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DSR2024. Thank you for

1:07

your support. Hello

1:42

and welcome to Words Matter. Words

1:45

Matter, which you know is one of the

1:47

great pods around because it features

1:49

the one and only

1:52

Norm Ornstein. How are you doing, Norm? I

1:58

am hanging in, persevering, Dan. under

2:00

these difficult conditions in our

2:02

country. Yeah, he said I'm David,

2:04

I'm David Rothkopf, by the way, but I'm just

2:07

a guest here and a fly on the wall

2:09

because I like to hear their conversations. And

2:11

of course, Norm is joined each and

2:14

every week here by Dr. Kavita Patel.

2:16

How are you doing, Kavita? I am so

2:18

happy the three of us have had a

2:21

reunion. So I am truly,

2:23

my emotional state is like a 10 out

2:25

of 10 just for this pod. So listeners,

2:27

beware. We're on charter territory.

2:29

Let's see what we can do

2:31

about that, Norm. We'll

2:34

revisit our emotional state in

2:37

45 minutes. That's right.

2:39

Yeah, it will be one out of

2:41

10. Yeah, because we're here to talk

2:43

about what's going on in Washington,

2:46

one of the most dysfunctional places in

2:49

the world. And

2:52

we could talk about a lot. Looks

2:54

like Ukraine 8 is dying on the vine

2:56

up on the hill. So we'll probably lose

2:58

and Ukraine and Russia will win. Looks

3:01

like the governor of Texas is

3:03

ignoring the Constitution and imposing his

3:05

own national security and foreign policy

3:07

and keeping the federal government out

3:10

of the border despite a Supreme Court ruling.

3:13

And the Speaker of the House supported him

3:15

in doing this, saying he

3:17

backs him, so do a bunch

3:20

of crazy Congresspeople like Representative Chip

3:22

Roy, who's one of the looniest

3:24

of the loony tunes out there.

3:28

The Congress isn't, of course, getting anything

3:30

done of any sort, except

3:32

there are some conversations about

3:34

trying to impeach Joe Biden

3:36

for nothing. But you know something?

3:40

None of these things are the worst news. The

3:42

worst news is

3:45

that somehow, apparently, but

3:47

neither of you guys will believe this because you're

3:50

rational people. Despite

3:52

91 felony counts,

3:55

four indictments, two impeachments,

3:58

being called a rapist by one... judge

4:01

and a fraudster by another, betraying

4:04

the country, leading a

4:06

coup, supporting the

4:09

Russians. And

4:11

I'll be interested in your views on this, Kavita. And

4:14

deteriorating mentally before our

4:17

very eyes, Donald

4:20

Trump not only won the New

4:23

Hampshire Party, but then every

4:26

single living Republican

4:28

on Earth lined up

4:31

behind him. He

4:33

has more diverse,

4:35

unanimous support from within the

4:37

Republican Party than he has

4:39

ever had, even though we

4:42

know he was the worst

4:44

president in U.S. history and is

4:46

a threat to democracy. And

4:49

that's where we are right now. Meanwhile,

4:52

over at the Biden administration, there's

4:54

been a big

4:56

turnover in the Biden

4:59

campaign, which is not a

5:01

sign that they think it's going super well.

5:04

So Kavita, how are

5:07

you feeling now? I'm trying to, look,

5:09

I'm so happy you're here, David. I'm

5:11

still a 10 out of 10, maybe 9.5 out of 10. See

5:14

how much you can, see how much you and Norm

5:16

can wear me down. I'm going to say something about the

5:18

campaign first and foremost, because you're right. Not

5:21

only was there the very public visible action,

5:23

like the announcement of Jenna Malley-Dillon coming in,

5:25

but everybody who's worked on a

5:27

campaign, the three of us who have advised

5:29

campaigns knows that that's just, you know, that's

5:31

that iceberg. That's just what we're seeing above

5:34

the water, knowing that there's an incredible amount

5:36

that's going on below the water. And I'll

5:38

just add to that in the spirit of,

5:40

you know, Washington, D.C. being a small place,

5:43

people who are very close to the governor

5:45

of Michigan, who are also emphasizing she is

5:48

not the only governor, but she is one

5:50

of the most prominent kind of, you know,

5:52

allies and obviously an important state, and

5:55

that she has made personal calls, not just

5:57

to the president, but kind of down the

5:59

rung. to try to say, you

6:01

know, May Day, May Day, not, hey,

6:03

can we do these tweaks? So

6:06

this is, and then I'll just, something that

6:08

I like to give listeners a little bit

6:10

of like the behind the scenes, some of

6:12

the problem that occurs here, whatever we may

6:14

think about, you know,

6:16

Julie Rodriguez, Jenna Malley-Dillon, all of these people

6:18

whose names don't mean so much. The real

6:20

power isn't the person just in charge, it's

6:23

actually their ability to attract talent into the

6:25

campaign. So you can have a campaign manager,

6:27

I'm not saying any of these women are

6:29

incompetent, but you can have a campaign manager

6:31

that might not be the best business person,

6:34

might not be the best data person, might

6:36

not be the best fundraiser. They

6:38

need to be able to bring and attract

6:40

talent in. And I

6:42

don't know if we have seen proof of

6:45

that yet. And I think that's actually probably

6:47

the campaign's biggest problem. In contrast

6:49

to what I'm hearing, and it'd be interesting that

6:51

the two of you are, you know, ears to

6:53

the ground, you have a candidate who is not

6:55

just, you know, mentally unstable, and

6:58

we can talk about all the criteria he's met for that,

7:00

but he has no problem,

7:03

not just leaning in

7:05

to his misogyny, but parading

7:07

it and boosting it. You're

7:10

talking about the other candidate now. Yes,

7:12

the other candidate. You're talking about Donald Trump, I just

7:14

wanna be clear. I'm sorry, I do need to say

7:17

Donald Trump. Sorry, if I made that unclear, I am

7:19

so sorry. So

7:21

what's disturbing is that I have been

7:23

hearing kind of, you know, first

7:25

hand, but people who are involved in

7:27

the Trump campaign are describing the discipline

7:30

they're trying to use. Now granted, their candidate

7:32

is undisciplined, but that

7:34

combination of whatever is happening that

7:36

Trump seems to still be getting

7:38

Republicans to line up, including Ron

7:40

DeSantis, that you

7:43

add that with a campaign that it can actually raise money.

7:46

And then I'll stop talking, but I'm curious to hear

7:48

how both of you react to the fact that the

7:50

majority of what he's raised so far in funds doesn't

7:52

seem to be coming from small donors or his MAGA

7:54

basis. I think I counted, it's like a handful of

7:57

less than 10 big donors. Does

7:59

that mean anything? at all. Well,

8:01

let me ask you one question before

8:03

we go over to Norm, who will

8:05

whittle your mood down to nothing in

8:07

no time. Yeah, I know. But what

8:11

do you hear in the grapevine about the Trump campaign?

8:13

Is it a mess or is it doing well? No,

8:16

hearing, so two things. One that

8:18

they've kind of decided let Trump

8:20

be Trump and not trying to

8:23

figure out, because you can't

8:25

put boundaries around him. So what

8:27

I'm hearing, and I ask very clearly, is

8:29

this coming from Jared Kushner? Is this coming

8:31

from Steve... Where is this coming

8:33

from? And here's what's interesting.

8:35

This time around, everybody, I

8:38

mean, the family is still very central, but they

8:40

have kind of brought in, so

8:42

to speak, more professional

8:44

campaign people who are not

8:47

interested in anything Donald Trump

8:49

has to say, but just interested in holding

8:51

Republican power, and that they're

8:53

much more experienced with digital, all the things

8:55

that Trump never had in 2016. So

8:59

I am hearing that this is a more

9:01

legitimate and well-run campaign. Take that for what

9:03

it's worth, because I think the comparator is...

9:06

If you're comparing to rotten apples, anything

9:09

looks good. So it's hard to know. I

9:12

will say this, that if Biden doesn't

9:15

turn things around, and again,

9:17

as I mentioned, it's not the

9:19

campaign manager who leads, it's who that person brings

9:21

in. If that doesn't turn around

9:23

quickly, the only thing that

9:25

can save Biden is a strong financial performance

9:27

at the S&P and the stocks. And I

9:31

mean, you know this, David, that in the

9:33

history, what since like 19th century, we haven't

9:35

elected a president if the stock market

9:37

has kind of been in decline in that quarter leading

9:39

up to the election. So I think

9:42

that's the only way to overcome this short of

9:44

Biden himself tearing apart the infrastructure, which we

9:47

know he will not do. So... Well

9:51

norm. So

9:54

first, some good news, which will bring Kavita

9:56

back up to a 10 before we bring

9:58

her down to zero. And

10:03

there are a couple of areas I think of good

10:05

news. One is the economy, we have 3.3% growth

10:09

with inflation basically

10:12

coming down to a

10:15

reasonable level. There is every sign

10:17

that we can have a robust

10:20

economy through 2024, and we're starting to

10:23

see some signs of

10:26

a public optimism.

10:29

Consumer confidence is going up, this is

10:31

a big deal. Whether

10:34

it lasts, we don't know, but that's a

10:36

good news out there. Yeah, and the day

10:38

that we were talking about it, we got

10:40

the report on last year's GDP growth, and

10:43

it was 3.3% up, right? So

10:45

that's really substantial. Yeah,

10:47

yeah. That's very

10:49

good news. I think the other good news

10:51

is, at least when you look at and

10:54

dissect the votes that we have seen

10:57

in Iowa and New Hampshire, the

11:01

voters that went to Nikki

11:04

Haley in both places

11:07

include a lot of independents

11:10

and Republicans who say

11:12

that they voted for Haley more because

11:14

they can't stand Trump and couldn't vote

11:16

for him in the fall. Now, whether

11:19

that holds true in this tribal environment,

11:23

I don't know for sure. There

11:25

are signs of weakness for Trump, and

11:27

if you think of Trump as

11:30

the equivalent of an incumbent

11:32

president running for renomination, getting

11:35

50% in Iowa, 55% in

11:37

New Hampshire would

11:41

normally be seen as signs

11:43

of very significant weakness. And

11:46

for Joe Biden, having spurned

11:48

New Hampshire, the Democratic Party

11:51

deciding that they didn't want to make it the first

11:54

primary in the country, not

11:56

being on the ballot and being a write-in

11:59

and getting seven... 70%

12:02

there and a fairly robust vote

12:04

suggests that Democrats are going to

12:06

rally around Biden. None of

12:08

that takes away from a campaign

12:11

that needs very

12:13

serious work. Well,

12:16

but Norm, Norm, Gretchen Whitmer wasn't

12:18

calling the White House because

12:20

things are looking good in Michigan, right?

12:23

Because in Dearborn, Michigan, they

12:25

care about the Middle East policy in

12:28

a way that's a problem, and

12:30

there are other states where young voters

12:32

care about it, etc., etc., etc., right?

12:35

That's some issue. So that's where

12:37

we make the pivot to

12:40

the not so good news. Certainly,

12:44

you know,

12:46

elections rarely become foreign

12:49

policy elections. I

12:51

fear that it will be very significant

12:54

this time around. We can talk more

12:56

about Bibi

12:58

Netanyahu, the

13:01

neo-Nazis in his cabinet, the

13:03

issues going on there, and maybe

13:06

that will turn around. But

13:08

certainly, Biden is suffering at

13:10

both ends there. He is

13:13

going to suffer, as he has

13:15

already, with many young progressives and

13:17

with the Arab American votes, which

13:19

are very significant in Michigan. And

13:22

when he inevitably, we're just starting

13:24

to see the little inching away

13:26

from Netanyahu. And Netanyahu

13:28

has already moved significantly from Biden,

13:31

who gave him an enormous lifeline

13:33

at the beginning of this war

13:36

in Gaza. He

13:38

may lose some support from

13:41

those who are strong supporters of Israel. I

13:44

want to mention... David, I want to, Norm, just

13:46

to underscore something, January 11th, I

13:48

pulled this up, The

13:51

Washington Post, Dylan Wells is a very

13:53

good reporter on this, actually had a

13:55

statistic. Political ads had used the word

13:58

border. hundred

14:00

times since the start of the year,

14:02

more than in any kind of index,

14:04

same time, same place before

14:07

an election in history. And

14:09

I think you add to that, Greg Abbott

14:12

basically saying Texas will not surrender in

14:14

the Rio Grande. And there's

14:16

nothing, like nothing coming from the Biden case,

14:18

like nothing coming from the Biden case. Just

14:21

let me add to that. There is a, because I wrote a

14:23

column on this, which is going to be in the Daily Beast

14:25

today, Donald

14:29

Trump has been very explicit to his party.

14:32

He does not want an immigration deal because

14:35

he wants to run on those border

14:37

issues. And cynical as

14:39

that is, I don't want to make

14:41

progress on the border because I want to run on

14:43

how little progress there is on the border. Everybody

14:47

in his party has said

14:49

yes, sir, including Mitch

14:51

McConnell. Yes. Yeah,

14:56

Mitch basically surrendered

14:58

yesterday. And it's

15:00

clear that the Republicans had a,

15:03

you know, their lunch, the

15:05

Senate Republicans. And

15:07

it turned into a

15:09

shouting fest with the

15:12

radicals like Mike

15:15

Lee and J.D. Vance and

15:18

Ron Johnson screaming at McConnell

15:20

and McConnell, McConnell surrendered basically

15:23

on the border. But even before that,

15:26

Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House had

15:28

said as the Senate was

15:30

getting close to a kind of deal

15:32

where the Biden administration had conceded an

15:34

enormous amount to the Republicans

15:37

on the border, that he

15:39

wouldn't take up any border deal until

15:41

Trump was president. Now I want

15:43

to add one other thing, David, that we should just

15:45

keep in mind. I was reminded

15:47

of this in a column that my

15:49

friend Dennis Aftergot wrote today

15:52

on Taiwan. Trump

15:55

basically gave China a green light

15:57

to invade Taiwan. We

16:00

know why that is, and it's basically very little

16:02

different than him saying in 2016, Russia,

16:05

if you're listening. It is

16:07

China, if you are listening, interfere

16:10

in this election, put as much of

16:12

a finger on the scales as you

16:14

can to elect me, and you're

16:17

going to get the prize you've been waiting

16:19

for for many decades. So

16:21

we've got issues out

16:23

there in the foreign policy

16:25

world. We have foreign actors

16:27

who are going to be

16:29

eager, and that includes, I

16:32

would say, Netanyahu, who would love to

16:35

have Trump back as president, who would

16:37

put no constraints on him or his

16:39

cabinet. There

16:41

are foreign actors who are going

16:43

to do what they can to

16:45

help Donald Trump in

16:47

this case. I'm

16:50

just wondering, what

16:52

will Joe Biden do

16:54

now that Greg Abbott

16:57

has basically dared him to

17:00

send federal troops to

17:03

Texas to engage in

17:05

what could be a violent confrontation

17:07

with the Texas National Guard, which

17:10

is under his control, to remove

17:12

the razor wire from

17:14

the river and to take control of

17:16

that part of the border? And

17:19

if he doesn't do that, if he blinks,

17:22

if he lets Greg Abbott basically say to

17:24

the Supreme Court, up yours, I'm going to

17:27

do what I want to do, that's

17:29

a sign of weakness that

17:31

is really, really troubling and

17:34

not something that's going to give you

17:36

a sense that we have a strong,

17:38

tough leader in the White House. That's

17:41

absolutely true. By the way, there

17:43

is a precedent for handling governors

17:46

like this. Orville Faubus in

17:48

1956 decided

17:51

to ignore Brown v. Board of

17:54

Education, and that

17:56

radical Dwight Eisenhower sent in

17:59

the hundredth of a million dollars. 101st

18:01

Airborne Division to

18:03

assert the primacy of federal

18:05

authority and to ensure that

18:07

the schools were integrated as the courts dictated

18:09

they must be. And

18:12

frankly, if Biden

18:15

doesn't do that, it

18:17

sends a really bad message to other governors,

18:19

right? I mean, can you imagine, Kavita, how

18:22

if he doesn't do that, what does

18:24

Ron DeSantis do next? What

18:26

does one of these other governors do

18:29

next? They just start ignoring the federal

18:31

government and saying, well, the federal government

18:33

has failed, so I have a responsibility

18:37

to come up with my own foreign

18:40

policy, border policy. Now let me

18:42

throw another kind of boomerang, I don't

18:44

know, whatever the analogy is into the

18:46

mix, because at the same time, I

18:48

will commend the Biden campaign for putting

18:50

out, and if you haven't seen it,

18:53

it's the ad with a Texas

18:55

OBGYN talking about how she could

18:57

not obtain the abortion. And

19:00

it basically like that went something like, you know,

19:02

because of Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade, you

19:04

know, she said, basically, that like the state of

19:06

Texas, where I practice took away my choice and

19:09

put my own life in danger. And

19:11

I know that Kamala Harris is doing, I think

19:14

they need to give it another, like, they do need a little

19:16

bit more help with their marketing and branding. It's like the reproductive

19:18

health tour. And I think that just

19:20

makes it so polite and sanitized. It

19:22

needs to be the like, you know,

19:24

put the fear of God because, you

19:26

know, basically, it's like handmade tail and

19:28

like Donald Trump is controlling. It needs

19:30

to be something like get the fuck out

19:32

of my uterus. That's the thing. That's

19:35

what I mean. Like there needs to be like, I agree.

19:38

We should turn to for that Nicholas Sturgeon. I

19:43

don't know if you followed the news today. Oh,

19:46

yeah. But her WhatsApp

19:49

about her colleagues in the government

19:51

have been released. And I'm just going to

19:53

give you three of them and then we'll move on. But

19:56

she described Matt Hancock as weaker

19:58

than a nun's piss. She

20:00

described former Prime Minister Liz Truss

20:03

as about as much

20:05

use as a Marzipan dildo,

20:07

which is, I mean, brilliant. And

20:11

referred to Suella Braverman

20:14

as Schittler, you

20:16

know, plus some

20:18

less creative things.

20:21

We need people, we need

20:23

politicians who talk straight, right?

20:25

But that's like, you know, you gotta look,

20:27

I gotta commend like the campaign did something. Okay,

20:29

let's give them praise for that. They should because

20:32

majority Americans agree with Biden on this, right? And

20:34

then you have Kamala Harris who like, you know,

20:36

let's like, you know, I think the three of

20:38

us have all agreed that we have tried

20:41

very hard to like illustrate this woman is

20:43

not only capable, all the things that you

20:45

want in a commander in chief. Here's like

20:47

the one issue that you know, she like

20:49

it's animated about. This is her base.

20:51

She's even during a tour, but they

20:53

call it the like reproductive health tour.

20:56

And it's like a bunch of Planned

20:58

Parenthood people coming the night before. They

21:00

need to shake the masses and like

21:02

get people angry. Like it can't be,

21:05

you know, so anyway, I have two suggestions

21:07

for the White

21:09

House on this one. If

21:12

you were speaking, if you were talking about Joe

21:14

Biden and Jeff Seinz, what would you tell him

21:16

to do? I

21:19

would, I want Joe Biden to travel

21:21

to Texas to meet with the woman

21:23

in that ad and

21:25

go do it right from Texas. Yeah.

21:28

And while you're down there, take on Greg Abbott.

21:31

The second thing I want Biden to do on

21:33

this front is to bring to the White House

21:36

and meet at the White House with OBGYNs

21:39

who have been in

21:41

the operating room and

21:43

basically told you either

21:45

violate your Hippocratic oath

21:47

or you're going to prison. Some

21:50

who have left states where they're

21:52

leaving women without any health care.

21:55

Families of 10 year olds raped and

21:57

forced to carry the their

22:00

fetuses to term, women

22:02

with ectopic pregnancies, serious miscarriages

22:04

who almost bled to death,

22:07

personalize it in that way beyond just

22:09

an ad and use

22:11

the bully pulpit in that fashion. Then

22:13

going back. Well,

22:15

as it was announced

22:18

yesterday that Kate Cox, the woman

22:20

at the center of one of

22:22

these high profile Texas abortion cases,

22:24

would be invited to the State of

22:26

the Union address in March.

22:28

So again, right

22:30

instinct. But that's too late.

22:32

Like this is Texas. I

22:35

agree. You're going to show that you're confronting,

22:37

go to Texas and talk about

22:40

what the Texas law was

22:42

all about and what it's doing.

22:45

And then I want the

22:47

Justice Department to indict Greg

22:49

Abbott. And in

22:52

a perfect world, they would indict DeSantis

22:56

for kidnapping. But

22:59

take on these people who are

23:01

breaking the law. And Greg Abbott

23:03

is an accessory to murder because

23:06

having the Texas guard there and

23:09

the wire there, not letting the

23:11

Border Patrol get down, meant that

23:13

a young woman with two small

23:15

kids drowned in the river because

23:17

they wouldn't let anybody get there

23:19

to try to save them. I

23:22

mean, we've got all kinds of issues. I

23:24

want a president who shows that he's a

23:26

fighter and not just by putting

23:29

out a clever ad. So

23:31

that's my soapbox moment for this.

23:33

Yeah, you are so right, Norm.

23:35

And Kavita's 10 out of 10

23:37

a mood just as inexplicable

23:40

to me. No, I'm

23:42

excited. I want, I want, I say that

23:44

the next, no, I

23:46

think this is great because honestly,

23:50

when I saw the reproductive health tour, I

23:52

was like, this is insane. Like you

23:54

need to, people are angry.

23:57

Your visibility needs to match that degree of

23:59

anger. And so that's, and

24:01

I know it's a nuanced thing. You don't want to

24:03

look like the president's chasing, um, any

24:06

sort of headlines, but he's not, I mean, this

24:08

is like a very, he's got

24:10

the ability. The one thing he has as

24:13

a sitting president is that bully pulpit and you're

24:15

a hundred percent right norm, no matter where he

24:17

goes, the cameras will follow. The press tool will

24:20

follow and with it will

24:22

be every headline covering that. And I don't

24:24

know why we're doing it with like a

24:26

reproductive health. Well, but I, you know, it

24:28

also misses the point of the Trump age.

24:30

Donald Trump has done

24:33

everything wrong, has no good

24:35

ideas. His every instinct

24:37

is a crime, but

24:41

he offers

24:43

unvarnished lunacy in a way that

24:45

the media can't help but cover

24:47

it. So he's getting constant

24:50

coverage. Can't you know,

24:52

the reason he shows up at trials, you would

24:54

think he'd run in the other direction. Why does

24:56

he show up so that he can do something

24:58

crazy at the trial? Why does that

25:00

work? Because it'll get

25:02

attention and he knows

25:04

that with his base, it'll get spun

25:06

like he's a hero, but

25:09

you know, if, if, if you know, one,

25:11

if one candidate is

25:13

showing up in as 50

25:15

shades of gray, and I

25:18

don't mean that in the exciting literary

25:20

way, um, but the, but,

25:22

and the other one is showing up in living

25:24

color, he's got a problem. Well,

25:28

the 50 shades of gray is the chairman

25:30

of the Republican party in the Florida or

25:33

chancellor. Oh, that's the, oh

25:35

my God. Well, it's not where the chancellor of

25:37

the university of Wisconsin, but that's where the whole

25:40

other, you know, start. Yeah.

25:43

Well, you could, you know,

25:45

if we started to list all

25:47

of the, uh, Republicans, including, uh,

25:49

fundamentalist preachers who have engaged

25:52

in sexual misconduct, we'd be, we'd

25:54

have a broadcast all day. Yes.

25:56

We should exclusively devoted.

26:00

Yeah, it's just exclusively devoted

26:02

to Republican sexual misconduct. Although

26:04

really would

26:06

be the most disgusting podcast in the

26:09

history of the world. So I have

26:11

a question, David, because you

26:13

always normed us too, but I feel

26:15

like the reason, and the reason we

26:17

love you and your Daily

26:19

Beast articles and your pod is because you also

26:21

have this deft ability to balance

26:23

with the foreign kind of policy

26:26

issues. We talked about Ukraine, we talked about the

26:28

Middle East. How do normal

26:30

countries, what are people kind of, the

26:33

reason I bring this up is that I was

26:35

gone to London over the winter break. And

26:38

I'm not kidding. So many people said, oh,

26:40

where are you from? And I said, doesn't

26:42

my accent give it away? I'm from the

26:44

United States. And they said, well, we

26:46

didn't want to insult you if you were

26:48

Canadian. You know, there's now kind of the

26:50

backlash and people are like, oh, hey, we

26:52

hear Trump is going to win. Like he's

26:54

going to take it. And

26:57

I'm just curious, like the kind of

26:59

what's your sense of, you know,

27:01

what's the like G7 leadership? You know,

27:03

Modi is doing a jig, like he's

27:05

ecstatic. But what are other kind of

27:07

leaders doing or thinking about this? Biroshi

27:09

Sunak, right? You're just you're playing out

27:12

the economy. You're dealing with the fact

27:14

that his country's crippling

27:16

energy infrastructure. What

27:19

do you make out of that effect on

27:21

kind of the geopolitical stability

27:23

of our country? Well,

27:27

I mean, everybody's, you

27:29

know, dealing with it. There was a story yesterday

27:33

or the day before that the headline

27:36

I can read it for you is Canada

27:38

is preparing for a second Trump presidency. Trudeau

27:41

says Trump, quote, represents

27:44

uncertainty. You've heard

27:48

leaders in NATO say

27:50

the same thing. There's been a lot

27:52

of talk recently that if the US drops the

27:54

ball on Ukraine, that

27:58

UK and France and other. are going

28:00

to have to step up.

28:03

But of course, some countries have their own

28:05

problems, and they're not unrelated.

28:07

You say Modi is supportive of this. There

28:09

is a move on the right, and

28:12

there have been massive demonstrations

28:15

in Germany, because the Germans

28:17

still seem to care about their

28:19

politics, against the rise

28:21

of the far-right AFD party

28:24

there, because he

28:26

knows what happens when these far-right

28:28

parties take control. They've

28:30

been there before. And

28:33

one of the things that's really quite striking

28:35

here is not the

28:38

language of the Biden campaign. It's

28:42

that Americans are not in the streets. It's

28:45

that Americans don't take this seriously.

28:47

We are 10 months away from

28:50

the potential end of democracy, from a

28:52

president who said, I'm going to throw

28:54

my opponents in jail. Who yesterday said

28:57

that if Nikki Haley

29:00

continues to run against her, he

29:03

will launch investigations into her

29:06

and bring out things she doesn't want to

29:08

have come out. He's turning out his own

29:10

people. And what Greg

29:13

Abbott is doing, or DeSantis is doing,

29:16

whatever. You would think that

29:19

we would have a million

29:21

women marching for

29:23

reproductive rights, as you like to refer

29:25

to them, in Washington,

29:28

D.C. every Saturday. You

29:31

would think that, you know, I

29:33

can name a hundred other kinds of groups. And

29:36

we don't. The American public is

29:39

strangely sonambulant

29:41

here. Or am

29:43

I overstating that? No.

29:45

That's medical diagnosis. No,

29:49

you're not overstating it. I

29:51

do think we have

29:53

these trials looming and

29:56

the dynamic around Trump could change,

29:58

in question. including

30:00

the coverage of him, if

30:02

and when we get convictions. And obviously we could

30:04

spend a whole podcast on

30:06

the machinations around

30:09

these trials and the delays.

30:11

It is troubling

30:14

that the DC Circuit

30:16

panel, which heard the

30:18

immunity case, Trump demanding

30:22

total immunity, which he continues to

30:24

talk about, and his

30:26

lawyers saying that if a

30:29

President Trump called the Navy SEAL 6 team

30:32

and said, assassinate my opponent, that

30:34

would be okay. That

30:36

first it would require impeachment and

30:38

removal. Why they haven't

30:41

immediately taken that up, it's going to

30:43

delay the trial in Washington.

30:47

We know that there are

30:49

delays now in Georgia. Whatever

30:54

that dynamic may change, but

30:56

the reality is that Trump

31:00

is without being

31:02

convicted in a media that only

31:04

looks at the horse race and

31:07

treats Trump not as a bizarre

31:12

individual who will put people in

31:14

concentration camps and invoke the Insurrection

31:17

Act and bring out the military

31:19

to shoot at protesters if he

31:21

wins an election, who's calling for

31:23

foreign individuals to help. It's

31:26

all about, well, he's up, he's winning, here's

31:28

what the polls show. So

31:30

the public is not going to pay attention to

31:32

this. And I will mention just

31:34

one other, we talked about the White

31:36

House and the Biden campaign. What

31:39

about the Democratic Senate? Where

31:42

are the hearings on the

31:44

disasters occurring at the border with

31:49

Greg Abbott? Where are the hearings on

31:52

the disasters over women

31:54

in the aftermath of Dobbs? Where

31:56

are the hearings on Trump saying

31:59

outlaws? allowed that he gave favors

32:01

in return for Chinese money when

32:05

he was president. Where are

32:07

the hearings on Jared Kushner and

32:09

his corrupt ties to Saudi

32:11

Arabia and the Emirates that changed

32:13

policy in return for money that

32:15

was coming first to his family

32:17

to bail them out and then

32:20

to this ridiculous $2 billion fund

32:22

that he has? Our

32:24

Senate Democrats are asleep

32:26

at the switch here as well. Not

32:30

just Senate Democrats, but former

32:32

colleagues of Cavitas like David Axelrod

32:34

who are afraid of offending the

32:37

Republicans. Oh no, we don't want to

32:40

invoke the Constitution. It might hurt

32:42

their feelings. What

32:44

the hell? Look, this is the point where

32:46

we have the podcast where we say, hey, everybody,

32:48

if you're a member, you get to listen to

32:50

the rest of the podcast. If you're not a

32:52

member, you should become a member because it's obviously

32:54

a great conversation. You want to listen to the

32:56

rest of it. So what you should do is

32:58

go to the DSR network, click on membership, become

33:01

a member. It's $5 a month. It won't

33:03

be $5 a month forever because on March

33:05

1st, it's going to go up. So

33:08

now's the time to lock in that

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low, low rate and be able

33:12

to hear all of our conversations. Operators

33:14

are standing by. Yeah,

33:18

as they used to be 40 years ago

33:20

when people did it that way. But

33:24

for now, if you are

33:27

not a member, bye-bye. And

33:29

if you are a member, stand by.

33:52

Thank you. you