The Ricochet Podcast - The Elizabethan Era?

Episode Date: October 4, 2019

Let’s just disclose this right upfront: we had some pretty big technical issues during the production of this show (Skype went down during the Andy McCarthy segment — Andy is preparing a criminal complaint against them on our behalf) and James Lileks could not get his computer to recognize his mic (he blames a cheap Chinese dongle — oh, the humanity), so apologies, this is another Lileks-defecient... Source

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. As government expands, liberty contracts. It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. First of all, I think he missed his time. Please clap. It's the Ricochet Podcast. Guest today, Andy McCarthy, Luke Thompson. We talk about impeachment, politics, airplane window shades.

We talk about all of it. Stay tuned. Hello and welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is number 467. I don't even know why we still number them. It's not like when we get to 450, or I'm sorry, when we get to 500, we get a prize. This is Rob Long. When we get to 500, I will buy you a drink. That much. That much. This is Rob Long speaking to you from New York City. And on the phone with me is, well, it's not really phone, on the line with me always is Peter Robinson from Palo Alto. Peter, how are you? I'm very well. Well, we're going to be joined by James Lilacs in a few moments. He's running a little late, but we want to get started.

So, you know, sometimes we sit here and we say, okay, what are we going to talk about? And then sometimes we say, how do we separate things? How do we get it all separated so that we can talk about each individual thing in an individual way um so there's politics and then there's process and then there's impeachment and then there's the history of impeachment and then there's the politics of impeachment um pick one talk fast right well okay so why don't we why don't we open with politics you and i texted back and forth the other day. Politics.

Actually, this is ticker trouble. Bernie Sanders is in the hospital. He had a couple of stents put in. And I have to say, you and I, it turns out, had, look, by the way, we're going to have on later in the show, Luke Thompson, who actually knows the details of politics, right down to nuts and bolts, district by district and so forth. You and I, I think, had the same instinctual reaction. And it went just like this. At least in my mind, it went like this. Wow. If Bernie's out, Biden's getting covered in mud as a result of this Ukraine mess. Democrats are going after Ronald Reagan, but the heavy collateral damage is Joe Biden biden wait wait wait wait wait wait yes do you hear did you hear what you just said the democrats are going after

trump no that's not what i said wow you said i swear to you this is fantastic i am not licensed to practice psychiatry in the state of california or new y, but I would say this is interesting, Grist. You said the Democrats are going after Ronald Reagan. Oh, my Lord. No, no, no. This is just, this is just, this is, let's put it this way. I had a friend whose mother was raised speaking Scots out in the Outer Hebrides, and it turns out that when she became a very old woman, the first thing that happened was that she started saying her prayers in Gaelic again.

And by the time she died, Gaelic was all she could speak anymore. And so I am afraid that my brain is just starting to unravel. And when I think of a president, it's Ronald Reagan. I don't know. Obviously, I meant Trump. Sorry. I find this very significant. Let's talk about this in our next session. I'm sorry, we're out of time. Wow. Okay, so yes, the Democrats are going after Donald Trump, and that is sort of, you know, the impeachment process is 50% politics in the House, and then it's supposed to go to the

Senate where it's 50% lofty ideals. So we're still in the 50 politics thing but then then there's also this added complication of a presidential campaign and a democratic primary and go and go so the odds that elizabeth warren will be the democratic nominee jumped enormously the moment Bernie Sanders felt a certain tightness in his chest. And I know, because people have been reporting this, that the Trump White House thinks that Elizabeth Warren would be the easiest candidate for them to defeat. I believe that is simply mistaken. It is just plain wrong. But for 140,000 votes spread across four or five different states, Hillary Clinton would have won the presidency. Donald Trump would have lost to Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Warren is Hillary Clinton without Bill Clinton, without an email scandal,

without the hectoring style. Elizabeth Warren warren is hillary clinton without any of the problems i believe she's an extremely dangerous candidate for president trump not reagan rob i i completely agree with you i think she's actually a really good campaigner um she's got a lot of energy she's incredibly focused she's got a very very very clear message i mean she got i got a plan for that i got a plan for that i'll be we make fun of that but that's actually that actually works people start saying like elizabeth warren's got a plan she's running as a consistent thoughtful person with the plan a blueprint for america which the president of the united states cannot claim he's he's erratic with even maybe that's a feature, not a bug, but it's definitely a contrast with his with a with his probable opponent, Elizabeth Warren.

He can't I mean, he can't run on trade. She's she's for tariffs, too. You can't really run on subsidies. He's he's given subsidies to like it is what he's she's really going to run against is the rich. And so there are a couple things that are going to happen, I think might happen, that people who are economic conservatives anyway should be concerned by. One of them is we're going to probably look at a very soft stock market coming up. When there's a failed IPO as big as WeWork, it's highly likely it becomes a watershed moment. You look back on it in three or four months and say, oh, I guess that was the moment it turned. So you're going to have that, and you're going to have some natural slowing down in the economy, thanks to this trade war, which may or may not be a good thing, but nonetheless, that's the problem. If you add to that one extraneous X factor overseas event, which I believe will happen,

I believe it's going to be engineered to happen, you're going to look at a very, very, very weak president next to a woman who's been saying the same thing in strident and strong terms for a long time. I don't agree with her, but, you know, part of the problem with our side, Peter, is that what we like to do is like to make fun of the opposition, which is fun and exciting and great, but the truth is that sometimes, you know, not to be Freudian again, sometimes the thing that you make fun of, the reasons you make fun of it are because you wish you had it. They have a message, and they have a messenger, and they have a plan, and they look buttoned up and competent, and that should scare

the other side. Unfortunately, the other side is too busy taking a warm bath in happy talk so they're not really prepared right i think right right i yes yes by the way let me stipulate that if it comes down to donald trump and elizabeth warren last time around i supported i myself supported donald trump reluctantly this time around i would support donald trump with something almost like enthusiasm. Elizabeth Warren's actual policy positions, what she would do if she carried the House with her, what she would attempt to do if she carried the House with her,

re-regulate the economy, raise taxes, it would be very bad for the country. My point is simply, just in my stomach, it feels as though she's going to be the nominee, and she'll be tough to beat. I kind of agree with you as though she's going to be the nominee and she'll be tough to beat. I kind of agree with you, and she's going to be tough. And the only way to beat her, I think, is with a consistency and not with the bag of tricks that I think this administration, this president, seem to resort to all the time. That's going to be a big problem, and he's going to have to figure that out. I just would never, again would just it just it always scares me when people say things like oh that's who i really want or i hope they do this because then

it'll be a walk it'll never be a walk it's always going to be hard you're not talking about a president whether you like him or don't like him you're not talking about president with a lot of political and popular support he's a weak president and that's just those are the facts and i i'm always nervous when I find people, Trump supporters who, who argue that those aren't the, it's okay to be, it's okay to have uphill. It's all right. You know, you just have to work a little harder. That's all right. Now against that, against that, I mean, it's a particular kind of weakness. It's a pretty, if you're going to be a weak president, this is the kind of weak president you want to be

because he's got 40% of the country that just will not desert him under any circumstances. And this is tremendously telling, I believe. His campaign raised $125 million in the first quarter. So the people who are with Donald Trump are very much with him. We can get to this when we have Luke Thompson, when we talk to Luke later in this podcast. But I believe, although it's receiving no attention in the press, is there's a difference between campaigning and governing. Well, you know what? Over and over again, in my experience, this goes back to when Ronald Reagan was president, it's campaigning. It's the need to face an election. It's the need to get fellow Republicans elected that concentrates the mind. I'd rather run against Joe Biden than Elizabeth Warren, and I don't think Donald Trump will have that luxury.

No, I don't think he will. And I think when you try to orchestrate it or overthink it or overstrategize it, you end up making big mistakes. The best argument for campaigning and for winning is to stick to your knitting, is to do your thing and focus on your thing and your thing alone and not worry so much about – not sleep on it. Hillary Clinton lost. She won three million more votes in the popular vote, and she managed to lose the election in a staggering piece of incompetence due because she was convinced that, oh my God, Trump, this will be a walk. I know exactly what's going to happen, and it's exactly that kind of attitude that, you know, don't sleep on your opponent, even if you have bowl and branch sheets. Oh, my goodness.

I can offer no higher praise than to say that was almost lilacs-like. So let me give you the three most important words for getting a good night's sleep. Comfortable, comfortable, comfortable. If you want the best sleep of your life, Peter, you need to be comfortable. And that's what all the sleeping pills are trying to do for you. But you don't need pills. You just need ball and branch sheets. What makes ball and branch sheets unique is each sheet is crafted from 100% organic cotton. That means ball and branch sheets not only feel incredible, but they also look amazing. And since ball and branch sells exclusively

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bolanbranch.com. And we thank Bolan Branch for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. We are joined now by our old friend Andy McCarthy. Andy's been a multi-time guest here on the Ricochet podcast. Always brings it. Andrew McCarthy, former Chief Assistant U.S. attorney, currently a senior fellow at National Review Institute, a National Review contributing editor, along with such luminaries as me, a contributor at Fox News. His new book, Ball of Collusion, The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency, is available now. We will have an Amazon clicky link on the

show notes. You can follow him on Twitter at Andrew C. McCarthy. But he's here now. I got a question. I know I know Peter's going to jump in. OK, so Trump is on the phone with Zelensky in the Ukraine. Did he commit a crime with his request? And then further yesterday on the South Lawn of the White House, did he commit a crime when he asked the Chinese to investigate the Bidens? How many crimes do we have or do we have any at all? Rob, I don't think we have any crimes, but I wouldn't take a whole lot of comfort in that because there are a lot of things that are in the nature of abuse of power that aren't necessarily felony violations of the federal penal code. And you could, you know, you have prosecutors trying to come up with creative theories to

charge this. And I think it's a frustrating endeavor. And it's really not the way the system is supposed to work. The remedy when you have a president, and I'm not saying I think this rises to the level of it, but the remedy that the Constitution prescribes when you have a president who goes rogue is impeachment, not indictment by prosecutors. And that obviously makes sense since prosecutors work for the executive branch, which means they work for the president. So I wouldn't take too much comfort in the idea that that I don't I don't see any way to twist. So to make a crime out of this. So, Andy, you you as you mentioned earlier, you wrote a book on impeachment and you foolishly published it in 2014.

I hope you were going to republish it with a brand new update. But in that book, which I do recall, I recall thinking, what an interesting, fanciful, what-if kind of hypothetical kind of historical document instead of what a blueprint for the future. But you say it's essentially impeachment is a political. It's a political solution to a political problem because no one's going to go. No one's going to get frog marked out, frog marched out of the White House. No one's going to jail. This is all about a political solution. So but the politics of it have to be dressed up, at least in some kind of understanding of criminal code, right? I mean, it just can't be we don't like the guy, out he goes. Yeah, well, that's true. But, you know, it just seems to me, Rob, that, you know, we have two different kind of understandings of politics. When you say that impeachment is a political solution, what we're talking about is not, you know, politics in the pejorative, icky sense of everyday politics. We're talking about the division of political responsibility

as laid out in the Constitution and the fact that impeachment is the stripping of the president's political authority under the constitution um and yes there is an obstruct an objective standard for that or at least it's it's supposed to be an objective standard of high crimes and misdemeanors which is somewhat confusing because crimes in that articulation does not mean crimes in the penal code. What it means is what Hamilton in the Federalist Papers regarded as basically public offenses or abuses of the public trust that's reposed in a high official. Andy, Peter here. Okay, I got that. High crimes and misdemeanors, the House of Representatives gets to define that any way they want to. The only rule is that if articles of impeachment carry a majority in the House, then the president gets impeached. Got it. But you're the historian in

this matter, but I believe I read someplace the other day that all three times presidents have been, I beg your pardon, both times presidents have been impeached. That is to say, it got so far that the House voted articles of impeachment. Andrew Johnson, just after the Civil War, and Bill Clinton in our own lifetime, the articles of impeachment cited violation, cited actual crimes. They stated the charges in terms of actual crimes. That's just irrelevant here? Or Andy McCarthy, seasoned prosecutor, 20 years as a prosecutor, says Trump may have been, well, we'll come to what your view of his actions in a moment, but you say, I don't see any violations of any criminal code here. You're dismissive of that, or that makes it harder for the Democrats in the House.

What's your feeling on that? The precedent is you cite a crime. They don't have a crime to cite. Yeah, but again, you're quite right about that. On the other hand, if you look, for example, at the articles of impeachment against President Nixon, I would say that the non— Did those get voted? Those did get voted. I believe they got voted out of committee. They got voted out of committee, correct. By the whole House. Right, right, right. But if you look at them, my recollection of them is that the the articles of impeachment that state abuses of power that probably fall short or I shouldn't say fall short because they're more serious. But that don't that don't fit any penal offense are nevertheless more serious offenses than, for example, the robbery that triggered the whole Watergate hullabaloo.

So I think the reason this gets bundled up and a little bit confusing is that an impeachable offense can be and often is a felony violation of law, but it need not be. I think, Peter, the dynamic in terms of how we end up arguing these things changes depending on whether you have a prosecutable offense or not. And what I mean by that is it always seems to me that if you're talking about impeachment in terms of a penal crime, it's kind of a cleaner equation because with a penal offense, whether it's obstruction or something of that nature, the main question becomes, can you prove the essential elements of the crime beyond whatever standard of proof is? In a criminal case, it would be beyond a reasonable doubt. In impeachment, they wouldn't. The Senate can make it whatever they want to make it. But the thing is, would the three or four elements that you would have to prove to make out that

offense, are they easily enough proved? It seems to me that if it's an impeachment that's based not on a penal offense but on an abuse of power, then you're bringing a lot of things into the equation. Right. The politics, as I recall, the Republican support for President Nixon broke down once it became clear that there was a credible charge of obstruction of justice. Once you've got a crime, then the party supporting the president in question just finds it harder to go home to their districts on the weekend and defend the guy, I think. But what your point underscores is that this really is political, not legal. I mean, the legal thing may be what triggers it, but what made Nixon resign was the fact that politically he couldn't

survive anymore. Right. Okay, so next question is this. You've just written a book, Ball of Collusion, The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency, and the subtitle is important to my point here because that shows that Andy McCarthy believes that in the Russian collusion matter, whatever Donald Trump did, he was far more sinned against than sinning. And that is my question for Andy McCarthy now. If you read, it was not a transcript, but the account, the notes. Yeah, the readback. The readback, thank you, of his conversation with zolinski and i want to draw a distinction between that and what he did on the south lawn yesterday right

you read the read back of the conversation with the president of ukraine and you say i can't believe this son of a bitch was so stupid or you say oh my goodness that is a growth that is a straightforward abuse of power that's's a ruthless. What do you say when you read it? I say that I think it was really foolish to bring up Biden, but that the conversation as as I read it, and I really think this is an accurate representation of the transcript, is much more about Trump leaning on Zelensky to assist the Justice Department's investigation of the potential investigative abuses attendant to the 2016 election. Right.

And the Biden stuff comes up like a couple of hundred words after that. And it's the president of Ukraine who raises it, as I recall. Well, he certainly raises the thread of the conversation. I wouldn't want to say that he put Biden's. Right, right, right. He raises Giuliani and that leads. Yeah, right. All right.

Right. So I and the reason I think this is this is critical, to say that Trump leaned on Zelensky to basically assist his political fortunes. And it may well be that derivatively, if Barr's investigation could assist Trump's political fortunes, but it happens to be a commonplace for the American government, particularly when you're dealing with a country that you have a mutual legal assistance treaty with, to encourage another government to assist an ongoing investigation that's being conducted by the Justice Department. Okay, now that brings us to, I'm sorry, I've just, I know Rob wants to get back in, but doggone it, I'm not going to let him in until I get in one more question. I draw a distinction, or I'd like to see if you draw a distinction between the

Zelensky conversation, where I heard you say there are serious problems here, but it falls within acceptable, what Donald Trump did was at worst ill-judged. And part of what he did, which was request help, looking back to cleaning up what happened in 2016, was perfectly legitimate, indeed standard for a chief executive. Okay, yesterday on the South Lawn, Donald Trump takes his great big thumb and puts it in the eye of Nancy Pelosi andosi and the media by saying well i'd like the

chinese to investigate the biden's what what how bad was that well i i think it was pretty much the same as what he did during the 2016 campaign when he said he hoped the Russians found the Hillary emails. So semi-in jest? Well, I don't think it's semi-in jest. What I think he was doing then and what I think he was doing yesterday, and let me preface this by saying I'm actually much more upset by Trump wishing the Chinese communist anti-American repressive murderous regime a happy 70th birthday than I am by what happened yesterday because I think you know look common sense says Donald Trump knows

the Chinese communists are not taking their marching orders from from Donald Trump he is not really making a request to the Chinese he's trying to make a political point about potential corruption on the part of a political rival. Now, I happen to think it's a really foolish way to do it, not only because he knows what the upshot of making that remark about, you know, Putin finding the emails, he knows what the upshot of that was in terms of two years of investigation about whether he was colluding. But it also seems to me that the worst thing that could happen to Trump, and I don't know that this would redound to Biden's benefit, but it would redound to some Democrats' benefit. The worst thing that could happen to Trump would be if the Chinese indulged him and

very publicly began an investigation of the Bidens, because then the Democrats would have a political theme to run with that that Trump had actually sicked anti-American Chinese communists on an American citizen who happened to be a political rival, I think that would be much more damaging for Trump than most of the things I, you know, been trying to regard this as a risk for a criminal investigation. Hey, so Andy, Rob, again, I just have two questions that I know you got to run. The first one is, so it seems like we're in a race, right? The race for the Democrats are racing to try to be able to present enough evidence to, I guess, the Justice Department and the American people that 2016 was a dirty trick, dirty campaign trick played on them, not by them. And whoever gets there first,

it seems like is going to have the upper hand. Do I have that right or wrong? I think the outlines of it are close, but I think it's essentially wrong for this reason. I don't think first is as important here as most credible. And I say that knowing, you know, John Durham and knowing the attorney general a bit, that investigation is not going to come to an end until it's ready. And I don't think they regard themselves, maybe Trump does, but I don't think they would see themselves as in a race. And, you know, look, to be fair, they also know this Horowitz investigation is coming soon. I think that that'll be within probably the next three weeks.

So it's not like there won't be fodder out there for abuse of power. But I think with respect to what the Democrats are doing, that's clearly a race. And it's not even a legitimate impeachment inquiry because they haven't voted it. Right. They are. This is just to me me that's just it's a straight political thing yeah it's really something that trivializes impeachment which is which is an important uh constitutional tool um every impeachment that we've ever had not that we've had a lot of them but every everything we've even had close to impeachment has always been the house voting

as an institution to conduct an investigation and the constitution gives the power over impeachment to the house not to the speaker so okay it's a it's a bad way to go about it so do you have a i mean you've been around bad guys put bad guys behind bars for that's a part of your career what's your what is your sense here? If you were if you were if you were going to, like, put money down on somebody getting the goods, do you think Barr is going to at some point be able to present a narrative that's clear and believable that that we all go read and say, wow, you know, 2016 was a put up job. And Trump's just going to have to just have to soldier it out when uh when the house impeachment articles get written well i don't think the house impeach i don't think the house impeachment articles are going to have much bite unless they're unless they can plausibly be be stated as the the product of the house as opposed to the house democrats right if it's

just a straight you know look there's nothing in the Constitution that stops them from doing this. They can, if they want to do a straight partisan impeachment, they can. But that's exactly the kind of thing the framers were worried about when they were debating the impeachment clause. As far as Barr's investigation is concerned, I sort of feel like we're coming to an end where we started out, which is that it may well be that what Barr ends up finding are some abuses of power that are serious and we need a reckoning on, but that don't necessarily violate the federal criminal law and won't be grist for an indictment and unfortunately when you have an outcome like that as we've seen again and again in the last few years everybody kind of retreats to their okay so i don't peter's got one last question before he does culturally politically in america

great soup american history you know we had a period where we had we seem to have a constitutional amendment passed about once every week and then we haven't really had anything for about 40 years. Are we entering a new phase where impeachment is now a tool that people pick up and use? I mean, it's remarkable that we had one impeachment for a century plus, and then we were basically, we had two in the past, you know, 25, 30 years. Well, yeah, I think you do have to worry about whether that's a part of the whole package of how our politics change in an age of, you know, 24-7 media coverage and social media and the like. Because it does seem to me to be like sort of fuel for the soap opera more than anything else. I mean, everybody knows at this point, if nothing more happens and the president stays off the South Lawn, there isn't going to be any impeachment. Trump is not going to be impeached, but it sure makes good TV, doesn't it? Andy, last question here. Last question

here. I'm going to read the name of your book, the current book. You're going to have to write another one about what's taking place right now. Your current book out right now, Ball of Collusion, the plot to rig an election and destroy a presidency. And again, your argument there is that Donald Trump and the Russian collusion matter was far more sinned against than sinning. Last question. In the current matter, where we already know that the intelligence community is capable of leaking supposedly private conversations by the President of the United States, he's had three or four of these now, beginning with a conversation, I think, several years ago, soon after he took office with the Prime Minister of Australia. They're leaking on him. We now know that the so-called whistleblower was in touch with Adam Schiff,

the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting, well, actually, we don't know that, but in any event, Adam Schiff is getting a lot of press. The whistleblower was in touch with the Democrats about this complaint before the whistleblower filed it with the proper authorities in his own agency. Quickly, is Donald Trump more sinned against than sinning all over again? I think so, but I think we won't know until we get to the bottom of it. I don't think the president should be leveraging his ability to control foreign policy of the United States for purposes of helping his political campaign, if that's the only purpose behind it. And we'll have to see what more comes out. I don't find that to be an impeachable offense. I don't find it to be very something that we want

to encourage. So, you know, I just think, you know, I'm like everyone else. I kind of throw my hands up and say a pox on both their houses. I do think the Democrats are more out of line than the president is. But I also think, you know, when you when you talk about what he did on the South Lawn yesterday with the Chinese, which we just talked about, you know, I kind of felt like I felt with the Hillary thing, which was I laughed, but I knew I shouldn't laugh because it wasn't good. You know, it's not good andy thank you and thanks andy i will take that to the bank laugh but maybe you shouldn't because ultimately it's not funny um hey thanks andy thanks for joining us thanks guys have a good one so um peter i was trying to figure out a good segue here as we go to our next guest. And you mentioned it when you talked about the intelligence.

I saw this great meme today. You mentioned the intelligence community. And it's a two-panel photo. It's a woman on the phone looking very distressed in a black-and-white photograph. And it says, you know, 1970s, don't talk on the phone. The government is eavesdropping on you and the next panel a woman is staring at one of those amazon alexis saying alexa um it says eavesdropper what's the weather tomorrow um just shows you the difference between that you're all

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Promo code Ricochet. Rules and restrictions apply. And we thank Blinds.com for sponsoring the Ricochet podcast. Okay, so it's NR day today, I guess. We are joined now by Luke Thompson. He's a Republican political consultant. He's a National Review contributor. A regular, obviously, on NR's podcast, The Editors, which I recommend, even though, I mean, once you make your way through

the Ricochet super feed, you can turn to that. And he's also a cat person, but we will not hold that against him. You can follow him on Twitter at LTTompso. Luke, we just heard from Andy McCarthy. He said that he didn't think that Trump made a mistake or he committed a crime. He said he made a mistake, but he did not commit a crime in his phone call with Zelensky. But what we haven't really talked about is the trouble for Trump. But what about the trouble for Biden? Is Biden in trouble here? Well, legally speaking, I think it's pretty doubtful anything will come from this for either Hunter or Joe Biden.

But politically, it's certainly not the thing that you want to have happen while you're running a presidential primary campaign. You know, a more deft politician might be able to use this to elevate himself at the expense of all of the other candidates running in a multi-candidate field. But the fact of the matter is, Joe Biden was already polling ahead, and he's not doing a great job of tussling with Trump. A big reason for that is there is no good explanation for why Hunter Biden was getting paid ludicrous amounts of money by a Ukrainian gas firm and a Chinese state-owned conglomerate. And so because there's not a great way to get back, this is just stepping on their messaging. Is it, I mean, is this sort of,

this sort of is from the Trump playbook, right? I mean, obviously, look, Trump's kids are no, they are not shrinking violets and they are out making some serious coin, trading on their father, the president. People have been talking about that since Trump, since even before Trump took office. But isn't this sort of like the same thing when people were complaining about Trump being, you know, the womanizer and all those troubles? He decided he would show up for the debate with all the women who had sworn affidavits against Bill Clinton to kind of classic whataboutism. I mean, is that what's happening here? And is it smart? Well, I don't know if it's classic whataboutism so much as, you know, Trump's core message has been that he is an outsider to the system and that you need an outsider to the system to

give voice or effect to fundamental dissatisfaction with it. And so when the system pushes back, according to Trump's narrative, it's important for him to point out that all of the critiques that they can launch against him also apply to them. So it's whataboutism in that sense, but it's couched within his broader narrative. Is it smart? It's impossible to know that without knowing just how much might be underlying these interactions with the Ukrainians. And I think the only person who really knows that is Rudy Giuliani. I personally don't have an abundance of faith in the former mayor's discretion,

but he is an attorney, and perhaps he's been a little more deft and careful than his recent appearances on television would suggest. Yeah. So if you're a Republican senator and Republicans on the Senate were facing kind of a brutal 2020 anyway, is a Trump impeachment going to help you or hurt you? I don't think you can know that right now. And so my advice would be keep your head down, get back to your state and do as many great photo ops as you can. And if people get ready for people to scream at you in town halls and have an answer, that answer should say something along the lines of we have part of the picture now. I'm waiting to see the full picture. Obviously, there are some things in here that are concerning, but obviously, we also know that some people have been less than truthful.

And we've seen efforts to distort the truth at the president's expense in the recent past. And so I'm waiting to get all the information, and then I promise I will do right for state X. So just say, I know Peter wants to jump in. Just say Attorney General Barr, when he comes back from his Sherlock Holmes trips think i don't know whether you i think we probably all kind of know what happened which was that this is a was a politically motivated investigation that was instigated by a piece of political opposition research and just say he says that does it all does this all fizzle and go away and everyone looks down at their shoes and moves on to something else or um does donald trump have have some legs to run with now by proving pretty much clearly that he has been the victim of a political hit job, or an attempted political hit job?

I mean, who's this going to help? I think right now Ukraine is the kind of zombie version of the Russia investigation. that this will, at minimum for the Democrats, simply disappear and have wasted months of messaging opportunities and at maximum blow back on them in much the same way that the impeachment of Bill Clinton had a negative effect on House Republicans in the 90s. But it's simply too soon to say. And until we know whether or not Rudy has colored inside the lines or gone outside of them, I don't think we're really going to be able to say. Now, Luke, it's Peter here. Rob and I have talked ourselves into believing the following scenario.

And I just want to check this with somebody who actually knows what he's talking about. And the scenario runs as follows. Bernie Sanders has stents. Joe Biden is covered in mud from Ukraine, and that means Elizabeth Warren is suddenly the likely Democratic nominee, item one of two. Item two of two, although you can read everywhere that people in the Trump campaign think that Elizabeth Warren is the weakest opponent they're likely to get, Rob and I say, nope, that's just wrong. Hillary Clinton almost beat Donald Trump for the presidency, and Elizabeth Warren is Hillary

Clinton without the baggage, without Bill Clinton, without an email scandal, without the hectoring technique, without the huge speaking fees from Goldman Sachs. Elizabeth Warren is a good Hillary Clinton, and she will be formidable. Okay, over to Luke. Are we right or wrong? Well, I'm not sure you have somebody who knows what he's talking about, but I'm happy to see that. Look, not only do you know what you're talking about, you're genuinely humble, too. It's a low threshold here, Luke. You're fine. All right. All right. Well, I'll straddle this bar here and try to keep my way over it. I believe that the conventional wisdom in conservative media underrates Elizabeth Warren's strength as a candidate. She's ruthlessly

un-messaged, strategically focused, has a lot of energy, and has been campaigning pretty actively since she appeared on the national scene. She also, and this is something people really underrate, spent a lot of time doing television. She was not a regular on Oprah, but certainly not unfamiliar with Oprah's stage and has a great deal more camera sensibility than I think people realize. Having said that, she certainly comes with plenty of baggage from a policy standpoint, probably the most important being that she wants to get rid of Medicare and create a national health service that will effectively disrupt the health care provision of more

than 150 million Americans. And it remains to be seen how personally appealing she can be. You get different feedback on that. For instance, she doesn't play nearly as well in her home state, which presumably has more familiarity with her than elsewhere. Which are you counting as her home state? Well, Massachusetts. But yeah, not Oklahoma. But I would say that, yes, there's a general sense that Elizabeth Warren is weak on the right. I think that sense is mistaken. And I also would simply say that in politics, nobody ever went

broke overestimating his or her opponent. Right, right. Okay, Senate races. Let me just take you through a few here. Let's do some horse-racing stuff. Susan Collins of Maine. Right now, she seems fine. You know, the Democrats got a candidate they were pretty happy with there, and then I think they wound up realizing that if not exactly bought a lemon, hadn't gotten the entire package that they wanted. Yes, Collins has seen her favorability deteriorate as polarizations become intense, more intense at the same time. You know, Maine is about as purple as Nevada is.

It's not nearly as blue as we tend to think of it in the conventional wisdom. And certainly the big white working class, you know, ethnically Quebecois, Acadian areas up in the northern part where there's a lot of logging look a lot more like the Minnesota Iron Range and other places that are coming Trump or the Republican Party's way in general than, say, the more genteel coastal cities. Right. Okay. Martha McSally of Arizona, Republican of Arizona, who was appointed, she lost to, oh goodness, how's that name pronounced? Sinema. Sinema.

She lost to a Democrat, shocking enough as far as I'm concerned, that Arizona's gone purple on us, and then was appointed to fill out the unexpired term. Am I right about that? Yes. Anyway, so she's up again in 2020. What do you think? Right. She's going to have a serious race ahead of her. McSally suffers a little bit from being undefined. She's not beloved by the right wing of the party in Arizona, and she's not trusted by the center, which leaves her sort of neither fish nor fowl in a state with a highly internally polarized state party or a Republican electorate. And it never helps having been appointed, and it never helps having lost before. In Scott Kelly, husband of Gabby Giffords, she faces an opponent who is not very nimble on his feet. He is a first-time

candidate, but has a very compelling personal story. Anyone who's been to space has a personal story that's pretty compelling. And of course, with his wife's tragic shooting in Arizona several years ago, has both an issue identity and a powerful personal story there as getting into politics as part of his marriage that I think will be tough to overcome. Having said that, McSally will have a lot of D.C. support, and she is a good fundraiser. I think at some point she's going to have to figure out exactly how she wants to define herself. And that's a challenge, especially with a presidential election. So let me ask, by the way, she was appointed to fill out the unexpired term of John Kyle. I think I failed to name him a moment ago. So let me ask you, though, Arizona,

Cinema One, Arizona's gone purple, used to be red. Texas, we're constantly hearing that there's a danger that Texas may flip in 2020. And if it isn't 2020, it'll be 2024. It was red, it's going purple. And then New Mexico is complicated. And Donald Trump did a stop in New Mexico just a couple of weeks ago. That whole corridor, Luke, the southwestern United States, except in California, which is sort of a nation state, it has its own rules. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, trending Democratic because, at least in large part, because of a rising Hispanic presence or not? I would say the Hispanic presence is less important than people tend to think. It's an easy answer, but the reality is that the shifting political complexion of the suburbs is much more important in Texas than its racial makeup. Arizona is a similar situation. an influx of Hispanic immigration into both states. They haven't changed the underlying

electorate's racial makeup nearly enough to account for shifts toward Democrats. And additionally, you know, you have sizable middle-class Latino voting blocs in both states. So it's not as simple as saying that the more Latino a state becomes, the bluer it gets, although it is true that it's still the case that Mexican-Americans vote for Democrats at greater rates than Republicans, even where they vote for Republicans at high rates, such as in Texas. The biggest issue in Texas and in Arizona is these are states without large rural populations. They're states that have a lot of big suburbs and big cities. Historically, Republicans have dominated the suburbs and done well enough in the cities to clean up shop, and then, of course, they've mopped up the rural areas. As they've lost ground in the suburbs in both of these states,

it's put both of these states in contention. I don't think John Cornyn is going to have any trouble in Texas, which is why Beto O'Rourke is continuing this quixotic death march at the end of his presidential campaign. But I do think that, you know, we can't take Texas for granted, at least on the presidential level, and also in a lot of these suburban house districts. And New Mexico, is there an opportunity in Mexico? You know, New Mexico is a blue-collar state, and it's a funny electorate there. We have held statewide office recently, and we've even had the mayorality of Albuquerque in the not-too-distant past. I don't think it's ready yet, in part because we haven't had unified democratic control of government long enough to sort of flip things in New Mexico. The other thing I'd add is,

you know, Gary Johnson, who's the best-known, probably now a former Republican, but was a statewide Republican officeholder, sort of threw the state party for a loop by running to the right on fiscal issues, but actually governing in such a way as he ballooned the debt in the state or the deficit in the state. And I think that that means that there's a Republican party in New Mexico that doesn't have much of an identity. Hey, Luke, last question, just kind of a general question. Are we, or not, I shouldn't say we, are Republicans entering a little bit of a winter, or are there sort of green shoots already? I mean, most Republicans who are official paid Republicans or consultants I know have a very, very, even if they're

generally favorable towards the president, have a very, very bleak view about the party's future or near future. Do you share that? No, I don't. I think we're at a really interesting inflection point. It's certainly possible that some of that doom and gloom could come to pass. A lot of the folks in my line of work grew up in the American suburbs, and seeing Republican losses in the American suburbs, it hits home a little more powerfully than maybe it should from a pure electoral math standpoint for those folks. What I would only offer is this. I do not think – first of all, the suburbs of the United States are changing in terms of who lives there, and that's going to change how they vote invariably. I'd also note that, you know, the Democratic Party as it's currently being constituted under, for instance, Elizabeth Warren candidacy, or even more so presidency, would not have a ton to offer to those places. And so

there's always an element of negative definition in American politics because of the two-party system. That's been accentuated in recent years with negative polarization. But I would only offer that if the Republican Party can figure out how to get rural and blue-collar folks who own their homes in league with middle and upper-middle-class suburbanites who also own their homes, they could have a functional majority in a lot of places in the United States. No one's quite figured out how to crack that nut, but I think homeownership's one way of doing it. That's interesting. All right. Well, so keep our eyes, as is traditional in campaigns, keep our eyes on the homeowners. Hey, Luke, thanks for joining us. This is great.

We're going to have you back because I feel like this is going to get more interesting, not less interesting. It always does. Thanks, Luke. Hey, Luke, just one last little tip. This humility, this I'm not sure, this we don't know yet, that's really terrible for podcasts. You got to work on that. I try to be honest. Oh, that's even worse.

That's even worse. Lou, thanks a lot. All right. Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye-bye. That's interesting. You know, it's funny because I remember reading accounts of general elections in the early 80s and the early 70s, and it is true.

And what's interesting is we always think, oh, the world's so different. The world's so changed. But it did come down to homeowners. It did come down to homeowners for Nixon in 68. It came down to homeowners for Reagan in 80. That is a natural, dependable constituency for both parties. And the idea is to win those guys. That's interesting. And here's why I like it. It's almost a defining characteristic of somebody who really does know his business. Yeah. That Luke is humble, which is marvelous, of course. But still, it's almost a defining characteristic that they'll see something. They'll see something that nobody else sees.

So he's arguing Elizabeth Warren on our side is underrated. And this business about homeownership, I've never heard anybody else make that argument. It's fascinating. It is fascinating. And I definitely agree with that first point, which is that you underestimate your opponents at your peril, not theirs. So I know we don't have James today. He was going to join us, and he couldn't. We had a little technical problem with him.

But we do have his post of the week it's the new energy economy and exercise in magical thinking and it's uh really great and it was uh the ricochet member hang on um uh posted it we will uh we will connect to that on our podcast thing basically it's the new energy economy rests on the belief a centerpiece of the green new deal and other similar proposals both here and in europe that technologies of wind and solar and battery storage are undergoing the kind of disruption experienced in computing and communications, dramatically lowering costs and increasing efficiency. But this core analogy glosses over profound differences grounded in physics between systems that produce energy and those that produce information. And it's really great. It's incredibly lucid. It's incredibly lucid.

It's incredibly well-written. It's exactly why we have Ricochet in the first place, so that somebody who knows something can write in simple, clear English something they know a lot about. And I actually will link to it. It's fantastic. We'll also have a Ricochet poll of the week, but I don't have that quite yet. I'm still thinking. I mean, part of me wants to ask about impeachment. Part of me is really bored by impeachment.

You just called it a ricochet poll. Are you still resisting calling it a long poll? We're not calling it a long poll. That's dumb. But I think it's the rico yet. I was talking to somebody. It's chilly now in New York City, but on Wednesday it was 90 degrees. Isn't that funny? We had a shift in the weather like that out here, too. Not quite as dramatic as that, but still. And so I was talking to somebody on that day, and we're like, oh, man, it's 90 degrees. It's October. It's 90 degrees. It's October.

It's 90 degrees. You know, maybe that weird little girl with the pigtails from Sweden is right. And we kind of laughed, and then she said, shame on you. And I thought she was saying shame on you for, you know, diminishing this, you know, girl and calling her weird. Greta. And what she really was, shame on you for wavering well it's 90 you know it's like it's fair of course then the next day it was cold so I you know I I take it back but it it probably will wait a minute you have a friend in New York

who says shame on you Rob for wavering the way I do when you're in California I really want you to cultivate that friendship. I've surrounded myself with people who are horrified by my moderate Republican tendencies. Absolutely horrified by them. And not from the left, but always from the right. So don't worry. It's going to work out all right then. I was worried when you moved to New York. It's better than I had hoped. One of the things I like about New York is that

I really do have a lot of friends who are fairly, you know, or if not right-wing, they are legitimately centrist. That'll do. And that'll do. Listen, that's a win for our column, I gotta say. So, look, before

we go, we have to say two things. One, we have to thank Blinds.com and we and we absolutely have to thank ball and branch for being great great sponsors of ricochet podcast if you are looking for blinds are you looking for new sheets please go blinds.com promo code ricochet ball and branch.com promo code ricochet these are great companies and they've been really supportive of us um please leave a review of the show on on itunes and also um you know join ricochet ricochet's got some great stuff especially and and the the crown jewels of ricochet are posts like uh hang on's post the new The New Energy Economy. You're actually smarter.

It's one of the very few things you can do on the Internet and end up being smarter and not dumber, which is a rare thing. And meanwhile, Peter, okay, I know we've got to run, but did you see this piece in The Wall Street Journal? The traveling piece, the showdown at the window seat. That people who have the window seat, you know, they want to close it or they want to open it, or other people want to close it when they're watching movies, or, you know, it's the middle of the day and they want to close it. I'm almost always an aisle seat person, although in early morning flights or late night flights, I'm always the window seat so I can sleep against the plane. Yes, exactly right. So I'm happy to close the window because I'm going to sleep anyway. But what do you care? Do you have a preference? No, no. Yes, I do have a preference and it's purely self-interest.

I can find no underlying principle of magnanimity here. If I'm seated in the window seat, that's because I'm on a long flight and it's early or late and I want to sleep and I want the window closed. But if I'm not at the aisle, that's because it's a daytime flight. I'm trying to read, get some work done. And in that case, I want the window open. It's what I want, Rob. That is the only principle I can find here. But I was going to try to, I mean'm kind of i was philosophically don't you think it's maybe i don't know i'm looking for the what the the cloud or right inside the silver lining you know you hear people fighting about the windows the windows now they're fighting the

armrest people are fighting about leaning your seat back it's like people planes airplanes used to be places where civilized people managed to, or trains are the same way. Civilized people managed to get around the country, and they had some kind of basic sense of etiquette and what was right, what was wrong. And since all those things seem to be breaking down, they're now also breaking down at 30,000 feet. Oh, yeah. Okay, maybe. If you want to close this podcast on the decline of civilization go ahead on the other hand i have two words for you business class which i know you could afford

if you really wanted it i mean the whole point about you're talking about the decline of western civilization and i suppose you could make that. I would like to talk about the advance of capitalism because in real terms, a large part of what's going on here is we get deregulation under Jimmy Carter of the airlines. And from then on, the airlines are working it out, trying to find out what is the – do people want service or do they want lower prices? And it turns out that most travelers are willing to sacrifice service and even seat room for a lower price. And travel costs a fraction today. Air travel. My son, whom you know, Pedro Robinson, just got invited to a bachelor party in Rome. And I don't mean Rome, New York. I mean Rome 8. And I said, Pedro, is that going to be

fun in Rome? Vatican? I don't want to hear about a stag party within sight of St. Peter's. Just keep that to yourself. But he said, Dad, it only costs, and he priced it out. It's not that. It's perfectly doable. You stay at a, what are they called in Europe? Is there a separate? Anyway, so the point is, that's the air capital. The markets have discovered that really what it comes down to, that's what people want. They want cheap travel. And for that, we have to thank the great deregulator, James Earl Carter.

Yes, I'm afraid we do. No, you're right. You're right. I remember when I was a kid, you're right. You're right. I remember, you know, when I was a kid, you remember this, you used to dress up to be on an airplane. Airplane was fancy travel. I wore a necktie, a jacket and a tie, a little seven years old, eight years old, jacket and tie. And then when it became sort of a more normal way to travel, people started wearing sweat. I mean, I wish they weren't wearing sweatpants, but I understand the

benefit of, I understand the benefit of that kind of travel, and I think you're right. The great thing about capitalism isn't that it is for the elite. The great thing about capitalism is that it creates freedom and opportunity for everybody. How's that for optimistic? There we go. That's the note on which to close this podcast. What was it, 457? 467. Okay, 33 more to go before I buy you a beer. And we will drag James back by hook or by crook. Oh, and for everybody who missed James, and we missed him too, you should know that while we were doing this podcast, the Blue Yeti was making attempt after attempt after attempt. There really were some, I guess it ended up being the microphone. There's a real problem on James's end. We will fix it by next week, but we

tried. We tried. We did. Next week, Peter. Next week, Rob. How does it feel now you've been undressed by a man with a mind like a gutter press so disappointed to find it's no big sin lying skin to skin shot

with his own gun now dad is keeping mom shot with his own gun now somebody has to pay For the one who got away

What's on his mind now is anyone's guess Losing his touch with each caress Spend every evening looking so appealing. He comes without warning, leaves without feeling. Shot with his own gun. Now that is keeping mom. Shot with his own gun On your marks, man, ready, set Let's get loaded and forget

The little corporal got in the way And he got it high on emotional ricochet. It's a bit more now than dressing up, darling, playing. I seem so melancholy. Shot with his own gun. Now daddy's keeping mom. Shot with his own gun. Oh, it's too sad.

Ricochet. Join the conversation.