“Thank You for Speaking While I’m Interrupting.”

Welcome 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 Charen syndicated columnist, policy editor at the Bulwark, and I’m joined by our regulars. Will Saletan of the bookings institution in the Wall Street Journal. Damon Lincoln, who writes the Substack newsletter notes from the middle ground, and Linda Chavez of the Naskannon Center.

We have the whole gang back together again. Our special guest this week is Barbara Comstock. Who represented Virginia’s tenth district in the US House for two terms. Welcome, one and all. So we are gathered on the afternoon after the second Republican debate, which if the eyes of the world are upon us is a rather pressing thought, but let’s just give a sample of the way it sounded last night.

Let’s have a policy debate. Policy debate.

As the UN ambassador, you literally Bring it. Put fifty thousand dollars on curtains. Do you homework, Tim? Because Obama bought those curtain It’s in the back. It’s in the you send them back?

It’s the state department. Did you send them back? You’re the one that works in Congress? Oh, my gosh. You get it.

You hung them on your your your curtain they were there before it even showed up at the residence. If you were it was happening.

By the way, the music was added by our colleague Barry Rubin that was not part of the actual debate last night. So Barbara Comstock, so some people have said this debate didn’t matter. And others have said that Trump was the winner. I guess those are two different ways of saying the same thing. What was your impression?

I thought, actually, Joe Biden was the winner. His team put up a pretty good ad today with Ron DeSantis’ statement saying, you know, Trump is MIA. You know, he’s not here and he’s the guy who put a seven point eight trillion dollars in debt and they showed a fat sweaty trump, you know, playing golf. And then showing him surrounded by money and things. So, you know, he got all the infighting among Republicans ended up benefiting Biden.

Of course, in the short term with the primary, yes, nothing changes and Trump who, you know, wanted to have these debates by Fox who asks horrible questions and doesn’t control the debate in any way doesn’t turn off mics when they should. And Viveck clearly is there just to, you know, throw food and cause problems. You know, trump, you know, is where we expect he will be the nominee. But I do think all of that along with everything else is going on this week does end up in the long term, probably helping Biden more than anybody.

So, Barbara, I wanna just quickly ask you about this Bob cost a story that just showed up on the Washington Post website, saying that, a late entry is very possible, and there are all these republican donors, including Rupert Murdoch, who are courting, none other than Glenn Youngen, from our home state, to get into the race late. Late entries don’t have a very good record, but, what’s your sense of it? Well, listen, Virginia has

the off year elections, and that’s what, governor Duncan is focused on. And unfortunately, the other thing that Donald Trump is giving the gift that, you know, doesn’t stop giving to the Democrats is He wanted a shutdown, and he wanted impeachment, and he’s getting both of those things this week. And that does not help Virginia elections this year. And the thing that governor Junkin was focused on is getting a Republican house and a Republican senate in Virginia. So if he were to run, he wants to have that.

And it is very, very much a jump ball right now. I’ve heard young kids a basketball player. And, with the shutdown coming, and I ten years ago, this year, I was, on the line with, a shutdown, and I went from having kind of easy election to barely surviving. Ken Cucinelli hit the skids and Governor McCauliff became governor because of that shutdown and and I think in large part, you know, this shutdown is not going to help what was, you know, hopefully going to be a victory for governor Duncan you know, in the house and the senate, it’s going to make it far more difficult.

Damon, I mean, I cannot agree more with Barbara about how poorly the moderators handled this, not entirely their fault. I would say because it’s the format, but we can get to that in a second. But the motto for the whole debate arguably should be Ramaswamy, misspeaking, and saying, thank you for speaking while I’m interrupting.

Yeah. That’s a good line as was Nikki Haley saying I get stupider every minute you speak or

something like that.

I mean, I don’t have the exact quote, but that

was As

does the whole country. Yes.

Yeah. I found this debate somehow to even be more demoralizing and depressing than the first debate. I mean, the clip at the top really captured some of the lowlights of the evening with just five people speaking over other about trivialities. There was a lot of that. But in addition to that, you you have basically five people who are all fighting to sort of keep alive zombie Reaganism.

Now I know there are some real, you know, diehard Ron DeSantis on this podcast, and I I feel your pain. I really do. I’m teaching a course right now in which we’re talking about the history of the Republican Party and we just watch Reagan’s first inaugural address yesterday in class as a kind of setup for the debate, which my students were assigned to watch, And it doesn’t matter if Mike Pence or Nikki Haley or Tim Scott or the rest of them, try to ape being Reagan. It it just it cannot possibly sound anything other than a really kind of it’s like listening to the old commercial about, like, is it real or is it memorex, you know, like, a good quality audio type. I mean, this is, like, a fifteen time copied old cassette tape of something that was fresh and vibrant and important at the time in nineteen eighty that is so tired and old and so out of touch with anything going on in the country that a lot of times, the, you know, issues, the moderators occasionally, they would ask a question that was pointed and about contemporary events and this kind of old boiler plate that really had no connection to the world.

And then no one talks about Trump. Like, The guy who’s beating everyone on that stage by over forty two points is just kind of lingering off in the distance and So you have this kind of fantasy argument and debate going on among all these people over, really, I think, something that is over and needs to be left behind. I found it really dispiriting, especially having just listened to the first inaugural address from Reagan because I do think, you know, I’m not a die hard Reaganite by any means, but I did admire him at the time as a kid and I admired him still enough that I considered myself some kind of conservative until about twenty years ago, but you know, there is something real and vital to his inaugural address, the issues he raised, the way he talked about those issues but it is from forty three years ago. And in and we live in a different reality where the front runner is ninety one felony Charlie Sykes, and I mean, this is a different world. And I wish that there were some people running who seemed to recognize

Linda, I don’t think Damon’s right that this was zombie Reaganism. I don’t think it was Rayganism of yeah. I don’t think it’s for any sort of reaganism. I think there were a couple of people who did take, you know, a strong position on Ukraine, which I think Ronald Reagan bless his soul would have agreed with. But for the most part, the whole party has moved on from Reaganism.

I don’t think pence represents Reaganism or

No.

No. Or right. Okay. So what do you think? Yeah.

You know, it was very interesting. And as you know, I a lot on immigration issues, and immigration was a very big part of the debate last night. And of course, we heard that clip from Ronald Reagan. It was actually a clip that I had included in the last piece I wrote for the bulwark on in Grachian, and that was Ronald Reagan talking during his debate with Walter Mondale, in nineteen eighty four, about how he believed in amnesty for people who had sat down roots and in here for a while. And of course, you know, they all flee from that, notion.

And there was so much misinformation. Much of it dispute by the questioners, including Dana Perino, somebody I used to admire and like, who talked about the six million illegal immigrants who flooded into the country under Joe Biden, and that number’s just wrong. There have been six million encounters at the border. I’ve explained on this show. And over and over again in my writing, that includes people who, particularly when Title forty two was in place when They would show up, want a clean amnesty and just get sent back.

They’d show up the next day and the next day and the next day. And so there are people who counted multiple times. You know, there was none of that sense of Ronald Reagan of optimism. And what is good about this tree, and the way in which the debate was framed, first of all, they all violated Ronald Reagan’s eleventh commandment, which, Vivek, Rama swami did invoke at the end, which was the eleventh commandment, you know, do not attack other Republicans, but There weren’t policy solutions. I mean, even on the issue of immigration.

Yeah. Our border is a mess right now. And, yeah, we have a real problem with our asylum policy. 60s. Yep.

But excuse me. It’s the law people are in fact applying for asylum under existing law. And if Republicans don’t like it, they have a perfect opportunity to change that law. They control the House of Representatives. Exactly.

They won’t do it. So I found the whole thing. I mean, as you said so disheartening. I mean, my stomach literally was churning. It was a disgrace to the Fox News channel that’s supposed to be really good on things like graphics.

They had some scrolling screen behind the candidates, which I found, you know, literally nauseating. I had to close my eyes because I couldn’t watch the candidates see this movement behind them. It was making me dizzy. It was an all around disgrace. The questioners did not Do their job, the moderators, they weren’t able to control the stage, and the people who were participating acted like Kids, you know, in the cafeteria, you know, I almost expected them to start throwing things at each other.

It was just embarrassing. Yep. Will Saletan, some people did take shots at Trump, but I would note underlining a point that Linda just made, which is that the moderators, they occasionally ask substantive questions, but, I mean, the elephant in the room,

no pun intended, went unmentioned by the moderators mostly. So they didn’t ask about the judge ruling just a couple days before that Trump’s entire Empire was based on fraud. They didn’t talk about Trump’s threat against Mark Millie that he should be executed they didn’t talk about the looming shutdown and so forth. And even Chris Christie, who supposedly got into this race in order to, you know, speak truth about Trump. I thought he was just almost cringe making in the sense that rather than meeting the gravity of the moment and how serious the threat to the country is, He did this rehearse little stupid thing about, oh, we’re gonna call you Donald Duck.

I don’t know. What was your impression?

As I guess the one person on the panel who is never Oreganite and never a conservative.

We’re very rare gathering these days.

I guess I’m what the social scientists would call an orthogonal voice. I’ll give you a grab bag of reactions. You didn’t have to be a Republican to find the debate disheartening. All you had to do was be a sentient American citizen. And the fact that they spent two hours trying to yap over each other nonstop.

Right? And even people who know better and didn’t wanna do it like Tim Scott, found himself pulled into it. It was from a format standpoint, a race to the bottom, and unfortunately, they all reached it. More or less simultaneously. Another random but heartfelt comment, I have some respect for Nikki Haley on foreign policy issues.

Was anybody else as boggled as I was that she proposed sending special forces into Mexico? Good heavens.

Oh, yeah. That’s the Republican position now. So we’re gonna go make war on Mexico. And leave Ukraine to, you know, I don’t know, toss in the wind, I guess.

I mean, the word insanity doesn’t quite capture. How out to lunch this is. A third, yo, a third random impression. Not about the debate, but about another person who wasn’t at the debate, namely Glenn Yonkin. I listened to a forty five minute interview of Yonkin by David Rubinstein, You know, when Yonken appeared, I guess just last week at the Economic Club of Washington.

So they used to be business partners.

Right. And Rubenstein, it wasn’t a softball interview. Rubin gave Young in half a dozen opportunities. To foreswear his interest in the twenty twenty four presidential contest. Yonkin evaded each and every one of those opportunities.

He sounded to me like someone who was seriously considering it and just was waiting to be asked. By ten people, each of whom were prepared to contribute ten million dollars to the enterprise. So, you know, I didn’t think that Yonkin was silly enough get pulled into it at this late stage, and they keep me much better off waiting for twenty twenty eight when both political parties will be undergoing long overdue generational transitions. But, it does seem to me that he is at least tempted and considering it. Fourth and finally, as part of my assignment for the brooking piece that Elaine Mark and I just posted, I was assigned to listen to Donald Trump or Rate.

For about an hour, you know, which is barely, you know, warming up for him, usually. He sounded a little bit off his game, but it was clear to me that Trump believes that the general election has already begun. And it’s equally clear to me that Joe Biden thinks the same thing So there are two different conversations going on. One between Trump and Biden and the other between or among, I should say, the other Republicans, and until something big changes, those two conversations are not going to be connected. Trump went on and on about trade, but he did succeed in locating a real weakness or even contradiction in Biden’s overall stance, and that is his commitment to organize labor in general and the UAE in particular on the one hand and his commitment to make a rapid transition to all electric vehicles.

Over the next eight to ten years. And my fear is that Trump is going to be able to use that contradiction to great political advantage unless the Biden folks get a lot smarter about how they thread.

Barbara, I do wanna come back to you on two matters. First, You’ve been a candidate. You’ve been in debates. It isn’t just that the candidates last night behaved badly. It’s that the format kind of forces them to, doesn’t it?

I mean, when everybody is competing with the stage so crowded and they everybody knows they wanna get their viral moment because most people aren’t gonna watch the whole thing, and that’s what they’re after. They’re a little one liner or whatever. And when the moderators don’t turn off microphones and don’t control it, then the thing is a setup for this kind of chaos, don’t you think?

Yeah. Well, this goes back to trump controlling the RNC. So the Ron DeSantis that they be Fox debates, and Fox doesn’t ask those questions about General Millie or the fact that Trump, you know, had the business, you know, decisions against him in in New York City and and all of the logical questions that anybody else would ask, this is what Trump wants. In the next debates, if Trump wants a higher donor threshold, I am sure Ronna McDaniel and and Dave Bosie, who is also the one involved, both, you know, people who, you know, take directions from Trump. I’m sure they’ll go ahead and do whatever, you know, I’m this is the problem.

Everything is directed by Trump, whether it’s a shutdown or impeachment. Now he’s saying no more debates. You know, whatever is going on. This is a one man show, unfortunately. And it’s a one man show that lost Republicans two thousand eighteen, two thousand twenty.

Two thousand twenty two and all these key states. But that’s why, you know, in Virginia, this one man show shutting down can cause Virginia now to lose their house and Senate even as hard as, you know, somebody like governor Junkin has worked you know, a lot of people certainly like somebody more. I certainly would like to see Governor Junkin be a nominee rather than Trump, but Trump looks at that and says, How can I kill that in the cradle? Let’s crash the Virginia races this year, and that’ll take care of that.

So, okay, please spell this out. There are a lot of federal workers in Virginia. Right? He wants to shut down, and he wants shut down to last a long time causing pain to Virginia’s Well,

that’s one of that’s one of the nice side benefits for him. You know, he Okay. That he thinks that it also will stop the investigations. Well, of course, it doesn’t stop the investigations of him. But Marjorie Green, why is she leading on this She wants to be his vice president.

So she’s out there cheerleading for him. So, you know, there’s all these people who have other agendas in doing these things. Is it a big plot from Trump to kill Virginia things? No. But it’s also something that happens to be a nice sideline where he can look today and say, yeah, They think that he’s gonna get in well with the shutdown.

We know what happens with a shutdown in Virginia. We’ve seen this movie before, Governor Cuchinelli.

You know, sorry to keep coming back to Chris Christie, but honestly, he was so disappointing last night. Look, to criticize Trump for not showing up at the debate. Okay. Fine. Even Ron DeSantis was willing to criticize him about that.

Actually, DeSantis took a few shots at him way too late. But anyway, But Christie, you know, was there in my judgment, or at least that’s the way he presented it to the world, that he was gonna be the person to say this man is unfit. That we should never support him. This party should not be behind him for all the good and solid reasons that this podcast and others have been devoted to for years and years and years. And instead, the only thing he went after him on is that he didn’t show up for the debates.

Well, it would have been a nice line to throw in you know, you’re dodging your taxes and go into the whole New York case. And, you know, he’s dodging his attacks on the military and and yeah, hit all those things. That, you know, I would have liked

to seen some of those hits. Encouraging some whack job to take a shot at Mark Millley. By saying, you know, that he was guilty of treason and that the death penalty used to apply to treason, by the way, it still does, but never mind. You know, that sort of thing. Oh, well.

Let’s move on and discuss the really edifying spectacle that’s going on on Capitol Hill. We have Robert Menendez indicted. The indictment is pretty devastating and in fact if you look at just security today, there is an outline of all the ways in which so bear in mind that Menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and it looks like on the basis of what we know so far, that Menendez has been compromised at the very least by Egypt and may have been, you know, basically an agent of the Egyptians. Linda, you know, thirty Senate Democrats have come out for Menendez to resign, but this is just kind of jaw dropping level of corruption and malfeasance. No?

Oh, Mona, the poor guy was just worried because of his childhood experience as the child of refugees from Cuba, somehow we thought Fidel Castor was gonna come back from the grave and apparently take all of his money. And so, you know, he was just this was just being cautious. You know, this reminds me when we found it it’s like the mob bosses. I remember there was one of the construction trade unions in New York city. And I think actually Rudy Giuliani may have been the prosecutor in this case where they came into the guy’s house and they pulled up the floorboards and he had, you know, all this cash buried beneath the floorboards.

You know, it’s it’s the kind of cold cash we saw and who who was it? The the con Jefferson. Right? The congressman who who was storing the money in in the freezer. This is mind boggling.

And what is the hubris here? This is a man who was in fact charged in the past with doing the same thing with having engaged in taking money for favors. He went to trial. It was a hung jury, and my recollection is that they chose not to prosecute him again because it becomes, you know, expensive and difficult, but they continue to observe him. And this behavior was basically a continuation of what he’d been doing before.

Now, unfortunately, the Supreme Court in its rulings on bribery has made it much more difficult to prove bribery against public officials. And, you know, there was the case of Governor McDonald in in Virginia, who was accused of of taking favors, from a a businessman in return for official acts. But the Supreme Court decided, and I think they were actually right in this case that the official acts that were offered, which was basically allowing the businessman to set up some sort of a an event in the governor’s mansion was not quite the kind of quid pro quo we’re, usually talking about, but this kind of behavior and the fact that this is the kind of thing we are used to seeing and in other countries often, you know, developing countries where you don’t have a long system and the rule of law, but it is not the kind of thing that we want from our officials. And, you know, good for the Democrats who have called for him to step down. He’s not entitled.

To be the senator from New Jersey. And these kinds of accusations with the kind of photographic evidence that we’ve seen with the transcripts and the texts from his wife. This is enough for, I think, the leadership to say yada go. Now they can’t force him to do it. So he may decide to stay, to stay, and he may decide, you know, to run.

Again because he is up for election this year. But thanks for the Democrats for doing what the Republicans have not had. The guts to do with respect to, their guide, Donald Trump.

Will Saletan. Yeah. Kudos to the Democrats who have called for him to resign. On the other hand, last time around, they didn’t because there was a Republican governor in New Jersey, and they would have lost the seat. So this time, it’s a little easier, right, because the governor of New Jersey used a Democrat and would appoint his successor.

Quite true. On the other hand, Menendez has succeeded in doing what I didn’t think was possible, and that is blackening the reputation of New Jersey politics.

I’m from New Jersey. That’s good line.

Take it with my blessing. What All other things aside, including the, you know, rather, you know, dramatic details, leaving aside for the fact that one of the Egyptian co conspirators fingerprints were all over the cash that was found in the senators’ home, you know, which suggests that the excuse that he was withdrawing money from the bank to guard against, you know, another, you know, another refugee flight this time from the United States is, you know, perhaps a bit thin and contrived, shall we say? But, you know, setting all of that aside This is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who arguably is shaping an important element of US foreign policy in response to a bribe. Yes. I mean, this has stopped being funny when the issue is no longer his second wife who defies description in a number of different ways and her relationships, which became his relationships, but this is arguably the perversion of our relationship with Egypt.

You know, to say nothing about the fact that he’s defrauding you know large numbers of Muslims by creating a monopoly in Halao, meat forcing them all to pay higher prices for it. I mean, I could go on. This is salacious and funny. But it’s also dead serious. I hope the matters treated with the seriousness at merits.

So Barbara Comstock, one of the things though that is more wholesome about the way the Democratic Party is responding to this than what we see currently in the GOP is that Not everybody has called upon Menendez to step down, but many have, like three fifths have, and you’re not seeing, you know, accusations that it’s all a witch hunt. You’re not seeing calls to investigate the department of justice for, you know, bringing this indictment. And so on, which is the standard fare on the GOP side.

Exactly. This is what the justice department is supposed to do. You know, they investigate. You know, no fear or favor as the attorney general has said and credit to the Democrats that they aren’t attacking it. And, you know, it’s been so distressing, you know, really since the Clinton years when, you know, Clinton wouldn’t resign.

And then this whole, okay, I’m gonna stick it out no amount, you know, the no shame. I’ll stick it out thing that that people have done over the years. And now, you know, Menendez certainly has done it Trump has brought it to a whole new level, and running again, and even after January six. So it is refreshing to have Democrats call for his resignation to have Andy Kim, who’s a congressman from New Jersey has already announced. He’s primary him polls already look very good for Andy Kim.

A lot of the younger Democrats who were running for office, Abigail Spamberger here in Virginia who’s, like, you know, running for governor. She was out front one of the first to call for him. And, hey, federal man, you know, credit to the hoodie guy. He was out he was the first one in the senate to say. So, you know, you don’t need to have a suit to have a conscience, you know.

So it it really has been threshing on that front. And actually, one thing I forgot to mention on the shutdown front, which I should have mentioned, was Chris Lasveda, who is you know, running things for Trump. He ran Ken Cucinelli’s campaign in twenty thirteen. So he does know exactly the impact of a government shutdown on Virginia. I should have mentioned that.

Yeah. Okay, Damon. Well, if you don’t have anything to add about the menendez indictment, not, we can move on to the, impeachment inquiry.

Oh, boy. What a choice.

Oh, yeah. Peace.

I I will pass on Manendez. I think, Bill, has followed along with that more than I have. And I pretty much agree with what everyone said. I think what the Democrats are doing in response is on the whole pretty good. And we just have to hope it gets taken seriously.

Okay. I by the

way, I can’t resist repeating a little witticism from my colleague, Will Saletan, who, in response to Menendez’s Saab story about being an immigrant and worrying about, you know, the Castro regime coming to take his money, said, I did some research on the little village in Cuba where Menendez is from. It’s New York City. Boy. He was born in New York. His parents, of course, were refugees from Cuba.

But anyway, alright. Okay. So, the, Republicans have started their first hearings in the impeachment inquiry, vis à vis Joe Biden, and two of their witnesses On the first day, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Last Turley and forensic accountant, Bruce Dubinsky, said that the panel had enough evidence to open an inquiry, but did not have enough evidence to justify impeachment. Those are their own witnesses.

All of this is just a matter of judgment anyway. It’s not like an actual indictment under the law. That’s true. Even even in that case, judgment comes into it. But at least there, you actually have, you know, criminal statutes that you can compare it to, and then look at other previously prosecuted cases and whether whether they’re comparable and whether there was conviction.

But, like, one of the reasons why some people, like, me make a big deal about how truly terrible it was that Trump’s second impeachment did not end with a conviction. If the Republicans thought that it would be useful for them to impeach Joe Biden about five minutes ago, they would do that. Believe me. What they’re really saying and what their witnesses are saying is that, like, even by your standards, this would be a little embarrassing. If you tried this right now.

So, you know, they could do it. I don’t know if they will do it. I hope they don’t because it would turn our politics into even more of a circus than it already is. You know, as always, Trump and his influence on the Republican Party has had the effect of turning it into a constant like mutual accusations. So he Trump actually does things that are really terrible, and then he gets indicted.

And then he claims that’s just a political witch hunt. And so then the next time Republicans have the power to do it, they go back and do the reverse, and it is a political witch hunt when they do it. Which somehow, like, going back in time leads us to the conclusion that, well, the original thing when they went after Trump must have been what he said it was, a political witch hunt. So this is the hall of mirrors in which we find ourselves.

Yeah.

It’s hard to even know what to say as a pundit or analyst about all of this because, again, they can do whatever they want when it comes to impeachment. It’s just that Again, the fact that even their own side seems to realize that they don’t have the goods to even make a good showing of it. Obviously, they’re never gonna remove Biden from office because they don’t hold the Senate. So it they know the whole thing is going to be a bit of a a fiat trickle thing, but they’re not even convinced that it would have politically beneficial results. So at the moment, we basically have the equivalent of the Benghazi hearings going on for eighteen months, however long that lasted, and I don’t imagine it’s gonna have a huge effect on, the upcoming election because the only people who give any credence to what the Republicans are doing are Republican voters who are gonna vote that way anyway.

Barbara, it’s amazing that this Republican Party has so little interest in Ashley governing that you could make the case that Kevin McCarthy agreed to the impeachment inquiry as sort of a carrot to get his members to not shut the government down. Right?

And they shut it down anyway, sir.

And they’re shutting it down anyway. And worst of all worlds. Yes. This is the part where it, you know, as a former cold warrior and Reaganite, proud Reaganite, this is the part that really makes my head explode, is the price that these extremists are exacting like Marjorie Taylor Green is that they will not agree to any spending unless All funding for Ukraine is zeroed out. And then they do other stunts, like reducing Olloyd Austin’s territory defense, re reducing his salary to one dollar.

Now I realize these people aren’t exactly running the government, but the fact is they can prevent the government from running. And so we are headed into real, well, I won’t say banana republic territory, but this is not a real, well functioning country anymore.

Well, and that’s it’s such an ugly picture for Republicans to have the face of both the shutdown impeachment be people like Marjorie Green and and Mack Gates who, obviously, if you’re one of those Republicans who are in the eighteen Biden districts, the districts that Biden carried in twenty twenty, you know, you were just cringing at this. And so when you look at this committee and these hearings, the Democrats who are around this committee, people like Jamie Roskin, people like Dan Goldman, who is a former prosecutor who is on, you know, it was the Democrat impeachment Council. These are very effective members who they go in there to play. And then our members, you know, I mean, our republican members are not serious people to bother barrow the Logan Roy that, you know, they are not doing well and they don’t have the evidence. And even Fox News gets upset with them and is kinda cutting away, I think, because they don’t have new evidence.

And you had very bad press conference yesterday at the ways and means, chairman who’s now part of this know, he’s not involved in this. He’s a ways and means chairman, but they’ve dragged him in so they can bring tax records in. So he didn’t know the details of this, but it was a bad press conference. Because he didn’t know the dates and the times and things that, you know, were not involved in this. And they’re all focusing on Hunter Biden who, of course, is not Joe Biden.

These whole idea of wire transfers, I mean, they could have had these wire transfers without if there are wire transfers that have anything to do with Biden. You know, they’re trying to claim. Oh, they went to his house. No. Wire transfers go to a bank, and they went to Hunter Biden’s bank.

Account. So whatever address he had on it, they went to his bank account. So they don’t have anything, and everyone knows how wire transfers Bulwark. And so the Democrats point things like that out. And so it’s pretty embarrassing how, you know, these things and then, of course, the Democrats have their shutdown clock there to point out, the one thing I would, you know, tell the the Democrats could do instead of going in the order of seniority like were doing and what Republicans are doing, they should probably do what the January sixth committee did is just put your best guys up front So Yeah.

Make Dan Goldman and whoever’s good, your second, third

Jamie Raskin.

After I mean, Jamie Raskin goes first because he’s ranking Jonathan Last they might as well. Since they’re getting TV time, Fox can’t help themselves. They give, you know, the chairman, Republicans, Trump wants it. But the Democrats have the better case, and they have the better members, but they should put their best ones up front to make that case because and they’re apparently not going to call democrat witnesses because Jamie Raskin pointed out, hey, Lev Parnas wants to come up and tell you everything he did to try and, you know, work on this bogus case and why it’s bogus. And, no, we don’t wanna hear from Lev Partners.

Well, Love harness is going to be featured somehow along the way here because he was a, you know, he’s been featured in interviews and you know, he was playing with Rudy and all. And of course, they don’t want Rudy coming up either. And so, you know, you can’t have an impeachment with only Republican witnesses. You know, you’re gonna have to allow the Democrats to bring up witnesses. So this is not going well and to have your own Republican witnesses today say, Hey, you don’t have the goods here.

And then Jamie Raskin did a great job of opening up with congressman Ken Buck Republican who said there’s no reason for impeachment and all these other quotes from Republican saying, I don’t see why we’re impeaching. And then he also pointed out, hey, we should be operating under the regular rules of the house where you’re not allowed to Pune the president because we’re not operating under an impeachment yet. Mhmm. Committee just said, well, we’re gonna ignore the rules anyway. I mean, that’s how things are going.

And but everybody’s seeing it now. And then Joe Biden’s gonna go out and make remarks about Trump threat to democracy. Well, that’s who’s dictating all of this, whether it’s a shutdown or impeachment or let’s not have any more debates it’s the one man Trump show, which has been leading Republicans on this road to ruin.

Barbara, you mentioned the eighteen house, Republicans who are representing districts that went for Joe Biden in twenty twenty. And I’d just be curious to hear your reflections on the way the Republican Party was, even as recently as when you were a member, because it strikes me that there’s a nihilism now and a burn it all down attitude among, you know, the Matt Gates’s, etcetera, and that radical segment of the party where in the past, wasn’t it the case that there would be an understanding that you had to make accommodations for your marginal members so that they could get reelected. And therefore, you would soft pedal your most extreme demands in order to hold on to a majority. In eighteen, it certainly was awful because Trump was already in there. And, Ryan was speaker at that time.

So at least they were trying to not have horrible things on the floor and every time Trump would make a terrible statement, there were people joining us saying these things were awful. Now nobody says anything. Everyone’s afraid of saying anything. But I think people need to understand if you’re not with Trump, a hundred percent wholeheartedly. You know, he’s gonna consider you against him, and he’s gonna come after you just as hard is all of us here.

So, you know, I tell my friend, you know, he is a threat to democracy. I mean, he’s attacking people at the RNC who are having debates. So, you know, here his people who, you know, Rona McDaniel is stooge at the RNC, and he’s yelling at her now. You know, he’s gonna, you know, who knows? He’s gonna be putting her on a boat to Gitmo if she doesn’t stop the, you know, the debates now because He wants all of that money for himself, and he doesn’t want Republicans to have any more debates.

This is how things are operating now. So it is so different now. You know, you see that frustration with, say, somebody like a congressman Mike Lawler, who’s in one of those seats, who’s saying that’s why you see all the name calling from, like, look at these clowns I have to deal with, you know, and so they’re out there on their own. They are on an island by themselves the only thing they can do is threaten to go and vote with the Democrats, which they should do. They should say, Hey, I’m gonna go over and vote for that senate CR that has the Ukraine funding that has the disaster relief.

And, you know, hey, Maybe I think it should have a little border, you know, money in it too to help things there. But this is what makes sense. This is something that’s a compromise, and that’s what I’m, you know, Mitch McConnell’s making that case. Susan Collins is making that case. If you’re Mike Laweller or Don Bacon, or any of those guys, those eighteen guys, that’s the case you need to be making.

And the problem is, will Kevin McCarthy put it on the floor and then dare which I think he should. They don’t have nobody wants to be speaker at this point and be in this situation. Nobody’s gonna vote for Matt Gates for speaker or anybody else. So put it on the floor. Let those

The motion to vacate.

Yeah. I mean Yeah. No. But, I mean, put that c the Senate CR on the floor. And dare them.

And and and dare them to vote and and put some, you know, border money in there, but have the Ukraine money and the and the disaster relief money in there. And then dare those guys to vote against the border funding and all of those things. And then, you know, once it goes through, if they go out after Kevin, then, you know, what what are you gonna do? Just shut down the, you know, not have a speaker and and just let the floor because they don’t have any these guys are the Seinfeld caucus. Everything is they have no solutions.

Most of them wanna run for some other off It’s like Matt Gates wants to run for governor, which he’ll never be. So good. Get out of here. Go run for governor. Okay.

But now, it is time for us to turn to our final segment, which is the highlight or low light of the week. And we will start with Bill Goldstein.

Well, for once, I have a highlight, and it’s a boomer special. It was a wonderful piece in the New York Times, entitled something like The Day, Lou Read, left music. For those who don’t enjoy my exalted age status, Lou Reed was pretty much the leader of a group called the velvet Underground, which was, associated with Andy warhol and the factory in that whole scene. They managed whether or not They were completely stoned to make some pretty memorable music, but Lou Reed, their lead, was a very tortured individual in all sorts of ways, and so he just out of the blue announced that he was leaving the band and in effect the band was going to be disbanded, but the the account of that last day and the forces within Reed’s family that had led up to that, his very mishmash of ambitions and aspirations to be taken seriously as a writer, not just a rock singer. This is part of a forthcoming book by the grizzled veteran of the scene, Will Hermers, called Lou Reed, the king of New York.

And if it’s anything like the selection that the Times published, it is going to be a fantastic book. So all you boomers who still long for the good old days of the velvet underground and studio fifty four, this is the book for you.

Speaking of boomers, Barack Obama, who, yes, was one, very tail end of the baby boom. Didn’t he do an imitation of Lou Reed? Am I remembering that right?

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Okay.

Very good. Alrighty. Next, Linda Chavez.

Well, gee, you’re making me feel really young. If I’m in the same cohort as Barack Obama puts a smile on my face, I didn’t I didn’t realize he was a baby boomer. I’m gonna turn to a highlight from the sub stack newsletter called persuasion from our friend Yasha monk,

Excuse me for interrupting. He is gonna be joining us on a podcast coming up very shortly.

Yes. I’m very pleased to hear that. This is a piece that was written by Lisa Salen Davis. She is the author of a book called Tomboy, the surprising history and future of girls who dare to be different. And this was a piece entitled a new cohort of transgender kids.

And it came to mind in part because the issue of transgenderism came up in the debate on Wednesday night, Vivek Ramaswamy announced that transgenderism was a mental disorder. He was roundly derided, including in the pages of the New York Times, which fact checked that statement and said that it was wrong. But this piece is a quite interesting piece because what it talks about is what happened in the case of transgenderism about ten years ago when the cohort changed from being mostly, individuals born as males who decided to transition to female to now being predominantly teenage girls, born teenage girls who decide that they are boys. And the whole piece is about how we are treating these individuals and whether, in fact, they don’t have other mental disorders, including depression. That in fact, is manifesting itself in deciding that they are not female and that the kinds of treatments that they are being given including, surgeries and and various kinds of hormones may in fact not only not be doing anything to help them, but may in fact be increasing their problems with things like depression.

I thought it was a very thoughtful piece, an interesting piece. And again, I think most Americans, the New York Times May, derived mister Ramos Swamy statement, and he is course, a demagogue and says things as badly as one can imagine, but a lot of Americans are very discomfited by this notion of transgenderism, and I thought this was an interesting piece.

Thank you. Damon Lincoln.

You know, I was gonna do one of my usual kind of downcast doleful lowlights, but, you know, Will Saletan has inspired me because if he can talk about Lou Reed and the velvet underground and being a boomer. I’m gonna be a gen xer and point to the fact that, we are, fortunate that at this moment, they have remastered and re released for IMAX theaters, Stop making sense, which is one of the most joyful concert movies ever made. It’s of the band talking heads. Were very big in the eighties when I, as a gen xer, was in high school. So this is perfect era for me.

Talking heads were never my favorite band, but I like their music as kind of the background to my youth, but, stop making sense is just an in credible film. And as I said, joyful, it’s an amazing cinematic experience to kind of be there for ninety minutes seeing this group of musicians with lots of guest stars coming on just having so much fun dancing and playing music and singing, and it’s a huge inspiration. So I think this is a great opportunity not only to see this film on a screen, but one that’s been cleaned up and blown up for the biggest possible screen. So I urge you to try to find a theater where you can see it and, have some fun with that.

Excellent. Thank you. Alright. Well, Barbara,

I have a highlight. I think, Cassidy Hutcherson has been, so poised and eloquent this week and, talking about her whole, you know, how she came to, you know, be the star witness of the January six hearings. And I think it really shows once again, reminded that, you know, it was the women who really carried the day in the January six hearings. You know, she saw Liz Cheney, you know, at the head of those hearings really, and that gave her the courage, you know, call up her friend, Alyssa Griffin, who then, you know, went to, you know, the January six Committee and Cassidy came forward, and I think we’ve now seen her discussing how, you know, she had struggled with coming forward, and she’s really define those hearings and, you know, really kind of forced some of the others who were very repulsive Trent at the time. You know, people like Pat Sipollone and others at the White House who did wanna come forward.

And she defined the problem, when she said, and I quote, Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime. You know, and I think that’s, you know, as we go forward, and the next year really defines the challenge and to have this young woman who sat there and watched these much older men who were losing their heads while she was able to take that in and be able to understand that now. It’s pretty, encouraging, I think, and Hopefully, there will be more people who might, even if they don’t come out publicly, might feel that they can break away from, the Trump dynamic over the next year.

Thank you for that. I just dug into her book, I have to confess that, I have a weakness for these memoirs that are ghostwritten. Well, I mean, I was very impressed with her when she testified. I thought she, as you say, very poised and so on, but, one thing that all endeared her to me is I opened the book knowing, of course, it had to have been ghostwritten. These always are pretty much.

And instead of pretending or just doing a, you know, thank you who and so help me on the manuscript, which is how it’s usually done. She actually acknowledged the the ghostwriter sort of very openly and said, you know, you’ve captured me and I feel like my spirit is on every page, which is a wonderfully honest portrayal of the situation and refreshing. And, you know, says a lot about how much she is to be trusted in general, I think.

Yeah. And, oh, and I should have and even though it’s it is a little bit of a low light, But you highlighted all the dangers to people, and that’s something she talks about your piece, Mona, on the threats, you know, not just with General Millie, but all the threats to election workers and all the other people and what a danger Trump is, your piece accidentally captured that. So highly recommend that everyone should read that and realize what an ongoing problem that is.

Thank you very much. Alright. Well, I want to also praise the New York Times. This was a piece that appeared this week called inside the unfounded claim that DeSantis abused Guantanamo detainees. Was written by Matthew Rosenberg and Carol Rosenberg, and it’s an account of a story that went viral on Left Wing, sites and in certain left wing magazines like Harper’s and a few others, this story made the rounds that DeSantis when he was a young Navy off had participated in the forced feeding of a detainee at Guantanamo and had laughed while the, torture was being administered.

And, you know, I really want to give credit to the New York Times They interviewed more than forty people about this and concluded that it was unfounded and almost certainly false. And that the people who were there say no, that never happened. And, you know, he was too low ranking to have been part of that and on and on, but here’s the thing. In an era when misinformation and disinformation is one of the great plagues of our time. It is always hard to debunk something that is harmful to somebody you dislike.

And so, you know, the people I think it’s safe to say who write articles for the New York Times have no love for DeSantis. But their devotion to the truth in this instance was the higher calling, and they looked into this, and they debunked it. And good for them. And I would love to see Fox News or the federalist debunk any story, anytime, any false story about Democrats. So with that, I want to thank all of my regulars.

I want to thank our guest Barbara Comstock, and our old new producer, Jim Swift, And our sound engineer, Jonathan Last, and of course, our wonderful listeners, and we will return next week as every week.