Why is the press still covering for Andrew Cuomo’s disastrous COVID-19 response? And why is the White House going to war against its own public health advisor, Dr. Anthony Facui? The answer may be the cults of personality surrounding them both.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast today is to stage a wife were teens twenty twenty. I am John platforms,
editor Commentary magazine the seventy five year old monthly of internet,
to analysis. Political probity and cultural criticism from a conservative perspective. We invite you to join us
commentary magazine dot. Will we give you a few free, reeds and ask you to
subscribe with me as always executive at a great green, while high Senor redder, Christine Rosen,
Christine. I John an associate editor nor Rossman High Noah, I jump sir.
The state of California has locked itself down again in some ways, and I think
be a somewhat more draconian lockdown than the first in part because of the
emotional impact of force,
everybody inside again as a result of rising case loads. The most telling fact is that the
School districts of LOS Angeles Insane, you have announced that they will not reopen in the fall in that all learning will be distance and remote. This is interest
thing to me, because one of the
it is being bandied about. Is this notion of outside learning, since the transmission problem appears to be in Dore an affair,
or any place on earth that you could do outside learning. It would be at the schools in California which have
Often have very large campuses and certainly a lot of outdoor space and fields and football fields and sports facilities and things work stood
could literally said outside under attempt, and apparently that wasn't
consider adore you know, maybe they could revisit it. I don't know, but we were just
yet the numbers and others at least six hundred thousand kids in the allay unified school district who will not be going to school. Am I don't know how many hundreds of thousands in
San, Diego, so for pair
this is a terrifying prospect, because citing parents in allay we're gonna have to go through this.
Firstly, this is a kind of leading edge for the rest of the country, and this will give permission to all kinds of places where to
trade unions have the whip hand and where it clear that the teachers unions do not want the schools to reopen and we can discuss wire. We can avoid discussing why, since I don t we
since four. Why are all that attractive in some of these cases, but I think
our places in which now they can cite allay as the example therefore shut down, and so we are now talking about a million
its upon millions of kids and millions upon millions of parents who are now going to be thrown into.
Social, emotional and economic chaos by these up by these decisions.
So I cannot give the lay of the land here cause. I spend most of yesterday researching the opinion data on schooling and there
a lot of interesting and contradictory information
out there and sums
It makes little sense some stuff that doesn't make sense, but a lot of stuff you probably haven't heard so today, there's a axioms Ipsos has a pull out of
parents which is making a lotta waves says that seventeen,
and parents feel that it would be too risky tokens goals in the fall on more pronounced finding among minority respondents and
even among republican Self described republican parents. Fifty three percent do not favour reopening.
Course. Now that sounds pretty definitive end you ve heard
reams of data for produced over the course of the last couple of months, suggesting that people are to our disquiet by the prospect of sending kids back to school
I started digging into this yesterday in a lot of really under publicized data suggests the exact opposite to take. I lay just, for example: yes,
the teachers unions voted overwhelmingly its members stating eighty percent, some odd voted against reopen schools entirely and that really doesn't comport with what we ve seen
from the data they had a survey. Usa polo California, parents have found a plurality. Thirty four percent favour, hybrid learning, that's some days in sundays out another survey via California opinion surveys show that fifty seven percent of the state residents favoured either apart
full reopening, while only thirty seven percent backs distance learning the store
is very similar in New York. The department of Education produced a survey for parents and found that well
There's other public opinion surveys that showed that they cities, adults and majority. The city's adult emulation is not in favour of a person education,
seventy five percent of foolish parents disagree and want to send their kids to school.
And then this thing that just blew my mind
which I had not seen it all roguery plugged into this was a Jew
Gallup Poll that showed fifty six percent of parents found distance learning to be different,
that same poll showed that fifty say another. Fifty six percent of parents of Cape Verde, twelve students want full time
I am in person schooling in the fall
and there's another thirty, seven percent- that want a hybrid situation, only seven percent of those who were pulled back full time.
Learn: that's national about last one national policies,
not for a month,
and I have heard anybody talking about- has stumbled across it in this research and you would think it
Nick Giant waves
it didn't they try, always until they got the Boers else, everybody really watts. So this is great we are,
we are in the midst of an irrational moment of panic based on. I believe
a false reading and maybe a tent
anxious reading on the party
experts and a false reading on the part of the public, of the meaning of the statistics, as they stand because, again
we could say you know you know what in two weeks it's gonna, be so bad that in two weeks what
saying today will look what I'm saying
right. Now will look foolish,
but there will always be another two weeks. So unless the country or a lot of these places starts looking,
like New York in April and may we are all we are betting on the come in
the wing things and making long term decisions and present.
Decisions that are catastrophic echoes
luckily, am, I would say emotionally for a great many people
without being in the crisis that people are worried that we are in because we are not in a crisis. Yet when you
It is not easy to look at these stories. Are things like all they're bringing refrigerated trucks to Texas to deal with the corpse overflow, and yet the Texas numbers do not indicate a corpse,
overflow and the I are not full and all of that
I don't know. What's at an how'd, it makes
It's out of the
behavior, except to say that it's a panic.
And you know I wish I wish. I thought it was something words serious and severe. Well
one one theory, but I dont wish it were more serious. I just mean had the that it was justified,
by what were actually seeing and in terms of hard numbers? But that's I mean I think
That's what speaks to the strange disconnect between what we are saying in terms of policy making in places like allay verses, what the numbers in the poor results of actual parents who are thinking through what their falls gonna look like if you are in a panic and you'd their new lack. You no kind of concrete information that you trust. There is one action you can take, which is locked
I'm type action right is the one thing that you can feel you have control over and I think for parents
resist that on the public policy levels? Gonna be a real challenge, mean no sort of jokingly has said: they're gonna have to take to the streets, but I mean you're, not raw, I'm not joking. Now, because I think that there is something to this idea that parents will have to really make there,
voices heard and and get the policy makers to start thinking about balancing the risk, because at a time of
read but still great unknowns about how this virus is gonna work its way through them through the United States and its risk to you know in and
risk in particular place like classrooms that is going to go to position is always
he locked and we set that precedent. It did work for the purpose it was initially
established for, but it's the only technique we have besides masks and hygiene right master
hygiene and you know staying outside. I do think, though, that we needed we should mention. I think it's an orange county, that their thing about
opening school. So even in California, certain school districts are too
hey about doing something that isn't a complete distance learning approach, and I
again like that's from a federalism perspective? Let's look at school district, my school district and look at some of the decisions.
That that local officials will make, after talking to actual parents and teachers on the ground and not just
talking of not just going through the talking points of other
particular governor or the teachers unions? So,
if you are on the side than argues that
california- should locked down again schools and end and beyond schools.
Doesn't that then give the lie to the idea that the sir
as is a result of states that the discharge that there, the recent spike, is a result of,
states that didn't take the virus seriously, that open too early and all the rest of it right, because California did already lockdown
cocktail before New York.
Had very low numbers either as a result or just your just because and then it opened up
In talking about the political incentive structure that that's what you need to, we need to talk about.
Because, if your Gavin loosen the governor of California and you have potential ambitions for higher office, meaning the presidency, the United States and you are
Looking at what has gone on over the last three months? Who
do you envy and who would you
on a bee in the democratic field. If you were a governor right now,.
Your Cuomo right when you want to be under Cuomo. Sixty two percent approval raining daily now
coverage of press conference
and all of that
his incentive, Gavin Nuisance internal structure is to be a hawk on this issue and
a simple fact of the matter is I'm looking up these numbers as
twenty seven team, the number of households,
in the United States.
Children under eighteen is fifty two percent, meaning forty eight percent of everybody else doesn't either doesn't have as
adult children don't live with them,
or doesn't have children wrong? So you have, for you, have basically half the country that does not have an emotional investment or a personal investment in the question of schooling
And basically has no reason not to say school should be locked out except
your radical one, an understanding that we need an education system that works for everybody and all of that right
right. There. You have people who are participating in this conference,
who have no skin in the gay, except to the extent that
they believe that
Everybody is a potential transmitter of their possible death, but that that then shows
the post alive, like diplomacy, is approaching.
York City several months ago, where they, then we really held out for a long time too long in some public health advocates view in shutting down New York City schools, because you know that the progressive explanation
for. Why was that? Actually is schools aren't just about educating their about special service providing right? You know they. They provide meals, they provide a safe space. They provide after school, free after school care for low income, kids, his parents,
working. It's interesting to me that that argument has disappeared and places like California right, the liberal state, where there are a lot of under serve populations who rely on schools for nutrition and for safe keeping of their children, that the idea that that has has been supplanted by a more irrational fear of illness.
This is just notable because we were having a very different discussion about three or four months ago about schools. Well,
planning. We shouldn't come the lead committee,
they dismissed the concerns of teachers and administrators. It's not it's not entirely irrational. There are plenty of anecdotes and cases
Language teachers have gone back to schools and places like Arizona gotten. Sick people have died
there's that there is a risk here
ask everywhere and teachers storm seem feel.
Like they are being compelled by
a highly politicized environment now in which the White House is essentially a strong, arming, local municipalities into putting them back into it.
Is where they feel they are immortal. Risk
that something is going to produce a rational, rational or rational behaviour in anybody. So
as this is a risk free proposition for teachers and administrators. It's just that, in my view,
I think our view that students are getting the short end of the stick
there have been for many many months and can and will continue to bees short gives short shrift because they just lack the institutional power and authority of the teachers. Unions have well, let's pull back also, and not just talk about schooling right, I'm in California, thirty nineteen thirty one million people live in California. That's like close to twelve percent of the population of the entire country.
The most important state economically in the country, and it is basically going into freezing out. So any any recovery that has been going on over the last two months has now been hit it over the head by a baseball bat by Gavin Nuisance order, and if you think about the millions of small businesses that presumably existing in California, that the ones that managed to survive for three months with now,
with no income or two and a half months you have along the locked out, was out there now going back into stasis
How many of them are gonna fold.
How many of them were? You know
I mean they already took the PPP mummy. Let's say if they got it,
maybe we'll be another tranche. Maybe it will be some new form of support if Congress can somehow get it together. This is this. Is a calamity
now either it's a necessary calamity or it's not the data,
Do not suggest that it is a necessary calamity, a minute it it is. It takes the term abundance of caution
and puts it in an entirely new category, without any reference to the consequences, I'm just mean monetary consequences of
a decision because, as I say, I think Avenue some does not have the it does not have the proper incentive struck
sure that a leader should have, in this circumstance
which is to say, yeah, sorry
what was lockdown designed to achieve lockdown is designed to achieve and only
designed to achieve a catastrophic cascade effect in which hospitals become
Then dated and this
I'm collapses
prevent it
Literally all it can do it
blunt instrument that does precisely one thing Kelly.
Twenty six deaths, undulate twelve from copyright.
And this data, thirty nine million people, that's the
if the hospitals are overwhelmed, we don't see it in the data.
And I guess, there's sort of projection in which this could be a bit,
Chile yield those conditions that New York saw in late more
in April in early May, but
this conjectural there's no evidence to suggest it's on the horizon, the near term and in the
interim you're dealing as you describe
the kind of blow. That may not be something you can recover from within the next decade,
let's talk about New York. Ok, because
As I say, I think a new some has some kind of Cuomo envy here and something
happened yesterday Christine
then I think we need to discuss in relation to Andrew Cuomo and his attempt to continue.
Play the role of mythical hero of the of the corona response. Yes, I am
as I speak, looking at an amazing piece of propagandistic art, not not not what you would expect
come near tough, smart, United Discipline, loving it's a poster that
Roma, has put out and actually will sell. So there will be some profit of a deeply. The background of this weird sort of map is the,
The weird java, the hut, like blog curve that that he's been featuring in this press conferences,
It is bizarre on a number of levels. I want to give our listeners little context, because this is not the first propaganda poster than that
more has embraced. There was an earlier one made by your Brooklyn artists, prepared, dynamic, called New York State, the progressive capital which actually features that
image of Andrew Cuomo above a rainbow, that is, that is drawn to symbolise the art.
Of the moral universe, I'm not kidding, and there were
there were seas, division and squalls of hate and showed a ship. You know at the ship of state that was kind of feudal full of tolerance. Leadership accomplishment
and the kind of squid that represented intolerance, that this is a similar sort of propaganda
image and also features a sea of division and has a kind of little, but it takes a pocket press
the trumpet shows him sitting on a crescent moon, saying it's just the flu and its
you know, shows Cuomo himself sitting at one of his press conference tables just listed as fifty six. Fifty six governor
The internet, of course, did mark mercilessly some particular aspects of the poster, including a strange and still inexplicable image of a young man. Hanging by one hand, from what was called the boyfriend Cliff has images
people getting their nostrils swathed in masks and
a cruise ship that also features a an angry octopus. So all of this
You say it is a bizarre piece of propaganda that I think Cuomo feel
reveals his leadership when in fact it it says nothing
about there's, no nursing Home Office poster and what it visually represents is the death.
Of tens of thousands of human beings and the idea that-
I mean honestly. I thought you know if he called it
car, then maybe we could talk about whether it was a representational piece of art, but this is written, kill, Isn,
touting it is like. Oh, I love political ard and you I collect all these posters and I love the kind of vintage you feel it's ridiculous. If
all I would suggest is that if Donald Trump was trying to merchandise, something that represented his triumph over covered, imagine what the response would be, and so there I ran over if you could go on and its particularly. So
Turning to me, because it's also all
all about him. It's
About it's not about New York. It's not a really about the course of the virus. That's that's it!
Background, all those dead people there they're they're, just that users. In the back the backdrop, the boyfriend cliff of courses, some reference to one of those things he would joke about one of his daughters boy.
Friends in his daily press briefing, there's an image of him in the corvette because he spoke about the
The the dashboard of a during the press briefing about how he'd, like the cove id monitoring, dashboard, to look like the beautiful classic Corvette Dashboard, so
he's having the time of his life with this. That's what this is about,
This is a celebration of his greatest political feet, and that is just repulsive
well. What can I just read the tweet that he that he put out to sea?
on the poster, because you can pre order it
live in available, yet you can pre order. It quote the sea of division period, the boyfriend Cliff period, the sun on the other side period,
he had all for yourself. Pre ordered the New York tough poster here. So what is this? The
Princess bride lists have been savvy. Will I think he'd have to playing off the Boston, Boston, strong, remember after the after them
our thoughts bombing. There was a whole lot of merchandise people where bracelets that are posters. This idea that actually a community can come back from a terrible events.
Your resilience and strength that worked in the case of the marathon. This is something comes
Leave me different. This is this is just its appalling I'll start up like you know, this is a parity of something that is. That's why use the princess bride, which is a parody of a boy
called the prisoner of Zend right where it's like? Oh you can't go. There are those of the flaming pits of veto, goblin so or whatever so we'll involvement
comes up with the cliffs of insanity, the pit of did the fit of despair. The you know, the shaft of gloom
and here he is making a poster- that
is an ironic. It's a profit.
District progressive pilgrims progress there Rodya John alliteration that Bravo Amazing, that was totally amazing
yeah. It is
it's a fault, a politician for attempting to miss out of their own legacy. The fault belongs with the national political press and then, in the end, the press in New York New times, whilst regional and just about every other mainstream institutional report. Reporting is out in the Europe that has fond over this guy and has prompt him up.
As John, has repeatedly and Anti Trump just to exist as an avatar and to avoid the kind of scrutiny of his
his orders that resulted in this mountain of death and he sits atop this pile of skulls that heave celebrates and the the
Real scrutiny you can see of those kind of borders is in the conservative, press and conservative opinion press and
an absolute abdication of their responsibilities to the public, and they should all be ashamed of it, a bumper. I am also, I can't believe how shot I am that the public needs the press to direct them.
To a more critical opinion of office. I mean it, isn't Cuomo directly giving enough people and
the evidence of of of how ridiculous he's being for there for that for them to turn on him, and
way. But, but I also want to point out one thing, but the Kosovo just have from memory that that Christine, if you have in front of you, you could probably better characterized up top there's something about not politicizing Lee the crisis. There some statement about them and then wake up is assets as wake up America forget the politics, get small right and then better quote from Cuomo in that its direct governor and then my way in that office has love way, of course, and then
the bottom toward the right side of the post of theirs. There's an indication of how, from of arrows,
going up
Talking about underneath are above Texas, I think Arizona tax. I informed roared right. What on earth
does that have to do with New York, tough it. That is less than simply jabbing other states.
I'm saying ha ha now. You know you have spikes,
profound shamelessness and its one. That is again abided by the press ass he had spent. I forget I couple weeks back, he had studied hacked
Bringing lecturing Florida.
The scientists explicitly saying. Listen, just all of you made a mistake. Man just you know. This was
bad policy that you adopted- and these are the fruits of it- and just be man enough to say you messed up here de gaulle-
absolute gall of such a statement from somebody who pursued a policy that Florida
pleasantly, avoiding and avoided a whole lot of death as a result, its the sort of thing that you would think people would be for us
treated by particularly in those in the press, if they were
committed to a political outcome and the black list
It is impossible to ignore. It is so glaringly obvious that you have to be dealt with
it too being looked tooth to avoid it
the conclusion that everybody else's reached ok took
it's my favorite moment last week, which we didn't even get to talk about as there were somebody else talk about, was when cool
my task. Is Health commissioner Howard Succour to prove that he and Howard Sucker, who made this decision, were responsible for the nursing home deaths and Howard Sucker made this life
statement where he said. I've looked at the data and we're not response.
Well, they cited Phoebe sets resource, basically right, because the CDC guidelines that they were trying to use a cover for that terrible fatal decision were in fact, pretty clear.
Then it was within their purview to alter that might mean he even the evidence that they were trying to cite dependence on the federal government rather than are on their own. Miss deed was incorrect that what they were wrong about the IDA
It was a moment it was a moment. In that sense, it was to Howard Sucker being in our Sarah Sanders, saying that there were orbs
John Spacer saying
but there were twenty two million people at the inauguration, like the facts, are right in front of you and have an end so Howard
girl comes out and says, you know,
I've done an inch out of my own decision that, remarkably enough completely clears me from any responsibility, and you know what I don't actually think
that we should look at Andrew Promo, inherits, occur and say they are at fault.
That is to say they made a bad decision and it's bad and they did it in innocence. They didn't do it for the purpose of killing thousands of people or whatever. But that doesn't mean
you get to walk around celebrating yourself after the decisions consequences are so parlous
But I do think that there is a lesson in our political
we're seeing what we're talking about how the press is, as has been said,
Jim Cuomo and obviously com was a counterpoint to Trump and all that. But there is a lesson in terms of trump and leadership and for politicians going forward, which is that even looking like you are taking charge and
Man of the situation when you are bad at it, as I think Andrew pommel actually was and has been, is a winner and low
like you, want to wash your hands of it when you are in the middle of a crisis or why
to move on or want to focus on something else or wants to talk about whatever it is. It comes into your head on twitter with is a terrible catastrophe, and if anybody following Trump wants to take a lesson from twenty, twenty it is
trumps behaviour as a leader. What
an absolute dead end for anybody to follow if he had looked.
Tough and resolute and serious. He would not be on the verge of a potentially historic defeat in November. What
That's what the Cuomo example shows and not just the Pablo example dissenters abbot. If you were a governor
who showed leadership. Even if the leadership,
sing was bad. It was better than showing no leadership accept, and I agree with you, but there is also the other side of this, which is that so then, if you do follow, comas lead
and perform as if you are leading as as we ve now.
To web now assumed Gavin Newsome is doing you can have,
real world results at our next actual catastrophe run as in shutting California right now,
I'm. Just talking now about you know the how you practice politics as a politician and Trump, whose entire campaign twelve twenty sixteen was product,
On the idea of his strength and his ability to lead
his most profound leadership challenge and made it clear that he was extremely uncomfortable with the demands of
leadership and wished to have this cup pass from his lips and
There was a moment in
I worry or march when he could have gone in a different direction and he did not, and he is now living with the consequence that he try did he not. He spent several.
Weeks doing the daily press conferences being as visible as he possibly could sharing the spotlight with his health experts. It was
I think he was not comfortable doing it right like it, he stepped he put his foot and mouth consistently.
You gonna, have to demonstrate leadership and
we learned that he was not capable of it in this environment right. Well, I mean you can be at the press conference everyday. But if what you say what what you're saying in the press conference doesn't reject the thing that you needed to reject them, obviously
it's a mistake right I mean if you with your projecting, as I don't want any part of this. I want to talk here and I want to say, try hydroxide clerk when
Are you know? Maybe you should swallow some bleach or put a light, bulb down your throat to get out of there
the or whatever it was that he was saying it was the opposite of reassuring, and I don't just mean because that's how the press characterized left. There was actually something kind of riveting about those press conferences in turn.
Of his body language. If you you know, we give off a lot more signals and we realise, with our facial expressions and our body language than what our words are conveying and there were.
These moments where it when he clearly shifted from discomfort when he was trying to sort of bolster what foul your Burke's had just said to when he,
to go on the attack against the media or political rival. You could literally see him like loosening its joint lucky. He was
so much more comfortable in that space, which I think
why now, that's all you see coming at the White House right now are attacks on Fiji there, but for a country that,
unlock down and not seeing a lot of other people watching that Daily press conference, that there was
thing, unnerving and stressful about his literally his
physical embodiment of what it is trying to do that, I think in unison,
behavioral and social science. Researchers in yours
to come, should study because it was it was almost like he was trying to heat. He was trying to play a role that he didn't really. He was so uncomfortable here.
Physically uncomfortable and that we can and should prevent into the family stuff, because it is absolutely incomprehensible that we always
but let me, but let me pull back, to talk to you guys and to everyone who is listening about
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gas. Ok doktor actually found she Noah, yes, are in the midst of a political crisis for the president in which he faces a confidence deficit among
there is, I think, probably about the central single controversy. In the issue of the day.
Administration has decided to go to war with itself and passive
massively undermine the confidence of the public. Has in Doktor Anthony Faulty who enjoy?
a very high popularity rating, I'm
mildly conflicts about this. It is politically stupid
to do what they are doing and the way they are doing it and the President is doing it in his traditional passiveaggressive fashion were saying. I really like the guy, meanwhile retweeting horrible things about him and
it really is. The president's focus is generally. He shows you what he's really interested in on Twitter and he's really interested in media criticism
he likes watching, cable news and talking about it, talks about boxes all the time
and when they taught when you you're off the record comments from the administration, which has suddenly undermining this precedent in the press. Sending talking points out to the press, it's about doktor, vouches, appearances in the press, it it's all media criticism, that's what trump likes he doesn't linking the present. He wants to be on cable it. Why he should
and they have, but they do have a case. I think that could be made against the what women
all day, which is really aggressive,
We on the side of caution, above all else, approach that public health experts have taken to this crisis, which is what we expect of public health experts, but not of elected officials who have to balance a whole bunch of competing interests which aren't necessarily entirely relate.
To help and wellness dotterine thing about you may twenty second said that prolonged
and too long whenever that means produce
reparable damage to
with the social fabric he's right and it even if we're just talking about
health outcomes alone, the the effect of lockdown
producing undiagnosed cancers and suicides and deaths of despair and obviously the prospect of a lost decade of economic activity. In the picture.
In hardship that will accompany all that. All that is now growth of lockdown. To address a hypothetical crisis,
that may someday materialise in hospitals. Politicians
our elected officials. Constitutional officers are supposed to balances concerns. We don't expect that a public health officials, public health, a vision
Yes, they go to the worst case scenario project out, that's their job, I'm sending experts job when revising the president. The president has the way those those concerns
when he goes out when voucher goes out and starts criticising played people like Florence, dissenters
an Arizona is that you see saying you're interested in quote, crushing the virus
he's going beyond his remit. His remit was
a crushing the virus or objective was never to crush the virus. He says these at an empty. The press, I think at this weekend that
Things probably won't go back to normal for at least a year. Maybe more is that too long in india
she's estimation which would produce irreparable damage to the economy of these are the sort of things
I think, are very valid criticisms of him, but our criticism,
cannot be made in an environment that has proved a cult of personality around this guy and culture. Personalities are atrocious, repugnance cycle
logical devices that need to be destroyed whenever you see them, this is one and I think it's desirable, that they got that. He gets a little bit of push back well aspect.
I mean the call to personally protected him from what was, I think for a lot of Americans, the most baffling and still
deeply confusing issue that that has prevailed
Then people not being willing to wear masks now was that he did finally can
as the tee no man, you know you don't need a mask messaging that was coming pretty consistently from from voting and others,
including the surgeon, general and and the White House was based on a fear.
They would run out of protective equipment for the for the medical frontline workers who need it most. In the essential workers, if
We ve talked about this for months, but if they had instead,
the chosen to treat the american people as adults who could understand you know complicated,
formation and an shortage
of that type and said you know we should all be wearing masks and people could have started making their own masses. Many did. It
It said that, and then said you know you still need where mass, but that's it we're on lockdown we're going to try to deal with these shortages, but once were passed. That point lets me
therapy, every American where's mass when they're going into these into these higher risk environments
but they didn't? They said I don't need a mask. It's fine and now there's no there's a pretty glutton large group of Americans
He pointing to that and saying we can trust you at all, and you can't exactly do not all conspiracy theory there, people who actually did listen carefully to those briefings heard
I'd lines and then, when the guidelines shifted suddenly didn't get a straightforward answer from the people who are supposed to be guiding found. She politically has served in interesting purpose, so she for the media with Biden.
Instead of semi personal lockdown himself and Bum
stumbling as as often as he does, the Anti Trust,
mainstream media has set up a kind of.
Shadow election it get with with tromp, against found she and and with me-
They have no trouble losing desperately every day in that in that election and
this, so it so its inevitable that that the administration can announcer of fight. That campaign has well I'm poorly but
but that but he's sort of standing in for Biden in a weird wet love. You dont have taken
no one's making them through a debate like? Why? Are they doing that
we should listen, just bread for those who are following that done,
dance could be. No junior thee
should all the head of sort of like social media at the White House,
yesterday tweeted out a cartoon of someone. He called that called Doktor Fawcett, and it was this really like low rent cartoon making fun of any kind of defaming.
Now we need to make this clear right found. She is a public servant who works for Thee
fractious diseases arm of the National Institutes of Health.
And whatever we may want to say about him now in his behavior now isn't it
American hero was one of the people who,
but the way to finding treatments to envy the death sentence,
it was of HIV and AIDS.
He has been doing this now for more than three decades and is a noble public servant right, so
he is not a politician. He
Nowhere says he is not a in out and he is he is as a public health official. He is doing what public health officials do and as again
Noah says it is not his responsibility to say you know we need to open up, or we need
do this, because the economy needs it or beget. That's not his remit write his remit is to talk about the public health issues and
I don't know that he's done that all
Well, as Christine says that is he he he d
the mistake on masks,
he's been all over the map. Sometimes he says we need to open up. Sometimes he says we're not crushing the virus he's.
We'll stay two years old. He has been doing this forever everything.
He says, is treated like gospel red. He can't, but you know, be having a swelled had moment, despite his counsel,
both the president and so no no man he's a hero.
He's not really behaved heroically in this situation, but fine. The fact that he has been treated with such demand
in this respect by the White House and by this idiot,
social media guy who, as I said, the other day, ran trumps. Golf course in Westchester is an indication of
something interesting which is that what is going on now, I think, is an
or to muddy the waters that that is. If you want to look at a strategy that the White House is attempting to pursue, it is to create as much ambiguity as possible about the nature of the public response to the virus. So a foul chosen to be trusted com was not to be trusted, nuisance not to be trusted and Trump is not to be trusted. Everybody is not to be trusted. How can you hold Trumpery
sensible with everybody, including all the experts and the people, that the media love and all that that everybody is wrong, and so it is in the White House is bizarre. The campaigns, bizarre interest to trash everybody's reputation
to the extent possible as a means of salvaging trumps
That's how I look at it, not that I think that that's the cognitive process that lead to
skip you know doing this. Giving was just to Baghdad Bob serve,
I'll suck up toady who, in our they ve they hate vouches, has found you mix trumpet bats. He wants to make you look bad that if you want to look at a longer term reason for this behaviour, this
your term reason for the behaviour at fascinating because
say reelection dynamic, absolute and talk about this by analysing the last couple of days but sort of the the election.
Pain is like the tertiary story. It's like background radiation. We know really talk about the fact that there's a presidential election in four months
even though it is the overarching
that's animated, just about everything that we're talking about every other day but
it is as re election campaigns go at least in the twenty first century. The effort has been Malleson last DEC.
The effort has been on the part of the incumbent to too so doubt and discontent about the president's opponents. Rather,
furnish the legacy of the last four years and talk about that
the reasons why they should get reelection and if that's the strategy now, it makes a lot of sense. It's just that the effort isn't too too
to create a narrative around this unfavourable narrative around the president's opponent, even though they are doing that it into to whatever, except the can, and it's not very effective, but the creating doubt.
Dissatisfaction or on their own administration, which seems counterproductive.
A little side over there. I dont know, though, because I moved to hail Mary play, but look at this way what Trump, what the Trump campaign and what the Trump administration want to do now is act like he has not president to follow my logic here that felt she is not part of his administration. Vouches part
Washington found. She is part of the this, the blob, the eternal Washington machine that not only
Europe is not a part of that wishes to destroy tromp, he is
in essence a figure of the deep state the trump has no control over. So it's not his government. It's not his administration. Everybody in Washington who has been in Washington, who did not come from his gun
of course in Westchester, is a suspect.
This loyal person who is looking to destroy tromp, rather than help
country, that is the narrative the day I think, are either attend
convey or are, or or or by default, r r, r conveying- and I can't
lay them in some ways, because this narrative to some extent was not only helpful to them in in combating the impeachment drive over the last three years,
but wasn't entirely inaccurate right where the impeachment driver was
involved. Ok, but there's this long been a pretty healthy tradition among american presidential Wanna bees to argue that they are coming in as outsiders and they're gonna clean that clean the drain. The swamp clean house whenever you want to say but attacks
to that sort of the outsiders view, has always been a positive thing that they're gonna be replaced the horrible swamp with ray.
Like you're gonna, build university on a hill if you're Ronald Reagan to gonna bill, I mean
If your democratic gonna build a great new society, there's always a there's, always a there's something to replace the the initial terrible thing with true
It's really does feel at this point that, although I know I think you're right that that deep state message really resonate with his core bays, there's a son
which he got here. Interest has been wallowing in it because, as no I said earlier, he actually likes to spend most of his time credit criticising. How other see him, rather than building
something new, and this is why the ongoing joke about infrastructure week really has deeper political residence for Trump and assessed
his legacy because he's not building
anything you didn't, though this wall you haven't given us new infrastructure. What is he replacing this horrible deep state swamp were ok. Well, I can explain that boat by reference to the campaign for re election of Seller Tom tell us in in North Carolina. Tell us,
but tell us the saying: is this country was a paradise before February.
We were, there was the no unemployment, and you know everything was fantastic and the DOW was a twenty. Eight thousand everything was wonderful in every possible way.
And then came this virus and these riots and now the country is but trumped, didn't, make the virus and trumpeted make the riots, and so what we need to do
is real act? Trumpet reelect me reelect, all of us, because
the only way we can get back to eaten, which apparently was american in February twenty twenty now
Where were you at each other on our little zoom?
discussion here and wrong,
smiling, but we eat out cause it's it's I'm characterizing in this way, but that's real and, I think, and by
way. She loses and they accept the defeat. This is gonna, be the narrative of the defeat
he was on his way to an easy, real action and then the virus.
Said, and then the riots head and in no one
survived Johnson couldn't survive and sixty eight the he couldn't even run again. That's how bad it was for Johnson and he one sixty percent sixty two percent and sixty four.
And you know, no one could have survived it and he was actually successful. President, if you just take out the last six months of this presidency, wildly successful, insanely successful,
and presumably, if he runs again and twenty twenty four if he loses and twenty twenty that will be the pitch
he turned on his country around you
around. I know I just did that, but if you know it,
in regard to have this is shaping up for him for four November
He is, I think, there's an argument to remember that the Trump is being played beautifully, like
violin by his enemies. Here they are
ones. Who said he shouldn't even he bite. Why should we hear from him every day and EEG any collapsed and stopped the
as has been pushing for a trump voucher face off for months, and here I come you ve, given you John Russell, he hears it. He may think he's counter punching
and yet he's like a hamster in there we'll he's he is doing exactly what they want and its now and it's and there, and they were right to want these things. It's not working for
we'll be an effort to burnished the president's legacy, even among those within the party who are hostile towards him, are sceptical towards him to observe
of themselves, of complicity in this outcome were on, but with this pandemic has demonstrated his son
people within the republican Party. Even those who presented themselves as trumps allies happens, quietly critical of a mindless had something would make a drink quietly critical.
Over the course of the last several months now
was exacerbated by this, and that is his attitudinal predisposition towards perpetual,
political combat? It is something that people who
then on the right have been addressing among young students, for example, activist groups like turning
point. Usa, Nicky Hail,
when she addressed this talked about how you know stepped back and think about what you're doing when huge you're you're doing this kind of
rolling and then pursuing these kind of that. This political combat, which actually
achieve anything at all and so is discontent and discord and has absolutely no incremental policy effect on the direction which the country walls that will be part of the discussion as well, and there will be no avoiding the personality. Defects that was exacerbated by this pandemic and lead the public to lose a lot of faith and caught in the competence of this presidency. The leaders and attributes of God leaders can I
Can I go back in time a year? I think it's a year, maybe less, though I think it's almost exactly a year.
Nineteen trump has a series of successes. Let's say: ok, the Mulder report comes out and and effectively exonerates him from the charge that
emigrated from a smaller does not give anybody grounds to impeach him.
And says there is no evidence that he was a russian agent and all that.
In July of twenty nineteen they began. This effort to impeach viands credibility
by going to the Lansky in Ukraine and saying
You do me a favor and you know investigate Hunter Biden and his connection to this company that
India in July. I think it was July of twenty nineteen led to his impeachment right
was it is. This is the thing that letter was impeachment. Now you can say he was impeached and they didn't get a minute was,
yes, you can also say when you look at that that if he had turned the page move forward and had not jump, the gun on who was gonna be his,
rival and tried to impeach him. You know,
credibility or his trustworthiness and whatever in July.
The twenty nineteen. He could have kept
this powder dry, let it go cold and then
urge forward in the summer of twenty twenty with the Hunter Biden, you
in China.
Making money off these countries, corruption. All of that close
or to the election, and you know like
grown by another seals that could a bit. Maybe I don't know, but that could have been the you know, swift boats, we know the dog on the route, for you know, Bain killing,
people with cancer of this election. He did it ate
in months too early.
And shot himself in the foot, and so
narrative of, as I say, that
until his narrative than everything was wonderful in February and that then everything went terrible, Miss
the fact that what happened in January was the trump was impeached for the bit. The third president in history to be impeach. Now they did
voted out of office, but that doesn't matter
he summoned that upon himself entirely entirely
upon himself, and so this
So I think the key that the thing that aim talks about this trumpets playing the game in a troubles put
is putting himself just where they want him.
You could almost say started in July of twenty nineteen that it was like he was clear of impeachment. There was nothing they could do. Mahler did not give them the ground
and then he was like gonna play. Impeach me here. Let me do for fun
that you can actually make a legitimate case. Even if you shouldn't be removed
my office, but there is certainly a legitimate case that you can be impeached over this
So you are daring that, during the press to find his ministers right, so I think he's been office. Gay.
Now for a year, and that's a long time to be
For someone who is a got political who's got political instincts were what got him elected
sixteen to be off his gay rights, as has only been in politics really for fun
five years cell, if he if he was really good at it for four and then he really screws up in the fifth.
You know that's quite a long time in your political career to be making a gigantic set of mistake. Question is: is he Houdini cat dick
put himself in these restraints and
Earl of situations and then escape respected ways,
it sometimes he has several times the sun. I don't know that
continues, there's no reason to think that that is actually an integral part of who he is
I think we know that the negativity about Biden isn't didn't. Work for them
as of yet because there would be more of them. I mean that's. I think, where you're right, that the Trump versus Falchi, as some kind of a political counterweight to Trump has become the thing both for him
for his rivals, because the attacks on Biden have been ineffective.
Imagine a world in which the attacks on Biden, we're dealing with honey
in twenty twenty right now, and I think those attacks would stick in a different way, perhaps not that they would be fair, but they might stick in a different way because
right now. What Biden has done by going you in just hanging out his basement and only occasionally better back, build I've effort
Whenever that slogan he's come out with for his one. You know you policy proposal. Is it
he's arguing bye, bye
his silence that he would be more competent at what is going to happen.
What's going on now he take us back to the Obama years and if the hunter,
and although the kind of inside the Bell way, corruption, stuff started happening now, that's a more powerful message for the Trump campaign to offer the American
people say. Not only is it not that competent and he could point to wherever he went to point to its political decision making
the Obama ears. He could also
and say, look he's gonna returns to the same corruption that you ve me and for the first
is to get rid of it. I have cause I'm not doing this. That are neither that mean that I do think that message could be heard better now when people are a little more anxious and fearful again not
That's! How are we want our country to be, but it doesn't make sense it except in terms of looking at his temperament, and that is the, but no an ape you're saying he's he's very
you like. The other thing I look at is the council. This rally New Hampshire over the weekend, claiming that it was because the tropical storms say was gonna, make it impossible clear
That was an excuse that, whatever they were seeing in terms of enthusiasm in New Hampshire, suggested that people weren't gonna turn out the drugs that they wanted either, that was gonna, be embarrassing for him worry was gonna, be used as a weapon in the press or something like that. A trump campaign without these rallies is a trunk campaign that does not know what to do that. That was their innovation, where these, in our serve outdoor rallies, were little like stock car rally, but with a with a presidential candidate, the centre of them instead of cars smashing into each
that was, it turned out kind of a brilliant populist track, and if you look at them, you just don't know what what they're doing what you know, they're doing as they're, making a commercials with the campaign manager in the commercial right. There's this whole thing about how Brad PAR scale appear. There's a sixty seconds spot thing
that got up on social media by Trump and that Brad Parcels picture is in this is in it twice so
campaign manager handwriting that appealing to look out for even that length of time. Sorry that the campaign manager is using the Trump campaign to to make himself a celebrity rather than trying to
yet Trumpery elected, I mean I just look at it and your like someone very
Weird is going on here and they they ve, been testing messages against five for six months,
fact abiding steady exactly where he has just fifty percent is just right. There are fifty percent and trumpet down at forty one
forty two or even a little lower, nothing is working for them and me
Nothing can work for them because nobody is. Nobody cares because you know the pandemic and everything else is
crowded out, but gets you know
four months to the election, and they don't have an approach to win the elections as far as so with that
You will bid you a till tomorrow for a no,
jump adwords, keep the game
Transcript generated on 2020-08-02.