody in the room thought,

hey, guys, does this look like we couldn't do it in one cut? Because actually only people under 25 are even aware of that sort of being the way that short videos are made right now. And the rest of the voting population watches normal TV where if you have that many cuts, it means that you couldn't string together four whole words in a row. So after three words, we had to use a different take.

Nobody said that. I buy that. That's a good explanation. It also would explain why the White House AVE department, which has ample access to second and third cameras, just didn't do it because that's how you would fix this as, you know. Also, frankly, Biden can say that whole thing in one take, right? we know he can.

It was 14 seconds, right? He actually gives speeches all the time. Like, he can do this. There's just nobody in the room, like, because they see him do that all the time, because they, like, again, live in this total D.C. White House far left Biden bubble. It never occurred to them that actually a lot of people don't see Biden speak every day. They don't know that he can do 13 seconds uninterrupted. And they think you're on TikTok.

Like, this is the pretext. problem. And I've said this before, right? The campaign operatives and therefore political operatives in the White House, et cetera, are not representative in either party. But within the Republican Party, they're to the left of the median Republican voter. And in the Democratic party, they're to the left of the median Democratic voter. And those are very different experiences within the two parties. And it's, you know, it's a problem for both. But at least within the Republican Party, it moves them closer to bipartisanship and those people speak used to, at least. The Republican operatives used to speak fluent Democrat is what it meant to be

further to the left than the median Republican voter. I mean, it's a little off subject, but it's related to stuff we talked about on here before and so far as Biden's perception that he's got a huge problem with young people because of Gaza is a function of the fact that a lot of the political operatives who communicate what's going on to the White House, they're talking to youth directors on campus who are very political people, who are friends or, you know, whatever, but it's like they're talking to a very select group of young people or slightly older people who deal with young people who are in that bubble. And then also you get this wave of polls saying that like 92% of young people don't

give a rat's ass about all this and they're really pissed about the commencement stuff. And it blindsides of them because everybody they knew who does anything on campus politics, you know, the kids from Perg and, you know, all these other groups, they were telling us, the Gaza's really important. Perg. Jonah, that's such a 1990s

like, Comptivist thing. Perg. It's still around. Does Perg even exist? I think it does. I thought it was dead and then I saw something recently about it. I don't think Perg is driving the campus debates. That's awesome. It reminds me of the polling where if you ask people, you know,

how concerned are you about threats to democracy and do you think this election is a referendum on democracy or any way you want to phrase it, a high number of Americans will say yes, like 70%. And Democrats thought that was great for them until someone thought to ask the next question, which party do you think is a greater threat to democracy? And it turns out that by a slight margin

and within the margin of error for what it's worth, more Americans believe that the Democratic Party and Joe Biden are a greater threat to democracy than Donald Trump and the Republican Party. That, like, when you talk to Democratic operatives in and around Biden bubble about that, it is inexplicable to them. It doesn't compute at all because they literally don't know anyone. They've never spoken to anyone who has ever said or explained what that could possibly mean to them. And this is what I mean by the problem of being to the left within the Democratic base for

the operatives to be on the left means not only are they distorting what's going on in their party and their base to their boss, but they don't speak any of the rest of the political spectrum at all. And it's, I think it is far worse for the Democratic Party to have their operative distortion than it is for the Republican Party, except for the fact that the Republican party I don't think still has the operative base that it used to. We basically killed off entire generation of Republican political operatives. To the benefit of the dispatch. I think your description of the parties versus the operatives is a great frame.

And I hadn't heard it before. It's very smart and it captures it in very few words. I think it was applicable 10 years ago. I don't think it's applicable today. I think Republicans have the inverse problem now where, I mean, who knows what the left and the right mean these days, but Republicans don't have operatives and wouldn't have White House staffers who are closer to the center anymore. They have, in the Trump era, people who are, I would say, fringier, and whether we want to call that further right or not, they have the same

sort of bubble problem, right? I think we saw this in Ron DeSantis's campaign for president, where they thought that the way to win was to appeal to all these sort of young, super online, far right people gave him bad advice. I think that's true of a lot of people in Trump world who are involved in debates about sort of what comes next. So I don't think it applies as much today as it did, you know, 10 years ago. But it's definitely, you're definitely right that it's an ongoing problem for the Biden. I have a good example, illustration of that from a reason, which we don't have to get

back in the specifics, because I know Steve doesn't like to talk about it, but there was a certain governor of a Western state who shot their dog, and they were told by a prominent Trump-era political consultant that this is something you should really lean into, and then when it backfired, the advice was, don't apologize, lean even further into your dog-killing ways, and throw in a story about goat-killing because the goat just needed to die. But look, there's a huge difference between these stories, between the left bubble and the right bubble. And you're actually proving my point, oddly, in a weird way. The left is correctly telling Biden what the far left thinks.

Sorry, the White House operatives are correctly representing what the far left thinks. The reason that the right is in this weird situation is because the Republican operatives are still within the sort of college, for instance, milieu of left wing circles. And so their view of the median Republican voter and of the far right wing is what they're trying to emulate. But they don't actually speak it fluently because they're not in or of it very well. Right? They still went to Columbia and like these, you know, far left schools. So that's why they're getting it wrong. The White House operatives are correct in what the, you know, pro-Gaza folks actually think. The, hey, killing your dog will be really popular was incorrect. Also, I would note that the Hill operatives, like the Hill Republican

staff, do still represent that, like, 10 years ago thing to Steve's, you know, point. Yeah, some of them. I think the big takeaway is that the freaks are running our politics. Yeah, I think that's true. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is the consequences of not having life insurance can be serious. That kind of financial strain on top of everything else is why life insurance indeed matters.

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All right. I have another question about RFK. So obviously he is, Not being included in this first June debate, CNN has said that in order to be included in the debate, you have to have the ability to get 270 votes from the electoral college, i.e. be on the ballot in enough states that you could, in theory, be elected to the presidency. What would a debate look like with RFK? Does the debate still happen if RFK actually were to qualify? Are these guys going to be willing to cede any stage to him? And I don't know, y'all are super old. You remember the Ross Perrault era, sing us a few bars of life in, you know, the olden times. Joan, I'll start with you.

Sure. Well, I'll tell you, you know, the first debate with Ross Perot, I couldn't get it on the AM radio on my horse and buggy. No, look, I personally think this debate format is bad for Trump. I mean, it's good with the stuff we were saying earlier about cutting off mics and all that, but he didn't do any debates in the primaries this year. And one of the reasons why he was really good in the 2016 primaries are really successful. I have a hard time saying really good.

But the reason why those debates work for him is he got to parachute in to drop a line, to make a joke, to deliver a zinger, and then get out. 50% of the time is way too much time for Donald Trump to be given. in a debate to successfully debate. That's one of the reasons why he did badly in the Biden debates, in the 2020 debates, is because he couldn't do this sort of rope-a-dope thing where he just hung back and let everybody else talk. It was either him or his opponent.

And so I think that in a certain sense, Kennedy being there would be better for Trump. Because first of all, having anybody on the stage who's crazier than you is a good look for But also just having someone to eat up a lot of time would be good for him. I do think it would be really, really interesting and probably bad for Trump in one, at least one way, insofar as Kennedy would lean into the anti-vax stuff. And Trump has this paranoia about anti-vaxxers abandoning him because it's one of the few times he's ever been booed was talking about how he was behind Operation Warp Speed. and the temptation to say he's not the real anti-vaxxer I am would be very strong and very good for Biden, I think, you know, to sort of get baited into that kind of thing. As for Ross Perot thing, look, I think the comparisons between Perrault and Kennedy are pretty

strained. I know there's a big debate among political scientists about whether Perrault took more votes from Bush or from Clinton. I think he took more from Bush. I think he also contributed to the vibes problem that Bush had. I just wrote this column about how this election feels very much like 1992. And the thing about Perrault is he could be kooky. He looked a little bit like a Martian general.

But Kennedy appeals to a very different kind of voter than I think Perrault did. And so it makes it very difficult to sort of game this stuff out. I don't think Joe Biden would show up. if Kennedy were allowed to debate. I think a three-way debate for Biden would be catastrophic because both Biden and Trump would use their time to beat up on the current president, the state of play right now. They're both trying to unseat this guy. I take Jonah's point on the Kennedy crazy factor, although I'm not sure I agree that Kennedy

is the crazier of the two between Kennedy. and Trump. And I say that as somebody who thinks that Kennedy is absolutely bat-shy crazy. Some of the stuff he's said over the years is insane. But that's also the case with Donald Trump. I think he could look to Normie voters as a little crazy and I guess thereby make Trump look less crazy. But I think it's a virtual given that Trump will say something crazy on that stage, whether Kennedy is there or not. I just don't think Joe Biden wants this. to be, wants a potential for a gang up. He would like to make this a referendum between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And Kennedy on stage, I think, makes that a more complicated task.

So I want to talk about another topic. Nick has already come up a lot in this podcast, but I want to bring him up again because he wrote such an interesting newsletter and it was based on a long Friday night slack conversation internal to the dispatch about the tension between hashtag never again referring to the Holocaust and hashtag never Trump, referring to not voting for Donald Trump. And I think what's so interesting about it is that for some people who loathe Donald Trump, the events of the last few weeks when it comes to anti-Semitism on campus, Joe Biden's initial statement that he wasn't going to supply any more weapons to Israel if they went to Rafa, then he'd already pause them,

but now he's sending them, you know, a lot of confusion around that. But it's not really about what the policy of the United States is. It's sort of about this realization that never Trump always came with some caveats. Right? I'm not not voting for Trump if suddenly he's running against Hitler. Of course not. I'd vote for Donald Trump over Hitler.

And so then it's like, okay, well, if you're willing to say that it's not never, never, where is that line what is the reasonableness of that line I think that it's a realization that never Trumpers who are the sincere

sort of knee-jerk you know very online never-trumpers should probably take more seriously because different people draw that line differently there's a lot of people who really hate Donald Trump

who have not voted for him before or have voted for him sort of under protest who simply see the tension between those two, not necessarily never again, but the tension within the authoritarianism in the Democratic Party differently than they do. And that's why they're really considering voting for Donald Trump this time. It's because they view Joe Biden as a threat as well. And they think Joe Biden might be more of a threat than Donald Trump. And this gets to the Bill Barr

statement that, you know, one candidate's playing Russian roulette, voting for one candidate is playing Russian roulette with the country's future, and voting for one candidate is national suicide. And I think for people at the dispatch, and members of the dispatch included, that was sort of met with a sneering.

But I don't think it should be because I think we should at least take it at face value that that's how people feel and then talk through what is reasonable about that and what's unreasonable about it. So, Steve, I wanted to start with you. Yeah.

people who are paying careful attention to the race at this point, the people who are tuning in to the Trump rallies, or, you know, people who are getting their news only from a combination of Fox and Newsmax and O-A-N, or, or, you know, ad Jack Posobiex, Twitter feed as their sources of information, undoubtedly see Joe Biden as the the same, as a significantly greater threat than Donald Trump. And if you look at the Republican Party, this sort of core base of the party believes Trump over anybody else. He's the ultimate source of information.

There's been polling that sort of confirms this again and again and again over the last nine years. Most recently there was a poll, I believe it was on who they've been. believe with respect to Ukraine, news out of Ukraine and the Ukraine-Russia war. And it was like 79% of Republicans or Trump supporters said they believe Donald Trump, 57%, and I'm doing these numbers by memory, said conservative media. And it was like 20% believe the mainstream media. So if you believe Donald Trump and you're taking in his information, you definitely see Joe Biden as that kind of authoritarian threat. If you look back at what Trump said at his rally this past weekend

in Wildwood, New Jersey, the litany of things that he accused Trump, I mean, he accused Biden of doing, again, stipulating that these people firmly believe what they're hearing from Trump would definitely make you do that. I think the bigger question as it relates to to the never Trumpers is whether they believe this stuff at all is the other stuff about Joe Biden. If you look at what he's actually doing as president, you know, I think, and Jonah tweeted about this, and there was a little Twitter uproar about this, both Jonah and I have talked to people who would have described themselves as never Trump, who are so frustrated with what Biden has done on Israel most recently, but sort of across the board who say, I've sort of had it with this guy.

And these are people who could have been Nikki Haley supporters in a Republican primary and say, I can't possibly bring myself to vote for Joe Biden, even though I think Donald Trump is horrible and I'm never going to vote for him. They're frustrated about things like student loans. They're frustrated about, they're frustrated about Ukraine and or people. who look at what Joe Biden is doing on things like environmental regulation. If you own a small business that's been affected by the new tighter environmental regs, and you think you're potentially going out of business because you can't survive in this regulatory environment, you're much more likely to look at that as the real sort of existential threat as it relates

to your business and your livelihood than you are. this sort of broader threat that we talk about that Donald Trump presents. Yeah, I mean, look, I, first of all, it's not obvious to me that you have to vote for Trump if he's running against Hitler. You can still write in somebody else. Wait, wait, stop. You actually would consider writing in someone else if it's between Trump and Hitler, knowing that, like, the third party candidate has no hope of winning?

I'm not a big birther, but Hitler's not eligible to be on an American ballot. It's American Hitler. It's his grandson, whatever. Okay, yeah. So look, my only point is that, like, never can mean different things to different people. No, but I actually want to explore this a little bit because would you actually not vote for Donald Trump against someone who was an obvious genocidal authoritarian? You still haven't voted for Donald Trump. I might, but like, like, the, again, my arguments about my vote hold.

Like, I would still, my vote does not count statistically, does not matter statistically. in where I live. Now, maybe things would get so rattle. That's a cop out. I want to know your answer. Well, no, but my answer is partly that, right? I just don't think it's an interesting topic. I really don't. But, yeah, I vote to Trump over Hitler. If I thought in any way, my vote was the thing

that mattered. But I'd be doing a lot of other stuff before that to, like, moving. Or, you know, I mean, again, if you know it's Hitler, there's all sorts of like moral, choose your own adventure courses of action one can get into, right? Jonah would shoot baby

Hitler. There's an argument for it, although I think the physics don't work. But anyway, that's not the point I'm going to do. So I have always argued, and you can go back to finding me saying this, you know, for eight years now, seven years, there are many rooms in the mansion of never Trumpism. There are many people who do different, who are called never Trump or who embrace the term never Trump. I gave up on the term never Trump once Trump was elected. Because as I explained at the time, for me, it was that I was never going to endorse him and I was never going to vote for him and I was never going to lie about him. And, but now that he's president, you got to give him a shot. And that's what I did. It turns out he'd live down to my expectations, but I just don't think

the term never Trump has much utility anymore. Anti-Trump doesn't bother me. When Steve and I were out there building this thing and people were saying, what, you're going to build this like anti-Trump, never-Trump journalistic organization. And we're like, no, we want to. to be post-Trump, right? We want to get beyond the Trump era. And that was optimistic. Still do, desperately so. So I disagree with many of my fellow or former or whatever, never Trump and never-Trump aligned people in how they've responded to the Trump era. I criticize people like Nicole Wallace all the time just because she has completely become just a partisan Democrat and treats her time as a Republican

as if they cured that in rehab. And she has to make no accounts for it or anything like that. Jennifer Rubin is another one of these types. There are people like that who approach, I just completely reject. There are others. But would you agree that that's about,

they're not just voting for Joe Biden or whomever because Donald Trump's the alternative. They're voting for Democratic policies. on board with liberal policies. Right. They're all in just for the full spectrum democratic agenda. And that's not really never Trump at that point. That's just called a Democrat. But it started that way. Right. It started as never

Trumpism. It turned out to be the gateway drug to sort of mainstream liberalism. Okay. And so fine. And then there are other people who are never Trump or who, you know, have turned it into a moneymaking operation. We don't have to get into all the personalities. That's all fine. I think, you know, when I tweeted this thing in a lot was 10 days ago now, I simply reported a fact.

I reported, like, in my circle, there are a lot of people who are so pissed off with Biden that, and they're really, really anti-Trump, that they are second, you know, they're having second thoughts about, you know, Trump or Biden. I can't remember how I put it. I wasn't saying what my own position was. I was just simply reporting. And the level of freak out from people was really quite telling. And I don't begrudge people for being so pissed off with Biden 10 days ago for doing the arms halt, which he's now. basically abandoned, which is like part of the part of Biden's larger problem is this vibes thing about how he's just vacillating and doesn't show leadership and doesn't stand his ground. And changing your positions to catch up to the sweet spot in polling is that one of the things that is really hurting him. And he should just pick a lane and have some conviction. Footnote so interesting because part of Joe Biden's success over the last 40 years has been finding the media in place. of Democratic voters and moving himself to be in that place. And now that he's actually in the president seat, though,

that exact strategy is what's failing, I think, so badly. I think that's right. Because he's supposed to be defining what the center of the party is now. And instead he's still trying to chase it. And so he ends up being like a dog chasing his tail. And so anyway, I think, look, I think this controversy gets very emotional for some people in ways that I don't completely grasp.

I do not begrudge people for getting exhausted with Biden or even, you know, thinking strategically that they should vote for Trump. I mean, I disagree with them, but my problem is, and maybe this is just me letting what I do for a living define my worldview too much. I don't understand why some people have to express their opinions on these things. if it's not their jobs, right? I don't get why Bill Barr, right? Bill Barr could have just said,

I've had, I think Biden is terrible, I've said all I had to say in my book about Donald Trump, why he goes out and has to basically deservedly open himself up for ridicule where he knows they're going to intro all these clips of him talking about how Trump is a disaster and a danger and a threat and all this kind of stuff, and then ask him, but yet you support him,

why just go home no one is dying to know your opinion about these things and so the desire for some people to say not only the desire for some people to say i'm so sick of biden or i'm so concerned about israel that i think i might vote for trump or might not vote for biden i can't get too worked up about it even if i disagree with it but the performative thing about trying to hector other people into agreeing with them um that kind of stuff i just i don't think it's necessary and i don't think it's helpful. That's sort of how he gets asked the question, right? I mean, that's why he finds himself in those situations. Is he right? But he's going on TV. He knows that's why he's going on TV is to be asked that. He knows that. He's not dumb. Right. But that's, but I do think that

makes it a preposterous answer for him because he often goes on TV, knowing that he's going to be asked questions about just what a threat he thinks Trump is, having worked alongside Trump. And then it's not that he says, you know, I'm, I'm not going to support Biden. He says, I'm affirmatively going to support Trump after having spent five minutes of an interview explaining why he's terrified, why it's terrifying. I mean, I do think that's an intellectually incoherent position that deserves a ton of mockery. I can say, I am, there's no chance I'm ever voting for Trump. Like, it's not happening. Won't happen in my lifetime. Not going to, not going to happen. I'm never voting for Trump either, you know, I don't know that I'm ever voting for Biden.

but I'm never voting for Trump. Yeah, you guys feel oddly comfortable with third party votes in a way that I don't. And I think that is a core distinction, right? Like, I will vote for someone who can be president. Not this year. Write in your effing dogs or whatever.

You will be voting for two people who can get elected president, but not really be president. I think there's a very strong intellectual case for not sort of subjecting yourself to the binary choice fallacy. I understand why people make the other argument. Yeah, I understand your side. There's a great piece.

I've referenced this before. And I think we've got a piece coming about it again. But there's a great piece that Matthew Frank wrote back in advance of the 2016 election about how to think about your vote and how your boat is much more reflection of your values and the likelihood that your single vote is. going to matter in an election is infinitesimal. And really, you should think about your vote as a reflection on you and your values and what you're willing to sort of lend your moral support to. It was a terrific piece. It sticks with me all these years later. I remember it probably in part

because I had just written a piece saying that I was never going to vote for Donald Trump and, you know, listed my reasons. And then Matthew's piece came out later and it was much, much better than the piece that I had just written. But I think that's a defensible thing to do. I understand people who say, look, you have to vote for Joe Biden if you don't want Donald Trump to be president, or even if you're in a blue state, you should vote for Biden so that the cumulative Biden total is, you know, higher. Nick has made his arguments about why he's going to vote for Biden.

I understand all those. I just don't think it's a requirement in sort of the Biden. choice way. I accept your arguments. I don't subscribe to them, but I do understand them. But you have to acknowledge that that makes it a lot easier for you because yeah, you're just not going to vote for either of them. Great. But if you believe what I believe and think that you do have to vote for one of them, this conversation does become more difficult, don't you agree? Sure. So change your wrong belief. Why? Because every time I say, you know, Trump's really bad or whatever, you guys are like, yeah, I'm never voting for Donald

Trump. But you never really say the rest of that, which is like, you're also not voting for Joe Biden. I say that all the time. I mean, I say it all the time. I think for every single time, you never get to say, I'm not voting for Donald Trump. You have to just say, I'm not voting for either of these guys, because it makes it sound like at some sort of moral point in the sand that you're not voting for Donald Trump so much so that you're voting for Joe Biden. But that's not what you're saying. And I think that that's a distinction. Okay. So, First of all, I always used to think there used to be a rule. There were some journalists who just never voted because they thought it was corrupting

or bias, gave them, should display bias or whatever. And then there were other journalists that were institutions that used to have a policy of never disclosing how people and staff voted. I am much more sympathetic to that these days than I used to be because, again, I think the voting thing triggers a whole different conversation and as someone who has been was besieged in the early days of the Trump thing by people saying

you know when I was at National Review it's not only that you know that if you vote for someone then you have to do whatever you can to get them elected and that's not even if I were 100% behind Trump. Still not my job. But there is this confusion about, it's like no one would, any plumber who says, yeah, I'm voting for Donald Trump, no one would say them, okay, now you have to spend the next eight months installing toilets just in a way to help Donald Trump get elected. But there is this understanding today, which I think is one of the more corrupting things of the conservative

movement and of journalism generally that thinks that if you are in the business of writing or speaking in the media, you should be doing everything you can to operationalize your voting preferences and making arguments as if you are working for the party that you support. And a big chunk of the American right of conservative journalists and op-ed people and editorial and whatever, they have internalized this idea that they are de facto political consultants. And some of them are dearest, closest friends, and they're honorable people. I just think they're confused about this. And you can find it all the time. I'll still make the mistake every now and then of talking about a race where the Republicans, you know, or I'll say what we need to do here,

or we want. And it's like, no, it's not, I'm not part of that we. And I just think that there is this category error that comes with the argument about how are you going to vote, that creates a sort of a permission structure for a completely different approach to these kinds of things. And so when you say, I take your point, and then my last thing, I take your point, I think it's well made, that I should probably just say I'm not voting for either, which I do say a lot. But when I say I'm never voting for Trump, my reasons for never voting for Trump are different than my reasons for never voting for Biden. So if Amy Klobuchar were the nominee,

you'd vote for Amy Klobuchar? I'd be much more likely to vote for Amy Klobuchar than I would for Joe Biden. Yeah, for sure. And if it was Joe Manchin, I don't think I'd even sweat it. I would just vote for Joe Manch. Doesn't mean I wouldn't criticize him

because I think a lot of his economic stuff is like old BS corporatism. But I think Biden's just too old. I think he's lost it. I don't think he's going to serve out his term. Here's a fun one. Wait, it's Amy Klobuchar versus Nikki Haley. I'd vote for Nikki Haley.

I'm not sure where the trick is there. I don't know. I think there's some interesting stuff in there. Because I don't see it. I mean, like, I think Nikki Haley would be a much better president than Amy Globuchar. We're not changing anything else about the Republican Party. Who's in charge of it? What the incentives are or anything else?

We're just putting Nikki Haley at the top of the ticket suddenly. I would still put Nikki Haley on the top of the ticket because I think it would help fix the Republican Party. Fair. 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.

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Part of the other problem is people, you know, there is this tendency. I think this is particularly true in this polarized moment that we're living through where you sort of pick aside in this binary choice framing and then become a partisan of that. side. And I think this is true if you declare this publicly as often as not. I mean, you know, we had this, I had this interesting conversation with our friend Tim Miller over at the bulwark where I joined his podcast. And we spent a fair amount of time on this question or related questions. And I defended somebody choosing not to vote for Joe Biden. And he sort of couldn't believe that I would say that. And I gave a couple examples like the ones I gave a little bit earlier.

You know, Tim is a, he's become a big Biden supporter. A lot of our friends at the bulwark are Biden enthusiasts. Tim, even in our conversation, acknowledged that sometimes they quote unquote gild the lily for Joe Biden. I think it's respectable to say, I never want to be put in that position where, you know, in this polarized moment, you say, I'm, I've voted for this. person. I supported this person and therefore I have to, you know, cheer him on or rationalize decisions that I would never rationalize had I not been a public supporter of this person

in question. So I've been on both sides of this. I've actually let me split the baby, as it were. In 2016, there's no chance I was voting for Donald Trump. I was not voting for Hillary Clinton. So I wrote in Mike Lee. I wrote in Mike Lee because he was a Republican. He was principled in my view at the time. And I chose him, especially because I had significant policy differences with him on foreign policy. So in my mind, I was picking a principled Republican with whom I disagreed and I thought would sort of behave, follow his principles.

In 2020, I voted for Joe Biden. I wasn't happy about it. I didn't think he was going to be a good president. But I wanted to help send a message that Donald Trump, if he lost, would lose by a lot of votes. And there was no way I could be a part of that. I think it's pretty clear that my, you know, one day, 10-second vote cast for Joe Biden has not prevented me from being critical of Joe Biden. as president. I think he's been an absolutely awful president, and I think the decisions he's been making, particularly in the last year as he targets re-election, have been appalling. But I don't,

I can't imagine that I'm going to vote for him again. So I think I will likely revert back to my decision to write in someone. Maybe I'll write in Jonah. I like it. Jonah for president. You heard it here. If elected, I shall not serve. All right. Let's move to a little not worth your time. A judge in Fort Wayne, Indiana, ruled this week that tacos and burritos are sandwiches. This has ignited an age-old controversy, and it actually comes less than 20 years since a judge in Massachusetts held that, in fact, tacos, burritos, and casadillas were not. sandwiches. Now, the legal intricacies of this are actually fascinating because in both of those

cases, there were leases or zoning restrictions that said in the Fort Wayne Indiana case that only sandwich selling shops could be in the mall. And so they were saying, yep, tacos are sandwiches, so they can be in this mall. You can't restrict it to only American sandwiches. That's not cool. In the Massachusetts case, it was a lease restriction because Panera was already in the space and so they couldn't lease to anyone else who was going to sell sandwiches. And the judge in that case was like, they're not sandwiches so they can also lease the space. So if anything, both of these rulings are actually just sort of striking down restrictive covenant issues and allowing more free market space. But that's

not the point. We'll talk about that on the flagship podcast. The point here is, our talk and burritos, sandwiches. Steve Hayes, I know you have strong feelings on this, and I think you will find it worth our time. You're wrong. I don't have strong feelings about whether they're sandwiches or not. I have very strong feelings about tacos and burritos. I love them.

I think they are awesome. I love burritos about as much as any kind of food you can. On the question of sandwiches, I mean, there are Mexican sandwich. is they're called tortas. So burritos and tacos are distinct from tortas. And I think the closest analog would be a torta rather than a burrito or a taco. I hate zoning rules like this. Who cares is the real question. Like why shouldn't they be able to sell their freaking tacos wherever they want? Some of the stuff, you go deep into this, the restrictions on

businesses and where they can be are so absurd. In Maryland, there are, the government decides, local governments decide who can sell alcohol where. And if you want to open up a new liquor store, you have to be X miles from a previous liquor store. Because otherwise, the government believes that there are too many, there's too much liquor available to this population at a certain point, and it won't surprise you that the people who own the liquor stores, the existing liquor stores, fight very hard against new entries in the market. So they just use government. They pay lobbyists to do this. It's a disaster. People should be able to have the businesses they want and run them the way they want. Maybe they're just concerned about the kids getting

into jazz. Jonah, our taco sandwiches. Whenever there are these kinds of cases, because I'm with Steve, on the sort of zoning sort of corporatist, you know, gill. Yes, yes. You're all conservative libertarian wannabes. I get it. So I'm with them on that. At the same time, whenever

so put aside the sort of small, our Republican freedom loving nature of the actual substance of the ruling, whenever I hear about rulings like this, it always makes me think of Miracle on 34th Street where the judge

basically says, well, if the U.S. post office thinks this guy is Santa, who am I to argue with it? Right? And he's like, so he declares, you know, this guy's Santa. And it's frustrating to me that judges are in the business of wading into these incredible, almost sacrosanct cultural issues, like the nomenclature of handheld food products and comestibles. And so, in no way shape or form do I think tacos and burritos are sandwiches. I think the term sandwich, which is derived from the Earl of Sandwich, has a specific meaning. I was a very partisan defender of the differences between sandwiches and hot dogs during the great our hot dogs of sandwich wars. Many lives were lost in those battles. And I really regret it. I really regret

it if a new front opens in this. Are they all good? Are they all equal in the eyes of God in my belly? Yes, but they are not the same thing. I think this is exactly right. I think to the extent this was like a cultural cuisine fight and like, oh no, it can't only protect American sandwiches. Like, yeah, but every culture has sandwiches.

You know, Greek, euros, bow buns, tortas. Like, if you want to limit it to sandwiches, I think you can. I think that's policy-wise, a very dumb idea, like really dumb. But tacos and burritos are not sandwiches. And why a bow bun is a sandwich and a taco is not a sandwich? That's the sort of existential question that I'm not prepared to delve into until I get to my, you know, 500-page PhD thesis on how different bow buns and tacos are,

even though they look identical in theory. so yeah I will tell I think it's important listeners know this though on the subject of tortoise if you were ever in O'Hare Airport Frontera Grill

which is a sort of a fast food place owned by Rick Baylis who's like one of the best Mexican food chefs in the world and a huge institution in Chicago those things are legit there's a reason why the lines are super long and they're worth it if you've got a long layar I always yeah I do

I seek it out I will say also though, that if you're going to enforce the sandwich rule, I don't think you can sell wraps because raps are burritos. Therefore, wraps are not sandwiches. So either it's wraps and burritos are out or wraps and burritos are in. And so I do think you need to enforce it across the board against... But if wraps are burritos, why don't they call them burritos? I mean, would you say a Caesar rap is a burrito? Just because... I would say it's a burrito equivalent. It has a rap-like thing? Well, I mean, either they're both sandwiches or not. Like, that's literally the exact same thing with different filling.

They are literally tortillas with filling. So they have to be categorized the same. Legally. Lawyered. That's the other podcast. If anybody is near Annapolis or sort of the east side of the Washington, D.C. suburbs and you have the opportunity to go to El Cabrito or any of the El Cabrito burrito places, I highly, highly, highly recommend them. And please get the pickled jalapinos,

which are so incredibly spicy. They give me hiccups every time I have them, which I love. It's like the greatest lunch you can have is you have one of their burritos filled with their pickled jalapinos, homemade pickled jalapinos, and hiccup the whole way through. It's kind of like the heat in your mouth is like when you take a sip of your, your Coke, it actually makes it hotter, which is just pure joy. It's also why you don't get water or milk, which like extinguishes the heat. You don't. But El Cabrido, phenomenal. Or if you'd like good Mexican food, please visit any of the places in the state of Texas that will be better than the two places previously mentioned on this podcast by Jonah and Steve,

just any of them. I was just referring to airport food. And I will say, I'm not, I'm not saying Texas doesn't have great Mexican food but like for airport food the Fratera grill tortas are awesome and I stand by that and I will defend it against all comers And you don't really think

any place in Texas has better Mexican food Maybe I might That's not any place They have Taco Bell in Texas Taco Cabana Might be better than your place Yeah I'll just throw out then

We're gonna go in totally different direction If you're in the Houston area There is a Bon Me place called Roostar and it is so tasty. So go check out Roo Star in Houston for Delicious Bond Me. Yeah. And you only have about like five more minutes to get to Houston and get out before it's 110% humidity for the next six months.

But it makes your skin. It's so good, Jonah. It's just, it's that soft, dewy glow that you only get in Houston from... Houston, like wherever you are any time a day in the summertime, you feel like you're Martin Sheen tearing apart your hotel room in Apocalypse now. just having like a sort of bad acid trip sweating yourself into sort of hysteria dementia. It's uncomfortable. I think the best part is like walking to cross the street at 9 p.m. at night and you're sweating because like even that small amount of exertion after dark, it is still so hot and so humid that you have to take a bath after that.

So yeah, I know that feeling. I like it. It's home. Strong letter to follow from the Houston Chamber of Commerce. With that. Thank you so much for joining us and we'll talk to you again next week. You know what I'm going to be.