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So let's roll it. Shall we
shall we do it? Let's do it

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all right? Ask not what your
country can do for you, ask what

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you can do for your country.
Mister Garbitschaw, tear down this wall.

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It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson
and Rob Long. I'm James Lilax and

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today we talk to Jim Garrity about
what's going on and what will happen in

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Iowa. Let's have ourselves a podcast. We are just days away from the

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Iowa Caucasus and dangerously cold temperatures could
affect turnout on Monday night. But you

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have to ask islanes, do they
really want to head out that night when

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the windshill will be twenty below zero? Sounds cornty not a joke, think

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about it. We all these truths
to be self evidence. Oh man and

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women created by go you know the
thing. Welcome everybody. This is the

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Ricochet Podcast and this is episode number
six seventy four. I am James Lylax.

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And also so I am emphasizing words
for some reason. I have no

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idea why. But here is Rob
Long and there is Peter Robinson. Gentlemen,

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welcome, Thank you. James,
I am here. Good nice to

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hear that that was the very pointed. Somebody pointed out that guys in the

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NFL when they're giving their college affiliation
for some reason. Now now we're saying

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the University of Minnesota, somebody started
it, and it's it's spread to all

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of them. Speaking of spreading,
here we are with the latest iteration of

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our interminable war with Iran, which
will not end until they light off a

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nuke and then the Israel converts them
to smoking glass and is castigated for doing

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so at the International Criminal Justice Court. We have hit the hoofies enough sufficient,

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too late. Well, it's early
here in California, so I haven't

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read the accounts in detail. But
as I went to bed last night,

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the news was that they had attacked
us. They they're Iranian practic proxies,

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but they had attacked bases in which
American soldiers were based. They had attacked

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America. They had attacked bases that
Americans are using, or have used,

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or plan to use throughout the Middle
East, Iraq, Syria and shipping over

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one hundred and thirty times, and
we had scarcely answered. So the idea

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that we have replied strikes me as
obviously necessary. Whether we did it well,

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I don't have. First of all, I'm not a military mastermind,

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but I haven't even read the papers
this morning to form it to begin forming

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a judgment on that. But we
had to hit back. We had to.

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Well, it's the whole point of
the US military. I mean,

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the ultimate beginning of the US military
was to protect trade routes. Right,

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That's why them we have marines.
Correct, the hallsitary winner though has to

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be you know, once again Mohammed
bin Salmon, the leader of Saudi Arabia,

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right, because they've been they were
fighting the hoodies for who thies,

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not the huties, the Hutus,
right, the Hutus are in pro Miranda

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seas or one who does the season
and then who this are somewhere else,

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but not that far. Actually,
they were fighting them for years. We

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told them to stop because they were
they were doing it too brutally, I

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guess, and then we said,
oh, well we'll do it. It

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could have been, you know,
the Houthis could have been already occupied by

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a war with Saudi Arabia, which
we didn't want them to have. So

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so far twenty twenty four is doing
is going very well for Mohammed Ben Solomon.

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That's all I can say. He's
getting what he wants. He he

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is earning, I think, earning
some kind of credit for the fact that

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the potentially incendiary war, wider incendiary
war in the Middle East, in Israel

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and Gaza, is not actually spreading. I mean, there's always like the

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threat of it, but it's been
ninety days now and hasn't done it yet.

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It could, of course, with
my luck, it'll happen this afternoon.

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But you know, it does it. It does show you that the

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foreign policy is really, really hard, and that the Biden administration is really

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really bad at it mostly, and
that the world is a really dangerous place,

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and it equation to have some smart
people back I think, or even

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just to have the people who are
already there in place. I mean,

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the questions this raises about the chain
of command. We have a president who

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is to put it lightly, a
little on the aged side. We have

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a vice president who how do we
put this? I leave that one to

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you. Rob will circle back to
you to put it politely. And as

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we have a secretary of Defense,
thank you, James. Then we have

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a secretary of Defense who checked him
into the himself into the hospital. We

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now note that it was to treat
complications arising from prostate surgery. Prostate surgery

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is not life threatening but can be
mighty unpleasant, and it does involve surgery

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deep inside the body. And he
was out for four days, and nobody

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seems to have been exactly aware of
where he was or what he was doing.

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And his deputy Assistant Secretary Secretary of
Defense was in Puerto Rico on a

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vacation, which she did not interrupt
when she became acting secretary of all of

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this matters, because of course the
commanders in theater have wide discretion. But

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as I say, the Huthis had
been attacking US and international shipping for weeks

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now, and the commanders must have
had battle plans. They must have drawn

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up the plans. Clearly there had
to be something going down the chain of

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command. And the old saying that
a chain is only as strong as its

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weakest length. There we have right
at the top, Commander in Chief,

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Secretary of Defense. The links aren't
even in place. It just astonishing to

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me. Yeah, I mean that
that is the first order of business for

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the United States military is to secure
the trade routes in the world. Right,

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That's what else is kind of you
know, it's got other things it's

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doing. It's also not doing,
but that is one of its central missions.

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The idea that this was the idea
that you would you would not anticipate

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all these different possibilities and plan for
them, right, is kind of weird

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to me. And it's not as
if, well, you know, world's

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kind of quiet these days. You
know, they're getting in around ten,

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leaving her at five point fifteen,
take it on an hour lunch. No,

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it's the world is actually more inflamed
now that it's been in twenty years.

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I'll tell you here's a little anecdote
about the way these things go.

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This goes goes all the way back
to the first couple of years of the

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Reagan administration and Wimar Kardaffi and Libya
had been acting up. As you know,

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he had bombed a disco, killing
many American soldiers in Germany. We

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knew it was Kadafi, all right. Our military drew up plans to retaliate

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to I can't remember exactly what it
was now at this stage, but I

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think we were going to embargo,
we were going to interrupt shipping to his

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support and we expected trouble from the
Libyan Air Force. They had it all

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planned out, they had it all
figured out. But and Edmee was present

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in the Oval office. He's the
one who told me this story. The

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military wanted to make sure that the
commander in chief understood what they were about

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to do and approved the rules of
engagement. So a map gets rolled out

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across the President's desk. They show, here's the med, here's a Libyan

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airspace. And the question was,
mister President, do we have your permission

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if they attack us? Do we
have your permission to pursue them back into

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Libyan airspace? And Ronald Reagan said, you have my permission to pursue them

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back into their damn hangars. All
right. They needed to hear that from

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the commander in chief. I just
can't imagine how how these conversations are taking

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place in this administration where the Secretary
of Defense is checked himself into the hospital

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without telling anybody, and the president
is slow. It's a strange time.

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It's very strange time. I mean, I think, I think, I

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mean my sort of over actually you
know, metaphor here or the theory I'm

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working on is that we we we
have been uh, we have treated all

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of us. I mean both sides
and both positions have treated kind of the

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the role of government and what it
can do and what it can't do,

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and what we should be doing kind
of frivolously. It's this is a product

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of incredible wealth and decades, which
is good. These are good things.

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You're a high class problem to have, but we need to get serious.

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One of the problems with the Biden
administration is that it is the and I'm

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getting in trouble for you, but
we didn't like dan Quayle. But it

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is the the epitome of a frivolous, pointless, meretricious vice president meretriciously arrived

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at vice presidential choice. The goal
of the vice president is a stupid job.

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The idea is to be a competent
person who provides no political competition for

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his boss, but is nevertheless qualified
to be president at a moment's notice.

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And for the past many, many
cycles it has been treated by clever pundits

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who think they know things and by
candidates who think they know things. It's

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like, well, this is how
I'm going to appeal to my bay.

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I'm going to do this and that
I'm going to get. These are the

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people which of course never happens,
never ever happens an election day, and

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instead what they end up with is
a person that most people are nervous will

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become president of the United States.
And that is unacceptable on any level,

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but especially when the president's nine hundred
and seventy five years old, or alternatively

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is four hundred and seventy five pounds
and looks terrible right that, It's just

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not how it's supposed to go.
I mean, Mike, I mean to

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Trump's defense Mike Pence, who is
far more conservative than I am, and

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who I would love to have been
president of the United States so I could

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oppose his policies, was ready to
be president, I think I would say.

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I mean, does anybody want to
see a picture of Kamala Harris in

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the situation room, like looking at
that monitor, you know, like that

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famous photograph of Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton Secretary Hill Cleek watching the the osam

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Bin laden Assas killing in real time? Anybody want to see Kamala Harris there?

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I mean, I don't think Democrats
don't want to see you there.

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It doesn't not a partisan thing.
It's just that she's not qualified to president.

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The president's nine hundred years old,
and that when everything's great and doing

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good and everybody's happy, I guess
you can get by right, like we

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all do sometimes when times are good. But it's dangerous. Now. These

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are real jobs. It's serious.
It depends really what you think the job

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of the president is. And a
lot of the people on the other side

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of the aisle, I believe,
think that the job is destroyed. Manfully

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down White House Corridor is spouting Aaron
Sorkin dialogue. You know, they just

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have this, you know, that's
basically it about doing the right thing and

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act like Martin Sheen and that everything
somehow takes care of itself because the government

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is staffed with government people who are
good at what they do and smart at

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what they do and have the right
instincts and all the rest of it.

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But Rob's right, I mean,
you have a tremendous amount of wealth and

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a bacchanalia of job seekers who just
sort of inhabit their space without doing much

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of anything. Now, the good
part about this, I would like to

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think, I would hope to think, is that you don't have the Secretary

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of Defense doing the map spreading and
saying, here's what I want you guys

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to do. You have the people
who who design and execute these things put

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it up the chain until here's what
we would like to do, and then

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it's approved and so forth. So
the fact that we didn't have the sec

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death right there in the office monitoring
this doesn't really bother me that much.

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I tend to think that there's enough
competence in place to be able to run

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this. You know, they get
a thumbs up and they go, But

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who gives the thumbs up? Who
gives the thumbs up? If the secretarity

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defense is non secretary presidents out to
lunch, well that's that's my point.

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Thumbs up. I think you're right, and they will get a thumbs up

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from the president or the person who's
handling his calls, or whoever is in

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charge of putting something in front of
him that that day for you know,

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to wipe the pudding off the corners
of his mouth and get a you know,

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an okay to do this. But
what I worry about more than any

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of the stuff that you were talking
about before is the lack of that Reagan

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esque will to go to follow them
back to the hangers because you know,

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we're all about sending a message.
We're all about showing them that we're serious,

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and don't you do this again or
this is We're going to come over

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and we're going to spank you lightly
across the botocks one more time. We

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spanked you harder the left one last
time. We're going to spank you a

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little bit harder in the right the
next time. Follow them back to the

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hangers is something that we haven't done
for a very long time. And the

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hangers aren't where they are. The
hangers are in Tehran, correct, and

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nobody is. But nobody is ever
going to say, well, you know,

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we've got to take this back to
this. Nobody will so again that

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that concerns me. The lack of
hanger following concerns me more than the lack

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of hanger following right now. Is
is A is A is a function of

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the American people. I mean the
American people do not want another work,

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They do not want to go to
war where they ram, they do not

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want this. Well they will they
will when something else happens here. And

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it goes back to the late too
late, I mean maybe not. I

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mean, I who knows we invaded
a raq no reason the far and away

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leader for the Republican nomination is I
mean, and I agree with him.

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He's an articulate spokesman against American military
intervention abroad and an inarticulate spokesman too,

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both of those kinds of spokes He's
both those kinds. So the I mean

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I am a I mean, the
answer is two ways. I'm also kind

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of a you know, corny traditionalist. I think I like the idea that

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the president of the United States is
sort of a citizen's job in general,

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and the citizen is a commander in
chief, and that the Secretary of Defense

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and the Secretary of War whatever it
was was back of the day, was

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confirmed by the Senate, so it
was confirmed by a democratic process. And

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I like the idea that two people
who are accountable directly to representatives and voters

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make these decisions. I think that's
a good thing. And when it's sort

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of outsourced to sort of well,
the sect deaf. The guy who was

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confirmed by the Senate, he was
he was under prop the fal he was

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anesthetized at the time, and the
president is sort of a who knows where

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he is at any point, So
it was like the under Secretary of something

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or the whatever, the guy running
Sentcom who kind of agreed that this seems

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like a bad move for everybody involved. That if I was at Sencom,

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I would say, who WHOA,
We'll wake the Secretary of Defense up.

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I'm not doing this until I get
exactly exactly I mean, if you put

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yourself in the position of the captain
of the gerald Ford the or the admiral

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who's in charge of the fleet there
in the Eastern Mediterranean. We have two

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carrier groups in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The situation is dangerous. It's really dangerous.

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The Biden administration lifted the sanctions against
Iran. That means that Iran has

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for some three years now been selling
billions and billions of dollars worth of oil

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there. Their treasury is full to
overflowing. We also know that Iran has

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the most developed drone program on the
planet. They've been selling military drones to

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the Russians that the Russians have been
using to counter the drones in Ukraine.

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We know that the Huthis and has
Belah in the north of Lebanon, the

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Huthis down south of Saudi Arabia,
and we've got the Hamas fighting back Israel.

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We're tied down in Ukraine. The
Chinese are making our violating Taiwan's airspace

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every single day. Now you're a
commander, you know that you're Our bases

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00:16:41,240 --> 00:16:45,919
and international shipping have been attacked one
hundred and thirty times in recent weeks,

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and you think to yourself, will
if we're here, we'd better defend ourselves.

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But if we defend ourselves, this
may happen. That may happen,

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and the other may happen, and
things may start. Now I want to

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know whether the commander in chief is
aware of all this before I push the

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It just seems to me that those
guys who are in the theater making decisions

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saying we could do this, and
we could do this, and we can

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do this right, but do you
know what might happen? Do you understand

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how dangerous this is? And there's
no answer. There's no answer coming back

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to that question. I would think
it's also kind of a general muddle about

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the way the American military is supposed
to work. I mean, correct,

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they fired on US ships, so
they have to So there's really there can't

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be much debate that needs to be
an incredibly vigorous, incredibly, incredibly effective

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response, right because there's a direct
American interests. But I feel like we

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have this kind of muddle right now
in the administration, maybe in the country

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in general, about what the American
interests are. And I suspect that if

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you ask, you know, you
pick a random person and you don't even

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need to know what their party affiliation
is. But most Americans think if they

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had a list things they would say
that the America buility is supposed to do.

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Is the one protect the borders of
the tree, and two protect American

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interests abroad narrowly defined as sort of
commercial interests rights, our ships. And

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then you know, we get a
debate about the three numbers three through one

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hundred, but the numbers one and
two are pretty much there's a consensus there.

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There's even a constitutional consensus there.
And it doesn't seem like the Biden

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administration's aware of certainly not aware of
the poor problem. And there's particular confusion

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in the Democratic Party because there were
many Democrats. Okay, whatever her name,

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Alexandra the Squad, I never have
been able to pronounce her name,

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00:18:37,680 --> 00:18:40,480
and I keep hoping that she'll disappear, so I won't have to learn it.

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But the squad would say, wait
a minute, we're only getting fired

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at because we're there, and we're
only there because we're there to support Israel,

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and we think Israel is in the
wrong, not in the right.

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So instead of attacking Iran, let's
bring the navy home. That that is

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a very strong position in the Democratic
Party, that the Democratic Party isn't just

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muddled split. That's that complicates things
for these I was seeing it on the

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right as well. I was seeing
people say, you no, you know,

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we've got no we have none of
the goods that are good, that

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are that are going through that area
are headed to the US. So it's

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not our deal, which is blinkered
and short sighted. You look at all

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the things that are having to go
around the Horn, a lot of China

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that's going to be a lot more
expensive by the time they get over here.

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Before we go any farther, I
want to leap back a few minutes

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00:19:26,799 --> 00:19:30,440
here and ask and point out Rob
just said that we invaded Iraq for no

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reason. I don't agree with that. Now you can disagree with the reasons,

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but we had a lot of them. I mean, the world had

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changed significantly in a blink of an
eye, all of a sudden, we

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had been you know, we've been
dealing with a lot of Islamic terrorism for

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fifteen twenty years. We'd seen them
try to blow up the World Trade Center

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before by you know, truck bombs
in the basement, and all of a

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sudden, there was just a rotten
branch approach just that we're done with these

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guys. This is I'm sorry,
you're over. We're going to take them

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out of Afghanistan, and then we're
going to take out Iraq because Iraq had

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chemical weapons, which everybody had known
for fifteen twenty years. Could they've been

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using them? Because Sadam Hussein was
a bad actor, because he was in

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an open ended conflict with the United
States that involved constantly firing on our planes

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in the no fly zone and plotting
to kill presidents. You know, he's

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a bad guy. Finished that off
and then have a base there with Iran

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encircled was the idea. That was
the second I mean, Iraq was the

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second campaign of this new war.
So I wouldn't say that we didn't have

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a reason. I don't think it
was some spasmodic reaction that had nothing to

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do with reality. I think there
was a strategic decision there that would encircle

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Iran and help facilitate a turn over
there. I mean, so, am

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00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:48,680
I wrong? Oh No, I
think that's probably a fair assessment of their

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00:20:48,799 --> 00:20:56,000
justifications for it. I think those
justifications were ultimately foolish, because the truth

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00:20:56,079 --> 00:21:00,000
is that you foolish or just plain
mistake, simply mistake. Well. I

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00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:04,079
mean I think that they they they
had an idea about the world is that

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00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:08,119
it's a game of risk in which
the pat you move the pieces around instead

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00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:12,119
of was sort of messy and noisy
and horrible. Now I say this,

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I mean, I am a very
good friend of mine is an Iraqi,

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00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:26,160
very smart guy, runs a wonderful
organization. Uh, And he argues really

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00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:30,960
passionately and kind of convincingly that Iraq
is much much better off now that it

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00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:33,359
was before. That may be true. I'm not sure that it was worth

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00:21:33,519 --> 00:21:41,640
the treasure and the American blood to
do to go in there and and to

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00:21:41,720 --> 00:21:45,640
do that, I think you wanted
it more than I don't think we made

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00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:49,000
the world safer necessarily. I'm not. I'm not, I'm I'm I'm decoupling

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00:21:49,039 --> 00:21:55,039
Iraq and Afghanistan I'm not sure we
had a choice with Afghanistan, but I

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00:21:55,039 --> 00:21:57,839
think Iraq we had a choice,
And I think the downside of that is

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that you end up when something kind
of ends up in a muddle and not

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00:22:03,359 --> 00:22:07,960
a w but a question mark.
You end up with a nation of both

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00:22:07,000 --> 00:22:15,240
both Republicans and democrats on both sides
who are queasy and unwilling to make them

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00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,240
stands when they should. So what, you know, you can't fight everywhere.

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It wasn't perhaps that we had to
go. I mean, yes,

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we had to go into Afghanistan.
What was a choice was attempting the nation

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00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:29,799
build and in the aftermath, yes, the attempt to take this big mess

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00:22:29,839 --> 00:22:33,960
of a place and tie it together
with freeways and air conditioning units and conducting

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00:22:33,039 --> 00:22:37,799
fried chicken and call them a nation. As with Iraq, I remember when

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00:22:37,799 --> 00:22:41,119
we had rumsfeld on and asked him
more than a debatification was a mistake,

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00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:45,720
and if you remember, he said
that it's a very good question, and

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00:22:45,759 --> 00:22:48,319
he didn't really have an answer for
it. In both cases, if we'd

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00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,279
gone in toppled, installed our kind
of strong man instead of trying to remake

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00:22:52,319 --> 00:22:56,960
them into Western style democracies, he
might have had more success. That's a

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00:22:56,960 --> 00:23:00,880
bit condescending to say that a rock
can't be you know, like the rest

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00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:03,799
of the countries. But hey,
that's you know, you might have you

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00:23:03,839 --> 00:23:06,119
might have had success. But I
guess what I would say about that is

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00:23:06,160 --> 00:23:11,000
that while that may be true,
it has never occurred in human history,

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00:23:11,559 --> 00:23:15,519
so it would be the first time
that that ever happened. Maybe it could

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00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:18,640
whatever happened, I'm not following exactly. You invade a country, install a

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00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:23,119
leader of your choice, and that
leader runs the country for a while successfully.

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00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,039
It just doesn't seem like that's a
very good plan. Well, South

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00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:30,720
Korea, Japan, West Germany,
and West Germany. Yeah, there's a

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00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:37,119
couple of different from from invading a
country like Iraq and then installing a leader.

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00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:41,599
That wasn't really what we did.
They had. We pretty much installed

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00:23:41,599 --> 00:23:45,440
the South Korean guys. South Korea
wasn't a democracy until a dozen fifteen nine.

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00:23:47,039 --> 00:23:52,240
Korea and Germany are our geopolitical,
cultural ethnic entities. Iraq is yes,

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00:23:52,519 --> 00:23:55,640
I mean, now you're drawing distinctions, right, right, Iraq is

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00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,200
a conjured country. Is one of
those conjured countries with arbitrary orders and the

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00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:00,640
rest of it. But Rob is
right, We are still dealing with an

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00:24:00,680 --> 00:24:03,839
aftermath that makes Americans queezy about that
sort of actions. And from that,

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00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,119
you know what, if you are
you know, like my age, and

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00:24:07,160 --> 00:24:11,640
you go out on the town and
you have a good time, you know

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00:24:11,759 --> 00:24:15,079
you can be the aftermath can be
less than salutory. Frankly, you don't

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00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:18,000
bounce back the next day like you
used to when you were twenty years old

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00:24:18,039 --> 00:24:21,920
and hard charging and out there and
having fun on the weekends. So you

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00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:23,000
know, I got to make a
choice sometimes, I really do. Can

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00:24:23,039 --> 00:24:27,559
I either have a great night or
a great next day? You know,

332
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:33,240
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Now it's see done, James, well

352
00:25:49,559 --> 00:25:55,880
to thank you. I understand the
I understand the difficulty there. No,

353
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:00,799
it's absolutely no difficult whatsoever. Whithouse
do it as a as a cheery evening,

354
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:04,559
Yes, I will use that.
I will use that in the future.

355
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:08,880
And now we bring back to the
podcast the man that j Hewet himself

356
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:14,799
calls Garretty the indispensable Still is that
still the case with you, Jim?

357
00:26:14,839 --> 00:26:18,680
Are you still absolutely indispensable to the
Hue Hue Show? It is okay good

358
00:26:18,759 --> 00:26:21,960
And every time he does that it
invites the old legend of you know,

359
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:27,319
the graveyards are full of Jim,
of course is National what is that indispensable

360
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:33,119
life goes on? Jim is National
Reviews senior political correspondent and a Washington Post

361
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:36,759
contributing columnist, author and co host
of the Three Martini Lunch podcast, and

362
00:26:36,839 --> 00:26:41,680
author of many Final Areas non fiction
works as well. And of course I

363
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,680
lost saw you at the National Review
party where we all we all participated in

364
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:52,799
the Twelve Days of Christmas set to
uh Anti Biden Japery and I think we

365
00:26:52,799 --> 00:26:56,799
were all singing in about forty seven
different keys. But it was a great

366
00:26:56,960 --> 00:27:00,519
merry time, and it was it
was good to see you. But here

367
00:27:00,559 --> 00:27:04,000
you are now and you have flown
to Iowa. Well, I assume you

368
00:27:04,039 --> 00:27:07,039
flew fly. Did you drive?
Did you do that thing where you meet

369
00:27:07,039 --> 00:27:11,319
with Americans and you drive on the
freeways and you stop at the small town

370
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:14,319
diners and see what they're saying.
Or did you just like parachute in?

371
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:22,279
No, I lived down to the
Beltway beltway stereotype of parachuting in and one

372
00:27:22,319 --> 00:27:23,359
of the reasons I'm able to join
you. I know, if you can

373
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,960
see how much snow is outside behind
me, we had getting apparently what's being

374
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:32,079
called the Blizzard of the decade.
I arrived here Monday, apparently one hour

375
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:34,759
before the previous blizzard of the decade, which put about a foot of snow

376
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,000
onto to most of the state.
So my reporting has pretty much been the

377
00:27:41,039 --> 00:27:47,240
Des Moines area. I have not
gotten out of the immediate city and suburbs

378
00:27:47,279 --> 00:27:51,559
too much. Covered the debate on
CNN Wednesday night. But I was supposed

379
00:27:51,599 --> 00:27:55,039
to be heading back today and the
airline said, Nope, not happening.

380
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:59,440
So I'm hoping for tomorrow. Jim, were you heading back, because you

381
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,279
know, stick of fork and it's
done. There's nothing to happen here.

382
00:28:02,279 --> 00:28:07,240
Are there's still some surprises left?
That's a reasonable interpretation. It's good to

383
00:28:07,279 --> 00:28:12,079
see you, by the way that
basically I have been here all week.

384
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,160
I have another speaking gig down in
Atlanta next week and if I don't spend

385
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,759
some time on the home front,
I'm going to be in serious trouble.

386
00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,680
But yeah, like, look,
Trump has been around fifty percent in just

387
00:28:22,680 --> 00:28:26,680
about all these polls. Looking at
the caucuses. I've heard Republicans out here

388
00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:30,079
say that, look, DeSantis has
a good turnout operation, all that door

389
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,559
knocking, he should beat his final
poll numbers, which is good. But

390
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:37,319
his poll numbers right now mostly they've
been around twenty. Some of them have

391
00:28:37,359 --> 00:28:41,960
in the teens, and the most
recent one that came out from Suffolk has

392
00:28:41,039 --> 00:28:48,000
Hiven third place behind Haley. Now
we'll see, there's one more card to

393
00:28:48,079 --> 00:28:51,759
drop. The Des Moines Register is
going to have a poll out apparently this

394
00:28:51,799 --> 00:28:55,200
weekend. That will probably be our
last look before people actually show up on

395
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:56,160
Monday. So, Jim, I
know Peter wants to jump in, Can

396
00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:00,240
I ask you one question before he
jumps out? Are you getting that thing

397
00:29:00,319 --> 00:29:06,079
that they do that the campaigns do
you know, certainly in the early primaries

398
00:29:06,079 --> 00:29:08,039
where they say, hey, listen, if my guy breaks ten, that's

399
00:29:08,079 --> 00:29:12,200
a big win for us. Hey
my guy gets five people in that that

400
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:18,400
school gymnasium on Tuesday, that's a
huge Are they doing that expectation thing,

401
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,000
so that hey, we came in
a we're a solid fourth. That that

402
00:29:22,079 --> 00:29:25,039
you know we didn't get smoked.
Are they doing that or is it rob

403
00:29:25,119 --> 00:29:27,559
I have yet to hear the if
we have just one person show up,

404
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:33,480
we've done better than Dean Phillips at
his event in the Hutchinson right. Oh

405
00:29:33,559 --> 00:29:37,359
yeah, Like look everybody, look, if DeSantis isn't in second place,

406
00:29:37,599 --> 00:29:40,839
it's really bad news. I don't
know if it means he's automatically got to

407
00:29:40,839 --> 00:29:42,440
get out, but like, this
is the state where he's been endorsed by

408
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,319
the governor. This is the state
where he's visited all ninety nine counties.

409
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,599
He's spent a ton of money.
I think he's had good debate perform He's

410
00:29:48,599 --> 00:29:52,319
done all the things you should be
doing if you want to win Iowa,

411
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:56,880
and it just hasn't been working.
Now again, maybe he'll surprise us on

412
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,880
Monday. I think it's ideally for
him. You definitely want Trump below fifty,

413
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,039
and you definitely want to be the
closest guy, and you probably want

414
00:30:03,039 --> 00:30:07,960
to put some distance between yourself and
Haley because New Hampshire is Haley State.

415
00:30:07,039 --> 00:30:11,279
You know, the Zanna's campaign is
open they're not really competing in New Hampshire

416
00:30:11,319 --> 00:30:14,599
that much. But he's got to
get some momentum out of this because if

417
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:18,279
he doesn't, where does he win, right, you know, it's South

418
00:30:18,279 --> 00:30:21,759
Carolina doesn't look good. He's trailing
Trump by quite a bit in Florida,

419
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:25,279
like where this is supposed to be
his good state. And if it doesn't

420
00:30:25,319 --> 00:30:27,200
look good, I don't think Spin's
going to do that much. It could

421
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:32,160
be all that effective. Jim Peter, Peter here a question about always Yeah,

422
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:34,119
good to see. By the way, our listeners are listening, so

423
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:40,359
they can't see you, but you're
extremely well dressed, beautifully beautiful, tie

424
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:42,240
cinched all the way up. It
looks as though you're about to go downstairs

425
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:47,440
to speaking engagement in the lobby of
that very hotel. What's what I'd love

426
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:49,480
to Actually, I just did Fox
News this morning. Oh okay, you

427
00:30:49,519 --> 00:30:52,880
go, yes, Rob and I
or James of course, always looks flawless

428
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,000
to Rob and I are unshaven and
bleary eyed and so forth. All right,

429
00:30:56,119 --> 00:31:00,240
listen, I know a couple of
people from Iowa, and here's what

430
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:04,440
they told me about caucuses. There's
a reason they're unpredictable, particularly on the

431
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:11,039
Republican side, people change their minds. They're Iowans, they're neighborly about it.

432
00:31:11,599 --> 00:31:19,400
They discuss their reasoning. It is
particularly again my friend's stress on the

433
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:26,440
Republican side. It is a neighborly
get together. They bring cookies to share

434
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,000
with each other, and they talk
about whether a vote for Dessandis might be

435
00:31:30,079 --> 00:31:34,359
wasted because Haley's the only one in. They talk of this way and that

436
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:40,559
being the case, and it being
the case that the weather is really cold,

437
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:45,960
predicted to be really cold even by
Iowa standard, so you might think

438
00:31:45,279 --> 00:31:49,400
certain Iowans, particularly the older folks, might choose to stay. So it

439
00:31:49,559 --> 00:31:53,480
seems to me that although we're of
course grasping for poles to get some feel

440
00:31:53,559 --> 00:31:59,799
for what's going on, that this
one really really is going to be unpredictable.

441
00:31:59,799 --> 00:32:04,279
We're very likely to learn something.
But you're so, the question is

442
00:32:04,279 --> 00:32:07,720
is that right? Or do we
actually know what's going on? It is

443
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:12,880
you know, I don't doubt past
caucuses have worked out that way, got

444
00:32:12,920 --> 00:32:15,200
and so yeah, So yes,
the thing on I pointed, you know,

445
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:19,759
if if the polls are right,
it's not like DeSantis has to gain

446
00:32:19,839 --> 00:32:23,160
a little bit, you know,
it's like Trump right around fifty DeSantis maybe

447
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:27,559
at twenty in some of these like
you you need a big you know,

448
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:30,160
scoop scoop there the two of act. Again you mentioned weather and like you

449
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:34,000
know, besides you, it's a
shame this is only audio because like I

450
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:37,400
could behind you at the window.
Yeah, yes, yeah, it's you

451
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:39,039
know, it's it's coming down.
It's not quite white out conditions, it's

452
00:32:39,119 --> 00:32:43,319
it's yeah, but there's a lot
I you know, again, I went

453
00:32:43,359 --> 00:32:45,720
back and I checked in twenty sixteen
or I got twenty six twenty seven percent

454
00:32:45,799 --> 00:32:50,680
of the caucus goers on the Republican
side where aged sixty five or older.

455
00:32:51,240 --> 00:32:54,240
I would not want my parents driving
in whether like this. The roads might

456
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:58,160
be icy. And remember this is
all in your your local high school,

457
00:32:58,319 --> 00:33:01,160
your local community center, so people
have to go to participate. Uh,

458
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,200
what are the last two other last
factors? And what I pointed out,

459
00:33:05,359 --> 00:33:08,240
this is the first Iowa caucus that
will occur during an NFL playoff game.

460
00:33:08,279 --> 00:33:13,200
They're having a game on Monday night. I don't think there are a lot

461
00:33:13,279 --> 00:33:16,599
of Tampa Bay Buccaneer and Philadelphia Eagle
fans here in Iowa. But if you

462
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:21,960
are if it's cold and it feels
like Trump's gonna win anyway, maybe it's

463
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,400
like, you know, I'll stay
home and watch the game. But the

464
00:33:24,440 --> 00:33:30,319
other factor is the Democrats do not
have a caucus here. They're they're caucusing,

465
00:33:30,519 --> 00:33:35,599
but they're only doing party business.
They're doing a non counting vote by

466
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,559
mail system will the results will be
announced on Super Tuesday. Iowa Democrats do

467
00:33:38,599 --> 00:33:42,880
not get to go first here.
So if you're an Iowa Democrat, I

468
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,799
could see a scenario where you're like, well, Biden's going to be the

469
00:33:45,839 --> 00:33:49,240
nominee. I don't really care about
what's going on with that. Maybe they

470
00:33:49,279 --> 00:33:52,119
support Haley. Maybe they see Trumps
the easiest to beat, and they decide

471
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:53,319
to show up and go for Trump. This would mean, though, like

472
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:59,119
you could it's technically the caucuses are
Republicans only, but you can change your

473
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:02,440
party registration up until that night.
Wow. Oh, so there's no control

474
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:07,079
over the say yeah, I'm a
Republican and then boom. You know,

475
00:34:07,159 --> 00:34:09,679
I don't know how much paperwork has
it been involved. I can't imagine there's

476
00:34:09,679 --> 00:34:14,840
that much to say, you know, change party registration. And so theoretically

477
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,360
Democrats could come in and say let's
let's all go out for Asa Hutchinson,

478
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,199
you know, or or whoever they
think is the most the one they like.

479
00:34:22,519 --> 00:34:24,679
They just want to stop Trump.
Let's get back in. But before

480
00:34:24,679 --> 00:34:29,599
he does so, there's one more
question. Sure you said a moment ago

481
00:34:29,679 --> 00:34:32,800
that DeSantis has done everything. He's
spent all ninety nine counties. He spent

482
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,719
a ton of money. He might
as well be governor of Iowa. I'm

483
00:34:36,719 --> 00:34:40,840
sure he's getting guff back in Florida
of that very kind. Why hasn't it

484
00:34:40,880 --> 00:34:47,119
worked? It just hasn't worked.
Why? Yeah, I'm sure there are

485
00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:50,880
some people whould say charisma. I
don't think he's that bad, but I

486
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:53,000
think you can say that he's not. People don't want to go and watch

487
00:34:53,079 --> 00:34:57,039
him like it's a show, the
way it is for Trump. I do

488
00:34:57,119 --> 00:35:00,440
wonder if the we're now entering year
eight or nine Trump being the central figure

489
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:07,440
in our politics and that kind of
has conditioned Republicans to expect a you know,

490
00:35:07,599 --> 00:35:10,000
snazzy personality where you just never know
what he's going to say and all

491
00:35:10,039 --> 00:35:15,760
that stuff. The other thing is
also I think the party has changed,

492
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:17,840
and for a long time, the
person who won the Iowa Coxes was the

493
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:23,840
one who were their Christianity on their
sleeve, Rick Santorum, Mike Hackabee,

494
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:29,079
even you could argue Ted Cruz last
time around. And I think it's a

495
00:35:29,639 --> 00:35:31,760
you know, it sounds I was
talking to some other reporters, it sounds

496
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:36,280
like evangelicals are not unified behind anyone. Some of them are Trump, some

497
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,039
of them are DeSantis. I think
it's a slightly smaller group for Haley.

498
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:45,800
It's very much splitting along kind of
class lines, the more professional, white

499
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:51,599
collar class evangelicals being more dysantis,
the blue collar and even like people who

500
00:35:51,599 --> 00:35:54,599
self identify as evangelicals but who don't
necessarily go to church every week, they're

501
00:35:54,639 --> 00:35:59,079
you know, kind of leaning Trump
in that direction. So look, I

502
00:35:59,119 --> 00:36:02,519
think, look, part of the
problem is for Dessanta's I think he had

503
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:07,360
an applausible sounding but erroneous argument of
how you win, which was to be,

504
00:36:07,639 --> 00:36:10,199
hey, I'm kind of like Trump, I just don't have all the

505
00:36:10,199 --> 00:36:14,079
scandals in the baggage, right,
And I think Trump folks are like,

506
00:36:14,440 --> 00:36:15,679
no, I want Trump Trump,
I don't want Diet Trump. I don't

507
00:36:15,679 --> 00:36:21,400
want Trump zero or or whatever,
you know. And to everybody else who

508
00:36:21,519 --> 00:36:23,840
is not who are repellent repelled by
Trump, they kind of ended up drifting

509
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:29,880
towards Nikka Aeli that that that de
Santis wasn't think enough from the things they

510
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:32,719
didn't like about Trump. I guess
that was kind of all to my question

511
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:42,039
is there has has there been a
political collapse of a far and away front

512
00:36:42,079 --> 00:36:46,079
runner seemed to capture not just you
know this. You know, Desantas was

513
00:36:46,119 --> 00:36:51,440
not an establishment Republican. He was
a firebrand. He was a you know,

514
00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:53,679
he was a Reagan figure. I
mean, very different from Reagan,

515
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:59,679
but in the sense of like from
one of those slightly baddy states where they

516
00:36:59,800 --> 00:37:02,880
vote for the real conservative and the
guy's pugnacious, and he's in this in

517
00:37:02,920 --> 00:37:07,480
the in the fight, and he
does this credible step during COVID and we

518
00:37:07,559 --> 00:37:08,920
all think, I think, well, this is going to be he should

519
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:13,079
just walk to let's just give it
to him now. And not only is

520
00:37:13,119 --> 00:37:17,280
he happy to fight for it,
but he's happy to fight for second or

521
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:22,679
third. It's just has there ever
been a story like this? We were

522
00:37:22,679 --> 00:37:27,440
talking to nor about, like,
you know, presidential campaigns that have crashed

523
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:30,480
and burned, and you could point
to rue Giuliani in two thousand and eight,

524
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:36,599
some people nominated Scott Walker, who'd
left very early in the twenty cycle.

525
00:37:37,599 --> 00:37:38,960
But I think that, like,
you know, look, coming off

526
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:45,519
that huge win in twenty twenty two, when in the midterms over that whirling

527
00:37:45,559 --> 00:37:49,639
dervish of raw charisma Charlie crist Like
by the way, the fact that,

528
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:54,159
like, you know, the fact
that this antis has not taken on the

529
00:37:54,159 --> 00:37:58,320
world by storm Man, How bad
is Charlie crist Right, you know,

530
00:37:58,679 --> 00:38:02,960
to get you can thanks like that, But so you just kind of think,

531
00:38:04,119 --> 00:38:07,679
also, like what didn't go right? He decided to stay in Florida

532
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:10,159
in the early months of twenty twenty
three to get his last agenda items through

533
00:38:10,159 --> 00:38:15,440
the state legislature. Trump went on
the attack. Trump did his part to

534
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,000
define him. I think that didn't
I think you've had to do that over

535
00:38:17,519 --> 00:38:22,880
you probably don't want to start your
beer campaign on a Twitter thing that doesn't

536
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,559
work and where no one could hear
you. That's probably less than ideal he

537
00:38:27,599 --> 00:38:30,000
did. And like we've had all
the kind of different resets and all that

538
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:31,480
stuff. Like you look at the
amount of money he has spent on TV

539
00:38:31,599 --> 00:38:36,679
advertising. It doesn't appear to have
moved the needle at all. And so

540
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:38,119
I don't know. And some of
this is like, you know, how

541
00:38:38,199 --> 00:38:42,639
much could you coordinate with the super
Pack And the super Pac was independently spending

542
00:38:42,639 --> 00:38:45,159
its own money, and so they
had their ideas of what messages would work

543
00:38:45,199 --> 00:38:47,679
best. Look, I think from
the beginning, like if you had to

544
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:52,239
do it all over again, I
think DeSantis had to take on Trump much

545
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:57,000
more directly and had to say to
Trump voters almost like staging an intervention for

546
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,880
a friend. I know you think
this guy's great, but he really did

547
00:39:00,119 --> 00:39:04,519
deliver for you. And Desandas has
intermittently hit these notes and kind of gone

548
00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:07,480
with this message. I don't think
you could tell I don't. I know

549
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:09,840
it's not that his heart's not into
it, but I think he doesn't.

550
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,440
He wanted He's just gonna naturally win
over some of these Trump supporters and it

551
00:39:15,559 --> 00:39:19,039
just was never gonna happen that this
was uh, you were never going to

552
00:39:19,119 --> 00:39:22,199
be Hey, I'm kind of like
Trump that that was not what these folks

553
00:39:22,199 --> 00:39:23,719
wanting. I think it really needs
to be much more. Look, Trump

554
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:28,679
is a big talker who doesn't get
stuff done right, and it turns out

555
00:39:28,679 --> 00:39:32,679
to be nicky Haley who makes that
she's making that argument better. Yeah,

556
00:39:32,679 --> 00:39:37,599
I'm like, I think he wanted
to be a little little column a a

557
00:39:37,719 --> 00:39:40,920
little column. Yeah. He ended
up in this inverse sweet spot where he

558
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,239
was too trumpy for the non Trump, for the Trump opponents, and not

559
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:52,000
trumpy enough for the Trump And it's
a very bad place to be. I

560
00:39:52,119 --> 00:39:54,519
wrote a little, stupid little book
a few years ago called like, set

561
00:39:54,639 --> 00:39:58,719
some of Trump's speeches to verse.
It's called Big Lee, right. It

562
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,119
was kind of whatever was somebody asked
me to do it. I thought it

563
00:40:01,119 --> 00:40:06,639
was a funny idea. The Trump
fans, I thought I was making fun

564
00:40:06,679 --> 00:40:08,280
of him, and you're not allowed
to make fun of Donald Trump. Trump

565
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:13,519
fans do not like that. He
is, without a doubt, the great

566
00:40:13,559 --> 00:40:16,079
Messiah. And the people who hate
Trump thought, what are you? You're

567
00:40:16,079 --> 00:40:21,199
just making fun of him. You
can't make fun of him. He's like

568
00:40:22,159 --> 00:40:24,679
New York democracy, is it dies
in dark night? Oh? By the

569
00:40:24,679 --> 00:40:28,639
way, Florida Democrats canceled the primary. But so sometimes you can kill it

570
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,800
right out there in the olden It
dies in darkness, right. Washington Post,

571
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,159
by the way, is ultimately is
awesome. Everyone should subscribe to it.

572
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:39,800
I really like my columns and Jeff
Bezos's money and everything was great there.

573
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,119
So you know, well, the
New Yorker said that I was guilty

574
00:40:43,199 --> 00:40:47,239
of jocular sanctioning. That's what I
said, you basically your procretary, right,

575
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:54,000
but I mean jocular exactly. But
how much how much runway do these

576
00:40:54,039 --> 00:41:00,320
guys have? Like? Okay,
so Trump is far way ahead? Uh?

577
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:06,679
Is it just a bunch of like
very very rich funders thinking, oh

578
00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:08,960
not again, not know Trump again. We'll keep you alive. We're gonna

579
00:41:09,119 --> 00:41:15,280
we will pay for your oxygen and
tell the you know, the the convention

580
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:20,000
begins, is that what's going to
happen here? It's okay, So how

581
00:41:20,039 --> 00:41:22,760
much runway do they have? Yeah, an aircraft carrier is worth not a

582
00:41:22,800 --> 00:41:27,400
lot, but enough because by by
sense for this and this is kind of

583
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,159
the case in both the Early States
and nationally, roughly half the party is

584
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,000
yep, we want Trump again,
ride or die. This is our you

585
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:37,840
know, which means that if you
want to if your name isn't Donald Trump

586
00:41:37,880 --> 00:41:39,800
and you want to be the nominee, you got to get that other half,

587
00:41:40,280 --> 00:41:44,719
and you got to hope that it's
a bigger than fifty percent, and

588
00:41:44,760 --> 00:41:46,079
you got to have a fight all
the way to the convention, and it's

589
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,280
going to be really, really hard, but it could be doable. But

590
00:41:49,360 --> 00:41:52,400
to do it, you got to
unify that other fifty percent. And some

591
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:55,519
of those people were Ted Cruz voters
back in twenty sixteen. Some of those

592
00:41:55,519 --> 00:42:00,679
people were John Kaysik voters in twenty
sixteen. It's not there's a big ideological

593
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:04,719
divide, big different ideas of who. You know, there's a big gap

594
00:42:04,719 --> 00:42:08,440
between like Liz Cheney and Brian camp
right, you know, for how they

595
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:12,519
see things. So it was always
gonna be tough. And a couple of

596
00:42:12,519 --> 00:42:15,239
weeks ago I promote I said,
like, you know, looking at the

597
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:17,599
way things are and how not much
is changing in these polling numbers, you

598
00:42:17,639 --> 00:42:22,039
know, DeSantis and Haley should think
about a unity ticket. Say you know,

599
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:24,280
whether you want DeSantis Haley or Haley
DeSantis, put them together. That's

600
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:28,280
the one way to make sure you
get all these in the same pile.

601
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:32,079
And uh, everyone hated it.
Every there's enormous real the Zantas people see

602
00:42:32,159 --> 00:42:37,199
Nicky Haley as Lilith. That's not
just okay, I didn't realize it,

603
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:39,039
but that's a good cheers reference for
you. Rob And then you know,

604
00:42:39,119 --> 00:42:43,039
the uh and they just say,
you know, and say, Haley fans

605
00:42:43,039 --> 00:42:46,280
see desantisys bill ails above that he's
every bit is And so even if they

606
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:52,159
wanted to do that, it sounds
like both of their basis of support have

607
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:53,840
come to really dislike the other.
And I think, based on what we

608
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,679
saw on that debate stage Wednesday night, I think they really don't like each

609
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:00,400
other anymore. I think they really
have cotton. You know, like there

610
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:05,719
was a it was like two hours
of my opponent sucks and you know,

611
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,960
not enough folks on there's this sky
thirty points ahead of them that you'd think

612
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:15,119
they'd you know, intermittently remember to
criticize. Dana Bash and Jake Tapper had

613
00:43:15,119 --> 00:43:16,719
to keep reminding them, say is
there anything you like to say about Donald

614
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:22,039
Trump that you know? So,
yeah, we haven't even mentioned way just

615
00:43:22,119 --> 00:43:25,880
not a factor. We haven't even
mentioned. Okay, uh, yeah,

616
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:30,360
he'll probably be in single digits,
not particularly high single digits. You also

617
00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:35,719
see people clustering towards the towards the
front runners towards the end. I will

618
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:40,280
say I watched Vivic at a rally
at the state capitol. It's against these

619
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:44,800
carbon pipelines. Basically, they want
to run from the ethanol plants which generate

620
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:47,880
carbon dioxide. They want to take
the carbon dioxide, liquefy it, run

621
00:43:47,920 --> 00:43:52,000
it through pipes lines to other states
where they'll dump it into caverns, and

622
00:43:52,039 --> 00:43:55,760
the under the Inflation Reduction Act,
the Biden administration will just say, here's

623
00:43:55,800 --> 00:44:00,079
a giant pile of money for you
for doing this. So the ethanol industry

624
00:44:00,119 --> 00:44:05,159
loves it. The whole bunch of
farmers who have their would have the pipelines

625
00:44:05,159 --> 00:44:08,239
go over don't like it, and
they sure as hell don't want eminent domain

626
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:13,639
used. So I watched Vivek in
person, and he said all kinds of

627
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,199
I am not around a swanny fan. I'm the opposite of it. And

628
00:44:17,239 --> 00:44:22,280
I find all kinds of nasty,
stupid, false things he said in the

629
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,559
debates. But when you agree with
them, as in this case of like

630
00:44:24,639 --> 00:44:28,960
no, we don't want eminent domain
to use to help ethanol companies, he

631
00:44:29,000 --> 00:44:30,800
becomes a lot more persuasive. And
as somebody put it to me, you

632
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:35,880
just wish you would use his powers
for good instead of evil, because he's

633
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,519
good, he's got like he's got
natural charisma and retail politics. He dealt

634
00:44:39,519 --> 00:44:43,239
with a Heckler, just so,
and I wrote about this in the morning's

635
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,800
old newsletter. Women starts shouting environmental
activists and it's basically like, how can

636
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:52,679
you oppose these pipelines and still support
oil and gas pipelines? And he says,

637
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:53,760
you know what, I'm going to
give you the microphone for a minute,

638
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,840
and as long as you agree not
to insult people here, I will

639
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:00,159
give it to you and you get
a chance to make your case. Do

640
00:45:00,159 --> 00:45:02,880
you agree to that? She said, sure, puts a microphone in her

641
00:45:02,880 --> 00:45:08,039
hand. She says who she's from, and within thirty seconds that this man

642
00:45:08,159 --> 00:45:12,440
is lying to you. This man
thinks you're stupid. And she you know,

643
00:45:12,519 --> 00:45:15,880
she probably is like twenty seven years
old, you know, your classic

644
00:45:15,119 --> 00:45:21,119
green environmental activist type. Unsurprisingly,
the crowd was not persuaded. She did,

645
00:45:21,159 --> 00:45:25,519
after a minute give the microphone back, and Ramaswami looked magnanimous and he

646
00:45:25,559 --> 00:45:29,039
said, look, we're in the
state capitol. We believe in freedom of

647
00:45:29,039 --> 00:45:31,199
speech. We just we believe in
free of expression, and so you know,

648
00:45:31,239 --> 00:45:34,519
I disagree with your opinion, but
I'm glad you're able to and he

649
00:45:34,599 --> 00:45:37,719
just handled and he looked like and
then he goes off and he talks about

650
00:45:37,760 --> 00:45:40,519
why he doesn't know why he's he
thinks the climate change agenda is nonsense.

651
00:45:42,159 --> 00:45:46,920
And it was just like she came
across as a angry, incoherent, you

652
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:51,440
know, lefty, and she he
came across as the guy who actually had

653
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:52,920
done his homework and knew about the
issue. And I looked at it.

654
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,559
I was like, that was just
handled really well. And he just does

655
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,960
can you look at this? You're
like man in Silicon Valley, those ventures

656
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,719
Aapolis must have been like listened to
him and say, take my money.

657
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:06,239
This is you know, he's not
a gift. And I just again,

658
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:08,480
I like this guy who's holding I
wis I wish he used his powers for

659
00:46:08,519 --> 00:46:15,719
a better philosophy rather than the agenda's
got And why is he still in You're

660
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:19,840
a billionaire, you can do what
every ll you want. Yeah, okay,

661
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,480
okay, New Hampshire. So I
think Nicki Haley's path got easier with

662
00:46:24,559 --> 00:46:29,280
Chris Christy out of the race.
I think the you know, both CNN

663
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:34,400
polling and Christy had alluded to his
own internal discussion numbers of internal polling on

664
00:46:34,519 --> 00:46:37,519
Hugh Hewitt's program, indicating that most
of his supporters will probably go to Nicky

665
00:46:37,559 --> 00:46:42,320
Haley. As I said, DeSantis
is not really playing in that state.

666
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,840
So yeah, if there's supposed to
be a debate in New Hampshire next week

667
00:46:46,159 --> 00:46:52,159
on CNN. To qualify, you
had to have ten percent in national polls

668
00:46:52,199 --> 00:46:55,960
and in New Hampshire polls. DeSantis
has not hit ten percent in a New

669
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,519
Hampshire poll since mid December. Wow, thetom has dropped out for him now.

670
00:47:00,519 --> 00:47:04,239
But if you finish third or above, you still get to qualify,

671
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:07,920
So he stood, should still qualify
for this debate. If I'm Nicki Haley,

672
00:47:07,960 --> 00:47:12,440
though, do I want to do
another one on one debate with DeSantis

673
00:47:12,440 --> 00:47:15,239
one week later? You know what? What's the upside for her? So?

674
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,639
What is it? What is it
about DeSantis that the people of New

675
00:47:19,639 --> 00:47:25,840
Hampshire, the Republican voters don't like
his positions, his track record, what

676
00:47:25,199 --> 00:47:29,679
what doesn't do it? It's just
that they regard him as a sack of

677
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:31,960
wet tinder and they can't get behind
somebody. They don't regard it as particularly

678
00:47:32,039 --> 00:47:37,800
charismatic, as opposed to the fiery
loveliness and you know, warm embrace that

679
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:39,840
we all get from Nicki Haley.
What what don't they like about DeSantis?

680
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:45,239
Here's a guy with the right record, with the right COVID, the behavior

681
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:49,719
with who fights as they say,
okay, everybody are saying, I'll fight

682
00:47:49,719 --> 00:47:53,599
for you, we'll fight. Well, he's fought successfully a lot of the

683
00:47:53,639 --> 00:47:58,320
bugaboos that were supposedly concerned about what
don't they like, what's not to like?

684
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:01,559
Well, well, one thing to
note is that DeSantis early on looked

685
00:48:01,599 --> 00:48:06,199
at these early states. You basically
you either pick Iowa or you pick New

686
00:48:06,199 --> 00:48:08,760
Hampshire, right, and so he
put his money into his advertising, his

687
00:48:08,840 --> 00:48:13,480
money, all that stuff into ne
Hampshire, got endorsed by Governor Kim Reynolds,

688
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:15,840
and so as a result, you're
kind of like, you know,

689
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,800
you pick one. New Hampshire's already. Oh he's one of those, Ohio,

690
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:22,199
one of those Iowa guys. Also, let's point out that like New

691
00:48:22,199 --> 00:48:27,880
Hampshire, as I mentioned, you
could change your party registration up until that,

692
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:31,760
but independence can vote in the Republican
presidential primary up in New Hampshire.

693
00:48:32,159 --> 00:48:36,320
And so let's point out this is
a good venue to talk about this.

694
00:48:36,519 --> 00:48:38,960
So you know, every year this
John Weaver candidate, right, not just

695
00:48:39,039 --> 00:48:44,400
like by himself, but there's a
candidate named John who runs as the kind

696
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,719
of Republican if you're not really into
the Republican party. Could be John McCain,

697
00:48:49,239 --> 00:48:51,519
can be John Ksick, or it
could be John Huntsman. But the

698
00:48:51,599 --> 00:48:53,920
character is always named John. The
candidate is always nam John, and they

699
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:59,599
almost always hired John Weaver. And
it's the MSNBC loves them, The New

700
00:48:59,679 --> 00:49:01,960
Report Oublick loves Usually they go on
the view and they wow them. It's

701
00:49:02,039 --> 00:49:07,960
kind of like I thought I hated
Republicans. Say that John Anderson, there's

702
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:15,159
another one, and there you go. And so Nicky Haley is as close

703
00:49:15,199 --> 00:49:17,920
as we have to that John candidate, unless you want to say Asa Hutchinson.

704
00:49:17,960 --> 00:49:22,360
But like, you know, he's
looking at Dean Phillips and saying,

705
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:24,719
Wow, that guy can't attract a
crowd. So I think that's he's just,

706
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:29,440
you know, his brand doesn't match
the state. The state wants somebody

707
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:34,159
who's flinty and independent. And you
know, Son endorsing Haley health, you

708
00:49:34,159 --> 00:49:38,079
know, And I'm waiting because Rob
and James both look like they have more

709
00:49:38,159 --> 00:49:42,599
questions. But I'm I'm here,
I'm here in Minnesota. Okay, Okay,

710
00:49:42,639 --> 00:49:45,159
this is like Jeopardy. I'm going
to hit the button first, Jim

711
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:51,280
question. Let's I ran into Carl
Rove a couple of days ago and said,

712
00:49:51,320 --> 00:49:52,880
well, you know, if Nicky
Haley does well in New Hampshire,

713
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:57,079
I assumed I took it for granted. She's a former governor of South Carolina.

714
00:49:57,159 --> 00:49:59,599
She ought to do well in South
Carolina. And he said, that's

715
00:49:59,599 --> 00:50:05,679
a very very good question. There
are a lot of good old boys in

716
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:09,239
the Republican Party at senior positions in
the Republican Party in South Carolina, and

717
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:15,840
she had a tense relationship with the
good old boys of the Republican establishment in

718
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:21,079
South Carolina from the first moment of
her governorship to the last, said Carl

719
00:50:21,159 --> 00:50:24,159
Rove, who, like you,
is a man who understands the grassroots in

720
00:50:24,199 --> 00:50:28,880
state after state after state. So
South Carolina is not a Kimney for Nikah

721
00:50:28,880 --> 00:50:34,440
Hailey at all? Is that right? Oh? Definitely not. Polling there

722
00:50:34,559 --> 00:50:36,880
is as bad as it is pretty
much anywhere else. It's see, it's

723
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:42,199
a culturally and kind of character wized
is still a very trumpy state. And

724
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,880
the assessment is right. She apparently
she had a falling out with Mark Sanford,

725
00:50:46,079 --> 00:50:50,559
but she was seen as like a
Sanford, you know, Acco life,

726
00:50:50,599 --> 00:50:52,639
you know, somebody who actually wanted
to complain. My parents lived down

727
00:50:52,679 --> 00:50:57,519
in South Carolina, so I feel
reasonably comfortable talking about the dynamics of this

728
00:50:57,599 --> 00:51:00,719
state for a long time. It
might be changing, but like for a

729
00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:05,679
long time, South Carolina had Republicans
who governed at the state level, not

730
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:08,880
all that different from Democrats. They
loved their bringing money back to their district.

731
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:13,599
They love their highway projects, they
love their you know, they were

732
00:51:13,639 --> 00:51:19,079
not fiscally conservative by by as most
people would think, and you you know,

733
00:51:19,599 --> 00:51:22,239
Hailey clashed with them. She was
not the favorite in that primary.

734
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:28,519
She really was helped by Sarah Palin
And obviously, if you win the Republican

735
00:51:28,559 --> 00:51:30,760
primary in South Carolina, you got
a really good shot at winning the general

736
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:32,840
election. And she was running in
twenty ten, it's heat part of a

737
00:51:32,920 --> 00:51:37,360
year, so the dynamics, you
know, worked well. But she came

738
00:51:37,400 --> 00:51:40,199
in there as this reformer and she
was not part of the good old boys

739
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:44,880
network, and so yeah, there
was tension there. I think she is

740
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:50,119
like still like liked and respected,
But I keep emphasizing this for all kinds

741
00:51:50,119 --> 00:51:52,079
of people who you know, for
every senator who looks in the mirror and

742
00:51:52,079 --> 00:51:55,519
sees the president's steering back. Like
the goal was not to be liked.

743
00:51:55,920 --> 00:52:00,519
The goal is to be somebody's first
choice for president because they really get one.

744
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:05,280
You know, it's being just you
know, maybe it caucuses if your

745
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:07,159
person gets knocked out in the first
round or or you know that, okay,

746
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:09,639
then we'll vote for him. But
like you really have to be there

747
00:52:09,679 --> 00:52:13,760
for you and you're going up against
an incumbent president who won, you know,

748
00:52:13,760 --> 00:52:15,960
who won South Carolina twice by a
wide market. So I yo,

749
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:22,559
now here's the thing. If she
wins in north in New Hampshire, it's

750
00:52:22,639 --> 00:52:28,400
like three hundred the God King bleeds, you know, zeruses you are?

751
00:52:28,239 --> 00:52:31,239
Are? You know you are?
You are vulnerable now? And you know,

752
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:36,760
maybe the the honestly questions does everybody
who doesn't want Trump coalesce behind Hailey,

753
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:39,280
because that's like a prequisite you need, you know, And then does

754
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:43,440
you know, does Trump start to
look a little more vulnerable? But somebody

755
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:45,440
point out to me this morning,
there's like a month between New Hampshire and

756
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:50,079
South Carolina and you probably you know, you guys, remember George w versus

757
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:53,039
versus John McCain in two thousand.
This is a state where it gets next.

758
00:52:53,079 --> 00:52:57,639
It really does. When when Haley
was running for governor that Schmoe said,

759
00:52:58,159 --> 00:53:00,639
yeah, he confessed to having an
affair Nicky Haley. She denied it.

760
00:53:00,719 --> 00:53:02,599
It was never proven. And let's
point out, but you know,

761
00:53:02,920 --> 00:53:07,519
by the standards of by the standards
of politicians, Nicky Haley is a very

762
00:53:07,559 --> 00:53:09,639
attractive woman. So if you're a
guy and it says, yes, I

763
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:15,239
confess I had an extra marital affair
with that smoking hot gubernatorial candidate, and

764
00:53:15,360 --> 00:53:19,679
I am ashamed for the many many
times, you know, like there were

765
00:53:19,679 --> 00:53:23,960
good reasons to be skeptical of that
assessment. So yeah, like she would

766
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:28,320
have a shot at South Carolina.
What's interesting? Do you think maybe she

767
00:53:28,400 --> 00:53:31,159
regrets taking those shots at Tim Scott
during the primary debates. Maybe his endorsement

768
00:53:31,199 --> 00:53:36,320
would be helpful right around now?
Okay, so Jim, I got a

769
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:45,039
larger political question. I know you
got to run because anywhere take off your

770
00:53:45,039 --> 00:53:52,679
tire relax, has anybody ever won
playing it's safe? I mean, I

771
00:53:52,719 --> 00:53:55,760
guess what I'm saying is like I'm
looking at the Santas campaign and I'm thinking,

772
00:53:55,760 --> 00:54:00,039
Okay, well that you know I
there was a highly controlled, highly

773
00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:04,679
disciplined campaign for most of it,
and they did this thing where they split

774
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:09,519
the campaign up into this monsterly overfunded
superpack that was run by the brain,

775
00:54:09,599 --> 00:54:13,800
big brains, and then the campaign
which is run by you know, kind

776
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:17,199
of like your local cronies, your
your kitchen cabinet, but also big brains.

777
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:21,840
Nobody's doumb here. And they just
thought it was, you know,

778
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,760
here's here's how you do it,
and they just that's And it just seems

779
00:54:24,760 --> 00:54:30,760
to me that the the political graveyard, at least recently past twenty five might

780
00:54:30,920 --> 00:54:35,960
say three four five cycles has just
littered with people who sat in rooms said

781
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:37,840
look, look here's let me tell
you how it's done. Is that you

782
00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:38,880
go from Iowa, then you go
here, you go there. And I

783
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,480
has anybody recently who's who's the biggest
winner that you can think of right now?

784
00:54:45,519 --> 00:54:51,559
Who played it safe? Would you
count Trump by not doing debates and

785
00:54:51,559 --> 00:54:52,760
stuff? Is that kind of a
well, because I think he's such a

786
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,280
renegade. He he sort of like
jumped in. I mean, look,

787
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,679
you had you had you told Trump
to whether he was going to jump in

788
00:54:58,719 --> 00:55:00,400
or not before he jumped in twenty
six you would have said, don't do

789
00:55:00,440 --> 00:55:02,800
it. There's no way you can
win. People say there's no know where

790
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:07,880
you can win. On that Tuesday
morning election day, he Trump didn't think

791
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:13,679
he was gonna win Tuesday morning election
day. Remember in twenty sixteen, there

792
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:16,480
was this idea of lanes, right, there was this establishment lane, probably

793
00:55:16,519 --> 00:55:22,599
somebody with a Christian conservative lane,
you know. And I think one of

794
00:55:22,639 --> 00:55:27,440
the hard lessons for everybody else not
named Donald Trump in that primary was Donald

795
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:30,440
Trump wasn't in any lane. He
was in every lane. He you know,

796
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:32,760
could be very conservative at times,
he could sound very moderate. At

797
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:37,480
times. He would sound you know, like sometimes in the same speech and

798
00:55:37,599 --> 00:55:40,679
he could sound very hawkish, We're
going to bomb the s out of at

799
00:55:40,679 --> 00:55:45,800
a ice, right and think where
you end the Forever Wars, And he

800
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:49,599
would do it in the same paragraph
and nobody sensed any blatant contradiction there.

801
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,880
So I think there was this the
idea of like, well, like you're

802
00:55:52,920 --> 00:55:55,960
not like ideally you're running to be
president of the United States, you're not

803
00:55:57,039 --> 00:55:59,599
just running to be president of the
Republicans, and you're not running to be

804
00:55:59,639 --> 00:56:02,760
president of the Christian concern. This
is my big beef with the sa Taurum

805
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:07,039
and Huckabee style campaigns. It's like, I am the president of a faction.

806
00:56:07,679 --> 00:56:10,960
That's great. The point is to
be president of the country and you

807
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:15,480
have this like great, you appealed
to the demographic that is most inclined to

808
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:20,480
like you. That's the lowest bar
to clear, you know. The aim

809
00:56:20,599 --> 00:56:22,519
is to get you to appeal to
all kinds of different people, all different

810
00:56:22,559 --> 00:56:27,000
walks of life, all kinds of
different you know, so they're there,

811
00:56:27,039 --> 00:56:29,719
You're right. I think that there
may have been like nobody's going to look

812
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:31,679
at the Santas campaign and say,
yes, this is how you do it,

813
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:35,079
this is how you run, you
know. Like I think the idea

814
00:56:35,079 --> 00:56:39,440
of like the super Pack, like
there's nobody would say, oh, well

815
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:44,719
that worked well, you know.
Jeff Road to parting a couple of weeks

816
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,360
ago. I had people insisting it's
no big deal, and I'm like,

817
00:56:49,119 --> 00:56:52,039
nobody leaves the super Pack like with
a month to go because things are going

818
00:56:52,119 --> 00:56:57,760
so great and so well, you
know, like you know, so I

819
00:56:57,920 --> 00:57:00,639
think that there's that I think the
let's keep in mind, you know,

820
00:57:01,400 --> 00:57:07,599
my kids will periodically repeat Mike can
get it done, because Mike Bloomberg ads

821
00:57:07,639 --> 00:57:12,000
were all over their video games back
in twenties twenty, right, So you

822
00:57:12,119 --> 00:57:15,400
can spend a bazillion dollars and if
you people think, yeah, you're this

823
00:57:15,519 --> 00:57:17,960
little, you know, little weirdo
guy from New York City, they're not

824
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,199
going to be interested. So in
the end, like you could make the

825
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,199
look it was always going to be
hard running against a qui effectively an in

826
00:57:25,239 --> 00:57:30,159
common president. Right, Trump space
was extremely like we may look at this

827
00:57:30,239 --> 00:57:32,199
and say, what DIDs santists do
wrong? And somebody might say nothing that

828
00:57:32,320 --> 00:57:36,320
this was never a race to anybody, but Donald you can make us.

829
00:57:36,400 --> 00:57:40,159
Yeah, it was always a very
steep climb. Right, everybody agreed,

830
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:45,280
and yeah he brought in what's Oh
the other thing is that like we don't

831
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:47,679
worry about COVID anymore, and that
was his big, you know, big

832
00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:52,519
success. Periodically, people still talk
about Fauci and stuff like that, but

833
00:57:52,559 --> 00:57:55,719
it's just not front and center on
people. But he wasn't. I don't

834
00:57:55,760 --> 00:57:59,199
think that was a given. I
think he made that that was a problem.

835
00:57:59,280 --> 00:58:00,920
It's choice that he I mean,
I guess my point is that that

836
00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:05,840
they seem to make it to come
up with a very complicated mouse trap,

837
00:58:06,519 --> 00:58:07,960
when in fact, if you're a
sitting governor of a big state, you

838
00:58:08,039 --> 00:58:10,159
say, look at all the good
stuff I did in the state. Look

839
00:58:10,159 --> 00:58:13,079
at all the good stuff I did
in the state, and you don't talk

840
00:58:13,119 --> 00:58:15,840
about a lot of the extraneous stuff. You know, you just do not

841
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:19,000
attempt to grow a brain. I
think is always a very very good piece

842
00:58:19,039 --> 00:58:22,920
of advice for people in politics.
Stop thinking so hard, you know,

843
00:58:22,119 --> 00:58:25,960
just run on your record and keep
saying that over and over again, and

844
00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:30,599
we might do it better in New
Hampton. Yeah, I so okay.

845
00:58:30,679 --> 00:58:34,239
So back in twenty sixteen, I
was the president of the Bobby Jingle Fan

846
00:58:34,320 --> 00:58:37,960
Club. We did, indeed hold
our meetings in a phone booth. It

847
00:58:38,239 --> 00:58:43,440
was see kids, a phone booth. With these places they to have us

848
00:58:43,440 --> 00:58:49,920
strength. And so like they had
found on his campaign went nowhere and they

849
00:58:49,960 --> 00:58:52,519
said, like in the country,
the Republicans were in a very bad mood

850
00:58:52,679 --> 00:58:55,360
in fall twenty fifteen, heading it
to twenty sixteen, and they would like

851
00:58:55,559 --> 00:58:59,519
do focus groups and they talk about
all the good things he'd done in Louisiana,

852
00:59:00,000 --> 00:59:02,039
and they found that people just didn't
believe it. They found that like

853
00:59:02,519 --> 00:59:05,440
like they were to move like,
oh you know, the country's going to

854
00:59:05,480 --> 00:59:08,920
hell, you know, like they
don't outing your record now. Again,

855
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:13,639
like the fights in Florida were national
news, particularly over the COVID stuff.

856
00:59:13,639 --> 00:59:16,559
So like on the one hand,
you know, you you would have thought

857
00:59:16,599 --> 00:59:21,199
that would have done him more good. But you know, maybe the downside

858
00:59:21,199 --> 00:59:23,760
of being a governor is that maybe
the average Republican isn't as impressed with what

859
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:29,199
your record is done. Let's also
point out, you know, best observation

860
00:59:29,280 --> 00:59:32,360
of that debate. You look at
the gubernatoiler record of Nikki Haley and the

861
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:37,519
gubernatorial record of Ron DeSantis. Haley
was a pre Trump Republican, That's true,

862
00:59:37,519 --> 00:59:42,760
and he keeps hitting her on you
know, uh, the Chinese factories

863
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:46,760
opening in uh uh opening in South
Carolina. Every governor had Chinese factories.

864
00:59:46,840 --> 00:59:51,320
Every governor was was welcoming Chinese investment
back then. So the I and if

865
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:52,480
you want to, oh, you
think you know she's soft on China,

866
00:59:52,679 --> 00:59:55,199
well look at her at the u
N Right, I think we could say

867
00:59:55,360 --> 01:00:00,039
that she's not a secret Chinese spy
or secretly soft on Bay or anything like

868
01:00:00,079 --> 01:00:02,679
like like this is kind of a
you don't want to nominate or find this

869
01:00:02,800 --> 01:00:07,000
is kind of a dumb argument.
Flipside looking at Ron DeSantis. You know,

870
01:00:07,119 --> 01:00:09,119
when he was in the House,
he voted to raise the debt ceiling.

871
01:00:09,400 --> 01:00:13,679
Yes, so did one hundred and
sixty six other House Republicans. Like

872
01:00:13,920 --> 01:00:15,880
you know, do you want to
know how? Or she's like, yeah,

873
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:17,960
well you know he didn't manage the
finances of his campaign. Well okay,

874
01:00:19,039 --> 01:00:22,679
but we have this other record of
how he manages finances called the state

875
01:00:22,719 --> 01:00:24,079
of Florida, and things look pretty
good there. They had like a two

876
01:00:24,119 --> 01:00:29,760
point two billion surplus there. So
like they spent the night doing dumb attacks

877
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:32,639
on each other the whole time.
And so if that's the first thing is

878
01:00:32,639 --> 01:00:35,719
I don't think, you know,
any of those tax attacks will get any

879
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:39,400
traction against either one of either one
of each other. But yeah, you

880
01:00:39,920 --> 01:00:44,239
look forward talk about you're gonna do. I guess I think there was for

881
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:45,159
a couple of these debates it was
like, Okay, we've heard about you

882
01:00:45,199 --> 01:00:49,280
did in Florida and things are great, but you know, you're what are

883
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:50,960
you gonna do for the other forty
United States? All right, Jim,

884
01:00:51,159 --> 01:00:52,920
listen, if you can't get a
flight out, hop your car and come

885
01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:58,599
up to Minneapolis. I gotta I
got. So the weather's nice crash upon,

886
01:00:58,679 --> 01:01:02,119
yet it is actually the struggle and
balm us down there. James has

887
01:01:02,119 --> 01:01:06,000
a beautiful house and he's a wonderful
host. You should do that. Actually,

888
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:07,880
I've been there. We will fight
for fighting that. Yeah. Back.

889
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:10,920
The second second point is after the
show, after we let you go,

890
01:01:12,039 --> 01:01:14,719
we'll bring you back. You can
make a series of predictions about how

891
01:01:14,800 --> 01:01:16,199
you think I was going to go, and then we'll run the correct one

892
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:21,280
next week. So you know that's
like that really just like like, yeah,

893
01:01:21,800 --> 01:01:23,440
I'll do this here. Yeah,
I'm like Trump's gonna win. Yeah,

894
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:29,280
because people are telling me that DeSantis
is get out the vote operation will

895
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:31,119
help, and because it's going to
be miserable weather. Uh, you know,

896
01:01:31,239 --> 01:01:35,639
he'll be let's say, or low
twenty percent, you know, twenty

897
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,239
twenty to twenty five, somewhere in
that range, which will be okay but

898
01:01:38,400 --> 01:01:43,800
not great. Haley will probably be
impressive for a state where she wasn't,

899
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:45,400
but you know, probably like seventeen
or something like that, you know,

900
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:50,039
and everybody else will be single digits. That'll be great. Well, you

901
01:01:50,079 --> 01:01:52,840
know, Donald Trump has spent the
last four years broadening his base, so

902
01:01:52,039 --> 01:01:57,039
this coasting the victory I can see
already. Thank you for joining us.

903
01:01:57,079 --> 01:01:59,039
Him, It's been a pleasure as
ever, and we hope to talk to

904
01:01:59,079 --> 01:02:01,840
you as much as possible in the
year to come. Oh always always enjoyed,

905
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:04,960
guys. And this is the perfect
day because I got nowhere else to

906
01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:07,760
go. Stay insides right, We're
going to try to take that as a

907
01:02:07,800 --> 01:02:14,960
compliment him. Oh, it's great, yes, indeed, oh man,

908
01:02:15,119 --> 01:02:17,599
just traveling around, you know,
it would be great though, if you've

909
01:02:17,599 --> 01:02:21,519
managed to get out and get out
to the to the diners and whatnot,

910
01:02:21,639 --> 01:02:24,400
because one of the things that you
wanted an Iowa diner, they've got these

911
01:02:24,679 --> 01:02:28,960
these great hot turkey sandwiches. You
got the hot turkey, you got the

912
01:02:29,000 --> 01:02:30,599
mashed potatoes, you got the gravy. They're absolutely delicious. And if you

913
01:02:30,679 --> 01:02:34,039
got you know, if you save
it and you take it home next day,

914
01:02:34,079 --> 01:02:36,320
you can have it cold turkey.
And it's a good sandwich, but

915
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:39,360
cold turkey nice. You want to
quit something, No, it is wow.

916
01:02:40,239 --> 01:02:44,079
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01:02:44,119 --> 01:02:49,199
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01:02:49,239 --> 01:02:52,679
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921
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922
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Ricochet Podcast. Well, gentlemen,
we're running a little late here, so

941
01:04:20,360 --> 01:04:24,719
we kind of get out of here. But nights anything come to mind.

942
01:04:25,000 --> 01:04:29,239
The Hunter Biden story is it is
what it is? You know, I

943
01:04:29,559 --> 01:04:31,159
just tired of the whole bunch of
them. I think the most interesting thing

944
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:33,559
this last week. And if we
could spend maybe one or two minutes on

945
01:04:33,639 --> 01:04:36,360
it, Rob, you're there,
New York. I wrote about this this

946
01:04:36,440 --> 01:04:39,800
week in my sight New York said, you know what storm's coming in.

947
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:42,239
We're going to take the migrants.
We'll put them in a school. Kids

948
01:04:42,280 --> 01:04:45,559
got to go home remote learning.
It was one of those examples of here

949
01:04:45,639 --> 01:04:50,239
are these guys who are not citizens
that we apparently are more obliged to accommodate

950
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:55,599
than the actual children of the citizens
of the country. And when you come

951
01:04:55,679 --> 01:04:58,800
with the couple of other governors or
governors but may are saying, you know

952
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:00,440
what, we had to put these
pople up in private homes as well,

953
01:05:00,880 --> 01:05:03,639
you began to wonder exactly what the
endgame of this is here, Rob,

954
01:05:03,679 --> 01:05:09,039
you've got that quartering. Yeah,
look, these are these are these are

955
01:05:09,119 --> 01:05:13,519
the consequences of a policy. The
policy two policies right. One policy is

956
01:05:14,119 --> 01:05:17,679
don't enforce the border, and the
second policy is have passed lots of like

957
01:05:18,239 --> 01:05:26,159
uh, nice sounding notions in cities
that aren't touched by illegal immigration. We're

958
01:05:26,199 --> 01:05:30,679
a sanctuary city. Where are this
where that pass all sorts of rules because

959
01:05:30,719 --> 01:05:36,639
you you're absolutely convinced that you'll never
be held accountable for them, And now

960
01:05:36,840 --> 01:05:43,519
they are. And it is unfortunate
that these leaders didn't have the foresight to

961
01:05:43,559 --> 01:05:46,159
think about what would happen if,
if if the migrant problem in the southern

962
01:05:46,239 --> 01:05:51,079
border somehow made its way up north
to New York City. But it has

963
01:05:51,239 --> 01:05:58,199
now so I suspect that there's going
to be a whole lot of people trying

964
01:05:58,239 --> 01:06:02,159
to figure out a way to use
a what is essentially a Trump era immigration

965
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:05,599
platform, and we use the word
here and there so they can say it's

966
01:06:05,639 --> 01:06:10,840
their own and run as run as
Democrats, run as liberals. You're gonna

967
01:06:10,840 --> 01:06:14,519
be seeing massive amounts of liberals trying
to figure out how to be for border

968
01:06:14,559 --> 01:06:16,400
security without being border security. It's
gonna be kind of fun in a way.

969
01:06:17,000 --> 01:06:19,599
You will. But what this means, I think looking at this in

970
01:06:19,639 --> 01:06:24,400
a couple of other things, and
it means j basically perpetual Democrat rule,

971
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:30,880
because you will have the smart ones
realizing that there is another lane here.

972
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:33,639
As Garrity was just talking about,
it's like Fetterman all of a sudden getting

973
01:06:33,679 --> 01:06:39,760
strange new respect for making statement.
It's like the people around Pennsylvania saying,

974
01:06:39,800 --> 01:06:42,320
no, you're not going to take
down the statue of William penn and the

975
01:06:42,440 --> 01:06:45,920
Democrats saying this. So when they
say that and they get outside of the

976
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,239
prog narratives and realize that there's actually
a lot of middle of the road Democrats

977
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:50,280
who say, yeah, I like
that. I don't like the whole progu

978
01:06:50,320 --> 01:06:53,880
thing where you tear down the statues, where you quarter to the people,

979
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:59,239
where you do that then you have
the rise of that faction, which you

980
01:06:59,320 --> 01:07:03,519
know, we'll get more votes than
than than your Trump faction period. And

981
01:07:03,639 --> 01:07:05,920
look, I think that's I think
that's a general good. I think it's

982
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:13,639
good when people are forced to realize
that their bizarre extreme positions have ei their

983
01:07:13,719 --> 01:07:16,559
negative consequences or are foolish, and
that I mean, it's good the party

984
01:07:16,679 --> 01:07:21,159
that the Democratic Republican Party that wakes
up to realize that it's a fifty one

985
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:25,679
fifty two percent nation and you need
the people who don't like you now you

986
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:29,880
need to vote for you. You
can't you can't just sit there and scream.

987
01:07:30,519 --> 01:07:33,559
Those are the people who understand how
the system works. They're going to

988
01:07:33,599 --> 01:07:36,159
get the most done. They're not
gonna get everything done, but they're going

989
01:07:36,199 --> 01:07:39,199
to get the most done, and
they're going to get the most done under

990
01:07:39,239 --> 01:07:43,440
the system that we have. We
we we now are governed by and was

991
01:07:43,639 --> 01:07:46,679
created by the founders for this express
purpose, which was to force people to

992
01:07:46,880 --> 01:07:50,280
somehow make common cause and to accept
the C plus version of what it is

993
01:07:50,360 --> 01:07:55,119
they want. And that is the
way it works. So you can either

994
01:07:55,199 --> 01:07:57,239
change the way it works, but
you can't bang your spoon in your height

995
01:07:57,280 --> 01:08:00,159
here. The awakening from me wokening
will be there. Salvation and how we

996
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:02,639
respond to that on the other side
of the political aisle is something that we

997
01:08:02,679 --> 01:08:05,400
will see and we will be here
to talk about it with you, Rob

998
01:08:05,440 --> 01:08:09,480
and Peter who had to scamper off. I want to remind you the podcast

999
01:08:09,599 --> 01:08:12,639
was brought to you by Fume and
by Zebiotics, and you can support them

1000
01:08:12,679 --> 01:08:15,399
for supporting us and improve your life
immeasurably. Take a minute to leave that

1001
01:08:15,479 --> 01:08:19,119
five star review at Bapple podcast if
you would to like and smash and subscribe,

1002
01:08:19,119 --> 01:08:21,479
and as they say as YouTube,
yeah I'm sorry. No, what

1003
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:26,560
matters is that, Join Ricochet and
keep it going because we want to be

1004
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:30,199
here for you throughout this entire election
and the administration to come. Rob,

1005
01:08:30,239 --> 01:08:33,439
it's been a pleasure and we'll see
everybody in the comments at Ricochet. Still

1006
01:08:33,760 --> 01:08:36,760
four point zero next week, next
week,