The podcast says Joe Biden's choice of negotiating with Republicans or ramming his own COVID deal through represents a hinge moment for his presidency only 13 days in! And the impeachment trial and what Donald Trump will require of Senate Republicans may be the historical hinge moment for the GOP. Give a listen.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the commentary magazine. Barely progress today is Tuesday February. Second, twenty twenty one, I'm John by words the other commentary. I thank you again for leaving
does five star reviews add at the Itunes site
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tat. Let me introduce to you a senior writer Christine
hi, Christine hijacked
you D, better, every waldheim hygiene,
and associate everyone or often high. Now, Asia
Joe Biden met with the ten Republicans who want to make a compromise
Oh I'm corona virus relief and the dry
continues not really about the package itself, which there's all there's drama about,
about what this negotiation and what's gonna happen as a result of it suggests about the Biden
presidency in Chrysalis am where the by the presidency is going to go from here. He said he was sore person.
Who could that deal. Latvia weeds across the island work with Republicans and ten Republicans outcome,
In german saying work with us, and so he can either steamer
or this and use the complex.
conciliation process to pass his
You know desired package or he can try to find
common ground with them.
It's very early in the question
This raises is what what what
The message that got him elected- and I just want to read you something from Mark Halprin from his newsletter wide world of news, because he has an interesting take on this. He says.
you know. Those who thought that down trumps departure and Joe Biden has sent would call the intense passions of the left were fundamentally wrong.
The seething rage is still there and the passion for everything that man.
The left so enraged about Trump and the right, as he says, if at all
harnessed it would be enough to feel every play station to in Brentwood in the Palisades for almost six months. It's an unfair
I'm a ball amount of power, so the
question here is
great irony of the belgian presidency mark rights in the very forces that gave him the power yes to force through his agenda comes from a blue unity that actually makes it
possible to try for by partisan deals b.
as if anything, a single republican senator is four goes.
The rule will be viewed with extreme suspicion by definition by the left so Joe by which
enforces the theory that would be invoke at both I d C Bobby vans. If there were no pandemic, Joe Biden actually won the democratic nomination and the general election, not because he pledged to bring the country together because he held the most.
Promised to end Donald Trump time in the saddle, and all that came with that. So therefore
Joe Biden might aspire to.
We the in either and chief, but he is really the beneficiary of the intense abiding feelings of disunity of fifty three to fifty seven percent of America. So
What it says is that the people who are the most passionate among those who got him elected they want him to stuff and crushed the Republicans.
Whatever his message was: isn't what got him elected and isn't what will keep him in power?
yeah. I read something pretty interesting along these lines. Yesterday we were talking about how the
left wing of the spectrum, anyone the centre left, particularly
Congress are kind of expression.
A little bit of frustration with Joe Biden of whatever
impurity ads for vat rate it over the course of the last couple of weeks, because he's not using the political capital that he gained as a result of winning the presidency in these bending over backwards. For Republicans in this unity message and frustrating them, they want to see some more.
Ah here and done.
The proprietor of could political report Charlie Cook raining.
I shall review.
simply said that this is a misreading of the moment that it's not as though Joe Biden has husbanded his capital he's spending it
in a way that
is a record
an irresponsible east of both its rather odd that, but the Biden White House
This initial offer is also become their final demand of the debt
rats immediate an instinctive threat to rammed down their package through you,
budget reconciliation process is
tone Deaf so
that seems like a pretty
self evident observation. If you
You know where to survey the results of the election of a million years ago, I know, but than others
election produced.
very narrow, democratic majorities, regardless of the
results in in Georgia is still
as narrow, as you can possibly was here, but a majority the splendid now, even if a majority and when he had we don't even have a power sharing relationships or Republican still have control of their committees. But the bottom line here is that this is going to produce paralytic government. We all knew this November and also we somehow forgot it in January, but it is still the case by the way, if
those who put by
in the White House.
If they themselves didn't want unity in November,
how much less do they want it now,
they wanted by the time he was nominated. Think of all the transpired between,
November. And now
the January six. The moment I think has has had an
listing political effect on coalitions that might have had much more humble approach to to lead
slating right now, understandably so, and also with a looming trial in the Senate. You know that that's
Obviously gonna gonna have an impact, but the list
that that those of us who were watching the election returns command and looking up the exit pulling
We're. Seeing was that we know Americans actually dislike trump intensely and
as we have seen recently, especially his handling of the pandemic. But they did
trust, Democrat
that much Joe Biden was the kind of every man Democrat who they knew his face. They figured you'd be moderate. They put him in.
office, because he wasn't trump but down
the ballot and certainly the state level
you're not actually being are not held in high esteem as this as they appear to be acting now, and I think that that the
I can voter, is gonna, get a little sick of the high and mighty tone that we're seeing posts January sex not because January six wasn't it was horrible event, but
you- can't legislate based on that, contain
Lee bringing that up as evidence of why they should have on trembled power. Ok, so look looks true
separate two strands.
So the unity message is something that comes pretty much in the wake of the election and particularly in the wake of January sex that we are. We are one country we need too. We need to have unity and all of that,
The Biden message
general election was that it's enough of this kind of
extreme polarization here
the kind of guy
who, unlike Trump, can work with everybody these
at the same message, one is a transactional,
see droll political message about how he can lower
the temperature and try to find some way to work across
the aisle and find some?
common ground where you can find common.
round and the other is: are we not all Americans and can we not? Can we stop talking about how we're losing our country and dead storming of capital and all that
there there not really the same and republic
Then conservatives have taken
the unity message a little conveniently to say
Lighten, doesn't have the right to if he means this. He shouldn't be
announcing his left wing agenda. That just means that
easy now being disingenuous, because if we want unity, he should do
what we want? Not what he wants and that's
a clever spin, but it is obviously spin he did when the election he won t know he got the one by four and a half points
He is the head of the Democratic party. He had a platform e m agenda, he had various policies and he is
going to try to enact them to the bed the degree possible
however, if he wants to make the case, as he also made in the election, that he can work with
Republicans across the aisle to break through the polluter
the logjam in the United States and show a different way he's
himself into a corner because it he can't do it with ten Republicans,
exactly the member who needs to get to closure
so he doesn't have to break the law.
Lustre were used reconciliation. He can get sixty votes on a package that will of course pass the house. You know of a totally
If you can't do that now
having common ground, honest skinnier,
Covered relief package that doesn't mean that he can't go back and do other stuff by reconciliation later, if Republicans continued to be recalcitrant
then he's never gonna be able to do it and that whole part of his appeal will just
revealed as a kind of pr track and false, and so,
this is actually a real struggle like this is no. He means this. I think somewhere in his head
he doesn't want to ram through it, but you know what they can say, which is what president always saying this in these circumstances is
look I wanted to be by partisan, but they wouldn't. Let me
however, I it's gonna be a harder case to make in this case, when
You can say, look we're too far apart. They they brought me so
Hundred billion, I want one point: nine billion in one point nine trillion, but of course they could move
of two nine hundred billion,
and then he can move down and they can make some kind of a deal that he as a challenge for
but that old argument- which I think I mean obama- that right is like did the Senate won't do what I want. So I've got, it got appendant a phone and I'm gonna just make it happen
that's how Biden began his first view to his office is just executive were after executive order. So I think, for a lot of
the conservatives who agreed I'm kind of in our clutching the pearls over high unity. I mean it that way.
all kind of appear message and they end in
it shouldn't be taken seriously as a governing strategy, because that's not how politics works, but I dont know
then he started. I think the transactional stuff, the I can make deals stuff actually was
out the window, and they want when he started churning out this second of borders and not just because he was overturning the drops up, because he was at the same time, also nominating two important positions in his administration people who,
far to the left of what the american voter seem to be returning as a message to the Democrats about what they want for the direction of this country, so he key
he's governing in a more radical way. Then he ran and that's it
surprising some of the mainstream media that was spent the entire election, boosting his candidacy and in preventing negative stories about his family from emerging so
He is a bit more radical least judging by the first month
I I I I don't want to sound like a rhino swish here, but I am not sure that I agree with you what he
meant was he could find common.
ground on policies and legislation. He can staff as administration how he did not promise not to be left liberal.
He just said
we can fight. You know, I'm gonna do what I can to work with.
The other side. Now you can say
led by a polluted by using executive orders and by appointing you know by appointing far leftists that violates the
spirit of that conception, but I'm
sure that's really fair? It began.
He didn't promise not to staff as administration with commies. You know he taken
promise, not that the he said he would do. He was gonna. Do a lot of these executive orders on day want most of them
true, but I like wine, the drill and the more important ones,
He said that was what he was gonna do and, of course, Trump did the same trump.
in this one way, I mean trumps most
the action that that created that
harden the resistance into being. Was the executive order on the Muslim ban the first week of his presidency that created those
scenes of airports with people you know like.
protesting at airports, which was the extension of the women's Marge and then said. Okay, we actually have permanent action. We can we can take here, but in truth,
was, of course, and much more a much worse. I mean it.
in some ways, it was better because he had the same house more thoroughly, but
Oh, he had gotten forty six percent of the vote binds got by that fifty one and a half per cent of the vote. You know he you know he be lost
the popular votes. All that's how I do know that Biden is in a worse. Is worse, political shape them that tromp, but
I think the idea that he's doing so
things similar to? What do? What you pointed trumpeted is goes to Christine's point
and he bade his pledge was not to be the mirror image of Trump.
right, but I'm saying he did fair enough, but you also have this problem in politics, and no, this is working. Biden wants to get stuff done and you Cancun
stuff done, with a divided in our work. Without sixty votes, right of Bio had sixty senators until then
Kennedy died. He had sixty centre, so he was advancing
is agenda at will the joke you that people forget? Is this whole thing about how I wanted to work with Republicans, but they wouldn't work with me. He didn't need to work with Republicans,
when Mcconnell said we're not gonna, we are not going to vote for any peace.
Obama's legislation, that was a statement of weakness, not have strength. It was this idea that
He doesn't even need us and we're not going to provide him with cover. We're not gonna. Give him by partisan cover four left wing
actions? Let him on this and he'll. Take it him he'll own. It were for good or ill than that.
The situation that we that we find ourselves in here he's got a fifty fifty Senate
and you know, George W Bush. What a fifty fifty Senate you know ended up having basically passing one.
instead of tax cuts and then
piece of legislation that was so by partisan, the Republican that activist Republicans hated it more than any other piece of legislation of the twenty first century until until Obamacare, which was no
left behind. So you do you find yourself in a position where you have to get up a play play the angles, but you know he
He is allowed to be democratic
liberal president
What I'm saying and he can
them also unilaterally not use the tools that other pro
events, have used even tramp of he doesn't like trump because then he'll look weak
probably like, oh he's, just do you know, he's seemed like he's, not
he doesn't know it- doesn't have a spine he's not willing to fight, and I email if I were demo
Craig voter. I would take that very ill if he just you know, caved because
was making a fetish out of bi partisanship, let's not making a Finnish had a bi partisanship
I mean in summer mechanization yeah. He's too is referring
legislature in their role crafting legislation. I mean
novel concept that, but this is the first branch of Government article one and it has the capacity to do what it wants to do and Joe Biden can
whence it energy and so I'm gonna supporting one. I'm not gonna support what I'll be done. What I want,
That is all
about time that we heard a precedent say: look, the legislature can do and does what it wants to do, but he'd, that's not what you think
at that is actually what he said in a couple of occasions there are written in working in an advisory was. I was eager to hear what the Republicans had to say and
the administration is releasing statements. That say you know
Oh, no! No! No! No, where you now! This is our last and final offer one point: nine trillion either
that's a negotiating position or it's something that he is
gonna give ammunition to the most enough to the people from the line?
in project too. You know the people that market
we are talking about who say it's not enough
do well and when you have to crush them crushed their spirits, crush lips. Souls here, you're the let it out here
screaming in the lamentations of their women. That is what that is what you have to do now, because the doubt the Republicans are so evil
That is why I was interesting here is not this
when I was your age left there. That's not what I'm about to sideline dry negotiations over legislation which are
painfully normal and
for rather uninteresting and competent
and the governance is, is boring. Governance does apparel
process going on in the effort on, among them,
that's institutional Democrats as well as the activists left to anathematise aspects of the Republican Party or put certain
looking voters and certain republican members of Congress, most notably the
it now infamous Marjorie Taylor Green, who is
came under withering assault from no less
figure them miss MC caully yesterday, who denounced her in pretty forceful too,
and her loony tunes conspiracy theories and said
very clearly that there is a cancer on the Republican Party and it is this can
territorial idea that
become Sonny,
that is giving Democrats alot of fodder, and we are already seeing adds, come up about the queuing on wing of the Republican Party being in
drop in. That's parallel to these lists
late of negotiations to undermine their there's, the support that they
from voters who are in two
plus twenty seven republican districts and tents
just don't. You know you ve got this internal problem, this internal coalition, that is making you and less than tasteful
the gentle voters and making them more amenable to compromise that. I don't think you can separate those too
assaults better there two parts of the same picture it sir look where were the point here- is that this is an interesting. It turns out that there's gonna hinge pivot point going.
I'm here that is going to have an effect on the rest of the presidency and were only two weeks into the presidency. You know it's not like I mean,
That is the odd thing about how everything got sped up like it. We weren't supposed to have the total test of binds it out.
I wanna bite and Corky messages come up. You know this is the point at which an enormous old circumstance there would be. Some
hearings on.
cabinet officials- and we be hearing about appointments and this that then we'd be there would be,
the stories of people on the right seem to think or just evil about his dogs and stuff, like that like, if enough,
prompted been at a normal person as President he would have had a dog and there could have been stories about trumps dogs, but he supplied the popular culture with nothing. But
activity. So you know it's like worthy what whatever
but there's all this kind of, like all look now they're doing stories about binds dogs well like a safe, trumpet, headed dog. Actually, some, including the conservative press, would have that's towards amethyst ox but
you didn't do that, but that would be this species of the first couple weeks of a presidency. Instead, we
eating a logical and procedural showdown going on here. That is that that's just dumb
among the many novel things about this sad novelty and what
public in the timber.
Organs are saying
is so at at its root.
Course sensible,
You can see how the refusal to negotiate or the refusal to find common ground on some of this is
will be a species of. I can't go against my email, the passion in my party to like stick to them, because
if they don't want state and local aid. Oh don't give stadium
state, local aid. If what you're trying to do is pumped some money into the car, if they don't want to fifteen dollar minimum wage, don't force
Fifteen dollar minimum wage. Now you
do it in March. It help women, it doesn't,
follow, logically, that the
Republicans or say we want a huge amount of money after the money. That's already been spent for this aid and we can
make a deal and give you something that we have not seen in Washington in
when two years
twenty years, which is a serious.
Negotiation that shows people giving and taking on both sides of having something they can claim. That's what he's being offered- and it's not like, he can't keep
the reconciliation in his quiver or the brow
you know the Phil Buster is quiver, just don't have to
now, one February second, but the
actions of the moment may make it impossible for him to go into that. Well, and I think that that that to know his point
this legitimacy issue right. If you treat these tests,
Republicans with the legitimacy that their position and their bargaining strategy would suggest
you should have than you are
then then you're a traitor to the democratic resistance that is now ascended and has power, and I think I mean that's all
very many Kirin, but that is actually the way a lot of people and particularly those that serve more
progressive legislators in the house- and you see this. This is this: is it this is a
black and white issue for them. If Europe
look in your bad and it's not just that they're trying to cast
versions on the Marjorie Taylor Greens I mean: did they
brought her ambitions for for eliminating access to institution
the power by anyone who was the transporter room. You know, gave money to trunk. We see people deep
formed and fired and cancelled. For that mean that the broad
the more radical among them is, is to eliminate from public life these people who embody
Those views, even if they didn't support an insurrection, urge you in on. So I think
There, on the edge of this legitimacy argument is
you know- and this is actually where the Republicans have in a very important parent- is coming up- I guess on Wednesday, when the conference means they need to get rid of what I think Mcconnell correctly called a cancer. They need to make a show of the people who are the most egregious offenders and district them of their power in committees and show you cannot do this in our party. I dont.
they'll have the ability to do that will save it.
It's also. You know whether or not binding in the Republicans can come to some sort of given take here.
I think that is a very important turning point doubled
whether or not
I'm making and governance can
how about policies or people, because because if it's about policies than yes that can happen,
if it's about people you see the issue is the the left will not
want to negotiate, will not one given take with any republican number, even if they
are proposing things at that that those on the left are perfectly comfortable with, because the ideas
How can you give any satisfaction to that person
that is where we are. We never get out of that. That is a bad is that is being behold that we need to get out of.
There's another I mean. Maybe this is excessively machiavelian and people don't make plans this way. But you know if you, if you serve, try to think
longer term- and I mention this yesterday levies, ten Republicans They'Ll- have to move towards Biden. If there is, if there were to be some kind of a bipartisan deal, so they go from six
billion to a trillion and there is some state local at whatever there is that they have to agree to while Biden move down ah for binding you,
who may be calculate that, even though their working with you and it's wonderful, new hug that you give them a big hug.
They become villains to the republic to the activist Republican right and you
Oh split, the Republican Party even further in
its warring camps. And it's you know the war between sort of the governor.
party in the end, the prior Platt and the platform party, or the personal party and
make make them more and more and more susceptible to embracing
local extreme, that has actually gonna hurt them in the next election. When you that's
dependency. Machiavellian to me all that I can't see any other rationale for women.
national Democrats have given Republicans in the house an ultimatum strip this one.
Of her committees or will do it for you,
I mean that will only Indians, tribal solidarity right now, but I'm talking about the ongoing, but the negotiation with Biden, not not not
but that's the same phenomenon, room thing. Well, look I mean
This is the situation with large Taylor Green. Is that Republicans have every interest in making her obscure Democrats have every interest in making her the most famous? Personally
America and Republicans whether Rangers immigrants, who have no idea how to make her obscure and Democrats are going to make her the face of the Republican Party and
it strike, never got work and can make us face. Suddenly she met, and you know what Harry had his best fundraising quarter amber.
After the events in early January,
a quarter rather axis is fundraising report that, according to this week, I don't know when the period was, but
The better part of a million dollars
yeah, over a million, almost a million dollars. Of course, this month after he became
the focus of so much frustration. Firm. Republicans not Democrats right.
what is more, they may be the new face right. This is.
The republican challenge of our time I mean she can both be
a cancer on the we know,
Republican Party as it is commonly understood or
a you know or a mutate. Our a mutation that is leading to a different future and
You don't know the answer to that. Yet that's the you know, that's part of it
the uncertainty of the next couple of years is is gonna, bring
Now I mean so she got a couple. Hundred thousand votes in Georgia in the district of any Republican would have won by a couple hundred thousand votes. Does she got to?
in that primary cause. There were twelve people in the field, but you
Is she going to be if she's going to raise tens of millions of dollars and be above a political force of her own? Assuming that she doesn't end up, you know in a straight jacket, in a mental institution which is where she belongs.
and we don't know what that's gonna, whether that has legs or we know what that will suggest her to other people
What I do know is that there is a body of opinion may be best expressed by our former colleague MAX boot, who wrote a piece yesterday saying
That the retiring
What sort of moderate concern
Sounder Rob Portman. Ohio is worse than Marjorie Taylor, Green.
He's worse, because he didn't stop Trump and she
And so, even though Rob Portman seems like a good guy, it's his car
or this that led the allowed trump to be to be Trump, so that set of opinions that
idea will also enhance and bolster the the
Sir Reputational Marjorie Taylor Green, because the idea is, you know it's you
and worse is like you know that the goods
and the good German is worse than the bad German. You know you have to get into a very interesting mindset, first of all, to think of them as the goods.
the bad German, but also like that
Not right to that is that is a that is a web of a moral stand even to think such a thing, and yet the way
stand the been out of the angrily.
Frustration and I think
It is true that if.
A phalanx of moderate Republicans and twenty seventeen had stood up and said we can deal with this. President ivy, I dont know that things
Gone worse for the Republican Party than they than they actually gone, but that didn't happen cause that's not what happens in life. That's why? How things work and we can get to the question of what Trump is, can expect from the Republicans in a minute after after they serve kowtow to him, but but before we get to that, let me talk to you about
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So Donald Trump has to lawyers. The trial begins next week. I think,
and the two letters are interesting. One apparently is Roger Stones lawyer, so well so we we we end up back at the beginning, I transport
we're having been created by Roger Stone and now trumps. Second impeachment trial will be, will feature a lawyer given
by Roger Stone and then the other guy is evidently the guy who made some kind of a private deal that made sure that Bill Cosby was not prosecuted for,
For sexual assault, back in two thousand five in Pennsylvania, so-
so. This is a really terrific
hi hi end.
listening dream of first rate barristers who are going to present Donald Trumps case before the american people. So I went to laugh you just a very quick
a eczema, and this is my scenario, so what the Republicans in the sand I want to do is say this procedure
jurists, ridiculous, its unconstitutional you can't
can that there's, no there's, no there's no way
maybe for the conviction of unimpeached president after he leaves office,
since the only remedy. There is no remedy. He is no longer present he's a private citizen. We cannot try him out the three
Got you John, you said so in dead, this other guy said so, and three lawyers say so with three constitutional scholar say. So, though hundreds
otherwise, but nonetheless, so we're just.
I didn't get, engage we just its unconstitutional, we're not gonna, convict gingham were done. Trump doesn't want that.
Now, what does he want
he wants people to go back for him. The procedural arguments are too passive in his view of human,
people to be on tv, defending him supporting him saying,
the craziest possible things that can reflect,
his own insularity,
in paranoia. One of
attorneys did just that actually, on Fox yesterday,
which is something he wasn't getting from his more competent team that resigned and mass
and so then- and this is in keeping with something that you talk about often drawn john- is that
he gets no satisfaction from people who defend him when he's right
at a faction any derives from his expression,
of authority in power over people is that people is that he gets people to defend him when he's wrong when it's real,
the uncomfortable, that's power. That's real authority
that's a sort of thing that he likes to see in his subordinates and
like we talk about the other day. It seems like keep. What he really wants is for his attorneys to argue. The election fraud claims in the Senate and make the Republicans votes of four acquittal as discussed
thing is possible. Many went right, he went, he doesn't actually want to trial, he once a wrestling match and he didn't. He wants to call in digging over the people. He wants to call an end, but that's
in the same way he when he talked about it actually think this was one of the huge appeal
of him as a candidate back in twenty. Sixteen he talks
being able to make deals rate and the american people like this is great. You have this kind of outside the box that can come in here is not a swap. Creature is gonna, make deals he never. He doesn't make deals
he performed his own. You know ego and then demand submission to it, which is not the same thing here is more like a mafia down that it than a deal maker, but I feel like this.
It's. The same approach is taken with the trial of it. That is gonna put a lotta republicans in an awkward position, which is, of course, also something here
He said no, I was seems work. He watched the more of the very thing that got
We do so much trouble. He wants. You wanted people.
defend his absolutely will
most indefensible positions to the death.
and what's important is that he is. He is effectively gonna get what he wants because
if he runs that if the trial is run, the way he's talking about it being runner that were hearing he wants it to be one
democrats present all this information about how he inspired
a summons and inspected. The M helped create the conditions for the insurrection and he,
He stands there and says,
China in Venezuela. You know
trick the machine, the algorithms and stole the election, and there were ballots that were set on fire in Detroit and blah blah
I believe that everybody start screaming, and objections are raised and all this stuff happens and then Republicans vote to acquit though he pulled
keep. He presents the worst possible case for himself,
but it's not even a case for him so right, cause I'd, know, arguing that matters to a case
something completely different right and here's the thing. This is what goes on.
We want a good deal making. So Christine said,
got a deal maker
all of these Republicans spent
for years unless you are mad gates, unless you were much brooks unless you were Lui Gomer it unless you are,
true, believer
for years. Fig
trying to figure out how to be transactional with Donald Trump.
Mcconnell most of all right and so what
with, which were, in the wake of the,
November election because
as God saw Fit, to make sure that, right now that David produce fell, just a few
thousand votes short of getting.
Over fifty percent. So there were two seeds up for grabs in
Georgia and miss
Mcconnell saying there looking at his you know the whole question of his future.
He says: ok! Well, I gotta go soft on how the election is over and it's enough and the Shutter
go away, because I need his help and Georgia.
And simply by doing that, Trump lose
Kim Jong Il Trump loses Georgia and he loses the Ceta Majority Leader show the Republicans lose the sand majority and we could have the we know brow.
king of the filibuster and the reconciliation process, while in part, as a result of that, because you can't make a deal with him, he doesn't play, he doesn't deal with you. He wants
you not only as you guys
saying not only he wants to make the most independent
the whole case and then
Why are you to support him in the worst possible way? And that's where we're going near? And it's very helpful.
But here's what ok, here's that here's a possible spanner in the works,
if the evidence. That is
accumulated and demonstrated at trial is as visceral and his horrifying, as I think it's likely to be, because that's actually been something that the Democrats have been signalling.
There is an opportunity for senators of conscience to say you know I was I I had questions about the election and I was in I heard Donald Trump concerns. I understand everyone's anger but
What is in front of us right now. This evidence is so overwhelmingly horrifying that we cannot call these people
sure, it's and justify anything they did an end and because the incitement was straightforward mean they can take in craft and a more.
A coherent argument, even if, but
you're right John. It requires them to abandon tromp. So that's really. If they don't,
what they are saying about, the Republican Party is going to hunt them and should for a very long time, because it's a party that is calling patriotic what
on January six, rather than calling it what it was, which was violent and destructive in criminal law
we ve been trying to reach the tea leaves around, which Mcconnell forever the husband attacking dongle drowned. The men who voted with Grand Paul in this in this procedural vote against the impeachment proceedings is being unnecessary and then comes out yesterday in issues. The statement against Marjorie jailer Green saying that these conspiracy theories are a cancer on the Republican Party. I do not know how he
To acquit, if this is the
They present,
he's literally saying we have to
exercise this tumor from this party and that then you're going to present a terrible case of
answer before them, and then basically you know what are we gonna do about this thing? You they're gonna, let this metastasize
Are you going to access it? Look the
Lindsey, Graham went on John had at last night and said yes, these that we tell the Democrats not to put on a case because they're not gonna, get enough conviction- and you know
if they do we're gonna, have to call the F B. I am now was listening to this. I'm trying to figure out what on earth is he he? They think
or Lindsey Graham in his weird machiavellian efforts to play every side against the middle says
If they call me up, the EP is gonna reveal that the leaders of the insurrection had pre
you know, had already decided they were going to try to storm the capital, and that
there's all this information that there were no days of planning that guy's put the bombs on the street, we saw the video the guy put in the pipeline
on the street unto now Tuesday night before the riot,
that there were messages about how they were gonna go through this door. Go through this gate in wild tromp was speaking there.
removing and all that
How you
a mindset in which you think that is gonna be exculpatory for Trump. Who said: let's have
a big demonstration on the sixth of January and bring tens of thousands of people to the capital. It'll? Be wild.
it'll, be wild and then said at the meeting, go go to the walk to the capital, building, how that's x,
oh, but you have to live inside a very strange about Lee,
oh political, theoretical bubble and people are like. I read it. The federal people are saying: oh, you know
your see. I read this pajamas media peace. We now see this was all pre planned. Therefore, Trump isn't
the clear because it did,
I'll just happen, because he said it in the speech, which is clear,
easy, because not only can you call the FBI, you can now call as a
witness or subpoena maybe as a witness, this White House staffer, who was
the person involved in organizing the events of the day, whose name I can't remember right now, but you know what next
week of all this happens. She's gonna be one of the most famous people in America and all
this fund raising everything like tat, there was clearly more planning going on here, not that the planning was specifically you,
go and hunt for my pence in the capital building
I mean that has been done: it's not a criminal charges. If this is not
the criminal trial, where the burden of proof is quite high. This is a political trial, where this is much more about what his intentions were and click
prevented. What he already should have known to be a violent possibility,
but if you're throwing in with this case now, I mean you're, aligning yours said the people who are going to go back for you and defend your your point of view during this trial are them. They d team
does this peace and in actually today, which is the final,
relation of this long running report on the events that led to this thing. Jonathan Swan reports it
and it's pretty well written, who knows the extent to which should be the key
this can be verified that their reports, but it just paints a portrait of
an absolute mania that the president had been
swayed by in the people around him were catering to the less responsible people, and
those are the people who are gonna, be arguing the case. The Sydney powers of the world and the people who align with her are gonna be arguing this case and it's just not gonna be reflective of reality, so you're you're, literally
folding your arms and stamping your feet. In saying this is what I believe, even though everyone knows you're being disingenuous
everyone knows that you're lying through your teeth and you can
simply believe these. I will bring theories unless your deserve,
we committed involuntarily because their crazy well, why would
suit yourself up in their company, because you
nonsense must evolve early, and nor that's why this is a we are. This is a we have.
we're period in which thus
Oh and the future of a hundred and sixty year old political party is going to be tested, as it has never been tested before. Even if you accept
every every serve Muggah American Greatness prescription that
and a lot of it a lot of them. I do accept that tat. He did a lot of good things is presently to judge, as he did the Ebro quickly. This that does. The rush investigation was a
you now scandalous and nightmarish ovary took the first impeachment was a was a mistake. All of all in a warm or like, I was absorbed, malign act all all of that stuff, where we
This has now inexorably led to is a revision.
the history of the presidency
according to which every thing was gonna be fine, and he,
he's gonna women a landslide them all of this,
but somehow the liberals,
caused a pandemic to happen or lie about a pandemic happening too.
You know to kill him off and to bring about of socialism in one country and
I have to say there is this story today about the post mortem
by trumps pollster Tony for trying to figure
why why the election was lost with sham. Apparently he did even though Trump things the election was lost, so using exit data from ten states.
What he really seems to get add is that.
the pandemic in these states was the number one political issue and the people who vote
on this number one political issue broke for Biden, three, two one.
now remember in these ten states,
the margins weren't enormous,
environs favour. So if they
for by two to one instead of three two one trump likely could have
Won the election instead of losing it
threw up three two one brake on the most important issue. So what what
a normal person says, is.
he must handle that
It went wrong for him and he there was this moment in March. We know as Paul numbers we're going up
all anybody ever all anybody wanted was a steady hand, the tiller,
in the White House
and he was behaving so radically that he himself absender himself from the briefings. Four months. Remember like because
weren't going well for him, because he would talk about bleach or he would talk about the shining, the light down your more. He would say
going away? Remember the aids
away, it's gonna, go away just like these things. Who knows why it happens, but it goes way
and all of that, and yet it is now going to be dot doctrine and dogma. The
at I he won the election. He didn't lose it and that the pandemic was a hoax, even though its killed four hundred and fifty thousand people, and that you know he here here we are and if the republic, if the majority, the Robin Party, effectively embraces this
version of reality or the majority that you really could see a kind of that. The collapse of
one of the oldest political parties in the world. What that means, I dont know because it's not as though those its eyes, though there won't be at a serious opposition to a Democrat
and I can liberal overreach- but you cannot
in normal people who,
Wanna. Live there lie.
Without being told that they have to believe in things that are not true, are going
to feel sorted and grows in being in in being and proximity to the people who insist that the
Ah lies and madness is a real.
well in their actually won't. Be ineffective opposition to democratic power if the party does collapse, because it takes a long time for the splintered factions to reform into something that can win elections and in return to power. So you it's a real
I repeat, I think, that's in part way Mcconnell statement about the cure.
type representative being a cancer is, is to mean, if you dont, get rid of it, and then you have to usually do some follow up treatments with the fiddler radiation chemotherapy. That's how you get rid of that and it can still come back right like you can have a recurrence.
Because I, like that metaphor, both for its the starkness of his Odin expression of his feelings, but because,
that doesn't get? Excised it's as Noah said it metastasize it spreads, and there
we'll be no way to fight against its funding. On that you said, if people who don't
would be told how to live their lives. You know by lies there also
a huge number Americans, you don't want to be told how to live their lives by the state and told that they cannot express their religion or their feelings about bureau science,
families are anything because
that's not considered, that's allowed anymore, so there's theirs,
large group of people, including some old mainstream liberals who
Can it be happy with a dead republican Party either because there will be no check on that kind of approach to power, so
We urge the interesting position Europe has, on the one hand we are seeing, is a slow newsday. Today, one of the first days does nothing in others. They haven't plaything popping.
Oh, I don't think we found a good metaphor now see. Hands glaring met him everywhere, but I'm saying like we. I think we see that the outline of the Bible presidency is gonna, be decided this week.
out why the Republican Party's future is gonna, be decided next week in the week after by what happens in the impeachment trial,
we are on the costs were on the verge of knowing a great deal about. What are you know near term to long term? Futures are gonna, be like
just from the analysis we have provided with. You will provide
today on this, sir, on this,
I guess so, just think
the illumination and the anxiety that I have provoked and new in the crushing veracity that has now been assuming your soul.
As a result. The mistake you made by listening all the way here to fifty two minutes and twenty three seconds
and we will try to do it again tomorrow, although I believe aid will not be joining us tomorrow,
as he is moving so it'll just be the three of us, crushing your spirits, for
for the soon to be absent. Abe Christine and now I'm jump on, came to damage.
Transcript generated on 2021-07-27.