0:04

Listen to supported WNYC

0:06

studios. Too

0:10

many elderly men to choose

0:12

from this week in Washington folks.

0:15

Okay. This place is lousy with

0:17

them. Are we allowed to swear on our program by

0:19

the way? Yes. Just out of

0:21

curiosity. I mean it's not a family. I think

0:23

Susan's got the word shit in her comm. I've

0:26

repeatedly been allowed to use that before.

0:29

Bring me envelope. No, and I

0:31

think I've published in the print

0:33

New Yorker. Well done. I

0:35

have two actually. For a while I tried to get it into every story because

0:37

I thought it just... It was so delightful. ...

0:39

edgy street. You know that most famous, one of

0:41

the most famous New Yorker pieces ever, and if

0:43

you haven't read it, go back and find it.

0:46

An entire piece translated

0:49

from the Russian about the

0:51

elaborate language of swearing in

0:54

Russian. Oh, that's nice. And

0:56

I'm telling you, you got to read this piece. It is, first of all, it

0:58

is an important cultural piece. As

1:01

much as I think the Russians are probably great

1:03

swears, they have nothing on Pashto swears, which I

1:05

wrote a piece about, which is, you

1:07

know, the most vibrant. Everybody

1:10

is constantly being smashed into a million pieces

1:12

and shoved up each other's things. It's

1:14

not a good situation. Yeah, no. And

1:16

the thing about Russia, right, which makes it

1:18

a sort of a cultural piece too, and

1:20

not just about swearing, is that it's all

1:22

prison slang because of the Gulag era. Oh,

1:24

that's right. Basically every family in Russia is...

1:26

It's a prison-face. It's fluent. Oh,

1:29

that's great. Well, things have fallen a lot since

1:31

my days at the Wall Street Journal when you

1:33

were not even allowed to use the word

1:35

crotch. I had to describe

1:37

tights at some point, and I had

1:39

to describe that there was a knit

1:42

area where the legs came together. Oh,

1:44

that is amazing. You know, Ed Peter

1:46

Baker in the New York Times just

1:48

a few years ago was so stodgy.

1:50

Remember when Dick Cheney swore at, I

1:52

believe it was Pat Leahy in the

1:54

Senate? There was like a huge thing

1:56

about could you publish it? And he was only

1:58

allowed to do it once, as I recall. In there was

2:00

a whole me my twitter like free Peter

2:02

Baker let him swear in previous you know

2:04

them the trump or came and everybody was

2:07

allowed to swear because of the president says

2:09

of them said no the worst thing you.

2:11

Can say is an innocent

2:13

elderly gentlemen. Welcome

2:19

to the political scene from the New,

2:22

Really discussion about the big questions in

2:24

American politics. I'm Susan Glasser and I'm

2:26

joined by my colleague Evan Osnos and

2:28

Gene their. What?

2:39

A week on Thursday, the Special

2:41

Counsel investigating President Biden, handling of

2:43

classified documents with report that shook

2:45

the White House and Politics and

2:47

Twenty Twenty Four the big take

2:49

away Of course with that it

2:51

clear Joe Biden. unlike Donald Trump,

2:54

he won't stand trial for his

2:56

possession of classified documents. But wow

2:58

It might have cleared presses and

3:00

fine but it did so in.

3:02

Potentially a highly damaging.

3:04

Way the report called him quote

3:06

a well meaning elderly man with

3:09

a poor memory and said that

3:11

was one of the main reasons

3:13

they couldn't imagine him being put

3:15

in front of a jury that

3:18

one sentence has recent heard his

3:20

age at the heart of our

3:22

campaign in a potentially devastating well

3:24

And speaking of bad weeks for

3:27

artist scenario and it with a

3:29

political crisis of a very different

3:31

sort this week for another one

3:33

of Washington's. Leaders Mitch Mcconnell up

3:36

on Capitol Hill. the legislative failure

3:38

to fund aid to Ukraine has

3:40

mart what might be the beginning

3:43

of the end of the very

3:45

long Mcconnell era. Both. Of

3:47

these leaders are clearly entering a new

3:50

phase in this twenty twenty four election

3:52

year and will talk about both of

3:54

them to date. But Evans, We've gotta

3:56

start back with Biden of course, and

3:59

those he were. Sympathetic,

4:01

well meaning elderly man

4:03

with a poor. Memory.

4:07

Of in Is this going to Be Written

4:09

in Joe Biden epitaph. I think

4:11

what's brutal about that line is

4:13

that the worst thing you can

4:15

do in politics is reinforce and

4:17

existing story line and the story

4:20

line is something that everybody turns

4:22

on their tv series which is

4:24

that he is what was it

4:26

as as say well many elderly

4:28

man and with our way I'm

4:30

is what about that memory. What?

4:33

About that memory, That's right. A

4:35

There's no arguing that Joe Biden

4:37

is old saying, but the question

4:39

is, is he old and a

4:41

way that matters? That's where the

4:43

memory comes from. Of course we're

4:45

talking about the Special Counsel Robert

4:47

Hers Reports. Ah, the big news

4:49

I think from the Biden White

4:51

House's perspective is that he was

4:54

cleared. He will not face charges

4:56

from this year long investigation into

4:58

his possession of classified documents at

5:00

his home and office after ah,

5:02

leaving. The White House when he

5:04

was vice Presidents so cleared but at

5:06

the same time they said he didn't

5:09

remember things including. And

5:11

this really seem to have set the

5:13

President's including the date of his beloved

5:15

son bows death, for it certainly didn't

5:17

help that then he was so angry,

5:19

rushed out gave. A press conference last

5:22

night that is Thursday. Nights and

5:24

promptly confused which countries

5:26

Lcc as the. Head

5:29

of suggested it was Mexico,

5:31

not Egypt as you know,

5:34

Initially frozen Mexico cc the

5:36

not one open up again

5:38

to allow you know turn

5:40

to have to do I

5:42

talk to I convinced him

5:44

so he blundered his way

5:47

through the press conference and

5:49

press looked awful to but

5:51

honestly the things incredibly damaging

5:53

the think it's thirty. Raises some

5:55

real questions to me about what was going

5:57

on. At the Justice Department's I mean.

6:00

This is a report that the White

6:02

House knew was coming and presumably

6:04

the Attorney General had reviewed in

6:06

advance and people are saying that

6:08

the Independent Counsel was way beyond

6:10

his remit in making these personal

6:12

asides about Biden and why

6:15

was it they were allowed to stay

6:17

in? I mean that's not to say

6:19

though, I mean listen, the damage is

6:21

done, people recognize it as potentially true

6:23

and potentially a gigantic campaign issue. Well,

6:25

one thing that's interesting, you know the White House,

6:27

or I should say Biden's lawyers did push back.

6:29

There was this exchange of... Yeah, I read it.

6:32

...a formal exchange in which they're saying this is

6:34

gratuitous, this is out of line, in a sense

6:36

saying, look, this is a prosecutor who was originally

6:38

appointed by Donald Trump, the implication being that he

6:41

is seeking to score political points here. Now, Merrick

6:43

Garland is the one after all who made him

6:45

a special prosecutor. I think there will be a

6:47

question about why did Democrats tend to do this?

6:50

They sort of imagine that this is going to

6:52

project a sense of high-minded equanimity, but it seems

6:54

to sort of blow back on them every time. I think...

6:57

Let the record show when he was appointed, I

6:59

said, I see trouble. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely right,

7:01

yeah. But then what? But

7:03

really, I mean, Eric Holder, who was

7:05

the Attorney General under Obama, came

7:08

out and said, you know, there's a

7:10

process, that the Justice Department should have

7:12

reviewed this report and if

7:14

this was inappropriate, said something and stopped

7:16

it. I mean, of course, there would then be charges

7:19

of a cover-up and all that kind of

7:21

thing. Exactly. James Comey

7:24

was absolutely blistered in an IG's

7:26

report for going beyond his remit

7:28

when he described Hillary Clinton as

7:31

careless. And there is an

7:33

argument that's sort of germinating today that

7:36

her has exposed himself to that kind of

7:38

criticism. Yeah, there was a big Comey

7:40

flashback that a lot of people were having

7:42

when this came out yesterday. But in

7:44

the end, we can all say

7:46

with confidence, we may not know

7:48

what's going to happen in 2024, but

7:51

we do know that voters are much more

7:53

likely to care about the question about whether

7:55

the president is in fact compromised

7:57

in any way by his age. and

8:00

potential loss of memory far

8:02

more than they're gonna care

8:05

about the process issues that

8:07

consume us. I mean it's hard to

8:09

tell at this moment because everything seems

8:11

so huge in the moment but at

8:14

the moment this seems like a crisis.

8:16

I'm getting emails from people saying we

8:19

have to do something. Can't they do

8:21

something about that? Meaning there needs

8:23

to be another nominee. I

8:26

do think that's the immediate kind

8:28

of clutch in the gut

8:30

for many Democrats as they look at this

8:32

and I think that's our

8:34

big macro theme this week is a sort of

8:36

a everyone understands there's

8:38

a crisis in

8:41

a way of American leadership and we

8:43

are going to talk more about the

8:45

crisis of leadership on Capitol Hill where

8:47

both Mitch McConnell and the Senate and

8:50

Mike Johnson in the House are compromised

8:52

and weakened figures but before we get

8:54

to that Evan we are

8:56

also talking about a president who is

8:59

going into an election year with some

9:01

of the lowest if not the lowest

9:03

approval ratings of a president since the

9:05

history of modern polling began. He's obviously

9:08

not in a position to be muscling

9:10

through big and urgently

9:12

needed pieces of legislation like aid

9:14

to Ukraine through Congress at

9:16

this moment in time but more importantly what

9:19

is the reason for those low approval

9:22

ratings? It's not because of Republicans who

9:24

didn't already didn't like Joe

9:26

Biden. It's because Democrats and independents are

9:28

very concerned. It's not because they don't

9:30

like Joe Biden. Probably everybody in the

9:33

country more or less of goodwill agrees

9:35

with the idea that he's a sympathetic

9:38

well-meaning elderly man. It's because of the

9:40

elderly part. It's because of the memory

9:42

part that those numbers are where they are.

9:45

Don't you think? I think there are a variety of

9:47

factors but there's just no way to say it any

9:49

other way than you did which is that the foremost

9:51

fact is that people think that he's

9:53

too old and not up for the job.

9:55

There is this question and this is a

9:57

question that people are actively discussing now is

10:00

is sort of how did this get

10:02

to this point, meaning that he was

10:04

the unchallenged nominee. And I

10:06

think in some ways, the critical moment,

10:08

the period was before the midterms, there

10:10

was this feeling among Democrats that, all

10:13

right, the Democrats are going to get

10:15

their clocks cleaned in the 2022 midterms.

10:17

And at that point, there will be

10:19

this big discussion about who the nominee

10:21

should be, and Biden will be sort

10:23

of graciously ushered off the stage. But

10:25

it didn't happen because Democrats outperformed all

10:27

of a sudden, he had this in

10:29

a sense, he had a

10:31

stronger leg to stand on. And that muted this,

10:34

what would have been a natural discussion within

10:36

the party about, well, who is best served?

10:38

And so all of a sudden, you went from that period.

10:41

And here we are. Jane, I

10:43

want to ask you, because you're, I so

10:46

agree, you know, immediately getting the messages and

10:48

that feeling in the pit of the stomach,

10:50

like, you know, it's only

10:52

February of the election year. Tell me a

10:54

little bit more about what you think the

10:56

conversation here in Washington is, is

10:59

it just fantasy that needs to be discarded

11:01

that there's any option other than Biden? I

11:03

mean, it's been a loop, a

11:05

conversation, a loop that's been going on since

11:08

last summer, nonstop. I mean, and

11:10

one part of it is that

11:12

because his vice president is someone

11:14

who people don't see as a

11:17

strong alternative, there's not an obvious

11:19

alternative. And I think that's been part

11:21

of the issue here. There was somebody who

11:24

said to me just last night when Biden

11:26

called the press conference, and it was unclear

11:28

what he was going to say, someone

11:30

said to me, you know, this is what LBJ did,

11:33

and no one knew he was going to step down.

11:35

And he said, I'm not running for reelection. Maybe that's

11:37

what No, I gotta tell you, that person does not

11:39

know Joe Biden. And it was not what happened. No,

11:44

it's interesting. People's minds immediately went to

11:46

that. You know, I was

11:48

earlier this week at a dinner where

11:51

there was a very senior Democratic member

11:53

of Congress. And that person

11:55

was absolutely bombarded by questions for

11:57

everybody at the dinner. who

12:00

included senior European

12:02

types, included well-known

12:05

Washington analysts, independent analysts,

12:08

journalists, and bombarding this

12:11

Democratic member of Congress. What happens?

12:14

Tell us about, you know, if Biden

12:16

leaves—and this was before the report—what if

12:18

Biden steps down

12:20

or is forced to step off the

12:22

ticket before the convention? What happens after

12:24

the convention? These are the kinds of

12:27

conversations that people continue to have inside

12:29

Washington, never mind at the level

12:31

of everyday voters. Evan, you've done a

12:33

lot of reporting, of course,

12:35

inside Biden's White House. Do you

12:37

think that, you know, behind closed

12:39

doors without any of us, pesky,

12:41

you know, journalist president said

12:43

that was their version of

12:46

it? No, I think they—you know, you sort of

12:48

put yourself in their shoes for a second. The

12:50

short answer to your question, Susan, is no. They

12:52

are not secretly strategizing about how to usher him

12:54

off the stage, at least not

12:56

at this point. The effort were it to

12:58

happen would not be from within

13:00

the White House. Look, there is an

13:02

inherent dynamic, which is that the people

13:04

that are surrounding a president that are

13:07

most loyal and devoted to that person

13:09

are, on some level, constrained.

13:11

It's impossible for them to

13:15

come out and tell Susan Glasser or Jane

13:17

Mayer or me, you know, hey, I really

13:19

think that this is untenable. So

13:22

everything that I've been getting from people who are

13:25

in the White House and close to Biden is

13:28

that they actually think that in

13:30

the end, they are

13:33

probably able to ride out

13:35

this quite demonstrable unhappiness

13:37

among the public about his age. And

13:39

the reason partly is that they look

13:42

at Trump—and this is not just a

13:44

general Trump is bad and orange argument.

13:46

It's that Trump called Orban

13:49

the president of Turkey. It's

13:51

that Trump confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi. Blah,

13:53

blah, blah. I don't know all of these, but

13:55

that that is part of how ordinary Americans who

13:57

are not sitting in Washington talking about this. in

13:59

the way we talk about it, that's how they,

14:02

to some degree, put these two things side by

14:04

side in their minds. I mean, I have to

14:06

say, I covered Reagan when he was beginning

14:10

to lose his marvels a

14:12

little bit, and his own

14:14

aides timed him out a bit. This

14:16

is a great revelation, by the way,

14:18

folks, I can tell you, in Jane's

14:20

terrific book. I think his landslide on

14:24

Reagan's reelection and his

14:26

second term in office. They considered invoking

14:28

the 25th Amendment, but

14:31

in what you're saying, Evan, is that the

14:33

people around Biden are not saying that.

14:35

That's right. They are not saying that.

14:38

What I keep hearing is that Jill,

14:40

his wife, would be the person who was

14:42

most important in having urged him to run

14:44

for a second term. Is that really true?

14:47

Well, I think, I mean, intuitively, yes. I don't

14:49

think there's anybody that argues against that. There's

14:52

an excerpt out today of a

14:54

book about Jill that has a moment in 2022 where he

14:56

was giving this

14:58

lengthy press conference that went on and on and

15:00

on. Finally, she came down and stood in the

15:02

doorway and looked around at his aides and said,

15:05

like, who's letting him stay

15:07

out there so long? This isn't helping anybody, not

15:09

helping him. In a way, she's in

15:11

this position of being both his guardian, but then also,

15:14

if she's not the person saying don't run, then who

15:16

is? Jane, why

15:19

is it, do you think, that Trump,

15:21

as of right now with voters, is

15:23

not being judged as harshly on this

15:25

question of age and capacity due office?

15:27

Back in 2020, interestingly enough, in surveys

15:29

in the fall, Biden had the advantage on

15:31

this, that he was seen as more

15:33

capable to do the job of president,

15:35

more fit for office. There were more

15:37

people worried about Trump's lack of fitness

15:39

for office. Donald Trump, not only 77

15:42

years old, you guys pointed out already,

15:44

he is capable, as Biden is,

15:47

of making a gap at any given moment. He

15:49

thinks he doesn't know. You can't even tell whether it's

15:52

that he doesn't know them or he forgot them. Well,

15:54

I think it comes down to two things. One is

15:57

the physical appearance of the

15:59

two. Biden does seem weakened because

16:01

his, you know, I have, my

16:03

voice has gone recently. I understand

16:05

it makes somebody seem weaker and

16:08

his, you know, his diction is not

16:10

as clear as it was. And

16:13

so you can see that Trump seems, you

16:15

know, still more powerful in his physical

16:17

presentation. But really, I think equally

16:20

important, maybe even more important, is

16:22

that the two ecosystems of the press

16:25

that these two men exist in. You

16:27

have on the right, you have full-time

16:30

pro-Trump propaganda machine

16:33

delivering coverage of Trump to

16:36

his base. They are not

16:38

talking about his flip-ups. On

16:41

the Democratic side, you have mainstream

16:44

press, which focuses on,

16:47

among other things, Biden slips. You

16:49

don't see similar coverage. There's no

16:52

equal sort of fair coverage of Trump

16:54

on the right. They just promote him.

16:56

And that's not what you get surrounding

16:58

Biden. So there's

17:00

a real disequilibrium in the way these

17:02

two people are being covered. Yeah. I

17:05

think there's also probably a salience issue in the sense

17:07

that some of the things Trump

17:09

does are so

17:12

grandly, completely offensive that they sort of blot

17:14

out the son of everything else when he

17:16

talks about being a dictator, when he talks

17:19

about getting vengeance. All of this stuff becomes

17:21

more salient, to use the term that political

17:24

scientists would use when it comes to what

17:26

are you paying attention to. And

17:28

in a perverse way, as Jane says, it kind

17:31

of projects a sort of ghastly vigor. And

17:33

I think that that, in its own way...

17:35

Ghastly vigor. That is a phrase

17:37

I'm going to remember here. But you're right.

17:39

The hierarchy of crises

17:41

that Trump forces us to confront

17:43

in that hierarchy of crises, his

17:47

age and capacity is

17:49

often subsumed by his

17:51

dictatorial aspirations, if you will. Yeah,

17:53

and look at his record. He's never

17:55

told the truth. Right. Exactly.

17:58

So which part of it is... Facts are... not

18:00

his specialty. So,

18:02

I'll turn it into facts. Right. So,

18:05

who knows if he ever knew that Victor Orban was

18:07

not the same person? You know, it's interesting. I mean,

18:09

this is part of the... One of the things that's

18:11

been running through this is that ever since Biden came

18:13

out and confused the president

18:16

of Egypt for Mexico, that everybody's been posting

18:18

examples of this, I mean, on the other

18:20

side. I mean, as an example, in the

18:22

segment that followed on Fox News

18:24

immediately afterwards about this very topic,

18:27

the Fox News host called the governor of

18:29

South Dakota the governor of South Carolina. The

18:32

governor of South Carolina. And everybody, I mean, we all know, because

18:34

we're reporters, all public figures screw

18:36

up all the time. It just

18:38

becomes a matter of what you focus on.

18:40

Totally. Although I will say, and

18:42

I do think it's important, and maybe you guys disagree,

18:44

but Joe Biden

18:46

doesn't just have a communications problem

18:48

or a media problem or a

18:51

coverage problem. And he

18:53

got very prickly in his news conference with

18:55

reporters. In fact, he suggested that was somehow

18:57

all just a figment of their sort of

18:59

imagination. Joe

19:02

Biden actually does have an age problem.

19:04

He is the oldest president in American

19:06

history. He is asking the American people to send

19:08

him back to office until he is 86 years old.

19:12

And I think the concerns of the voters,

19:14

it would be a mistake politically to

19:17

dismiss them as some figment of

19:19

the media's imagination or as something

19:21

that is not legitimate. At

19:24

least that's my perspective. So the Democrats are going to

19:26

be stuck having to just embrace this. I

19:29

saw a potential lawn sign

19:31

that already said Biden, and

19:33

underneath it it said a

19:36

well-meaning elderly man. Already?

19:39

Wow. Well, thank God for the

19:41

internet. No, I think you're right. I mean, look,

19:43

this is going to be age equals wisdom. That's

19:45

the Democratic Party strategy. That's what they do. All

19:48

right. Well, listen, we'll take a quick

19:50

break. And when we come back, we're

19:53

going to talk about another 81-year-old who

19:55

had a really bad week in Washington.

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21:16

On this week's

21:18

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On The Media wherever you get your

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podcasts. So

21:50

we've talked about President Biden and

21:53

a real challenge for

21:55

his re-election, but also for his leadership

21:57

here in Washington for the rest of

21:59

the day. the year. He is the president

22:01

right now. Up

22:03

on Capitol Hill, it was a

22:05

pretty tough week for both Republican

22:07

leaders, Mitch McConnell in the Senate.

22:10

Mike Johnson in the House is barely hanging

22:12

on since he became a very unlikely speaker.

22:14

But let's talk about Mitch McConnell.

22:17

The Mitch McConnell era in American politics has

22:19

had a very long run. He's the, in

22:22

fact, as of last

22:24

year, the longest-serving party leader

22:27

in Senate history. I

22:29

felt like this week was the week we watched

22:31

his kind of power and his

22:33

holdover Senate Republicans evaporate in

22:36

real time. What do you make

22:38

of that? Well, absolutely. I mean,

22:40

you've actually got people now in

22:43

his Republican caucus who are describing

22:45

his leadership as a disaster because

22:47

of what happened with a major

22:49

bill that was going to combine

22:52

aid for Israel, for Ukraine, and

22:54

the border. The Republicans maneuvered themselves

22:56

into a position where they were

22:58

voting against their own bill on this.

23:00

They're blaming McConnell, but actually it was not

23:03

his fault, basically, in this particular

23:05

case. But he is the leader, and

23:07

the leader gets the blame. He's got

23:09

a number of young bucks

23:15

in his caucus who are

23:17

to his right and calling for him

23:19

to step down or

23:21

be replaced. And they include people

23:23

like Mike Lee, Ted

23:26

Cruz, J.D. Vance.

23:28

I mean, these are people who ...

23:31

Josh Hawley. Josh Hawley. They see

23:34

their names in that leadership position.

23:37

So, Evan, is it about the far-right

23:39

challenging Mitch McConnell, or is it

23:42

about Donald Trump challenging McConnell and

23:44

using those ambitious sorts like

23:46

Josh Hawley as his proxies? Yeah.

23:49

I think on some level, if we're going to put this

23:51

in the sort of octave of Greek myth, you have these

23:53

two giant fatherly figures

23:55

competing for loyalty, and you have, for

23:57

a long time, Mitch McConnell. McConnell had

23:59

enough influence and clout that people would

24:02

kind of line up with him. And

24:04

now here is Trump coming along. And

24:06

the two of them, after all, let's

24:08

remember, have been essentially enemies.

24:11

There was the fateful moment

24:13

when Mitch McConnell did

24:16

not cast a vote for impeachment after

24:18

the January 6th insurrection,

24:21

but did heap criticism

24:23

on Trump called him practically and

24:27

morally responsible for

24:30

provoking the events of

24:32

the day. No question

24:35

about it. And said that this would be

24:37

something for the criminal justice system to sort

24:39

out. And for a long time, McConnell's own

24:42

record and clout within Congress

24:44

was able to keep his

24:46

view of things dominant.

24:48

And I think at this point, the truth is that

24:50

because of the things we're going to talk about, he

24:53

has just slipped away, sort

24:55

of ebbed away over the course of the

24:57

last two years. And it's now reaching

24:59

the point where it's still quite part out loud. Well,

25:01

so Jane, can I talk a little bit about

25:04

McConnell's sort of trajectory over the last couple of

25:06

years? I mean, one thing

25:08

is simply not just that he's his

25:10

age, but he really has, he's slipped

25:12

in an actual sense. He slipped in

25:15

Felly a year ago and he's been

25:17

visibly diminish since then. He had those

25:19

two moments of sort of public brain

25:21

freeze in the wake of his fall

25:24

and concussion. He just sort

25:26

of seems like a guy who's on the brink of

25:28

retirement. Well, he seems absolutely

25:30

impaired in front of full view.

25:33

And you have to wonder if the

25:35

camera caught him during these moments when he

25:38

was doing press conferences, were there other moments

25:40

like this? And what I hear is that

25:42

behind his back, there's a huge maneuvering to

25:44

take his place, basically. He

25:47

is seen as weak after having been

25:49

the master of the Senate in his

25:51

time and his time seems to be

25:53

passing by him. I mean, I just

25:56

think that it's been a fascinating

25:59

story. as you

26:01

say, Evan, of these two men,

26:03

Trump and McConnell. And

26:05

that McConnell has hoped to

26:07

be, he's trying to work on his legacy. He

26:09

wants to be seen as the

26:12

master of the Senate, and he wants to

26:14

be seen as the person who remade the

26:17

judiciary and the Supreme Court. But in fact,

26:19

I think what history will remember him for

26:21

is enabling Donald Trump because he

26:23

had the power to confront

26:25

him at any number of

26:28

times, and he failed

26:30

to do that. He may have made a

26:32

few speeches, but twice he voted to

26:34

acquit him in impeachment. And even more

26:36

than that, I think if you go back and

26:38

you look at the record, one of the most

26:40

interesting things is the single thing that

26:42

McConnell says the most important thing he did

26:45

in his career was hold open

26:47

the Supreme Court seat in 2016 that

26:49

by right and by law that

26:54

Obama should have been able to fail,

26:56

and he had nominated Merrick Garland. But

26:58

what McConnell did was he obstructed that

27:00

nomination, held open that seat,

27:03

which many people think is

27:05

the key thing that helped

27:08

elect Trump. And so he helped

27:10

get Trump into the White House

27:12

by the way that he basically

27:15

obstructed the normal process of government.

27:17

He likes to be seen as

27:20

an institutionalist. This was not an

27:22

institutionalist move, and that helped get Trump

27:24

elected. And so he kind of paved

27:26

the way for all of this. Absolutely

27:29

did. Look, Jane, I think you

27:31

put it perfectly that in a sense,

27:33

Mitch McConnell made the choice to enable Donald

27:36

Trump. That was his grand strategy. And the question

27:38

has always been sort of why would he do

27:40

that, considering how much he loathes this guy? And

27:42

the reason is that Mitch

27:44

McConnell's primary motive, his dominant calculus,

27:46

was always what is the best

27:48

for my party? Trump will

27:50

deliver partisan power, raw partisan

27:53

power. And if that means putting Donald Trump in power

27:55

and enabling him to stay there and do everything he

27:57

wants, then I will do that. seeing

28:00

now is that he's running up against

28:02

a cohort within his party who does

28:04

not have the same theory, which is

28:06

to say they are more than happy

28:08

to be cannibalistic. They will go after

28:10

their own. They will go after other

28:12

fellow Republicans. You saw this first on

28:14

the House side, but now also within

28:16

the Senate Republicans that the people we've

28:18

been talking about, like Ted Cruz, like

28:20

Josh Hawley, that they really come from

28:22

a generation in which they are Republican

28:24

second and they are for themselves and

28:26

their cohort first. I would say I think

28:28

there's a lot of themes to pick up on here

28:31

and certainly the sort of you might call it the

28:33

House GOPization of the

28:35

Senate. GOP is an aspect

28:37

of that, the Trumpification overall

28:40

of the Republican Party is an aspect of

28:42

it. But also to Jane's point, it's

28:44

about this man and it's about a

28:46

generational change that is taking place. Mitch

28:49

McConnell, in defining himself as

28:51

a master of the Senate, of course,

28:53

that's the title of Robert Caro's amazing

28:55

book about Lyndon Johnson, a previous era's

28:57

master of the Senate. McConnell wanted

29:00

power, but he wanted power towards

29:02

certain ends. McConnell wanted to get

29:05

things passed, it seems

29:07

to me, and take credit for

29:09

them and have power and remake

29:11

America in the conservative image that

29:13

he wanted. Whereas this new generation,

29:16

it's about performative politics, it's about

29:18

taking votes that benefit them politically

29:20

but don't necessarily produce legislation. What

29:22

takes us back to this disaster

29:24

actually of this week, where they

29:27

demanded a deal on

29:29

the border as the price for

29:31

Ukraine aid. Ukraine aid was the

29:33

primary goal of Mitch McConnell in

29:36

this final kind of months or

29:38

years of his term. And

29:40

yet when the deal was then on

29:42

offer by Democrats, they made a deal,

29:44

they said, no, we don't want that.

29:46

They'd rather have an issue for television,

29:48

for the voters, for the ballot box.

29:50

To me, that's an important part of

29:52

the transition and why Mitch McConnell doesn't

29:55

feel like the man of

29:57

the moment anymore. I'm

30:00

not sure that I completely

30:02

agree that he is about

30:04

things that are larger than

30:06

his own power and the party's power. I

30:09

mean if you listen to people who've known

30:11

him for a long time, John Yarmouth

30:13

for instance, who was congressman from Louisville and

30:16

who's known McConnell from

30:18

the start, he will say, you

30:20

know, McConnell never wanted to

30:23

do anything, he just wanted

30:25

to be someone. There is

30:27

a very cynical aspect of

30:29

McConnell. I mean he uses these issues,

30:31

you're right, he passes legislation,

30:34

he passes things like the

30:36

huge tax bill for during

30:38

the Trump administration, but it's

30:40

instrumental. It's because that

30:43

then brings in the money from Wall

30:45

Street which helps the Republican Party get

30:47

reelected. It's about power with McConnell. Right,

30:49

but Jane, I think that's, I

30:52

agree with that. The point about the

30:54

generational change is that people like Joe

30:57

Biden and Mitch McConnell believed

30:59

you had to get something done in order to

31:01

obtain power, that that was what voters wanted

31:04

you to do. We've

31:06

reached a new era it seems to

31:08

me where they've just gotten rid of

31:10

that part of the deal altogether. So

31:12

it's about the change in power politics

31:15

in Washington that a new generation says,

31:17

screw it, it's too much trouble.

31:19

And in fact it might be a liability for us

31:21

to work at all ever with the

31:23

other party. In fact they would

31:26

say that obstruction is a far

31:28

greater virtue than passing conservative law.

31:31

Honestly though, nobody was a bigger

31:33

obstructor than McConnell for years, you

31:35

know, and so in a way what I think

31:37

is going on is that McConnell's

31:40

superpower for many years has been

31:43

his shamelessness. You could not

31:45

shame this man. He can

31:47

be as hypocritical as he

31:49

was about the Supreme Court nominees and,

31:51

you know, saying that it was too

31:53

close to an election in the case

31:56

of Merrick Garland and then jamming in

31:58

Amy Coney Barrett days before. the

32:00

next election. He didn't care. You

32:02

could not shame this man. And I

32:04

think that gave him a lot of

32:06

power. But what's happened, I think this

32:08

young generation you're talking about, they're even

32:10

more shameless than he is. And

32:14

so they're out, you know, synthesizing

32:16

it. I don't want to cut

32:19

to the end here, but I have to

32:21

say that is the core fact of what's

32:23

going on, is that Mitch McConnell innovated a

32:25

form of political technology, and now this young

32:27

generation has taken it from his hands and

32:30

now they are beating him with it. Well,

32:32

I think that's a very important insight.

32:34

It's also the other part, there's a

32:37

very interesting debate. We started with this

32:40

in the McConnell conversation. I think it's very important to

32:42

come back to this, this almost

32:44

iconic moment of

32:47

the party not letting go of Donald

32:50

Trump after January 6 and in

32:52

his second impeachment trial. And everything is

32:54

sort of teetering on the nice edge

32:57

there. What will McConnell do? Everyone

32:59

knows at this point, his relationship

33:02

is ruptured, is broken with Donald Trump, because

33:04

people forget they think, oh, well, he hasn't

33:06

talked to Donald Trump since January

33:08

6. He actually hasn't talked to Donald Trump

33:11

since December of

33:14

2020, when Mitch McConnell

33:16

went to the Senate floor after

33:18

December 14. That was the date

33:20

by which the electoral college, each

33:22

state had to certify its results.

33:24

They all did that as per

33:26

the law, and as per our

33:28

history, Mitch McConnell went to the

33:30

Senate floor and he congratulated Joe

33:32

Biden. He said he's the winner.

33:35

The electoral college has

33:37

spoken. So

33:40

today I want to congratulate President-elect Joe

33:42

Biden. The president-elect is

33:44

no stranger to the Senate. He's

33:47

devoted himself to public service for many

33:49

years. And Donald Trump went

33:52

ripshit about that. I think I can say

33:54

that on our air per our opening conversation.

33:56

And that's the last time that they spoke.

33:58

So I think that's it. important to remind

34:01

people, but had the Senate convicted Donald

34:03

Trump after he left office for

34:06

his role in seeking to overturn the

34:08

2020 election, a conviction also would have

34:10

made this whole 2024 nightmare. It

34:14

would not have happened. You know,

34:16

there's reliable reporting that we did for

34:18

the divider that others have done this,

34:20

it suggests that Mitch McConnell certainly was

34:22

open to doing that. The

34:25

key is that he couldn't bring along,

34:27

he didn't believe he could. And that's

34:29

the really interesting debate. He didn't believe

34:31

he could have brought along enough of

34:33

his Senate Republicans. That would

34:35

have exposed him for no longer being

34:37

the leader. It would have evaporated his

34:39

power. And Jane, I think it actually

34:42

proves the reliability of your thesis that

34:44

Mitch McConnell was always about Mitch

34:47

McConnell's power. He chose to stay

34:49

in power with his Senate

34:51

Republicans, not to defy them and

34:54

go for Trump's conviction. That's

34:56

what he chose. This was his profiles

34:58

encourage moment and he failed

35:01

it. He could have stood up.

35:03

He could have said, I am going to do

35:05

the right thing. He could have pushed his caucus

35:07

to the wall. Even if he'd

35:09

lost, that would have been a moral

35:11

and a political stand. And Trump could

35:13

not, you know, he

35:15

may have moved his caucus ahead,

35:17

but he's always afraid to

35:20

be in some way out of step with

35:22

his caucus because the caucus is how he

35:24

has his power. And

35:26

so he failed. John, where do you... You've

35:28

done as much work as anybody in trying

35:31

to understand the link between biography

35:34

and strategy in somebody like

35:36

McConnell. Where do you think that comes from?

35:38

I mean, I think we

35:40

all accept the point. Where do you think it

35:42

originates from? You know, I mean, he comes from

35:44

a poor background

35:46

in Kentucky and he had

35:49

polio as a child. He

35:52

believes in perseverance, but

35:54

he also has believed from the start

35:56

that you can't do anything unless you

35:59

can win. And

36:01

if you don't win, you can't make change.

36:03

And so winning is the most important thing

36:05

to him. And I interviewed so many people,

36:07

people who loved him, people who hated him.

36:10

I read his speeches, I read his, you

36:12

know, as told

36:14

to autobiography. And there's just

36:16

no principle that comes through.

36:18

There's no core conviction beyond

36:20

you have to win. And

36:23

that's what he lives for. So in

36:25

a practical sense, Evan, can

36:27

he keep on winning if Donald Trump is

36:30

once again the nominee of his party? What

36:32

does that mean in a practical sense for

36:34

Mitch McConnell? You know, I was just thinking

36:36

as Jane was talking about that, that it really is,

36:38

he was a

36:40

forerunner to everything that Trump represents, this kind

36:43

of desiccated form of victory in which it

36:45

just doesn't matter how or why, but simply

36:47

the fact that you win. There was once

36:49

a moment I remember early on when McConnell

36:52

people, people may not remember, but he started

36:54

out his career, as you guys know. He

36:57

was in favor of collective bargaining and

36:59

minimum wage. He was sort of pro

37:02

environment. He was sort of center leaning.

37:04

He was put joy. Campaign finance reform.

37:06

Yes, right? And all

37:08

of those things he abandoned along the way.

37:10

And once he was asked sort of, how could you do

37:12

this? This was supposed to be the great moment of revelation.

37:14

How could you give up these things? And he says, well,

37:17

because I wanted to win. And

37:19

in a way that there is baked

37:21

into that philosophy, a poison pill, because

37:23

at a certain point if somebody else

37:25

is willing to do even more to

37:27

win, then you're on

37:29

the challenge. So Jane, that does beg

37:31

the question, what do we think an

37:34

end game scenario for McConnell looks like

37:36

here? When they had a vote, we

37:39

should point out earlier inside the conference,

37:41

these rebels against McConnell, there were only

37:43

10 of them who actually were willing

37:45

to stand up and actually

37:48

seek to oust him as the leader. There was

37:50

a press conference by a number of them this

37:52

week after the embarrassing takedown

37:55

of the border bill compromise

37:57

that McConnell had supported until

38:00

He was forced to be against his own compromise. A

38:02

number of them, Ted Cruz, said, yeah, we

38:04

still want to get rid of McConnell. They

38:06

clearly don't have the votes yet. Do you

38:08

think in the end he will be toppled

38:10

by his conference or he will choose to

38:12

retire or step aside? Well, there's one thing

38:14

we haven't really touched on that makes

38:17

McConnell incredibly powerful and that

38:19

is money. He

38:21

sits atop a machine that

38:23

is unparalleled in pouring money

38:25

into these Senate races and

38:28

other state races. It uses

38:30

several dark money groups that

38:32

pour money into each other and

38:35

fund the Senate campaigns on

38:37

the Republican side. And

38:39

it's run by his former aides, by

38:41

Stephen Law and some of the other

38:43

people who have worked for him who

38:45

really act as his lieutenants. It's

38:48

an astonishingly powerful and well-funded

38:51

machine. So the Republican senators,

38:53

they know they need his money.

38:56

And that gives him an awful lot

38:58

of power. And it

39:00

seems impossible to me that said

39:03

that if Trump were elected president,

39:06

that McConnell would be able to stay on

39:08

as majority leader if they had the majority

39:10

in the Senate, if the Republicans did. It's

39:13

very hard for me to imagine or as

39:15

minority leader either. I mean, he's

39:18

now at such loggerheads with Trump. It's

39:20

kind of untenable. Danielle

39:23

Pletka Untenable, Evan. And yet nonetheless, might continue a

39:25

little bit longer. What do you think? Evan

39:27

Brand You know, I sort of am thinking

39:29

about what I've been picking up in terms

39:32

of his relationship with the Biden

39:34

administration, which has been kind of a... In

39:37

some ways, there's a natural way

39:39

in which that whole form

39:42

of interaction of dealmaking

39:44

is dying right now. Truth

39:47

is that McConnell and Biden, in the

39:49

end, for all of their policy disagreements,

39:51

which are profound, do

39:53

basically trust each other. And there's this

39:56

moment when Biden was leaving the vice

39:58

presidency when McConnell gave this kind of

40:01

speech, this ode to this idea of

40:03

a guy who would do

40:05

what he says. Obviously, I don't always

40:07

agree with him, but I do trust him implicitly.

40:11

He doesn't break his word. He

40:13

doesn't waste time telling me why I'm wrong. He

40:16

gets down to brass tacks, and

40:19

he keeps in sight the

40:21

stakes. And even up until the very present

40:24

day, McConnell would call over

40:26

to the White House and the two of

40:29

these old, what was it, well-meaning, I'm not

40:31

sure I'm willing to apply that all together,

40:33

but... Right. Elderly men.

40:35

Elderly gentlemen. Elderly men. The

40:38

two of them would kind of hash things

40:40

out. And in a way, that whole concept

40:42

has just sunk

40:45

and disappeared into the swamp. I think they

40:47

have... You know, I have to say, I

40:49

once heard Biden

40:52

tell a story about McConnell and

40:54

about their negotiations together, and there's a sort

40:57

of a humorous appreciation.

40:59

But nonetheless, what Biden said

41:01

was that after hashing things

41:03

out with McConnell, McConnell turned to him

41:05

and said, you must be mistaking me

41:08

for someone who gives a shit. And...

41:11

Well, listen, practical politicians of the

41:13

old school don't get stuck on

41:15

sentimentality. And I think, you

41:18

know, this brings this conversation full circle.

41:20

This is a story about two

41:23

octogenarians and how long they'll

41:25

be with us in our

41:27

politics. What a week. Some

41:29

weeks are slow. Some weeks are a whole

41:32

year's worth of news. This was definitely one

41:35

of them. Evan, Shane, thank you so much.

41:37

Great to be with you, Burt. Always a pleasure. Great

41:40

to be with you. This

41:46

has been the political scene from The New

41:48

Yorker. I'm Susan Glasser. We

41:50

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Delia, Dan Richards and Stephanie Karaoke.

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Stephen Valentino is our executive producer and

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Chris Bannon. Our theme music is by

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