← Next Up with Mark Halperin
Next Up with Mark Halperin
Political Scandal Double Standards, the "Epstein Class" Divide, and Trump’s Cultural Impact, with Andrew Sullivan
01:13:38
Mark Halperin opens the episode with a deep dive into the changing standards of political scandal, from Bill Clinton in 1992 to today’s Epstein fallout. In what he calls a political “Wild West,” Mark explores why some public figures survive controversy while others are taken down, and what 2028 presidential hopefuls should be quietly worried about right now. Then Andrew Sullivan joins for a candid and wide ranging conversation about Donald Trump’s lasting impact on America. Sullivan argues that beyond policy, Trump has reshaped the country’s political culture, coarsened public discourse, and expanded executive power in ways that may outlast his presidency. He also weighs in on the rise of the so called “Epstein class,” the dangers of extreme wealth concentration in an AI driven economy, and why he believes governments may ultimately be incapable of fully controlling artificial intelligence. Sullivan closes by reflecting on the future of the Democratic Party, and who he would choose...
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- [00:01]
Mark Halpern
Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?
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Andrew Sullivan
Right.
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Mark Halpern
And the best part, they accept Discover.
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Andrew Sullivan
Except Discover in a little place like this.
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Mark Halpern
I don't think so.
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Andrew Sullivan
Jennifer.
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Mark Halpern
Oh, yeah. Huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.
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Andrew Sullivan
Right.
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Mark Halpern
So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report. Looking for a Valentine's gift she'll truly love. 1-800-flowers.com knows what she wants. For 50 years, 1-800-flowers has helped guys.
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Andrew Sullivan
Like you get it right.
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Mark Halpern
Delivering millions of fresh Valentine's roses nationwide.
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Andrew Sullivan
1-800-Flowers offers premium fresh cut flowers backed.
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Mark Halpern
By their seven day freshness guarantee, plus same day delivery when you need them on time.
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Andrew Sullivan
Valentine's is coming up and bouquets are selling fast, so don't wait on this.
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Mark Halpern
Order today at 1-800-flowers.com sxm. That's 1-800-flowers.
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Andrew Sullivan
Com sxm. Welcome, Nexters. This is NextUp. I'm Mark Halpern, editor in chief of the live interactive video platform two way, and I'm your guide through all the noise, through all the mist, all the confusion. My goal here, as always, very simple. Skip over the talking points, skip the fake stuff and get you what you need to know to know what's actually happening now and what's coming up. So you're three steps ahead of everybody else. I'd say at least three steps. Got an incredible guest today, Andrew Sullivan. Really one of the most impressive people I know as a thinker, as a writer. He's been doing it a very long time at a very high level. I recently was on his podcast. I enjoyed it so much and delighted that Andrew will be here with us. We're going to talk about AI, how he uses it in his life and how he sees it for the country. We're going to talk about this concept. Much discussed the Epstein class, who are they and what should be done about them? And then I'm going to talk to him about the future of America. He's thought a lot about what Donald Trump has done to the country from his point of view. Going to talk about who he would be, his ideal to come next. Before we talk to Andrew, though, I've been doing a lot of reporting lately on what I think is one of the most undercovered stories, both now in the context of the Epstein files, but also as we think about people running for President in 2028, a topic we talk about here quite a bit. Of course, I'm going to take you inside my reporting, both that I've done this week, but also that I've been doing for a very long time around the Epstein files and then going all the way back to the start of my career covering national politics is the shifting standards, sometimes a double standard, sometimes even a triple standard that seems to apply in different ways to different people in public life. When it comes to scandal, controversy, disclosure, we've seen people commit offenses in, in the context of running for office or being in office that just aren't treated differently. Two people can jaywalk and one gets the death penalty and the other just keeps walking. I'm going to explain as best I can how this has worked in the past, how it working now, and how it may work in 2028. My reported monologue is next up. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, but getting fundamental funding from traditional banks can be an uphill battle. Of the 36 million small businesses in the US over 70% report needing additional capital each and every year. While revenue is at an all time high, big banks are tightening standards and approving fewer loans than ever, leaving owners stuck with mountains of paperwork. But if you want bank rates without the bank delays, check out Cardiff Co Mark for up to $500,000 in same day funding. Cardiff is the largest privately held small business lender in the United States, having funded over $12 billion since 2004. Their application takes less than five minutes, has no impact on your personal credit and approvals happen in minutes. With same day funding, banks try to lock out small businesses. Cardiff has the key. Big banks may not want to approve your business loans, but Cardiff does. If you've been in business for at least a year and and you're pulling in 20 grand a month in revenue, apply now for up to $500,000 in same day business funding. Go to Cardiff Co Mark again. That's Cardiff Co Mark. Real growth fast funding Cardiff borrow better. All right, next up, my reported monologue on political scandal controversy contra tant. And of course, we're in the midst of now a lot because of Epstein. My first assignment beat assignment in politics was covering Bill Clinton in 1991 for the 92 campaign. And shortly after I started covering him, two massive scandals broke. By coincidence, I was the reporter who broke them both with ABC News. I had help from my colleagues, but I was the one who asked Bill Clinton first about Jennifer Flowers after the National Enquirer ran a story alleging a relationship between Bill Clinton and her. And then about the allegations that he dodged the draft based in large part on a letter that he'd written to the head of his draft board or an official at his draft board. And I was in the midst of. And you can go on YouTube, you can find clips of all this stuff. I was in the midst of just massive scandals. He was the front runner for the nomination. He was the it candidate for the cycle. And here he was enmeshed in two massive controversies that would have knocked a normal candidate out of the race. He survived those. He survived Whitewater. He survived more allegations from women. And Bill Clinton demonstrated then that he was superhuman as a political athlete. And so there's three, at least three, but three that I focus on then and since. In covering political scandals, three strands of thinking. One is what's. What are the facts? What are the allegations and facts? What are the charges against a public figure, whether they're an elective office, running for office, member of a cabinet, what are. What are the allegations? Two is how do they handle it? And then how does the press and other players involved, what do they do about. About it? Do they demand someone fired, get fired, demand someone quit the race? They demand someone be indicted. Right. And every one of these is different. If two people are jaywalking, as I said, one goes to prison or gets the death penalty, the other walks free. What determines in each case. Some of it is what Hardy called hap. Some of it is just the vagaries of life. So, you know, you jaywalk and then someone robs a bank, People are going to cover the bank robbery. Maybe you get through it, but it's. But it's more than. It's. It's more complicated than that. And I've seen it my whole career, and I'm always fascinated to see who survives and who doesn't, who pays a price and who doesn't have big a price if they pay one. There was a time when, if you were nominated to be on the Supreme Court and it came out that you smoked a joint, you were done, you couldn't be on the Supreme Court. There was a time when you were nominated to be attorney general, if it came out that you had household help, that you hadn't paid Social Security tax on, you were out. Okay, now those things are not factors anymore, but for a time, this was in the Clinton administration, Those were. Those were decisive in some cases. Now we're looking at all this Epstein stuff, and. And ladies and gentlemen, there are more stories coming. As I sit here today, I tell you, some of the people who've already paid a price or gotten a lot of negative coverage for their interactions with Jeffrey Epstein and, and Maxwell, even though the documents are out there already, 3, 3 million pages, not everybody's read through everything. So there's more coming. And, and then the question is, is it survivable for anybody? What's the standard? And I've been surprised and haven't really figured it out yet. Some people in my hierarchy of, of, of wrongdoing, there are people who've done worse, related to Epstein, who seem fine in their jobs and their lives, and then there's people who've done less, who are already out of their jobs. And, and again, I say, I say with as much modesty as I can muster, I know as much about this as anybody, anybody alive as it pertains to American politics and media. And I can't figure it out. I cannot figure out the standards that are being used. Again, some of its happenstance, and a lot of it is how the world has changed right now because the ability of a person under attack to have three things going for them that didn't exist at the beginning of my career. One is digital media, the ability to be your own war room and fight back by putting out your own stuff. That's number one. Number two is the tribes, the red, blue tribes. If you're a red person and you're in the Epstein files and they're trying to take you down, they say in air quotes, and you rally the red Tribe behind you, you're fine, because the red tribe is going to say, we don't care about the facts. We just want our tribe to win. And of course, President Trump has benefited from that quite a bit. And the third is, there's so much information out there that's very hard to know what's true. Back in the old days, if it was in the New York Times, a big investigative piece on somebody, everybody just treated it as true. Now there's stories all over the place, there's social media all over the place. And so understanding this, this zeitgeist environment of who survives and who doesn't, very complicated business. So back in 92, we were at the dawn of, of all of this. We didn't have the Internet, we didn't have social media, but there was more media and there was, there was a, a different standard. And, and one of the theories I've had, I'm not the only one who said this, but the end of the Cold War made it more open season on people in public life, because during the Cold War, there was kind of a, I'll say, gentleman's agreement, because it was mostly gentlemen, but there was an agreement amongst elites. You know, you can't go knocking out the President of the United States for. For stuff in his or her background because we got to fight the Russians, the Soviets, and we can't. We can't change. Change the power structure based on personal issues or economic scandals. And. And so that changed because the Cold War ended at the end of the Bush administration or Reagan administration. It was ending. And then the other thing is, it just became such that we didn't put our political figures on pedestals the way we did for a variety of reasons, not just because the end of the Cold War. And also there was just enough new media that standards got lowered. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the networks didn't have the monopoly they did. And so questions were getting asked, rude questions would get asked by people who worked for Howard Stern or people who wrote for supermarket tabloids. So a lot of this stuff, as I said, started in 1992 in the Clinton campaign. And part of what drove it was Bill Clinton was a man who'd lived a rich and colorful life, okay? And he got a lot of scrutiny for that, about his finances, his wife's finances, about his personal life. And the Clintons thought, well, under the old rules of things, plenty of presidents had affairs. President Kennedy, for instance, never got asked about it. And so the old rules would hold. And. And the Clintons tried to diffuse a little bit of the prospect that maybe the older rules wouldn't hold. They said to a room full of reporters, before he got officially in the race, the Clintons were there together. He said something like, I caused pain in my marriage, but we're still together. But that didn't hold. And he got tons of scrutiny for Jennifer Flowers and a whole bunch of other women. And from the Clinton's point of view, they were furious because they said, why are we getting all this scrutiny? Where's the scrutiny on the other people? And one of the people they wondered about was President Bush, who was going to be the Republican nominee. And they want. They. They wanted to know, where's the scrutiny on him? Hillary Clinton, and during the 92 campaign, did an interview with Vanity Fair, and here's what she said. This a six, please. She did this interview in May of 92 is when it was published. And it's with a reporter named Gail Sheehy. Some of you may know or some of not. She's very, very good reporter, very good at getting people to talk. And here's what Gail Sheehy wrote in May of 92. Hillary boils over at what she perceives as a double standard that the press has shied away from, investigating long standing rumors about George Bush. And she talked. They talk about a conversation that Hillary says she had with somebody, a rich woman who said, you know, they're going to circle the wagons around him. Now, President Bush, 41 was long rumored to have had an affair with a woman who worked for him on his staff. And, you know, I, to this day, I couldn't tell you was true or not, but I could tell you. Everybody in Washington, those of you listening to the podcast, I'm doing air quotes. Everybody said they knew about it and it was, quote, unquote, common knowledge. And President Bush had never been asked about it. The Washington Post did a hilarious thing. They wrote about her. There was some controversy about this woman named Jennifer Fitzgerald, and they wrote about her and they said she had served under President Bush in a variety of positions. And everybody in Washington snickered at that. And the Clinton's point of view was, why is Bill Clinton's personal life getting all this scrutiny? What about George Bush? Everybody, everybody knows he's had this affair, but no one is ever going to ask the President of the United States who's the incumbent president. Nobody's ever going to ask him about that. And then Barbara Bush did an interview and was asked about Bill Clinton and about the female vote. And here's, here's what she said. This is 1992. S2, please.
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Mark Halpern
I've interviewed a variety of women and I've talked to a couple who said they voted for Reagan and they voted for Bush last time, but this time they're going to vote for Clinton because they think he cares about women.
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Andrew Sullivan
Really.
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Mark Halpern
He does care about women. We all know that.
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Andrew Sullivan
So the Clintons are already seething about what they perceive to be unequal treatment. They're already seething about why Bill Clinton gets all this scrutiny. And then Barbara Bush says that. So then we get to the general election campaign and some book comes out that, that has in a footnote a thing about President Bush and this woman, Jennifer Fitzgerald. And the New York Post writes like three stories about it. It's everywhere in the media. And President Bush is at Kenny Bunkport doing a press conference with the Israeli prime minister. And this was just not done back then. But Mary Tillotson, who was a correspondent for cnn, decided to ask President Bush about it, okay? And it hurt her career. The White House Basically said she can't cover the White House anymore. Here's, here's President Bush, war veteran, had never confronted such intrusive personal questions before, but he got one from Mary Tillotson about this new this book alleging he had an extramarital affair. Is S3, please.
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Mark Halpern
Mr. Bush, uncomfortable as the subject is, I would think it's one in which you feel necessity to respond because you've said that family values, character are likely to be important in the presidential campaign. There is an extensive series of reports in today's New York Post alleging that a former U.S. ambassador, man now deceased, had told several persons that he arranged for a sexual tryst involving you and one of your female staffers in Geneva in 1984.
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Andrew Sullivan
I'm not going to take any sleazy questions like that from cnn. I am very disappointed that you would ask such a question of me and I will not respond to it. I haven't responded in the past and I think it's, I'm outraged. But nevertheless, in this kind of screwy climate we're in, why I expect it, but I don't like it and I'm not going to respond other than to say it's a lie. All right, clearly a pre written answer and it's a lie. Didn't, didn't say what he said about the report was a lie. So, you know, whatever. Anyway, then he goes back to the White House and he's got an interview with Stone Phillips, who back then he was my colleague at ABC News. He worked at NBC eventually and great guy, a very good reporter. And he's doing an Oval Office interview with the President and decides to ask him also about whether he's ever had an extramarital affair. Again, I can't tell you if you're, if you're new to media and political media, you'll look at this. You say, well, yeah, people get asked tough questions. This was unheard of back then. Okay, so here is just, it's uncomfortable to watch. I've seen it a million times in my life. Here's Stone Phillips in the Oval Office of the White House with President Bush right after that Mary Tillotson confrontation. Asking President Bush another version of the question about this topic. S4, please.
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Mark Halpern
Governor Clinton has been asked directly be.
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Andrew Sullivan
Careful now, but this interview might end.
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Mark Halpern
So let me ask you, have you ever had an affair?
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Andrew Sullivan
I'm not going to take any sleaze questions. I gave you a little warning. You see, you're perpetuating the sleaze by even asking the question. Say nothing to ask you it in the Oval Office, and I don't think you ought to do that. And I'm not going to answer the question.
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Mark Halpern
You were asked this morning to respond to a very specific allegation which you very strongly denied. And I was just asking a more general question because I think it goes to the point of I've just a question for you.
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Andrew Sullivan
That's it. That's it. Never answered a question, as far as I know. Never answered the question in public, at least. Lots of people in public life have done things wrong that they don't get asked about, or if they get asked about it, they lie about it. Okay. Howard Lutnick, Commerce Secretary, was asked, what about your relationship with Epstein? He gave an answer to a podcaster, said it ended. I met him once. It was at his apartment, his home in New York. It was gross. Never met him again. Now we know he did meet him again and went to Epstein's island, exchanged phone numbers, strategized. We're in at least one business together. So there's. Do you get asked and then do you tell the truth? And a lot of times people say, well, we could forgive smoking marijuana, we could forgive having an extra male affair. But the, the people who decide these things, well, you can't lie about it. Okay, so this is, this is the Wild west now. This is the wild west from 1992 to today. You would, none of you would be surprised if anybody running for president or in the Bush, in the Trump Cabinet or the president, President Trump himself, you wouldn't be surprised if anything got asked by somebody, whether it's somebody who works for an old media legacy organization or somebody who works for Howard Stern or a podcaster, there's nothing that any of us would be surprised about if it got asked. But not everything get asked, right. President Trump, of all the things he's been accused of, personal, political, financial, there's some combination of not enough hours in the day to ask him, but also some questions people don't want to ask. Even now, even in the Wild West. This is where the happenstance comes in. Not everybody get asked about everything, even stuff that shows up in gossip comms or blind items on the Internet. So there are two things I want to say about this. First of all, from the Epstein files, again, there are a lot of questions people might ask Howard Lutnick. I don't know. I don't know if reporters are going to have access to him anytime soon, but will they ask him? Could be, maybe not. President Trump, here's Here's One of the many things have been released from the Epstein files about President Trump. And again, as you know, he's all over them. This is from March 11, 2019. Zay 4 please. This is, this is an email from Michael Wolf, the journalist, to Jeffrey Epstein. And it's about President Trump's decision to, to stay over the holidays in the White House while his family went to Mar a Lago. And the allegation here is that a woman who worked for President Trump was having an affair with President Trump. It says now the President's telling friends that he wasn't staying at the White House because of the shutdown. There was a government shutdown going on. He was staying because he was having sex with this woman. And Michael Wolf says, was this shutdown bravado? Was it locker room talk or all part of a new alternative reality that only President Trump seems to be living in? I, I don't think President Trump's ever been asked about this alleged affair, but he could be and he'd probably, if whether it was true or not, he'd probably say no. But in the Epstein files, going forward, if you're someone who's named in there in, in an embarrassing way or a way that alleges impropriety, you may or may not be asked about it. You may, you, you'll have to decide if you are asked about it by the media or somebody else, what you'll say and then how it gets handled, how it gets received, how much follow up there is. It's, is just, it's just, it's just crazily random. Okay, so that's in the context of the Epstein files, but the thing I'm really focused ON now is 2028. We talk about it here so much. A lot of these stories come not from the Epstein files and not from reporters saying, huh, I'm going to go look into whether candidate, prospective candidate X ever cheated on his taxes or ever, ever embezzled money. They come from political opponents. They either come from political opponents within your own party or they come from political opponents in the other party. Call that over the transom. Right? Opposition research comes over the transom. Here's something that caught my eye the other day. This is not about personal wrongdoing, but it's about opposition research and trying to take down potential rival. This is about Pete Buttigieg. This is from Axios. You can put that up. This is a, an item that appeared in the Axios does, a weekly newsletter about 2028, and they had a little item about Pete Buttigieg and the question of whether he did a good job as Commerce secretary, as a transportation secretary for Joe Biden. And what the item says is, quote, they raised the question of whether he was a good, he did a good job. And they say, quote, several of Buttigieg, potential rivals for the 2028 Democratic nomination for president are quietly beginning to pick at his work in Biden's Cabinet as a vulnerability rather than an asset. So if you're a sophisticated reader, you know that what's happening is advisors to other potential candidates don't want to see Buddha judge do well, don't want him to rise up. And so they're quietly calling reporters, they're saying, no fingerprints on this. Didn't get this from me, but he wasn't that great at transportation secretary. That can happen on things like people's bio, people's record, but it can also happen on this personal stuff. And I'm telling you this right now, and this is the heart of what I want you to take away from this monologue is I know without having done any work and without stuff coming purposely to me, almost everybody who's talked about here has problems in their lives. Not about whether they were good at their jobs, but personal stuff. And personal stuff broadly defined, not just about sex or drugs, personal stuff, broadly defined, financial stuff, family stuff, lots of stuff. And I can tell you that in the current environment, you're going to see this stuff sent to reporters. It, if, if, if prospective candidate X starts to rise up, you're going to see the operatives, both the Democrats and Republicans, and it'll be true about J.D. vance too. Tell reporters, hey, look into this. And then the question's going to be do the reporters look into it? Do they ask them directly about it or their people about it? How do they handle it? And then what's the reaction? Because I'm telling you, and I, some of you would be mad at me for, for being vague here. I'm telling you there's stuff out there about lots of these people. There's stuff out there about lots of them. And you do not get scrutiny until you run for president. You might run for Senate or governor, been in a, CEO of a company until you run for president. The, the, the incentives aren't there for your opponents, prospective opponents or opponents to, to do the research and come after you. And no one who's running for President in 2028 in each either party has the superhuman ability of Donald Trump and, and, and Bill Clinton to survive. Stuff that would kill anybody else politically. None of them do I just tell you they don't. So then the question is, okay, as mortals, at, as the level of Barack Obama, level of George Bush, level of Joe Biden, how much can they survive? Now those three guys survived a lot, as did President Bush 41, because they made it to the White House. I mean, clearly, you know, you don't make it if you can't survive some stuff, but how much can they survive? And in the current world in which we live with AI and digital media and a lot of reporters with a very low bar for publishing things, it's going to be the Wild west times 10 in 2028. Anybody who wants to be president is going to have to decide are they willing to walk through this? And I am flabbergasted based on what I've been told. I'm flabbergasted at some of these people making noises about whether they're going to run, that they might run, maybe they will, maybe they'll end up running and maybe this stuff won't be true or will never come out or they'll handle it great. But, but I think some of these people aren't going to run. They're talking about it because it's, it's flattering. You can raise money, get more speeches, maybe get a book deal, but, but to run for president, knowing what you have in your background in this day and age, super risky because it could knock you out of the race. It could knock you out of polite society. Look at John Edwards, ran for president, kept in the race knowing that he'd had an affair with his photographer and eventually she gets pregnant. I mean, to run for president with that stuff in your background is bonkers. And I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you watching George H.W. bush knock away that question, not answer it, that's from a bygone era, ladies and gentlemen. Surprising he got asked, given the era, but he did. But now the questions will come. And this is a massive part of what's happening now as people consider about whether to run or not. And it's massive with the Epstein files. Too massive. Because all these people are having stories written and they're trying not to answer or they're putting out pro forma statements. Watch what happens on Epstein. Watch what happens for 2028. This issue of handling negative stuff, how you respond and then how everybody else responds. It's a massive and under discussed story. All right, that's my reported monologue for today. Always like this though, to be a two way conversation. You know that's my preference. Let me know what I'm missing. Let me know what you think about what I said. Drop me a line, send me an email nextup halpern@gmail.com. tell me all about what you think about what I said. And of course as always, we'd love for you to make sure you're liking subscribing and sharing this content and all our bonus content. Go to the YouTube channel and sign up. Share it with your friends. Make sure you get every full episodes, bonus videos, everything's on the YouTube channel YouTube.com@nextup halperin and if you like the podcast version, same thing. Just we want, we want nexters to multiply, be fruitful. So go to the podcast and click like and subscribe. But also make sure you toggle the downloads on so you get everything right away without having to look for it. And make sure you tell your friends next up is where it's at. Grateful to you. All right, we're a quick break right now and then next up right here will be the great Andrew Sullivan. We're going to talk about how he sees the Trump era and beyond. Andrew Sullivan is next up. In an E Commerce business order fulfillment can make or break your success. Ship stations all in one platform combines order management, inventory tracking, returns, warehouse integration and powerful analytics. Compare rates across USPS, UPS and FedEx and you unlock discounts up to 90% off. 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- [29:33]
Mark Halpern
Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter?
- [29:36]
Andrew Sullivan
Right?
- [29:36]
Mark Halpern
And the best part, they accept Discover.
- [29:39]
Andrew Sullivan
Except Discover in a little place like this?
- [29:42]
Mark Halpern
I don't think so.
- [29:43]
Andrew Sullivan
Jennifer.
- [29:43]
Mark Halpern
Oh yeah, huh. Discover is accepted where I like to shop. Come on baby, get with the times.
- [29:49]
Andrew Sullivan
Right.
- [29:50]
Mark Halpern
So we shouldn't get the parachute pants. These are making a comeback, I think. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2025 Nielsen report.
- [30:04]
Andrew Sullivan
Mic check 1, 2.
- [30:06]
Mark Halpern
Are we recording? Hi, I'm Michele Bernstein, an award winning chef, restaurateur and mom. I have a lot on my plate, including my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. That's why I was prescribed Cosentix. It helps me move better.
- [30:22]
Andrew Sullivan
Cosentix Secukinumab is prescribed for people 2 years of age and older with active psoriatic arthritis. Don't use if you're allergic to Cosentix. Before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. An increased risk of infections and lowered.
- [30:34]
Mark Halpern
Ability to fight them may occur like.
- [30:35]
Andrew Sullivan
Tuberculosis or other serious bacterial, fungal or viral infections.
- [30:39]
Mark Halpern
Some were fatal.
- [30:40]
Andrew Sullivan
Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms like fevers, sweats, chills.
- [30:44]
Mark Halpern
Muscle aches or cough had a vaccine.
- [30:46]
Andrew Sullivan
Or plan to, or if inflammatory bowel.
- [30:48]
Mark Halpern
Disease symptoms develop or worsen, serious allergic reactions and severe eczema like skin reactions may occur. Learn more at 1-844-cosentyx or cosentyx.com Ask your rheumatologist about Cosentyx.
- [31:07]
Andrew Sullivan
Next up and joining me now, Andrew Sullivan. He's the editor and writer of one of the few essential things you must read weekly, the word weekly dish, aptly named, and the author of two great works, Virtually Normal and the Conservative Soul. I'm a fan of irony, so I'm going to waste some of my precious time with Andrew telling you that I would like him here for 12 hours because there's almost nothing that occurs that I don't want to discuss with Andrew Sullivan or hear what he thinks. And he's, I was on his show recently and I said this, I'll say a version of it now. He's singular. No one has done what he's done for so long and so well, which is to think about and write about and talk about America and the world in a way that is done with rigor and creativity and humor and intellect and fairness and a profound understanding of the human condition. With that subtle introduction, ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Solvan. Andrew, thank you for being here.
- [31:57]
Mark Halpern
Well, thank you so much for that really very kind introduction.
- [32:02]
Andrew Sullivan
I mean it. It's true. I can't speak. There may be some great people like you in China or Vietnam that I don't read, but in the English speaking world, you've just, you've done, you've done so well for so long. And it really, I'm serious. I, you know, I thought about, well, what do I talk to Andrew about in our limited time together? And I could have picked, I could have picked a thousand things yeah, but, but, but this is what I start with. Donald Trump has changed the world. He's changed America. What would you say are the most profound ways in which he has changed America? Not, not taken advantage of what he inherited or seen an opening to do what he's done. But how has he changed us?
- [32:43]
Mark Halpern
There are many ways in which you could answer that question, I suppose. I mean, you can talk about the way in which the United States has shifted, which I think was inevitable at some point, towards a more 19th century position in the world, which he sort of moved us towards. But I think that could have happened and was happening in a slightly more responsible way before him. Maybe he made it all that much more obvious and drastic. But that's changed. That's a change. I think America's going to have a different perspective on the world, a different attitude towards the world than we have had in the past. The other thing, I would say that just simply in terms of the culture, I do think that he's introduced an indecency into our public culture that is new and hideous. The celebration of cruelty, the denigration of your opponents, the use of language and rhetoric that's truly disgusting. The fact that someone can be shot dead like Rob Reiner was, and he will come and say, good, I'm glad that Trump hater is dead. I mean, that kind of stuff, stuff we've never heard from a president before. We've always heard from presidents in moments of difficulty or crisis and attempt to unify us in some way, and he refuses to do that. And so has, has really created and stirred up a polarization that was there before him, no question. But he's made a lot worse and I think a lot uglier than it ever had to be. And I worry about the consequences of that for our culture going forward. I also think just one other thing before I is that the use of the presidency has now become this extraordinarily powerful tool in American politics in a way that it has been getting that way for the last century. But the idea that we're going to have successive individual strongmen coming in from either party or whichever, and to doing whatever they want in Congress being somewhat irrelevant and the court being very marginal, that's also not completely new. But he's taken it to a new level and I think it's a bad thing.
- [35:02]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah, I would like to drill down all of them, but I'm gonna focus first on the second one you mentioned, the coarsening of the use of the office to not just divide, but to denigrate people. It's commonly said that Republican office holders accept that. They pretend they didn't hear about it or they say it's not the words I would have chosen. Rather than condemn him. They say they do that because they're afraid of him, they're afraid of his movement. What do you think it's doing to again, to the culture that they accept that not Trump's original actions, but what's it doing to our culture that they don't, they don't condemn it?
- [35:36]
Mark Halpern
Well, liberal democracy depends upon people of different perspectives being able to have some kind of conversation that isn't simply yelling. I mean, I'm thinking right now of yesterday's hearings with Bondi. I've never seen it. Well, I've occasionally. But the hearing there was just a fighting match in which insults were slung across the aisle. There was no good faith. There was insults in both directions. The sense that a representative of an executive branch should pay deference to the legislators, at least in a formal way, except they have a role in subjecting the executive to scrutiny and the executive shouldn't just simply respond to that by insulting them. Maybe they went over the top too. That's what happens in this dynamic. But if we can't communicate with each other, if we can actually have a conversation that respects the other individual in some way, you could disagree with them on everything, but still treat them like a decent person, then I think we lose the capacity for have a democracy altogether. I don't think most people are there in America. I think most of us are still relatively reasonable folks. We don't want to insult everyone we meet. But if the president particularly sends a signal that it's more important to malign, smear, insult, denigrate, rather than engage, criticize, argue, debate, deliberate, then our whole system begins to seize up.
- [37:24]
Andrew Sullivan
Let me give you a hypothetical that with a purpose, and this could be a six hour answer, but you'll just give me your top lines. You can go in a time machine back to the day after Barack Obama's reelected in 2012. So November 2012 and you can bring any two people with you. And the mission the three of you have is stop Donald Trump from being elected in 2016. What could have been done? What could you and your two compatriots do?
- [37:55]
Mark Halpern
Well, there were some elements in late Obama that I think the left began to get out of hand and give oxygen to a populism that has some completely genuine and legitimate complaints about our political system. So for example, I would have been worried about, for example, the use of Title 9 at the end of Obama, where he did the fiat about boys and girls being unable to be distinguished in every public high school, that was outrageous. But I think primarily I persuade Hillary Clinton not to run for office. I think that would be the main thing to do, that she was finished. She'd already run, she'd lost once. She'd been in the White House for eight years. There was no reason for the Democratic Party to put her up there as the candidate. And she had weaknesses that were so easily exploited by Trump. I think she was almost his perfect foil. And so I wish the Democrats had figured that out. I mean, if they had run Biden in 2016, I think Biden would have won.
- [39:10]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a case to be made that almost anybody else but Hillary.
- [39:14]
Mark Halpern
Clinton would have been her arrogance, her sense of entitlement.
- [39:19]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Brought her back with you. And just say, don't run, and that solves the problem pretty quick. You've been, again, part of why you're singular, I believe, is because you've written about the excesses of the left, not just from a political point of view, but from a societal and moral point of view, but also a searing critic of Donald Trump in so many ways. What's the status of all those impulses that led to the excesses of Title 9, that led to a woke takeover of the New York Times newsroom, led to the woke takeover of corporate boards? What's the status of all that energy, all that passion? Has it been. Has it been snuffed out? Has it been eliminated?
- [39:57]
Mark Halpern
I don't think it has, Mark. I mean, I wish it had. My concern with it is not even pragmatic or political. It's moral. Yeah, it's moral. You treat people, individuals, not by their identity or race. You don't discriminate on basis of race or sex. You understand reality that there is such a thing as the sex binary. I mean, there are. This is a moral question. And, you know, for me, the. One of the issues that brings us to bear is the trans issue. And we're currently, in terms of the public and intellectual debate, the arguments in favor of sex changes for children have been demolished. There really isn't anything left. And yet the Democrats seem incapable of saying it and moving distinctly and clearly in a single direction. If a Democrat could say no, I support civil rights for all transgender people and their dignity and their equality and their humanity. And I think it's unfair for boys to compete against girls in sports. Now, girls can be. I mean, you can have trans men, people who are genetically or biologically female, who compete against other men because there's no unfairness that they're going to lose, almost certainly. But the other way around, no. And the other thing is, leave children alone, leave gay kids alone, leave gender dysphoric kids alone, Help them in every way you can, psychologically, all the rest of it, but do not intervene medically, irreversibly. Why can't they say that? And why can't they also say we are ending dei? We don't think this has helped. We think it has hurt. If a Democrat had a solid affordability agenda and a return to decency and an end to Wokeness, he'd win or she'd win. But the third stool, it's so hard. You saw, I mean, there's an interesting piece in the Atlantic about the Mellon Foundation. The forces pushing Wokeness have not been grassroots. A lot of them have been foundation built since we won marriage equality for gays. The increase in funding for the gay rights groups has gone up 66%. Now they've got nothing to do but make trouble. So a lot of this is hard to deal with at the structural level because the foundations, the donors are so extreme and have so much money. But I mean, I can hope and pray that someone will come along because the possible political gains from making that position for doing in 2028 what Clinton did in 91 and to some extent what Barack Obama did in 2004, which is aggressively and clearly retake the center, whoever does that is going to do very well. People are, I think, to be honest, they're exhausted by what Trump has put them through. And I think there will be a great desire for some calm.
- [43:15]
Andrew Sullivan
I want to talk about the future, but first I want to sit with the past for a bit. I think a lot about 2016, when Trump beat Clinton, through Trump's reelection, that eight year period, really back to 15, when Trump became a serious candidate. So I call it the 10 years of Trump. And I think a lot about it on two tracks. One is what Trump has done, having a movement at his disposal and winning two out of three elections. But I think a lot about the resistance, the opposition. And if you asked people on the left who are the heroes of the last 10 years in, in making the left powerful and effective and confronting Trump, a lot of people on left would say Adam Schiff or people like that. And I'd say no, you and I have talked about that. They've contributed to the problem in a variety of ways. Who are Your heroes, Who will history say from 2015? Obviously not Hillary Clinton from 2015 to 2025. Who are the heroes of resisting Trump effectively, from your point of view?
- [44:26]
Mark Halpern
Well, the resistance has not been effective, so no one has succeeded in doing that effectively. The people I respect, the people didn't lose their integrity. I'm thinking of conservatives. I mean, I think of myself in that direction who have not surrendered to, to unconservative ideas. So I'm thinking about people like the National Review, Andy McCarthy, for example, or Jonah Goldberg, who've really stayed the course, even though the incentives were so directed against them. I think of people like George Will, whom I revere, who just hasn't been contaminated. I think of people like Tom Massie in the Congress who happily vote for him for president. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene, you know, we're talking about a crazy MAGA person. But no, she's a sincere MAGA person and she can see the level of corruption and insincerity in here as well. So there are some heroes. I think the people that did the most damage were the people that thought. The way that Democrats tend to think is that we can do this through the law, we can do this through some processes. We, we can have some magic bullet that gets rid of him without actually doing the political work of producing a solid alternative that addresses the questions that he addresses. And so the other key issue for the Democrats is immigration. We don't know yet what they're going to say next time. I mean, they're going to have to be asked, are you going to open the border again? What are you going to do? And unless they have a clear statement that reassures people that we will not go back to Biden, but we're going to move forward from Trump. The Republicans will win again.
- [46:21]
Andrew Sullivan
Ty, Andrew Sullivan and everyone you named. I'm not sure I put all of those on my list, but I understand the category. No one in the Democratic Party, you've named people of the right who stayed principled to conservative values and at times expressed disdain for Trump's rhetoric and style. Is there no one? And maybe the answer is no, but is there no one? Not a member of Congress, not a governor, not a Democratic intellectual? I mean, I'll give you one. Bill Galston, who writes, who has a comm in the Wall Street Journal. Maybe it's a kind of person.
- [47:01]
Mark Halpern
I think of Bill Moore as a more of a centrist. He does have Democratic leanings, obviously, and he's Democratically affiliated. But, yeah, I don't think of him As a left figure, I. Look, I think that it's a complicated time because at the same time, the left has a great populist opportunity right now.
- [47:20]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [47:22]
Mark Halpern
And I don't think the sort of Starmer, Kamala Harris Blair in the middle is going to work for them. They do have to have an argument, and I think this is going to probably become very relevant with AI, which is who is looking out for the middle classes? Who really is not the upper middle classes. The middle classes, the 60th percentile. Right. And who are dealing with education costs, healthcare costs, gross, all of it. And there's a, There's a chance there to say, look, we do have an Epstein class. They are distorting everything. They do have too much power. You have an argument that you would get from the Gilded Age, you know, against the Gilded Age. And I think you'd make a good argument for that without it seeming as if you're just becoming a socialist because what you're doing is trying to rescue capitalism from itself.
- [48:27]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Just. Just more on this question of the failures to confront Trump effectively, not just to beat him in 2016 or beat him in 24 in the election, but to check him. Because people who feel about Trump as you do, Donald Trump as you do, which is tens of millions of people look at him and say, this guy is, even if they don't think he's nuts, senile. They think, well, this guy's stupid, he's unappealing, he's not a very good manager of, you know, not very disciplined. And yet he's won consistently. And he's come in in the second term, and he's gone after law firms and universities and corporations in a way that is representative of how weak they are. And so harder now because he's come in more experienced. But I just look at the period from 2015 to 2023, say. And just say what? Who could have stood higher? Not just to. Not just to make a point, but to actually check him. I mean, so, for instance, in 2020, I said, oh, Trump's going to run again and he's got a good chance to win. And a lot of people said, oh, no, he's done. And then he starts to get indicted. And they said, well, now he's indicted, of course he's done, rather than what I said, well, this will make him stronger for the nomination. The general. So again, who. Who missed. Who missed the moment? The aclu, university presidents who missed the George Soros and nonprofits, who missed the moment to check him?
- [49:56]
Mark Halpern
For me, the Key moment in checking him the second time around were the primaries. And the lawfare campaign, as you point out, rescued him in the primaries. It was the, the idiotic Bragg indictment that was timed perfectly to get him a bump in the early primaries. I wanted DeSantis to do better because I wanted a non Trump alternative that would represent some of the things that Trump could. But the other thing to be said, Mark, is he is a world historical genius at demagoguery. Yeah, he has extraordinary talents and he has an extraordinary will. I mean honestly I, I, I'm in awe that you would end up as where he was after January 6, having basically been thrown to the side rightly by almost everyone. To, to come back from that and to win another victory. Staggering. I mean I don't, it's very rare that you see that kind of raw politics.
- [51:10]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah, I wish there was a way to quality, quantitatively measure not just the talent but the will because I, I know Bill Clinton had it too. And you think, well the two George Bush's and Barack Obama and Joe Biden, they must have had a lot of will too because they got elected president. But I don't even think those four guys are close to Clinton and Trump.
- [51:34]
Mark Halpern
Trump would have gone to jail. I mean that's the thing. I mean he was fighting party unlike Clinton, he was fighting to protect his very being. So there's a certain elemental power in that. But yes, I think the ego and the will to power is personally extraordinary in the man. I saw it from the very get go and I think yes, he says some crazy things. Yeah, I do think he is mentally unwell. I do think he's so psychologically disturbed that he can't control himself in all sorts of ways. But to my mind that is more of an indictment of the opposition than of him that they failed to stop it. And I think they failed to stop it partly because of Biden. Because Biden could have, and this is the great missed opportunity, could have owned the center and in fact what he promised to do, that's why people like me supported him. But when Biden did the bait and switch and suddenly you have massive government spending, huge cultural shift to the very far left, massive sex and race discrimination across all government and in corporate America you handed Trump so I think an opportunity to get back. So Biden does bear the most responsibility for that. And he's the antihero partly also because of his arrogance and his attempt to stay in power obviously well past the time when he could have adequately done it. And then him sabotaging the possibility of there being a really decent candidate for the Democrats in 2020.
- [53:12]
Andrew Sullivan
So they couldn't, couldn't agree more. And of course not a surprise because Joe Biden, his entire career was just whatever the Democratic Party was at the time. He had no, he had no desire or ability.
- [53:22]
Mark Halpern
When I saw that he had junked his own Hyde Amendment when he junked his own Religious freedom act from 93, yeah, I was what happened to you? Like, where are you? And, but I think you're right. I think he, he was always a weak man who hung, clung to the center of the party and wanted what the party wanted. And unfortunately, the party became the groups, the lobbying groups, not the actual party itself. So not the members of the party, but the activists and the people who are very much self selected from the far left. And so that was the other. We, look, we forget the American people rejected Trump. They voted against it.
- [54:08]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [54:08]
Mark Halpern
So they told us they were prepared to do that. But when the Democrats then gave them the most left wing agenda that they'd ever done, of course they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
- [54:20]
Andrew Sullivan
It's one of the most undercovered stories of our careers. And unless one or both of us take a break and write a book about it, I'm not sure it'll ever be told sufficiently, which is how did the Democratic Party let the guy win again? What happened from 2020 to 2024 that allow him to win again? Because it really was implausible. And I take your point that the Republicans could have stopped him in the nomination fight, but they didn't even come close. No, they didn't even come close. And the reality is there was, up until 2024, there was a majority who never wanted Trump to be president again. And the Democrats produced a majority who said, yeah, we'll take him back.
- [54:57]
Mark Halpern
I know they did it because of immigration and because of inflation and because of cultural extremism.
- [55:05]
Andrew Sullivan
And as you and I have talked about on your show and the media. Yeah. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk about the most en vogue topic around that Andrew mentioned already, which is the Epstein class. Andrew Sullivan and the Epstein class are next up. Hey, are you being lied to? They tell you, go ahead, max out to your 401k or your IRA and then they make you beg for permission to use your own money. Well, it's time to get the truth and discover a better way to grow and protect your money. Bank on yourself is the proven retirement plan, alternative banks and Wall street desperately hope you never hear about it gives you guaranteed predictable growth and retirement income even when the markets tumble. Your principal is protected, your growth is locked in and under current tax law, your retirement income can be tax free. You're in control with access to your money for emergencies or opportunities that come along with no questions asked and no government penalties or restrictions. Even when you use your money, it keeps growing like you never touched it. With built in inflation protection, your savings grow every single year. So you'll always know the guaranteed value of your retirement and have real peace of mind. You can get a free report that reveals how you can bank on yourself and enjoy tax free retirement income, guaranteed growth and control of your money. Just go right now to bankonyourself.com mark and get your free report again. Bankonyourself.com mark one last time. Go to bankonyourself.com Mark oh, could this.
- [56:41]
Mark Halpern
Vintage store be any cuter?
- [56:43]
Andrew Sullivan
Right?
- [56:44]
Mark Halpern
And the best part they except Discover.
- [56:46]
Andrew Sullivan
Except Discover in a little place like this?
- [56:49]
Mark Halpern
I don't think so.
- [56:50]
Andrew Sullivan
Jennifer.
- [56:50]
Mark Halpern
Oh yeah, huh? Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on baby, get with the times.
- [56:56]
Andrew Sullivan
Right.
- [56:57]
Mark Halpern
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- [57:24]
Andrew Sullivan
Welcome in.
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Mark Halpern
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- [57:44]
Andrew Sullivan
All right, next up, back with me now, Andrew Sullivan, editor of and writer of the weekly Dish. It's really the there's five indispensable substacks. That's one of them. And author of the great works Virtually Normal and the Conservative Soul. And as I said in my introduction to him originally, there's just he's a singular force and he had and to do what he's done. He's the Willie Mays of intellectual thought and writing and does it with a sense of humor. Andrew, welcome again. Thank you for being here. You talked about the Epstein class and I'm not, I'm not trying to make this argumentative or suggest I disagree with with you or others on this, but I just want to try to put it in a little bit of Historical context. We've had rich elites helping rich elites in Britain and the United States forever. Right. I was old. You don't won't find an older story than this. And we are now in a populist moment on the left and the right. So I understand the heightened focus on rich people. But, but what defines the leaving aside whether anybody committed crimes connected to Jeffrey Epstein, which so far there's been no, no clear evidence of leaving aside that what is, what do people mean now when they say the Epstein class? How is that defined? That's distinctive from just rich people talk to each other and have a lot of benefits.
- [58:58]
Mark Halpern
Well, I think the concentration of wealth in the last 25 years has meant that the very, very, very, very wealthy have reached a new level of almost interplanetary separation from the rest of us. And you see this everywhere. You know, it's not just a healthy upper middle class. It is a super, super, super rich that have begun to put their money into whether, whether, whether it be real estate and preventing people from affording to live anywhere in the big cities or whether it's from their big AI ventures which are pushing up people's electricity bills. So I do, here's what I'll say. There was no child rape conspiracy that I can see. There's a disgusting human being and probably a handful of people involved in his, in his horrible schemes. Then you have the, the classic, and you're right, it's been there forever, hobnobbing and networking and back slapping and all that that I find distasteful and I think most people find pretty awful. But is there. I do think that the fact that they are that much wealthier than they used to be and that people are struggling and also that social media allows gossip and paranoia and conspiracies to have great attraction they might otherwise been. But I do think the notion that there is a group of people, we see this in California with this proposed tax on billionaires, 5% tax on billionaires. The money they do have is so ridiculous and so out of proportion to anything any individual could ever possibly spend or that I do, you know, I'm a right winger, I've always been a classical economist. I do think there comes a point at which if a super class becomes too powerful, a democracy can bring them to heel and someone's going to have to do that. It had to happen in the early 20th century, it's going to happen now. I think the question is whether you do that with the least damage to our capitalist system. But I, you know, we've had people in the past, but have we ever had people with the kind of power of musk and teal really in the middle of the federal government, the way they happen?
- [61:29]
Andrew Sullivan
Maybe not. Maybe not. I mean, but, but there have been big industrialists who've come into the government before. Maybe, maybe digital technology allows it. And we don't know much about AI Truly. We all have to have humility about it. But there's no doubt that it will make rich people richer, at least in the short term. There's no doubt that it will make rich people give them an advantage in all sorts of ways. So this will, this will almost certainly be an exacerbation to the problem you're citing.
- [61:56]
Mark Halpern
And when you can't afford your hospital bills and you're reading stories like this, it's infuriating.
- [62:03]
Andrew Sullivan
Right. So what, so, so you mentioned the California tax again. You also said minimal damage to the free market system. That's going to be damaging to the free market system. It just is. It may have, it may have upsides, but it's going to have downsides. What, what, what are the solutions to income inequality? And, and the, and the, not just the, the practical thing of, okay, how do we get these people having less of the wealth and, and more evenly divided, but, but the cultural aspects as well.
- [62:32]
Mark Halpern
Well, I think, I think you have to move tax rates for the upper middle top. I'm sorry, I think we're going to have to do that.
- [62:41]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [62:41]
Mark Halpern
I think we should also focus on providing affordable health care for people. I think, for example, the universal child care idea which the Democrats are putting out there could be very potent. In other words, you don't just, you don't merely attack these people. You propose things that will help regular people get through life more easily. And I think that's going to happen. It's happening across Europe in many ways. And I think that's the only way to really tackle this. But again, I think with AI, I don't know what the world economy is going to look like in two or three years time. I really don't. And I think if we see considerable layoffs or unemployment rising in the white collar class, that provides classic historical context for serious revolutionary disruption.
- [63:40]
Andrew Sullivan
Let me ask you a few.
- [63:42]
Mark Halpern
That's a complete possibility. On the left, I think we, we've worried about populism on the right for all sorts of good reasons. I do think there's a potential on the left for this that could get out of hand. And I do think the way that the upper classes Are operating right now is. Is begging for it. Yeah.
- [64:00]
Andrew Sullivan
Let me ask you a few AI questions. How are you using. We ask regularly on the program. How are you using AI in your life?
- [64:06]
Mark Halpern
I only use it really to help my research, which it has helped a lot. I use the best AI and I can find stuff out more quickly so that when I'm preparing for a column, I could do a really deep dive quickly in a way that I would. You know, I have to. Searching, going through various, finding various pieces. Now I can see them all in one go very quickly. I can see it. I can go through it. It's, it's, it's improved it a great deal, but that's it. I'm kind of a little allergic to it. You know what I don't like? I don't like talking to it.
- [64:37]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [64:37]
Mark Halpern
I don't know why I have this aversion to that.
- [64:39]
Andrew Sullivan
If you're, if you're, if your dog had a funny rash, would you use it for that?
- [64:43]
Mark Halpern
Oh, yes.
- [64:44]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Okay. What about. If you're planning a vacation, would you use it for that?
- [64:48]
Mark Halpern
Yes.
- [64:49]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [64:49]
Mark Halpern
I've used it to find a house cleaning. I've used it to find a dog walker.
- [64:56]
Andrew Sullivan
So you are using, you are using it for more efficient.
- [64:58]
Mark Halpern
That's not where it's going to really make a big difference.
- [65:01]
Andrew Sullivan
Well, I mean, not for the society at large, but in individual lives. It certainly makes you more efficient. I mean, when I remember to use it, their tasks, that would have taken me over an hour. They take me four minutes. That's a.
- [65:13]
Mark Halpern
Efficiency, though, a thing about efficiency. Yeah, but what if. If you ratchet efficiency up, you end up with nothing to do? I mean, that's the.
- [65:24]
Andrew Sullivan
You can always, always take naps. Andrew, what about, what about if you were. If you were. Here's my biggest worry right now about it. I think it is. My single biggest worry is I look at politicians and bureaucrats and most corporate leaders and how they've handled dealing with the negative sides of social media and they've been completely inept. There's a massive consensus that we've needed to do more to protect children from, from some of the social media sites.
- [65:50]
Mark Halpern
And.
- [65:50]
Andrew Sullivan
And when the government tries, they fail because they're not smart enough to do it. They're not smart enough to preserve the benefits and override the corporate lobbyists. I really worry about this. David Sack seems very smart, but he's for unfettered. There's a, there's a strain of thought in the Democratic Party and the populist Republican Party that says there needs to be some guide rails here as this thing develops, as AI develops. I just, I just don't see anybody smarter. Do you see people, I don't know if you are a fan of David Sacks intellect, but do you see people in our society, whether they're academics or business people or government officials, do you see people who are smart enough individuals you can name to say, yeah, I trust them to figure out the right balance between freedom and, and protection?
- [66:33]
Mark Halpern
Afraid I don't. Do you? I mean, I, it's, it's. And I think that's maybe the case with truly revolutionary technologies that it's unknowable in advance. It's, it's difficult to know even how you're going to grapple with it. And the scale that is so hard to get your head around. For example, I think there's a real concern that kids today are being bombarded and have access to forms of pornography that are screwing them up horribly with respect to their emotional and sexual lives. I think that one of the things we've seen is this upswing in mental illness among the young too. I think you could start with the young. I think you have to protect the young. I think you have to protect them from social media. And I think Australia's just put in a ban for 16 year olds and younger from using a total ban.
- [67:32]
Andrew Sullivan
Do you think that has a chance to work?
- [67:34]
Mark Halpern
I'm not sure it does because the whole point of this technology is that it can run around attempts to stop it, it can start somewhere else, it's global. So part of me thinks we're just going to have to adapt. There's no way you can really control this. There's no government strong enough to control the force of this. And so we have to sort of keep our eyes open, just behave pragmatically. And as the challenges emerge, I'm not even sure what those challenges will be, but I think we have to be on the alert. And I don't see any ability to really control it through government. I just don't think it has the power.
- [68:19]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah, who? If you could just make someone president who's constitutionally eligible. When Trump leaves whoever Andrew Sullivan picks as president In January of 29, who would you pick? They have to be constitutionally eligible and you can't put them in a time machine and get the younger version. Who would you, who would you. Who would be your ideal choice to be president?
- [68:39]
Mark Halpern
I would put Pope Leo in there.
- [68:41]
Andrew Sullivan
Put who in there?
- [68:42]
Mark Halpern
Pope Leo.
- [68:43]
Andrew Sullivan
Oh, Pope Leo. Interesting choice.
- [68:49]
Mark Halpern
I do think that now I'm just trying to. It's a good question and you put me on the spot. So give me a second, take a second.
- [68:59]
Andrew Sullivan
Think about what, what. Tell us. Maybe we'll work towards it. What kind of, what kind of. Would it be a Democrat necessarily? Or would you want someone as independent?
- [69:07]
Mark Halpern
I want to. I don't care really. I think I, you know, I'm a. I'm a small C conservative, which means that my core issue is in keeping the whole project of liberal democracy on the road. And that will require, it seems to me, to conserve it occasionally going from right to left, but because we need to adjust as the world changes. So I, I would love to see a moderate Democrat or moderate Republican with the ability. I'd love Tom Massey to run, for example. I think there's a. Who else do I. Who else do I.
- [69:44]
Andrew Sullivan
Would you like it to be a younger person as opposed to an older person?
- [69:47]
Mark Halpern
Would you like it to be another thing that I would recommend that Democrats run on a 75 year upper age limit for all federal office.
- [69:55]
Andrew Sullivan
Would you be. Again, you just get to pick them so they don't have to run the electoral gauntlet. Would it. Would you prefer it not be a white straight man or. Doesn't matter.
- [70:03]
Mark Halpern
I don't care. Yeah, I don't care and I don't.
- [70:06]
Andrew Sullivan
Would you prefer to be someone who.
- [70:07]
Mark Halpern
White straight men. That's good.
- [70:09]
Andrew Sullivan
I'm very glad to hear that.
- [70:10]
Mark Halpern
Would it be myself. Would you get along with them a little better?
- [70:14]
Andrew Sullivan
Would you prefer it be someone who's worked in government or been not. Not in government.
- [70:18]
Mark Halpern
A mixture, I think. I don't want a total newbie because we've seen what that can do.
- [70:24]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [70:26]
Mark Halpern
And Trump, I mean, the thing about Trump, also, it's interesting is that it is in many ways an operational tyranny, as in within a constitutional system, because he's deciding everything. The executive orders are everything. Almost no laws are being passed. Foreign policy and tariffs are being done by executive authority. The big support for, for example, the massive detention centers that he's passed may wither with the midterms. So there's a chance he's going to be, one might call, a temporary tyrant. In other words, the things that he's done can't last because he hasn't really put the foundations in legally, legislatively, or even won the political majority for them. So it's quite open, I think, once we move forward from that.
- [71:20]
Andrew Sullivan
I like, I like to use ChatGPT during the show and I've asked them to make us a list for you. Who'd be a good president for Andrew Sullivan, younger, moderate Democrat with both government and private sector experience.
- [71:33]
Mark Halpern
All right, what do they say? Any other Republican, for that matter. Republican as well, I mean.
- [71:37]
Andrew Sullivan
Okay. All right, all right. Any other, Any other traits you want to add?
- [71:43]
Mark Halpern
Clarity, the ability to communicate easily with regular people the way that Trump can.
- [71:50]
Andrew Sullivan
However, disgusting communicator with regular people. Anything else?
- [71:57]
Mark Halpern
I'd rather they came from the working or middle classes, personally, as a per. As a human being. Yes.
- [72:04]
Andrew Sullivan
Make a list.
- [72:05]
Mark Halpern
I like. I like people. You see, here's my problem with Pete Buttigieg is that he's never had a struggle, it seems.
- [72:10]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [72:11]
Mark Halpern
I want to see someone who've overcome.
- [72:13]
Andrew Sullivan
Okay, let's see. Let's see who they spit out. Let's see if we can get you. We can pick your president right here. It's taking a very long time here. Yes.
- [72:21]
Mark Halpern
Well, there you go.
- [72:22]
Andrew Sullivan
Here's a cross party list of younger, pragmatic, working class rooted leaders who fit the kind of profile Andrew Sullivan tends to admire. Oh, okay, here we go. Josh Shapiro.
- [72:32]
Mark Halpern
I'm. I definitely. I like John Shabir.
- [72:34]
Andrew Sullivan
Wes Moore.
- [72:36]
Mark Halpern
Say what?
- [72:36]
Andrew Sullivan
Wes Moore. Yeah.
- [72:39]
Mark Halpern
I thought there were some issues, I think, a little bit around him, aren't there?
- [72:43]
Andrew Sullivan
There are, there are. Abigail Spanberger.
- [72:46]
Mark Halpern
Yeah.
- [72:47]
Andrew Sullivan
John Fetterman, in a way.
- [72:50]
Mark Halpern
But, but no, I mean, I can see the appeal.
- [72:53]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Larry Hogan. Larry Hogan. Yes, yes. Good choice. Chris Sununu, kind of.
- [73:02]
Mark Halpern
Maybe.
- [73:03]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Brian.
- [73:04]
Mark Halpern
Jared Polis, I'm thinking of.
- [73:06]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah. Jared Polis was on the first list. I don't know. He dropped off on this one. Maybe this. I don't know about his background. Does he have a working class background? I don't even know.
- [73:12]
Mark Halpern
I don't. I don't know either. Not many Jared Polis is.
- [73:15]
Andrew Sullivan
Would I think people with that name? You mean.
- [73:19]
Mark Halpern
Yes. I mean, I don't know. I mean, we'll figure that probably has a. I don't know, maybe that's being. I'm being prejudiced there.
- [73:24]
Andrew Sullivan
All right, last question. We go back to Donald Trump. What odds would you give a zero being zero, 100 being definitive. Yes. What odds would you give that Donald Trump will go down in history as a successful president?
- [73:39]
Mark Halpern
1 to 10.
- [73:40]
Andrew Sullivan
0 to 100. 0 is no chance. 100 is. He's. He's Abraham Lincoln. 15. 15, huh? That's awfully low. What if. What if he ends the Ukraine, Russia, war? What if he disarms Iran? What if the economy grows? Even if he did all those things. I don't think those things are plausible. Even then you'd say unsuccessful president.
- [74:02]
Mark Halpern
The damage he's done to our constitutional order and to our political culture and to the sense of honor that the White House and the office of the White House should represent to the world. I mean, I. I am. I am humiliated and embarrassed as an American.
- [74:24]
Andrew Sullivan
Yeah.
- [74:24]
Mark Halpern
To have this guy represent us around the world because he does not represent the best of America.
- [74:30]
Andrew Sullivan
You know what I recommend? I recommend for people like you when you go. Go to Europe, put a Canadian flag decal on your backpack.
- [74:37]
Mark Halpern
Backpack I've always used. The thing is, I was a. I grew up in Europe. I love America. And I chose America because it is this fantastic, dynamic, exciting, brilliant place. But it's also a decent place. The people here are good people. By and large. They're the most tolerant, humane people. They do enormous good. They commit to charity in ways Europeans never do. They live lives that are better than most lives lived in the West. And they are good people. And they deserve not to be represented by someone who is essentially a monster in many levels. And it's not them. It may be an element of them, it may be the streak that's always been around that finally sort of. But it's not them. And I love this country too much to want to see it continue in this way because I know we're better.
- [75:37]
Andrew Sullivan
Ladies and gentlemen, right now, pause what you're doing. Go on your web browser, type in Andrew Sullivan. Subscribe to the weekly dish. It's, It's. It's a gift that it exists. And Andrew, I'm so grateful to you for coming on. I will swap podcast appearances with you any day of the week.
- [75:51]
Mark Halpern
Good. Well, how many got. I'm happy. He's very sweet to me. And this has been. This has been really interesting. Challenging, actually, because I'm. I am kind of bereft of thoughts as to who. I just had two Jason Willock and then I just recently had Zed Jelani of one center right, one center left, young thinker writer. And I. I asked them these questions too, and they don't have very good answers. We are waiting. We're waiting for an Obama.
- [76:14]
Andrew Sullivan
We're waiting for someone to. Someone to emerge to speak to the tens of millions of folks who do not like the status quo. Andrew, thank you. Really great to see you and very grateful to you for making time.
- [76:24]
Mark Halpern
Thank you.
- [76:25]
Andrew Sullivan
That's a program for today. Coming back on Tuesday with a brand new episode. Particularly excited that our 8 for 28 segment what Democrats are at the top of my list to be the nominee of the party is returning next week. A big repertorial update for this month. You're going to see a lot of changes and we'll talk through them together. You're going to want to see who's on the list. I hope you have a great weekend and I'll see you back here on Tuesday. In the meantime, if you haven't done it yet, love for you to become an extra in a more official capacity. Don't just listen to the show because become part of our Squad. Go to NextUp on YouTube wherever you get your podcast. Make sure you like, subscribe, share it and that way you'll always know what's coming next up.
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Mark Halpern
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Andrew Sullivan
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Mark Halpern
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Andrew Sullivan
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