And go ahead, Peter. Sorry, no, I was going to say,
you're not being here, so I'm just jumping. Ask not what your
country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Mister Gorbuschoff, tear down this wall, read my lips. It is the
Ricochet Podcast. And guess who's joining us tinerant Odessean Peter Robinson. It's me
Rob Long and Steve Hayward, and we are joined by Henry Olsen to talk
about you know what, politics, et cetera. So stay tuned. What
has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong.
I did nothing wrong. Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are
right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of President of the United
States. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is number six hundred and fifty
six, six hundred and fifty six podcast. That's how many we've clocked.
That's crazy. I'm Rob Long coming to you from New York City and join
me is Steve Hayward. Steve is in a very unusual location. Can you
you can disclose it right? It's not unexclosed. I can't. I'm sitting
in John U's office. At Berkeley Law School at this very moment. Where
where is John is he can be? Is he listening in? No,
he's on his way. He may drop in and wave to the screen at
some point during the hour. Well make sure he does no more than that.
Please, let's not yet noon, So there's no reason for John you
to show up. And that voice you heard, which you may not even
remember or recognize, because the voice of my co Recochet co founder Peter Robinson,
who has been on I think quite literally an odyssey theater the longest.
We set our youngest off to college as COVID was hitting. So this is
the first summer when the world has been open since we became empty nesters.
And we traveled. My wife kept saying, what do we do this?
And I in the winter, I say yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,
fine, and lo and behold she stitched it all together. We traveled
more than we ever had before in our married lives. Wyoming, New York,
Greece, to which I'll return in just a moment. Back to New
York, out to the Hamptons, and then a week up in Tahoe which
just ended yesterday. Damn, Grease was fascinating. This is where the Odyssey
comes in that rob was referring to. We spent a day in Athens and
went up to the top of the Acropolis, confusing it with apocalypse for reasons
it will become clear in just a moment, and often here's grease. Was
fascinating because it's Greece, of course, but also because it's a remarkable place
to be an American. Off in the distance there was an aircraft carrier visible,
and the guide said, yes, yes, of course, that's one
of yours. Interesting. Interesting, we have an aircraft carrier you can see
in the Mediterranean from the top of the acropolis. The Brits have two,
the French have one. We have eleven, and one of them sails the
Mediterranean ought more than one from time to time. Then off to the little
tiny island of Potmos, which is much closer to Turkey. It's just two
miles off the coast of Turkey than it is to the mainland, which is
about one hundred and fifty miles away. And there we were staying with very
good friends, lovely wonderful people, both of Greek background, and we met
It turns out that we four were among the few Americans on the island,
so again and again and again. It was Europeans, the European view of
the United States. And there were several older people there who were very pro
American, very pro American, because they could remember remember the help that Harry
Truman. They were children, but they could remember the help that Harry Truman
gave them after the war, when there was a communist insurgency in the north
of the country and a civil war and we helped the good guys win.
That was remarkable that there are still people that was such an event in Greece,
civil war, people being killed, that people who were children at the
time remember it and remain grateful. And then, of course, well the
presidential politics came up again and again. I was not able to enlighten them
because I'm as confused as anybody could be. But Ukraine came up again and
again, and the basic European attitude was, you know, we can't fix
this. When are you going to theory for granted that they would be helped.
No, well, no, no, no, no, excuse me,
I have to say that wasn't this was this was a conversation with a
Frenchman an Italian and Frenchman Italian. And then there was an American who was
just listening and smiling as I took all this in because he knew what was
well, he knew and he knew the European but they simply took it for
granted that it was our job. So which is very strange because if I
have to say, in terms of Ukraine, the French and the Italians,
and especially the Germans, and ultra especially the English, I should say the
British are stepping forward and showing the kind of leadership that we have been wanting
them to show, and the kind of commitment to defense, a defense build
up, in defense buying and defense whatever that we wanted them to show.
In the light of Ukraine. Well, they are stepping forward and beginning to
show a little bit of what we want them to show. The Germans talk
a good game, the English actually play a good game, but they're all
two or three steps behind us. We're right behind you. You go first,
you provide the material real and weapons and advice and intelligence that they really
really need, and then we'll come along and fill in as best we can.
Is roughly roughly the attitude, excuse me, roughly the case. I
think that's a that's a fair representation of the case. Anyway, I suppose
this is a segue into the debate. We have Vivic Ramaswami saying we should
get out of Ukraine. We have Nikki Haley and others saying no, don't
be ridiculous, you have I love Nikki. I don't know why that.
It's not in itself an especially memorable line, but it was a good one
turning to Vivic and saying, you have no experience in foreign policy, and
it shows. All I can tell you is on this little fly speck of
an island where this at the top of the island is a monastery that has
stood there since ten eighty eight. Now, the Byzantine Emperor John Commemnus the
second I'm sure I have that wrong, gave the island. I don't think
what's the second. I think it was. Actually there's a museum in the
monastery where with this long scroll in Byzantine Greek, which is signed at the
bottom in red, only the emperor could sign and read, we were told,
and there's an actual signature of the of the Emperor of the day from
ten eighty eight, and that the island to this day, I was told,
retains a special legal status within Greece. It's a kind of state within
the state. Technically speaking, it's the monastery that runs the whole island,
but it has very thick walls. It's served not only as a religious center,
but as a kind of fortress. So for nine hundred, almost a
thousand years, this island has seen empires rise and fall and pirates attack.
Yet and of course, seven hundred years before that, we have Saint John
taking refuge in a cave. He's an exile during whose persecution Diocletian's persecution of
the Christians, and experiencing the vision that he then writes as the Book of
Revelation. So it's a fly speck of an island, but the sense of
I don't know, talking about Ukraine, talking about American presidential politics, you
get the feeling that the present is only a very thin layer on mound after
mound after mound of history of human There's nothing cooler, I think, historically
than the Mediterranean. All around, every single country that rings that, every
single island in it is just riveting. And can we just I hate to
do this, can we just put a pin in that? Briefly, of
course, we're gonna get back to Mediterranean talk. Although it might make you
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Let's just get into like the politics of it all? Why not? We
are joined by Henry Olson. Henry's been here before, we're welcoming back.
He's a Washington Post columnists senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Listeners need to check out his newly launched podcast series Beyond the Polls, which
I'm sure is going to be burning up for the next nine months, and
that is available of course here on the ricosche Audio Network. All you got
to do is go to Rickie Auto Network and subscribe to it and you will
get it. I think every week Henry can illuminate me on that. Welcome,
Henry Olson, Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me back.
Henry, give us again once again the name of the of your podcast,
your campaign podcast, which is going to be you're going to be recording
from now until somebody wins the darn thing. Yeah, well, it's called
Beyond the Polls. Beyond the Polls. Okay, right, there's nothing beyond
the polls, Henry, what are you talking about? Well, I my
goal here is to evoke thoughts of the original Star Trek, and every episode
we're going to reach for the stars and venture beyond the polls, discovered a
new civilization. Let's hope it's every other week until Thanksgiving. Every other week,
alright, when enough is going to be happening that I think we can
justify listener audience for a weekly podcast, and then it will be weekly all
the way through to election to the end. Okay, so it kicked off.
Let's just I mean, I know, if it's been skirmishing and yelling
and screaming and tweeting and retweeting and all that stuff. But really it just
kicked off this week the Republican primary fight. And I'll just give you my
impression. You tell me how wrong I am. If you shut your eyes
or you didn't shut your eyes, you open your eyes, and you just
ignored the big orange elephant not in the room, and you just looked at
that dais. Those are the Republicans running for president. Assuming all the Republicans
running for president were on that days, it was a pretty good lineup.
I mean, some I like, some I don't like. Some of I
want to be presidents. Would I'm not so crazy about. But by all,
these were not the seven Dwarves. These were not also rans. These
were like some accomplished men and women up there. What am I missing?
You're not missing anything, you know that. Obviously some are stronger than others,
and some are in better position or more experienced than others. But every
one of them had a debate moment, even if some of them were small
moments and others were big moments. And I think the real weak sisters,
she used the old fashioned phrase, were weeded out. You know, we
didn't have a Perry Johnson or Larry Elder, Ryan Brinkley. Those people weren't
on stage, and it really showed there was no Mary Anne Williamson moment to
take it from the bottom up, so to speak. Talking of weeding out,
can we also say that by the end of the debate there really was
no longer any conceivable justification for Asa Hutchinson, a good, kindly accomplished man
but not going to be president and not adding anything to the race. Or
for Doug Bergham, a tremendously impressive businessman to find governor, a major figure
in the state of North Dakota, but this is not his moment. He
started at the wrong level. Senate maybe presidency four years from now, cabinet
position in the meantime, those two should drop out today. Fair So I'll
agree with Asa Hutchinson. He wins the Jim Gilmour Award for the irrelevant.
The only reason I'm not one hundred percent agreeing with Bergham is the guy tore
his achilles tendon that day. So now, if I had the physical stamina
to rip my achilles tendon and show up and not be completely zoned out on
painkillers, I would want to be winnowed into the next round. So I
don't think he's going to win. But if he's willing to spend ten million
dollars of his own money and which is nothing to him, apparently at least
a billionaire, right, yeah, he says he's only a cent a millionaire,
you know. So so my my goal is not my proposed to him
is Okay, you're not a billionaire, you say you're sent a millionaire.
Give me the difference you Actually, I won't call it even. But yeah,
I don't think he's going to be president. But the fact is we
don't know whether he would be a better performer but for the personal accident.
So let's see how he goes in a second. Okay, next one up,
if I may working my way up from the bottom, and then Steve
Hayward has to come in when we get to the really tricky bits. But
this is a question I have to ask, even though it breaks my heart.
Tim Scott, whom I find enormously appealing, impressive in all kinds of
ways, But if he couldn't find a moment to break out in that debate,
is it over for Tim Scott over? No, Because anybody with thirty
million dollars of super pac money and a personal story that has excited you.
Yes, is not over given me? Is what you mean? Henry especially
is that, look, this was unbelievably weak, that this should have been
a moment, where as you say he could have found a moment. The
Washington Post IPSOS five thirty eight joint poll that came out yesterday I had everybody
having some extreme reaction. Some people was negative, like Hutchinson said they lost
the debate. Some people were positive on that, like DeSantis or Nicky Haley.
Scott was notable that he had neither positive nor negative strong react. He
was kind of like, you know, to borrow from Mario Cuomo talking about
Walter Mondale nineteen eighty four. He was the Polenta of this debate. Now,
you know Cuomo after the Mondale campaign said, well, that's kind of
an insulnce. No, Polenta's nourishing, it's a stap ball. No,
it's bland. That's what he meant to Scott was. And you can suffer
problems like the vague Ramaswami, who I'm sure we'll talk about if you show
some charisma. But the worst thing in a debate format like this is to
be planned and Tim Scott was blander than tapioca, blander than tapioca. I'll
jump inner, Henry, and if we have time. By the way,
Henry, I do need to do a Maya kulpa. You were right about
the pitch clock in baseball, and I was wrong, but maybe later,
so acts let's do Vivek. By the way, I understand that's the correct
pronunciation of his name is Vivek, which means it's only a matter of time
before Trump or somebody calls him fake Vavec. It seems to me that's obvious.
I'm getting. I'm sort of getting up to the Trumpian idiom of campaigning.
As you know, Republicans always flirt with the novelty candidate, the outsider
who's even outside of politics, going back at least to Pat you Cannon ninety
two, and often they're front runners for a while, you know, Herman
Kane and twenty twelve and Carson Trump the ultimate outsider, right, And it
looks to me like Vivek is this year's novelty candidate that people are going to
get excited about and then he's going to fade. Is there a scenario in
which that pattern is going to break this time? And he's actually gonna rank
a series run for it. So here's the thing. I tend to agree
with you that Vvek is this year's novelty candidate. I like that, you
know that that approach of categorizing him. But the thing to understand about the
Republican primaries, there's basically three types of voters. The voters who will always
vote for Trump and the voters who will never vote for Trump, and the
voters who could go either way. The people who could go either way right
now are splitting overwhelmingly for Trump. But that's the sweet spot. So the
question for me is can Vevey get the attention of the people who will never
vote for Trump? And the answer is pretty much no, because those are
the remnants of the moderate Bowldguard Reagan night Wing. They want a Mike Pence
and Nicky Haley at Tim Scott. Yes, Peter raises his hands, congratulations.
You are a demographic subgroup. You know you are highly likely not to
want to back Veg because he is not what you are or what you want.
And then you've got the Trumpians And I could see the Trumpians liking him,
but they'll never abandon Donald Trump. So the question is, does vaveg
Ramaswamy have a shot to basically shoot up the middle and get fifty percent of
the people who can go either way against the competition from Ronde Siantis and everybody
else. And I just don't see it. There was a line I feel
bad because it's such a good line, and I did not note whose line
it was. Anyway, was in my Twitter feed and somebody said, somebody
wrote this, and I thought that's it. Vec was new at the beginning
of the debate, but old by the time it ended. Yeah, that's
sure. Yeah, in other words, his manner. I actually i'd like
to ask just pause on this for one moment, because I found him insufferable
almost from the beginning, but certainly by the end, just in personal not
even at the policy level, where I guess I like about half of what
he says or two thirds of what he But even before you get to that,
I just thought, this man is a walking mouth. We've all met,
We've all run into this apple polisher in class, this move trying to
move, just annoying human being. And yet I was watching the debate with
friends, good friends, and a couple of them just love THEVEC. So
we had this strange this guy really want the Barbell reaction? Love him or
hate him? What does that portend, if anything, for his political standing?
Henry? Well, you know the thing is it all depends on who
hates him, you know, is that if the people who hate him are
the people who are never going to vote for him anyway, it's actually a
good reaction because you know, you've alienated the people. You drive people from
moderately against you to passionately against you. But where he needs a breakout moment,
and that means he needs fans. And if getting enemies means you get
fans, and that's the trade off. But if what it is is the
sort of people who would vote for him, maybe the sort of people who
would say I like Trump, I'm looking for an alternative to Trump, they're
kind of looking at the Santa's kind of looking at Scott, and then they
look at the vague and their reaction is, oh, well that's death.
Now. Typical Peter to ask one of these style questions, right, which
broad But I'm going to ask another one, Henry. Now, I didn't
watch the debate because I'm a snob. And if it ain't Lincoln and Douglas
in that format. I'm not showing up, but I've read a lot of
the accounts. I'm I'm only asking you a dumb question, except you'll give
a smart answer to it. Who won or who do you think helped themselves
the most? And why? So? I think I actually tend to agree
with the results of the poll that I mentioned, which is I think de
Santis helped himself a lot. I think he helped himself a lot by being
both forceful and being a reasonable adult in the room. I think Ramaswamy may
have helped himself on the margin because people are talking about it. Again,
the worst thing in the world in a debate like this is to be blander
than tapioca. He was spicier than let's just say cheat him myself to continue.
Yeah, ethnic humor is welcome on this podcast. Hey, he's not
somebody who people are forgetting about, so to that extent it helps him.
He's got a huge road to a huge mountain decline. But that's not bad.
And I think Nicky Haley really helped herself, you know, is that
I think Haley came across as a person who is knowledgeable, a person who
sounds like an executive who can make decisions, and she is more to the
old guard case than the center of the Republican Party once. But to the
extent that they want a fighter who's not irrational, she fits on that.
So. You know, the rumor that was floated by the Haley campaign is
that they had a great online fundraising night in the twenty four hours after the
campaign. You know, great for the Haley campaign, maybe half a million
dollars in one night. Now, it's not like their Trump's money machine,
but I think Haley helped herself as well. Yeah, all right, one
more and then I'll yield floor thought experiment. If I've had shown up,
obviously, it will be a very different debate. H speculate on exactly how
different it would have been, and is that good or bad for the rest
of the field. I'm my head is just thinking we're in two parallel universes
right now, between Trump and the rest of the field, which looks more
normal this abnormal world we've been in since twenty sixteen. Yeah, you know,
Look, I if Trump were the debate, everything would be about Trump,
because if Trump is in the room, it's always all about Trump.
The one thing that I know would have happened, is you would have had
in Mike Pens versus Donald Trump. Yes, and you know, I think
rightly. You know, I was reading online all I worked right for the
Washington Post, and you know I was with conservative commentators live blogging the debate
and even they were asking no questions about Trump and online on Twitter, you
know, where it's much more left wing. It was where There's no question
that's what Republican voters want. They don't want to Caitlyn Collins, congratulations.
I'm going to represent the Acela Corridor and all my questions I actually want to
talk about them. Republicans are focused on rightly or wrongly, but there's no
way we could have avoided on Mike Pence versus Donald Trump. Yeah, and
I don't think Donald Trump wants that. I think as long as Mike Pence
is the reason Pence is so crucial in this and why I hope someday he
will stand up even more than he did on the other night, is Mike
Pence is the only person who can say along with Donald Trump, I lost
right and say I was your running mate, I wanted to win. I
backed you, you backed me, and we It wasn't all square, but
we lost fair and that's why Donald you asked me, you put them you
put yourself above the constitution because literally, you know what Trump is doing in
denying that he ever asked Mike to do that is basically playing word games.
No. I never used the word constitution saying that you should put yourself above
the Constitution. I said you should interpret the Constitution. And I said that
the word or meaning in some bizarre way. Yeah, which means that he
can be able to a professor at Harvard now. But yeah, I don't
think Donald Trump wants that because so that fraud narrative is punctured, right,
Yeah, Republicans will start looking elsewhere. So do you think that? I
mean, I've got a bunch of questions, but I want to because you
gotta be talking about Pence, because I always I've been saying for a year
that Pence is the silver bullet. Pence is I think, the only,
maybe the only living American, certainly the only living American in politics who has
emerged from his relationship with Donald Trump with a shred of his integrity and honor
and manliness. If you really want to get right down to it, intact,
does Donald is Donald Trump got to show up at any of these debates.
I don't think Donald Trump will show up at a debate unless one of
two things had I think he will show up if he starts to plumb it.
Yeah, you know, there's this assumption in the media, and it
may be right. You know, I just have to recognize that this is
something in the media that nothing can be done to bring Donald Trump down until
you start acting like the media has for the last seven years and attacking Donald
Trump. I actually don't agree with that. You know, I think that
we in the Republican Party, to talk to Republican electors, you actually have
to kind of be more sorry than hey, than than hurt phone. You
know, hey, you know sorry, this is happening to you. So
if I were going to deliver the nuclear submarine that'll hit st. Trump below
the waterline, I will do it after Thanksgiving, not when the media wants
me to, which is direct. But if that you know, there were
apparently thirteen million people who were watching the you know, I'm sure disproportionately Republican
primary and caucus stores. If you start to see Trump's numbers go down,
and then after the second debate, you start to see Trump numbers gone down,
then I think Trump comes back. The only other way I see Trump
going on the debate is one and if it does narrow to a two person
rates, then I think he comes back, because if it narrows to a
two person rates, he can lose it. Can I ask you a larger
question for the Republican parties that you mentioned it, because it always seemed to
me the Republican you know, everybody in the party always says, my party's
fill with stupid people, but we can lose, We can bumble any opportunity,
right, Republicans never miss the opportunity to miss the opportunity. But I'm
old, right, I can remember people running for president, and I cannot
remember, as I said, the beginning of dais with four distinguished governors ex
governors of some pretty important states, Mike Pant's governor by VP, Nikky Haley
governor, Chris Christy governor, Roder Sanna's governor, burg of governor. And
this is exactly what Republicans say they want chief executives, conservative chief executives in
various different states. Are the Republicans going to blow this because they're gonna say,
look, we got this a list here and we're gonna go for uh
something else. I mean, how likely is it the Republicans are just going
to blow this opportunity? Added quick addendum to Rob's observation about the impressive standing
of those people. It included a woman, It included two East Asians,
and it included an African American. All right, now, our Republicans been
last week in Iowa, look asking evangelicals, you know where do they stand?
My column about that will come out, so I'm not going to scoop
myself. What i will say is one person was aware of their county to
a degree that I didn't expect. They actually knew that Trump had finished fourth
in that county in twenty sixteen, and they said correctly, and he finished
behind two Latinos in a black men. So, in other words, in
Iowa, in Iowa, right, you could remember Cruise, Rubio and Carson
and now Scott, Scott and Ramaswamy and Haley. The Republican Party electorate has
yet to nominate a non white, but it continues to show itself very open
to non whites in a way that the Democrats, with the exception of Barack
Obama, has yet to show. So. With that. What I would
do is slightly dispute your premise, Rock, which is I don't think the
middle voter wants chief executive. I think they want I think they are not
certain if they want somebody with experience or not that you know, I remember
seeing in the last cycle that you know, if you if you were running
for Congress in a Republican seed, the thing to do is say that you
were a maga fighter in an outsider not having political experience was a plus to
the swing vote of the campaign. It is not a plus to the old
establishment Republican. But you know, news flash, the establishment Republican is now
a minority in the Republican voting primary process in most places, and especially in
deep red places. So so I dispute the premise in that way. The
larger question I was can Republicans blow it? Well? Look, my view
is that it has been for a while that both parties bases continue to push
themselves to victory and going back to nineteen ninety four, by pointing out the
overreach of their opponent, and then they overreach themselves. It's a continuing match
of tennis, where as soon as you break serve, you double fault and
give it back to the the Democrats do it, you know. And so
this is a political version to switch metaphors of who wins the irresistible force or
the immovable object, really which one stops being less incompetent. And we've got
a president with a forty one point six percent job approval rating. Biden is
less approved of today than Donald Trump was at an identical stage in his presidency.
No president in history has one reelection with a job approval rating this love
he gets the benefit of running against somebody if the nominee who is equally unpopular.
And what this means is we run of twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen,
the election came down to the eighteen percent of Americans who didn't like either
candidate, and they've broken the last week to Trump. I call them double
doubt. We now have over a fifth of Americans already who don't like either
of the two leading candidates. So, yeah, the Democrats can promote this
and the Republicans can blow it. So so what you're saying is that that
Republicans will have to work very hard to lose this election, and they're already
at it. So that's a very good Peter so Henry, by the way,
you certainly win a special award for metaphor is the most the richest metaphors.
In ten minutes, we had polenta, chicken massala. Yeah, alright,
alright, So back to the debate. One or two more questions about
the debate, if I may, before we get to and Steve I think
wants to ask about the opposition Joe Biden and so forth. Chris Christie,
you mentioned a moment ago that the press wants somebody to run against Donald Trump,
just the way the press wants him to do so, and Chris Christie's
doing that, And as far as I can tell getting nowhere, I actually
thought Chris Christie had two of the finer moments during the debate. One of
the questions was did Mike Pence do the right thing? On January sixth,
and Ron des Sandis gave this excruciatingly long answer in which he tried to change
the subject and Brett Baer wouldn't let him do it, and then he sort
of grudgingly said, yeah, he did the right thing. And then onto
Chris Christie, who said, Mike Pence did the right thing and he deserves
not just a grudging acceptance, but our gratitude. It was a beautiful answer.
And then at the very end when Chris Christie got that cockam made me
answer question from Martha McCallum about UFOs. If you were president, would you
level with the people? And Chris Christie got a couple of jokes out of
the UFOs and then he said its job of the president to level with the
American people about everything. Beautiful. Okay, So I thought Chris Christie is
really good at this game. He is a man of substance and experience,
but he is positioned himself. There's nothing to him in this campaign. But
he's an attack dog going after Donald Trump and he's getting nowhere? Is that
correct? Or is he saving everything for New Hampshire? Well? I think
this is like ten clover Field Lane. The fact is he John Goodman is
a craze murderer and the Aliens invaded the earth. Both can be yeah,
that Christie is not going he Mike Pants is the second least popular of the
Republican nominee's. About fifty something percent of Republicans have favor of Impression and Chris
Christie is the least popular. He's flip side of that he's like sixty five
percent negative thirty something percent positive. So he is not going to be elected.
The fact is Donald the swing voter is somebody who likes Donald Trump actively,
thinks he was unfairly to targeted, thinks the election was probably stolen.
Isn't concerned about January sixth, But they're willing to look somewhere else. So
Chris Christie's not talking to that book. But Chris Christie is getting support among
moderates and that means he could very well if De Santis fades, he could
very well finished second to New Hampshire. All right, So this brings us
to the big So Chris Christie going nowhere might finish second in New Hampshire if
De Santis fades, which brings us to the big question we haven't addressed.
As of two three months ago, DeSantis looked like overwhelmingly the likeliest opponent to
Donald Trump and in a pretty good position to knock Trump off he went.
He was re elected governor this past November by an enormous margin. He assembled,
as far as I can tell, the most impressive collection of major donors
he was getting. He had a meeting in what Palm Beach or West Palm
of one hundred plus billionaires, as far as I could tell, is roughly
what the guest list amounted to. And he seemed articulate and tough, and
the general formula Donald Trump without the crazy seemed that made a lot of sense
to a lot of us. And he's had nothing but trouble. Question one,
how come? Question two? Did he did he turn himself? Did
he turn himself in the campaign? Around? In the debate? I'll answer
a question too first. I don't think Payne was in as bad a shape
as people think. You know. Is the thing is I look back at
the numbers, is that people tend not to move challengers immediately when they get
into the race, you know. So you take a look, and Barack
Obama and Bernie Sanders didn't suddenly jump up when they got in the race.
Obama pretty much stayed level in national polls for months, even though he was
gaining ground. And Iowa, so I think part of this is the national
media's attempt to renominate Trump so that they can re elect Biden. So they're
downplaying the Santists. And I think he had a very good debate. There
are two snap poles I've seen that Santists was the person who was rated by
viewers as having the best debate in the Washington Post five thirty eight episodes poll,
and he was a snarrow second to the vague and a snap pole conducted
by Teresa May's former polster James Johnson, who is now polling in the United
States. So they're basically within the margin of air of each other a couple
of points. He had a very good debate. I think that the larger
question is why did a drop? And this gets to the question of who's
the decider. Well, after it looked like Trump was a loser, and
before all the indictments came down, the person in the middle, the person
who likes Trump, is willing to consider someone else thought the Santists looked pretty
good. And then the indictments come down, and that drives those people to
want us or their their first choice for now. But then you have what
Trump did. And Trump immediately went after de Santis, and he went after
De Santis on the title notes. And the media doesn't want to notice that,
but the fact is the Republican Party is not Orthodox Ryanite, not orthodox
AEI to refer to my Nste's former employer on this question, they actually would
rather raise payroll taxes and keep benefits. You know, I had a pull
of twenty twenty Trump voters and I asked them, which of these two do
you prefer, even if none is could exactly right, keep Social Security benefits
level even if payroll taxes rise, or keep payroll taxes same even if benefits
have to be got. Trump voters sixty three to thirty seven preferred the level
benefit question. So I think that hurt a lot more to the voters at
the Santas needs. And then you have the third thing, which is you
know that the Santist I think did not have a great start to the campaign.
But the first two things, it's the indictments and it's Trump's attacks on
De Santis. But he's still He's still there. The fact is he is
still in second in Iowa. He performed well in the debate. He is
still in second. In South Carolina. He is second or third in New
Hampshire, a much more moderate state. I saw poland Pennsylvania that had Trump
won fifty seven percent there in twenty sixteen, He's only had by eighteen over
De Santis. De Santis for everything that people are saying, is still the
only standing alternative to Trumps? Did we just spend the last twenty minutes wasting
our time? Is Trump going to be the nominee? Can even Ron De
Santis take him down? Is there really an open endedness to this race or
is it over Henry Well, there's a different queen being over and open ended.
I would still say that there's a seventy percent. I would have said
before the debate there's a seventy five percent chance Trump will be the nominee.
I think I'm down to sixty five or seventy percent because De Santis and a
couple other You know, if there's you know, the fact that Haley easily
outperformed Tim Scott could be an odd game changer, you know, in the
sense that Scott was gaining momentum. But if Scott can't perform well online television,
time and time again, all of the ads, money in the air
and in the world is not going to save him. He may be the
sort of person who ends up at ten percent, which is where he's roughly
follow right now. So I think it's still overwhelmingly favorite. The thing is,
I'll tell you an anecdote that's going to make it into my piece,
not scooping, but give you an indication. I'm sitting in the air talking
with average Joe Republican evangelicals and we're talking, talking, talking. I say,
one of the guys said, you know, we haven't had a chance
to look at the Alternative show, and I said, oh, so you're
going to watch the debate next week. They didn't know the debate was taking
place. Yeah, the median primary voter did not tune into the debate.
The median primary voter is not following the inslot. They will do it when
the election starts to get closer, and that's when I don't know. Yeah,
I see all of us political junkies, we follow these things at the
gray level. And forget that point that you has made, Henry. But
can I change the subject, in part because it turns out that DeSantis has
swim in the polls. Happened almost immediately after I went down to Florida to
spend a day talking to him. So it might be my fault without Ryan.
Okay, I got it. You don't mean Paul Ryan. I know
the Ryan you mean. All right, I want to talk about the other
side of the street, the other team. You know, I remember doing
research years ago and finding the story in the New York Times from around January
first, nineteen sixty eight, where the chair of the Democratic Party said,
we've got our nominee. It's Lynda Johnson. The Republicans are the ones who
have all the problems. Well, we know how that story turned out.
And so at this point in nineteen sixty seven, as you probably know,
on the Republican side, George Romney wasn't tied or ahead of Richard Nixon.
And so we know how that story turned out. So you know the old
Mark Twain line that he actually never said that history doesn't repeat itself. It
rhymes. I look at Biden and I say, he's going to pull a
Lyndon Johnson or they're going to have to affect that kind of outcome. He's
going to have to go. How likely do you think that is? And
do you have one or two plausible scenarios about how that happens? Okay,
So here one, everyone on the Democratic Party knows that he's too old.
The polls show that Democratic voters. Yeah, but depending on the poll,
between the third and a half of Democratic voters say he's too old. He's
got two nobodies, and he can't break seventy percent in the polls. So
here's my three scenarios. One is, the guy is eighty If Mitch McConnell
can have a brain freeze on camera because of a health condition that's not necessarily
debilitating, but reminds you that Mitch McConnell is eighty one years old, Joe
Biden has that he's toes it just it's it is when George H. W.
Bush got sick in Japan and threw on the dial, right, it
wasn't a serious health risk, but it fed into a growing narrative that he
was kind of not in control. Or when George Romney got brainwashed. George
Romney got brainwashed. That's right. You never know what's going to happen.
So that's the first scenario that I don't think is implausible. I'm not,
you know, twenty percent chance that he has some sort of on camera,
off camera health reverse that just can't be ignorant. Second thing, let's not
talk about in nineteen sixty seven. Let's talk about in nineteen ninety one pp
people in George H. W. Bush, right, got people who wanted
an alternative to him. All of the people who thought they had a future
in politics said no, I'm not taking on a sitting president after he doesn't
want a war. You freaking nuts. And it takes a media person who
wants to make a name for himself to jump in the race. So I
look, and I say, where's this racist jip Puchanic. You're gonna say
Rachel Maddow, aren't you. I've said Rachel madd out before. Are you?
Maybe that hurt you because she would be the Well, if you listen
to my podcast, you've heard me because I mentioned that's it. Yeah,
but look, that's the sort of thing. I mean, she's probably making
too much money. But what about an Ashy Valley. You know, somebody
with some credibility in the progressive base who's thirty or forty years younger, who
says, look, we just can't have Grandpa, you know, do this
anymore. And you know what's the incentive. The fact is the Progressive Women
of the Democratic Party has no obvious national leader for twenty twenty eight. It's
not going to be the vice president because they never trust her to begin with.
The shop As funny as it is, the real progressives don't trust Kamala
Harris and Bernie and Elizabeth of Aged Now. So I look at this and
s this is a huge market opportunity for an entrepreneur to come in and make
themselves either the candidate or the list broker. And it just strikes me that
when there's one hundred dollar bill on the ground, sometimes people ignore it and
sometimes somebody picks it up. So the filing deadlines are in November, and
so we've got two months for the path Buchanan scenario. And then you've got
the third scenario, which is wildly implausible, but I like to tell it
so, which is, let's say you're Joe Biden, your self aware,
you know you're too old. Okay, let's say you are Joe Biden and
yourself aware, and you also know that dropping out of the race will tear
your party apart. Because Kamala hasn't established yourself. You can't clear the field.
You'll have seven or eight candidate. You will have a race that makes
the Republicans look like sesame strip. So what do you do? You freeze
the field right right, you get the delarates and then on August first,
after the Republicans have made your nomination, but three weeks before the convention,
you say that a recent my doctor, my annual physical tells me that unfortunately
my health is declined in the last sixty days. I didn't know. Yeah,
And then what you do is try and stage manage a convention that is
now completely staffed with your loyalists. So that is the implausible. But third
way that this happens that they actually know he can't run again, and this
is all kabuki theater, and that stage convention nominates whom well, I think
that depends who they see as the nominee. If it's Trump, it might
be somebody, right. And also you've been seeing this constant effort to try
and reboot Kamala three point zero. I think Joe Biden would like to go
out having endorsed a black female as his successor. But I see he has
to be able to beat whoever it is. And so I think she's got
like eight or nine months under this implausible but the last few years sailable to
Hollywood scenario that you know, if she's sitting on July thirty first, and
she hasn't turned it around in some way, then I think it's more likely
that he goes in another direction in which case, you know, it could
very well be that he gives a list of three or you know, I
think if I were him and it wasn't going to be Kamala, I think
he's got to choose between Whitmer and Newsome. The only reason that it's not
a good idea to put both of them on the ticket is there's not a
minority. But you know, if you say it's Newsome Witmer, Witmer Newsom,
Newsom would probably not like that. I could see take it that way.
So you take governor from the biggest state, which is twenty percent of
it's needed, and the governor from the next day which is five or ten
percent, and the informative president and all the super delegate. That's the way
I would do it. So I know we got to rap Henry, but
I just I just want to ask you this question. Are the Democrats in
this ridiculous position right now because we in general and the politics, but the
people at the top of the ticket treat the vice presidency like it's a marketing
ploy rather than what it's supposed to be, which is somebody who could actually
step into Put it this way, if if if Biden's vice president had been
anyone competent or anybody you know, reasonably accomplished, he wouldn't be in this
trouble. And the Democrats between in this trouble. Isn't this really just because
they just treat this The second part of the ticket is kind of a way
of you know, marketing and segmenting and too clever by half kind of audience
getting Well, clearly they did that. But what I'd say is, why,
how is this any different? You know, like, why is it
that Dwight Eisenhower thought it was a great idea to put a first term US
senator who hadn't finished their second year yet as his vice president. The name
of Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon is Richard Nixon is thirty nine years old when
he joins the ticket Richard Nixon. One of my favorite moment old clips is
if you go back and look at on YouTube, there's this moment where they
do the old hands above the podium and Richard Nixon is so excited that six
years after he was a discharged lieutenant JG. He's standing on the stage as
the partner of the greatest man in mythology that he's literally pointing to his hand
with a grin on his faith. Look at me, look at me.
Yea, let's bring Nixon moment, by the way, next moment. Yeah,
So you know, it's like spirou Richard Nixon said, said, you
know, I've got all the people in the entire country, all these distinguished
governors and senators, but this unknown county executive of Baltimore County and a two
year governor of Maryland, he's the best qualified. It's always been about this,
but yeah, this time, yeah, this time they what the thing
is that I think they thought. I think Biden thought that she was better
than she is. Yeah, that's right. The failed campaign should have clued
them in. But I think Biden wanted Amy Klobuchar, but she defend herself
against the insinuations of racism, and that left him with no choice but to
choose in African American. And then you take a look and it's her,
Corey Booker, and who would you choose? Yeah, right, yeah,
point made, Henry. Thanks for joining us. Once again. I'll remind
people the podcast is called Beyond the Polls. It is available right here on
the Ricochet Audio Network. It's going to be every other week until the burner
goes on too high, and then it's going to be every week until we
until we either close up shop or we uh or we we successfully annoint a
new president. Thanks joining us. We'll see we'll see you, uh,
I know we'll see you quite soon. Great well, thank you for having
me back, Henry. Thank you so much. Beyond the polls. If
you love politics, you'll love Henry Olson. Thanks Henry. So this is
just like a t I felt like we were just like you know how it
is when you're you know, you go to the You're in a fancy hotel,
but buffet, I don't know how you do, and you're gonna walking
to your hope, you're walking to your your table, and you pass all
the French buffet stations as a guy gouts in indulgion waffles and all that stuff,
and you just think, oh my god, I can't wait to stand
and eat everything. That's kind of what we just did for this if you
if you love this stuff for the next year or so. We just had
kind of the little walk through the buffet. And I know we're late,
so I'm just gonna I'm gonna go right to it. By the way,
if you are listening to this podcast and you are a fan of sa Ricochet
Audio Network. That's where Henry's a podcast appears and this one too. You
should go to ricchet a common join Ricochet. We'd love to have you be
a member of Ricochet. We do all of this stuff. We do have
great conversations online a lot of great people. We also do in real life
IRL meet it meetups. There's one August twenty eighth in Montgomery, Alabama that's
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would not miss Paul Raised lecture at the air Work College. He is spectacular,
spectacular speaker, thinker, and a longtime ricochet a member and contributor.
Labor Day weekend in Cookville, Tennessee, there's going to be a whiskey tour
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in Cookville, Tennessee. Come and go to Rick schet to common find out
more about it. And then if this is two, this is too soon.
The notice is too soon. We got a long one for you long.
Oh, you got plenty of notice of this one April eighth in Texas,
Ricochet is gonna meet up to look at the eclipse. So market calendars
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course, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. Stop, we
don't have it yet, but it's it's it's happening. It's gonna it's happening,
and we don't want We know one thing that's gonna happen on April eighth,
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It's gonna be a Ricochet meet up where exactly somewhere in Texas, you know,
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we too show up. So ricocheta com. Please join now before we go.
I wanted to just I want to just get my licks in right now.
Bad new, ridiculous news. This is why I think that that run
De Santist may may experience a surge. Masks, gentlemen are back. No,
no, no, no, no, there is an uptick in COVID
nineteen or some variant or something. I no longer pay attention to those things
yet, and they are you know, for instances, is a college Atlanta
saying no parties or large student events on on campus for the next two weeks.
The studio lions Gate in Santa Monta, California. I know that,
see you very well. I know the people run that. They are now
requiring all employees to do self screening for COVID daily before running the office.
And I think a mask mandate is on its way. Have I thoroughly depressed
you? No? I mean no. This is good for De Santists.
This is all I care about at the moment. This is good for De
Santists. That's actually not that great for Trump, he'd but Desands is the
one. As you know, our friend Jay Botcharia got a call out of
the blue one day. I am deeply aware of this because I happened to
stop by Jay's office for our two or three time weekly jabber the day after
it happened, and the man on the other end of the line was the
governor of Florida, and they talked for something like three hours, and Jay
said, I have never talked to anybody, even at the Stanford Medical School,
who was as well versed in the research. He's read all the papers,
he knows more. And Ron Desanders refused to shut dat wealth. There
was a moment when he shut it down, but then as he's got into
it, the open California right back up. By the way, he give
credited right. I was criticized by the sitting the sitting president for doing so.
Trump took him to task for doing it. By the way, Rob,
why is it that you would know so much about this well? As
you know, Peter, I'm working on a long form podcast about and I
really thought to myself, I'll be honest with you, I'm not I'm mad
the COVID's coming back because I just think, I know, I can't keep
adding stuff to this. I gotta like get it's gotta be smaller. And
uh, we're talking about it again, and I feel like what I was
hoping to do is to create a kind of an eight chapter audio series where
if you could listen to it at your leisure and you could store it in
your people could listen to it in ten years and it would be a snapshot
of what we went through to never go through again. And it seems like
we're going through it again. Can I just ask this sort of an overall
question about that your project? How are you This is the first we've talked
about this for years and now Rob Long is actually doing it a long for
a serial podcast. Why do you like the medium? How are you enjoying?
It's great. It's a lot of fun because you can kind of like,
uh, you know, you meet people, you think, oh,
can I kind of call you up and just record I kind of ask you
those questions again, and you can kind of like you quilt it together,
so you get all this audio, get all this audio. You know,
I got tons now hours and hours, and I'm getting more and more hours.
I have to wait. Some of it's being delayed because of people are
running around in August. And then you stitch it together. It's easier and
easier to do now with all this like AI technology, frankly, it's amazing.
Put it this way. When I started, we were doing another podcast
and we had a bunch of about China, and we have a bun We
have hours and hours of interviews, and I had to go to get them
transcribed, right, I had to go to get a transcription service. And
this is Look, this is like nine months ago, barely nine months ago,
of cost a thousand dollars per hour or no, no, just for
all all you know, but a lot right now it's AI, doesn't it
for free? About fifteen? So yeah, so it's pretty great. And
then you gotta get I edited the audio and you get to get music in
it. It's gonna be really great. It's gonna be a real story.
And I was hoping would have a happy ending. But now I'm worried that
it's it's really just a stay tuned for the sequel, but maybe not.
Maybe be if we all we all remember it's still pretty raw. We remember
the disaster of our response to COVID almost entirely wrong in almost every realm.
Let's hope that cooler has prevailed. Rob. I know we're running along,
but but I would be remember you're talking about catastrophe, which puts me in
the mind of the rise and fall of Empires, which reminds me that at
the top of the show you said there's no place in the world as interesting
as the Mediterranean. Put a pin in that. We come back to the
pin and closing, well, I just feel like, oh, I guess
what. I just love talking about it. I can talk about so I
spent I've been. I's been in Spain. I was in Spain last week,
as in may Orca, and then earlier the summer I was in the
south of France, and last summer I was in Tunisia. And this is
typical rob By the way. Yeah, it's like this. You could be
everywhere you go, right everywhere you go, you see some weird you're sailing
around the black and then oh, what's that? That's a crusader for it.
Now, I don't know what the crusaders joining my Orca there they were.
I thought you were gonna say, everywhere you go you find a sign
that says rob Long was here. That's right, right, right, Yeah,
I wish I have a feeling that with set sets, so you know,
the summer's over, let's we gotta like get back to work, speaking
it back to work. This podcast was brought to you by Ball and Branch,
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