The Dispatch Podcast - Where Do Haley Voters Go? | Roundtable

Episode Date: May 24, 2024

Jonah is joined by Steve and Mike to discuss Nikki Haley saying she will vote for Donald Trump, and they also get into the “deadly force” lie being spread by Trump supporters in Congress and right-wing media. The Agenda: —Haley endorses Trump —Trump-Haley ticket —How the ‘Deadly Force’ Lie Swept Through the MAGA Media Ecosystem —The corrupting influence of Trump —Potluck foreign policy —The ICC arrest warrants —The death of a butcher —The pizza debate Show Notes: —Boiling Frogs: A Case for VP Haley —Julie Kelly’s original “deadly force” tweet —Julie Kelly’s January 6 book —Jesse Watters' coverage of the “deadly force” claims —Trump’s Wildwood, New Jersey, speech —The Trump-Oprah voter —Biden’s Morehouse speech —The Remnant with Ken Pollack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm not Sarah Isger. Sarah's on the road this week, so I am subbing in, and I am Jonah Goldberg. With me today is, oh, and welcome to the Dispatch podcast. With us today is our own. entirely estimable Steve Hayes and the great Mike Warren. I just want it on the record that I hate being the host of these things, but somehow I get dragooned into it. So send all complaints to Steve Hayes because it's always his fault. Why don't we start with particularly disappointing

news in the Goldberg household, former South Carolina governor and an ambassador of the United Nations and the second best performing candidate in the 2024 GOP primary as Nikki Haley came out yesterday to say she is going to vote for Donald Trump. Moreover, she basically made it into an endorsement. I mean, I think there are people who want to split hairs about whether it was an official endorsement or not. You actually hear her remarks. It sounds a lot like an endorsement.

Mike, what did you make of it? Right. It reminded me, like, you know, of you can't be half pregnant, right? You either endorse them or you don't. And it is an endorsement. It's a pretty weak endorsement. She, usually when you have these moments where a primary challenger drops out and then at some point later endorses, they sort of encourage their supporters to follow them in that

endorsement. And she didn't really do that in these remarks. It was really an answer to a question at the Hudson Institute, the think tank that she is now hanging her hat at. She basically urged her supporters in the primary to, she didn't use these words, but devote their conscience to. A very reminiscent of Cruz from 2016 in that way. Correct. It also reminded me of of a bit of Bernie Sanders in, uh, in both 2020 and 2016, a kind of, um, sure, go ahead. Uh, I, yeah, sure.

I said to vote for somebody. Exactly. Um, so not exactly a ringing endorsement, but an endorsement nonetheless. And probably a big, a bigger disappointment for supporters of the challenger than, Then for supporters of Ted Cruz, for instance, although I don't know, Steve. I mean, we were at the convention and like covering on the floor and then the Cruz diehards were there to the bitter end of the convention in 2016. It seems to me like, and you guys discussed this, and I agree with a we had discussed this on Slack, if Trump weren't up by a few points in the national election, it didn't look like he was going to win. maybe Nikki Haley doesn't do this.

This seems to me the best indication that she sees a future for herself in Republican politics. That is vastly different than where things were a couple of months ago when she dropped out. And it really seemed to me covering her campaign in the final weeks up close that she was kind of saying goodbye to electoral politics. Never mind, I guess. Steve, do you want to respond to Mike referring to you by name? Do I get 30 seconds if he refers to me by name? You get 30 seconds to respond and then I'm turning off your mic. Yeah, I mean, I agree with pretty much everything Mike said there. I think the big takeaway for me, first of all, if you're surprised by this, I would suggest you really weren't paying attention to Nikki Haley, not just during her campaign,

But over the last several years, anybody who read Tim Alberta's Magnum Opus, which I think was published in 2021, in which he spent hours and hours interviewing Nikki Haley, and she was, you know, back and forth again and again on whether she was going to support Trump, whether he had a place in our politics, whether he should be a part of the Republican Party. And the issue, I mean, she did this a lot of times over this Trump moment in our politics, but she was doing that over January 6th. So if you don't have sort of convictions that Trump shouldn't be president after January 6th, you probably don't have convictions. So nobody should be particularly surprised about this outcome. I think Mike is right. it suggests to me that she sees

she sees herself with a political future. I mean, it certainly there were moments in the campaign, particularly at the end of the campaign, when she was awfully tough. Her rhetoric on Trump was awfully tough. And, you know, well beyond the time when she,

it seemed likely that she could be the Republican nominee, she was really giving it to him. And I think there was the temptation to believe, that she was, this was sort of, you know, another, my political career be damned, I'm going to make, I'm going to say the right thing. And her campaign had that feel at times. The thing she was saying gave off those indications at times. The fact that she's sort of willing now, I think, for matters of what seemed to be political expediency just flip back, suggests she maybe didn't believe him from the beginning.

I agree with you, Jonah, that it definitely feels more like an endorsement than just a, hey, I'm going to vote for the guy. I mean, she did do the, I'm going to vote for him, even though I wasn't with him on all of these issues. And I stand by my criticism, but Joe Biden is such a catastrophe sort of. leaves me no choice. The extended clip of her comments there definitely felt more like an endorsement. And it felt like this is not the last we'll hear about this from her. The fact that it comes as Trump is very openly and publicly doing the sort of

Trump vetting of VP candidates could be a coincidence. The only place I'll pushback, I'm not going to, you know, full disclosure. my wife were for Nikki Haley. I'm not going to characterize my wife's response to all of this, but to respond to my own, I agree with you that it's not surprising from a certain perspective. Politicians will always disappoint you. But it is disappointing. And I do think, though, that there is an element of surprise once you kept talking about her convictions or lack thereof, and we can debate all that. But as a matter of just political calculation, I think it is a little surprising because Haley went out and pretty forcefully said you got to prove to my voters that you care about them, that you want them, that you want them to support you.

And she was still getting high single or low double digits and a bunch of closed Republican crime. No, 21% in Maryland. Not nothing. 21%. I mean, it's incredible. Yeah. I mean, okay, but Maryland is that kind of special, but she did shockingly well and like Indie. Ohio, you know, and so she clearly has a hold of some degree, right, as the protest vote

anti-Trump candidate within the GOP, because you can't do this kind of like they're voting because she has a viable chance thing anymore. And she said, show me something. And then Trump showed her exactly zero. And she did this anyway, right? So there was no political. political quid pro quo, no leverage play. It was just basically appeasement, you know, or concession or capitulation. And that kind of surprises me because I just don't see it as a smart strategy. I don't think it's worth what she gets for it is so much less than what she maybe could have gotten. She could have held out for something at the convention.

I mean, and if you're going to take the issue of conviction off the plate, right and just say she was going to do this eventually no matter what i still don't get why you do it now and this is clearly planned right i mean this is at the hudson institute it was her first hudson appearance she's a scholar at the hudson institute full disclosure we all know people at the hudson institute a nice bunch of people but um if she didn't want to be asked this question she wouldn't have been asked this question this was her way of doing this and i just don't I'm surprised by it as a matter of cynicism. Like, I don't see what she got for it.

And the only thing I can think of, which would be really disappointing, is that she got word from the Trump campaign. You have to be the first mover if you want us to even consider you for VP. And I don't know if that's the case. I have no reporting on that whatsoever. But just as a matter of criminology, I don't see what the other explanations really could be. Maybe it's, you have to do this if you want to spot at the convention. Okay. Even, even short of that, couldn't her reasoning just be if she waits and, you know,

she's a finalist to be VP or she thinks she's going to be picked to be VP. And then she does the full flip. It looks so craven that by doing this incrementally, she can get out and say, ah, I'm going to vote for them. I stand by what I said in my suspension speech. and then she warms up to him sort of gradually, and then suddenly she does this, and she can talk about, you know, give interviews about how he's listened to her and he's courting her voters and they do some token thing.

She can claim a win, and she's all in on MAGA. I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me. A limited hangout endorsement. Yeah, I don't know. I agree with Jonah in terms of the, if you take that cynical viewpoint, of all this, it, it, it's a little confusing, um, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, or, the the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the running mate, should be, um, and, um, you know, our,

our, our, our colleague, Nick Kataggio wrote about this recently. and sort of gaming out from a, you could say, from a dispatchium perspective or from a sort of never Trump perspective, does her sort of sacrificing, you know, whatever credibility she had built up in the last weeks of the campaign in order to get onto the ticket, is that a better outcome? If we believe that Trump is the odds on favorite to win in November, All of those sort of calculations, or you might call them justifications, rationalizations, could be at work here. And so, I don't know, like it just seems to me, though, that she's not getting anything out of it.

And there is a question about what happens to those Republican voters who supported her even after she dropped out. they aren't insignificant, particularly in the key swing states, do they go home as well? Do they follow her home into the Republican Party and support Trump? This makes it more likely, but I think there's still some reporting to do about whether or not they all follow her. Yeah, I mean, I guess my point is, you know, I've been saying now for a couple of weeks that my biggest problem, which is now kind of moot because Biden's moved on, but like my biggest problem with Biden's decision to freeze arm shipments to Israel wasn't the policy, like, which I think was wrong. It was that it was politically stupid. Like you can respect all sorts of Kissingerian real politic, kind of like

no tears, no BS, just hardcore cynical political maneuvering, you know, Nixonian stuff. If it's to your advantage. But when it seems like a bad political. political move on top of doing the wrong thing, it can really be bothersome. And I, we're not privy to what's going on behind the scenes right now, but like, it feels like doing the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. And, uh, like, I can, I can be more forgiving as a political analyst of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, as it were. And I can always be forgiving of people doing the right thing, you know, but like, Jonah, can I ask you, what, what do you think? I mean, if, if, so I think I don't remember the percentage of the vote in Indiana, but Maryland, I think it was 21.

She's been in the upper teens and in low 20s in primary votes, including closed Republican primaries, taking upwards of a fifth of the vote in several of these states in succession. 21.7% in Indiana. That's what I thought. I thought it was a big number. I guess I'd be interested in your thoughts, both of you. How much, I mean, just let's Let's get into that question. How much of that is super Nikki Haley fandom and how much of it is just a protest vote against Donald Trump as the Republican nominee? I know where I fall on that question, but I'm interested in you guys. Oh, I think, I think we have to first stipulate that the Venn diagram, there's an overlap. There are people who think they're big Nikki Haley fans, but the reason they're big Nikki Haley fans is because they want to protest Trump. And the idea that they parse this all out completely in their heads, I just think is an artificial imposition that pundits do.

That said, I think the primary motivation is probably 80% anti-Trump, 20% pro-Nicky. You know, I mean, that kind of ratio. to me it's it's very similar i'm convinced of this i got to talk to someone who really knows the polling stuff that you know Biden polls badly on a whole bunch of issues and i think it's a thermostatic response is that where people just say if that's Biden's policy i'm against it because i don't like Biden i don't think it's actually measuring their actual position on issues i think Nikki gets a lot of that as the sort of the place to park and vote and say, look, I'm still a Republican.

I'm still a conservative, but this isn't my guy. And I think she benefited from that. And she could have translated that into actual more pro-nickiness going down the path. I think she gave up a lot of that, you know, yesterday. I agree with that almost entirely. I think the people like Nikki Haley, politicians end up kind of stumbling onto movements. and the good ones understand that they've got to make that translation, that they've got to kind of take that energy or that movement and translate it into support for them. And I think less than super politicians mistake that that fervor for a cause or for, in this case, an anti-cause as interest in them.

And Nikki Haley was, it was so clear that she was a vessel for that frustration with. with a party that was about to renominate Donald Trump. And I think she's made a fatal flaw in interpreting it as, these are my people, and maybe I can deliver them for Trump and get something in return. I just don't think, I think that way lies sadness for her. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change

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Moving on, the other political story this week, well, I don't know if it's the only one. It's certainly not the only political story, but it was probably the best example of spontaneous sort of lightning strike fire of assinity. paranoia and and craven cynicism that we've seen in a while. Not to like guide or put my thumb on the scale about how our listeners should think about this. But you, Mike, did a great piece for us that's out there on the site today, how the deadly forest lie swept through the MAGA media ecosystem. Why don't you sort of walk us through your reporting? What happened? And then I will editorialize some more. Fine. Great. So this all All begins with the unsealing this week by Judge Eileen Cannon in the Southern District of Florida Court, who is trying the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents case.

Judge Cannon unsealed a pair of filings from the defense and the prosecution. one of these many filings that the defenses is making motions for to dismiss the case as unfair. And in this filing, they argue that, among other things, the FBI raid in 2022 on Mar-a-Lago was unfair and mean and bad and done incorrectly and improperly. I don't put a lot of stock into that. what was released along with this filing were the exhibits and included in the exhibits were something that was that the defense received as part of discovery for filing this motion, which was the operations order by the FBI, essentially a document that is the plan, the operations plan for the retrieval of the documents during that FBI raid.

And within minutes of this document being available to the public, made available to the public in the unsealing, you had a sort of brewing firestorm to mix the metaphors of MAGA voices, starting with a woman named Julie Kelly, seizing on to some language in that operations order. and the language was actually spelled out in the filing by Trump's defense, almost as if they were hoping that people would seize onto this language. So I'm going to read real quickly from the filing that the FBI order, quote, contained a policy statement regarding use of deadly force, which stated, for example, this is a quote within the quote, law enforcement officers of the Department of Justice may use deadly force, when necessary.

So Julie Kelly took this quotation, may use deadly force when necessary, and jumped on it with a series of sensational tweets essentially arguing that the FBI was going into Mara Lago to retrieve these documents ready to kill, ready to kill anybody who got in their way,

She claimed at one point that the FBI, I quote, risked the lives of Donald Trump, his family, his staff, and Mar-a-Lago guests, and that people needed to be arrested for this. From this point on, it blows up. It goes through all kinds of places within what I call the MAGA media ecosystem in that headline. Podcasts, other MAGA media, it's blowing up in places like the Federalist. Members of Congress. Actually, I should point out, one of the first retweets of Julie Kelly was from the House Judiciary Committee Republicans' Twitter account, retweeting this with a bunch of siren emojis. This is all very juvenile, by the way, what happens on Twitter or on X. A number of members of Congress tweeting about this, it blew up. And I'm talking about within hours of this. This is getting all the way to members of Congress, suggesting even to the point that Joe Biden and his administration had set out at this 2022 raid to assassinate Donald Trump. Leave aside that Donald Trump wasn't on the premises. And in fact, that was a part of the reason the FBI did their raid when they did it.

They wanted to make sure he wasn't on there on Marlago grounds when they did this. What came out very quickly and came out through my reporting in other colleagues reporting, talking to FBI sources, DOJ sources, is this language about the use of deadly forces is its boilerplate. It is a part of every single operations plan that the FBI does when they're executing search warrants, when they're executing arrest warrants, when they're in the field. at any time and their officers are armed, which is pretty much any time FBI officers are in the field, they have a policy. And rather than sort of authorizing use of deadly force, what the policy is actually intended to do is to limit when the FBI can use deadly force. For instance, the FBI can no longer use firearms on moving vehicles. That's been a change, actually since a 2022 update of the DOG's policy on this, except in specific circumstances.

There's all kinds of limits on when the FBI can use deadly force, and yet it was being portrayed as exactly the opposite, and as if this were some kind of aberration from the norm. This is the norm. This is the sort of guidelines by which the FBI limits itself and protect. itself and protects its officers from making poor decisions when it comes to use of deadly force. The lie spread got all the way to Fox News, got all the way to Donald Trump himself, who was posting about this on Truth Social, who issued a fundraising appeal about this. It was a rapid proliferation of a lie that had really no, in any sort of fact or knowledge or context, and it still goes on to this, to this day,

to this moment, despite the FBI itself coming out, issuing a rare statement, saying, this is standard operating procedure. Nobody in MAGA world seems to care and seems to care about misleading their audience about it. I hope at the dispatch, we are trying to properly tell our audience about what the facts are. And I hope this piece does that effectively. Steve, what do you got it to say about this? I have my own views on this. Yeah, I think this piece does do that very effectively.

I mean, it's important, I think, to share with listeners just how crazy Julie Kelly is. I mean, this is not sort of your garden variety pro maga personality. I mean, she has been a public conspiracy theorist four years just making stuff up and she wrote a book for instance about january 6th in which the thesis of the thesis of the book is that this was all done by democrats and federal law enforcement to make trump people look bad and she writes about this in the book she talked about it in uh in an interview with the heritage foundation's daily signal um and and the the podcast the Heritage Foundation. I'll just read you a quick chunk of what she says so people can appreciate

how crazy this is. She said, again, in effect, that the Trump people were quietly watching the Trump speech and just going about their day. By the time they walked to the Capitol, a lot of whoever the instigators were, the provocateurs, the undercover agents, the informants, the rabble rousers, they had already started a lot of the chaos that we saw. So people who were coming from Trump speech really didn't know what was going on. And as I say repeatedly, the people who wanted the proceedings that they shut down were not Republicans. They were Democrats. They did not want the airing of all the evidence of fraud, which would be two hours per state. Now, mind you, she's saying this stuff after thousands and thousands of hours of the January 6th riots have been publicly aired.

I mean, some of it was aired live, of course. She goes on to claim that the use of the word insurrection was a deliberate campaign. She called it a fusion GPS style effort coordinated with Joe Biden, federal law enforcement, and George W. Bush, because they all used the word insurrection, and so it was all a big campaign. This stuff is absolute bat-shab shit. And anybody who's taking her seriously at this point, if you look at her Twitter feed now, it's all, it has multiple tweets suggesting that what happened when the FBI went to Mara Lago was that this was an attempted assassination. So this is not somebody who should be taken seriously by anyone. And the fact that the House Republican Judiciary Committee would retweet something from Julie Kelly tells you sort of everything you need to know about her.

It went on. I mean, it was really sort of a who's who of right wing talk radio podcast world. Dan Bonjino. of the two guys who took over for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, had her on, all featuring her reporter Molly Hemingway, who's, you know, this right-wing Fox News contributor who now runs the Federalist and is basically at the center of most of these kinds of crazy conspiracies that we see come up. They're all amplifying this case. And then obviously Donald Trump gets in on the business he when he came out of his courtroom on uh i think it was tuesday he was given given i think shown julie kelly's tweets or somebody else's tweets a derivative of julie kelly and he has this crazy statement about it he's fundraising off of this and suggesting again that joe biden

really does want to actually kill him that this was an assassination uh attempt and he's apparently was overnight doing this again and again and again, suggesting that this was an assassination attempt, that his family was in danger, and sort of on and on. I think the big picture takeaway, for me anyway, I'm not concerned about the impact on the election. I mean, the people who are open to believing this stuff or get exercised about nonsense like this are going to vote for Trump and probably are outworking for Trump right now. To me, me, the significance of this is all about after the election, whether Trump wins or whether Trump loses. If Trump loses, what he's been saying to people in his Wildwood, New Jersey

speech, in appearances like this, in the true social posts that he's doing, is that Joe Biden was trying to kill him, that the DOJ is so corrupt that it's going after Trump himself at people in his world, and as Trump says routinely, people like you, you know, he claims that he's a stand-in for the rest of the American people. That is unbelievably irresponsible. It's incredibly dangerous. And the people who are amplifying this knowing better are, should be held accountable if there's violence after the election.

Yeah, I mean, I agree the entire, like, the interviews with the guy who went and shot up comet pizza because he thought there were. you know, there's a pedophile ring run by Hillary Clinton and Sydney Blumenthal and the Easter Bunny underneath. He sincerely believed it because everything he read said that's the case, right? And like, I know people who you go to Comet Pizza. It's, you know, it's across town for me. It's like people bring their kids to have pizza there and like some guy goes in with a AR-15 or whatever and because he believed this stuff. If you actually believe half the things that Trump is saying, if you believe that what this nonsense that Julie

Kelly and these people are perpetuating, you know, violence seems more, you know, it certainly seems like reasonable because you think the other side, other side has started it already, right? And, but at the same time, I want to pull back for a second. So I mean, I agree with all that. I agree that Julie Kelly is like the last exit before full Laura Lumerism, right? I mean, like, she's, I think she's, she gets the silver for crazy conspiracy theorists of the MAGA right. And Laura Lumer, I still think is in lead, but maybe she'll overtake her. You know, I don't know. What interests me is the political incentive at the high level among the sane, but very cynical, to engage in this stuff. Now, some of it is obviously just to make money, right, and raise money

and keep people on full tilt for Trump and all that. Sort of like we were saying earlier about whether the vote was pro-nicky or anti-Trump and people don't distinguish those things in their own heads. I think there are people, very smart people at the high end, who don't discount that this might have been true because the motivated reasoning, once you get involved with Trump is so powerful. But there are other people who knew this was BS. There was somebody in the greater orbit of Donald Trump and the Trump campaign who was like, look, I used to be a prosecutor or I used to work for the FBI or I used to be in the White House counsel or the DOJ. This is standard operating procedure. This is not what you guys are saying. It is. It's bad. And they didn't say that, right? They knew it,

but and they went along with this stuff anyway. And I think if you pull back to like a 30,000 foot level, one of the reasons for it is that it is deeply in Trump world's interest to convince everybody that America's run like a third world country or a banana republic because once you convince them of that the choice then is who which banana republic dictator do you want running the country that guy who's all into the woke stuff or my kind of you know banana republic dictator right it means like that's the whole logic of the flight 93 thing is that you strip all of the customs, norms, expectations, rules, and you strip all of it down

just to the studs of raw political power. And by convincing people, that's how the system really works, which is a very, it's a right-wing version of a very left-wing argument of the 1960s, that gives you permission, right? Because we're all just in this for the power, you know, manipulation.

And so if you can convince people that Biden is just a more avuncular, you know, he conceals his banana republic dictatorness better, why not go with the more authentic guys, at least fighting for you rather than for the Black Lives Matter crowd and all that kind of stuff? And that's what I think this summer is going to look like. It's going to be constantly doubling down on this theme so that even if they move on, which they're going to do, and they're going to pretend that they never endorsed the assassination thing, at least the more responsible people. Other people will cling to it forever because they don't care. But I think that's the macro strategy is to convince

everybody, everything's falling apart, got to know what time it is, and you have to choose between the four, you know, the red Caesar or the blue Caesar, and you might as well pick the Red Caesar. There's an example, Jonah, of what you're saying. Fox News had a tweet that it sent out Tuesday, early evening, touting this new information as a quote-unquote bombshell as its on-air personalities were doing the same, hyping this up, including, I think, people who knew better. And Fox tweeted this out, bombshell reports, serious threat, quote-unquote, you know, they were being carried away by this Julie Kelly-led hype train and quietly just deleted that

tweet without saying anything, without issuing any correction. So people who saw it and people who watched this discussion of this stuff on Fox's air, I maybe, I haven't checked. I haven't double checked. I didn't watch all the Fox programming last night. But I've seen no indication that there's been any pulling back of this by Fox to the, you know, one of the people who was typing this was Jesse Waters, who, again, there's this hint.

Some people are just saying it, right? like Marjorie Taylor Green, Donald Trump, and others are just saying this was in effect an assassination plot. Other people are kind of hinting at it, Molly Hemingway, Jesse Waters, and others, if there was any kind of correction that Fox News issued to the three plus million people who watched it on Jesse Waters, I haven't seen it. So, and this is, I mean, sort of more fundamentally, if you look at why we're in so much trouble why the country is in this crisis of noise. This is routine. I mean, it's worth spending time on this because I think this one is particularly egregious in some respects. But this is what happens almost every single day where either Trump comes up with something

and he just makes something up and then pushes it to mostly the people that we're talking about in this episode, they push it to their folks. And then whether it's true or not, it sort of lingers beyond the moment as true in the minds of the people who have received this information. And this is what shapes their worldview. As you said, Joan, I mean, if you actually took in everything that Donald Trump said in his Wildwood, New Jersey speech, if you believe the stuff that these people are saying about what the DOJ and the FBI are up to here, it wouldn't be an irrational reaction to say, like, gosh, it is time to take up arms, actually. They're already doing it. They're coming after us. I mean, this was my problem, and I think your problem,

with Tucker Carlson's Patriot Purge, you know, documentary, faux documentary, where in effect, what he did for, you know, three episodes was gin people up to get, I mean, he said it. Was it's not even, you don't even need the qualifier. They said these people are coming after half of the country. They're coming after Trump voters with their guns because they see you like they see Al-Qaeda. Well, who in God's name wouldn't pick up arms if you thought the federal government saw you as Al-Qaeda? That's what we're seeing in this episode. I fear that is likely to become a theme of everything that we're talking about in our politics. And again, I think you're right, I mean, that was a shockingly good point. Talk about aberration, that this could have

some effect in electoral politics and this does sort of strengthen their case that, hey, if it's all crazy, we might as well pick our crazy. But I do think the lasting impact, I mean, just in terms of where this ends up or what the likely consequences are, there could be those political consequences. But it's hard for me to see how you sort of walk people back from conveying this sense that like there was violence that was planned to kill the leader of your political faction and that there's likely violence all around. I mean, that's that's what worries me most. Can I can I just put a pin on this and say that all of the ecosystem that we've just described, whether it's the true conspiracy theorists, the opportunists

within the party, the major media organizations, maybe just one, sort of grabbing on to the coattails of all of this and just trying to stay ahead of their audience a bit. All of this would not be possible without Donald Trump. I mean, it's the reminder of the sort of corrupting influence. of this one person who is who is particularly prone

to believe or say he believes, say whatever he needs to say in order to seem like the victim who is sort of uniquely shameless about embracing bad actors. There are people, these are all human faults at work here,

believing conspiracy theories at being opportunistic politically, of sort of devaluing institutions because you don't like the outcomes. It all stems from one man who allows it to fester and allows it to happen. And I just do not think we can lose sight of this sort of singular force here. here at work. Maybe it makes it sound like we're a broken record. But it's, it just can't be, I don't believe it can be overstated that, that he is the force here. He is the thing that matters more than just about anything. Everything else is downstream from the corrupting effect he has on these institutions and on people. I agree that entirely. I've been thinking

about this a bunch to engage in broader punditry for a second, you know, Carrie Lake is just floundering in Arizona. You can see a lot of sort of Trumpish figures, not figuring out how to be successful with a Trumpified party. And, you know, it's not a new insight, but like, you know, we all spent the last, we all spent 2015 and 2016 to one degree or another is saying, look, eventually the laws of political gravity are going to claim Donald Trump. And what we missed, understandably, I think, is that Donald Trump is exempt from the laws of political gravity because he is a denizen of the realm of celebrity gravity. And that's very different. And Kristen Soltes-Anderson, friend of the dispatch, had a good piece in the New York Times

today or yesterday about this point where she does this focus groups for the New York Times and like these people who are like wildly pro Trump you ask them

who else would you like to see run for president and they're all like Oprah Winfrey and you're like well you know they don't really agree on much policy stuff

and they're like well she knows how to run a business and blah and it turns out the policy stuff isn't the issue and the problem is a lot of Republicans who want to imitate Trump

they imitate Trump they imitate the policy positions, but they can't actually get their way into the people's heads at the celebrity level. And so they just get the sort of really core, cruddy, radical maga types. And none of the people, this broader group of people who are in it because they think Trump is funny or he's entertaining or he's a celebrity or he's just bypass their normal political filters. When they see politicians try to copy Trump, they say, oh, look at that fake politician. When they see Trump be like Trump, they say, oh, here's Donald Trump being Trump. And, you know, isn't he authentic and all this kind of stuff?

And I think that that gets at the core problem. I'm a big what aboutist, you know. I mean, I'm a big both sideser. But, like, Biden's problem is he is trying to compete against the guy, against the guy as if he's another politician when he's just simply not processed that way. And it's a dilemma no modern politician has faced because the nature of being a celebrity in the modern social media age is different than like when Reagan was a celebrity. And besides, Reagan paid his dues and he went and was governor of California and like he actually

ran on ideas and principles and stuff. So the comparison doesn't work. And I think it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's, we're an un- explored territory politically and culturally because of Trump because he is willing to test every institution in ways that no one who is actually raised in the world of politics would do um would dare you know and and so we just we don't know how to our censors don't read him adequately and we don't know how to talk about him politically because he is fundamentally not a political creature i think to your point about

Biden, Jonah, there's been an underappreciated turn here in the past few weeks on the way that Biden is approaching Trump. And Biden, I fear, is about to make the same mistake that Marco Rubio did when he did the debate, the little hands stuff and the taunting and the engaging, thinking that that's the way to take him on. You know, when Biden challenged Trump to the debate, they'd obviously had some negotiations behind the scenes that had taken place before Biden released this video, but he then released a video saying, you know, I beat Trump in two debates in 2020. I'll beat him again. Come on, Donald, let's have a debate. And then taunts him by saying, I hear you're free on Wednesdays, which was a reference to the court case in New York where Donald Trump is in the courtroom,

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, but is free on Wednesdays. And the Biden campaign within hours is distributing t-shirts. I hear you're free on Wednesdays. And I've talked to some Biden supporters who are very excited about this. They love this. They think this is great. This is Biden. Finally taking the gloves off. But I think to your point, it doesn't work for somebody like Joe Biden. I mean, Joe Biden, in his own way, has pushed the limits of what's acceptable rhetoric going back decades. I mean, he's said some truly awful things, particularly as it relates to Republicans and race over the years, indefensible things. But you get the sense that this is sort of now Joe Biden.

And he said more, we should say, because we should point out, he also said to them again or updated really reprehensible, indefensible things at his Morehouse College commencement speech, which we haven't got into, but like it just, it's a consistent theme of his. And he says things that should be denounced as deplorable anti-American. and race baiting and nonsense. You're right.

I think the Morehouse speech is further evidence of this turn. I think what Biden's sort of headquarters has decided is he's got to get down and dirty just like Donald Trump. So he's going to taunt him on the court stuff.

He's going to really go after him with aggressive rhetoric like he did in the Morehouse speech and other speeches speech in Atlanta and a speech in Detroit that day. And it's not going to work. This is not going to be the way that I appreciate that the Biden team thinks they're in a difficult place because staying above

the fray, particularly on the court stuff, which I think he's more or less done, right? He hasn't allowed himself to be drawn into really political arguments or at least overtly political arguments about the four cases against Donald Trump. I think that's wise because when you have Maga World, you know, looking to making up stuff like they, made up that Mike laid out, the last thing you need is for Joe Biden to be seeming to confirm their craziest thoughts. And that is what he's doing. It reinforces the Banana Republic thing. It says, see, we're the Banana Republic. So let's go with Arcadia. Exactly right. And I think that's good. You want to talk about something that's going to get them more fired up when,

if they think that he's so brazen as to be confirming in public, in his political rhetoric, the underhanded things that they believe his DOJ and FBI are doing, watch out. I mean, that is a combustible combination. It also, it's a misunderstanding of how Biden won in 2020. It's like they don't understand their own product, which is always a problem in politics and in business, that Biden is seen, maybe not by us, who have followed his career and no one. he says. But he was seen sort of by a general public, certainly by swing voters, as above

the fray, as somebody who was kind of almost wagging his finger at the way Trump has been un-American in upending institutions. And there are hints, there have been hints in Biden's campaign of this kind of, of his 2024 campaign that he might go in this direction. He seems to have been moving away from that, as Steve just said for the past couple of weeks, I would guess, to his, to his electoral detriment. 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

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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% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Steve, the presidents of Iran, died in a helicopter trash. And for those who want a deep dive, I did about an hour and 20 minutes with Ken Pollock,

my AI colleague on Iran for the remnant, where I get into a lot of this. But that is one big development. Another big development is the International Criminal Court has issued indictments or is pursuing indictments for three layers of Hamas and two leaders of Israel, including one of whom is B.B. Netanyahu. You had three countries come out in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state. Dealer's trooperie, take your pick. Where would you like to start with? Can I add a fourth?

There was news yesterday from a State Department whistleblower, disclosing that during the Obama administration, as the Obama administration pursued its Iran nuclear deal, then Secretary of State John Kerry stepped in and blocked the arrest of a number of Iranian nationals who the FBI and DOJ wanted to pursue, the assumption is because it would have proven inconvenient for the diplomacy that led to the Iran nuclear deal. And the whistleblower letter is really damning. It's the kind of thing that many of us suspected was going on in real time, and it was of a piece of the Obama administration's efforts to downplay Iran's the nature of the Iranian regime and its terrorist activities, its activities to upset the Middle East, but pretty striking

new information there that I think has direct, a direct relation to what's going on there now with the Biden administration, taking effectively the same tack. Jonah, when we were talking about this, you mentioned that Ken Pollock had said something to the effect of the Biden administration can't quite come to grips with the fact that Iran is never going to be our friend, that, that, you know, this approach that treats them as a would-be partner or ally, or at least good-behaving country. Just to be clear, I mean, just the correction, just our clarification, because I'm sure you agree with this 100%, this, this regime will never be our friend.

This regime, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely not the Iranian people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no. Right, right, right. But it was, it was interesting to hear him frame it that way. that's basically been my frustration with Obama and Biden policy towards Iran for years, is that there is this, you know, for a group that calls themselves realist, that claims to be dealing with the world as it is, there's this delusion that Iran is going to be something other than what the current regime is. I mean, that the current regime will be something other

than what the current regime is. And I think it's foolish. It's a fantasy. And it's, I think it's dangerous. On the more recent developments, I'll leave to Mike, the Palestinian state stuff and the latest on Israel, but just the development with the death of President Raezy, you know, this is both a big deal and not a big deal. I mean, he was not the power in Iran. That is the Supreme Leader. But at the same time, he was sort of an important cog in that machine. And the fact that he was, he was known as the butcher of Tehran, the fact that he was as sort of unquestionably behind the kinds of radical policies that the Supreme Leader has pursued, that he had a history of putting down revolutions in Tehran, in Iran. but also enthusiastic about the kinds of trouble making Iran does in the region and beyond. It's a good thing he's gone. Who will he be replaced with?

What difference will make? I'm skeptical that it'll be a big difference, but anything that causes the current Iranian regime to have to scramble to keep continuity or find somebody who's as acceptable as they thought Reisi was, that's a good thing. Mike, do you have a choice of foreign policy issues? Well, you can also bring a new one to the table, too. It's sort of potluck foreign policy. The only thing I want to say about these handful of European countries, you know,

recognizing a Palestinian state is I have to associate myself with the remarks of Prime Minister Bibi and Netanyahu, who said that this recognition was a reward for terrorism. It's hard to read it in any other way. And I think it's a good example of just how topsy-turvy backward the rest of the world is when it comes to this issue, when it comes to Israel, and why it is so. important, set aside the specifics, certainly set aside, you know, the American support or how far that support should go for the specific political administration in Israel at any given time. But why American support for Israel in these moments is so crucial.

it's because the rest of the world and what I guess I should say the rest of the world it's what's really important here is sort of the European powers or the European countries and through the EU live in a kind of fun house mirror world

or certainly see Israel and the Palestinians in that way and it's so the whole episode just sort of underscores why It's important. It also, it doesn't matter. I mean, I don't think this helps move in any way toward a Palestinian state becoming a reality. That, that, you know, whether Spain, you know, recognizes a Palestinian state. I'm sorry to say, Steve, it just doesn't matter what Spain does or doesn't do. It's enraging to see, as Netanyahu said, terrorism be rewarded, lest we forget, it was Hamas who kidnapped, tortured, raped Israeli citizens just a few months ago. And here we are seeing Europeans essentially give Hamas what they,

at least in part, what they are asking for. Yeah, so I'm with you, Mike, on this. If anything, I think you're underselling how outrageous it is. And I talk about this with Ken Pollock a little bit. Like, I got no problem conceptually with a two-state solution, right? I mean, I don't know what the other solution is. Sure. But you need to, like, make statehood be a reward for good behavior, right? You renounce terrorism. You work towards the building these trust and these institutions and towards this goal of, you know, getting statehood.

It can't be, oh, you launched this rape gang on Israel, murdered a bunch of people, a bunch more, took a bunch of hostages, and then Israel responds, and the response is, well, we're not going to have peace until we have a two-state solution. So here's your two-state solution. Making October 7th, like Palestinian Independence Day, is a fantastic invitation for more terrorism. And so I agree with you in the way that you meant when you said it doesn't matter. And so far as it's sort of like my point about Nikki Haley's thing or about Biden's Israel thing, like I can forgive doing the wrong thing if it's a really smart political strategy, just really cynical. If I thought like what the Spanish and the Norgies and the Irish were doing was going to get closer to this desired end goal, even though I disagreed with it on a matter of policy, let's say I'm against two states. solution. I could forgive it, right? I mean, like just power politics. Okay. But it actually does

matter a lot insofar as like if the only time Israel got those hostages, got any hostages out of Hamas was when they were like, Ron Burgundy in the bear pit, I immediately regret my decision because Israel was kicking their asses in in Gaza City and elsewhere. And they thought, this is it. We have no choice. This is much more blowback than we thought. The whole world hates us for doing this. And so they bent to pressure and released like 300 hostages. They haven't done it since because what have they seen? They've seen protests on college campuses that get supported by the White House, get sympathy by the White House, get sympathy by the international media. They see all this talk about like the stupid Michigan primary. They see the

UN basically, you know, doing cleanup operations for Hamas. And they're like, we should stick this out. The tide is turning in our favor. They see Biden dickering and like hemming and hawing and creating daylight between him and Israel. The best thing for Palestinians, the best thing for Israel, and the best thing for Biden would have been after October 7th, Joe Biden says, there will be no daylight between us and Israel. All we ask is that you do everything you can to defeat Hamas as quickly as possible so that we can move on to something after Hamas has been rightfully and justifiably eradicated. But this, pull the Band-Aid off a little bit, we put it back on a little bit, pull it off a little bit. That is encouraging to Hamas. It gives

them hope that the international community is going to come down on Israel. And then you get a bunch of these ridiculous countries saying we're going to go actually and recognize the state of Israel, I mean, the state of Palestine, and we're indicting the president and defense minister or the prime minister and defense minister of Israel. They're like, gosh, great forces are coming to our aid. Let's, you know, let's hold on to these hostages a little more. And besides, we get to rape them for a while longer. I mean, it is grotesque what they're doing. And I just don't see any defense of it whatsoever. Let me apologize for being glib about the not matter since Jonah's calling me out on this. No, no, I agree. And I totally agree with you. It's a very good point. And I know Steve is

totally, totally in lockstep with the Norgies. So we're supposed to do this not worth your time thing. Apparently, whenever this issue comes up, Steve's brain goes into sort of algorithmic autopilot, and he says, let's talk about best pizzas, best toppings on pizzas, best prep on pizza, and every now and then he'll just start trailing off, looking into the sunset, thinking about Rosebud or whatever, and just saying, hmm, pizza. So, Steve, take it away, best and worst pizzas, and this is your shot. So I'll give you very quick context for that. look, I think there are certain things you can ask people that tell you a lot about them. So when I meet somebody or I see somebody, sometimes people on the staff and they've got

their AirPods in, I will ask them what they're listening to because if it's a podcast, ask them what podcast, that can tell you something. If it's music, I think that can tell you a lot. I love to ask people, what music are you listening to at any time? Do you think that What if it's like Bismarck's most famous speeches to the Reichstag? That's another thing. We want a unified Reich, right? It's revealing no matter what. Okay, go on.

Yeah, it is, it is revealing. Yeah, I think pizza can can sometimes serve the same function. I mean, there's a risk of over-analyzing, I suppose. But, you know, people who like pineapple on pizza are, that's a particular, it tells you something if they like pineapple on their pizza. Just the same way people who prefer miracle whip over traditional mayonnaise tells you something about those people. So I just always like to, I think it's interesting to know, like what do people like? Like what pizza would you never eat?

What pizza is your favorite? So my favorite kind of pizza, I really like Detroit pizza. I was traveling with Jonathan Martin of New York Times in Politico. We went to a Detroit pizza place. This is probably 15 years ago. I'd never had Detroit pizza before, and it was outstanding. And you can get really good Detroit pizza at Costco, like two for 10 bucks or something. Phenomenal.

Why don't you explain to listeners what Detroit Pizza is? You know, not everybody knows. Yeah. I mean, it's not, it's a thicker crust, but it's crispy and crunchy. And it's sort of overstocked typically with toppings. So if you get a sausage and pepperoni, Detroit style pizza, there's going to be a lot of sausage and a lot of pepperoni. But it's not the. kind of lasagna that Chicago pizza is.

Really good. And it's a special cheese. It's a special cheese or it's a different type of cheese than your strict mozzarella. I think it's a combination. Correct. There's like a provolone type of cheese. Yeah.

Although the mozzarella I think is the base, usually. I could be wrong about that. But my favorite pizza, to end the suspense, I know people are really wondering about this is a super, super thin crust pizza, almost a cracker type. consistency um with sausage pepperoni mushroom and onion and a ton of cheese but it's really important that the cheese just begin to brown um it can't be just white cheese that's not cooked enough and there's a place in wisconsin that does this pizza i mean this is i think the reason that i like this kind of pizza called zephyros so for any political reporters listening or

or political junkies listening who are going to the Republican convention, you will find me at Zafiro's. But that's how they make their pizza. And it's exceptional. It's like you're taking a bite of a cracker. You hear the crunch, but it's sort of thick with cheese and tons of the toppings. The sausage in particular is unique and standout. So that's the best pizza.

Are either of you pineapple pizza types? So I should This is like the Nikki Haley stuff I have to fully disclose My wife is a big Canadian bacon And pineapple The Hawaiian pizza fan I have grown to appreciate it

You know We can cut her some slack She grew up in Alaska The ability to get fresh pineapple Was like a big deal I don't know I mean like you know Root causes

Whatever I don't I don't hate it It's not my favorite I'm generally with you So New York York style pizza is a variant of Neapolitan, which is the thinner crust. I don't like the super, super thin crust. I like, but I like a thin crust. I think it's just, it's, it cooks better, it cooks more thoroughly. You get that chew, which I think is great. My ideal pizza is

sausage and pepperoni, occasionally hot peppers, like banana pepper kind of thing. And then what I like to do is drop a huge pile of arugula on top, do balsamic and olive oil, and eat it like convince some part of my brain that I'm eating an embellished salad. I think that's part of why people like pineapple on their pizzas. They're like, what? I'm having fruit. I did not mean to get myself in trouble with Jess, by the way. Look, I love pizza people who like pineapple on their pizza.

I just think you can learn something from them. Yeah. Tells you something. Warren? So, I mean, the thing about pizza is it is so versatile, right? Like, depending on how I feel, you know, I've had everything from like a great, you know, pesto and white pizza with chicken to, you know, a supreme meat lovers. I like the thin crust.

I like the thick crust. I like the New York style. I actually like in small doses, the Chicago deep dish style. It's controversial to call it a pizza. It was a great casserole. Exactly. But it's all good. I'm sort of ecumenical when it comes to pizza in that way.

But the question is, what is the best pizza? Or what I like to think of is sort of the platonic ideal of pizza. It's not the pizza I would get every single time. But if you were to say to me, this is the last pizza you will ever have, and it should be sort of what you always hoped pizza would be. It would be some kind of New York style inspired, thin, crispy, but also doughy crust, the right amount of sauce, just the right, not too little, not too much. much, a mozzarella cheese that is baked a little more

than what you think it should be and pepperoni. That's it. That's it. That is the platonic ideal of pizza. You can add a little bit of Parmesan. You could definitely add crushed red pepper.

You can even add a little oregano. That's up to you. I agree with that. I mean, I agree that's a good slice of, two slices of pizza and a Coke, which was like a big part of my meal life growing up in New York is that. Yep. The crushed red pepper and oregano are key, I think.

I agree. Lots of it. Totally agree. I am not a zealot about pizza in the sense that I, I'm fine with experimentation. I agree with you that it's a very versatile thing. I haven't been to California Pizza Kitchen in a million years, but like I liked most of their experiments in weird pizzas, or at least I had no objection to it. I have a profound and deep and abiding hatred, loathing,

uh, um, almost prone to violence at the suggestion that anything that tastes of barbecue sauce should be anywhere near a pizza, like barbecue chicken pizza thing, I find to be just outright. I love barbecue chicken and I love pizza, but this is not peanut butter, you know, and chocolate go great together kind of thing. They are in violent conflict. They have no business being near each other, and it is an outrage to all that is holy. And I stand by that passionately. No objection. No fight for me. Are you okay with chicken on pizza, just as a general proposition? Yeah. I don't think it's the best topping for pizza. But like if you put chicken on pizza and everything else work together, you know, hey, we're out of sausage, we're out of pepperoni, but we got some good chicken. We can

cut up and put on. Okay, sure. I'll eat it. There's a, there's a place outside of D.C. I think it now has several places called Lost Dog, which is in Arlington, Virginia. Phenomenal pizzas, really probably the best pizzas in the greater D.C. area. And they have something called white pizza number two. I objected to it. My brother and my then-girlfriend, now wife, used to order this. We had, so we would go there every Friday night. They had great collection of beers. They had great pizzas. So we just went there at 7 o'clock every Friday night. It's what we did. And my brother and my now wife used to split this white pizza number two with chicken and bacon. And I objected so strongly to

it because I just, the white pizza thing threw me forever, just couldn't get on board with white pizza. And then I don't know. It was probably six months in and I had a piece. And it was phenomenal, phenomenal. A close second to the Zafiro's sausage, pepperoni, mushroom, and onion. But the chicken and the bacon, the extra salt that the bacon provides there is really exceptional. And it has the olive oil, Jonah, to your point. When my parents bought this, we're living in Wehawk, and they found out about this great old, ancient old time Italian bakery in Hoboken, which is right next door, that made pizza bread. and what it was was basically like a loaf of bread, but internally, it was full of

mozzarella sausage and oregano, like a giant loaf of faccata kind of thing. It was so unbelievably good. That sounds so good. Is it still open? No, I've looked for it. It gets gone, but anyway. All right, guys. Thanks to everybody who's listening. Everyone, please check out, first of all, Mike's fantastic piece about the lethal force thing. We very much look forward to Sarah coming back, but also check out the new and

improved and constantly improving dispatch website. We got all new profile picks. We got all new, much friendlier for commenting, much easier on the eyes. We think it's really super successful. Yeah, there's still some bugs left, but we're smashing those bugs almost every single day. If you have any issues of any kind that you're concerned about, you can send you can send your questions or concerns to members at the dispatch.com or to Steve at the dispatch.com and

please copy Jonah at the dispatch.com or jackass at the dispatch dot com. They both go to Jonah. And with that, thanks everybody for listening and we'll see you next. Thank you.