Stephen Hayes: Grading Biden

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Speaker 2 Hey guys, we have a great conversation with Stephen Hayes of the Dispatch today where we hash out some disagreements over how to handle the 2024 election, how to view the choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 I think some of our, you know, JVL, Biden stand listeners, some of our lefties might hear some things from Steve they don't like, but I think that's good. We got to have these sorts of conversations.

Speaker 2 We got to have these dialogues. I'm committed to doing it on the podcast.
I wish more people would be willing to come on to do it. So I just want to thank Steve for his willingness to do so.

Speaker 2 By the way, if you haven't signed up for Bulwark Plus, if you need a little JVL after your Steve Hayes, he was on Just Between Us with Mona yesterday.

Speaker 2 On Friday, we have a secret podcast, the JVL and Sarah. We have a ton of great offerings for Bulwark Plus members.

Speaker 2 By the way, Bulwark Plus members can comment on Substack and give us their feedback when they hear things they don't like. So please, if you haven't yet, go to thebulwark.com slash free trial.

Speaker 2 You can sign up to join Bulwark Plus, support conversations like this. Really appreciate y'all.
Up next, Steve Hayes.

Speaker 2 Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm delighted to be here today with like my fourth or fifth favorite employee at the Dispatch, editor and CEO, Steve Hayes. Hey, brother.

Speaker 2 Thanks for coming.

Speaker 3 Hey, man. How are you? Can you list the top four or five for me?

Speaker 2 Well, obviously Allah and Declan, and then we're going to keep the rankings after that a little bit personal. Okay.
You know, my boy Declan has got to be number one.

Speaker 3 I guess fourth or fifth isn't bad.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not bad. Rachel, maybe? Okay.
I don't know. We'll talk about it.
We had a great exchange on your podcast when I was doing my book tour. Was it a tour?

Speaker 2 You know, my book podcast tour, whatever you want to call that. And we got a lot of good feedback.
And I've been wanting to do a redux.

Speaker 2 And you did an editorial that gave us an opportunity for that last week. And so I appreciate this.
I think it's good. You know, it's so weird.

Speaker 2 We're like awash in political opinion and yet everyone is shrinking into micro bubbles where for all of this political opinion, we have like very little good faith, engagement, and dialogue.

Speaker 2 So I'm grateful you're doing this. Jamie did it a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 3 No, I'm with you. And I appreciate you.
I taught a seminar at the University of Chicago and you came and graced us with your presence there and were one of the favorites of the students.

Speaker 3 They loved our exchange, and they loved your,

Speaker 3 should we say, unconventional and

Speaker 3 informal analysis of the state of play. I think you were a little free.
You talk in a language that they understood, which was great.

Speaker 2 Well, that's nice. I have no hopes to be the White House press secretary anymore, and so I can just cuss.
You know, I think that's basically the short term for it.

Speaker 2 Anyway, before we got into, you know, big think stuff about classical liberalism and the state of our democracy, we had an election last night in Ohio. Another L for the normies.

Speaker 2 Bernie Moreno sweeps every county. He beat Matt Dolan by about 12 points.

Speaker 2 Moreno had previously in 2016 said there was no scenario in which I would support Trump, that Trump played to people's worst emotions. Trump is the nominee.

Speaker 2 I think the Republican Party is a different party and not a party that I want to be a part of.

Speaker 2 That was Moreno in 2016, but he did the full MAGA pivot like so many of our other pals and ends up winning pretty handily last night, despite maybe there were some hopes, I think, on the Dolan side that this might have been a rare win for the, whatever you want to call it, the more establishment side of the GOP.

Speaker 2 How do you assess what we saw in Ohio?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it was interesting. I don't think anybody would say that Dolan ran as an anti-Trumper necessarily.

Speaker 3 He sort of downplayed his differences with Trump, even though I think he was pretty clearly the most Trump skeptical person in the race.

Speaker 3 No, I think it's notable that all three of those candidates were at one point pretty strong never-Trumpers, pretty outspoken never-Trumpers.

Speaker 3 Two of them, Moreno and Frank LaRose, the former Ohio Secretary of State, basically just flipped.

Speaker 3 In some cases, I mean, I started following Frank LaRose on social media, I don't know, four or five years ago, in part because he was saying things that were pretty skeptical of Trump at a time when fewer people were.

Speaker 2 He was one of the good Secretary of State. He was.
He didn't go like full Raffensburger, but he was like in that mold-ish.

Speaker 3 He was. He was.
And he wasn't afraid. He was sort of unapologetic about the way that they ran the election.
He wasn't afraid to sort of speak out about it.

Speaker 3 And then to watch him periodically, when, you know, when his tweets came across my feed,

Speaker 3 sort of accommodate himself to Trump and Trumpism was, you know, we've seen this story how many times? Hundreds, thousands of times. But it was interesting to watch it in this case.

Speaker 3 And, you know, this is somebody who ended up

Speaker 3 really selling out for Trump and Trumpism. And I don't know what he ended up with, like 12% or something.
Didn't work out for him.

Speaker 3 But I think it's, you know, the macro point is these are three people who were once openly and outspokenly opposed to Trump. And two of the three of them became Trumpy.

Speaker 3 And one of the three of them, I think, campaigned in an honorable and responsible way, but certainly wasn't advertising that he was skeptical of Trump.

Speaker 2 Sure. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, an interesting kind of parallel that was last said, I don't know if you saw this one, but there's this Illinois, I think it was the 12th, where you had Mike Bost, who is, again, not an anti-Trumpy, you you know, he's not like out there like Adam Kinzinger, but he's more in the traditional Republican vein.

Speaker 2 And he is primaried by Darren Bailey, who runs as basically a Gates, maybe a Gates plus kind of a Gates Marjorie Taylor Greene combo type Republican.

Speaker 2 Bost holds out barely, but has the Trump endorsement, right?

Speaker 2 You know, this is one of those things where Bailey still almost wins that primary and the more normal candidate only wins thanks to an assist from Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 And it just kind of feels like that's the same story over and over again. I mean, like there's the Brian Kemp exception in Georgia.
And like, that's like basically it.

Speaker 2 I'm sure we could come up with two or three other exceptions. Right.

Speaker 3 And I mean, the Trump endorsement is hugely meaningful in Republican primaries. It's not determinative necessarily, but it's hugely influential.

Speaker 3 And, you know, one of two things generally happens after Trump candidates win in those primaries.

Speaker 3 They go on and serve in office and become, I think, are more beholden to Trump than they otherwise would have been, which I think is the point of the endorsement, or they lose.

Speaker 3 They face plant like Dr. Oz, like Herschel Walker, like Kari Lake, and others.
So I would say coming out of Ohio, this makes this a much more competitive race than it otherwise would be.

Speaker 3 I think if Matt Dolan wins and runs against Sherrod Brown, there's a reasonable chance Matt Dolan is the next Republican senator from Ohio.

Speaker 3 I think Bernie Moreno is going to be a much tougher sell, even in a state that has been sort of decisively red in recent presidential elections. You know, when J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance won the Republican primary in a relatively crowded field last time, which included for a short time Bernie Moreno, Mitch McConnell's outside groups had to come in with something like $40 million to get J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance over the finish line.

Speaker 3 That's pretty extraordinary in a state that has trended as red as Ohio has.

Speaker 2 Yeah. One more thing before we get over the editorial.

Speaker 2 The Ukraine debates going on over on the hill, I'm thinking that maybe you get more calls than I do these days from Republican congressional people or folks around them.

Speaker 2 What is your sense on the state of play of that and just kind of broadly on kind of the Ukraine debate going on on the hill right now?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it's like so many other things in this weird political moment.

Speaker 3 And by moment, I mean, you know, the last eight years, where Republicans will say one thing in private and say another thing in public. And it's, it's really sad.

Speaker 3 I think if you took a blind show of hands in the House Republican Conference on Ukraine, more funding and significantly more funding would pass overwhelmingly.

Speaker 3 I think that the thing that bothers me as much as anything is you have people who are not only saying, you know, making the sort of classical non-interventionist case, hey, you know, this doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 We really need to mind our own business. We should be looking at the border here.

Speaker 3 All the arguments you sometimes hear have kind of been shoved aside by more conspiratorial arguments about Voldemir Zelensky, about Ukraine and corruption, about them being on the wrong side.

Speaker 3 And so much of that has roots in Donald Trump's efforts to use Ukraine to get re-elected, in effect.

Speaker 3 And it's dispiriting to see Republicans who otherwise know better, I think, making some of those arguments, the kind of not just the principled non-interventionist arguments, but the this is the center of an anti-Trump conspiracy.

Speaker 3 We don't care about Vladimir Putin kind of thing.

Speaker 2 This quasi takes me to the editorial. For folks who don't know what I've been referencing, you guys wrote that the American people should demand better

Speaker 2 how the dispatch is thinking about a Trump-Biden rematch. Basically, said, I guess I'll let you characterize it, but both of the candidates are not acceptable.

Speaker 2 You don't like the lesser of two evils premise.

Speaker 2 But before we get to like, because I think we pretty much agree on the Trump of it all, I think it'd be interesting to kind of hash out the Biden part of what you guys wrote.

Speaker 2 And I guess I'd like to start, though, there with Ukraine, right? I mean, how would you assess how Biden has handled Ukraine during his presidency?

Speaker 3 Reluctantly, slowly, and in effect, the kind of leading from behind that we were used to seeing from Barack Obama.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 2 You're leading from behind, you would say? Yeah. Explore that more.

Speaker 3 I think we've taken our cues too often and in too many important moments from Europeans. I don't think there's anything wrong necessarily with saying to Europeans, hey, this is in your backyard.

Speaker 3 We really need you to step up. But for the most part, they have stepped up.

Speaker 3 And you've seen sort of desperate pleas from the Ukrainians and from some Europeans for better equipment, for fighter jets, for, you know, one after another, after another of these things.

Speaker 3 And I say the Biden administration usually gets to the right place,

Speaker 3 but just dithers for months and months and months when I think those kinds of things could have been meaningful. I mean, and what I think here isn't that important.

Speaker 3 It's, you know, people I talk to who know this stuff a lot better than I do. Sure, sure, sure.
Think it could have been meaningful. And credit to him for standing by Ukraine, for making the argument.

Speaker 3 He doesn't make it as often as I would like him to.

Speaker 3 But I think there have been costs to the way that he's led on Ukraine.

Speaker 2 But I mean, the rallying allies element. I guess I wonder, if you look at the political scene in America today, maybe the answer is nobody.

Speaker 2 And who would be best representing what you think is the right thing on Ukraine? Like, I don't know, Jake Auchincloss, like one of the Democratic hawks in the House.

Speaker 2 I guess we're on the Steve Hayes continuum from Trump, the main body of the Republican Party, Biden, Democratic hawks. Like, where do you fit on the Ukraine discussion?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, just in terms of positioning, you know, I think you've had some Republican senators who have made a good case, many Republican senators who've made a good case.

Speaker 3 Haven't made it as often as I would like, again. But, you know, John Thune has said good things.
I think John Cornyn has said good things. Mitch McConnell has said good things in the House.

Speaker 3 Mike McCall.

Speaker 2 But I mean, it's their fault right now that there's no funding. It's like their fault.
It's like Mike McCall's fault that Ukraine isn't getting the weapons they need. It's not Joe Biden's fault.

Speaker 2 It's like Mike McCall's fault.

Speaker 3 I wouldn't necessarily say it's Mike McCall's fault. I would say it's more Mike Johnson's fault, right?

Speaker 2 Right. But I mean, if Mike McCall got with Hakeem Jeffries and said, hey, we're going to go around this guy, they could have had the funding two months ago, but they just refused to do that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think certainly Republicans, both in the House and the Senate, should be more aggressive about Ukraine funding right now, full stop. No disagreement there.

Speaker 3 If you're looking at the arguments that they've made broadly about the importance of supporting Ukraine, I think that they've made better arguments than Joe Biden has.

Speaker 3 And they have made arguments that reflect, I think, the urgency of the situation in a way that Biden just hasn't. You know, I mean, you go back to the days before

Speaker 3 Russia invaded, and you had that Biden comment about, you know, the possibility of a minor incursion and sort of said our response will be dictated.

Speaker 3 I'm paraphrasing here, but our response will be will be dictated in part as to whether this is a minor incursion or not.

Speaker 3 I don't necessarily think that was the green light that some critics suggest it was. I think Russia was going to do what Russia was going to do, right? But it wasn't helpful.

Speaker 2 I mean, were you expecting more than a minor incursion? I think pretty much everybody would. I don't think anybody was expecting.

Speaker 2 I mean, up until that though, I was expecting Kyiv to be like bombardment of Kyiv.

Speaker 2 I think that a lot of folks were cut off guard by that.

Speaker 3 I was expecting, not because I'm seeing around corners, but I was expecting a fuller scale invasion. I mean, I think they were doing what they were doing for a reason.
But yes, you're right.

Speaker 3 I mean, you look back and listen to the podcasts from respected places like the Institute for the Study of War, and they were not expecting a full-scale invasion.

Speaker 3 I just think articulating it that way suggests the kind of ambivalence that Biden has had toward this project from the beginning.

Speaker 3 Like I said, I think he deserves credit for ending up on the right side of of it. I mean, it's like Joe Biden on foreign policy in a lot, in a lot of different ways over the course of his career.

Speaker 3 I'm sort of not of the

Speaker 3 Robert Gates who said Joe Biden's been wrong about every single major foreign policy decision in his entire lifetime. I'm not as critical of Biden as that.

Speaker 3 I think he sometimes has ended up on the right side of foreign policy arguments, but he has this sort of meandering, circuitous way of getting there.

Speaker 3 And in this case, I think it's been slow and I think it's been costly.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I love the Gates.

Speaker 2 The Gates quote quote gets thrown around by people that then end up supporting Trump and Gates is like

Speaker 2 absolutely brutal about Trump. And I take this kind of back to this.
But I want to just continue to pause before we get to the choice element of this.

Speaker 2 But I do think the Ukraine element is an important part of the choice.

Speaker 2 I guess you agree that the Ukraine issue, would you say putting aside the broad kind of democracy or authoritarianism, et cetera, of the policy issues that we expect would face us in 2025, would you say Ukraine is the most important?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I'd say Ukraine and related issues, Ukraine and NATO leadership and China and Taiwan. I mean, all the things that flow from decision-making about Ukraine, no question.

Speaker 2 Okay, so the rest of the Biden editorial, I wanted to pick a couple of things, the rest of the Biden element. Well, actually, first, so how would you just grade Biden? I have a fun gimmick.

Speaker 2 You know, the Hugh Hewitt,

Speaker 2 is Al Jerhis a spy gimmick? Here's my fun gimmick I'd like, if you wouldn't mind playing along with me on, is I want you to grade and rank the last four presidents.

Speaker 2 So I'm going to let you think about this for a second.

Speaker 2 So if I'm Carrie Lake, probably grading Trump an A plus first, Barack A minus second, because she voted for him, and then George Bush like D minus and Biden F minus, like that would be her ranking.

Speaker 2 I'm curious what the Steve Hayes ranking and grading is of the last four presidents.

Speaker 3 Just to clarify the question, am I doing this based on the things that I believe as a limited government conservative?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I just want you to grade like, yeah, what, you know, you can imagine the imaginary president of Steve Hayes' dreams. I don't know who who that would be.
John McCain back from the grave, A plus.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I don't, I also don't want it just on policy issues, you know, and policy is a big part of that, but also leadership and decision making and et cetera. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I would say I would give Biden a D.

Speaker 3 I would give Trump an F.

Speaker 3 I would give Obama

Speaker 3 a D, maybe a D plus.

Speaker 3 And I would give...

Speaker 2 It's tough out there in the Steve Hayes world.

Speaker 3 I don't believe in great. Great inflation, Tim.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I know. No great

Speaker 3 inflation.

Speaker 3 I'm the Harvey Mansfield of your gimmick. No great inflation.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 3 Two Ds and an F. And I'd give Bush a

Speaker 3 B to B plus.

Speaker 2 Really?

Speaker 3 What are your grades? Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2 I guess I'll give Biden like a B minus or a B. It kind of changes.
I would give Barack Obama a C,

Speaker 2 George Bush, like a C minus, and Trump an F. I mean, I love George Bush.

Speaker 2 If we were just grading purely on a sheet of paper where you're like check marking policy issues, you know, and saying, where do I have more check marks?

Speaker 2 You know, despite the fact that I've lived up a little bit, I would still probably have the most check marks on George Bush's side. But like, I mean, the Iraq war is just an absolute disaster.

Speaker 2 Like, in retrospect, that again, I don't, we don't need to turn the whole podcast into an Iraq war podcast, but like the downstream negative effects of that, I think, are just so great that I just don't know how you can grade him better than anything beside a C-.

Speaker 2 So that's where I would, that's where I'd land on George Bush. And so the gimmick, I think, is interesting because it's like,

Speaker 2 okay, well, now we've level set. So you've got Biden below Obama, maybe, or even.
Tell me why.

Speaker 3 Look, I was not a fan of Barack Obama's presidency. I was pretty consistently critical of Obama.

Speaker 3 I did a lot of reporting on some of the things that he did and said that I think were really bad for the country. i think in part the greater concern about biden over obama is

Speaker 3 i really thought obama was all there now for better and for worse right i mean i think he was making the decisions i think he was driving the process i think he showed leadership most often not leadership in the way that i would have liked in a way that i don't i don't think joe biden is is executing the presidency i have real concerns about his mental acuity i think that's a serious issue i don't think it's a side issue i think we've seen evidence of it I think if you look at the way that Biden said he was going to govern and the things that he wanted to do, unity is in my soul in his inaugural address, bringing the country together.

Speaker 3 Whatever we want to say about the obstacles to that, and I think there were obstacles when he made the claims, there remain huge obstacles today.

Speaker 3 But I don't think he's governed that way, either from a policy perspective or a rhetoric perspective.

Speaker 2 I'm glad you brought that up because that was one of the areas I wanted to push back on.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, I think based on expectations when he said that, I think the conventional wisdom everywhere, including on this podcast, was that Biden was naive about the obstacles and that he wouldn't be able to achieve the bipartisan efforts that he said he was going to achieve.

Speaker 2 Biden thought that he could. There was a lot of criticism on the left of him for talking about wanting to work with Republicans and thinking that he could work with Republicans.

Speaker 2 And meanwhile, they passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill, CHIPS, a gay marriage bill, a guns bill, burn pits. The bipartisan coalition is really with them on NATO, like, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, on supporting our allies overseas, on supporting Ukraine. It's Republicans and Democrats.
But you can say Biden hasn't been a leader in that, but this happened.

Speaker 2 He, in the meantime, has had Republicans, the entire Republican class saying that he's illegitimate, doing a fake impeachment, dragging his son through the coals.

Speaker 2 He barely talks about them.

Speaker 2 he doesn't even talk about them that much. So, I don't know.
Like, to me, man, I feel like he has exceeded. I would grade him above expectations clearly on the question of unity.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, he can't wave a magic wand and make our Twitter discourse change and change Fox and MSNBC and make them better.

Speaker 2 But, like, for the things in his control, legislation, what he comes out of his mouth.

Speaker 3 What did you think about his labeling anybody who disagreed with him, including Mitch McConnell and other Republicans on the voting rights stuff as Jim Crow 2.0?

Speaker 2 I thought that was stupid. I thought that was stupid.
I mean, that's pretty gross.

Speaker 3 That's pretty gross.

Speaker 2 That's really bad. I thought that was that.

Speaker 3 And it's consistent with what we've seen from Joe Biden over much of his career, right? I mean, think about the things that he said when he was campaigning.

Speaker 3 He said, ah, if you're a black person, you're going to vote for Donald Trump, then you're not black, or words to that effect.

Speaker 3 You know, he has his take off the chains comments going back earlier in his career.

Speaker 2 Biden's been in the public eye for 50 years, and you're bringing out three comments. I guess it's just like any of those things that you just said.

Speaker 3 Do you think the things I'm citing are unrepresentative?

Speaker 2 I do, yeah. I mean, I think that if you put any Biden criticism that one might clutch their pearls about, like, in the middle of a Donald Trump speech, like it wouldn't even get tweeted about.

Speaker 2 Like, people wouldn't even mention it.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's a totally different question, right? Your question to me was not, how would you compare Joe Biden in these instances to Donald Trump?

Speaker 3 Your question was, do you think Joe Biden was a good president? And my point was, he said he was going to do these things.

Speaker 3 And not only, in my view, hasn't he done them, notwithstanding your correct points about the fact of some bipartisan policy accomplishments stipulated, but has he led in that fashion?

Speaker 3 I don't think that he has.

Speaker 2 I mean, he's exceeded your expectations on that. You had no expectation that Biden was going to do multiple bipartisan bills, did you?

Speaker 3 So I didn't think he was going to be a good president, but I guess I maybe I was naive. Maybe I I was falling for the

Speaker 3 idea that because of sort of the grave crisis that the country is in and the things that he said in the aftermath of all the election denialism we got from Trump and Trump's people from January 6th.

Speaker 3 I guess I thought that there was a chance that some of the things that Biden said in his inaugural, he really meant and went beyond just making arguments.

Speaker 3 And I don't think he's governed that way. I just don't.

Speaker 3 But beyond just the Jim Crow 2.0 stuff and other comments like that, if you look back at the early spending proposals, he had Republicans, governors and members of Congress, who were willing to work with him on a bipartisan basis to restrain some of the spending in exchange for their support.

Speaker 3 Met with them at the White House.

Speaker 3 I had one governor tell me a story about going to the White House, sitting down with Biden, Biden sort of agreeing with all of this sort of bipartisan consensus on spending.

Speaker 3 And yes, maybe the White House-driven proposals are too much. We could rein some of it in here.
We could come to a compromise. We could agree on something.
Will you support it?

Speaker 3 And then, you know, hearing Jen Saki at the White House podium saying, in effect, the only direction this spending level is going is up. We're not talking about pulling things back.

Speaker 3 And saying, geez, I thought Joe Biden might have might have meant. what he said there.
And I don't think he did enough in those early days, in particular, as he was looking to set a tone.

Speaker 3 The reason that we all talk about the first 100 days, the reason we all talk about early parts of presidency, is because it sets the tone for the entire four years, and it's usually when the most significant stuff gets done.

Speaker 3 And I don't think he did that.

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Speaker 2 I'm saving a big agreement on spending for desserts. I just want to stipulate that we concur about spending.
And I want to talk about that before I let you go.

Speaker 2 But I do want to say, though, again, and if you look at the bipartisan accomplishments that he's had, and you graded Obama better than him, like Obama had basically none, right?

Speaker 2 Trump had basically none. W had a couple at the beginning with no child left behind.
But, I mean, we are a quarter of the way into the century.

Speaker 2 Biden is basically the only president that has done anything on a bipartisan level. And you're like, well, not good enough for me.
What is our baseline?

Speaker 3 Yeah,

Speaker 3 I think you go back and point to other bipartisan pieces of legislation that have passed under each of those presidencies. I think the question is,

Speaker 3 how many were driven by the White House and this commitment to bipartisanship? I just don't see it. I really don't see it.

Speaker 2 And okay, I just have to lean on this one more time, though. Again, he comes in in the context.
You gave one part of the context, right? Which is that he promises to be a Uniter. I get it.

Speaker 2 And so maybe in your view, he didn't do everything you wanted on that regard. But he also comes in where his predecessor doesn't show show up to his inauguration

Speaker 2 for the first time in history, where he's immediately under impeachment, where he has no,

Speaker 2 like basically no rhetorical partners to work with on Unity. There will be quiet partners on policy, and that's so that's what he did.

Speaker 2 You know, there are Democrats that wanted him to antagonize the Republicans, that wanted him to, you know, do more unilaterally, and there's some complaints I have about what he did unilaterally.

Speaker 2 But how do you contextualize the choices that he made, given that he's in an environment where the other party is giving him no quarter and is smearing him, frankly, with lies that are unprecedented?

Speaker 2 And some in his own party are like demanding that he be even more aggressive.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I guess part of the answer to that is I would look at the kinds of things he suggested he would do, which is resist the extremes on the right and on the left.

Speaker 3 And this is not a both sides comment, but like, that's what he said he would do.

Speaker 2 I don't think he's done that. Has he not done that? I mean, he's resisted the left on

Speaker 2 the left on Gaza. He has not, he's not tried to expand the Supreme Court.
He doesn't tried to add states.

Speaker 3 How has he resisted the left on Gaza?

Speaker 2 In every way imaginable. I mean, like, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 he has a huge base that is demanding that he, you know, basically abandon Israel. And like, it was just yesterday he's on the phone with Bibi telling him once again that he's got his back.

Speaker 2 I mean, think about the rhetoric coming from the left. Think about the rhetoric coming from.
Rashida Tlaib wouldn't even stand for him at the State of the Union.

Speaker 2 It was Rashida Tlaib that wasn't standing for Biden at the State of the Union.

Speaker 3 Yeah. If you want to say that he's resisted the left because he has adopted Rashida Tlaib's position, concede it.
I'm with you.

Speaker 3 I think what we've seen from him is sort of an early, unequivocal, and strong embrace of Israel. And as the politics have proven more and more difficult, he's made concession after concession.

Speaker 3 He's, I think, made both sides comparisons that don't work.

Speaker 3 If you look at what's coming, certainly from leaks, sometimes in the names of his top officials, Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken, pointing out their sort of advertising their differences with the way that Israel is conducting the war, I don't think he's been a strong ally of Israel in this instance.

Speaker 3 I think he is caved to the left of his party.

Speaker 2 Well, me and Jamie Weinstein went back and forth on Ezra. We can go list that one.
I think he's been basically where he always is.

Speaker 2 I think the idea that a Democratic president would be even more aligned with Bibi, given Bibi's behavior and given the way that Bibi's conducted the war,

Speaker 2 I think that he's been genuine to what you would expect a center-left Democrat to do, given the partner that he has in Israel.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I don't know that he has to give a full-throated rhetorical embrace of Bibi Netanyahu, the person, but you would agree that the things he's saying and doing now with these public warnings and leaks against Israel are at a very, very different place than the things he said after October 7th, where he said Israel's got to do everything it can to eliminate Hamas.

Speaker 2 Sure, but it's been five months, though. And yeah, I hear you.
Look, I want to be able to eliminate Hamas too, but I think there are a lot of factors going on.

Speaker 2 I think that you underplayed giving Joe Biden credit with the leading from behind stuff when it comes to keeping NATO partners together.

Speaker 2 I think that a lot of our partners in other places around the world are even more hostile to Israel. And so I think that him and Blinken are negotiating a pretty fragile balance.

Speaker 2 And I think he's done a pretty good job, frankly.

Speaker 3 Let me concede a point. I think you're right.
None of this is easy. I don't want to give you the impression or give listeners the impression that I think this is easy.

Speaker 3 And these are obvious answers, and he made all sorts of bad choices, uneasy answers. This is hard.

Speaker 3 And I do think, actually, some of the restraint that's been frustrating to me with respect to Ukraine was necessary because he he had to follow, in that case, some of our European partners.

Speaker 3 He couldn't have gotten out and been more aggressive than they were, particularly on some of the oil issues, on sort of the broader response. So in that case, I think restraint was probably wise.

Speaker 3 I'm not making the case on either Ukraine or Israel that he's been a disaster.

Speaker 3 You just ask me based on where I come from, the way that I see this stuff, what I think. And I think he's not been great.

Speaker 2 It goes back to the curve. But fundamentally, you would, I mean, you obviously think that he would be preferable to Trump on both of those.
Sure. Or maybe not on both, but on the Ukraine issue.

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Speaker 2 I want to now get to the comparison. We get to the fun part now.
All right. Now we got to choose.
All right. I'm Graydon Biden.
I'm more of a curve than you are. You're Harvey Mansfield.

Speaker 2 I appreciate that. Now we get to the question of what to do.
about the choice in front of us. And I'm a rhino, never Trump squish, as you know.
Okay, so you've always been more conservative than me.

Speaker 2 So instead, I kind of want to start this discussion and bring in a guest, somebody that you know and love, somebody that you wrote the book on, even, Dick Cheney. Let's hear from Dick.

Speaker 14 In our nation's 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 Liz is fearless.

Speaker 14 She never backs down from a fight. There is nothing more important she will ever do than lead the effort to make sure Donald Trump is never again near the Oval Office.
And she will succeed.

Speaker 2 Oh, you know, I'm putting on my helmet for the fight now. What do you say to Dick Cheney? Greatest threat the country has ever faced.

Speaker 2 Most important thing that Liz will do is prevent him from getting in the White House again. What do you say to that statement?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think he's right.

Speaker 3 I don't disagree with anything said.

Speaker 2 Okay. And so

Speaker 2 I was hoping for some pushback there. I didn't know.
I didn't know. Did you expect me to disagree?

Speaker 2 Well, I guess I expect you to disagree because the editorial that you guys wrote assessed, you know, that you shouldn't have to make a choice between these two candidates.

Speaker 2 And I think that the necessary conclusion of agreeing with Dick Cheney that Donald Trump is the greatest threat in our country's history and that preventing him from getting in the White House again is the most important thing that his daughter will ever do.

Speaker 2 I would think that given where we are now, March 20th, 2024, then the necessary next step is to say, okay, well, then I guess we got to get behind the guy I gave a D to.

Speaker 3 I'd encourage you to reread the editorial. Maybe you've read it more than once, but I don't think that's what the editorial said.

Speaker 3 And let me just emphasize that this was a group effort, wasn't just me. And in talking about it here, I'm speaking just for me.
I'm not speaking for the institution.

Speaker 2 Sure. And let's just pause.
Let me just read an exact sentence so that we can

Speaker 2 as we move toward the general election, the pressure from partisan cheerleaders, I guess that's me in this case, the very reluctant, reluctant cheerleader, the pressure from partisan cheerleaders to line up behind one of these two unfit men will grow louder.

Speaker 2 Yes. And then it will

Speaker 2 say that you're not going to bow to the pressure to get behind one of these unfit men. Yeah.

Speaker 3 So what do we mean by that? Does it mean that we have to institutionally

Speaker 3 throw our support behind one candidate or the other? I don't think it does. And I will say up front that we made a mistake in the editorial.
I've stand by everything in the editorial.

Speaker 3 The mistake that I made was not including a note in the editorial that we don't endorse candidates. We're never going to endorse candidates.
It's been a policy since before we launched.

Speaker 3 It'll be a policy as long as the dispatch exists. But having said that, I

Speaker 3 would challenge your read.

Speaker 3 If your claim is that we're playing some moral equivalence or both sides game, go back and reread it. We're not.
I mean, very clear.

Speaker 3 Let me read you an exact sentence from the editorial, which I think sounds a lot like what Dick Cheney said in the clip that you just played. We talked about whether Trump would win.

Speaker 3 If the election were held today, Trump would be projected to win relatively easily. That would be a disaster.
Donald Trump is manifestly unfit for the presidency.

Speaker 3 Whether you also thought that was the case in 2016 or 2020 is immaterial.

Speaker 3 His conduct after losing four years ago and the campaign he has run this time around have rendered him a unique threat to the constitutional order.

Speaker 2 Couldn't put it more plainly than that. Sure.
I'm not saying that you guys are saying that there's more equivalence.

Speaker 2 I'm saying that where you come down is that we deserve better and they are both unfit. Maybe one's more unfit than the other or whatever.
And you graded them one F, one D.

Speaker 2 And I'm not asking you to endorse really, but you're a cheese head. Wisconsin's gonna be an important state.
I know you probably got some pals, some cousins, some aunts, some uncles.

Speaker 2 Some of them probably call, you know, your vote's in Maryland, so your vote doesn't really matter. That call you and it's like, what do I do? These two unfit men, what do I do?

Speaker 2 I think that if I'm reading that editorial and I'm Steve's cousin in Waukesha, that I'm looking at this and saying, eh, okay, I can write in George Bush or whatever because these guys are both unfit.

Speaker 2 And to me, that's sending a signal that there is some kind of equivalence, right? That there isn't a way to judge between the two options.

Speaker 3 No, it doesn't send a signal that there's an equivalence. I think it's perfectly acceptable for people to write somebody in instead of casting a vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump.
From Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 Sure. So, okay, so then how does that work? How can you agree with Dick Cheney's statement that Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the Democratic Republic in our history?

Speaker 2 And also think when faced with a choice between that and a Democrat whose policy choices I don't really agree with, the answer is neither. I don't understand how that works logically.

Speaker 3 Two separate questions. One is sort of the period between now and the actual election, and then one is on the voting.

Speaker 3 I don't have any problem with people who say that they are going to withhold a vote for Donald Trump and that that's in effect their vote, or they're going to leave the presidential line open.

Speaker 3 They don't want to support Joe Biden for policy reasons, for concerns about his mental acuity and his age, which I think are serious, serious concerns.

Speaker 2 Sure, but then you get down to Kamala Harris. Do you think that Kamala Harris is the greatest threat in the history of the Republic? Like, no.

Speaker 3 I think she would be a disaster. I think she would be a disaster.
I think she would be a horrible, horrible president.

Speaker 2 Worse than Donald Trump?

Speaker 3 I mean, she's a sentient being. She can make an argument.

Speaker 2 When she went to the Munich Security Conference, she stands next to our allies.

Speaker 2 She's not going to tear us out of NATO. She's not going to give Putin Eastern Europe.
Like, she's not going to try to run for president again after she serves out her time.

Speaker 2 There's going to be no mob storming the Capitol, waving Kamala Harris flags, attacking officers. Yeah.
I know this is a low bar, but this is the bar that we've had.

Speaker 2 I mean, the Republicans nominated him. So this is the bar that we've got.

Speaker 2 I hear you, that that's not exactly a glowing praise of Kamala Harris, but.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think you're probably right on most of that, maybe not all of it. I don't necessarily trust her convictions on Ukraine.

Speaker 3 I'm not sure we saw much real foreign policy thinking from her during her campaign or her career that predated the campaign but sure yeah like i said in the editorial and in my own voice i think donald trump is a unique threat to the republic i don't think that that necessarily means that you as a voter have to cast a vote in favor of joe biden if i have relatives in wisconsin who want to say i'm not i'm not i'm writing in you name it i'm writing in liz cheney i have no objection to that i guess this is like there are these choices that happen in life all the time.

Speaker 2 You know, you're drunk at a bar and you have to decide whether to drive home and risk a DUI or spend money on a cab you can't afford and then cab back early in the morning to pick up your car.

Speaker 2 You decide, well, I guess I'll do that. Like that seems better than risking my life.
You know, my kids, like the local public school is terrible.

Speaker 2 I can't afford to go to private school, but I guess I'm going to pinch pennies or work an extra job to send them to private school because I want, this happens all the time.

Speaker 2 Like I haven't had the luxury ever of voting for a president. I'm like, I really agree with them on everything.

Speaker 2 I mean, every president that I voted for before Hillary, who I disagree on lots of stuff, wanted to make my marriage illegal. But I was like, yeah, I figured on balance.

Speaker 2 I like what they think about foreign policy and other issues over this. And maybe that was a bad choice in retrospect.
I don't know. But like, this is just how it is.

Speaker 2 Like, people throughout the country always.

Speaker 2 no matter what, face two choices where they're going to have fundamental disagreements about it. That's the fundamental nature of a two-party system.

Speaker 3 But they don't just face two choices, right? I mean, quite literally, they face many choices. They could do something entirely different.

Speaker 2 Not really, though. I mean, Donald Trump or Joe Biden is going to be the president.
Really? Yeah, Donald Trump or Joe Biden are going to be the next president. Sure, but

Speaker 3 look at the people who didn't vote for Trump in Wisconsin in 2020. More people left that line blank, if I recall, than was the difference between the Biden-Trump margin.
Didn't they make a statement?

Speaker 2 Yeah, no, that is true. That is true.
That is true. And I don't, by the way, like, I am more interested in

Speaker 2 how, like, the responsibility and the thoughts of somebody that is a public figure, a commentator, an influencer.

Speaker 2 Look, if there's a regular person in Wisconsin that has passionate views about abortion and life issues that are so great that they just could never vote for somebody that wants to support abortion, I respect that.

Speaker 2 I disagree with that judgment.

Speaker 2 But like, what I'm objecting to is this notion that you can look at these two men and that you can assess and that you can be clear-eyed about the threat that Donald Trump faces.

Speaker 2 And then that you can say,

Speaker 2 I don't know. I think that's an epoxy on both of our houses for me.

Speaker 3 No, no, this is exactly the point of the editorial. You're judging this through the prism only of a vote, right?

Speaker 2 No, an argument for who you think is better. The auditorial does not say, we judge Joe Biden to be manifestly disastrous, but also clearly better than Donald Trump.
You could do that.

Speaker 2 You could have said that.

Speaker 3 We think Joe Biden

Speaker 3 is a crummy president.

Speaker 2 And we're happy to say that. Do you think he's the greatest risk to the democracy in the history of the country?

Speaker 3 No, well, that's why we called Donald Trump a unique risk. I mean, we said it very plainly.

Speaker 2 Okay, so he's less of a risk. You do agree he's less of a risk.

Speaker 3 We say it. Like literally, it's what I just read you from the editorial.
We say it. That's sort of one of the points.
But let me ask you this from the perspective.

Speaker 3 I mean, you just called yourself sort of a partisan or a reluctant partisan.

Speaker 3 A huge part of what's gotten us into this trouble is sort of knee-jerk partisanship, the kind of unthinking support for one candidate or another, one party or another, from people across the political spectrum that forces this, you call it a binary choice, that forces these awful choices on

Speaker 3 the voters. And I think leads to a pretty significant and problematic distortion in the political debate.

Speaker 3 If we were to argue, if the dispatch, if I were to argue enthusiastically in favor of Joe Biden, when I'm not enthusiastic about his candidacy, doesn't that have really distorting effects on the debate and the way that we operate?

Speaker 2 Yes, but I just don't assess that that is what has happened on the Democratic side compared to the Republican side. And I think you see that happening on both sides, but I don't think so.

Speaker 2 I think Joe Biden right now, there's a lot of people on his progressive left speaking out to criticize him. I think of the bulwark.

Speaker 2 You you know, we range from people like JVL who want to put him on Mount Rushmore to people that think he's been a pretty bad president.

Speaker 2 And we have multiple people who've called for him to step aside at the bulwark.

Speaker 2 And we didn't get into this, but I wrote down a little note of my list of things that I've disagreed with him on and spoken out: abortion, spending, Afghanistan.

Speaker 2 I think that people have been pretty clear-eyed about Joe Biden. You very rarely see, with the exception of maybe the age issue, would be the one area that I'd say there's an exception.

Speaker 2 People like going on TV to defend Joe Biden and like making gobsmackingly false, bullshit, bad faith defenses of him, which you see all the time.

Speaker 2 Anytime a Republican does any interview, I mean, did you listen to the Dan Crenshaw interview on your own podcast?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's like, you know, the kind of strain that people have to come to come to Donald Trump's defense is absurd. Like, I don't feel that.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people are pretty honest about the fact that they thought Joe Biden was the best option in the Democratic primary now that they've got him.

Speaker 2 And now they think he's the best option of these. There's no cult of Joe Biden out there.

Speaker 3 Answer this question.

Speaker 3 You don't think that people are

Speaker 3 in sort of partisan fervor, people are

Speaker 3 polishing Joe Biden as a president, as a candidate. I don't understand how

Speaker 3 somebody who's a conservative can look at what's happened over the past three and a half years and think, yes, this is great for the country with respect to Biden's presidency. I don't get it.

Speaker 2 Like what in particular? There's so many ways you can look at it.

Speaker 3 All of the things that we discussed at the beginning of the podcast. I mean, I don't see how you're a limited government conservative and you say, boy, I look at Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 I think he's been a terrific president. It doesn't make sense to me.
Now, it may be the case that some of these people are no longer conservatives. Fair enough.

Speaker 2 I can answer that. I mean, he's followed the rule of law.

Speaker 2 You know, he's stood with our allies. He's like generally truthful.
The economy is getting better. The crime rate is getting better.

Speaker 2 Are there many policy issues where I would look at Joe Biden and say, sure, I disagree with that? Like, absolutely.

Speaker 2 Like, do I wish we, and this would be a nice transition, do I wish we'd cut spending? Like, sure. But, like,

Speaker 2 again, are those disagreements more fundamental than the ones that I had with George Bush?

Speaker 3 No, they're not. But that's a different question.

Speaker 3 The question I'm asking is: as you face the next six, eight months, and I'm not talking as much about Democrats here as much as I am about fellow conservatives, including maybe especially Trump skeptical conservatives.

Speaker 3 Are we going to enter a period? And I'll give away my answer. My answer is yes, we are entering such a period.

Speaker 3 And that's a big part of why we decided to write this editorial, where you're going to get from

Speaker 3 people who agree with you and me on the threat that Trump is,

Speaker 3 a distorted partisan, turd-polishing assessment of Joe Biden's presidency in a way that I think is fundamentally dishonest.

Speaker 3 That's a problem to me. And I think we've had a bad debate around the presidential election for the past, let's say, six months.

Speaker 3 And I think it's about to get dramatically worse because you're going to have people saying stuff they don't believe.

Speaker 3 To make Joe Biden appear more acceptable to Nikki Haley voters, to reluctant Trump voters, they're going to say a bunch of stuff about how great Biden is that they fundamentally don't believe.

Speaker 3 And that I think is inconsistent with limited government conservatism.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I actually just disagree with that. Frankly, I think this is why kind of the frustration I had with you as an editorial.

Speaker 2 I think that the best thing you could say about Joe Biden right now is that I think he's been a bad president, but he's obviously better than somebody that is a fundamental risk to the country. Sure.

Speaker 2 Like, I think that's the most helpful thing that somebody could say about Joe Biden. I actually don't believe that.

Speaker 2 I feel like I've, I don't think anybody listening to this podcast so far would be like, you've been really turd polishing Biden. There's some merits.
There's some demerits. I wish he was younger.

Speaker 2 I wish he spent less. The Afghanistan thing was a a disaster.

Speaker 2 But like, all in all, over the scope of how I measure him against other presidents of my adult life, I think marginally better is kind of how I measure it. I don't think that that's turd polishing.

Speaker 2 And I think that people that are more critical of him that say what's good.

Speaker 2 I mean, look, you had another, I should have mentioned this at the top, but Nick Catagio, we're calling him now at the dispatch wrote kind of a pushback, slight pushback to that editorial, which I really recommend that people read.

Speaker 2 And he said, look, if conservatism, broadly speaking, is a belief in ordered liberty secured by the rule of of law and limited government power those who support trump because some of his policies will be better than biden are signing conservatism's death warrant and so i guess i would say from a conservative perspective like i think from a democratic perspective trump is a disaster but like having trump be the president is the end of classical liberal conservatism however you want to call it it's like the end of it in this country but nick is pushing back there on conservatives who support trump so he's not talking to me he's not talking to people in the editorial but no but I'm using that point to push back in your question is how can you, from a conservative standpoint, like look at Joe Biden?

Speaker 2 And I'm saying, well, look, no, I'm looking at the choice. And a Donald Trump victory is the end of the type of conservative.

Speaker 3 I don't have any problem with people like Nick. And I agree.
I commend that piece. We think it's consistent with the editorial.

Speaker 3 We think it was responding to the editorial, but perfectly rational argument to make. He's an individual.
He's endorsed Joe Biden. Fair enough.

Speaker 3 We're happy to have people on our staff do whatever they want in their individual capacity. The point I'm making is we are going to have, we're already seeing it.

Speaker 3 We are going to have people, I think, largely in order to persuade gettable center-right, disaffected Republicans, never Trumpers, what have you, to vote for Biden who are not telling the truth about Joe Biden.

Speaker 3 And I think if you're doing what you say you're doing,

Speaker 3 which is, hey, I'm pointing out Biden's flaws. I'm criticizing him where I need to, and I still think he's better than Trump.
Fair enough. And that's where I end up.

Speaker 3 But there are a lot of people who aren't doing that.

Speaker 2 I feel like sometimes it's like, okay, we're going to nitpick the Democratic, you know, the areas where some Democrats are gilding the lily a little bit.

Speaker 2 And then, meanwhile, like literally the entire Trump campaign is premised on a lie. Of course it is.
Just by saying any word in support of Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 But I'm criticizing Donald Trump. We're pretty critical of Donald Trump at the dispatch.

Speaker 2 But those people, the people that I'm talking about, you're right now focusing on the people that are spinning for Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 But like the people that are spinning for Joe Biden are doing so on the margins compared to the type of spin that you see in support of Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 I mean just like totally, you don't believe your lying eyes kind of shit. Like we're in the upside-down world.

Speaker 3 No, I think it's entirely appropriate to do that. You call it gilding the lily.
I say it's just not honest.

Speaker 3 Like I think people who are, you know, more or less broadly in our business, if you see something that you think is notable, if you believe something, you should just say it.

Speaker 3 We led the editorial off with a quote from Charles Krauthammer to say, the job is to be honest and to speak the truth and to do it bluntly.

Speaker 2 That was the whole point of what we did.

Speaker 3 I think there are people who aren't doing that. And I'll give you an example.
Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe last week went on this rant, this incredibly pro-Biden rant.

Speaker 3 Joe Scarborough, who at one time was a conservative representative from the Panhandle of Florida. Obviously, he's been on something of a journey, but he said, F you if you can't handle the truth.

Speaker 3 This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. Now, I would just say that's patently untrue.
It's untrue on its face.

Speaker 3 Very few people in the world could actually believe that if you pay attention to Joe Biden on a day-to-day basis. And I think one of the things that we were warning about is this kind of bullshit.

Speaker 3 Like, we shouldn't do that.

Speaker 2 It's bad.

Speaker 3 It distorts the debate. It's not true.

Speaker 2 Totally agree.

Speaker 2 My final question on this, then I want to get to the last two things where over time already, is there a single person besides Mitt Romney in elected Republican office right now that you feel like speaks the truth about the state of the party and the country and the leader of the party?

Speaker 2 Is there a single Republican?

Speaker 3 Elected Republicans. No, I mean, you mentioned Brian Kemp earlier, and I think he's close.

Speaker 2 I'm glad you mentioned Mark because I was going to say this earlier, and then we got on a tangent.

Speaker 2 Again, like, I would totally hear your criticism of people that are like, oh, I think that you should vote for Stacey Abrams over Brian Kemp now because the threat to the Republic is so great, right?

Speaker 2 Like, that's not. Right.
You know what I mean? I think that's a different category. Like, that's not the situation here at Dallas.
Anyway, Kemp, okay.

Speaker 2 Even though he said he's voting for Trump, but anybody else that you think is speaking truthfully?

Speaker 3 On a consistent basis among currently elected Republicans? No,

Speaker 3 not really.

Speaker 2 It's pretty dark.

Speaker 3 Pretty dark.

Speaker 2 Okay, we have one agreement now into our next agreement. I have to do this, and then you get to ask me a question.
Then I'm going to let you go. Spending.

Speaker 2 This is why I have to do this because I do not want us to be outflanked.

Speaker 2 And Matt Iglesias, that progressive liberal over in Slowboring, wrote an article this week that I was like, yes, talking about how this is a time for austerity. We're at $34 trillion in debt.

Speaker 2 I actually had to Google that. I thought it was 32.
And then when I Googled it, I realized, well, I thought it was 32 because it was 32 like six months ago.

Speaker 3 Approaching 35. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. The Biden plan for it is very modest spending flattening and tax hikes that would get blocked by the inevitable GOP Senate.
The Trump plan is a debt explosion. I mean,

Speaker 2 this is where I feel the most like I'm in the remnant with you guys. Like, what the fuck, Steve?

Speaker 2 Are there any green shoots on this? Like, do you see anything in the future?

Speaker 2 I mean, we have with interest rates this high, this is absolutely the worst possible time to be running these deficits with high interest rates and low unemployment.

Speaker 2 And yet there's literally nobody in either party, really, besides, I guess, Tom Massey, that's like, we should do something about this.

Speaker 3 No, it's incredibly depressing. I don't think Biden has been good on these issues.

Speaker 3 And I don't buy the White House argument, which has been fact-checked 50 ways to Sunday, that he's reducing the deficit. It just doesn't add up.

Speaker 3 If you look at the analyses from Brian Riedel at the Manhattan Institute, who is intellectually honest, certainly not carrying water for Donald Trump, he has sort of shredded those arguments, as have people like Glenn Kessler and other fact-checkers who, again, are not carrying water for Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 One of the most depressing moments of recent political memory was that moment in last year's State of the Union when Biden sort of made the accusation that Republicans were all for cutting cut entitlements.

Speaker 3 And then the Republicans in unison object to this howl and say, no, we don't want to, we don't want to. Biden concludes that by saying, boy, it's great that we have consensus on this.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm glad to hear that sort of. Now, that hasn't kept Biden, I should point out, from demagoguing the hell out of this on these entitlement questions.

Speaker 3 I mean, his White House continues to put out claims that Republicans are actively looking to cut entitlements, to throw Granny off the cliff, things like that. I think it's dishonest.

Speaker 3 I think it's just fundamentally dishonest. The line I've used before is nobody seems to care about debt and deficits right now.

Speaker 3 And there's going to come a point, and I'm afraid it's coming very soon, where everybody's going to care because there's going to be sort of a catastrophic result of shedding responsibility on this and putting these things off for subsequent generations to solve.

Speaker 3 And we're now at this point where the predictions that people were making 10, 15 years ago about interest on the debt is going to surpass, you know, defense spending or what, you know, fill in your blank spending, we're now there.

Speaker 3 And some of the projections for the insolvency of Social Security and other things, you know, those used to be 30, 40, 50 year timelines. We're now talking about like 10 years.

Speaker 3 Somebody's going to have to step up and solve this problem. Neither party is doing a very good job.

Speaker 2 We're going to have this clip when that moment comes to rubbing people's faces. And for the liberal listeners, I would go read Matt's case on this.

Speaker 2 I mean, Matt, unlike Steve, I think maybe they'd have a disagreement on the tax portion of this.

Speaker 2 I've been on not quite the full Joe Scarborough journey, but as I've been on my journey, you know, Steve, I've met a lot of rich people out there lately, and I'm kind of okay.

Speaker 2 We can, some of them can afford to pay a little bit more. I'm not going to get my panties in a wad about $400,000 a year, folks, getting a little tax hike.

Speaker 2 But I would like to see it paired with some spending cuts on this. And I think folks should listen to Iglesias.

Speaker 2 Okay, we're over time, but I promise you, so you cannot do this if you don't want, but you do get one opportunity to take a whack at me. And so, if you can take it or pass.

Speaker 3 Let me ask a big question, then maybe I'll narrow if we can go quickly on it. What do you see as the path out of this? Like, what would you have

Speaker 3 non-Trumpy Republicans do sort of broadly. You had an item where you were pretty skeptical of Republican donors funding normie candidates who are losing.

Speaker 3 You know, you're skeptical of people voting third party. What's the right thing, in your view, of sort of non-Trumpy Republicans up and down the income ladder to do here?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a good question. And we can do a follow-up on the donors.
I'll say one sentence. The big Republican donors have had the longest losing streak of anybody in history.

Speaker 2 And if any rich person, any other parts of their lives, any other parts of investments, they would never spend this money throwing good money after bad.

Speaker 2 And I just, I wish they would give money to, you know, under underprivileged kids or something instead of to Republican consultants who keep coming up with the same ideas.

Speaker 2 And that's my problem really is like, okay, if you want to engage in Republican primary fights, that's fine.

Speaker 2 But doing the same shit that hasn't worked for 10 years and thinking you're going to get a new result is driving me crazy.

Speaker 3 But if they're taking on Trump, why would you have them not do that? Given the arguments you've made.

Speaker 2 They're not, though. I'm sorry.
They're not.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, not really. I mean, these ads, like, come on.
Like, I always say it's like RC Cola running against Coca-Cola.

Speaker 2 It's like, oh, we think we're going to overthrow Coca-Cola by doing an ad that's like, ooh, well, we think there's a little bit too much high fructose corn syrup in there.

Speaker 2 Like, it's just like they got to either come for Trump's head.

Speaker 2 If somebody would have said to me, okay, man, hey, I got 100 million and I'm going to spend between 2020 and 2024 to seed the ground on Fox and with Newsmax about how Trump failed.

Speaker 2 He failed to build the wall. He'd lost.
You know, the courts told him he was wrong, embarrass him, make him seem fat and stupid. I've been like, hell yeah.
Okay. Maybe that wouldn't have worked.

Speaker 2 I don't know. Maybe that wouldn't have worked, but it would have been a try.
It wouldn't have been like a virtue signal, $1 million sup and ad campaign that we've tried a million times.

Speaker 2 It isn't going to work. At least that would have been an effort.
How about an effort to pressure 10 more Republican senators to have voted to convict him? That's a good idea.

Speaker 2 That would have been a good use of rich people money saying that, like, okay, hey, I'll put in a $10 million super PAC.

Speaker 2 This is maybe a bribe, so you can't do it exactly like this, but you could signal to Republicans that you would defend and fight for them if that would have been good i think that there are a million things that you could try and i i just i would like them to try to try rather than to give the same consultants more money for their beach houses to run limp ads against donald trump while donald trump tears their faces off like donald trump is out there like ron de sanctimonious is a short man who can't even reach the toilet and he's an idiot and he's a loser and then it's like we're going to have a super pack ad that's like mr trump is a little me like it's like what these consultants would never do this in any other case.

Speaker 2 In no other campaign would they be like, I'm going to let my guy get his face ripped off and I'm going to do patty cake back.

Speaker 2 But that's what they've decided to do with Trump because they're like, because they think that any harsh criticism of Trump fails. And maybe that's right.

Speaker 2 But I guess I would have liked to have seen them try. And I would like to see some creative thinking with all that resources.
So that was my complaint about them.

Speaker 3 I mean, but what do you make of the effort that was poured into Iowa early by AFP and others, spending a lot of money testing lots of ads that were pretty critical of Trump.

Speaker 3 I think weren't just sort of tiptoeing around the Trump problem that just proved ineffective. I read that item that you wrote and my reaction was, what would Tim have them do?

Speaker 3 I'm sort of like, yeah, it failed. Like it didn't work, obviously.
Look where we are.

Speaker 3 But I'm glad that there are people who are still willing to like make the argument and put up the money, even if it ends up not working.

Speaker 3 I mean, I think you have a different perspective because you come from political consulting and you know sort of the world of politics in a way that I just don't.

Speaker 3 So maybe that informs your view and your cynicism of the.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I like some of the testimonials. I guess I just want different ideas.
Maybe this is wrong, but I'd love to see a rich conservative person try this.

Speaker 2 Rather than run a patty cake Republican up against a MAGA Republican in a red district, why not run Steve Hayes as a Democrat in a red district or as an independent, the Evan McMullen thing.

Speaker 2 Evan McMullen thing didn't quite work in Utah, but I think that was mostly about Evan and Mike Lee.

Speaker 2 I think that that model could in theory work in different places where there was a stronger conservative as the independent candidate and a weaker MAGA as the Republican candidate.

Speaker 2 I would like to see that tried. I guess I would just like to see something tried.

Speaker 2 The AFP ads I thought were fine with the testimonial ads, but man, a lot of this stuff was way too little, way too late. We learned from 2016.
I didn't feel like anything burned anything.

Speaker 2 Nobody called me. Nobody was like, what did you learn from the Our Principles Pact thing in 2016? To me, I saw a lot of people doing the same shit we did.
So that drove me crazy.

Speaker 2 And then lastly, this is maybe too much to ask, but rather than spending $5 million, like once your efforts failed, I wouldn't mind some of them.

Speaker 2 And this goes back to our other discussion saying, hey, you know what? Joe Biden's actually better this time, but we'll table that. What do I think that regular people, Republican folks should do?

Speaker 2 I've got bad news, Steve. I think that once Donald Trump was nominated one time, the water was contaminated.
Once he was nominated twice, it was another contamination.

Speaker 2 And then they nominated him a third time. I think the Republican Party pool is contaminated permanently, like at least for a generation.

Speaker 2 And I think the idea of thinking that you're going to win inside the party, you could tell me that the right thing to do is have people who secretly are good, but have them run as crazy people.

Speaker 2 Maybe that's your answer. Okay, I guess.
Is it better to have secretly good people? I don't really think so. But

Speaker 2 I don't think it is. I think that the Democratic primary electorate has shown itself to be much more practical in a lot of places, not everywhere.
I think that there's a realignment happening.

Speaker 2 I think that the best case scenario for our realignment right now is that we have kind of an internationalist capitalist center-left party, a Boris Johnson-y populist right party, and then we have some Steve Hayes people and some Rashida Tlaib people who are homeless.

Speaker 2 I think that's like the best case scenario for us. And I look at those options and I see a clear preference for me.

Speaker 2 Maybe not everybody would see a clear preference for them them in that, but that's basically

Speaker 2 what I would tell folks. I would tell folks to run for local offices, but I would also tell people to be clear-eyed about the party.

Speaker 2 And I think that we've spent a lot of time with people who aren't very clear-eyed about the party making choices based on their false premises about where the party actually is.

Speaker 2 And like my final point is that to those donors and to these politicians is to anybody who's looking for my advice about what to do, I would say, go to a Trump rally,

Speaker 2 go to a turning point USA event, go

Speaker 2 to hang out with real MAGA Republicans, sit in one of Sarah's focus groups, and then come out of that. And then, whatever your strategy is, have it based on what is really happening out there.

Speaker 2 And that is, I think, a frustration that I have with people on the normy right.

Speaker 3 Obviously, this is your podcast. You have the last word, but just a point on that.

Speaker 3 I think that part of the reason I don't agree with what sounds like a more fatalistic approach to all of this than I have is

Speaker 3 it's implied in the end of your answer, which is there are so many

Speaker 3 sort of, I don't even know if you'd call them rank and file Republicans, but let's call them rank and file Republicans who are,

Speaker 3 they're not MAGA heads, right? So like there's this unbelievable activist, massive activist Republican base that's just Trumpy. And we can call them part of the cult, whatever.
They're gone.

Speaker 3 There's probably no reasoning with them. They're not gettable.
They're not persuadable. Sure.
But what do you do with the chunk? And I always say, I don't give a shit about the Republican Party.

Speaker 3 Don't care about the Republican Party. Not a Republican myself.

Speaker 3 What do you do with voters who are

Speaker 3 out in the country who aren't paying attention to every single twist and turn of what's happening here? Don't know what's happening at the Trump rallies. And we can criticize them for that.

Speaker 3 Fault them for that. They should be better citizens.
What do you do with them? Do you sort of write them off as like part of the GOP

Speaker 3 problem?

Speaker 3 Or are they gettable? Do you reachable? Do you ever talk to them? Do you make arguments to them? Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't write them off. I think that they're looking.
I think that it's funny. Our people are like in the wilderness.
It's been a flip.

Speaker 2 The question is, what would you have said to the populist right people for all this time, right? They were pro voters. Sometimes they didn't vote.
Sometimes they voted for pro.

Speaker 2 Sometimes they voted for the Republican in the primary. Maybe they thought Bill Clinton might be good for two minutes and then he wasn't, right? Like, I think that's these people now.

Speaker 2 Like, I would look at them and say, that's you. You know, in Georgia, you had kind of two pretty good options.
Neither of them, them, you probably agree with 100%.

Speaker 2 Brian Kemp might be too socially conservative for this imaginary person in the Atlanta suburbs.

Speaker 2 Raphael Warnock is probably too fiscally liberal, but they were two decent options and you can go out there and vote for them and feel good about your vote. They're the best options available.

Speaker 2 They're not perfect. And I think that's kind of your life for a generation.
And maybe the tectonic plates will shift and you should organize.

Speaker 2 And if you find a really good Democrat you like like Jake Auchinclaus, or you find a really good Republican you like like Brad Raffensberger, you should go organize.

Speaker 2 You should go get involved and give them money. And that is, I think, would be my advice.
And with that,

Speaker 2 we've gone so far over. I'm running into my next podcast.
Stephen Hayes, I wanted to give you the last word. Do you have a final word? Why don't you do?

Speaker 2 You should get the last word because you came here. We had a really honest debate.
I certainly found some people in the comments that are unhappy with you.

Speaker 2 So don't read the comments from the people that are unhappy with you. I want to have these conversations and I appreciate you for coming.
So if you have a final word, take it.

Speaker 3 I don't think much about people who are unhappy with me. A lot of of people have been unhappy with me for the last decade.
That's true.

Speaker 2 You're used to it. No, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 I enjoy doing this. I think it's fun.
We'd love to have you do a home and home. So we'll bring you over as things get deeper and deeper into this election year, and we'll do it again.

Speaker 3 Thanks for having me, though. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2 I'd be honored to do a home and home. Thank you, Steve Hayes.
That's the Bullard podcast for Wednesday. We'll see you all back here tomorrow.
Peace.

Speaker 2 Shut down the light, sunset, and leave you.

Speaker 2 Moscow, 1972

Speaker 2 I was singing in my sleep

Speaker 2 I was in bed in my dreams

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions

Speaker 2 for you

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions.

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions.

Speaker 2 I'm making bad decisions

Speaker 2 for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm not gonna give a lot of faith. I don't know how to use my

Speaker 2 kid.

Speaker 2 I can't

Speaker 2 make it easier.

Speaker 2 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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