Can Biden Turn This Around?

This podcast is brought to you by Better Help. Welcome to beg to Beg to Differ. The Bulwark’ weekly roundtable discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum. We range from center left to center right. I’m Mona Sharon, syndicated columnist and policy editor at the Bullhorn, and I am joined by our regulars.

Will Saletan of the Brookings institution in the Wall Street Journal. Damon Linker, who writes the sub stack newsletter notes from the middle ground, and Linda Chavez, of the Niskannon Center. Our special guest this week is Adris Kowloon, Washington Bureau Chief for The Economist. Welcome. One and all.

Well, there was a lot of news in the immediate twenty four hours before we came on the air. There was a meeting between Xi and Biden which is very important, and we’re going to get to in a future podcast, I assure you. And we have the return of the pandas, as a consequence of this meeting. But let us turn now to the international news, which has domestic implications, of course. So there was an enormous rally in DC this week in support of Israel against anti semitism and demanding the release of the hostages.

But there have been any number of pro Palestinian demonstrations both in the US and around the world, including one Wednesday night at the, headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, where a number of police were injured, and, there were quite a few arrests. So there is a tremendous amount of turmoil regarding that the war is causing around the world. There was a UN Security Council resolution calling yes for the release of hostages, but also for pauses and, humanitarian aid. And the security council has not yet condemned the Hamas attack of October seventh. So I’d like us therefore to pull back and look at this whole question of ceasefire.

And whether it is realistic, whether it is moral, and what the equities are here. So, Adris, I’m going to start with you. There are a lot of observers who say that when you have a terrorist organization that purposely targets civilians and then retreats behind its own civilians, and then you call for a ceasefire by the wronged party that, you’re stacking the deck in an unfair fashion. What do you say?

Well, thank you for the very easy shimoto. I think, you know, ceasefire is a is a term that people are having some difficulty kind of deciding the exact meaning of you see the United Nations and also others calling for extended humanitarian pauses And the whole question is whether or not a ceasefire allows Hamas regroup that is Israel’s position and whether or not, this is the right moment for it. I think that we can probably all agree that, we would like for no more Palestinian civilians to be killed we would like for a to be delivered. We would like for health care to be provided. And the right mechanism for that, I think, is kind of greater extension of the humanitarian pauses that have been in place.

At the moment, president Biden has refused to to endorse ceasefire. Many, you know, Jacobi was just The Indonesian president was just in the White House, and he asked for it as well. But it’s hard for me to give you a kind of precise answer on on what I I think, ought to happen in in this case because it’s it’s complicated like you say in the case of Hamas, which, you know, and we will get into that, right? Like the, what’s been going on to Shifa Hospital as well. I think is polarizing the world and people who want to see what they wanna see will say what they wanna say.

So I look forward to discussing it with you guys.

Great. Damon, let’s talk about the El Shifa Hospital. Israel announced that it was going in and that it believed that Shifa Hospital was the epicenter of a Hamas or they call it a node command node for Hamas fighters. They did find when they went in there initially, guns, ammunition, things like that. They didn’t yet find a command headquarters.

But how much do you think is riding on what they find in Shifa Hospital?

Well, if the standard is Israel’s reputation in the world, I guess a fair amount is riding on it. I mean, what we have here is a real war going on on the ground in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. And then we have a kind of second order information war going on around the world where people who are inclined to have sympathy for Israel’s side, have none or next to no trust for anything that, the Hamas side has to say, including the Gaza health ministry with its casualty figures, And then the other side is completely the reverse. They have no trust in anything that Israel says. They think Israel lies and and care about and how many Palestinians it kills, and that they should basically defer to what, Hamas folks people have to say.

So that second order war is the one that we’re talking about here where, you know, the idea that this powerful military Israel is is is firing missiles and now sending ground troops into a hospital that sounds outrageous. What a human rights catastrophe? How How can anyone in the world sympathize with a country that would do such things? That’s the that’s the voice of the Israeli skeptic. And then you have Israel that wants to, have its own kind of propaganda battle on its side saying, you know, first of all, we could have leveled that hospital to rubble with missiles at any time if we had wished, but We actually do care about civilian casualties.

Therefore, we had surgical strikes. Now we have true going in at their own great risk to try to minimize casualties to uncover this supposed headquarters in or under or at some capacity, attached to this hospital. And so Israel, of course, very much wants to actually find such a thing there to be able to show videos and say, uh-huh. See, we were right. This is a perfect example of Hamas doing what they do.

They provoke this attack from us, totally justified attack, but they hide then under civilians and in places like hospitals, which greatly raised the risk of us the Israeli, army, the IDF ending up inadvertently killing large numbers Palestinian civilians. And they set it up this way, but we went out of our way to avoid those casualties. And look, it true. There it is. Well, is there going to be such a headquarters in this particular hospital?

I don’t know. Depends on how cagey Hamas is. Did they bait Israel into attacking this hospital and use disinformation through intelligence channels to convince them? That this is where the headquarters was when actually maybe it was there three weeks ago, but it was evacuated and moved elsewhere. And so that’s like kind of counter intelligence manipulation going on.

This is all again the second order war. And I think the more important war is the one that Israel is actually waging to eliminate Hamas from the governance of the Gaza strip. And, my own view is, yes, I want as minimal civilian casualties as humanly possible. I also have a fair amount of trust. I will admit with my cards on the table that is real is going to do everything within reason to do that.

But I also believe that the kind of, as they say, in just war theory, the add Bellum criterion about whether the war itself is justified has been met Amply in this case. And so I’m sort of happy to stand back a little bit and and not try to second guess what’s true and what’s going on. Simply allow the war to go on in the way that it has and hope that it works out well with minimal casualties, but not intervene kind of like follow Twitter twenty four hours a day and and be saying things very only on one side or the other in this information second order war. You know, there’s always the fog of war and we also now live at a time where social media is contributing to making it even foggier. So that’s sort of where I come down on that.

Yeah. Linda I cannot think of another country that fights wars with the pretty much the eyes of the world on them the way Israel does. They everybody is fly specking every single action that the Israeli military takes. And you know, there was an interesting piece on CNN dot com by John Spencer, who was the chairman of urban warfare studies at West Point, You know, he pointed out that urban warfare always contains many civilian casualties. That is just a fact of life.

And it was true, for example, when US forces and allies were fighting in cities like Moz or Raqa, where we caused billions of dollars of damage and killed and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians. You know, and certainly we have our critics around the world. I’m not gonna say we we got off scot free, but, you know, there are a lot places around the world where people suffer where war is commenced. I mean, right now in dark four, for example, the war is heating up again. That was a war that, twenty years ago caused millions of people to be displaced and killed scores of thousands in Syria quite recently in their civil war.

You had a the regime killing hundreds of thousands of people including children. And the world was not, you know, following every death, and there were not demonstrations worldwide.

Well, of course, you’re absolutely right, Mona. There is a incredibly hypocritical double standard when it comes to Israel. I think there’s somewhat of a double standard when it comes to the United States, but I I think you’re right. I think Israel gets the brunt of this kind of criticism and the way in which the opponents of the state of Israel are constantly looking to point out that Israel is not a paragon of virtue. It’s not a refuge for people who fled to the Holocaust.

It is simply a colonial power that is doing harm to the Palestinian people. I mean, that that is the view from the left. And I think Israel understands exactly what Damon is talking about. I the only thing I would disagree with what Damon said is while I think it’s absolutely true that the most important battle that’s going on now is the actual battle, the battle to root out Hamas The secondary information battle is important because Israel does need the support of other nations. It needs United States support.

It needs European support. And if the tide turns and Israel can be made into the bad guy. That’s gonna be very bad for for sustaining long term support. For not just Israel and this war, but for the state of Israel, period. And, you know, is one of the most encouraging things of the last five years or so has been the way in which the arab world has seemed to come to terms with the existence of the state of Israel to try to normalize a number of countries through the Abraham accords, normalizing relations, with Israel and not taking up the so called Palestinian cause as their own.

And, you know, I think that led many of us to believe, gee, we were in a new era. This was gonna be an era of peace. This was gonna be an era in which Israel would simply be another nation like others, and, not always held to this double standard. It didn’t take long for that to change. And I think what’s so shocking about this is, you know, this isn’t the poor war, this isn’t, you know, the the war, you know, in which Israel, you know, basically decided they were gonna get attacks.

And so they attacked first. In nineteen sixty seven. This was the most horrific attack on civilians, by Hamas, doing such barbers things. I mean, comparisons to the Nazis, I don’t think are even accurate because the Nazis is horrible and is, you know, as the Holocaust was, they tried to cover up what they did. And, you know, as people were being led into the gas chambers, they weren’t being taunted and told what was happening to them.

Were, you know, deceived into thinking they were going into showers. There was something so gleeful about the brutality of Hamas in the way in which these civilians were killed. That I think it’s just unlike anything we’ve seen except some of the examples from ISIS. But on a an unimaginable scale, and what is so shocking is you have Hamas leaders in exile. Who have said very openly, we are going to do this again and again and again.

And yet Israel is being faulted, for attempting to root out each and every Hamas fighter in the Gaza strip And, yes, it is horrible. And, yes, you know, we cry for the children, the innocent children who have been killed in this effort, but Israel is not targeting those people. Israel is targeting fighters who hide behind the bodies of his children in order to, fight their horrible war.

Yep. A distinction that is lost on all too many. Will Saletan The attack of October seventh, as Linda says, was it was so personal and sadistic, and it was emblematic of the Hamas philosophy, which is not that they want at their own state and that they want a two state solution. They emphatically reject a two state solution. They want in the region, and they want to kill as many Jews as they possibly can.

It’s in their charter. Israel is deeply wounded, and I think will be forever changed by what happened on October seventh. But it is also the case, isn’t it? That what Hamas did also was kind of a at least for now the death knell of hopes for a Palestinian state too, because in order for Israel to agree, to a Palestinian state, they have to have some level of confidence that it’s going to be a state that’s willing to live in peace with them.

That is true, but as the lawyers would say not dispositive, because if Israel were able to attain its objective, of destroying Hamas as an organized political entity and as an organized military entity that could over time set the stage for a reassertion of authority over Gaza by Palestinians who are willing to accept a two state solution. I’m not saying we’re anywhere near that, but one thing is clear, a two state solution is absolutely impossible with Hamas as a living, breathing, political, and military force. Let me just Let me just state a couple of facts. One about the real war and the other about what Damon called the second order war. About the real war, what was destroyed by the Hamas attack is any belief in Israel that Hamas could be deterred by any means that Israel was able to command.

And that has led to a conclusion that I think is virtually unanimous in Israel from the left to the right that there is no further possibility of coexistence with Hamas on its borders. And Israel will be criticized in all sorts of ways, and the volume of the criticism may very well intensify in coming weeks But I do not expect the government Israel to be deterred by anything that anybody outside of Israel has say, including the United States, by the way. Israel is determined to achieve its stated objective. And, they will do what they deem necessary and defensible in pursuit of that objective. Obviously, you can’t destroy an idea But if you have two hundred named Hamas officials and leaders, like, you know, the the playing cards that the United States brought brought with its troops in in Baghdad, you can keep score.

And you can keep on going until they are killed, captured, or driven into distant exile. And that’s the way it’s going to be. I’m very confident of that. With regard to the second order war, It is indeed being waged, and Israel’s losing it, not the least in the United States. Since We began recording this podcast.

Quinnipiac University poll issued its latest addition showing a sharp decline in overall American support, for Israel and a rise in sympathy for the Palestinians support for aiding Israel is now no greater than support for aiding Ukraine. I wouldn’t have believed that a month ago, but it’s true. And why is this happening? Because support for Israel is collapsing within my party, the Democratic party. Here’s a figure for you.

Among Republicans Seventy three percent approve of Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack, only eighteen percent disapprove. Among Democrats, sixty percent disapprove, and only twenty seven percent. Approve. Let me repeat that. Seventy three to eighteen among Republicans in approval sixty to twenty seven among Democrats, disapproving.

And among younger voters and younger Democrats, the figures are stark, even darker. And This is going to be a very significant problem for the Democratic Party. And for president Biden, It could very well have consequences that flow into the twenty twenty four election. So the second order war may not be a matter of life and death in Gaza or to the IDF, but it may very well reshape the internal politics of the United States and the relationship between the United States and Israel.

Adris, in this sense, it seems that Hamas has achieved one of its objectives, which was to discredit Israel in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of its allies, and that seems to be moving along nicely from Hamas’s point of view. But if you believe that Hamas had other goals, those don’t seem to have been so, so successful. So for example, Hamasas wanted to ignite a wider war. They were hoping and expecting, I think, that the bank, Palestinians would rise up and join the fight. And, by the way, some extremist Israelis have made the situation on the West Bank worse by provoking, and being aggressive toward the the Palestinians on the West Banks.

But in any event, that has not happened. Hamas was also hoping that Hezbollah in Lebanon would join the fight that that has not happened. And beyond that, the other peace treaties that Israel has with Egypt and Jordan, and then the Abraham accords, with Morocco, all of those peace treaties are holding. And, of course, Iran is the author of a lot of this misery because of its funding for Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis, But Iran hasn’t gotten into it itself, and, you know, the Houthis have launched a couple missiles at a lot. But this wider conflict that Hamas was hoping to ignite does not seem to have happened.

So is there then some comfort to be had in the fact that, however, much Hamas wanted to light a spark There, they seem at least so far to have been unsuccessful.

Yeah. That’s certainly right. In that sense, you know, this war has not escalated into a regional conflict, which I think we can all be thankful for. There is obviously some fear that Hezbollah would enter the fight. Hassan Nasralla, the chief there, had been teasing a speech for many days in which he effectively said that, you know, Hezbollah would not be doing very much.

And we haven’t, you know, we’ve seen sporadic missiles like you mentioned being sent from the Houthis, but, you know, Israel has effectively deterred this conflict from escalating as has America by sending some of his aircraft carriers, into the Mediterranean, and I think we can be thankful for that as well. And, you know, despite the nearly hundred or so Palestinian that have been killed in the West Bank, we haven’t seen that area blow up in terms of out and out conflict, and it’s really just been contained to Gaza. I do think on your first point that Hamas has achieved success in the kind of information wars. I disagreed with that. I think that it’s it’s, you know, important to, have a sense of perspective on where public opinion rests.

Obviously, it’s easy to look at protests and see that there are hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of people in streets in America and in Europe, but, you know, the polling that we just did this week, we asked Americans in the Israeli Palestinian conflict or sympathies more with Israel or Palestine, thirty nine percent of Americans said Israelis, eleven percent said Palestinians, forty percent were in the middle either about equal or unsure. And I think also, you know, sympathy for the Palestinians as measured on the poll is somewhat different from sympathy with hamas. So I think that, you know, there is some hope to be taken in the idea that for a lot of Americans, you know, and even a majority of Democrats, that, public opinion is still on, on the side of the Israelis at the moment.

Right. And public opinion is, of course, volatile as well. So when they’re are fewer images on the screen of of Palestinian suffering. That might make a difference in the longer run too. Alright.

Well, let’s leave that there for now and, move on to another topic. But first, Let’s take a minute and talk about stress. We all deal with it in different ways. If you’re like me, the news itself can be very disturbing Some of us get headaches, others get stomach upset or insomnia, still others feel so tired that they don’t know how they’re going to get through the day. Mental stress can make everyday life seem overwhelming.

And therapy can help so much. It’s not just for people with serious trauma or major illness. We all need a sympathetic, dispassionate listener, someone with experience and perspective, who can reassure us that others have the same insecurities, doubts, and fears and have overcome them. Therapy helps us figure out how our own minds may be holding us back. Ruminating about our worries and conflicts or the many balls we’re trying to keep in the air does not help.

It just contributes to the stress, and self medicating with booze or drugs is a dead end. Therapy can unwind your worries and let you be a calmer, happier version of yourself. If you’re thinking about starting therapy, betterhelp is a great option. It’s incredibly convenient because it’s entirely online, flexible, and suited to your schedule. You just fill out a questionnaire and get matched with a licensed therapist, and then you just get started.

If that therapist isn’t a good fit, You can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Make your brain your friend with better help. Visit betterhelp dot com slash Beg to Differ today to get ten percent off your first month. That’s betterhelp, h e l p dot com slash beg to differ. And we thank them for sponsoring this podcast.

Well, while the world is on fire, we in the United States are faced with the possibility that Donald Trump could be reelected in twenty twenty four legitimately, which has a lot of people really panicked for good reason. We also have the entry now of Jill Stein into the race as a third party candidate. We already have had r f k junior. And Joe Manchin is teasing a possible no labels run. We have Cornell West And so things are looking very, very worrying despite the fact that inflation is coming down.

That is the rate of inflation is coming down. Prices are still high. We have very healthy economic growth at four point nine percent. The third quarter of twenty twenty three, But voters are in a very sour mood, and they, by large, margins, think Joe Biden is too old. And so Jonathan Last Martin of politico did a long magazine piece this week where he had spoken to many Democratic operatives and wise people who made suggestions about how he can turn things around.

So I asked my panel to read this piece and give us their reactions, Will Saletan. I’m gonna start with you. Did you think it would the the ideas were good ones? Were there any that you particularly want to highlight? Because we’re gonna send a copy of this podcast over to the White House.

Yeah. And they’ll listen to it eagerly. I’m sure.

Yeah. Exactly.

I read the piece with great attention, and there were some Good ideas. Some insider baseball ideas that may or may not make any difference. But overall, I didn’t find it bold enough or blunt enough. And there was one piece of it that I found outright disturbing. To the suggestion, that president Biden needs to get out more to wage more a more vigorous campaign, which it seems to me is the only way that he can begin to take the edge off.

The reservations about his age, which could very well bring down his candidacy. Apparently, The, you know, senior White House officials that Biden is being as active and visible as it can be under the circumstances, and that a return to a more traditional active campaign with multiple events per day, etcetera, for a period of months, five days a week, is extremely unlikely.

Bill, can I interrupt just to read a couple sentences that I you’re referring to? Yes. This is from Jonathan Martin. He said, the oldest president in history when he first took the oath Biden will not be able to govern and campaign in the manner of previous incumbents. He simply does not have the capacity to do it, and his staff doesn’t trust him to even try as they make clear by blocking him from the press.

That is indeed the passage that I was referring to. I have to say I was blown away by that because I think every pollster agrees that fears about Biden’s age and the effect of his age on his capacity to do the job are the single most important impediment to his reelection. And if he’s if he’s not capable of campaigning and governing any more vigorously than he already is, then I think Democrats hopes really have to rest on the idea that Trump is going to be disqualified by events. They have to hope that the New York Times poll is correct, that about six percent of his current supporters would peel away if he is convicted of a felony before the election. And That is to say that the Biden campaign would not be in control of its own destiny in any way.

It would be like mister micawber. In Charles Dickens, hoping for something to turn up. The other piece of the Jonathan Martin account that discouraged me was the lack of any evident seriousness from the White House about doing anything about its number two problem which is or number three problem, which is immigration, which the administration does have some control over. They could change course, but they seem unwilling or unable to do so. The best case scenario is that they’re forced to change course by a package deal for aid to Ukraine, which includes a dramatic new immigration policy for the southern border.

Overall, I did not find the article and what seems to be the administration’s response to it very encouraging.

Linda, once again, it is staggering that we live in a time when people are saying, well, If Trump were convicted of something, then six percent of his the people saying they’d vote for him will peel off, the man has already said that he wants to cashier the constitution to put himself back in power. He has already led an insurrection He has every week, seemingly, he telegraphs his fandom for,

So, I mean, that isn’t all. Of course, he’s now taken to, uttering Nazi rhetoric, talking about vermin, talking about poisoning the blood of the American people, accusing immigrants of doing that. I’m very bipolar on this. And anybody who listens to the program regularly knows that one week, I’ll say, well, I really do believe the American people, you know, know better and they’re not going to elect Trump. But today I’m feeling very pessimistic.

And I have to tell you, I am terrified. And I read that article and I said, you know, yeah, there are some nice suggestions here, you know, bring Rahm a manual in to run the convention, you know, maybe get a new chief of staff, although I didn’t think Ron claimed did that great job. So I wouldn’t brief for bringing him back. But it’s not fixable by those, types of changes. The problem is Biden himself.

And the staff has good reason to worry that putting them out there more often, is not gonna help the matter. It’s gonna make it worse. And let me just say. I mean, if somebody who’s not that much younger than Biden, you know, you get to a certain age, you simply do not have the energy. That you had when you were in your fifties or in your sixties.

You get into your seventies, and I certainly would assume in your eighties. There’s a diminishment there, and expecting him to do the kind of sixteen hour days that candidates have to do to always be sharp, to be able to answer questions thrown at him, by not all that friendly press corps, not make mistakes. I think it’s too much to ask. And I just don’t understand why somebody who clearly loves this country, who clearly understands how dangerous Donald Trump is. Doesn’t see that if he is the nominee and Kamala Harris is the vice presidential nominee that Donald Trump, at least at this point, looks like he would be likely to be elected.

And I don’t believe even with the conviction, which I think is, first of all, highly problematic You know, there’s only one trial that might finish before the election, and that’s the January sixth trial in the in the district. Jack Smith’s trial there. But even there, if if there were convictions, it’s going to immediately be appealed. And, you know, given the propensity of Trump voters, to always, you know, believe everything, you know, their great leader says, I don’t think they would necessarily accept a verdict by a district of Columbia jury that found him guilty of the things of which, you know, he’s been accused. So I’m in a very pessimistic mood.

I wish he would decide for the good of the country that he needs to move aside. And get somebody in there other than his vice president to take on the democratic mantle.

Betty. There’s the rub. So a lot of people think, yeah, Biden is definitely not a strong candidate, arguably he’s the underdog going into twenty twenty four. But if he were to withdraw, the the thinking goes, the most likely person to win the democratic nomination would be Kamel Harris. I mean, it’s hard to imagine, for example, that black voters who represent a big percentage of the primary vote in the Democratic party would reject a sitting African American vice presidential candidate?

I don’t know. What do you think?

Yeah. I think that there is something to that. We’ve also seen that Bulwark Democratic primary voters are incredibly pragmatic in the run up to the twenty sixteen Democratic primary. They favored Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama until became clear that Barack Obama was viable based on his performances in Iowa, New Hampshire. They helped deliver the South Carolina victory, which then set him up for his, following victory in the nomination.

But to your point about Kamala Harris and her extraordinary weakness. I mean, it is remarkable to me that she rivals the president in rhetorical ability given their age difference. It is remarkable to me that her approval ratings are in line with the presidents as well. Given that, you know, she could be, making, I think, a bit more of a mark had she carried out some of her policy portfolios, assignments a bit better. But I also think that there is some irony in the fact that by leaving presidential ticket, closed, essentially up until this point.

If Biden were to withdraw, and I think at this point, the only thing that would cause him to withdraw would be some kind of health event. The fact that there’s so little time left has probably made it likelier that Kamala Harris would be the the nominee. I think a a truly open process that had begun a few months ago could have seen a different candidate come to the fore because I think that, you know, a lot of voters would have looked at Kamala taking a good assessment of, for chances remembered her twenty twenty campaign in which she was for Medicare for all before she was against it. You know, her felicity as a campaigner might not have improved, and they might have selected someone else. Now what we see in the Jonathan Martin article, you know, he identifies the issues that that Biden faces, obviously, his age, discontent with the, with the economy.

I thought that there was a slightly funny kind of avengers like quality to that piece where, like, the gang is gonna get together and, you know, Liz Cheney is gonna be part of the, you know, the the the crew. I, you know, Liz Cheney is not, in my mind, you know, I think what she did was incredibly brave and and she deserves a lot of commendation for sacrificing her political career. What she thought was right and what was right, but she’s not gonna be the draw to Republican voters that some Democrats think that she will be. The main issue with the the campaign is gonna be Biden’s own record and Biden’s own age. And the idea that one can pretend that the president’s hardier than he is.

I saw an aid to the president saying on Twitter today that, he runs circles around his policy aids and briefings. If the media only knew, well, I think if you show the media, one of those briefings that that might actually dispel some of these ideas.

Okay. Well, alright, Damon. Here’s the optimistic take. Alright? Biden looks through this Jonathan Martin article, and he says, yeah.

It’s true. I’m gonna get the congressional Bulwark caucus out there because, you know, enthusiasm among African Americans is fading a bit. Those are gonna be my spokespeople around the country. I’m going to Do executive actions along the lines of Bill Galston’s column a couple weeks ago on inflation, and I’m going to be seem to be attacking inflation, and I’m gonna take frontal attacks to the GOP, which I haven’t done until now because I’ve been wanting to make the point that you can get things done in a bipartisan fashion in this country, but I’m gonna, you know, it’s gonna be no more mister nice guy. I’m gonna take it to them.

Harry Truman’s style. And but so he’s gonna do all those things. And in addition, there is the fact that polling really is just a snapshot. Sometimes people, many, many people as hard as it is for those of us who do this podcast or probably listen to this podcast as hard as it is for us to imagine. There are a huge number of Americans who are not paying attention at all who don’t even realize.

That the almost inevitable matchup in twenty twenty four is gonna be the one they do not want, which is Trump versus Biden again. And so they haven’t thought about it, and they haven’t focused well, they haven’t focused on it. Let’s put it that way. They certainly haven’t focused on how crazy Trump is, and their memories of how crazy he was faded, and therefore, all is not lost. That’s the optimistic take.

Well, sure. I’m not known for my optimistic takes. But I but I will say that it sure. It is possible. One would expect for the reasons you just listed, the ones having to do with people not really paying much attention right now.

And a general kind of vague foul mood vibe in the country, especially on economic matters. It’s kind of leading people to be sour when they speak to pollsters, but as we as we heat up, we go through the primaries, Trump wins the nomination easily. Crazy news stories come out. The various trials are unfolding with more attention on them. Plus Biden doing some of the things that you just listed.

Oh, and plus abortion. I forgot to mention that.

Yeah. And abortion being in the mix too. You know, all of that you would back, you know, to be contributing in some marginal ways toward propping up Biden’s numbers. The softness that we’re seeing now, where he’s coming in in all of these swing states, several points behind Trump, they narrow, And I would expect to see that no matter what happens, even if Biden isn’t doing that much different than today. And so in the end, I think as a number of us have said, I know Bill has said that, you know, either way, it’s gonna be a close election.

It it’s gonna be any kind of big sweep in either direction and so it could end up like a coin toss. Is it gonna be better than that? Like the white out that I think you and and I and everyone else on this podcast and similarly disposed Americans sort of think is is appropriate. Like, oh, You mean, the guy facing ninety one felony counts? Yeah.

Like, he’s gonna get twenty percent of the vote, and it’s gonna be a fifty state wipeout. That’s what my brain tells me should happen. But in the reality we live in, that is just not what is ever going to be possible. It’s gonna be close. And it’s possible that Biden or whoever the Democrat ends up being if there’s a health event or he changes his mind at the last minute you know, L BJ style in late March, steps down and hands the mantle, to Kamala Harris presumably.

It’s gonna be close. Now does that ease my mind in any way? I guess, I would say then, my optimistic take is no, it’s a wash and that’s scary as hell. I’m not happy about it. And then there are other things that we haven’t talked about at least in this segment.

But the one that Bill mentioned when we were talking about, you know, my second order, information war dimension to the Israel Gaza, conflict going on right now. The fact of how deeply the, Middle East situation is is splitting, the Democratic electorate is is deeply can earning to me. And of course, this isn’t something that I was particularly worried about a month and a half ago before, the the October seventh massacre in Israel but now, you know, on top of all of the general softening that we’ve seen in Biden’s numbers, over the last couple of years that seems so entrenched to now see that, you know, whatever, I mean, like, ten to fifteen percent of the furthest left faction of the Democratic party is seriously angry with Joe Biden right now. Now, the election is still a long way away when presumes this war is not going to be going on next fall. But, we don’t know exactly what’s going to be happening and and how it’s going to reverberate throughout the democratic electoral coalition, especially with the background assumption that you listed at the very top of the segment, Mona, about Jill Stein, RfK Junior, Joe Manchin, Cornell West, That that’s a lot of third, fourth, fifth, sixth party candidates in the mix and, like, how that interacts.

With both parties with the Republican, on these trials potentially convicted in at least one of them, appeals pending. Joe Biden unpopular, his, voters divided over foreign policy and the porter and other things. I mean, I just don’t know. This is gonna be a nail biter all the way down to the wire no matter how you cut it, I think. And so I, you know, get rid of everyone.

Make sure you come back here every week as we white knuckle it for the next year.

Really? I it does feel like we’re on one of those, you know, carnival rides where you’re just careening around corners and, and and terrified. That’s how it feels. Alright. Let’s just say a brief word or two about, Nikki Haley.

In any normal year, she would be having a great surge just at the right time. It’s only two months until Iowa. She is gaining support. She’s gaining money. And her nearest competition, Ron DeSantis, is on the opposite trajectory.

He is sinking. In the polls. So does anybody want to make the optimistic case that it’s not a slam dunk that Trump is going to just be on a glide path to the nomination. What do you think, Idris?

You know, I can make a case, but I think that would be an unfortunate bout of Wish casting. Nikki Haley’s having a good month, but, something we always think about when we’re citing numbers or baseline effects. So, you know, if you have a small increase on a low base, it looks like an impressive surge, but the actual numbers kinda bring you down to earth. So in the five thirty eight average, Nikki Haley at the start of this month had about seven percent of Republican primary voters who said they wanted to vote for her. She now has a bit above nine.

That’s a thirty percent surge, but it’s still at nine points. Ron DeSantis is still a little bit above Nikki. And, you know, she might get the silver medal. The silver medal unfortunately is still forty points behind where Donald Trump is. Obviously, there are Iowa specific events that could happen.

Ron DeSantis is staking his entire campaign on Iowa, which is usually, bad sign for the future of said campaign. Things do happen. But, at the moment, I think if you’d have to imagine a polling error of kind of gargantuan unheard of sizes even in an era of large polling errors, for something, miraculous to happen for Nikki Haley, I think.

Yeah. Well, I think you’re right. But let just for the sake of argument, I’m going to cite to you the new CNN University of New Hampshire Paul, I think just out, today, that shows Trump down to forty two in New Hampshire, Haley up to twenty, and Christie at next in line at fourteenth. So if Christy drops out, and his voters would almost certainly go to Haley. In fact, he’d probably endorse her.

That brings her up to thirty four. Now you’re talking about a race, right? In New Hampshire.

In New Hampshire.

Could I offer my five percent scenario for Nikki Haley?

Yeah, Bill.

And I’m offering it as I may have said before because I was Walter Mandell’s policy director in nineteen eighty four when Gary Hart got seventeen percent of the vote in Iowa finishing second to Walter Mandell’s forty nine percent was immediately anointed the alternative to Mandale came from thirty points back to beat Mandale by thirteen points in New Hampshire. And if modern technology had existed back then, which would have enabled Hart to turn his New Hampshire victory to cold hard cash, He probably would have beaten Mandell on Super Tuesday, but he almost did anyway and taken the nomination away from him. The five percent chance for Haley is that she comes in second in Iowa. Which I think would exceed journalistic and, you know, and political observer expectations. And then does to Trump in New Hampshire, what Gary Hart did to Mandale.

And then the next contest after that is South Sarah Longwell. And if before the New Hampshire primary, Chris Christie drops out endorses her as does governor Sununu, which is a distinct possibility, then we might have the makings of a real race. Because Donald Trump’s hardcore support among Republicans is not fifty percent. It may not even be forty percent. It may be more like thirty five.

We don’t know for sure. It hasn’t been tested. But if everything broke right, she could have a shot at this.

And it’s worth noting, not that I am predicting that this will matter to Republican primary voters, but she is the only Republican candidate who consistently polls as defeating Biden in a general election. But then again, a lot of Trump supporters, believe that he won the twenty twenty election. So there you go. Alright. Anybody else wanna weigh in on Haley before we get to the high light or low light of the week?

Well, I I would like to briefly. I I mean, I would just add, I I think what Bill says is largely, correct, definitely her path to, being a very solid second place finisher above DeSantis does run through doing better than expected in Iowa. A very strong second in New Hampshire, and then she goes into South Carolina, which is, of course, her home state, and she no longer faces Tim Scott as a rival there. She does probably doesn’t beat Trump but comes in very close behind him. That would, I think, knock DeSantis out of contention.

I don’t personally think she has any chance of simply beating Trump. I think I would put that at zero because I don’t think there are enough Republicans who want her style of politics anymore, not even close. But if she consolidated all of the non trump votes, that would have her as a solid second place And Donald Trump is not, you know, he’s no spring chicken. You know, he’s he’s just a little younger, a few years younger than Joe Biden. He’s very quite overweight.

He eats like char broiled steaks five days a week. And the chance just to actuarially that he has a major health event himself, sometimes say between now and the conventions next summer, are are not negligible. And if Nikki Haley goes into the convention controlling a large chunk of delegate, and Trump is not capable of running. She could be in a very good position to cut some deals and end up, you know, all bets off kind of scenario actually getting the nomination in that way. That’s the only way I she could do it.

But that’s not nothing, especially given the way the polling has looked this entire last like kind of nine month run up to the primaries. I’m gonna be looking at her and how she does going forward very closely because I do think that that is a non negligible scenario that could be ahead.

Linda, the fate of our democracy, the fate of our country, the fate of Ukraine, arguably the fate of Israel, all rests on the daughter of immigrants

Yes. Right. Yes. No kidding. And, I love all of these scenarios.

I wish I believed they were of all my biggest fear, even as we unfold these scenarios, is that Donald Trump makes a very calculated decision and says, Haley, you know, let’s, be my vice president, and they run on his ticket. And, by the way, I think Nikki Haley would take it. And that that worries me.

Okay. Now I’m really depressed. Alright. Let’s move on to the highlight and the light of the week. Let’s start with Will Saletan.

Well,

my low light of the week occurred in a Senate help committee hearing just a few days ago, Senate Help Committee is the health education, labor, and pensions, I believe, When newly minted Oklahoma Senator, Mark Wayne Mullen, challenged one of the witnesses Shawn O’Brien the president of the teamsters union to a fist fight. And they went back and forth back and forth and, you know, Senator Mullen actually stood up, took his wedding ring off which apparently is a gesture of seriousness in some circles, and seem to be about to get off the dais and go down and confront O’Brien physically, when Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the committee intervened, said sit down sit down. You’re a net you’re a United States senator. Yo doing his best grumpy old uncle routine, and Mullen sat down, but they went back and forth. Mullen and O’Brien for about ten minutes.

I watched the video. This got me interested in mister Mullen. And so I investigated his background. You know, he entered Congress, from Oklahoma’s second congressional district, in twenty thirteen during his campaign. Yo, he said, I’m a rancher a businessman, not a politician, and promised to serve only three terms.

In July of twenty seventeen, he released his reelection video, you know, a bid for his fourth term and during which he said that his three term pledge had been and I quote ill advised. He is what is a vigorous opponent of president Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan. But had one point four million dollars in loans that he received via the PPP program to his businesses, forgiven, and it also transpires that he was a substantial threat to Teamster president O’Brien, because between November two thousand and six and April of two thousand and seven, he fought in three mixed martial arts. Fights and won all three. So mister O’Brien survives, as president of the teamsters, And mister Mullen, I think, has shown what he’s made of.

And so, by the way, his Senator Sanders.

Well, yes. And we can add that those were not the only, almost violent or violent altercations that happened in the Congress this week. We also had, Kevin McCarthy elbowing, one of the members who voted against him for the speakership, in the hallway, in front of an NPR reporter, no less. So so everything’s great. You know, this is all very normal, and, everybody’s, everybody’s behaving like a grown up Okay, Linda.

Well, I have a low light, today. And it is from a New York Times, a lengthy piece in the New York times, which has been laying out, what would happen if Donald Trump, is elected in twenty twenty five and the title of the article was sweeping raids, giant camps, and mass deportations inside Trump’s twenty twenty five immigration plans. You know, we already talked on the show about Trump invoking vermin, talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of real Americans, etcetera. And so I guess his solution is gonna be to set up camps. And by the way, he’s not talking about tent cities erected to, house people who are coming across the border in very large numbers, now.

And are apprehended and, you know, having them kept there for a while until they can, in fact, be deported. What he’s talking about doing internal raids going after the twelve million or so people who are in the United States, without documentation. These are people, the majority of whom have been here literally decades. They are people who have built their live here who have American citizen children who operate businesses and employ other people, including Americans, who buy homes and live in communities. It is a horrifying spectacle, and he favorably, or I should say Stephen Miller, who is his guru on this issue, one of the most odious, people in public life, they invoke the deportation program during the Eisenhower Howard Administration, which had the very unpolicitous name of Operation Wetback.

Those were the days when you could call, Mexicans who crossed the Rio Grande wetbacks. And for those who don’t know about that program, Not only were people sent back who were undocumented and in the country. American citizens also got swept up in those raids. And of course, all of this would have to be, you know, with the complicity or agreement of of the courts, or he’s just simply refusing to listen to the courts. He also wants to invoke Title forty two which, of course, was the COVID era law that allowed him to be able to kick people out, even if they had asylum claims because of a public health emergency, COVID is obviously gone, but I, apparently, he will invoke, tuberculosis.

He’s talked about leprosy and other kinds of diseases. It was really a horrifying picture. And unfortunately, I think he would, in fact, try to do this.

Idris Kowloon.

Well, my, first, thought for a low light was the, near brawl on the Senate floor. My second thought was, Kevin McCarthy, actual violence in the hallway. So I’m down to my third option, which also comes from, believe it or not, Congress, and that’s from the ethic committee report on George Santos, which was released today. Which is absolutely blistering. I mean, the man has already been charged and twenty three federal crimes of which he has plead not guilty.

You know, this report dives into, some suspicious expenditures, which people are just beginning to to look at. There is a three thousand dollar Airbnb expense in Atlantic City, money taken out for casinos, miss, which the committee alleges came from campaign funds that were misappropriated. There was money spent at hermes, several thousand dollars, six thousand dollars at Feragamo. They also say that there is a subscription to only fans as well. If you don’t know what that is, I recommend not looking it up at work.

Oh, I was just about to ask you what it was. Okay. I won’t ask.

It is a gig economy sort of sports creators of a certain kind.

I see. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. But, all in all, I think this is probably the final the final nail in the coffin for George Santos.

So it’s a highlight.

K. Yeah. That’s one way to look at it.

He did announce, I believe, that he is not going to seek reelection. So there, there is Alright. Thank you. Damon Lincoln.

Well, I’m glad there was a little levity in that one just because I’ve thought, oh, no. All these low lights I’m gonna be piling on. But I guess I I that is my fate here. At least this week. My low light of

the week is,

a really bizarre social media story. That broke on Wednesday of this week, where it came to light that, there was a a trending series of TikTok videos appearing on that platform in which people from all races, genders, and walks of life were doing little videos of themselves talking about how they went and read Osama bin Laden’s letter to America from two thousand and two in which the mass murdering terrorist explained his actions on September eleventh and launching, the largest terrorist attack in world history against the United States in terms of, the United States’ support, for various policies in the Middle East, but above all in befriending Israel and making life miserable for the Palestinians. So what ended up happening apparently is that thousands of accounts on TikToks ended up being made by people who claimed to have read this short two page essay, which was posted at the Guardian’s website the last twenty one years, but has since been taken down by the Guardian when they discovered that it was, it had somehow started this viral sensation. And everyone who did these videos had almost the identical reaction to each other. They used very similar language about how I can’t believe you have to go read this essay.

Oh my gosh. When I read had read this essay, it was like the scales fell from my eyes. I’m having an substantial crisis. I can’t believe everything I’ve been taught is a lie. And I I just it was bizarre how similar it was.

It’s sort of the kind of memetic mass conversion event where, like, everyone is having this kind of gestalt flip experience where everything they thought was true is now no longer true and it had to do with basically viewing the world through the eyes of Osama bin Laden as if this was some kind of enlightening experience, which prompted me on Twitter to respond oh yeah. It’s nineteen forty six and I just read Mind Comf. My god, my mind is blown like an existential crisis. Everything makes sense now. All the lies we were told so eye opening.

Thanks for listening to my TikTok. You know, this would be a joke if it weren’t for the fact that, you know, millions of Americans get their news from TikTok, and TikTok has owned and controlled by China. We don’t know if some random person happened to stumble across this Osama bin Laden letter, and then authentically did a video that then went viral or if China and their information intelligence service deliberately posted, a video like that and then used its algorithm to boost it very strongly in the right quadrant of TikTok, a certain kind of naive far left critical of Israel quadrant, and then it took off on its own or how they were in control of it. But it really leads you to wonder What exactly life in a modern democracy, it can be like in a world where these kind of tidal waves of insanity take form and wash over the country, every few days or weeks. And I suspect we’re gonna be seeing a lot more of this.

Over the next year as we head into the next election, and it’s pretty, pretty chilling stuff.

Exceedingly so. But isn’t there also a chance Damon that the whole thing is jind up by China, that it isn’t real, that it wasn’t actually a viral sensation. I mean, we don’t know, do we?

Well, I mean, you could think maybe the people in the videos were, I mean, where they would actors were the AI generated, animation bots, maybe. It’s possible. It’s really impossible to know, and that’s even scarier, frankly, because then it truly is just a kind of demonic propaganda bid on the part of the of the Chinese government. So I don’t know. I mean, we do know by looking at kind of Google searches and web traffic we can see that even before this became a kind of news story, which of course drove more people to look at the videos, it was doing pretty, pretty strong of traffic, which meant that, you know, at least some people were engaging with it and then doing their own version of these videos.

But it’s a it’s just a truly bizarre story from top to bottom. Yeah.

I mean, let’s find someone to admire. I know, Osama bin Laden.

It all makes sense now.

Alright. Okay. Well, I’m sorry I’m not gonna be shedding any light with my choice. Mine is also low light, but it is interesting, and it and worth remembering the levels of corruption here. One of Rudy Giuliani’s sources and pals in Ukraine was charged with treason, this week by the Ukrainian government.

His name is Alexander Dubinsky. So he was one of the Troyka of people that Giuliani was relying upon for information, or for lies about Biden And in twenty twenty one, the US placed Dubinsky on its sanctions list accusing him of working as part of a Russia linked foreign influence Bulwark, So there you are. Now, the, Ukrainians have confirmed that. And so that is just part of the network of corruption and lies and willingness to cooperate with the very worst people that characterized Trump and trumpism. Rudy Giuliani is also now being sued by the, mother daughter, team of election workers in Georgia that he so badly defamed, accusing them of cheating the election and ruining their lives, So but anyway, we don’t know how this will all wind up, but it is useful to remember the kinds of people that Giuliani and through him Trump was relying upon tried to smear Biden back in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty.

Alright. With that, I would like to thank our guest, Idris Kowloon. Thank you so much. You can follow him at the, economist newspaper. And of course, I want to thank the panel and our producer, Jim Swift, our sound engineer, Jonathan Last.

And of course, our wonderful listeners, we will return next week as every week.