Donald Trump struck an interesting note in his State of the Union address, highlighting the gauzy if oversimplified version of American history out of favor in intellectual circles. Was it a savvy move? Also, Iowa’s mess of a caucus did send one clear signal: Joe Biden isn’t the frontrunner anymore.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
some guy
welcome to the commentary magazine. Podcast today is Wednesday February. Fifth, twenty twenty were doing this day early, because
we're coming off the ILO Caucus NEWS. Endless stay: the union, I'm John path towards the editor of commentary, the seventy eyed girl, monthly of intellectual analysis, political probity, cultural criticism from a conservative perspective joins
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mailbox eleven times a year with me, as always senior editor, a group I was about to a grunt worldwide,
a wall. That again you want you want, you want the refers. I once worked for a guy named Henry grumbled, but that that other ego, a green
hello, Abe, Hygiene and, of course, so scared nor Rothstein, sorry Rossman. I
Having now and then Washington, senior writer, Christine Rosenberg,
some browser,
ok cells make everybody in the room a little more jewish yeah those solaces come and fast and furious. Ok,
so
worse day, the union somebody go,
the state of our union is a kindergarten. If you judged by how everybody
it was during last state of the union.
But you know what I will say about that for those who have criticised. I think, with some justification for years that the the pomp and there
it error of the state of the union is a little much considering them
it sure of our democratic republic.
Certainly punctured all that
this is a good thing, because it now is just a low down. You know: crass
this is your lot. Yeah right show the old fifty show this is your life. It was far from regal.
All we want relate, there's always a complaint that these that the President,
risk of behaving like it's. A campaign rally instead of an important pomp pump, filled
and, as you said, and I agree that the pompous all theater and always in long has been, but it is important, I think in terms of
a town setting a town, so forgetting the specifics
What any president you know their laundry list in their little stunts of having guests in the in the gallery. Do
the tone that they choose to adopt, and I think that's what was interesting last night is that it's it's been difficult for some kind of mainstream cloak
commentators, to capture what trumps tone was because he was kind all over the map he didn't play by the rules. Big surprise, it was hardly regal, but everybody in attendance behaved as it was a political rallying in right that, since there was a lot of on the republican parts, a sort of an obsequious responds to everything. From said and on the democratic per theatrical displays of indignation. So it's still pretty much putting a lot of emphasis on them. The person in the president, which has the effect of the offensive part I mean there, was that there was something going on on the democratic side of the chamber quite frequently that you, you only saw these tiny snippets because another, but I think the camera work is controlled by the house. Writing
I think that it's not like the networks have have a right to choose the shots, and so there were these moments where you in TAT very few, where you would see the yeah what was on trumps right as he was looking out at the other house chamber, all these democratic women wearing white, which they start to do because of Cavanaugh last
If I remember correctly, can protest white the suffrage, it yeah total turn right sort of like the reverse, handmaids tail, Raul, ok and they were getting up turning their backs.
Talking to each other. It was almost like they were at a arab and a game in they were
I can't the away they were the away crowd
game and they were trying to distract the player bye, bye, bye, behaving in ways that would be distracting us, throw him off his teleprompter reading. I think that's what I saw. That's part of the thing we have is a thing to talk about is placing tearing up the speech and all that
but none the less? I think there were just weird shenanigans, enow, starting with the cheering in other for more years cheer in the hall.
Yeah, I mean so all of these dividing line. So if a trump is an anti institutional in a figure who is tearing down american institutions or is there
Reveal, or of the hollowness of american institutions this one you know, was effectively torn down and it was a loose thing they can
calling, this a reality show was not a reality. Show it was opera. I wish it was it was. You know there was the
and you know, look under your seat because there is an opportunity scholarship for you little growth. Not only do you want one, but were gay, you I'm awarding a t who now, while you're sitting here
here's, your husband back from Afghanistan and oh rush here.
Is your metal. You know that, for the first lady will pen the metal of freedom on you know,
like you, get a car and you get a car and you get a car and you get a car that that was the the quality. Was the involvement of not just that they were their new highlighted them, but he highlighted them, but then he gave prizes.
You know it's like he was getting going into. The audience in like Oprah is giving them for throwing candy into the crowd or something that was the new. That was the twist that was new. Was the you're not just going to get to sit here and be highlighted on national television but you're going to get a car, so it's less monarca an article
more Camacho will Camacho, meaning idiotic was to referring to the movie the accuracy, amazingly oppression bomber, other
of a satire about America, five hundred years from now that, in its being run by up by ressler play by by Terry Crews, right, that's the right,
well, I was struck and then we can get again to the server the big dramaturgy.
The peroration at the end, which was the you know, America has always been a land of greatness thing, which you know every every body does
but there was a quality to it. That was fascinating in its, I would say in its embrace of an unsophisticated portrait of America, and what I was thinking was that it was the Disney
Portrait of America? It was the Alamo. The taming of the Wild West River boats go down the Mississippi and Ohio Sawyer, Annie, Oakley Buffer,
oh bill, the Wright Brothers,
Thomas Edison. You know that,
and I'm by the way, I'm I'm an unmitigated admirer of the Disney met. If I I, I did, and there's a actually a wonderful book out right now called Disney's land that I strongly recommend to people who are interested in this agenda about the building of Disneyland and what Disneyland is really about em and what it how it a vote at american myth that has been so insanely enduring now for
we now almost seventy years anyway. But it wasn't. You know Emma Lazarus poem, and you know the great you know that
Nobel Prize winners and it was the american frontier myth and you know, and the and the you know, inventors and stuff like that, and
that is suitable. That is fitting, of course, and it's all you know it's all very much. Pre, sixties, pre, inclusive, pre, F,
writing about it, but it's also weirdly very modern, reactionary
ironically reactionary, take because in some ways it a response to you know
a generation or so of history as we are histories oppressors. You know the kind of
kind of Howard's in
history versus the Walt Disney one, and in that sense I think it plays very well not just a trump space, but in general,
fear of a conservative sensibility. It's it's. As you said, John, it's nice to hear some praise for the amazing things we have
done as a nation and if they did come out of it,
mouth of someone who you know not all of us embraces the best example of american leadership, but it is in some ways a reaction to a different narrative, american history. That tells way for too long. I think ok, so limit levy limit, limber propose this
what we saw here last night in the same area and they serve seventy five to eighty minute long speech was a very
knowing there's been this whole effort to put out to put me on the trumpy and bones to figure out. You know american greatness. What's the philosophy
where is the ideologies? How are people going to turn trumpism into something? This was the first time that I think with in Trumpland, since it was a speech written that the White House and all of this that you had a you, had a sense of the can Oenis, not just the cunning but the cantinas of the Trump,
message that it was you know what do you mean? I'm bad for black people. Black people are getting jobs,
there are good salaries are going up and I'm doing criminal justice reform. I like a
the air man I like,
grand son. You know I like Martin Luther King, you really gonna believe them I'm some kind of a horrendous racist that is actually
a real answer to a perpetual problem that trumpeting say Republicans in general have in dealing with this. I dont know that it will speak to you know, masses of Africa.
Against, but it could speak to that brand of most. She republican that turned on trumpet twenty eighteen make them feel better about going about going home in twenty twenty that he you know he did all these nice things for the incarcerate for Alice Johnson. Any thing
I did the tusky the hundred year old, Tuskegee airman, see he's not a monster and that
that's very knowing it seems to me: it's not! You know it's not impulsive. It's not emotional, it's not just off the cuff. It is a real sense of how politically you can use rhetoric and stuff like that, to fill gaps and to answer problems that you have with you with a constituency that you want to get back and they were so. There are a whole bunch of other things in the speech. That did that I thought and if that was how the president campaigned in
twenty twenty when fifty five percent of the vote, but- and you can imagine that the speech will be echoed by his surrogates and the people around him- who understand political messaging and can stay on message, but this president cannot,
Why doesn't enjoy talking about his record on the economy? He doesn't enjoy talking about positive things at all. I don't get it for the theatre. Fear of it was kind of noxious
but most of the speech, was very savvy but he's not gonna talk.
Neither on the stump and if he did, he wouldn't have rallies with
lining up twelve hours ahead of time. Nobody wants to hear that stuff on the on the true on the stump. They want your trump talk about what you like
Talk of any knows what the room wants. It is his grievances. It is his enemies and is the people who are conspiring against the making of Amerika great again, but I think Christine's were. I think they do want to hear the Anti Howard Zoom, in other words like
I dont think that they will object to this. Is the America of Davy Crockett, Annie Oakley
right brought that they will not rid objects. Ain't we can enjoy that. That's like that's like the upbeat, even that's like Lee Greenwood singing
unless the USA? It's it's not, if not more so the heart of the message, but you can you can certainly
I have heard from extent- and you haven't, I know, and I don't think he ever will, because it's not the sort of thing that pops into his mind he's not. He doesn't pour over american history Nineteenth century
his well, you don't have the poor over. That's the whole point of this message is that it's it's it's what he got what he wants
tv when he was ten
The younger age, younger, Gang Davy, Crockett rocketed king of the wild frontier, and he was taken to see any get your gun on Broadway with Mary Martin
the aim is near half straw, the long island, greatly variation museum- I mean I'm just like it's not you don't need to be an expert in american history. Quite the opposite! Actually I would say this is the
need to be an expert in american history. Quite the opposite. Actually I would say this is the message. This is the America for people who don't know much about America. I wait
was. I wish he was an hour of an expert in geography.
But there is a Kansas City Kansas. I'm sorry, I know somebody. I know people lived at her anyway, a bureau
your smiling, because it was very amusing spectacle,
you don't, but he does even
unfortunately, the trump does like to talk about employment numbers and eat any talks about the low,
low black unemployment numbers quite a bit
the one thing that I'll say, sort of it. There was a consistent negative note in
mixed into all this last night, which was the
the constant hits
the Obama administration
once we reverse those bad policies that one got jobs, don't you reverse those bad policies? China is no longer that you can or lunch want to reverse those bad policies, the stock markets toward and and and on and on. He does
as like that and that something obviously that that his base adores.
Then? Is it's interesting as he's treating a bomb in restoration as though it were the Carter Administration and he's Reagan? But of course the Carter administration was a colossal failure and the boring you know, even though
to MR, which is a to term administration, ended on this note of crisis right this terrible crisis with a with financial meltdown,
Mama left office. He had to eat out two terms and- and I mean in a wee wee hated- allow
the Obama administration, but it is. It is an interesting efforts. A kind of I don't think do people look back with deep outside of the ideological republican or conservative base with deep we
serve like anger about about the Obama years. I started doubt it so, but if he needs it, you know,
and its, and it ended robes by
You know in by implication right well, which made
which men are married necessary anymore, but we will get to that in a minute before we get to some more of that from politics. Let me
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What about policy tearing up the turn of the speech I think
was the only thing that my wife was aware of that she doesn't follow politics as young as my barometer of what people actually care about, and you know states of the union state of the union addresses are forgotten within forty eight hours. This will be no exception that has limo
that I think everybody is gonna see right. So is it a war shock tat? Wasn't a mistake was its was small
or is it a war shock tested simply reveals,
where you are on the on the ideological spectrum. It isn't
a stake. Andorra rorschach us I mean. I think it was a mistake for her,
certainly a rush. I test because you know just
the? If you want to look at a barometer look at twitter, so she was being hailed as a queen and amazing. You know our end
and see the shredder whenever was was trending
but so was policy Pelosi, tantrum and she's, the third one,
powerful person and our government. I dont think it was appropriate and that's setting aside the fact that obviously Trump was also being disrespectful. He apparently did
take your hand at the beginning. You didn't shake your hand at the end. She
aids, you gonna, let a jump in here could maybe maybe right now I really it's Kara. Why wouldn't I wouldn't put a pass them at all, but really from the way it looked a kind of look like he had already pivoted away from her it. Could she decided to put her hand right?
but he said taking her hand at the end he should have turned around and given her a handshake after he was finished, I think you should have
if he had done that she would now. I think that this is where rabbit and she just throw him in the briar patch like em. He was born in
the briar patch I mean if she wants to play the I'm tearing up your speech, because I don't like you say
Then she just rhetoric- and this is where I think it's a mistake she serve retroactively, justifies
his own inappropriate behaviour. You know that
that is to say every time he does something people go what he should have the heat and light well go. She ripped up his speech she's also in kindergarten, but aren't you
I didn't do that up until now. She actually did kind of general
they try to maintain a veneer of civility and dealing with Trump, and I actually think that that was that added to her.
Power in doing that, and I do think she squandered something by tearing up that speech. Well absent innocence word
since it is at this level. In a way. Last night she started it
You didn't give him be the usual intro about yet let what a great honour and privilege it was too to introduce him as president
rapid, but all of this has shown painfully stupid everyone.
These people are in. This room is just obnoxious, Lewis, Langley
We have a government run by children,
and they're all behaving as such. So I mean if there is a calculation involved here, maybe because you know it's probably bad
it a rip up a good speech that most people actually enjoy, but
the president gonna do
the president is thinking about anything else this morning, but them
The coverage of that moment and how irritated he's gonna be and how his response is going to dictate terms for the next ten twenty army, like you, could be basking right now in x, exculpation because today is the day of export exculpation. But that's not what's gonna happen here
he's fixated on this moment he will tweet about in your current about it. Ok, so you're then say it wasn't a mistake. She got into his head. I'm saying I only goes Calculus
listen emotional moment, I'm saying
women are so am I totally calculated. I think it was gone. I mean it was a very aware that I don't, I don't think she's a notion
stood to practices. She had to make sure that if, if she had
you know seventeen per seriously you're, not gonna, pull
gale, exaggerating wagging this out twenty steps. Now
when, at all, I'm saying is before the speech she stood somewhere and tore five time she tore. You know a twenty pages of to make sure that she could do it
do it the way she did show like a priority in view territory,
jauntily or vertically debt, because it had to be that and it was requisite Jerry. Where I would have barely have looked like com
my way I would have been like the Iowa. I would have liked the Iowa app
a moment of resistance. I think if you watch and also by the way you can see
there was a moment where she went to do it slightly before she again. We did it, then she,
found a better moment. You know five seconds lay I mean I just so resent that we have disappeared or film this time we don't want to. We don't need to act, and I can. I just want to a little bit more approval for because it is also true out the speech she
quite a bit of mugging and head shaking their serve talking to no one about. You know what she was disagreed with: dry
you didn't sit there and I was there,
well in the end, they M are Craddock the democratic people who were there like Rashid ITALY below us intentionally storm doubting. There was a lot of theatre, a lot of sort of that farce.
Theodore on the part of the Democrats in a way that, in a look gave Republicans haven't, always been well behaved acidity unions either. But this was an order of magnitude different from previous examples that that the moment I thought,
as the most comic was where you had to discern there. They there was this kind of chant that what went up in democratic precincts- and it was like you- you couldn't hear it because of course it's not might try to go on twitter to find out what it was. Apparently they with the
Democrats were chanting. H are three: why? Because H three was a bill to mandate the lowering of drug prices, and
I'm said. Please sign you, no sign this bill. That was TIM. Scott campsites knocked him Scott John Barroso, the senator from the Doktor centre,
my arming had proposed sign it and I will end in, and so they were, they were complaining that they already pay.
Ass the bill. Hr three
boy. That was a really great demonstration h.
Our three had so comprehensible that it
ten minutes to figure out what it is, that their chanting,
and this is one of the ways in which Europe Trump is driving. Everybody has driven ever
buddy insane. So he make makes a speech theatre of may want to answer with some kind of counter theater, but of course, the cameras not on them. You know they don't have control of the moment and and so
you know better. Not to so you sit and dignified silence. Is we now that's the b b em,
Frankie five angels is brother and sit there. Stare at stare at cynical, hence and make him make him feel like he needs to go
You know slit his wrists and mean that that's that's the classic way with handle this. I think that policy made a mistake, because that image, which Democrats will love and love to see, is the sort of thing that will
that will enrage Republika, might even if in fact, the public or there
is it coming home thing going on that is registered in this Gallup poll that has trumpet forty nine percent approval
this week, where people will Republicans who have decided that they're gonna accept him
moments like these in the culture war may push them further into into a greater degree of either acceptance affection or an understanding that they that there
The other side is there, you know, is their enemy or their and hang us. There were a couple moments in the speech where I think he did that very again: Cannon
in a way that seems a little new to me, like the passage about health care race at a hundred
and thirty two members of this body voted
or socialist health care,
long as I am president
socialism will not take over our health care system. That's the vat is
The stark choice in
our Iowa that's a very important message, since
if the story of Ai Weiwei is that Bernie Sanders impede, but a judge,
I'd. This is now going to be the the fight of the democratic nominating process. Right now,
care for all verses Medicare. For all who want it that that's Sanders verses, but a judge, if that's the way things are ongoing,
but I will say that again, just observed to finish this up that term. The
turning the speech into a puff into a performance in which the gallery is not only serve noted but in which their of their actions taken and things going on in all. That makes a really strong case that this speech should be killed in a policy didn't. As everybody says, policy is under no constitution,
obligation to invite him to deliver an address before in the house chamber. That is a tradition now of serve eighty years
maybe you're, standing or somewhere that bit, but given the given, she didn't have to do it next year. If he's president and she
still speaker of the house. She does not have to invite him to give the stay. The union only needs to do is send a message,
according to her from time to time on the state of the union, and I just don't see any you know if it if, if it's going to be, if this is what it's going to be like, even if you know you like it cuz it's your present in your party,
You know there is a strong argument to me that, just like, I would revealed that it can no longer be the first in the nation thing that has been for fifty years. The state union should be should be tabled,
He can deliver it by the way he can give it. He can transmit the message and then he can give read. It
out to America.
From the oval office or whatever were within already all the joint session during the german right.
As for the devil's honestly, you knowledge
like every other not inaugurated president. It doesn't give a state of the Union in college,
yeah. Ok, what are we now turn to the resultant Iowa, which are still not complete? I think, were seventy two percent of theirs
pulses, were as we're taking this. Oh by the way we we ve had it
transmission problem in an internet problem in and out its problem, and so we ve lost Christine for the rest, the show, unfortunately, but we will love we will we will soldier on without herbs,
oh I'm the one thing I have to say that for months, I've been saying as people been saying, oh binds week is a weak front. Runners week is weak that you know, do you
argue with the Paul's polls show that he was up ten points nationally, blah blah,
ah blah
so he faces voters for the first time and obviously he's very weak. It appears he got fourteen percent of the vote he may or may not get delegate's under by some reckonings. He won't get any delegates, not that it really matters. The total number of delegates to be got rid of. I was one percent of the delegates needed too.
Get the machinations but of course, the effect on on New Hampshire and the image of him as a serve hollowed out paper tiger is now going to be very hard for him to deal with. So in the end I was right in and everybody who said that Biden was right was right. Also, that is, he looked like he was strong, but once people actually had a chance to choose between him and bought a judge and club a charge in the moderate lame they went from, but a judge at least them. You know, and I were game it looks like
well then a victory out. We don't I mean it doesn't bother like our results are, but it doesn't look like the results are gonna change. All that much I mean my my assumption that all the moderate lane would sort of coalesce around abiden in the event that the lessons were not viable. Just didn't play out spectacularly. In fact, right now he's at fifteen percent by the results of that would meet the threshold for delegates. But still,
the the claim that Joe Biden still has a path rest
on the assumption that he is one of the few candidates in the race with coalition that is built for the long haul. So once you get out of the early states and down to the south and in the bigger states, then is more Biden. Territory is still difficult to see how his support doesn't crater after this terrible performance and
We could mount some sort of a come back in a place like New Hampshire, which is campaign, is virtually written off. There's no alternative in the air there. However, this
this kind of the scenario that people began to feel like could undermine the progressive, the progressive candidacies, because you are now looking at the prospect of having a different winner in every state,
you have a different winner in if Sanders didn't when I all he could win New Hampshire, it looks like you will win new Hampshire.
And then you have Nevada, which a sort of up in the air but Biden, the still strong there and centres is still strong there. Sir,
I mean it. I know it matters, but people are really looking for. I was looking for South Carolina so than by pulls out a narrower victory than we thought he would in South Carolina. Then you go into Super Tuesday with complete muddle. I would
play. Might Bloomberg sweeps nomination right, ok, so the other way of the other way of gaming? This is that is that effectively looks like Bob, but a judge and Sanders tied in Iowa.
Let's say and then Sanders wins New Hampshire, so he has a claim to have won the first two. Then they gotTa Nevada, were him Biden in pulling theory have been in a sort of like neck and our binds up a little better. Some like that. You have to then figure that by
has a tougher time in the vat unless he stage of some kind of a comeback right, which is not in the dramatic effect of his campaign. Is that
he is slow and steady and he's pushing and proffering one message and so come come backs are not exactly what you expect from campaign like that, and then it goes to South Carolina and either he's Rubio, where Rubia waited till for improved. They went to Florida, and that was
we really have any Rubia lost Florida. The same way lost, I was margin, is seen march of tea.
Then we're talking now about February twenty latest vice ass. I thought yeah. Ok, so I think I found one what's so fascinates me as hell, but a judge managed to
take the moderate line without actually being moderate right, it's doing
art because of the way he's frames
what he says,
but also its due to the fact that there was this
push on the left to sort of discredit him as being you know
Sufficient Lee welcome
and what I'm baser pushed him into into into the
The more moderate line and end up in the liberal perception will, I think he had it. There was of their there
the hinge moment in this race. Assuming that you know Sanders is now the front. Runner was the moment when
Elizabeth Warren decided to embrace Medicare for all and bought a judge.
I did not.
Breaks Medicare for all in words
he'd. Somehow he saw TAT, they were, he was there. We're gonna have to make choices, and
He saw, I don't think any logically. He would have any particular problem with Medicare for all if he made to embrace it, but that he saw that that law.
Aim that Sanders and Warren was too crowded and that he knew
did to go somewhere else and that was given
and who was talking about not Medicare for all, so it
the Lamy and this one in that one until Biden wasn't really talking about you just said I, like Obama care.
And so he sought
Polly he saw policy operates like a like an area where
If you're somebody like him, you ve never had to vote on it. You never had it even talk about a cause. You're, a mayor of a small city, you could serve. Go
every you wanna go and just as
really hasn't put a foot long in the course of this
year of his of his candidacy.
Said the wrong thing. He hasn't made a blunder.
We had to whether this controversy about the behaviour of the of the police department in South Bend, but there was really
nothing he could do. That would have been like the perfect thing to say or not to say
are Chrissy also was kept them all away,
He was the only candidate who could like spent the last three weeks of the campaign in Iowa essence, since the brilliant
machiavellian streets, strategists name
policy force, the hand of the Democratic Democrats did
impeachment, therefore have this trial in January.
Kept them all away away from the state.
But of all the moderates in this race keep at it. It is the least viable because he has the least amount of support among the minority voters who make up the democratic coalition right narrow support among african american rhetoric little among among Hispanics, whereas Bernie Sanders is increased.
His support increasingly among these demographics right, William, like human fifteen, to twenty percent support. So any
now again those numbers can those numbers can rise to happen right, I mean the quest, so here's where
so yes or you could have Biden doing better in New Hampshire and people and dissipated, or he does well in the debate, which I think is Friday, my key might by here's. The biggest problem is that if you total up all the votes that we have and again, we don't have all of them, which is extremely frustrating, but the moderate candidates who came in there
top five outnumber and form a majority votes for its present Elizabeth. More now, Elizabeth Warren under performs a new hands.
She's got nowhere else to go. She might not even be in the right. She signalling she's got money troubles so that the deal,
consolidation of the progressive. What happens a lot faster now then the moderately, because people just designed for the long haul
I mean the closures in for awhile wildlife will return for awhile because she didn't do it
Rarely has he thinks she thought she got double digit that I wasn't I now, but that's not I'm she's got. I have just had a role, frustration and hatred for four by the imo, which is personal for somewhere recent bright and there's the classic collective action problem. Nobody wants to be the nobody wants to join forces, nobody want nobody whose in the race and is getting votes for president wants to declare themselves vice president, while they're getting votes
I just think you know. If clover chart doesn't do better first, will she didn't do better than expected and I was she did about what was expected? Second of all, she doesn't do you know well in new. Had then she's just staying in.
For no reason whatever she has nothing in Nevada and she has there's no reason to think she would have anything
Have Carolina would be weird, I mean she could stay in, but it would be a weird decision. It would be an act candidacy that was just waiting,
that was dead, but with just waiting for the candidate to knowledge to acknowledge its lack of viability right so that by the time that happens right you, like
without question here is, is but
judge viable, that you're saying he's not because he has no minority support
say he has no minority support and bite
as crater rang like, in other words like what what happened here is. The bottom was a balloon and I will prick the balloon and just the air is gonna go out of it right. It's not even a momentum or anything like that, it's just
As long as he appeared to be floating,
was fine, the minute that you know any pressure was put on it. It just you know and dying, but
Where what happens then so are Arbe Africa.
American voters gonna go to stop and frisk Bloomberg
I mean a none of this makes any sense. It's like it's like Bernie could win by default, but we already have a huge amount of evidence that black voters don't really like him very much. They turn he met a huge play for them in twenty sixteen and they didn't. They didn't go for it.
It does mean that you now, if, if nobody, if its, if its, if its seventy eight year old jewish socialist.
A Bernie Sanders versus thirty eight year old, gay
Westerner PETE, but a judge going after the african american vote. I don't know I mean I think. To be honest, I think there is an opportunity for PETE, because he's got the talent to try to work on that I mean I think he could actually got. Some surprising
degree of support among African Americans with but the concerted effort. I, who knows I mean we don't you know there are all kinds of size, social and cultural reasons that he is uniquely ill equipped to speak to them and then
Is this fact that day that it appears that they are that that this, this voting Bach is discomfited by the sort of revolutionary aspects of the bird
Sanders message. That's not that's not who they are actually not be economic message, much more, the cultural message right, but that the ECB
message. Also, I mean it's hard to look. We will see what happens. I mean if you look at what happened, and you see that you know the foot of the front runner of the race. You know like that. You know. Craps, the bed
in you know in the first state like them all the cards are up in the air I mean the obvious,
We Hilary Hillary Clinton did not recover in two thousand eight right trumpeted.
Crews, crews, one crews, one I went by by right for points I was not a really well Romney proclaimed Romney was not the
Loser in south in
I would like for three hours three weeks now it was fast
No it wasn't. It was three weeks later that the Irish Republican Party announced that Rick Santorum, wherever one
member, that's Ronnie not by twenty two votes:
need to whatever delegate equivalent, however, and then through.
Weeks later after a recount Santoro
one by eight now for thanks
pizza that I like? That's, not that's, not Santorum Windsor doesn't win, but like Hilary,
came back one New Hampshire and then in theory there was, you know, a slot through tax.
Is there something like that, but
Then after she one New Hampshire, you kind of habits that was this kind of sense of albanos. Inevitably that summer he had just ass, he was out playing her and he was more interesting and build started, saying the sliding things in the bomb of them went south and got the black vote that she expected to get all that. What I mean, what we can be certain of his
Joe Biden, not gonna, run, as you say, the only campaign that he can run any more. He stopped doing that. The minute heed these returns came in apparently he's on the stump now and he's appealing to
the teleprompter which, for some reason was not open, was not a part of his.
His campaign strategy. I don't know why we are appealing withheld,
following the script and the army has been extremely offensive, taken, the offensive against Bernie sent
Ex unjust about only Bernie Sanders, trying to highlight the distinctions and pupils in his narrative
he's got. We got a debate on Friday night. It's probably gonna be a little bit more aggressive on his part,
he's got a real donor. Problems are the only thing he's really got to appeal to now, as is the
to make sure he has enough money to get through March.
For me, the thing about him is that this this is always the question about accountancy like his liked it does. It need
money, we don't even know, in other words like clearly he they they decide. They did.
Not commit enormous resources to Iowa
and this is always the big question about these early states- is how much money do you spend their because, on the one hand, if your camp
see the logic as he is here and for the long haul enough may. If,
but a judge winds and in Iowa. He then, as depending on. I would somehow slingshot him forward and be all the momentum that he needs, but that's sort of unlikely in Biden can maybe out last a bad showing in and I were, but you know seven of
last Mine democratic nominees have one iota which isn't
say that end of the last quarter, Gabby less than nine million or a hand right
is less than Sanders Warren or budget right
What about his is a money? Machine and budgets is effectively. I mean you know: you're, not
to say this apparently could fanfare, but budgets went out, raise money on being gay, worn.
Raise money, I'm being a woman and Sanders raise money on being. You know a lunatic
serve the food. The move on chop outright
House, you know Bernie Bro, guy, that he created this money machine in tone
Sixteen that is still yes, that is still throwing off cash to him, which
By the way we spend spend like a sailor, which is not surprising, given his ideological predilections, but I mean
you know it's a very weird race, but yeah Bloomberg
Oh in and then you have the structure of the democratic race which is, it is not. Winner takes all states award delegates. Fortunately,
and if Bloomberg comes in later and this amount of money,
he is. Spending gets him to twenty percent
consorted gotta them too, like eleven twelve percent nationally and who knows where he is in these states. Where he's spending money, we don't even see that are super Tuesday states.
If Tom dire who has spent seventy five million vouch. Something in South Carolina gets to fifteen or twenty percent South Carolina. That should suggest that the Bloomberg does
the same in some of these other states. He'll get fifteen to twenty percent.
And then you really could see a scenario in which you know nobody gets enough delegates.
And then you could see a scenario in which the delicate leader gets the nomination, because everybody's a coward brother gonna do model
but what does it mean that entered denomination you need? The democratic race requires different from the Republicans you need for their. You need like twenty five hundred or so
like that to win lids, so there is actually more room for there to be publicans. I think, was thirteen
Nine or something last I may we uti there's a lot more room.
I'm into the convention with you, know delegates in the hundreds count,
out ever being in the risk of then you know you can bargain for this. You could bargained for that. You could bargain for the other thing. I don't know it's all it's all so I mean, but it would be a perfect twenty two
a story where it would not. One is decisive. Nothing works is as it should right, but this is the most important. Is the thing that we haven't? You know, Sir gotten to which, as you know
The surreal nature of of trumps. Revise revived
Simon, the word like you know trumpet,
now in the best position of his presidency after being impeached wild them.
Cracks are running for President in Iowa, which should be taking up all the
space in the news you know with
haze, of television coverage, rip
heating, his supposedly errors and crimes towards Ukraine, and in the end-
Each meant
all of this appears? Gatt appears to be boomerang and the and the strength of the economy and the general sir,
of the country being more on the right track. There has been no long time seems to be penetrating if, if their, if this Gallup poll that puts him
forty nine percent right now better.
Then Obama was, at this point in Obama's been twenty twelve. You know debt and the Democrats can't count the vote, and I would like
It's real, you know how much better positioned
trump should be given what the things have happened over the last few months have been them, then he is right or not. I mean sprinting pretty good. That's insane
like its incredibly good guy. So everything relative it's hard to say that it is not telling his moment lessens. The same thing happened to upon a win Republican started. Voting in people got a good look at what the opposition look like. They began to look more kindly upon the devil they knew, but a bomb did not hit the crucial number
over fifty percent in National Pauling, which is neither has trouble now been. We didn't hit it until October and again,
and if the scalpels none outlier, if its matched by other pulling this week or something like that
Joseph, although almost all the pulse of shown him his support growing from September onward, which of course means that impeachment.
I been I've always thought that impeachment was probably a decent play for Democrats, in that maybe it costs Obama but costs Trump
You know in some places where key needs to get every single vote that he can possibly get just a match.
Two thousand and sixteen but Nashley that does not seem to be the case, it seems to be the case that the longer this is going on, the the board disaffected, the public has grown with it. The if the Gallup Poll is write, the number of people who support him staying in office is is pyre.
Then it's been in a month, and I mean this is one of turn that some of the reforms that Democrats engaging
Two thousand and sixteen are part of the reason why we have the the mess that we have in Iowa now and end part of the reason why the convention, I think, if it was contested, will give it to the delegate leader who, at this point, looks like it's probably going to be Bernie Sanders
well, and I now know that throughout the throughout the the race, if the trajectory continues along these lines right so late, the Sandridge people demanded of what I did, which was that they report not just the delegates and the results. But these three,
sets of results. The first vote, the final vote, the realignment vote and then the
the delicate while the popular about popular votes. First, two programmes
The first vote has, in reality, outlet realignment vote where you harass everybody and get for the second ballot. Get everybody into the corners that are viable and then the actual delegates, and on top of this type,
failure this out failure and these new security procedures to prevent Russia from TAT and MRS Mcguinness messing with the vote. All this created a perfect storm and in the system couldn't handle it and fell apart and his like. You know that
the efforts that they re. These efforts were made on the part of the party to try to avoid the conspiracy theories that Sanders supporters were propagating where they felt, like the votes were being this count at or tabulated poorly. They were wrong because they got Chee elegance fewer sitting
efforts to assuage than just created more disaster more,
havoc and more headaches for the party, which is the same thing, happened to Republicans and twenty twelve, because the rain
all the wrong Paul types, we're so frustrated or so frustrated there.
Can partly by doing so well in these caucus states that the party front loaded the process with these much more populous coastal states, where the moderate candidate was supposed to emerge
with a healthy majority of delegates early on the process and make sure that it was in a very long drawn out, frustrating process and what happened. That was the perfect formula for Donald Trump to take over the body, because the coastal
states were where he performed really well. Primer stays wicked drop. Big delegate's really well, so that the lesson here is not fight the last war era,
here yeah but Everybody- Everybody- always fights the last war. Now
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a couple of notes that I think the most stunning and unexpected moment in the term stay. The union was the was the
by partisan, salute till one Guido, the
as trim said, the rightful president of Venezuela, the head of the National Assembly, who has been doing now,
year against the counter coup of of of Nicholas Maduro
but the first moment- and maybe one of the few moments in the speech were Nancy Pelosi, actually stood M M applauded and
indicating that this that this administration effort to you now led a code
listen to oust Maduro in Venezuela has not been forgotten and is in us back on track and is something that that that Trump, its
try to highlight during this year, since he highlighted during the term of state union.
The other is, I want to send a shot out to our long term contributor Ruth Weiss, whose,
two thousand and three book Jews and power has been re issued with a new introduction. It's a remarkable book, Bruce name because people sometimes
the trouble with if there are looking at it spelled W. I ssc
go Amazon, go to wherever search with Weiss and Jews and power, and pick up this really remarkable book. Today, a quick note on the quite a yeah just about everybody, says
favor of the kind of pluralism in the gallery, terrorism, that is the by Guido in the opposition versus the Marxists that are in power currently who have allies only in the world's worst capitals, with the exception of just about everybody who makes up
Bernie Sanders Surrogate list you at Alien Omar, initiated to leave urban
and out and cause your Cortez all of em, suggesting that the the efforts of the Trump Administration was
the in effort to elevate a right wing pretender, and it was
basically a coup, I think they usually used. The term could wipe out the head of a democratic, socialist bird Democrats. Social Democrat party- rather so, is not exactly you know.
Far right, but nevertheless I mean this is the case for
Democratic socialism is made according to its own advocates by
Madeira regime and its interesting to see most of Congress repudiate that,
Well, I was actually struck last night by a tweet by Matt. Does
sanders. One of its key foreign policy must, if not judging reform of Eu Foreign Policy adviser a person who was fired by think progress for his anti semitic associations now helping to guide centres as foreign policy who objected, who said dismissive leaves something about Nancy Pelosi. Applauding the assassin
Action of a duly elected official of government officials, duly elected, did a duly what like a legitimate official government. Official
by which he meant Cosette
saw a money. The terrorist threat,
The Islamic Revolution regard core who was personally as Trump indicated during the speech by by by invoking the widow of a soldier killed in Iraq by by and uranium.
Terror squad. You know personally responsible for the deaths of, I think they think at least six hundred Americans among everybody,
and so Sanders chief foreign policy way like upbraids Nancy Pelosi, not trump like he could have said a trumpet. No
business trumpet no business Reno highlighting the we now
assassination of whatever.
But that wasn't where he went. He went to policy. He went to attack Pelosi for applauding Trump that things
ways that is the most were verse image trompe in moment.
In the Sanders candidacy. Thus far, I'm in love us think that of training centres wins essentially kind of of trompe him victory, but this idea
of attacking your own,
parties, leadership for its ideological,
blindness to that? You know the true nature of Adolf if Trump as America. First, you now say
Yours is globalism first or something, and were this view and even a haven't, describe it tonight, globalism. First, it's you know communism first or anti Americanism, first herb ghetto whatever you want to call it and the shooting no appetite for. I never trouble on than on the left, but it doesn't seem like it's gonna be avoidable, after just say it just an instinct for self preservation. Among Democrats who currently enjoy some symbols,
power and authority would compel them to have some sort of, maybe even a self defeating one as most of these efforts, so that there was a three week out and in intervention when there was a freak out last night
on MSNBC James Carver one I am assuming that search search it on the I was watching it lives should search for it and watch. It was like a fourteen minute freak
Carville sitting in his suit with an Alice you cap on who base
because said
I'm seeing my party I'm seeing to it.
One of which is turn out as bad was bad in Iowa I thought we were supposed to do a lot better and better
ITALY saying the reason we're not doing a lot better is that we don't have candidates that evoke what happened. Then? Twenty eighteen or we had good, solid candidates, fit it fitted to the districts who you know could really.
Go a trump and instead it looks like we're headed to pick the amount.
The conversion of Jeremy Carbon and it's pretty, was it
staggering little speech and then by these set alarm, Laval form
of all four of overborne of over. But you know it's a good aids. It's gotta want my party the way corporal vote for him so that, in other words, there is not going to be a never bernie cause. This was as mode most. This is it
close to never burn.
As anything could be, but
There is no you, but if Carville,
himself says: why can our vote, but that's just the rhetorical anti that you have to make in order to be taken seriously
just I'm just pointing out that what whatever see
since that people had in twenty sixteen that it was not on it was. It was safe.
For whatever to be never trump Democrats already, don't feel
The words, the unifying a fact which is Trump must be gotten, and you know that it will will overwhelm any such thing, as I think the history of the never Trump movement doesn't exactly suggests that anybody really wants to follow in its programme footsteps.
You know, since it can now get up meat in a the movement part. Not the vote is not the voting part of the Movement Park, and you know me turn the small room. You know station next to the bathroom basin. So with that, we will bring this to a close for the Rothman and the sadly half absent Christine Rosamond John Podhoretz keep the candle burning.
Transcript generated on 2020-02-25.