The Dispatch Podcast - What Should Never Trumpers Do Now? | Interview: Matt Lewis

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Daily Beast columnist Matt Lewis joins Jamie to discuss the shifting dynamics of the 2024 election cycle and why he believes Donald Trump’s “threat to democracy” doesn’t mean he has to vote for Kamala Harris. The Agenda: —Current presidential landscape —What happened to J.D. Vance? —Is Trump actually a threat to democracy? —Will the Never Trump movement ever be irrelevant? —Best- and worst-case scenarios of a Trump presidency Show Notes: —Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America —Kevin Williamson on Vance's misplaced blame of the working class —Jamie Weinstein on "The Next Level" podcast The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. First, I want to thank Adam for sitting in for me last week, but we have a wonderful guest this week, someone who I think is one of the keenest commentators on politics. My good friend Matt Lewis, Matt Lewis has been with many different publications from The Daily Beast to the Daily Caller to AOL back in the day and many others. He is now a contributor to the Hill. He was a former CNN commentator. And we get into all the politics. that is going on right now in the state of never Trumpism. Matt Lewis is a proud member of. So without further ado, I give you Mr. Matt Lewis. Matt Lewis. Matt Lewis, welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. Hey, Jamie. You are, as I said in my introduction,

in both one of the keenest minds on politics and what I think, one of the most honest commentators on politics. So let's begin with the 2024 landscape. As we sit here, how do you view the presidential race? I think it's a stunning turn of events. Actually, a stunning summer. We, you know, back in, I guess it was late May,

Donald Trump's convicted of these felonies. Then you have the assassination attempt. you have that horrible debate. And then I think the switcheroo dramatically changed everything. I really do. I think Trump was destined to be reelected. And I think if the election were held today, Kamala Harris would win. So I don't know what the next 90 or so days have in store for us.

But if it's anything like the last 90 or so days, it's going to be off the hook. Did you think that replacing Biden with Kamala Harris would have led to this shift? I mean, were you one who thought that she would change the dynamic in a positive way for Democrats? Well, look, I think everyone at a certain point realized that Joe Biden couldn't turn things around, that he just didn't have the capacity because even before that debate, he was trailing in the polls. We know that a Democrat has to actually be up in the polls by a point or two to win the electoral college. And we knew that Joe Biden didn't have the rhetorical chops to say or do anything that would have shifted the, trajectory of the race. So I think everyone knew that Biden couldn't do it. But I certainly did not

think Kamala Harris could do what she has done, which is play pretty flawless baseball. I, you know, I think that she should have picked Josh Shapiro as her running mate. So I think that was probably her first unforced error. But I think that I'm pretty stunned, to be honest with you, at how well things have gone for Kamala Harris since Joe Biden made that announcement. You know, what I think is interesting, and I'd like your thoughts on it, what it means for the narrative or the campaign narrative that the Biden team was pushing for at the time, which was Donald Trump being a threat to democracy, January 6th, you can't allow him back in the White House, which, you know, to me, as someone who thinks January 6th was exactly that resonated.

But if people are switching so quickly and we're willing to vote for Trump, some of those people that were willing to vote for Trump before Biden dropped out are now switching to Kamala Harris, who seems to have a different message entirely, does that suggest that the crucial voters don't care about the message that Trump is maybe a threat to democracy and that January 6th could happen again? Well, I think there's a few things. First of all, we're now three years removed from January 6th. So we have had an election. We've had several elections that I think, in fact, the midterm elections, the democracy message worked. It resonated and it worked for Democrats. I don't know how many times you can go to the well and say these other people are a threat to democracy. I don't know how many times you can win elections on that alone.

because frankly, people get bored, people become inured to things, which I think is maybe not great, but I think it's truthfully how things are. I also think, look, there are set number of people who have gotten off the Trump bandwagon because they view him as being, you know, having authoritarian tendencies, being chaotic. But those people have already left. Those people are already off the bandwagon. And I think it was also complicated, by the fact that Joe Biden, by virtue not of being, you know, an evil authoritarian, but by virtue of being, you know, kind of dottering posed his own threat to liberal democracy. And so you add all of that up. I think that the Democrats got about as much mileage as they could have off of the

Donald Trump as a threat to democracy message. It doesn't mean that it's not real. It doesn't mean that it's not a truthful substantive issue. But I think that they've kind of played that out. And Kamala now has, she's not talking about democracy. She's talking about freedom, which is slightly different. I think that still some people are going to vote because they feel like Donald Trump is dangerous. But it's hard to run a joyful campaign like I think Kamala Harris and Tim Walls want to run, if you are also saying, but democracy is at stake. And so I think that it's a refreshing change, and Trump is having a hard time, I think, keeping up with the change.

Well, let me, I want to get to the new narrative and Tim Walls as the pick, but pull that thread, I want to pull the threat a little bit. You said that you think that Biden himself in some ways posed a threat to liberal democracy. What did you mean by that? Well, I think that this was not something that concerned me. me as much as others. But I think that some people looked at Joe Biden and they said he is not capable of governing for four more years. And what does that mean? Well, first, it means that if he is not up to the job, that's dangerous. That's certainly threatening our republic. If you have a

president who is not ready for that 3 a.m. call, it also means likely that someone else that we didn't elect is pulling the string. Someone else is actually running the show. I don't put that in, personally, I don't put that in the same category as attempting to overthrow a free and fair election. Also, of course, Joe Biden, like pretty much every modern president, I think has done things that executive orders and things that I think are enhancing executive authority. I don't put that in the same category as, again, trying to overthrow an election. But you could see that I think there were people who were starting to say, well, both of these guys are. somewhat dangerous. You know, one of them is unfit for moral or ethical reasons. The other one is unfit for cognitive reasons, but both are unfit and both, in a sense, pose a threat to, certainly

to the Republic. You mentioned one of the main narratives of the Harris Wall's campaign is freedom, and they reframe the question to what freedom means. I think the secondary narrative is that the other side is weird in a goofy way. I mean, they don't try to be angry about it. it, but they almost laugh at them. What do you make of that narrative and what do you make of the pick of Tim Walls? I know that you said earlier that you thought they should pick Josh Shapiro, but what do you make of the pick of Tim Walz? So first, yeah, I think that what happened is Democrats were trying to run a very serious campaign saying that Donald Trump and Maga are a threat to liberal democracy. I think that certainly resonated with some people.

but again, over time, I think it became less and less effective. People become inured to it. And I think that what they've done is shift sort of as you were, I think, implying in two different areas. One is reframing democracy to freedom. Part of the reason I think the freedom message works well for them is I think they see abortion as a big part of their message. And I think abortion rights pro-choice fits better under the rubric of freedom.

than it does under the umbrella of democracy, in my opinion. I also think what we've seen is rather than kind of being school marms and wagging our fingers, warning people of how serious and how dangerous Trump is, they've started mocking him. Remember Sol Olensky from Rules for Radicals talked about how ridicule is this underrated, potent weapon. I think that's what we're seeing with the weird thing. It's, we're not scared of them, we're not afraid of them, we're not warning you of them, we're laughing at them. And I think Tim Walls actually probably is more responsible than anybody if you had to pick one person for that shift, that segue into the mockery and calling it weird and calling them weird.

And I think that has been very effective. I don't yet think we know how Tim Walls will play. Part of my concern, so if we go back, why did I prefer Josh Shapiro, okay? There's a few reasons. Number one, governor of Pennsylvania, 64% approval rating in Pennsylvania. If this election comes down to Pennsylvania and Kamala Harris loses it by a point, she will wish that she had picked Josh Shapiro, right? So Shapiro seemed to me to be the obvious choice in that regard.

Also, I think you would have had a generational change argument, you know. Tim Walls is actually not that much older than Kamala Harris, but I think Harris and Shapiro together would have just from an optic standpoint presented a pretty clear contrast to the Trump Biden option that we had not too long ago, just a month or so ago. And so I think change and youthful generational change. And then from a personal standpoint, I do feel like Shapiro would have been more moderate and then he would have maybe thrown a bone to the never Trump conservatives. And then lastly, I mean, look, nobody in this scenario has been fully vetted the way that you would want them to be under normal conditions. But Josh Shapiro has been, I think, in the national spotlight to a much larger degree than Tim Walls. Most people had never really heard of Tim Walls until a couple of weeks ago.

And so if their, his record is incredibly left wing as a governor of Minnesota. Right now we're looking at his military record. and depending on how you look at it, it could be much ado about nothing or it could be dangerously sketchy. So I think that we do not yet know if this was a good pick or a bad pick. I don't want to get into the questions

of why maybe Shapiro wasn't picked, but I would think that as the author of Filthy-rich politicians, you might like a guy who apparently owns no stocks and no investments of any type. Is that a good thing that he really has nothing in a, I mean, I think he might have a pension, but nothing if no 401K,

no, I'm not even sure he owns a house. Yeah, look, I think that some people are criticizing him saying he's only been on the government dole. He was in the military and National Guard. He was a, you know, he was a football coach and a high school teacher, you know, the taxpayers paid. He never had a job. And that reminds me of in 2012, remember when Mitt Romney ran, and he ran a campaign

is if everybody in America is an entrepreneur, you didn't build that. And it really didn't resonate with police officer. My dad was a correctional officer for 30 years, that kind of person. And so I think that Tim Walz's experience is fine. We've got plenty of people. In fact, the average member of Congress is now a millionaire. And so it does not bother me at all that Tim Walls is not, you know, a hedge fund broker or some sort of venture capitalist like J.D.V. Not bother you, but what do you think the benefits are? I mean,

do you think there's a benefit to the fact that he is kind of the opposite of a lot of the people you write about in filthy rich politicians? Yeah, I think in two regards, right? So first, I believe he was involved in the Stock Act, passing the Stock Act. I'd have to look that out, but I think he was intimately involved in that. I think that was

a good step. So the Stock Act, for the first time, banned insider trading in Congress, believe it or not, it used to be, I guess, legal. I still think they need to go further because it's hard to kind of prove or define that someone is actually engaging in insider trading. In fact, Nancy Pelosi, if you look at Paul Pelosi's trades, seem very lucky and, and yeah, lucky is a good word, a good word for it. So I think that maybe he was more, someone like Tim Walz, who is not, you know, making money from investments. It was more likely to actually push reforms like that. I also think politically that he can resonate with regular Americans in a way, just going back

to Mitt Romney, you know, I think Mitt Romney was a great guy, but that 2012 campaign, and they went on that, their whole convention, with the exception of Rick Santorum speech, the entire 2012 convention was basically, if you've built a business, join our team, you know, and like, okay, that's great. I love the entrepreneurial spirit of that kind of Romney Ryan Republican Party. But a lot of Americans don't own businesses or even, you know, invest in the stock market. J.D. Vance on the other side of the coin, I'm interested to what you think of him and his, I don't know what you want to call it, intellectual journey.

how sincere it is. And what do you make of him as Donald Trump's pick? So, I mean, he's obviously a smart guy. I've actually interviewed him in 2016 for my podcast back when he was a never Trump or an anti-Trump author of Hillbilly Elegie. I think that he obviously is flip-flopped on Donald Trump. I mean, this is someone who wasn't just critical of Donald Trump, but I think he said Trump could be American Hitler, and now he's his running mate, and that is a pretty stunning turn of events in a fairly short amount of time. I think it's totally possible. You know, Jonah often talks about, and I think he gets it from Yuval Levin, but I don't know that J.D. Vance said to himself, self, I'm a phony. I'm going to find a way to get elected, and therefore I will become a Trump

fan. I think it's entirely possible that it happened, that he evolved and in cognitive dissonance played some role in him becoming, essentially changing everything he believed at a fundamental level. But I don't know that he thinks that it was cutting or so strategic. From a political standpoint, I think he was not a great pick. Actually, Jamie, you and I were talking the moment that we discovered. We were doing a podcast at the exact moment when it was announced that J.D. Vance was going to be Donald Trump's running made. And I think we were all in agreement that it was not a great pick. And it was a kind of pick you make when you think you're about to win

and you maybe want to give your base a sop and also have somebody who is going to kind of continue on the MAGA legacy. It's not the kind of pick you make if you're worried about winning a state or swing voters. And so I don't think he really brings much to the table. I also don't think he's a great politician. You know, it's hard to define, right? I used to think Kamala Harris was a horrible politician. Somehow she got her footing.

She kind of got her mojo. And now she appears to be this happy warrior. And maybe J.D. Vance can similarly improve and get better. But he just doesn't seem to be terribly likable, terribly charismatic. And I'm not saying that that's not a moral judgment. That is just sort of as a political observer. He just doesn't seem to be a great politician. Let me follow up on the intellectual journey.

and whether it's sincere or not. And I don't know. I don't know him. I've never interviewed him. But, you know, I haven't read his book yet. It's on my list. But I did read Kevin Williamson's piece on it. And apparently, from what I remember when it came out,

the understanding is the book is kind of about the problems of the place he came from. And now the theme is what the government did to that place, which seems, I guess, the opposite of what the book apparently argues for. Can you make that shift without explaining it? I haven't seen him explain, if that's the case, you know, how he went from a bestseller arguing about, you know, the issues were to blame on the communities he came from to, no, it wasn't that it was the government. Yeah, look, my friend Bill Scher, he and I do a podcast, and he just did a pretty deep dive

for Washington Monthly where he went through the book and also things that Vance was saying and writing simultaneously to kind of the book rollout. And it does seem like his theme around 2015-2016, was to say, look, the folks who live in Appalachia, they need to get their act together. It's kind of what Kevin Williamson has written or has suggested that you, look, you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, take responsibility. If you have to move somewhere else to get a job, then move somewhere else to get a job. This is, you don't blame someone else, you know. And I recently interviewed Tom Nichols, who made the point that today's Republican Party. sort of panders and talks about poor white people

the way we used to get mad at the Democratic Party for talking about black people, which is to say, like, it's not your fault. You didn't have a chance. You know, the government did this to your society, man. And so I think that is the shift that's happened, right? So J.D. Vance went kind of from telling people, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps

to telling them, hey, you know, never had a chance. The game was rigged against you. That's kind of the vibe or the sense that I get. I, look, I actually believe that both things could, that there could be some truth in both messages, that on one hand, we as individuals have to accept responsibility. I don't think class warfare helps. I don't think feeling sorry for ourselves helps. I don't think telling people they can't make it that the deck is stacked against them helps them. By the same token, I do think that there are, you know, you could be born in a community that is very dysfunctional. And if all you've ever seen is dysfunction and poverty, then it's going to be very hard for you

to get out, no matter how smart you are or how ambitious you are. So I think both things could be true. As you suggest, though, Jamie, I have not heard yet J.D. Vance find a way to explain that evolution and tie those things together. And that would be a fascinating thing for him to do. I would argue that if this is an honest transition, you would have to do that. You would have to show how you evolved from here to there intellectually, other than to pretend, which I'm not, you know, I haven't read his whole corpus, but I have not seen it yet. But if he's pretending that there is no dissonance, that to me would suggest maybe not a sincere evolution, but opportunistic one. 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.

Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not months. Ethos keeps it simple. It's 100% online, no medical exam, just a few health questions. You can get a quote in as little as 10 minutes, same-day coverage, and policies starting at about two bucks a day, build monthly, with options up to $3 million in coverage. With a 4.8 out of five-star rating on trust pilot and thousands of families already applying through Ethos, it builds trust. Protect your family with life insurance from ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash dispatch. That's ETHOS.com slash dispatch.

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

And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10. 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. The question, I guess, then, is we have these two tickets. We have Harris Walls and we have Trump Vance.

You are a card carrying never-trumper from the very beginning. How do you navigate that choice and do you know what you're going to do in November? Well, it's a great question. It's something that I'm always thinking about. I have to tell you, so the last time I voted for any general election, for one of the nominees. Well, okay, so I voted in 2016 in the primary for Rubio.

I did not vote at all in the general election in 2016, and that was a strategic choice because that way I could prove to people that I did not vote for Trump. Because people know if you voted or not. That's a public record. They don't know if you voted,

you can say you didn't vote for Trump. At the time, I wanted to prove that despite being a conservative Republican at the time, I did not vote for Trump. So I didn't vote in the general. In 2024, I actually voted for Joe Biden in the primary in Virginia to stop Bernie Sanders, but then I did not vote for Trump or Biden.

And, you know, this is tough to do. It's tough to sit out. So coming up on 2024, this would be essentially the third consecutive general election that I sit out. Now, I do get a little bit of an out because I moved. Subsequently, I moved to West Virginia. So my vote here in West Virginia really doesn't matter. Trump will win West Virginia by about 40 points, regardless of what I do. So in that regard, you know, it's irrelevant.

I will say there is something about being on a team. And even though I don't have team spirit and I try not to be tribalistic, I have to say, after the Kamala Harris rollout, when I saw the energy and the excitement that she had, And then also I saw that she was flip-flopping in my direction on things like fracking. And I thought she was going to pick Josh Shapiro. And there was a part of me that was starting to become a little bit excited. And then she pulled the rug out from under me because, Jamie, nobody cares about the never-trumper's.

And this is so fascinating to me. So in 2000, so after the 2000 election, after the 2000 election, after the 2000, election. Ron Johnson, you know, the MAGA Republican senator from Wisconsin, was surreptitiously recorded saying that Trump lost the state of Wisconsin by 21,000 votes, but there were 51,000 Republicans who voted for a Republican down ballot, but didn't vote for Trump at the top of the ticket. What that tells me is that in Wisconsin, there were tens of thousands of voters who probably people like me, who voted for a Republican, but wouldn't vote for Trump. There's a never-Trump movement out there, and it's not a majority, certainly, but it's

substantial, and you might think that people would try to woo us, but they don't. Fast forward to 2024. Nikki Haley's running for president and for the primary in 2024, and she was getting something like, you know, 20% of the vote. And of that, about, half the people who were voting for her said they would not vote for Donald Trump. So there is some percentage of voters out there. Now, why, again, you might say that's a small number, Matt. It doesn't matter. Well, maybe it will.

Remember, the last two elections have been decided in three states by like 50,000 votes or something like that. And so you might think that people like me, that there'd be enough of us that they would give a damn about us. But apparently Trump doesn't want us, because he picked J.D. Vance, as his running mate. And Kamala Harris doesn't want us because she picked Tim Walz as her running mate. Well, this question's been asked since 2016 of NeverTrumpers. I know other people that dispatch are on different sides of this. I believe if you really do think someone's a threat to democracy,

there's two choices and you have to choose between them and the last two election cycles I voted for people that probably didn't have my policy preferences, the Democrats, though they weren't Donald Trump in the threat I think he posed, even if it's a, you know, a 10% threat. How do you rationalize not, if you do think that Trump has a threat to democracy, not voting for whoever's running against him, particularly after January 6th? All right. So let me give you an answer. I think it will be unsatisfying.

But the good news is there's like, it's a four or three or four prong answer. So it'll probably be three or four unsatisfying sub, you know, sort of. bullet points. Okay, so first of all, as I noted, I live in West Virginia, so it doesn't matter how I vote. Second of all, I would argue that my commentary and my columns, which have been pretty consistently very tough on Donald Trump, I don't pretend that they are going to make a big difference, but I certainly believe that they'll be more important than my vote in West Virginia. Third, I have to be honest about this. There is some branding involved, okay? So, If Matt Lewis, conservative columnist who wants to someday, not oversee, but someday witness a restored Republican Party, if I vote publicly and endorse and vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walls, then to some degree, at some level, I'm endorsing their views.

Now, Tim Walls, you can go through his record, whether it's, you know, the transgender issue, whether it's his handling of the riots in Minnesota. He's not my cup of tea. I actually, I think his vibes are very good, of course, but it will be harder for me at some point to help the Republican Party and the conservative movement restore itself if that day ever happens. if I become kind of part of the Democratic coalition. And we have seen, Jamie, I think you and I have both witnessed people

who used to be conservatives who are now essentially all, you know, all in. They're not like tentatively supporting, they're not tentatively supporting Kamala Harris in the short term just until, you know, just to stop Trump. No. They've kind of drunk the Kool-Aid, and I understand why, because there is a temptation to be a part of a tribe. You want to be a part of something, and it's very uncomfortable being

where I am. I mean, I talked, my dad was a prison guard for many years, and one thing he told me is if you go to prison, the first thing you should probably do is join a gang. And the reason you should do that is because you've got to pick a team. Otherwise, you're going to get shanked in the yard, and no one's going to have your back, right? And so, So I've effectively been gangless for many, many years, and it's kind of dangerous and lonely. So it would be fun to join something, but I can't really endorse in good conscience the things that they want to do. Now, this will be the one thing that may be satisfying, Jamie.

I will tell you this. If for some reason I lived in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Arizona, and if I absolutely 100% knew that my vote was going to make the difference, I would vote for Kamala Harris in this case. And then I would probably immediately begin trying to fight against everything that she was trying to do once she actually was sworn in.

Well, I think we can agree that at the moment, Kamala, I'm sorry, Harris Walls, has the big Mo, as George H.W. Bush once said. Is it possible, or how would you advise, if you were brought on as an advisor to the Trump campaign for Trump to get that momentum back. That's a tough one, man. I actually think that it would have been even a month ago,

it would have been, as an advisor, there would have been more opportunity to change thing. After he survived an assassination attempt, it would have been a golden opportunity for him to rebrand and basically say, hey, once you've been through something like this, it makes you reevaluated, it makes you change. So we're going to be a little different going forward. I think there would have been people clamoring for that message

and a surprising willingness to forgive some of the crazy things he's done in the past. I think it was a chance to reinvent himself. And then I think he could have had Doug Bergman or Marco Rubio or someone. You could have picked a much better running mate. And so I think even if you had asked me that a month ago, it would have been easier. I think it's tough to that. Not that he's going to listen because he's not going to listen to anything anyone tells him anyway. right. It kind of brings up, you know, we've had a lot of candidates since 2016 in the primaries

and in the general election run against Donald Trump. He has systematically kind of just mowed them down other than Biden. And I almost feel like he, it was because of COVID and the way he handled COVID almost more than Joe Biden because it wasn't really, it wasn't that big of a campaign during COVID. But this is the first time, it seems, like someone's found in a effective way, at least in the beginning, to campaign against him, where he's almost getting mad about what's occurring. I mean, maybe we discussed it earlier. It's kind of the lightness and calling him weird and treating him with such like, he almost is a comic figure. But others have tried to do that and failed. What do you think is working here that hasn't worked for almost

anybody else? So this is purely speculation, but I would say anyone who tried to do that in the Republican Party, that's different. Trump is much more susceptible and vulnerable in a general election. In the Republican Party, Trump dominates. And so when we saw people like Nikki Haley or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz, try to go mono-a-mono with him or female man against him, it didn't work. And so I think you have to take the Republican primary off the table. And then ask yourself, It's a pretty small sample size, right? So Hillary Clinton, I think, was not a great candidate, a pretty bad candidate. And then Joe Biden beat him once, right?

And so I think Kamala Harris, and trust me, I'm as surprised as anybody that I'm about to say this, but I think that in a general election, Kamala Harris is the best candidate he's ever faced. he's never faced someone this young. And I think the Democrats were so pent up and desperate and thirsty and hungry for excitement. And so he wasn't ready for her. The switcheroo got him off his game. And so I think if you can look at it as simply as that, Hillary was a bad candidate and Biden won. But Kamala is better than both of them.

And certainly in terms of the vibes, the energy, the image. And she surprised him. If Trump turns us around and wins the election, what do you think happens to the never Trump movement? Oh, if Trump wins the election, then it's, you know, it's pretty much over. I mean, there's a reason Jonah calls his podcast, The Remnant, right? I mean, we are trying to keep the fire burning, you know, keep the candle burning. You know, it's not good.

I don't even, I think maybe a more interesting question is what happens if Trump loses because I'm not even sure that would be enough to kind of delegitimize Trumpism and force the Republican Party to grapple with the obvious fact that Trump is a drag and that they have to get rid of them to win. I don't know how many, this is a call. Let me press you on that. That's a question I actually have here for you. It's a question that Tim Miller asked me when I was on the Bullwark podcast, which is, can you imagine a more normal Republican nominee in 2028? I think it's possible. I don't think you're going to go back to John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I certainly think you could have something of a hybrid

approach. You could have someone. Who is that? What would that look like in our current political landscape? Who is that hybrid approach? That's a great question. You know, nobody saw Donald Trump coming, So it could be someone that we, that we're not even thinking about. And I do think that even if Donald Trump were to go away, you know, it's, there are people like Elise Stefonic and Tucker Carlson and Josh Holly and even J.D. Vance, who could certainly be in the running. But you wouldn't say those are more normal, normal canon. Those would be all in the mold, if not more so, having more ideas developing around what was amorphous of a figure, Trumpism. but developing Trumpism into an ideology. That wouldn't be a more normal Republican candidate,

would it, if any of those, you know, Josh Hawley or Tucker or something like that was the nominee. Well, you know, I'm saying that's one possibility is that you end up with that. But I think that, you know, there's a chance you end up with like someone like Tim Scott or Doug Bergam. Who knows? I mean, look, I think that when Donald Trump ran,

in 2016, had he lost that election, then the Republican Party could have kind of bounced back. And, you know, I'm not saying it would have been the great Republican, the Reagan party that I, that I might have wanted. But Trump would have been, I think, you know, a blip. And you would have had Ted Cruz's and Marco Rubio's and that kind of Bobby Gindal, like that generation. But right now, Jamie, we are at a point where if you are like, I don't know, under the age of, 30 or something like it's hard to say, but basically Donald Trump has defined the Republican Party for you for like the last eight or nine years, certainly. So at a certain point, the best we can do is maybe start to move in a more sane direction. But you're not going to be able to completely

exercise Maga or Trumpism out of the party, I think, immediately. Well, let's go back to the scenario of Trump wins. I'm interested. I mean, this is your world, my world, but your world as well, what happens to never Trump in media? I mean, after Trump one in 2016, to the extent the media brought on conservatives, they preferred what they saw as more normal conservatives, people that they felt comfortable having on and maybe we're friends with it were in the never Trump movement. But if it's not an aberration, if Donald Trump wins a second time, and this is the Republican Party, and as you said, the never Trump movement is almost worthless, not worthless in ideas, but worthless in, you know, as a political movement.

I mean, do the media just staff up with Trump staffers and Trump people and is never Trump perspective diminished greatly? Oh, yeah. I mean, so when Donald Trump was first running and first got elected, I was a CNN contributor, and I was someone who had been from day one, never Trump. I never went for Trump. I never liked Donald Trump. I was always opposed to him.

I have been replaced and supplanted by and large by people who worked for Donald Trump, by people who campaigned for Donald Trump and served in his white. Those are the people now who have turned against Trump, who are probably the most prominent never-trumpers today. Then, again, you have a whole, and many of them have essentially also kind of joined the Democratic coalition. So they're basically supporting Kamala Harris. And I think some of them, not all, but some of them have kind of embraced liberal or progressive philosophy.

And so I think it's going to be a very small percentage of people who remain if Trump wins and pretty, I hate to say it, but essentially irrelevant in terms of the media. Like I don't think the media, they don't need to hear from this niche movement of people who, you know, consider themselves conservative or pro-life, but don't like the Republican Party or something like that. You know, it's not really a relevant group in terms of if you're a media booker, it's not exactly jumping out at you. So yeah, I mean, I think it's basically the media will be full of people who defend Trump, who worked for Trump, and people who were against Trump who worked for Trump. And that's kind of the way that it would go in terms of never Trump. You basically it would have had to have been a pro-Trumper at some point, and that's more interesting

than never having supported him. Here's a question for you. If Trump wins, can you paint for me the most likely best-case scenario for a Trump presidency, a second Trump presidency, and the most likely worst-case scenario for a Trump presidency? When I say most likely, I mean, we can paint vivid pictures of things that won't occur are not likely to occur in either direction. But what is the best, most likely case scenario and the most likely worst case scenario

that you can imagine for a Trump presidency? I think probably the best case scenario is actually his first term minus January 6th. I think the worst case scenario is, as David Fromm has said, that the Velasiraptors have learned to work the doorknob, which is to say that Trump will start out not only being more savvy in terms of how to impose his agenda and manipulate events and keep the so-called deep state at bay, but that Project 25 and the Heritage Foundation and, you know, the Stephen Miller's of the world will be able to, you know, institute and implement. loyalists who from day one can begin pushing an agenda. And again, the worst case scenario,

of course, is that Trump attempts to never leave. How likely is that? I mean, I was going to ask you what are the odds that he, you know, tries to runs for a third term and tries to stay in power again? Well, he tried to stay in power once. I think maybe you put it at 15, 20%, which is super dangerous, right? Like if I said, there's a, you know, you're going to get on a plane and there's a 20% chance that's going to crash, you probably wouldn't get on that plane. I wrote in my column in 2016 endorsing Hillary over Trump that there was, you know, and I gave it a 10, maybe it's only a 10% chance he tries to remain in power, but that's too high of a risk for liberal democracy. And it turns out, well, maybe I should have painted that percentage a little

higher. I know. And remember all of these people, like I think, um, Ross Douthit, you know, whom I like and respect was sort of dismissing the idea that Trump would ever do this. And, and remember there was some, I think, blind quote in the New York Times of the Washington Post where somebody was like, you know, Trump saying he won the election. Why not humor him? You know, just, you know, what could, what could possibly go wrong? And so to me, I take it very seriously. I think if there is a 10% chance, even, that, you know, I think was it Dick Cheney had something along those lines that you have to act as if it's a certainty. Now, again, that's what Joe Biden, that's the campaign Joe Biden was running. And that's a very serious campaign.

And frankly, it can come across to normal people who don't pay that much attention and frankly, who maybe don't care as much about liberal democracy as a bit overwrought. And so I think that what Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are doing now is actually more effective, the mockery. Let me ask you this as we close. As I said, never Trump, or you have people on almost both sides where you disagree on a lot of things. Who's the smartest liberal commentator that you read, the most compelling, if not convincing? And who's the most smartest MAGA commentator that you read, compelling if not convincing? Hmm, good question.

I can't say the smartest, but like Ezra Klein, for example, is someone who's obviously a lot more liberal than me. I think his recent stuff, and I've been listening to his podcast, has been pretty solid. So if you'd ask me that a month ago, I'd probably a different answer for you. In terms of MAGA, if someone is full-on MAGA, to be honest with you, then I'm not going to be able to list them because it, They're probably either evil, insane, or stupid, but there are people who are like much more kind of predisposed to supporting Trump for various reasons than I am.

And there's a bunch of them, I'm sure, but like Henry Olson is someone who comes to mind as someone who I think is very populist, you know, populist and he probably is more favorable to populism and nationalism than I am. And probably, even though he's critical of Trump, maybe a little more along those lines. And that's someone that I can kind of learn from and maybe be persuaded a little bit by. Final question. Matt Lewis is president of the United States. He can focus on three issues that he thinks will make this country a better place, maybe to lead the 21st century again. What are the three issues that you're pushing?

Well, I think the number one thing we have to do is really restore the, the civic culture that we have in America. I mean, that's probably, that's a simple but very, very difficult challenge. But obviously right now, we have a country where people don't trust each other, there's a ton of kind of partisan animosity. Back in 1998, I think it was something like six to eight percent of Republicans thought that Democrats were, you know, bad, evil people, and now it's in like 60-some percent. And so it is just in the last few decades, that alone has dramatically gotten worse.

I don't know how you fix that or restore that. That's maybe more of a spiritual problem than even a cultural problem. But I think that is if you can start to work on that, that's something you work on. Obviously, I think China is a major problem. This is an area where I actually think that the populace and the nationalists were probably more right than what we might call the Republican establishment or like more cosmopolitan conservatives. There was a sense, I think, that if you were to help China economically

and help them become more entrepreneurial and open the trade with them, along with economic liberalization, that there would be political liberalization, and up until now, certainly that hasn't manifested. So I view them, is a very, very, very serious, maybe not enemy, but certainly adversary. I don't really give Trump a lot of credit for this,

but I do think in the Trump era during that time, more and more Americans have, I think, awakened to the fact that they, you know, pose a real threat. Another area that I think has actually been going really well in about the last decade has to do with energy, but that would probably be my third, is to keep that going. I'm glad to see, for example,

that Kamala Harris has come around on fracking, but I think it's just very important that America maintain its strength in terms of producing energy and the future. So off the top of my head, those are the three, two that are fairly substantive

and one that's a little bit woo-woo and spiritual, but nonetheless important. Matt Lewis, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. Thanks, Jamie. You know, Thank you.