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to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast Today

0:56

is Thursday, April Twenty Fifth Twenty Twenty

0:58

Four I am John Out where it's

1:00

the editor of Commentary Magazine with me.

1:02

As always Executive Editor: A Greenwald Hi

1:05

Abe her John. Senior. Editor

1:07

sets my now hi Seth. Rogen.

1:09

And Washington Commentary com list and

1:11

Director of Domestic Policy Studies at

1:13

the American Enterprise Institute. Matthew Continetti

1:15

hi Matt I don't I hope

1:18

everybody I listen to me who

1:20

observed had as this and couple

1:22

of sailors. And

1:24

is ready to get back in the

1:26

game. Because if

1:28

you were observing, and in fact

1:30

observing, Rigorously.

1:32

And therefore were treating it as a

1:35

holiday and we're not on social media

1:37

are watching meteor the having anything to

1:39

do with electricity for the most part

1:41

like our own sets. When Dell sets

1:43

when you woke up, level of sports

1:45

do it when you when you woke

1:47

up when you concluded. The.

1:49

Pascual Festivities and the two

1:51

days of holiday and emerged

1:54

last night to see what

1:56

was going on in the

1:58

world. Cow had the. World

2:00

changed, From. Monday

2:02

from Mob. We. Know

2:05

when the Saviors began? On

2:07

Monday night. Myself. Very much

2:09

like when know our. First. Sent

2:11

out the bird and bird came back and know

2:13

said or I. Let's go back in the Arc

2:15

for a few more days and then we'll see

2:18

how the weather is in a few more days.

2:20

Know. How I'd say Came back on line

2:23

two. You know our eyes always the see

2:25

that things had. Somehow everything had worked itself

2:27

out very nicely. And ah, I did Odyssey.

2:29

I went in. I went in thinking there's

2:31

gonna be three more schools. Ah you know,

2:34

by a time I get out of these

2:36

two days three more schools. Convulsed

2:39

by these protests, In and and all the

2:41

mayhem. and it was only like one in

2:43

a house. So. I'm

2:46

in. But yeah, it's a it's

2:48

a. Bit. There are always ah

2:50

I used it when I used to come

2:52

back online after two days or if there

2:54

were a three day or when it was

2:56

next to a job as I used to

2:58

always come back online and play this game

3:00

where I used to say all right. Tell.

3:04

Me what happened and I have to figure

3:06

out people would play this game. The I

3:08

had to figure out what was true in

3:10

what was not true before I had a

3:12

chance to look at the headlines and this

3:14

was during you know answer. During the Trump

3:17

years there were things like I remember coming

3:19

online ones after a holiday or after service

3:21

and and does somebody said or the president

3:23

picked a fight with a quarterback Colin Cap

3:25

or next and I said all I know

3:27

that's that's false that's that's a really good

3:29

with advantage But I grew up where we

3:31

are. Okay so where we are I think

3:34

is that. I'm. Not

3:36

much James, I mean, Except

3:39

that blasphemer except that of

3:41

least at the University of

3:43

Texas an awesome ah states

3:46

the the state officials that

3:48

broke up the. Broke

3:50

up, whatever. Encampment effort

3:52

was being made. Ah,

3:56

hundreds of are there were apparently

3:58

eighty seven or at USC,

4:02

people are, I guess, campus

4:04

presidents. It's now at Princeton this morning.

4:08

The encampment started being constructed.

4:11

Officials are shouting on bull horns

4:14

that they are going to give three warnings and

4:17

they are going to go through and wipe the

4:19

encampments out based on Princeton's own handbook

4:21

about what you are and are not allowed to do

4:23

on campus. So people

4:25

who have, university officials who have

4:28

not seen the encampments are

4:30

trying to nip them in the bud. It

4:33

appears and do everything they can to make sure that

4:35

they are not set up now

4:38

and that everything is now being

4:40

telegraphed and so they are, they

4:42

don't want their campuses to be

4:45

swamped. The professoriate

4:47

apparently does want their campuses to

4:49

be swamped as they are now

4:51

playing roles in the

4:53

encampments. But I guess that can I represent,

4:55

yeah go ahead. Just

4:58

thinking about what's changed and it's sort of met

5:00

away. I think what's changed now is that for

5:03

the time being in the US,

5:06

the story has become the protests not

5:08

the war. That

5:10

has absolutely overtaken any

5:13

discussion about Israel, about

5:15

Gaza. It's

5:17

not about Bibi. We

5:20

are watching, there is

5:23

supposedly a

5:27

ground operation that's going to be forthcoming

5:30

in Rafa. But

5:32

just like with George

5:35

Floyd, the

5:37

story moved right off of the

5:39

actual incident with George Floyd and

5:41

became the movement. And the

5:43

movement is now the story here, not

5:46

Israel. What about

5:48

the counter movement Matt? Because

5:51

we have this very interesting event yesterday,

5:54

speaker of the house Mike Johnson went

5:56

to Columbia to say he stood with

5:59

Jewish students. students and order

6:01

and basically yelled at the protesters

6:04

that they should go back to

6:06

class, which I think is, I

6:10

will say, Johnson is a

6:13

much more interesting and surprising figure than

6:15

I think we expected him to be.

6:18

But the just saying, go back

6:20

to class represents a commonsensical

6:25

American approach to saying, who

6:27

are you? Spoil

6:30

little brats wandering around

6:33

with your drum circles and your charging

6:35

stations and your Vino

6:37

skin products in the supplies

6:39

tent on the Columbia

6:42

campus. Go back to

6:44

class. You're wasting $90,000 of

6:46

your parents' money

6:49

or whatever. So the

6:52

counter protest is

6:55

going to start to get

6:57

very interesting. How Americans are

6:59

reacting to this, which

7:01

there's no polling data on and all

7:04

of that, but the idea

7:06

that conservatives and Republicans can

7:08

make hay with what has

7:10

been going on here, I think

7:12

is starting to catch on and frightening

7:16

liberals and leftists who are now

7:18

talking about how don't blame the

7:20

students. It's all there outside agitators

7:23

who are coming and

7:25

their outside agitation is

7:27

preventing students from expressing

7:29

their free speech rights, which is who

7:33

else use the term outside agitators? George

7:36

Wallace, Lester Maddox, the

7:39

Freedom Riders, they

7:41

were outside agitators. Everything would have

7:43

been just fine in Alabama. J-6

7:47

too, by the way. The January 6th,

7:49

it's Antifa in masks or whatever. Yeah,

7:51

fake. Right. Yeah. Telling the students to

7:53

go back to class raises the question

7:55

of whether the students are enrolled at

7:58

Columbia University. university or

8:01

the other schools where these encampments are

8:03

popping up. And sometimes

8:05

hard to tell whether the students are enrolled because

8:08

A, access to the

8:10

encampment is restricted and

8:12

B, most of the protest

8:16

slash monsters are

8:19

fully masked and wearing

8:21

Hamas-like head coverings. So,

8:24

there's no telling who they are. I

8:27

was struck by Michael Powell's piece in The Atlantic

8:30

the other day. Michael

8:32

Powell, the journalist, went into the

8:34

encampment at Columbia. He

8:36

found exactly one person who was

8:38

authorized slash willing to talk to

8:41

him. And

8:43

he says in the piece, I paraphrase,

8:46

his other encounters with these people

8:49

there were frightening

8:51

and Stalinist. And he's

8:53

a writer for The Atlantic. He said, I

8:55

can understand why the students, the Jewish students

8:57

at Columbia and others

9:00

in the community are so disturbed

9:02

and concerned by what's happening.

9:06

We should also point out that the

9:08

president of Columbia University has given the protesters

9:11

another 48 hours. She

9:13

has extended the deadline for them to

9:16

remove the camp. Ongoing

9:19

negotiations, very similar

9:21

to the Biden's diplomatic process with

9:23

the Islamic Republic of Iran. You

9:26

know, we'll extend the negotiations. Don't

9:31

cross this line. You probably get a line, but we'll

9:33

draw the line here. Another

9:36

24 hours for you. I

9:40

guess, again, I have to sort

9:43

of apologize for on Friday suggesting

9:45

that Manoush Soushik, the president of

9:47

Columbia, had turned a

9:49

corner and had, you know, in

9:51

her bringing the NYPD on

9:56

campus to clear out the encampments and

9:59

arrest some people. that that

10:01

she had put her foot down. Well

10:03

she turned the corner and then another

10:05

corner. Yes and then she was afraid

10:07

of the wall. Yes. Yeah and kept

10:09

going does anybody know where she is?

10:12

I think that she kept walking after she

10:14

came out of there she just kept walking.

10:16

One of the latest communications came in the

10:18

early morning hours. I

10:20

mean this is heated

10:24

crisis level negotiations between her

10:26

and whoever

10:29

the designated leader of the

10:32

protesters is. Yeah. I

10:35

am so

10:39

there was a black comic aspect to all

10:41

this right which is as Abe says so

10:43

now the protests are about the protests and

10:47

though they are chanting anti-Semitic

10:49

slogans and some

10:51

people there and doing all that that

10:53

that this now takes on the

10:56

form of any

10:58

reality show. It's now a reality show

11:01

and it's that people are living inside

11:03

it. It's being done for the TikTok

11:05

for the for the

11:07

TikToks and for the social

11:09

media and to promote this

11:12

some of these ideas but I mean I

11:14

think the people who are behind it are

11:16

the people who are the leaders who are

11:18

negotiating with Manoush Safik and

11:20

of course and I honestly genuinely believe

11:22

I was the first person to point

11:24

this out on social media that the

11:28

mysterious fact that all the calm and

11:30

tense are exactly the same at every

11:32

campus suggesting mass purchasing has

11:34

been done by some central figure

11:37

and there are in fact rules

11:39

and regulations that the encampment leaders

11:42

are promulgating who should talk to

11:44

the media. When are you allowed

11:46

to talk to media? When can

11:49

you go? Where can you

11:51

go get food? How do you

11:53

wash up? Where are the bathrooms? All

11:55

that stuff that there is a much

11:57

more highly organized aspect

11:59

to These things and and the

12:02

spread we know in part

12:04

because or Abigail Anthony who

12:06

reports from National Review and

12:08

as herself they graduate a

12:10

prince since got a hold

12:12

of the encampment. Construction.

12:16

emails, And things bad Princeton

12:18

a couple of days ago before

12:20

they actually started are putting them

12:22

up. so this is not. None

12:24

of this is spontaneous is he

12:26

can I? And that makes sense

12:29

considering it's a pro Hamas information

12:31

operation this being conducted in the

12:33

United States. I also met my

12:35

make the point. We.

12:37

Hear a lot about secessionism

12:39

especially of coming from the

12:41

right. The threats of secessionism

12:43

from the right in a

12:45

break up of when they're

12:47

with the as many crisis

12:50

over it's jurisdiction on the

12:52

Eagle Pass border crossing in

12:54

Texas Earlier the spring people

12:56

were saying oh this is

12:58

you know that flashpoint could

13:00

to Texas new and a

13:02

flout federal law. Will.

13:04

They get away with it. But. The

13:07

strike me that these secessionists.

13:09

On the left are far

13:11

more active. And. On

13:13

the right mean this type of

13:15

tactic that we're going to create

13:18

an autonomous zone where only are

13:20

preferred Law. Is. Valid

13:22

we saw that is in Occupy

13:24

Wall Street but we also sought

13:26

in the summer of Twenty Twenty.

13:29

Or. As with the Atop District

13:31

in Seattle as and then as

13:33

he often shell shocked and saddened

13:35

Portland turning essentially into this weird.

13:38

In a nightly gunfight

13:40

between federal officers and

13:42

these anarchist the Cops

13:44

City protest in Georgia

13:46

Same thing these protesters

13:49

connect come out and

13:51

they say they form

13:53

human chains, not let

13:55

allowing anyone in and

13:57

they're basically carving out

13:59

territory where they are

14:01

the only legal authorities.

14:03

It so insane. And

14:05

it's around us all the time. And

14:08

it's left wing, not right wing. The.

14:11

Occupy Wallstreet, you may remember. Either.

14:15

When Occupy Wall Street ah took over

14:17

as a car park at the you

14:20

know at the southern tip of Manhattan.

14:24

That that that work had been done

14:26

before hands to figure out where the

14:28

see where this encampment should take place

14:30

in that there was a weird. Aspect

14:34

of the legal documents.

14:37

Surrounding. What Zuccotti Park

14:39

was. And it was partially

14:41

private and partially public. And

14:43

that speech because of it's

14:45

parcel public nature or something

14:48

like that Free speech, You

14:50

know. First Amendment rights could

14:52

not be curtailed some set

14:54

so that they had a

14:56

legal argument that they had

14:58

standing. To put up

15:00

these tend to live in the

15:02

some camp month and that ah

15:04

I believe when they was finally

15:06

broken up. That of

15:08

the reason given was essentially sanitary

15:10

that vegas but there was a

15:12

there was a health threat being

15:15

posed by this whatever was five

15:17

six months that in these people

15:19

have been spending in a living

15:21

in this living in this park

15:23

with their free library and hair.

15:26

Many. Government and stuff like that.

15:30

Here. We have the case where

15:32

we have private property as we

15:34

are constantly reminded. By. Columbia.

15:37

It's. Private property and therefore the police

15:39

can't come on campus to break up

15:41

the encampments unless we asked the man

15:43

which is by the way not true.

15:46

If you believe he was urging of empires.

15:50

Didn't ethnic tensions? Yes. Dps rather

15:53

have to stay out unless you

15:55

invite the men. But.

15:57

i mean if there's if they're celanese been

15:59

committed the book police are

16:02

allowed to enter the premises

16:05

and it is the

16:07

refusal of the owners

16:11

of the private property to say, you're

16:14

trespassing, literally get off my

16:17

lawn. I

16:19

mean, as Matt, as you let it

16:21

out there's this, yes, get off my

16:23

lawn, that

16:26

indicates some Rubicon has been

16:28

crossed on university

16:30

campuses that will, by the way, never

16:32

again, you won't be able to

16:35

go back. Well, you never know. Maybe

16:37

Manoush, when the 48-hour deadline comes, she'll say, okay,

16:39

I'll call on the cops once again because I

16:41

can't deal with it. I do want to make

16:43

one other point though. I came across an email

16:45

reported by, I believe, the Free

16:48

Beacon this morning that the Columbia Law students

16:50

have been telling

16:53

their fellow Jewish students. So I think

16:55

it's one group of

16:58

Columbia Law students sending

17:01

some type of email to Jewish students

17:03

who would like law enforcement to come

17:05

and to break up. They came in

17:07

and the presence of police officers on

17:09

Columbia's campus would make these law students

17:11

feel unsafe and therefore,

17:13

the protests must

17:16

continue indefinitely. This

17:18

I think, and we've talked about these issues

17:20

now on the podcast for years, but this

17:22

is the scariest part of all

17:24

of this. It isn't so much the

17:27

Hamas sympathizers on campus. So that's very

17:29

scary for the students. I don't want

17:31

to minimize it. But the longer term

17:33

threat to America posed by the law

17:36

students in these various

17:39

campuses who are going to

17:41

graduate and going to go into

17:43

the legal profession and going to staff Democratic

17:47

administrations for the next generation

17:50

to say such idiocy

17:53

that the presence of police officers would

17:56

make them feel physically unsafe, Such

17:58

topsy-turvy. Logic. And

18:01

for who unusual. And.

18:04

New Psychobabble. Is.

18:06

What? Really? That. Makes me stay

18:08

up late at night. And. They

18:10

also they yielded the started

18:12

early on. One of the

18:14

big things was the the

18:16

Harvard. Law students

18:19

are having her. Ah

18:21

oh and my you axes the

18:23

N Y U lawsuit are having

18:26

her arm invitation to employments I

18:28

guess is how they described it

18:30

at a major law firm after

18:32

graduation Rescinded. And I've got a

18:34

whole discussion going and then. On some

18:37

of these from some law firm,

18:39

some financial firms had sent letters

18:41

a colleges saying. Listen.

18:43

This is not a joke. It's

18:45

asked if. You. Have to get

18:47

this under control. You can't. You know

18:49

you can't send these people to me.

18:52

You know we're We're offering you guys

18:54

jobs and ah and part of this

18:56

is what was explained to them was

18:58

that if you go to work at

19:00

a major law firm, You have

19:02

lots of different clients, lots of

19:04

different types of clients, lots of

19:06

different interesting clients, and you you

19:09

bring with you when you bring

19:11

this sort of idiocy mad as

19:13

you called it, it's more for

19:15

it's a it's a threat to

19:17

eat of the rest of the

19:19

firm's work with who knows who

19:21

they're working with. So they're trying

19:23

to say to these people eggs,

19:26

just wait till you take literally

19:28

please. One step, one step in

19:30

the real world and look. Around

19:32

before you you know what I'll decide

19:34

about. I guess I just want to

19:36

say I'm distinguishing between the in the

19:38

case of N Y U student who

19:40

was pro Hamas pro October seventh and

19:43

then denied employed. That. That's

19:45

necessarily with these Columbia law students are say

19:47

they're just they're say we don't want the

19:49

police officers on the campus because that makes

19:52

us feel physically unsafe best as the more

19:54

kind of. Weird. Progressive.

19:57

or you know zoc guys that You

20:01

know, Hamas is the victim, police

20:04

officers are the real threat, right?

20:07

Everything is topsy turvy and I think those

20:09

types of attorneys

20:11

who aren't like explicitly anti-Semite

20:15

are actually going to get employed. Yeah,

20:17

and also we should say that the... I want to be like

20:19

Abe though. I need to be like Abe though and say it's

20:21

worse than that because there's an aspect to

20:24

this where you listen and you say

20:26

they don't believe this at all. This

20:28

is a form of real world trolling

20:31

that they are once again

20:33

deploying their feeling unsafe argument.

20:37

Their theoretical lack of safety

20:39

with an actual lack of

20:41

safety that actual people on

20:43

the campus are experiencing where,

20:46

you know, this student Jessica

20:48

Schwab goes into the encampments

20:50

and is threatened physically by

20:53

protesters. Like

20:57

that actually happened.

20:59

Sahar Tohak at Yale

21:02

probably inadvertently but was poked in

21:04

the eye by a flagpole

21:07

in the midst

21:09

of being menaced. It's

21:12

not clear that the intent was to poker in

21:14

the eye with the flagpole. These

21:17

are things that are actually happening

21:19

where people are literally unsafe. And

21:22

just as we've been... We spent 10 years

21:25

dealing with the idea of the microaggression, the

21:28

aggression that isn't an aggression. So you dub

21:30

it an aggression by saying that

21:32

it's kind of... It's

21:34

like a kind of nascent aggression if it

21:36

were allowed to bubble into... So when the

21:39

Columbia Law students say this, it's

21:41

a little like when Madi Hassan goes on

21:44

to Twitter to lecture us

21:46

about what antisemitism is and

21:49

how we are being antisemites

21:51

because we attack

21:53

Jewish anti-Zionists. Like,

21:56

okay, does he really believe that? I

21:59

doubt it. just a Stalinist,

22:01

these law students are effectively

22:04

using classic Stalinist reversal, semantic

22:06

infiltration tactics to try to

22:09

turn their argument, your argument

22:11

against yourself. And

22:13

where I am unnerved is the fact that

22:15

the left gets away with

22:18

this. I just want to give you

22:20

an example. Casey Johnson, our very valued

22:22

contributor who writes about campuses,

22:24

is himself a professor at Brooklyn College

22:26

and writes about Title IX and a

22:28

lot of stuff. Said the

22:31

other day, I mean this reminds me of Melissa

22:33

Click. So I was like, oh, Melissa Click. So

22:35

if you don't remember Melissa Click, there

22:37

was, after Ferguson, after the Michael Brand

22:40

incident in Ferguson, Missouri, there were protests

22:42

on the campus of the University of

22:44

Missouri at Columbia, and Melissa

22:46

Click, who was a professor of communication,

22:48

essentially tried to

22:51

call a mob onto a reporter

22:54

for the Daily Missouri, which is the

22:56

paper at the University of Missouri, which

22:58

has a famous journalism school. It said,

23:01

people come help me out here to sort of beat

23:03

up this reporter or

23:05

stop them from going somewhere.

23:09

And she ended up pleading guilty

23:11

to a misdemeanor and having to

23:13

do 30 hours of community service.

23:17

We need some muscle over here, what's

23:19

the famous word. Thank you very much.

23:22

And she was, you know, sentenced to 30 hours

23:24

of community service, and the University of Missouri fired

23:26

her for

23:28

attempting to set

23:31

a mob on a reporter.

23:34

She's a professor of communications. So

23:36

I was like, Melissa Click, what happened to Melissa Click?

23:39

She's got a job as a professor

23:41

on a campus of Gonzaga University. Dr.

23:45

Melissa A. Click's research interests center

23:47

on popular culture, texts, and audience,

23:50

particularly texts and audiences disdained in

23:52

mainstream culture. I don't really need

23:54

to read the rest of this.

24:00

Somehow, their bacon is always pulled

24:02

out of the fire and with Soros

24:06

money and whoever that

24:08

guy, the progressive insurance

24:10

money and the

24:12

people who gave $2 billion to

24:15

ProPublica and all this, hundreds

24:18

of these people, if they don't get

24:20

jobs in administrations or maybe they'll be

24:22

cleansed for five or ten years, they'll

24:24

be setups of NGOs and things like

24:27

that that they will go into and

24:29

then ten years from now, they will

24:31

emerge as people even if

24:33

maybe this makes them a little too

24:35

hot to get clerkships. What

24:40

judge would be insane enough to

24:42

hire somebody who does

24:45

stuff like this? It just strikes me, it would

24:47

be crazy. You don't know, you

24:50

issue a decision that your

24:53

clerk doesn't like and your clerk does

24:56

a sit-in in your office. I mean, I just,

24:59

I'm not joking. It's such

25:01

an interesting point you're making because they get

25:03

away with it because we are so bifurcated.

25:06

There isn't one common culture where

25:08

you would be in trouble for

25:10

doing this. You

25:12

do it, you're in your left

25:14

sphere, you're fine. That's

25:16

where you live. You don't live in this

25:19

larger thing where you have

25:21

to deal with people on the right,

25:23

people on the middle, you are in

25:25

your own complete ecosystem and you can

25:27

travel through it. Right.

25:30

That's true on both sides. So, not to

25:32

both sides, but like the guy who went

25:34

to shoot up Comet

25:37

Pizza on Connecticut

25:41

Avenue when he was tried and

25:43

then he was like, I didn't

25:45

even know it wasn't true. Everything

25:51

that I read, everything that I pay

25:53

attention to said, they were taking these

25:55

kids and they were taking the adrenochrome

25:57

out of their bodies and I genuinely...

26:00

genuinely didn't know that there was a

26:02

counterfactual here that was actually

26:04

the truth. And

26:07

you heard that from some of the J6 defendants

26:09

who said, I live in this world

26:11

in which I didn't

26:14

know that they weren't coming

26:16

for Trump. And

26:19

so there is a... You

26:21

are able now to silo yourself to

26:24

such a degree that,

26:26

yeah, when somebody says, you

26:29

know, you're not allowed to put up a tent

26:31

on campus. If you're not one

26:33

of the organizers who is trying

26:36

to harness law

26:38

in these municipalities or things like

26:40

that to your advantage because your

26:42

purpose is to have a pro-Hamas

26:44

rally or you're... Can

26:46

I just... Yeah, I just want to make a point

26:48

but you just triggered me with your use of the

26:50

word tent. What's with the

26:52

tent? Why

26:55

is it that in the past decade or so,

26:57

tents have become so ubiquitous? I

26:59

crossed the bridge to go into DC. I'm

27:01

greeted with tents. I walk

27:03

down a park in Washington, DC. Tents,

27:07

sometimes on the sidewalk. Tents,

27:09

now all throughout America. These tent cities

27:11

are popping up on the campus. What's

27:14

with the tents? Why is it now in

27:18

the front of so many people's minds that

27:20

they have the right to pull out a

27:22

stupid tent from REI and just live right

27:24

in front of me and don't have to

27:26

care about any of the social consequences? You

27:28

do. I actually have an

27:30

answer, please. Just

27:33

like everything else, it is technology.

27:35

When I was a young, young

27:37

kid at camp, it

27:40

was hell to put up

27:42

a tent. I mean, right. It

27:45

took an hour. Well, that's why they had the... Well, that's

27:47

why they had the... It's now... It's

27:49

now badge. Yeah. You hike

27:51

for a full day first. You hike for a full

27:53

day first and then you had like a five-minute

27:55

thing of how to build it and like two people

27:58

slept in a tent that night. Yeah. Okay,

28:00

so I have to take

28:02

my kid on a school camping trip

28:04

right in 2012

28:09

or 2013 and I'm like I'm not doing that I can't do

28:11

I don't know how to My friends have

28:13

to listen like you don't know what's going

28:15

on in the last like 30 40 years You

28:19

go by this Coleman tent it

28:21

pops up by itself It

28:24

takes it takes two

28:26

minutes to put up a tent Right,

28:29

it's nothing. So the tents

28:31

themselves and then once

28:33

you have it down folding them

28:35

up takes two minutes also the only problem

28:37

with the tents is Putting

28:40

the thing on that makes them a little

28:42

more waterproof and then hammering and having a

28:44

mallet so you can hammer them Into

28:47

the turnt into the ground so that they don't blow

28:49

away It is

28:51

a technology problem Well, whoever invented that

28:53

technology has a lot to answer for

28:59

These kids aren't paying 78 grand a year

29:01

to sit on the ground Matt. Yeah, that's

29:03

right This is a side

29:06

note. So imagine would well we have it

29:08

that we had the Supreme Court here the

29:11

urban camping case While

29:13

we were right. That's right. That's right. Yeah

29:15

to alert our listeners There's a chance by

29:17

the end of June We

29:20

may have the ability to get rid

29:22

of these tents Which is really high

29:24

on my policy priority list on the

29:26

continuity policy party Let's getting rid of

29:28

the tents is like number two you

29:30

paid any attention to this case

29:32

And it's a town in Oregon.

29:35

I think it's Oregon.

29:37

Yeah, Washington that has banned Outdoor

29:41

camping like as banned sleeping on

29:45

Public spaces at night and you

29:47

want to talk about disingenuous Argumentation

29:50

so the liberals on the court or

29:52

particularly Sotomayor and Kagan said

29:56

How can you keep people from sleeping? Everyone

29:59

has to sleep sleep. So

30:01

you have to be able to sleep because everyone has

30:03

to sleep and the

30:06

homeless have to sleep. If you're

30:08

an unhoused person and you

30:10

need to sleep, you have to sleep. Who

30:12

are we to interfere with the biological process

30:14

of sleep to which I say,

30:18

having just spent two days

30:20

at Passover

30:22

Seder's dealing

30:24

with the passages in the

30:26

Haggadah, the book that is

30:28

the sort of the most

30:30

probably the best known Jewish

30:32

text I imagine really to

30:35

most people. There's a

30:37

whole section of Talmudic, the exploration

30:39

of Talmudic logic that

30:41

as you get older and older gets more and more

30:44

and more obscurantist and

30:46

ridiculous. How many plagues

30:48

were there? You know, we all know there were 10

30:50

plagues and then there's a discussion in the Haggadah

30:52

about whether no, no, there were 50 plagues. No, there

30:54

were 250 plagues. Then

30:58

you go, you know, this really, these guys, some

31:00

of these great Talmudic scholars really

31:02

should have like had a job

31:04

because this is thought

31:06

run amok. So this is

31:08

like Talmudic logic run out. You know perfectly

31:11

well why you don't let

31:13

people sleep overnight

31:15

outside. It's called vagrancy

31:18

and it's a human right to sleep. It is

31:20

not a human right to sleep in public and

31:23

to create conditions under which people feel the right

31:26

to take over public spaces. I

31:29

think it's such an interesting

31:32

point because it's not

31:34

only just that they're an eyesore and

31:37

that they're transgressing on

31:40

everyone's lives

31:43

but it says

31:45

something so interesting about who they are

31:47

and how many people feel this way.

31:50

So it speaks to the sense of

31:53

impermanence and drift and

31:55

it's also like the rise

31:57

in squatters everywhere. squatting

32:00

and other people's home and there's

32:02

something like Sort of post-apocalyptic

32:05

about it or sort of post Somebody

32:09

as somebody else pointed out they live 200

32:12

yards away Like

32:15

the on how is there room or

32:17

the on house? But the tent cities

32:19

at Columbia are people who live

32:21

there. You see that building you

32:23

see that window That's my that's

32:26

my they don't even live there

32:28

I'm concerned. I'm live in Queens

32:30

what what we Look

32:32

when they come in what but Matt, where did

32:34

you think I was going? Well, I thought you

32:36

were going with what it says about the imposition

32:40

of One's ego on others

32:43

that is to me right like the

32:45

mark of our age right I feel

32:47

this way and Screw

32:49

you if you feel differently because you

32:52

have to listen to me my sovereign

32:54

self is more important than yours in

32:56

our sense of Equality and our sense

32:58

of what freedom means in

33:00

America today has no

33:04

response, oh, okay, if you

33:06

feel like Just sleeping

33:08

in the sidewalk in front of my house

33:10

What who am I to say that or

33:12

if all of a sudden you feel like

33:14

you are of a different biological sex because

33:16

you Woke up feeling that way in the

33:18

morning of who am I

33:20

to say that we can't you know? Completely

33:22

rejigger the rules of our society in your

33:24

favor. That's where I thought you were going

33:27

but your other point was true, too I

33:29

mean III there is The

33:33

thing about the squatting and the tenting and

33:35

all of that is that this is yet

33:37

again a circumstance in which Despite

33:40

all of our talk about the evils of

33:42

privilege or the left's talk about the evils

33:44

of privilege People can buy

33:47

their way out of Right

33:50

the wealthy do not have to worry

33:52

about people Doing

33:54

this stuff because they can put up a

33:56

gate they can put up a hedgerow they

33:58

can live in a doorman building,

34:00

they can have, they can

34:22

hire lawyers or stuff like that

34:24

to something

34:31

needs to be done because there's

34:33

a squatter in their house. They can't

34:36

afford it. They're living paycheck by paycheck.

34:38

And this is where the limousine liberal

34:40

argument started to come in and really

34:43

bite the left. And

34:46

basically freeze the progress of the left

34:48

in the late 60s and early 70s

34:50

as typified by, of course,

34:53

Tom Wolf's deathless essay, Radical

34:55

Sheik, that you can

34:57

talk this talk, but then you

34:59

you can say no charter schools,

35:01

but then you send your kid

35:04

to a private school and

35:07

consign every other kid who doesn't

35:09

have the resources to a horrible

35:12

public school. And that is

35:14

something that has been a secret

35:18

weapon of

35:21

the anti-left now going

35:23

on 50 years. And

35:25

I think it may re-emerge. When

35:28

I was at the New York Post, we had

35:30

to, that was the opinion

35:33

editor, you know, you'd take perspective photos

35:35

that you had in mind to illustrate

35:37

a story to the photo editor because

35:39

the photo editor of the paper knew

35:42

what every photo going in the paper

35:44

was going to be. So you're just

35:46

making sure you're not doubling up. And

35:49

I remember taking a couple options over

35:51

to illustrate a story about homelessness. And,

35:53

you know, I printed out a picture

35:56

from our, from the post, you know,

35:58

from our backlog saying, showing a

36:01

homeless person being

36:03

roughly removed from,

36:07

you know, near, I

36:09

guess it was Gracie Mansion probably. And

36:12

I brought it to the photo editor and he said, Do you know who

36:14

that is in the photo? You don't

36:16

recognize them? And I said, No, he's

36:19

that that's a post reporter. The

36:21

post had had does this sort of thing

36:24

to catch the limousine liberalism. So what they

36:26

had done was they had said to build

36:28

a blasio. How come every

36:30

time you go on the subway,

36:32

it looks nicer than when I

36:34

go on the subway, let's put

36:36

you know, build a blasio said

36:38

there's a right as a human

36:40

right to sleep like Sotomayor said

36:42

outside. So the post sent a

36:45

homeless, you know, quote unquote, homeless

36:47

person to sleep outside the blasios

36:49

place. And it's how long, right?

36:51

Right. Removed and tossed out, you know,

36:53

like a like what are the shows where

36:55

you see the guy flying through the air?

36:57

Can I find your limousine liberal thing, John?

36:59

Just for us? Because our friend

37:01

David Brooks had it. Interesting.

37:04

And I think revealing a little piece in

37:06

the New York Times this morning entitled Why

37:08

I'm getting more pessimistic about Biden's chances this

37:11

fall. And he gives two

37:13

reasons. And the second reason is he's

37:16

become more pessimistic because of what's happening to

37:18

the youth vote. Many David

37:20

goes on and I quote, I think what we're seeing

37:23

at Columbia and on other elite campuses is a precursor

37:25

to what we're going to see at the Democratic Convention

37:28

in Chicago. He talked about 1968, which

37:30

we of course have referenced several times in the podcast.

37:33

He says if there are similar

37:35

classes in the clashes in Chicago this August,

37:37

the chaos will reinforce Trump's core

37:39

law and order message. He will

37:41

make Biden look weak and hapless, close

37:44

quote, but it also will

37:46

reinforce this idea of limousine liberalism,

37:48

which is prevalent

37:51

kind of in the Biden kind

37:53

of campaign. And if you consider like the

37:55

difference between Trump visiting

37:57

the wake of the killed

38:01

NYPD officer versus Biden's

38:04

gathering in midtown

38:06

Manhattan with Stephen Colbert and

38:08

all these liberals coming being

38:10

heckled by the Palestinian activists.

38:14

There's the general kind of detachment.

38:17

Biden, we should

38:19

say, just yesterday was giving remarks

38:21

where he read

38:23

out the stage instruction pause

38:26

which was kind of a callback

38:28

to George H.W. Bush's reading

38:31

off the teleprompter message, I care.

38:33

On a card. On a card,

38:35

right. He was on his card in his pocket. He

38:38

was at a diner. He went into a diner in

38:40

New Hampshire. And the card said, you know, basically your

38:42

overall message

38:46

is I care. So when

38:49

you go around you're trying to make it clear

38:51

to people that you care and he said message

38:53

I care. And there's also

38:55

the continued, you know, lack of

38:58

a serious response to what's happening on the

39:00

southern border. I was telling a friend just

39:03

last evening, you know, they

39:05

really need to get these human chain people

39:07

at the university campuses and send them to

39:09

the southern border because then we would

39:12

be impenetrable. You know, the

39:14

border crossings would plummet if you just

39:16

put these pro-Hamas barbarians

39:19

in charge of border security. I

39:24

want to stay on this point a

39:26

little longer because the it's not

39:28

just limousine liberalism but it is

39:30

also a question

39:32

of the response to limousine

39:34

liberalism because it's not only

39:36

that they do this and that people know

39:38

it. The question is can it be harnessed, right?

39:40

So the harnessing of

39:44

anti-limousine liberalism

39:48

was a key factor, as I said, in

39:50

the late 60s, early 70s of halting

39:55

the kind of mad on rush of

39:59

leftist politics. in Washington, even

40:01

though Richard Nixon, when

40:03

he became president, still kind

40:06

of drifted in that direction in domestic

40:10

politics. But there was a kind

40:12

of, you know, how many bills

40:14

did Lyndon Johnson pass in 1965 with a 69-seat

40:20

majority in the Senate? A hundred and seventy,

40:22

a hundred and eighty bills were were

40:24

passed that sort of constituted the Great

40:27

Society. Like, there was going to be

40:29

no let up in that thing

40:32

that was happening. And

40:35

Nixon harnessed that you, not really in

40:37

terms of domestic policy, but really in

40:39

terms of how liberals talked

40:41

about the Vietnam War, like the famous,

40:43

most famous, in some

40:46

ways the most effective presidential speech in

40:48

American history, which was the silent majority

40:50

speech delivered in 1969, largely

40:53

written by William Safire, where Nixon

40:55

said, I know there's a

40:57

silent majority in this country who doesn't believe

40:59

in all this nonsense. Like, let me hear

41:01

from you. And the White House got 20

41:05

million telegrams at a

41:07

time when the population of the United States was half what

41:10

it is now. I mean, this was a

41:12

very big moment and the real warning

41:15

sign to Democrats not to go where they were going.

41:17

And then in 72, of course, Nixon

41:19

wins 62% of the vote, having

41:21

won 44% of the vote or something in 1968. It has to be

41:29

harnessed. You have to direct that feeling.

41:32

And Trump is not the best way to

41:35

do that. But I don't know,

41:37

maybe Mike Johnson, not that not that the Speaker of

41:39

the House is going to like have a national profile

41:41

high enough to sort of make

41:44

news. But what Mike Johnson did on

41:46

the Columbia campus is a lodestar for

41:49

Republicans. It is, I am not with them. I

41:52

am with you. I am not with the people

41:54

who are saying that there are, You

41:56

know, there are more than two genders. Do

42:00

you think there were two genders soda

42:02

wise and so does God and so

42:04

does a common sense or whatever. And

42:06

and also so do these at the

42:08

university presidents, right? Because I think the

42:10

lodestar thing works for least the phonic

42:12

to what she's doing in the hearing.

42:14

which is if you're watching all the

42:16

reports of the hearings, even if you

42:18

don't sit and watch on Cspan manouchehr

42:20

seek a sitting there going. No, I

42:22

don't know why we spell soaks with

42:24

an ex. Yeah, I'd we There they

42:27

do. I guess my students don't know

42:29

how to spell. Like. Makes everything that

42:31

she says was agree. I agree

42:33

with you. Congresswoman.

42:35

I agree that is reprehensible. I agree

42:37

with you and I see like that

42:40

was also part of the point was

42:42

to show people like look it's ears

42:44

a bunch of people. Columbia, there's a

42:46

bunch of people on Twitter Scott How

42:48

most people think and a way to

42:50

prove it is a whole The head

42:52

of that university in there as asteroid.

42:54

What is it lightens? You're absolutely right.

42:56

It was. There's a mode and level

42:58

right? So there's a multi level approach,

43:00

but it is. The

43:03

hardest thing of common sense,

43:05

which has a very nicely

43:07

nonideological quality to it. Is

43:10

the point is that we're not the area

43:12

logs where the normal people. They're.

43:14

All crazy over there is the are

43:17

these the people you want to have

43:19

running your country and they're gonna run

43:21

your country because you're president that your

43:24

Bring Us to vote for twenty twenty

43:26

Fourth is saying cause. You

43:29

know, or you know, can't speak

43:31

a coherent sentence. More to the

43:33

point about the at Radio City

43:35

thing, by the way is that

43:38

today I learned. From. Twitter.

43:41

Ah, that. Biden.

43:44

Is going to West Chester

43:46

to the home of Michael

43:48

Douglas, the Academy Award winning

43:50

actor now bizarrely playing Benjamin

43:53

Franklin. Mm Apple's If it

43:55

were it's I'm. I

43:57

liked his lesser kaminsky methods of but I

43:59

mean this. this, that's a very bizarre

44:01

piece of casting. Anyway, Michael

44:03

Douglas's house, and apparently because,

44:05

and I've had this experience

44:07

actually with the presidential motorcade

44:09

in Westchester, because security has

44:11

to close stuff down. School

44:14

is being canceled for 10,000 kids in Westchester

44:17

County today so that

44:20

Biden can go, so the Secret Service can

44:22

close down an entire neighborhood so that Biden

44:24

can go to Michael Douglas's house and

44:27

raise five or ten million dollars. And

44:29

next month, there's going to be a

44:31

big fundraiser in Beverly Hills at Jeffrey

44:33

Katzenberg's house that will raise another 25

44:36

million dollars. And there's Biden being surrounded.

44:38

Who surrounds him? Right?

44:43

Liberal celebrities.

44:47

Does ordinary America

44:49

like liberal celebrities? I don't think

44:51

that they dislike liberal celebrities. This

44:54

is a matter of course, but

44:57

I mean, he's living in this world of unreality

44:59

that is always the problem for

45:01

presidents, is that they don't

45:03

know what's going on in the world because they live in

45:06

this bubble, protected by the Secret

45:08

Service. They only talk to the people who work

45:10

for them, all of that. But

45:12

I mean, this is a very extreme thing.

45:14

Biden doesn't know that people

45:17

don't think. Yeah. They might like

45:19

the president hanging out with

45:21

liberal celebrities when the president is Obama

45:24

and something of a celebrity himself

45:26

and also when prices

45:28

haven't gone up by

45:31

about 19% over the course of

45:33

his first term and when the

45:36

border crisis hadn't

45:38

yet emerged in his first

45:40

term. Sure, hang out

45:43

with the celebrities. That's what

45:45

every Democrat does. The Hollywood

45:47

celebrities part of the Democratic base, but

45:49

it is slightly dangerous when you have

45:52

all of these other aspects of your

45:54

presidency that have gone totally sour and

45:57

when you have this mass movement

45:59

that's high. hostile to civilization

46:03

that's active on America's campuses.

46:05

And your response

46:07

was at best ambivalent

46:11

when asked about it the other day. Well,

46:15

let's talk about that because again, I

46:17

think Biden keeps snatching defeat from the

46:19

jaws of victory.

46:21

He scored an enormous victory

46:23

this week. They

46:25

held for, I mean, a little

46:28

weird parallel to the Inflation Reduction

46:30

Act. Like some presidencies or

46:32

some political organizations would have given up on

46:34

some of the aspects of these foreign aid

46:37

packages at some point because it's like,

46:39

I'm not going to waste my time. We're not getting

46:41

it through. We'll say that the Republicans stank. I'm

46:44

too bored. We have to do other stuff. But

46:47

they kept at the Inflation Reduction Act

46:49

or the green energy, whatever we want

46:51

to call it, and somehow beat Joe

46:53

Manchin down and got the

46:55

bill through. And this is not

46:57

like the Joe Manchin thing. They

47:00

liberated, they and Mike Johnson and Mitch

47:02

McConnell liberated Republicans to vote for the

47:05

aid that they wanted to vote for

47:07

anyway, even though I know a

47:09

slight majority of Republicans in the House

47:12

voted against the aid package packages. But

47:16

it was enough, like 350, 360 Congressmen, House members, and was it 79 senators or

47:18

something like

47:25

that voting for the aid package? But

47:29

he's not taking victory laps. I

47:32

mean, they're doing it. They're sending the aid

47:34

to Ukraine yesterday. They're sending attack homes and

47:36

all sorts of other stuff. And

47:39

they got this $26 billion for

47:41

Israel, which I should mention that

47:43

isn't just for Israel. There's this

47:45

ridiculous bribery money for

47:47

the Palestinians to reward them for starting

47:49

a war against Israel on

47:52

October 7th. Nonetheless, whatever they get. And

47:54

he is not able

47:56

to take a victory lap because he's too afraid of

47:59

these. you know, commie

48:04

terrorist lovers in his own faction

48:07

that he's worried are going to come down around his

48:09

head. Right. The

48:11

narrative around the aid is that

48:13

Ukraine is our ally and

48:16

in a war that they are not

48:19

of their choosing and Israel is our

48:21

ally in a war not of their

48:23

choosing. And we have our allies back.

48:25

Very simple narrative. But you can't say

48:28

that without angering

48:31

people. You can't say that about

48:33

Israel without angering people on the

48:35

left and you can't say that

48:37

on the right without Marjorie Taylor

48:39

Greene, you know, putting in a

48:41

challenge to your speakership or whatever.

48:43

There is this sort of, it's

48:45

funny the way it shook

48:48

out this way, but the underlying

48:50

point is he's afraid to say

48:52

we're helping our allies

48:54

against the enemy because

48:57

he can't say Hamas is the enemy

48:59

and Qatar is the enemy and Iran

49:01

is the enemy because we're giving Iran

49:03

money too. I understand why he

49:06

can't say Qatar is the enemy.

49:08

Our relations with Qatar are very complicated.

49:10

We have asked Qatar to

49:12

do things for, you know,

49:14

there's a lot of back channeling that

49:16

got it. So you can't just turn

49:18

on Qatar. They might release all kinds

49:21

of documents and behind the scenes negotiating

49:23

things to let the world know that

49:25

you were relying on them. They might

49:27

pull funding for you to your university.

49:29

Not being able to say that Hamas

49:31

is our enemy? Like, this is madness

49:33

that has gripped them and they

49:35

are, like I say,

49:37

he is snatching kind of

49:39

like haplessness from

49:42

the jaws of victory. He won this

49:44

huge victory this week

49:47

and he's not taking any victory laps.

49:50

Am I taking crazy pills? Like, I really don't

49:52

understand how we're doing this. You

49:55

take a victory lap, you have to, if

49:57

you make the argument and you, John, you've said this.

50:00

from the beginning, if you make the

50:02

argument for the conflicts, for helping our

50:04

allies win these conflicts, you have to

50:06

do what it takes to

50:08

win the conflict. It

50:13

obligates you to treat them with seriousness that

50:15

you say. And he's not going to do

50:17

that with Ukraine either. We sort of pass

50:19

the point where he's willing to do what

50:21

he's going to do for Ukraine. And Ukraine

50:23

is the safe one with Democrats. He doesn't

50:25

want to write that- He's been around so

50:27

long. He doesn't think foreign policy is what

50:29

motivates voters. Much more

50:31

interested in domestic policy. That's

50:33

why you have this rash of

50:35

new regulations, EPA announcing again

50:38

this morning before we record this that

50:40

the coal business has to end, put

50:43

itself out of business. You

50:45

have stringent environmental regulations. They're going after

50:47

the other part is they're going after

50:49

the fees that airlines put on your

50:51

tickets. That's what he's interested

50:53

in talking about. He's not interested in

50:55

doing ... He's interested in

50:58

helping Israel and Ukraine. He signed the bill

51:00

into law. He did get it through. That

51:02

is a success, but he doesn't want to

51:04

talk about it. And that's

51:06

one reason why he's kind of twisted

51:08

himself into pretzels with

51:10

vis-a-vis Israel, but also one

51:13

reason why Ukraine has not done as well in

51:15

the battlefield over the past year as it might

51:17

have done otherwise. But

51:20

also one of the things about when I said

51:22

that the story has become the protests and not

51:24

the war is

51:26

that this has turned

51:30

Israel ... It's

51:32

turned it from being a foreign policy issue

51:35

into a domestic issue. The issue

51:37

is now rule of law, campuses,

51:41

education, freedom

51:44

of speech. We're

51:47

in a whole new realm now

51:49

in terms of what this

51:51

is about. To

52:01

answer that question takes an experienced team

52:03

of lawyers and experts. Not

52:06

everyone has this type of experience. At

52:08

Colombo Law, we are truck injury

52:10

lawyers. It's what we do every

52:12

day. When someone is hurt

52:15

by a truck, Colombo Law is the law

52:17

firm people call to get answers. Hurt

52:19

by a truck? Call Colombo Law. Let's

52:28

shift gears a little bit and talk about

52:30

Donald Trump's week because

52:33

it's pretty interesting. We've

52:38

noted over the last three weeks that there

52:41

is reason to believe that

52:43

the democratic strategy of trying to tag

52:45

Trump with as many charges

52:48

as possible in the courtroom, we've said, oh,

52:50

this is going to make him stronger. It's

52:52

not making him stronger. It may be, at

52:54

least nationally, it's not making him stronger. As

52:57

the Trump trials and the Trump issues

53:00

have moved to center stage and a lot

53:02

of the media coverage over the last three

53:04

weeks as the

53:06

fraud trial or the

53:09

check hiding scandal, whatever you want to call it,

53:11

has moved to center stage. Biden's

53:13

numbers have gone up. Trump's numbers have

53:16

gone down. There's a fascinating, I think

53:19

it's a Pew poll that has enormous

53:22

numbers of people saying that Biden does

53:24

not have the physical stamina necessary to

53:26

be president or whatever. It's like 66%

53:28

of people say that. But

53:31

59% of people say Trump does

53:33

not have the honesty required to be president.

53:35

Now that's so obviously, if you're

53:37

going to use negative numbers, then Biden

53:39

is doing worse than Trump. But that's not

53:41

a good number. It's not good for people

53:43

to be reminded that Trump is dishonest. You

53:46

can think that he's dishonest without thinking that he's

53:48

a felon. You can

53:50

make it uncomfortable to vote for him. Then

53:53

we have these weird data points like the

53:55

Pennsylvania primary. Nikki Haley

53:57

quit the race six

53:59

weeks. ago or eight weeks, I don't even know

54:01

how long ago, and she got 150,000 votes in the Pennsylvania

54:05

primary, most of them male votes. Now

54:07

that's, you can say when

54:09

the presidential race comes around, there's

54:11

going to be a way lot more Republican

54:14

voters and Trump's numbers

54:16

are going to go way, way up because

54:18

60% more people will vote

54:21

in November as voted

54:23

in this primary. About

54:25

150,000 people who vote no

54:27

against him is not good,

54:29

it's bad, and it's bad in a state

54:31

that he lost by 80,000 votes.

54:36

Maybe those people will come back to him. I

54:39

don't know if they will though, because it's

54:41

a very symbolic thing to vote for Nikki

54:44

Haley in this primary after

54:46

she quit the race. Maybe

54:50

it's so easy to do a mail-in ballot that

54:54

it doesn't mean that by November you'll won't change

54:56

your mind and say you have to vote for

54:58

Biden. Today

55:01

Trump's going to ... The

55:03

argument that Trump should be

55:05

immune from prosecution at the federal level is

55:08

going to be heard at

55:10

the Supreme Court, so that will raise some of that

55:13

again also. We

55:17

do have a race to the bottom

55:19

here between Trump and Biden, like the

55:21

lack of enthusiasm on

55:23

each party's part for ... We

55:27

have 20% of Republicans who seem

55:29

not really to want to vote for Trump. They're

55:33

active Republicans, so they're not the entire party, and we don't

55:36

know if the number

55:39

will be that high, but it's a lot

55:41

of people. We

55:44

hear about Biden's lack of enthusiasm, but we're really not

55:46

talking much about the lack

55:48

of enthusiasm for Trump, which is a real

55:51

thing. Yeah,

55:54

you're right to say that Biden's been

55:56

improving. What's interesting to me is some of these numbers

55:58

is that Biden is running ... ahead of

56:00

his job approval rating. So Biden's

56:03

job approval rating is still pretty

56:05

dismal yet in the head-to-heads against

56:07

Trump. The race

56:09

is essentially tied or it's Biden

56:12

has a narrow lead. Another

56:14

thing to say about it is these

56:18

are national numbers and the

56:20

race in the states is much

56:22

more favorable to Trump continues to be. Now

56:24

of course state polling is

56:27

you know hit or miss and such but just going

56:29

off on what we know even during

56:31

Biden's recent rise in

56:33

the polls places like

56:36

Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, North

56:38

Carolina, Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,

56:40

the states that will decide the election,

56:43

Trump still has an advantage so that's

56:45

worth noting as well. There's also

56:47

this idea which I'm just

56:49

you know my reading of the New York

56:51

Times today is providing so much material. Stu

56:54

Stevens, the Republican

56:57

kind of I guess former Republican

56:59

operative, well

57:02

he ran Mitt Romney's campaign, been

57:04

around forever, but

57:06

a fierce critic of Trump and

57:08

someone whose criticism of Trump you know

57:10

led to his reevaluation of the purposes

57:13

of the GOP and center-right

57:15

politics more generally. He's

57:17

in the Times today saying every

57:20

day in court improves Trump's chances in November

57:23

and kind of echoing points that I

57:26

think I've made on the podcast which is the

57:29

change in circumstances from

57:32

the mega rallies of 2016 and

57:34

2020 to now the constrained room of

57:39

the courthouse and these kind

57:41

of mini events which show Trump in a

57:43

more personal almost human

57:46

dimension may actually

57:48

help turn out the Trump

57:50

base and win him in

57:52

November. So I think what the

57:56

bottom line should be when we confront this data is

57:59

confusion. And despair. But I mean, I,

58:01

uh, despair, of course, always a, always

58:04

a good approach. Right.

58:08

As you know, but, um, but I do think

58:11

it's really interesting. We

58:13

keep saying this like this is an unprecedented race.

58:15

You have an 82 year old man versus, you

58:17

know, when an eight year old man versus a

58:19

whatever and Trump is 78

58:22

and he's got 91 indictments and, and

58:24

Biden seems senile and all of that.

58:26

But I think the most interesting aspect

58:29

of it is the complete lack of,

58:33

with the exception of like

58:35

the MAGA base, the

58:38

complete lack of enthusiasm for

58:40

the candidates who have served, who

58:42

are running in the race. And

58:45

that's why RFK Jr.

58:47

is standing there as some kind of

58:49

stand in, not just for like lunacy

58:52

and you know, conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine

58:54

and all of that. But

58:57

just like I'm not them, I'm not them.

58:59

So he's been on them person. And now

59:01

there's some evidence in the more recent polls

59:03

that he's starting to hurt Trump a little

59:05

bit more than Biden in the polling. It's

59:07

unclear who he's actually going to

59:09

hurt the most, but it's

59:12

just a very unusual presidential campaign. I think

59:14

that's the bottom line. And it's, you have

59:16

numb, you have the national numbers

59:18

that we got just the other day

59:20

showing the race tied. But you also

59:22

had this recent poll from

59:24

Bloomberg Morning Consult on the same day,

59:28

showing Trump's lead in the States

59:30

is pretty durable. So if

59:32

we have this jump ball

59:34

race, despite

59:37

the electoral college numbers now turning pretty

59:39

favorably in Trump's, like he's a 290

59:41

or something like that, if the election

59:46

were held today. So that would be a

59:48

comfortable, not big

59:50

win. Right. George

59:53

W. Bush won in 20, in 2004 with 286

59:55

electoral votes or something. something

1:00:00

like that. That's the

1:00:02

first one with 271 or whatever it was in 2000, once the

1:00:10

Supreme Court had ruled. So we've

1:00:12

had some very narrow wins

1:00:14

here. But I just think it's

1:00:19

fascinating to note that

1:00:22

we are talking about lack of enthusiasm, which

1:00:24

means what's going to matter is A,

1:00:26

who's better at naked,

1:00:29

raw politics. And right now, though, Trump is

1:00:34

running a very good race, there's

1:00:36

a reason to believe that the Democrats are better at

1:00:39

what they'll do nationally than Republicans. We have

1:00:41

a complete overhaul of the RNC to turn

1:00:44

it into a fundraising arm

1:00:46

for the Trump legal bills and

1:00:49

not for get out the vote efforts. And

1:00:51

the Democrats don't have that problem. They

1:00:56

are good at getting voters out. Right.

1:00:58

And also, I

1:01:01

think the lack of enthusiasm is also

1:01:03

a reminder that the Democrats have two

1:01:05

options in front of them, and one of them doesn't

1:01:07

work. The lack of enthusiasm

1:01:09

for the election shows that people aren't

1:01:11

interested in the narrative that if you

1:01:14

don't vote the right way, this will

1:01:16

be the last election of your lifetime.

1:01:18

And this is the end of democracy

1:01:20

and all that stuff. Whatever people feel

1:01:22

about that, I'm not saying that people

1:01:24

who are saying that don't believe

1:01:26

what they're saying. What I'm saying is

1:01:29

voters don't seem to believe what they're

1:01:31

saying, but they will take arguments on

1:01:33

all sorts of other stuff on the

1:01:36

issue. So the the the you know,

1:01:39

the apocalypse now argument

1:01:41

simply isn't working. Otherwise,

1:01:44

we would not be having extended conversations

1:01:46

about a lack of enthusiasm, how nobody

1:01:48

really feels like voting because nobody by

1:01:51

the way is on the line. And

1:01:53

if they just adjust along those lines,

1:01:55

I think they're ceiling is higher than

1:01:57

it is now. Well, it's important.

1:02:00

I got a note now because as

1:02:02

it happens, as we are recording

1:02:04

this, the GDP numbers

1:02:06

have come in and they're

1:02:08

terrible. The first quarter of 2024 and they

1:02:10

are terrible. They are 1.6% growth. The

1:02:16

expectation of the

1:02:19

world of economists somehow that creates an

1:02:21

expectation was for two and a half

1:02:23

percent. So this is coming in, I

1:02:25

don't know, like 50% lower than economists

1:02:27

expected. So

1:02:32

we have the argument that has

1:02:34

been promulgated over the last couple of months

1:02:36

by very, very passionate,

1:02:39

democratic partisans that the

1:02:42

economy is good and we just need to convince

1:02:44

people that the economy is great. Look at these

1:02:46

numbers. They're great. They're fantastic. By

1:02:49

the way, there are some fantastic numbers. America

1:02:51

is now producing 27% of the

1:02:53

world's either economy or its production or

1:02:55

something like

1:02:59

that, which is the highest number in 40 years.

1:03:02

There are good numbers, but the

1:03:04

economy is growing very, very slowly all of

1:03:06

a sudden. Maybe it grew too fast at

1:03:09

the end of 2023, so the slowdown

1:03:11

is people taking. But

1:03:14

this now raises all kinds of questions. When

1:03:17

you have a bad number in the first quarter of an

1:03:20

election year, that does not go well for you. That

1:03:24

was the George H.W. Bush story in

1:03:26

1992 and the Clinton story and the

1:03:29

Reagan story in

1:03:33

the first quarter of 1980. And

1:03:35

Clinton had this big number in 1996, which

1:03:39

was the kind of predictor of

1:03:41

his runaway victory against

1:03:44

Bob Dole in

1:03:46

November. So Biden's got another

1:03:49

hampering because we've got inflation, we've got

1:03:51

slow growth. The only good

1:03:53

part of this could be that if the economy

1:03:55

is slowing down, the Fed will come under pressure

1:03:57

to lower interest rates.

1:04:00

But of course, then inflation will get worse

1:04:03

and I don't know. Not

1:04:06

good. Not a good number, Bob. Not

1:04:09

good. So

1:04:13

that's where I guess that's where

1:04:15

we'll leave it. I do want

1:04:18

to make a commentary recommend and following Matt.

1:04:21

I don't know when we, as we keep going,

1:04:25

we get to this point now

1:04:27

that we're recommending a tweet but I did

1:04:30

want to recommend a tweet. I'm sorry because-

1:04:32

Did I recommend a tweet? Didn't

1:04:35

you recommend a tweet? Somebody

1:04:37

recommended it. I'm now going to recommend- I think you

1:04:39

did. You recommended it. You

1:04:41

recommended the children, the banana children,

1:04:43

the banana population. The man of

1:04:45

bananas. Yeah. Right, but that was

1:04:48

a video. This is just a tweet. Literally a

1:04:50

tweet. From an unlikely source

1:04:52

of fascinating clever. Monica

1:04:57

Lewinsky. Oh, yes.

1:04:59

Monica Lewinsky last night- She's

1:05:01

waiting. On Twitter, posted

1:05:03

a picture of the White House. I

1:05:06

don't know what

1:05:08

triggered this because it

1:05:10

came out sometime, I think,

1:05:13

you know, like it was like 9.30 at night, last night.

1:05:20

Picture of the White House and she says, you

1:05:22

wouldn't last an hour in the

1:05:24

asylum where they raised me. Going

1:05:32

on there. I don't know but that

1:05:34

is one hell of a tweet. I

1:05:37

don't know what, you know, it's

1:05:39

like if she only had this- You

1:05:43

know, Monica also has a Columbia University

1:05:45

connection. She

1:05:47

studied there after the scandal and in fact,

1:05:49

she was on campus on 9.11.

1:05:54

My friends and I encountered her during that time.

1:05:57

So she somehow tied up in-

1:06:00

Maybe that's what this is tweet is in I

1:06:02

just want to say it's a Taylor Swift reference.

1:06:05

Oh, is that right? Oh Okay,

1:06:09

there's a lyric and I

1:06:14

was I was off. Thank God you're here

1:06:16

Seth This is how popular this meme was

1:06:18

I was offline for two days and I

1:06:20

came back online and I saw The Lewinsky

1:06:22

thing and everybody saying how hilarious it was

1:06:24

and I was off for two days I

1:06:26

didn't know what this was. So this was

1:06:29

a Taylor Swift lyric and so people were

1:06:31

Substituting their own lines you wouldn't

1:06:34

in the asylum where I was in people

1:06:36

would show a picture of their Whatever

1:06:38

they would joke about it, you know their house So

1:06:41

that's that it okay, so you won the medium right?

1:06:46

Of course the person who was raised in

1:06:48

asylum in popular culture was Freddy Krueger from

1:06:50

A Nightmare on Elm Street the

1:06:53

bastard son of 10,000 maniacs You

1:06:57

may recall Freddy

1:06:59

Krueger anyway, so You

1:07:02

wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where Freddy

1:07:04

Krueger was raised. Well, there you go. That's what

1:07:06

I'm saying. So anyway, I I'm

1:07:10

glad to get this lesson in in in as

1:07:14

You are resident Swifty Thank

1:07:17

You Seth You

1:07:20

do have you do have 10

1:07:22

year old daughter so that that you know

1:07:24

that does that does what you squarely in

1:07:27

Taylor territory right now. Anyway,

1:07:29

we will be back Tomorrow

1:07:33

so for Seth Abe and madam