Chris Stirewalt joins us on the podcast today for continued analysis of the electoral trainwreck for Democrats this week and what on earth they think they're doing with the two bills in Congress in its wake. Give a listen.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the commentary magazine. Billy pot casts things Thursday November worth twenty twenty one. I jump upwards. The editor of commentary with me is always executive. Editor remark. I have a job.
associate editor nor Rossman Heine, our agents and senior rather, Christie rose high, Christine John,
and joining us today. Our old friend Christopher Walled Fox NEWS, analysed
cream for many years now, a skull
her at a I only Mercosur has ensued, a columnist for the dispatch and co host of the Friday podcasting,
they branches with our other friend elderly, ANA Johnson, from the free beacon Chris. How are you today? I feel like I'm starting
it slightly rested. I thought that with the Virginia results that I would not I was. I was short of I'm not going to care about watching. This is my first time not to say
and asking unimportant election and more than a decade, and I'm really gonna live it up, but man I'm a junkie-
They ve got to be like six, forty five and I was like get middle cold
and I had I had to I gave in- and I set up a figure in a very pitiful fashion, set up a fake, more room in my office to watch the returns comment and I am ashamed. I'm I'm proud of you. I am proud of you for for refusing to give in to the notion that Europe
past habits were somehow sinful. In fact they are indicative of somebody who takes the sorts of things. Are you done for living so seriously and that the habits of me
Aviary mind that you followed were very valuable and worthwhile. So, let's, let's try to deploy those in this fashion.
Everybody listen says. Podcast probably heard us yesterday give or take on what happened on Tuesday night. Do you have a like nugget graph yeah?
I don't wanna, take anything away from the excellence of the campaign that, when young and ran off him as a candidate is a natural, I think he, Otto
seriously think about running for President twenty twenty four. I think I've gotta, I think yadda she one that he had not make a mistake. Chris Christie did
cod lightning, in a bottle in two thousand and nine
So I think he did a very good job. I think term called did a very terrible job. That was a political malpractice level campaign. There was no pivot, he couldn't figure out. What to do.
he couldn't explain why he was running. They got caught and couldn't move, but I
to take nothing away from those factors, the site.
The swing over the course of four years in New Jersey and Virginia was almost identical and not to disparage Jack generally. But I don't think that race was a referendum on Jack generally
and when you look in Pennsylvania, they had Ass Supreme Court election. There was a vacancy and the Supreme Court Republicans
the very well there. So I
the it is in the water. I think that I think we are seeing something not dissimilar.
The two thousand and nine and two thousand ten, and also by the way, two thousand and seventeen in two thousand eighty okay. So if you go further afield from pencil later, you have the long island races in New York. You have a republican winning as the police.
chief in Seattle, which, on the one hand, is incredibly surprising because no one no Republican has won, there may be in three decades may be for decades and on the other hand, of course, not surprising in the least,
guess. Seattle descended into the night circle of Hell over the last two years and they represent
Republic with an electorate that is able to respond to events responded to,
hence in the only way that they could, which was to say the weather, is running this. We better get rid of before our city. You know self internet forums like Lisbon during out
in their does destroyed, like Lisbon and in the seventeenth century. So you have served uniform swing in some ways and.
that's very striking, because we we usually wait. We now know that the two thousand nine gubernatorial races work.
Avenger of the twenty ten shall lacking, but we didn't know that in two thousand, nine well
Now what I say I see I see I see no shaking off. We do. You know
the outcome of the Virginia,
Virginia gubernatorial election. This is now ten out of the last twelve cycles has been predictive a mid term,
the cops and high correlation because put it this way
you're looking at now. This is on a much larger electorate than in some previous cycles, but these are measures of intensity
more than more than anything else. These are measures
which party has vote
If you are willing to get off of their of their took us as their took I and go down
the no vote in when it wanted
the presidential year, it's not whatever. Sadly, this visa measurement of engagement and an activist asian and the the these are always Audrey's, these are always being
Yet I would like to add that I was was campaigns in elections,
at the time and everybody. I spoke with said that this is a giant meteors screaming towards earth. We see it it's there. We all were watching it and there's nothing. We can do about it with the exception of one thing, which has to pay our agenda member weight in November. Two thousand nine, yes
Immediately after the first week of November, two thousand nine people set of media screaming our way with the canadian class that I was talking to yes, and it only right that in things precisely guessing
Iraq has the same: ok, ok, but but the point is that we have had one mid term election, one mid term elections before it.
That had the kind of I'm actually had to be. You count count. Nineteen, forty seven. All of that now we have a couple of mid term elections that had these wild swings, but the Gingrich ninety
for election was a unique event in my political lifetime. In the in the
MAGIC saw the sheer size and scope right was fifty two seats. Nobody expected sixty three seats and twenty
and there was the whole point- is the reason I'm I'm bring this. I have to say that that that something is very big
in two thousand, and you may have heard all these people say was screaming and Chris you may have said that the media were swimming toward them, but I dont think that the conventional opinion was it was yeah. There's this discontent.
we're still dealing with the financial meltdown- and you know the money hasn't started to flow yet from the stimulus and we haven't healthcare hasn't past. Yet
and so we're all going to be safe and two thousand and ten there's going to be a recovery. Just give me a huge economic recovery recovery summer is coming and the bacon will be pulled by the fire. I think now, because of two thousand and nine and two thousand and eleven cuz of this election in
twenty one? I don't think there is a person alive who pays attention to politics who doesn't think that the Democrats are in catastrophic shape going
into twenty twenty lessons tat, I could breathe that it could breed complacency among Republicans, and it could also breed the one desperate thing that could happen. The Democrats, which is a desperate effort to strike on a strategy to avoid the asteroid that might actually
the work doubt it, but the echo had parallels to two thousand nine and twenty ten are pretty strike
insignificant, and there are some Democrat saying as much because they're doing the exact same things are rode up. You, Son MSNBC, for them
on this topic in
with two thousand nine posts. New Jersey, Virginia election results
The strategy was to call Republicans obstructionist they're, not advancing our agenda. This
strategy was to say that I have an agenda of their own. The strategy was to say they were extremist and, to the extent that they had any
political predilections. They were well outside the scope of what Americans would accept, and also the only way out of this for us is to pass this agenda that has radicalized
the electorate against us in the first place. That is everything your hearing into. Doesn't nine you are hearing today from this the very same people who think they can talk themselves out of this trap that Dave this corner. They painted themselves into in two thousand
Kraken, two thousand and nine two thousand and ten. The consultant class was talking a lot about one thousand nine hundred and eighty four and saying one thousand nine hundred and ninety four
available.
its avoidable. Now, if we do this strategy that the implementing today, as we know and Republicans,
Exactly the same thing in twenty seventeen show the twenty seven,
results in Virginia and New Jersey Shore
I've been republican should have taken from that like this, it does not look good. They should have taken some views, but they don't take cues. They never take used
reason they don't take uses, they engage and motivated reasoning. If what you want to do is pass a six trillion
our social safety NET Bud deficit spending package. Then everything
going to look like that. That's what everything's gonna sake but knows a hundred thousand percent right Obama care in two thousand and nine show people were
concerned about the recession be more still concerned about. We were still at seven eight- nine percent unemployment people
Mary, very anxious and Democrats said no.
You have to do healthcare now we just got what I can do. Immigration, we're not gonna, do gun control and I can do anything else. We're gonna! Do this even after Start Brown, one! The sea in Massachusetts,
I did it anyway, so there's nothing John you can ever tell you can't tell them anything because everything to them will sound like, and this is why we must immediately God take them on flow, while I think, in terms of the democratic response, the victors one difference now that makes what they're up to this-
time round less effective, because their leaning on a crutch, that's not working that they didn't have been, which is Donald Trump Ride.
that that is yet another thing that I dont see.
Dispensing with any times soon
without job is the one who gets to choose that that the interesting thing about
China is the absence of tromp. The dog that did not bark helps us understand a big part of how, when you can well what the
it also speaks the power of truck. If trumpet have wanted to. He could have lost that race for Glenn Young and he could have done it in four or five days. He could have come to Virginia.
he could have done in Virginia what he did in Georgia run off and he could have absolutely consummate see and what
that's not from apart from a lot of politicians is he is
absolutely willing to harm himself other people. Everyone is a political suicide bomber.
And that is why republicans are afraid of
Well, he demanded try. Didn't he I'm sorry, I'm briefly didn't he put out the statement where he said. Essentially, I control your voters. They common they go on my whim. You d find me at your will and that kind of land like a lead balloon.
He left a little bronze or streaks on Virginias election a little bed. There were there at the review there, a few clinic donor whites left around, but in the end he made the choice to see.
and he gave one interview where he was a little sour about young can and certainly if young man would have lost. What would you have said because he did not fully.
grace may. This is why he was defeated right, but I think in the hall he recognized the degree to which he was a liability. Can I can I add, to that. Actually, I'm curious Chris. What you think about that? There's one huge chunk of the electorate that clearly decided the victory for young and and elsewhere. We see evidence, that's independence, people who voted for Biden and then swung to the Republican and those are the people who actually dont like tromp. I assume
These are the rights of the people that were turned off by Trump, and it's it's intriguing to me that the democratic political class are very carefully trying to avoid confronting the reality of those
voters right because they don't really want to call them racist cause. They need them to win next time, but they are also really annoyed that they voted for a Republican who they feel, as you know, white supremacy in a fleeced s. So how do you? How is our both the Republicans gonna? Keep those voters next next time round and how the Democrats gonna
it with them if they don't even know how to talk to them or about the sort of thing in turn, a call off a Clinton, democratic and sort of enthusiastic sleaze by
Ride like Terek term Carlos Brand is on the bag man and on the pragmatic, Quint night. That's that's my friend, and he knows he knew what to do term call of wood it. If you were
rising a candidate. He would have said what here's, what you have to go. Did you gotta talk out of.
yeah can did this to a certain degree talk out about side, your mouth, he had one
message that works over here we're going to talk about critical race theory a little bit we're going to focus on the schools, because people are going to cast onto that issue whatever is in their heart and whether you are a Biden Voting parent in Fairfax County who could not believe the incredible maltreatment of children.
mandated by the teachers unions, that was the huge
pain, economically and emotionally and developmentally on the children of Virginia by the studies really shocking, so he was able to speak
you found a way to speak about those audiences. At the same time, the caliph would have known what to do, except for the fact- and I blame the count
if you recall quite a lot on this Calvin
He calls never gonna happen. That was never
went to take place
once California. Voters, like I dont want Ghana Newsome to be governor, but you're, saying if I
How to recall Larry Elder will become governor. No, absolutely not we're not going to do that and
but the lesson- and I did hits on multiple networks and taught him.
Multiple people were like the Trump factor, really worked in California. I know California worked in California what're you talking about
the timing of how that worked out democratic brought into Virginia
an absolute believe that talking about Donald Trump was the way to frighten these voters away. But two things happened: number one drop dead, stay away. That was very important, but number two Mccall I've found himself trapped between
the two constituencies, when, when Rainy Weingarten is part of your closing argued
what you are admitting is that you have lost the debate right. You you, you ve been defeated.
in the central area of the debate, and now all you can do- is turn up the base. If I were
my credit control. I would be saying we have a problem.
all of these suburbs, with the teachers, unions and the teachers the schools
become a massive liability, and our relationship with the air of tea in the NBA has led us into a really Dyer straight. Where were no longer able to talk to voters about defends the better to that. As I wrote yesterday, this was still a pandemic collection.
it was an election about the pandemic in New Jersey was about masks
but in Virginia it was about schools. I mean
to the a point that I made yesterday. Also that, I believe is good
astonishingly, little attention. This is
go the dominating event of our of armed men. Maybe not of our lifetimes would certainly valleys lifetimes and it touches every
single issue. Every issue was informed by it. So if you ask people whether covered is there,
one issue in Virginia, they they didn't say was. I think that you came in third or fourth, but if you say
the economy and education are one and to the economy as a covert economy, an education,
is about the treatment of students and parents in the way in the both. During and in the immediate wake of the aftermath of the worst of the panel
and we are nowhere near done with this. Yet I mean we have this story this morning right that OSHA is going to regulate all private,
this over one hundred employees to get vaccinated or have weekly testing.
But it's gonna wait a couple of months because it's gonna screw up the supply chain before Christmas or screw up people's Chris
So it's an emergency regulation that takes place in two months having been directed and announced its creation two months ago. So it's four months from Biden saying we have an emergency we're going to impose these mandates on private businesses.
And four months later, the mandate is imposed. No, I don't, I suspect there will net. This will never happen
Courts are going intervene and say that it was a that it to its unconstitutional and that doesn't follow the law on how to declare an emergency or Biden himself will try to declare victory and get out
yeah they'll, be a decline in cases and he'll say we don't really need this any more. I still encourage businesses to do it now that, once the full damage is known but
all they are doing here is is connecting themselves too.
The regulatory impositions caused by call them and they are directly associating themselves with them, and some people, like the comfort of thinking that the government is involved, but I'm pretty sure that most people are uneasy. This is in
The thesis that I wrote for the magazine website yesterday that yesterday, that democratic tethered themselves to a series of positions that are nothing less than the neurotic Americans.
Like the status quo that isn't opposed on them bike over, they want a way out, but poor Democrats who shape their narrative, don't think, don't want to weigh out the kind of like this Americans don't like racial conflict, it like to diffuse it. They want to avoid it. They want a way out. Democrats won't give them
In fact, Europe. This conference is indicative of how this is actually working on you and it's good for society as a whole. They want to two I as an offer, an escape hatch from all of this discomfort and Democrats. Don't.
What are you doing you? Don't you know how neurotic it's it's going to look if, if the, if this serve winters bump
It happens, resembles at all the way.
Of course, I don't mean the rise and can get lessons gather that the covered the piazza because of the cold weather right, if it looks anything like it did last year, that bump starts falling after that,
nowadays, which would which would then be when the emergency measures are. Ours are supposed to take place. You know what, once once we get over the worst of it
key needs they need. They meet Republicans in some ways. What republic is needed for this to go on politically? It gives them a file. It gives him a file to say where, for your freedom, where we are for you escaping the heavy hand of this,
your government that you tell us that only forty two percent of you say you like the current president and his and his governmental approach. There would be nothing better for Republican
then, for this to continue politically because it every single day it Biden, Democrats, equal Covet Biden, Democrats, equal covert and the whole thing that happened in twenty twenty witches trump equals covered, that helped kill. Trump has been compiled,
We supported the even though Democrats have this idea. There had. The Trump remains Euro remains a towering evil and rallying cry. They
I need to get out of this. Democrats need to be able to say we got you out of this were out of this and now we're gonna do all sorts of good and wonderful things for you,
but to know as point there is a strain in it. I think broader than just covert peasant. It applies to the attitudes about race and critical race.
Green those debates there's a strain in the elite, democratic, well, educated, urban dwelling population. That is all about doing the work you ve got to do the work on race you're supposed to be uncomfortably gotta. Do the work on covert you're supposed to feel uncomfortable en masse in an because it's just so much worse for everybody else who you have to suffer now the way that previous generations have suffered and all these other ways, and there is something so they love that there's a kind of martyr ology there that they have fully embrace and their running a lot of these institutions. Today,
they don't want to get out, even if their political officials are starting to see the light about needing to well. A certain good God knows goes. A Abe has just reviewed for the next issue commentary
I join my quarters, but who were read it out just about dimension? A really are well that's a great minds, think alike and a view you? U evoke this essentially presbyterian. I mean that water identical place.
We need to start button as another all dark ever that better tat apparent tat uncle is for now, as is written, whose book coming out the spring, but I mean essentially it's a presbyterian
hold your hammer. The deployment of order says it is a run of the lira and there's a presbyterian on this call. The term that mcwhirter uses as Elect shall arrive. Let's leave us Presbyterians out of us are ok. I apologize I anyway, seven a can you I mean so in essence, the idea that you know there's the buddhist idea that suffering
Brings you know it brings you acknowledge, but in this case it is more that you know the acknowledgement of sin living in sea now, accepting that
that's not what had ass yet that's the main goal is to highlight it took to point out the sin that, by the way, you can never expunge.
What happened here take my covered, but it's it's related in terms of this or self regulation. The sin that you can never expunge of white racism to hold it out there of of white supremacy to hold it out. There say look at this: this we live with this.
Every day this this this governs everything we do and by the way, Mcwhirter talks about this. That doing the work of that that that is that, if there is a huge part of the actual sort of religious practices, that is the practice and can I can I just say in response to the crisis.
written extensively about populism, which is essentially a counter forced to this or across all generations, and in american history, which is, it is one thing for outside for businesses. For this, for religious figures and all that to preach, you know,
you must atone for your sins and your evils and do the work right. It is another for it to come from governments and popular,
in some ways has always been a plea to serve a bleat
frustration with the idea, somehow that foreign forces larger than yourself are coming
and weighing in on you and weighing down on you and trying to ruin your life, and that is where the populist, where that were crossed, cross political divisions here, but maybe not cross class divisions, because the upper middle class in the upper classes of kind of embrace this religion to some extent, but
in populist terms. Again, they are just handing anti non current Lee in charge, people a baseball bat to beat the people in charge over their heads with every single minute of every day. I just want to add: there's there's another parallel between the religion that water identifies the above of Elect ISM and its approach to what white
Primacy and Covid Wiki Stat3 points out that, but nothing in all the activism and all the talk and everything about the country's racism is actually geared toward stopping it toward toward any actual resolution. It's about keeping it alive because of it, because that keeps the face a lot
This is very much about covet right. This is this: is it's a very similar dynamic in terms of the of the suffering its never supposed to stop so filled Chris? If I'm right about this unpopular
terms and we're going into twenty twenty two
How? How will this manifests itself, because this now, of course, then can also divide populism from Trump, because it isn't just trumpet, isn't just it isn't just vaguely they're coming to get you it is this specific group of people have these specific policies in Virginia its education, but it could flare up again to be directly about coded uncovered restrictions of all about. How does that? How will that? How will we see
at manifest itself in political terms. If it is a successful message, what is David Brooks his term for the Bobo Populous that support tromp? I forget because he added yet in me,
acknowledges I'm about these, you know that the
a populist Bobo's math. How does a guy,
who is in a two hundred thousand dollar bow and lives in Naples, Florida and was, and is a retired executive. How does he feel like a populist right? What is popular mystic about him haven't, because populism requires a sense of victimhood
requires a belief that that sinister forces beyond you from a group that you're not part of our colluding against you write Howdah
out when we talk about replacement theory and other stuff, and you look at people who are wealthy. You
people who are well established in their freaking out? You like what makes you so popular because they don't know they. They dont have self reference in the same way, people who are part of MC warders alive
or no one is, the term. We should be using an anticipation alone
The return of you know about but puritanical, but the Puritans referred to themselves as the elected not alive in a congregation of church, you were elect once you ascended to the church, which is the perfect algae. I use, and I don't call it a religion. How is steadily religious, and that is indeed the point I'm just try to push prevails here.
On a push for your that's. What I wanted to thank you very much, shell out a leverage that later on, but please Asia. How do these people, who are supported by corporations?
supported by, as you say, the government itself that have planned
to the highest ranks of power, the control large swathes of the academy. How did they feel
activated and popular Stick and he owed all the time. What is it that makes it possible? They say it's racism everything's that there are shadowy forces beyond our control. Do I would say there all populist right
monster the Webster's, an Magda millionaires who were who are in there in their boats with the prompt flags, are all popular because
Capitalism is a methodology that an ideology. I believe Democrats and we'll talk about it.
At the beginning in two thousand and eight Democrats believe that a portal had opened that was going to do?
export America in the STAR gate had opened in America.
I was going to move into the glorious progressive future. The
Financial panic of two thousand and eight has manifested itself in the election of the most liberal african american
Morocco Mama change
this now and we had to act urgently to create this change. Twenty twenty. They thought the same thing was true.
Covered, had opened up the portal again and that covered
going to be the means by which we would address all of these problems while we're at it lets fix policing while were added. Let's address: let's, let's have some retributive racial justice while we're at it. Let's do it all
here. Let's just go, for it has their addicted to the new deal there addicted to thinking about things. In those terms, the depression has
gave the attitudes of the Democratic Party for now almost a century and usually to their detriment. The problem is that that's not how a marrow
this field, and you correctly, you guys know you and John, both correctly identified. What do Americans want? They want it to be over. They want, whatever the next normal
A slight people want the good life and the voters.
Talking about in places like Loudon County Virginia. Why do they live in love? Can we reject?
They live in London County because they want the good life they want. Low crime
good schools and what their little yard they want to take their kids trick or treating that's why they live in loud and counting. That's why they commute.
and that is the reality for democratic.
It is too late already because they already tried
go through the Stargate. They already tried to get in and they're going to get they're going to get chopped in half as they try to go through. Okay, so look in two thousand and eight after two thousand and eight you can say that Obama had a credible case.
Four transformational change. He won by nine points. There were sixty. He added filibuster proof majority in the Senate,
I'm looking at the members here, he had to enter. Democrats had two hundred and fifty seven seats in the house,
I didn't comes into office. He wins by four points he lux into a fifty fifty Senate because of the psychotic behaviour of the sitting, president in the to run off in Georgia and loses his party loses fifty,
seats in the house so that he has a majority of less than ten and somehow
and even I have a whole disagreement here on the podcast as to whether or not this means that Biden is a fool or whether he's an idiot. He was gone,
Klineline leaving gold into believing by having John Mitchell endorse Kurds goodwill.
And other I notable historians of newsmagazine genius
in to explain to how. If you read three bucks,
her life. You might think that you were Sdr or I'll be J and, of course, as I was, as I say, constantly l b J came into office. He won by twenty two points,
he had sixty nine democratic senators and a margin in the house of a hundred and fifty five seats.
And they passed. Seventy pieces of legislation and nineteen sixty five, the concept of the great society, and you know why they did it because there was a mandate from the american people
they could do, whatever the hell they wanted and you'll notice. By the way, the Johnson did not end up being president in nineteen sixty nine, despite all that right, so there's Biden, five, six, seven Saint majority in the house, no majority in the Senate, a victory by four and a half points against the most the craziest
weirdest. President who ever lived- and he believes that he has a mandate for the bills that are about this one bill. It is about the collapse in the house. They which I want to get too. Like I mean
There's nothing in Virginia results at all that wasn't evident in the two
in the twenty twenty results
there's nothing evident in Virginia results that you couldn't have seen in the twenty twenty results in all of the things that you describe.
Republicans gained one legislate, legislative chamber and twenty twenty men lose any. They gain one governorship in twenty twenty, they didn't lose any other gains.
in the house and, as you say, if it were not for D J t they would have retained, can
one of the Senate and the twenty twenty top of it? That jump? The fact and Joe Biden had reverse coattails in twenty twenty should have been and was to some small Democrats the message of guys. We we have a tiger by the tail here. We gotta find a way to pick the things that people like
To do first, we gotta pick the things that people like and what is named David sure David Shore talked very
convincing way about this? The
the Jeff now or and his newsletter I might be wrong. Substance is great he's another liberal Democrat who sang guys you gotta call. Now you have to do things that people like, and I will just end in closing on this- the fact that the progressive caucus held up
what would have been an incredibly popular infrastructure Bell in Virginia money for the ports,
in Hampton Roads money for
commuters in Northern Virginia money money
Virginia would have been a huge beneficiary of that legislation and that the progressive caucus is held that up as if they were, if they d passed it is they should it Joe? By
and what have been in Virginia saying my friends when sixty six is point
Five hundred miles are twenty five hundred range wide and will carry you in
a shift of Colombia on a wreck shop, he wouldn't blame.
do all of that and
people would have been pleased, but the progressive said now- and this is an ado- this is a direct caught- a drum drives all I want to get to that. But first let me talk to you about something that we men have to deal with, which is a comfort and our clothing dislike women's. Do you're a busy guy. You know what that means. You can stop thinking about what to wear and just embraced the radically efficient MAC Weldon Daily, where system, a selection of clothes rooted in smart design, made with performance, fragment fabrics and build to work together from breathing
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I met a guy, I used to know a guy. I was at the University of Chicago West when I was going to graduate and like seven or eight year, and he was he was working on a dissertation in the Divinity School in seven or eight years later I go back to Chicago
Oh, am I run into him and he had said to me just boys, leaving. This is great in oak, I'm about a mere I'll be done next week, I'll be done next week
I'll be finished, actually gets really great man. Eight years later I go back Chicago and I run into
and I'm like? Has it going like all my dissertation? It it's gonna be done next week so steadily higher than
The person in the house last night, said we're gonna passed both bills, the infrastructure bill and the Big bear build back better bill tomorrow. He said this on Monday. He set it on Tuesday. He said at last week now today were getting me. They're gonna passer tomorrow, I'm getting this with this waiting for Godot Whiff of the bill that will never pass, is gonna pass and that for some reason,
it seems to be stuck in standing, whereas and maybe Nancy policies heads that it is a positive for them to be using this kind of we're about to vote on. This are we're about to pass this. Maybe it'll happens. They may be won't every time they do it it it it. It justifies Noah's and my sense that we ve been talking about four weeks that none of this may happen at all. Why are they do? And we should talk about the particulars of what's going on because they have shifted strategy right,
I would say first that, given the cast, this may be more waiting for government and waiting for Godot. Ah, but government shows up shows up at the third act of waiting for governments
so. I know you never shows up. I know he doesn't show up, that's right, the Gaza guy. They mistake, I anything just government right, they mistake. I say the guy who played variety in the Jefferson's. Yes, the trail bennydeck to throw a nice. I Shan T, let alone I should have known you anywhere. Please go please, Sir Hole
On the one hand, if you're
wherein policy you have to create, continue to create
sense of urgency around this time, and you have to continue to do that because, let's say out I'll give it a one in five chance that the social welfare package dies completely and then it doesn't get past. I think there is almost no chance
but the bipartisan package that thinks it or not, no chance, but I think the chances of the bipartisan baggage dying in the house.
Are very low because that parties are not suicide pacts and I dont
and you're going to have enough Democrats who would go along with scuttling a popular bell that they would all like to go home and run on? Everybody would like to be able to go up. Does what what they most want? What do the members of Congress always want? They want to stay, they want to get reelected, that's always job one,
number two. What are they want right now? They want to not be here. They want very
Thirdly, to leave this place, and
What queer and blowsy are trying to do is create a sense of urgency run both of these things as its happening and love. I, if I
a democratic? I would violate the Democrats in Congress. I would say: has them both asked?
and go away.
whatever is in the than the second one, even if it's at one point whenever, whatever that, whatever Kristen Cinema has woken up today and decided the correct number, as do that, get out and run it
from this and then go home and figure out what you're gonna be ok. Well, that strategy involves a second part of it, which would be to add two completely reproduce in its every every,
aspect of it saved the identities of the individual assist a soldier moment. Yet. Bake in example, make one stand right next to Jesse Jackson or whoever the equivalent is and denounced them
catch him overboard right under the bus. You got us here. You can't do that, and I won't do that self,
Duration, instinct, lombardy. That ok, I don't think that's right. For this reason, I think that policy, I think
If I view her as a rational actor, what I think happened is she realised that that the bill back better plan is dead, able
ever passed. There is never going to be one, therefore they're gonna loaded.
With whatever they want and passage through the house.
so they can say that they passed the bill through the house in the Senate, killed it
the positioning statement, then great that's cool now, but it's about buildings jeopardizes members in the upper chamber, ok
She doesn't care about the members in the upper chamber right screw the members in the upper chamber. She can
However, if she does it this way and the progressive are stupid enough to go along with it and oddly, the moderates are stupid enough to go along with it. She can't get the that the infrastructure bill, because if she can get a vote on build back, better should get a vote on infrastructure infrastructure will pass, build back, better will pass infrastructure bill back, better is dead, they should just added back family paid leave which,
like a hundred hundreds of billions of dollars. They're gonna put five or six things in their today. If they vote on it, they're going raise the costs the bill by a trillion dollars, because they already have some doubt that that that bill will never pass. This is all of this is all a smokescreen to get the bill to get the infrastructure bill past.
Finally, and through the grasses didn't say, we voted on, and we tried to get this out in these these fascists, where coal, mining, fascist or West Virginia
but also show that none of our football team, the coal mining fashion, it is, and it is actually, I believe, the line back say I was an end so that so that's that's for the progressive. The interesting question now goes to the moderate. She only has three vote. Yes through three mode margin, if that, if the bill back better bill that they designed today comes back and somebody costs it out, a two and a half trillion dollars.
Three moderates could vote against it. They know the bills and going anywhere what why would they want to vote for it? Abigails bamberger is already probably now gonna
lose in Virginia
if she wants to run for reelection in that seat, that she, you know that she managed to steal and twenty eighteen, she might be better off votes being able to walk around saying I killed this insane bill, I'm the same Democrat, who was here keeping Democrats saying that, rather than voting for it is a good soldier. Can I just ask
that that that that's an important point, because even if they can bully all the moderates into going along with this larded up thing, just which is, as you all I think rightly say, would just be killed in the Senate, their sent their taking back a message to all.
As independent voters. Saying not just saying look, we did something, but they stopped it. That's the message it just lost in the last elections. What they're saying is we really dont care about all the spending people or are responding to economic questions on pulling the day care? They actually are paying attention to these massive numbers are worried about them, and this is the wrong message that
before it's not possibly gonna work out with voters and, as we ve said, really allow many times now. Independence, in particular, are drawing the straight line between profligacy in Washington in their worsening personally economic conditions. That's not gonna get any better. This is all bubble talk if they think that they can lead.
Like their way out of this again, but what we said the beginning, the park ass. They just want to road map out of where we are now, and that's not what they're getting so that the hostage taking of the press and caucus is very, very much reminds me.
and the tea Party and the freedom Carcass back and back in the days when they ate John Vainer alive
Policy has been willing to do that banner would not do, is take painful votes, force, painful vouch for moderates. It was.
chart of how they lost so many seats in twenty ten because of the dumb cap and trade
oh- that was never going to advance in the Senate, but she insisted on it anyway and forced modern chic. I don't know how many of the seats that the sixty three seats Democrats lost in twenty ten was because of cap and trade, but if it was one
It was one too many cuz. It was never going to pass in the Senate, but in order to placate her most radical members, she just forces about by the way
get in the car, they become speaker. That is exactly the kind of speaker. He will be well be tied. The republican moderates under Speaker Kevin Mccarthy because he will have no problem making them walk the plank. What I hears, what I expect of it, if I was going to say what's that what's
it's not a high probability but the highest probability scenario, just as you describe John there,
oh here we go here, is our dumb package that is incense eight to the messages from the Senate wearing a pass. It is a message in bell anyway, and we're gonna do it. Now we can release the popular bell and let that pass by
Will it that way, it will be December? It will be in two December before whatever the final resolution is on the social welfare package, and in that case that starts to bought up against the new fiscal cliffs. And now we are,
You ve got a government funding issue. We ve got these other things and now they're all in one big wad and here's hit. But might my much like cleverly, my my prediction? Is:
pain and it will be pain dragged into almost into the new year
actually here, where we'll have Democrats fighting with each other about the same issues still and doing it against the backdrop of of fiscal panic and concern about this,
are you forget the most important congressional priority, which is Christmas Break yet Horace Greeley thus cannot class. Briefly what legit, religiously house leadership has now previewed today
about maybe on baby beat an eye and a b, F B. I have tomorrow as of last night. It was you know, maybe tomorrow steady said, city horse had maybe tomorrow, but then today he also said. Maybe this week at last week we had no net
bless you sort of flexing her muscles for progressive and sang. Listen, we're gonna, put this infrastructure vote on the floor, your it's gonna be open, forever, you're gonna vote and you're gonna kill it, and that's your choice and you're going to suffer the consequences that never happen. Does leadership have any capacity now to force regret for progressive than that the progressive cost actually
support. Their initiatives, it seems, like leadership, is just bluffing, bluffing, bluffing and being called constantly. But let me add to that. I want to go back to the moderates.
granted. There aren't many moderates, but there are more than enough to kill the battle like if you are granted so so they're gonna stuff, something in the Josh got homer. Who, who is? Who is what
people who has to look at his future in northern New Jersey and say we and the mission in any. There was some turn out there that doesn't look very promising for me and the new era that results are worse news for Democrats than the Virginia results are fundamental way way worse for small. Technically speaking, the swinging in in in New Jersey was fifteen points was only twelve in Virginia New Jersey was fit
in point where they live with a candidate? Who literally spent almost no money? I mean it was a total rejection by your Josh God, Homer, so they're they're gonna stick something in on the an unrestrained money for thee
for the tax deductibility of very popular deduction in poor states, very popular for rights to back the pit, the Good NEWS right, how bout millionaires and donors if your Josh got high, my? U at certain,
sure Abigail Spam, and they only need five more. I don't even know who they are
MRS Guy shredder, in in in Oregon,
Washington, I don't know like they would be better, served being the killers of the bill that will never pass. Then they would voting
to be voting on to be get along to go along person unless there is a credible threat of a left wing primary challenger. So I dont know what the cross purposes here: Emily's focusing on the the progressives, but when you have a three seen parching every individual got there they're all mansion and cinema in the House and in the
mention in cinema. By the way I should point out. I think this is true in the house to hiding behind a mention in cinemas. Skirts are a bunch of other democratic senators,
Catherine Cortez Master gases. Maggie has, and what's his name in Arizona how legally wholly there a bunch of other Democrats, you are very happy not to be having leap. Arrests of change coalition running adds against them in their home state, but also very happy that mansion, who is the only Democrat who can possibly get elected, stay, widen West Virginia standing
I'm saying thanks, but no thanks. I'm sure that there is a factor of vat in the house, but I would just say this is an illusion.
Why? I believe the problem solvers carcass envy,
these people who are focusing on it
he ought to policy centralism, should change their focus to procedural centralism, and I,
this should be the case in the Senate, to the issues here are about restoring regular order and getting things back to working in a normal way, and no matter,
but in the end, if you play the game where we are
goes and hides the ball, and we wait until the end, and then we bring out the piece of legislation at the end. The tempting
four guys I got home timer is: I want to be in the room where it happens and be part of making the belt really
we should be using their leverage to create chain.
That allows legislation to be created in a way that is more rational and more reflective of the interests of the members who include a lot more moderate. Ok, I want to come to a right after I talk to you about Express VP in every time you connect to an unencrypted network in cafes, hotels, airports, etc. Your online data is not
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on the go, secure your online data today by visiting expressive, bbn that comes lashed commentary, that's experience S vp and dot com, slashed commentary, and you can get an extra three months free expressly pm that calm, slash commentary Abe. You sent us a text a little earlier. That said, and I think this is really well well put, if I can find it a use head binds, issues are all crashing into one. Another buttons
problems is quite wrong crises. The crises are crashing into one another. So, if you think about what went on with the decision to announce the delay, but still the implementation of the vaccine mandate add to that the congressional stuff, you know it's easy to glow,
or say you know. We told you so and all that, but go ahead glory of all
but maybe there was a big. Is the supply chain crisis crashing into the vaccine mandate right quickly? Bureaucracies is, I don't know who the hell Mary to look as, if he's doing something extra effective on covered here,
What without making the supply chain crisis were worse but but now, of course, he's got.
Additional problem because as we ve,
he said, and Pakistan the the
the emergency mandate cannot be an emergency, its delayed two to four months
jurisprudence around that I was just researching this this morning. A fifth circuit had the overturned and eat he S. The e in that area stands for emergency
because what is in it, he s an emergency temporary standard that OSHA issues in order to protect workers from substances that might be harmful conditions and might be harmful. What have you before? They reach
It can be done into whether those substances actually are harmful. It's it's a temporary standard to protect workers and, if stood, if the emergency standard does not in does not sufficiently demonstrate emergency, or is
is used as a stopgap measure that would otherwise be dealt with by a private institutions. Private businesses- it is not. It is not applied
What's a regulation that cannot be implemented so that by the ministration might be killing it just canning, get to the courts to kill it
with which would be very much in keeping with the
the vandalism. That is
popular in both by him in the presidency's both parties- I'll just do it, and then the courts will stop me, and I can.
say that I've tried everything. I can t say that explicit he's looking for David, our railway. He did not stop me from other with echoes the house to what's to stop right now, one of the things that may get stuck into the maggots shoved into the build back better build a wall that may pass and then be dead in the house when it goes to the Senate is arm or a warm regulation
things involving immigration in order to satisfy the demands of three members of a routine ex? Can't you now conference or something truly Garcia to other people that the set
parliamentarian has already said, cannot be an a bill because they don't have it has no budgetary. There are no budgetary. Specific consequences are issues involved in passing this legislation, which is
allows this legislation in the Senate to avoid being subject to filibuster as a reconciliation bill, insisting that you get a thing past vote at a new vote into law that you know cannot pass because it violates whatever. In other words, the lawlessness or the anti no mean ISM. Is
is everywhere. It is everywhere. It's not just the you know in setting the dreamers announcing, we can't wait and serve saying I'm legalizing. The dreamers, like a president, has that power or other stuff that that that trumpeted. Why in our world.
To immigration law or whatever, and then this- and it's like that's, why you are procedural centralism idea- is so important because
not that were Banana republic were not a banana republic, but if, but if the way, if politicians don't take seriously their promised up a uphold, the constant uphold the constitution and be don't you know serve like agree to rules, Roberts, rules of or whatever don't agree to a common and understandable set of
all's, we may not be at a banana republic. We just may be in some kind of a disturbing in horror show in which in which there are no. There is no path way forward for anything. That is that you can follow in a systematic and makes sense, so you can plan
If you keep talking this way and recording heard a year, you ve all event will materialise in the room. If you keep talking like this and will just happen so big,
I mean that's good, but it is like beetle juice. If you say that enough times he will occur. Luck the biggest
facing America today are Trans partisan problems. These are not problems of the
If there are problems of the right, they are institutional problems. We have strip mind
the credibility of institutions for fifty years,
in the United States,
and we have. We are all populous. Now right, we are all those idiots thinking about. One of the miracles of the Virginia election is that Glenn Young is a normal rich
He is a credentials accomplished individual who did not run as a wild hair, a crazy. We ve got a tear down everything. He said, I'm a pretty much. He is like a golden. Retriever were a politician. This would be Lenin in obviously fleece best, but the problems that we confront is that no one wants to be the
right now one wants to say: we have a lot of things that we do in the United States by the way that our legal, but not constitutional and the
there's so much that exists in that space speech to the very problem that you I doubt if I- and there is a lot of what can we get away with, there are serious reforms that we needed
the centre primary elections that we need to consider in all of these other things, but a great place to start in very great place to start would be to let Congress be Congress again
and God I hope there is. I hope there is some well for that to happen, because if we keep on like this, we well we will.
I think the way banana republics turn into banana republics is that the institutions fail the people and then the people
it is a vicious cycle where the institutions found the people, the people feel the institutions and it ended spirals down what? If we look at the last three presidents, ok, even for you can go back to Bush right, so Bush, not a political person from a political family gets elected,
governor of Texas six years later as president, why doesn't have it doesn't have a Washington record? He s to defend. You know, had a successful governorship in about a week, governor shepherdesses into and taxes and gets himself elected with no background two thousand eight. We get a president who served one term. Didn't you know
said the right singing one speech in two thousand and two at least when it came to his party about a rock didn't look like he was but carrying the burdens of the past, like like his arrival and Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton gets elected two thousand, and sixteen people go even he even he.
is to political figure. We're gonna go with somebody who has no political record whatsoever and they go with Trump, a man who has never run for office again he becomes president and he thinks up the joy
and then they go with a guy who's been in politics for fifty years literally now next year will be as fiftieth year in politics and he's thinks up the joint. So we kind of have a leadership crisis in this one sense, which is to say we have designed r r r, our modern life. Unlike the nineteenth century, the president is the summit, figure Rev our political life
and you know what maybe this is a terrible blunder that we ve undergone, creating the imperial presidency in the wake of world WAR two or whatever, and we gotta pull back, because nobody, nobody can get it right and Congress should
the Supreme Court and daughter should be supreme, but their first among equals. But Congress was supposed to be the governing body of the country, not not the executive. Perhaps Qaeda's is article one
Congress is supposed to be. The driver Congress must do a job. The only failure true
oh, you're of imagination of the founders was to fail to envision the fact that a day would come
One of the branches would intentionally devolve its own power for the sake of what turns out to be a cynic you're right so that they can stay and have them.
Look pal pins and have people drive them around and get clicks
go on cable news is Jonah. Goldberg calls it. The parliament of pundits- and it sucks-
It's really really really bad, and it is the fault
Imperial presidency. Yes, but it is also the fault of the lickspittle Congress that
like we lit. We are. We are having a republic to turn it into a parliamentary system.
and when I heard I forget, which democratic senator.
The other day said this well, we're gonna see what the President says and then
But that way- and I thought my God
Publicans were even worse with Trump be the the Boeing and scraping was, and I look at by the way, the failure to convict Trump after January sex as the most exposed gent example of congressional weakness, because these refer
would not even stand up for Congress for its own sake, not even to say
just as whoever the president is, you may not send a mob of hooligans up to the Congress to try to pervert our constitutional duty and I
you think we're reaching a tipping point on this stuff- and I am I dont- want to be pollyanna age, but I do believe
the growing away. When I talk to members of Congress when I spend time with these folks, the
the growing alarm and awareness of the dysfunction of this body is becoming too evident to ignore in I just wanted to say,
by saying this there used to be when I moved to Washington in nineteen. Eighty four Congress had the single greatest park in the world.
People think that Congress is corrupt and everything actually systematically a lot of the perks that Congress members enjoyed have been like had been stripped away from them over the
terrorism in terrible ways and gave her eyes Gingrich their ice buckets wake, but here was the thing. This is the only reason why, whatever
one of the member of Congress at National Airport before its expansion. If you were a member of Congress, you got to park, it needs special,
parking lot. That was five feet away from the terminal when there was only this one little dinky terminal, and that was like a raging. If you were, you know me, and you were like an ordinary person at the park in the parking lot. You know like half a mile away and that walk in this ugly path, but it was like then you'll be cooperates park right right in front of the terminal,
just walk into the terminally was like amazing. I dont even know why they want to be in Congress. I don't even know what what what the pleasure is of being in Congress led to do better
department of pundits. Now I mean that that is the goal it's not. Most of them are not. You know. There are four hundred and thirty five members of the house, and I I promise you that EVA
Those literate among us knows maybe ten knows at most ten percent of their names. Congress is made up of people. You never heard of you. Never
there are there are fifteen senators Chris can name, but that you can't
and I promise you there was a time when I knew every senator and every now and then serve their some name, pops up, I'm like who is that that's a senator from Guiche Modulo. You know like I it's embarrassing, but they don't want to be there. Not they don't want to be pundits. They
another not mad gates and they're, not Marjorie, Taylor, Green and they're. Not you know, they're, not Adam Schiff, so I don't know what they want. I don't know what the what a pleasure it to stay. They want to stay, they want to be there. They want to feel important, they want the people to say they want. They want to have a staff of twelve people, they want people to schedule meetings for them. It's like I mean I work in a think tank
you know you can do important good work here. You can do that, but there are think tanks not either think tanks up and down this town where their people, what are they doing there for having lunch their hiding,
They are doing their doing that stuff. When I started out, as a newspaper report are unwilling West Virginia, I look
The people who were on the city council- and I thought you were these idiots like
I can't believe these people. This is crazy, and then I moved to Charleston and covered state government in the capitals
I thought these idiots you're no better than those idiots. These guys are the same bunch of idiots with nicer suits down here than they were up there and the only reason this guy's here is his dad on the filling station in Muddlety West Virginia and that's how come he is here as a state senator. But when I got to Washington I thought man now I'm at the show. Now I am here,
Are they say and bolder than they hit whiteboard? They had fresh wipe all the bad practice. This is really the fact.
and you know it. I found out it's the same bunch areas that were on the wheeling City, council. It's the say: it's the same people because- and this is really part of it- we have denigrated public service to such an extraordinary degree. We have stripped the privileges we treat them all is bad. We treat them all, always rapacious power, hungry, jerks and therefore the euro.
You're only going to get more power you're only going to get those people. If you treated like that. So I have made a vow to myself in the past year, which is, I am going
gotta be more charitable. In my estimation of people who engage in public service, I'm going to be less of a turn as it relates to
thanks and I'm going to allowed my complicity instrument.
the credibility from these institutions over the course of my career, I'm just saying I won
you to join me in my crusade to restore the congressional parking lot at National Airport, with the hope that somehow it will be so much as it would be to me like having heroin injected directly into a amazing that that that this would immediately.
great stiffened their spines and make them out means no. No results. Show that I'm sorry I just I don't do it underlined, but it'll be for electric cars, only a pyrrhic victory. Prior only only the cars that look like I could fit them in my in my breast pocket, there's little tiny ones that you like. How quickly will you die when you are when you are real ended by afford? After fifty and sixty six by the way there was a fantastic sweet? Yesterday I don't care member who did it? Who said that one of the things that was being restored or within bill back better, something like that was a twelve thousand five hundred dollar Tax Grand
for the purchase of an electric car, twelve thousand five hundred american dollar yeah, I'm not quite sure for whom it may, then, if you buy a fleet or something if you buy more than five, you know like that. Five will get you a twelve thousand per credit and wherever was looked up, how many electric cars had been sold in West Virginia last year and the number was forty seven so that it is. You expect Joe Mansion to vote for this bill with a twelve thousand five hundred dollar preserve bench and per car for
Your car, when literally no one in his state, has purchased an electric car, their marketing and wrong John. They have does not form an electric. Cars must retain that, above all fired parts. These cars are powered by clean, burning West Virginia about that is running electricity plants. All I'm saying there we go the conqueror an ice at, and I fully endorse me the pod plan for preferred part
Ok, the real community, since it is my plan, I believe that I should get a special. I should actually have a designated space as the designer of the plants like it's either. The commission ok cress its
gray tabby, it's always great to have you people, everybody should go to Amazon and by Christmas book on populism. Every man, a king and, of course, next spring Knowest book on on on the rise puritans will be, will be talking about that more. But you know no, you can't trust you can't just throw out the name or throughout the words that are connected to the book. You're gonna have to start citing the title of the book.
Telling people that its on pre order and all that, if it's on priority- or maybe it's not- ok, ok, but I myself settling mistakes by into your imagination is to say these. You make these nomad utterances and no one knows you talk with I'm the one who has to tell people what your talk. This isn't an early years learning Programme and John. I learned that self delegate. Does your idea, not mine? Ok.
anyway, Chris Taiwan. Thank you. So much will be back here tomorrow after April eighteen and no ads John on here, keep the camel burning.
Transcript generated on 2021-11-05.