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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to the Dispatch podcast. I'm Mike Warren. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss the recent Supreme Court decision on the Voting Rights act and the state redistricting battles happening across the country. We'll also discuss the state of the economy one year into Trump's second term and two and a half months into the Iran war, and what it all means for Trump's popularity and the long projected Democratic victory in, in the upcoming midterms. And finally, not worth your time. Have we reached peak Bagel? I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleagues Jonah Goldberg, David Drucker and Charles Hillu. Let's dive in. All right, well, let's talk about this strange convergence of of all kinds of events and things that have been happening really over the last year or so. It started with Texas and President Donald Trump encouraging the Republican legislature there to redistrict mid decade and give Republicans an edge in the House of Representatives by giving Republicans five more seats. From Texas, there was a response, of course, from California. Gavin Newsom did the same thing in California, getting behind this referendum which passed in 2025, Election Day, and then it was off to the races with all these other states. You had Democratic led states trying to redistrict mid decade to add more Democratic seats. Republican states doing the same thing, a tit for tat back and forth. Indiana, their Republicans sort of stood on principle in the state Senate and said no. And of course, recently, last week, we saw a number of those state senators lose their primaries thanks to some backing from Trump and, and the Republican establishment who was not happy with that. You had Virginia, the Democratic legislature there pushing through a referendum that passed to be able to allow Virginia to redraw those districts and have 10 Democratic leaning districts to just one Republican district in that state. Then of course, we saw the state Supreme Court overturn that decision from Virginia. So there's this whole mess of stuff going on where states are redistricting or getting slapped down or somehow roadblocks being put up for all of that. How is it going to shake out? That seems to be a question that we can discuss here today. But then you throw in these other developments, particularly from the Supreme Court, this recent ruling, this Calais decision from the Supreme Court essentially holding that. And this is from our friends at SCOTUS blog. The Voting Rights act of 1965 did not require the state of Louisiana to create an additional majority minority district. No compelling interest justified the state's use of race in creating that map. And that map is an unconstitutional racial gerrymander so this was involving a map in Louisiana that had been sort of drawn a really kind of ugly gerrymander to get in one majority minority district, black district that is likely to go Democratic. The Supreme Court ruling, essentially, that map, you know, was, it was not Louisiana was not required to create a, an additional district like that. And the floodgates seemed to be open in a bunch of these Southern states that were compelled by the Voting Rights act to create these majority minority districts. So now you've seen a number of states with Republican legislatures trying to also redistrict, create new maps that are drawing out Democratic districts, drawing in new Republican districts. All this is all happening. Well, I don't know. We're in the middle of a midterm election. There are primaries coming, going on. There's a question about what Louisiana was going to do with a primary election that's happening this Saturday, just, you know, a day after this podcast goes live. So the state of Louisiana has moved the House primary, the Senate primary not affected by this redistricting is, is going on still on Saturday. Anyway, it's a whole big mess. Charles, explain to us sort of what's happening right now in these states. Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida. There's all these different Southern states and they're kind of taking different tacks. What's actually happening? What are they doing to change their maps or not change their maps at this critical moment?
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B
Sure thing, Mike. Several Southern states, as you brought up in response to the Calais decision, they moved to eliminate some of their majority minority districts. You know, Louisiana, of course, because their map was struck down by the court. They were put in kind of a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation where if they had used, gone ahead and used the maps and that the court struck down and they said it was too late to change the maps, then they would have gotten criticism that they were using unconstitutional maps and the election would have seen by many as illegitimate. But instead what they did do is, as you said, they delayed their House primaries and now they're getting criticism about causing voter confusion and all of this stuff. The latest I just saw is it looks like the Senate is going to vote on a map which will eliminate one of the two majority black districts. It looks like it's Cleo Fields district that is on the chopping block in Louisiana. In Louisiana, yes. So in Louisiana, he's a freshman congressman. It looks like his district is on the chopping block and that will add in total one more Republican district. Tennessee, in response to Calais also did something similar where they had a majority minority district around Memphis represented by Steve Cohen, and they carved up his district that's been signed by the governor again, one more Republican seat. And then Alabama, of course, they were kind of the most questionable as to whether they would actually be able to pull this off because they had this court injunction or this court stay, this court order that said that they weren't allowed to change their maps before the end of the decade with the new census. After 2030, they appealed to the Supreme Court and the court actually granted them relief from that court order. And now they it looks like they're set to again eliminate one of their two majority minority districts. And that again is going to give Republicans one more House seat. But the most interesting one is South Carolina, where this week the state Senate, they didn't have a to a super majority to call to allow them to stay in session for a little longer this month and consider redistricting. And I think the speech that the Senate majority leader gave, a guy named Shane Massie in South Carolina, I think his speech is sort of worth unpacking because it's a very comprehensive case against redistricting, both on the practical and pragmatic level, but also on the principal level. So he starts off with the reason why it might not be very practical to do redistricting because he sort of makes the argument that you can't really squeeze any more Republican seats out of South Carolina. It has a 6:1 congressional delegation right now. And he said if you try and get too cute, you could actually make it 5, 2. And the reason for that is that if you carve up a Democratic stronghold, a Democratic district, you're going to need to put those Democratic voters somewhere. And though you're going to have to put them into Republican districts. So that could dilute the districts of the incumbent Republicans and they're going to have to work a little harder.
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A
Yeah, I want to return to Massey's speech in a little bit, but let's stick on this point, David Drucker, because this is the kind of gamble, I suppose, that these Republican legislatures that are deciding, unlike South Carolina, are deciding at this moment to sort of redraw these districts. Are they Democratic districts that Republicans are gerrymandering out of existence, or are they black majority districts and are Republicans sort of, you know, denying black representation in Congress? It gets complicated because that Tennessee district around Memphis that Charles mentioned, which is a majority black district, has been represented for a very long time by a white Democrat. And so there are questions about that. But to Charles's point and to this, this leader in South Carolina's point, Shane Massie, if you draw out to maximize sort of Republican representation, you end up not only diluting out of existence majority minority districts in the south, but you dilute Republican districts as well to the point where you're not talking about R +15, you know, advantages. It might be R +10 or R +8 or R +5. And that isn't necessarily a guarantee that district is going to rem Republican from here on out. Is this a gamble some of these legislatures are making or is this just, you know, smart and ruthless politics?
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C
Well, it's a little bit of both, Mike. I mean, first of all, the Republicans, what do they have currently, like a 2, 2 seat majority on any given
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A
day in the House of Representatives? In, in the U.S. congress?
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C
In the House of Representatives on Capitol Hills. Right. So when you're thinking like a politician, which means you don't think, you know, past next Tuesday, all you're thinking is, how can I maintain this majority? And the president by instigating the redistricting in Texas, the good fortune of the Calais decision from the Republican perspective means you can do everything you can to try and build a bigger majority and actually without having an election. And Henry Olson, the very astute Washington Post columnist who is as good at this stuff as anybody that I know, has now projected that when this is all said and done, redistricting in Florida, the big snafu in Virginia for the Democrats, et cetera, the Republicans could have what is in effect a 12 to 14 seat majority if they get everything that's on the table for them. And that's a much bigger lift for Democrats than just trying to win four or five seats. And so who can blame them? But what we have learned over time is that, number one, you can dilute districts, but number two, you create these districts today and it all seems like everything is safe. In fact, just look at the normal course of reapportionment if we take all this mid decade shenanigans out of things. So every 10 years we have reapportionment, we have new districts. Most of them are gerrymandered. And by the end of the decade, from that gerrymander, usually you've begun to see political shifts. Some of these seats flip and waive elections, the political makeup because the population changes. And so these things are never set in stone on a permanent basis except certain states that just don't seem to move. Right. California on the one hand, Texas on the other hand, more or less. And so Republicans could be gaining seats today, but costing themselves seats in 2028 or 2030 on and look back and this will be the sort of, you know, the root of the poisonous tree, so to speak. What I'd like to say is that, you know, we've had gerrymandering as long as the Republic. I mean, actually, literally, it's where the
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A
name comes from, right?
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C
And most people didn't complain about it, at least Democrats didn't, until they weren't the only game in town. I personally miss the old days of the incumbent racket gerrymander, when Democrats and Republicans would get together in a room and say, well, I don't want to lose my seat and to be the Republican and the Democrats, well, I don't want to lose my seat. And whether you had a majority Republican state or majority Democratic state, what that did politically was create a lot of stability. So, sure, the incumbents were drawing their own districts, they were drawing their own maps, they were keeping themselves in power. But you didn't have the sort of thing that, you know, we have seen lately, and particularly this year, because everybody was in cahoots to look out for each other and therefore lots of political stability. Sometimes one party gained, sometimes the other party gained. But in general, you didn't have this sort of political volatility. And, you know, you could argue that you got a lot better results out of Congress and, you know, we'll just have to see where this leads. But, you know, as Olson pointed out in his Washington Post column, the Democrats, if they end up not winning the House of Representatives simply because they were drawn out of the ability to compete for seats, they're going to be a lot of hurt feelings there. And both parties always claim the other side started it, but this stuff just ends up going on and on and on.
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A
But I mean, it's going to be a lot more than hurt feelings. I mean, people are going to be pissed off, right? I mean, this could be something, I mean, especially as Henry Olson lays out, right, the possibility, you know, given the way the politics, the national mood is and where people sort of the popular sentiment is, you could have Democrats win a majority of the vote in the House of Representatives, take all of the votes that are cast in House of Representative elections, and win the sort of popular vote, but lose control of the. Or stay out of control. You know, they will not have control, not gain the majority in the House of Representatives, which is supposed to be the most reflective of the popular will. The popular majority of any sort of branch of the federal government. That is not. People aren't just gonna have their feelings hurt, Drucker, they're gonna be angry. And there's, I mean, we're talking about a time when people are angry at all kinds of institutions in this country. The Supreme Court, you know, Democrats and liberals are furious at the Supreme Court. And this is related to this conversation. Republicans have, under sort of Trump's direction, have lost complete trust in sort of any election results that go against them. Certain elements, things like mail in voting. I mean, this used to be a big Republican advantage in a lot of states and it's no longer that way in those states because there's so much distrust. I mean, you're talking about like distrust and institutions going through the roof if something like that happens. Jonah, I would love to know your thoughts because you've written a little bit about this. The way that this issue, whether it's the Kalai decision and all this, has been demagogued by Democrats. That seems like it could lead to some really bad places, civic health wise for the country. Right?
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D
Yeah. So first of all, just point of personal privilege, please. We're about 15 minutes in and I woke up this morning to hear on the news, both on NPR and on CNN and elsewhere from the summit in China, which is going on as we speak. There's actually a big state dinner as we speak. And I heard Donald Trump say that the one thing he can tell you is that in America nobody's talking about anything else other than this summit. So I don't know what the hell we're doing here.
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A
We did not get our marching orders. They got lost in the mail.
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E
Sorry.
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D
And it might be the biggest summit ever.
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C
Jonah, this is what happens when you're politically isolated.
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D
Yeah, look, I have grievances and receipts on some of this stuff. So on the Calais stuff and the Voting Rights Act, I think it's worth appreciating. And I don't think conservatives appreciate this enough. There's a whole generation of people of basically mainstream media, liberal reporters, Democratic Party people, you know, just citizens who have imbibed, I think wrongly, but like, but sincerely, the idea that the Voting Rights act is one of these holy of holies of American political history and they take it as a given that any attempt to modify, tamper, update, reform or repeal aspects of it has to be motivated by some sort of deep racist desire and that it is inherently prima faccia, illegitimate to want to do anything that changes the Voting Rights Act. And Democrats have leaned into this idea so much over the years because it benefits them in terms. Particularly in terms of these majority minority districts. And I get it. I get why it's considered one of these great moments in American history. I totally get it. And I think it was right. I think it was a worthwhile thing. Ending Jim Crow was really important and good. But what people forget is that the whole point of the Voting Rights act was to be temporary, to get us to that place that Martin Luther King was talking about, about where we judge people by the contents of their character, not the color of their skin. It was supposed to be transitional. The Supreme Court has talked about this stuff being transitional for decades. Yes, there are sincere arguments that we're not there yet, and therefore we need to have this stuff in place. And I thought Elena Kagan made some good arguments in the dissent about all that. And that's fine. But the problem is, as I wrote about this week, problem is that the Constitution and the Voting Rights act have always had this tension because the Constitution and the equal protection clause and other interpretations of the. The Constitution says you can't classify people by race. You can't give people special rights or privileges by race. The Voting Rights act itself has that language that says nothing in this should be interpreted to say that we are going to classify voters purely by their race. It's like a balancing test kind of thing. And so the tension is that the Voting Rights act says you need to give black people the opportunity to vote for black candidates. You can't guarantee that they'll have black candidates or, well, officials, but you have to give them an opportunity. But you can't take race so into account that you're just creating districts basically solely on race, and these things run into tension. What makes things even more complicated is that in the south, for now at least, and certainly for the last 50 years, 60 years, when you're talking about black voters, you're talking about Democratic voters, right? This is one of the. And I remember talking to, you know, Democratic strategists about why the voter turnout thing, just get everyone to turn out the vote, don't ask them for partisan reasons, whatever, is that the model was that you could send vans to. I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, to bus black voters to the polls. And you just knew, as a mathematical matter that nine out of ten of them at least, were gonna vote Democratic. And so why have litmus tests about partisanship? Why ask people if they're a Democrat or a Republican? Because, you know, just demographically, that's how it's gonna go. So the party has been rested on this stuff as a tactic, as a emotional construct for literally all of our lives. I think I'm the oldest person here, Drucker, and I might be in tension here, but like the Voting Rights act was passed before we were born. Right. And the Democratic Party is in large part, and again, I don't mean this pejoratively, but it's part of their. I was gonna say it's a cult about the Voting Rights Act. It's mythology, which is a very honorable mythology to have, is all wrapped up in the Voting Rights Act. And so when you change it, you immediately accuse people of racism. And that gets you to this absolutely ridiculous rhetoric that happens routinely in the Democratic Party going back as long as I can remember. John Lewis was a hero of the civil rights movement, accused repeatedly Mitt Romney of wanting to go back to Jim Crow. I just want to be really clear. Mitt Romney's not a big Jim Crow guy. And, and you had this weekend, last weekend on Meet the Press, Cory Booker saying that this Kallei decision, which is the one that says that basically whittles away at the room, you have to create majority, minority districts basically just on race, says it'll go down in history as korematsu or Plessy vs Ferguson. As bad as all of that. And I just want to be clear, like, it's nowhere close. It's not even a bad decision. I mean, you can disagree with it, but it's not an evil. Plessy versus Ferguson was an evil decision. Korematsu was, which allowed for the internment of the Japanese, was a really Japanese American. Really problematic. Right, but the point I didn't get into column, I just want to address here, and I'll stop filibustering, is because I know Mike Lee wants to get rid of that too, right? No, but the idea, you hear this formulation all the time from people like Cory Booker and Leonard Jeffries. Not Leonard Jeffries, that's his uncle Hakeem Jeffries. You get this formulation that Jim Crow was about using terror. I think Cory Booker said almost exactly this. Using state sponsored terror to prevent black people from voting. This gets the correlation backwards. They stop people from voting so they could keep black people from voting in politicians. That would end the state sponsored terror. Right, Right. Jim Crow was about brutalizing and denying the rights of black people. And in order to maintain that political reality, you needed to keep them from voting. But like Jim Crow starts basically as a regulation of labor markets because they didn't want black people voting with their feet and creating competitive pressures that bid up the labor of black people in the agriculture sector. And so all of the stuff about denying movement, denying, you know, education, well, the education thing was a separate part of it. But denying voting was to maintain that kind of system that sort of keep the de facto plantation system in effect, even though the slavery had ended. But whole generations have grown up thinking that the point of Jim Crow was to keep black people from voting in Democrats, essentially. And it colors so much of their thinking about all this. That's a problem.
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A
Right. But can I raise something that I've been thinking about these last couple of weeks with all of the just the demagoguery you've been discussing, Jonah, and your column and just now, and also what we've been seeing from these Republican led legislatures in some, but not all, I think importantly and we'll come back to South Carolina in a bit, not all, but some of these Republican state legislatures, which is a sort of maximalist attitude toward this. It's, you know, like this is go time and in a way a sort of it's a different kind of denial of the competition or the vote with your feet kind of idea. And in our politics. And I think this let's go back, I think now to South Carolina because Charles, something that Shane Massie said in his speech, again, this is the state Senate leader, the Republican, in this very interesting speech. Just I'll read a quick part of it here. Too many people in power just want to do whatever it takes to stay in power. They'll do whatever it takes to keep it. But I ask to what end? What do you do with it when you've attained it? And he sort of suggested is the only point of attain of getting power is to retain it and keep it, or is it to do things to better your community and your county and your state and your country? He brings up this idea in, you know, elsewhere in this speech about the competition in the political sphere. He says basically we Republicans always talk about how competition is good in the economic sphere. He said essentially a good Republican Party, a strong Republican Party, you know, requires a robust Democratic Party and that that competition is good. That is about as countercultural as you can get in today's politics, right? The mindset of everybody, whether it's Democrats who are sort of demagoguing or sort of making too much of the myth of the Voting Rights act in order to kind of maintain it, not recognize the changes. You've got Republicans who are saying, you know, the Only goal of our power here is to maximize the amount of partisan power we have. I don't know, is State Senator Massie, you know, just outside of the norm or, you know, is there some kind of sense that he could be representative of, I don't know, a little bit of a saner voice and a saner mindset and maybe even a saner sentiment within the electorate? Or is he just going to get wiped out in the next election over a speech like this?
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B
I mean, obviously we're going to find out. I mean, if Indiana was any indication, voters seem to have to be tilted toward this. We're just going to keep power and we want to redistrict partisan purposes. As Drucker, he's done the reporting on that. But I think Massie's speech is also notable for another sentiment that he expresses where Drucker was bringing up, I believe the phrase he used was that if you're a politician, you're not thinking past next Tuesday, you're just focused on how can I maintain this power. But one of the arguments that Massie made against the redistricting proposal in South Carolina was essentially that it's. He sort of made this in a slightly backdoor way, but it was kind of clear. This is what he was indicating was that it's good to have at least one Democratic congressman, in this case Jim Clyburn, from a largely Republican state, because let's say you have a Democratic administration who you and your state needs something from that administration. It's good for you to have a person in Congress whom that Democratic administration is going to listen to. So the argument he makes sort of flows from the sentiment of we're not going to be in power forever. At some point the other side is going to be in power. And, you know, whatever weapons we put in place, whatever weapons we use, they're going to turn on us once they come back into power. So it's that sort of long term thinking that is pretty lacking in American politics today. And then the other point that he made was essentially that, you know, it's just, just holding on to power at all costs is not the right thing to do. It's just wrong. He said if Democrats were in power, we hear this, that they would do the same to us. And, you know, they do the same. They've done it in other places. And he says, you know, if this were the case in South Carolina, like, maybe they would do it, he says, but like, he makes the argument, do we want to do that? Is that how we want to Be that, you know, he says, like, you know, the golden rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It's not do unto others as you think they would do unto you. So at a certain point, you just need to. The point that Massey's making is you need to just, you know, be this blockage and this obstacle and stop this sort of pure power play and this pure partisan politics that dominates our political life today.
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D
So there's. There's another point that we get in here, like about when Michael was talking about how pissed people are going to be, how pissed Democrats are going to be if Democrats don't hiccup the House.
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A
Right.
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D
So one of the concepts that I very related to what Charles is talking about is this expression. I think it started British. I'm not sure of storing up trouble. Right. Like there is Trump fatigue now.
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A
Yes.
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D
Congress's reputation is getting a bruising because it's not standing up to Trump on anything. Right. Or at least it's not doing so publicly. Like the Trump, the Republicans you talk to from time to time. I mean, you guys do more reporting on this than I ever will. But they'll say, well, we hashed this stuff out in private. Right. That's Mike Johnson things. I go talk to him and we prevent this from being public. Facing disagreement. The problem is there are a lot of Republicans who could use politically, some public facing disagreement. It would help them claim that they're not a lapdog. And if the Republicans hold onto the House, that means for two more years. There's no convenient foil for Donald Trump and the Republicans to blame anything that happens in politics or anything that happens in international relations until 2028, like the entire course of the country will be owned by one party. And one of the things that I think this is something that Ramesh and I and a couple other people at National Review try to impress on people from time to time that what is good for the Republican Party is not necessarily good for America or the conservative movement. They then all move in perfect tandem. It would have been much better for the Republican Party if Herbert Hoover had lost the 1928 presidential election and the Great Depression hit Al Smith and the Democrats as their fault rather than the Republicans fault. Right. You can think of all sorts of things that if you hold all other history constant, it would have been better for Republicans not to be in charge or Democrats not to be in charge. Right. You know, things happen, events happen, and parties get blamed for them. Like people say that Vance is going to be the. They're always. You know, I've been a skeptic from the beginning that Vance is this obvious heir apparent chew in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But no sitting vice president is ever going to run if the guy at the top of the ticket is at 25% approval with inflation rates running high. And you're gonna go and promise four more years.
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A
Right?
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D
And so like I get having Democrats in and do impeachment stuff will drive Trump crazy. And that's the genesis of all of this, is that Trump wanted to be able to hold onto Congress so that he doesn't have hassles from Democrats as a lame duck guy. But like, avoiding Trump's headaches cannot be the single motivating principle of the Republican Party. And if it becomes that which is right now is that is storing up massive trouble because the amount of Trump fatigue and Republican fatigue and saying we need fresh blood and we need to get these guys out of there will be so massive come 2028 if there isn't a little bit of a release valve. And I think that Republicans cannot see that horizon at all. And they're gonna pay a price for it if they succeed in all this.
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A
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast.
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E
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D
We are back.
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A
You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. I want to transition a little bit here, but it's. I think it's related to what we've been talking about, which is this idea that we have talked about here on this podcast that, you know, Democratic. A Democratic majority is in our very near future in this midterm election that seems to be in question. Now on the other hand, on the other hand, the conditions, particularly of the economy, and that's what I want to talk about, suggest that maybe even with all of this sort of gaming of the system by both parties that ends up benefiting Republicans in the end, even that cannot sort of surmount the economic conditions that we're living in. And I just want to read a couple of new bits of information. This is from a report now the consumer price index rose 3.8%. This is essentially looking at the overall index of prices for everything, 3.8%, which was up from March's 3.3%. Oil prices spiked to $118 a barrel at the end of April, up from roughly $70 a barrel before the conflict with Iran began. You have airline fares rising. We've got the summer travel. Those kind of prices are going to be felt very acutely by Americans as we get into the summer season. And it seems like, you know, we've been hearing about this since at least the 1992 presidential election. Right. It's the economy, stupid. And the economy does not look great now. It's not all bad. Right. Pretty decent jobs report last month that came out earlier, I believe last week from April, something like 115,000 new jobs. Unemployment is pretty steady. But I don't know, does any of that matter if everything just feels because it is more expensive? Is this, I don't know, trucker? What do you think? I mean, are we looking at a situation where even with all of the sort of everything stacked against Democrats in terms of the rules and the districts and all of that in this upcoming election, I mean, how can Republicans survive if the economy is doing this poorly when they've got total control?
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C
Yeah. I mean, this is the wind at the Democratic Party's back that I would be more willing to predict than not if I was in the prediction game, that they'll end up winning control of the House even though they have to surmount a what is in effect a larger Republican House majority. I mean, the atmosphere for Republicans has gotten so troubling since the war in Iran began that we're even looking at a very favorable Senate map for the Republican Party begin to be competitive for a Democratic takeover. This is still going to have to play out on mostly red territory, but you can't rule it out. I've seen a lot of private polling
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A
and we should say, Drucker, we should say this is not a Senate map that was ever going to be favorable to Democrats. Right. I mean, this is your point. Right. It was always going to be a tough slog. And the fact that we're even talking about it is remarkable.
- [35:42]
C
We're looking. Look, I've seen polling in Iowa, Ohio, Texas and Alaska, just to name four states. These are contestable for Democrats. I don't know that they'll win any of them. I will never predict that Democrats are going to win a statewide race in Texas. So one day I'm just going to have to be wrong. But these are contestable, and they're contestable precisely because the environment has taken a nosedive. I think we've all gotten used to Donald Trump having lower than normal approval ratings, notwithstanding that Joe Biden ended up in the same place. But we kind of looked at Trump as, look, he's just this polarizing figure. His numbers are gonna be good with Republicans, bad with Democrats and independents. Who knows? His numbers with independents are in the tank. They're, in fact, they've kind of escaped the bottom of the tank. His job approval rating, when I was checking earlier this week, was about 40%. His handling of inflation was about 29%. And so let me put all of this in context as to why things are so bad and why the economy, despite a lot of bright spots, is not helping President Trump and therefore not helping the Republican Party in Congress. Voters hired Donald Trump or rehired them, rehired him to do one thing, bring down prices. Part of the price of admission was everything that happened in his first term, everything that happened at the end of his term, January 6, the way he talks, the way he behaves. But, you know, when I was traveling the country, we both were Mike, for the Dispatch in the 2024 campaign, and Democratic strategists and activists would tell me that they were concerned because people were memory holing the pandemic.
- [37:24]
A
Yes.
- [37:25]
C
Memory holding everything that concerned them about Donald Trump and just saying to themselves, you know, pre Covid, which was an anomaly and not anybody's fault. We had a great economy. I want to go back to that. Everything is costing me way too much money. And I still remember you and I at a door in Allentown, Pennsylvania, or thereabouts, and a Republican saying, look, do I behave the way this guy does? No. Would I prefer he behaved like a normal person? Sure. But you know what? He talks a lot. At the end of the day, knew how to run a great economy.
- [37:52]
A
And I should say Trump made this explicit in his campaign. Right. This is a quote from a rally in Pittsburgh and on the other side of the state of Pennsylvania. And in, I think something like October 2024, a vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper. I mean, there it was. That was the pitch.
- [38:10]
C
It's been a year plus, and things are not just not cheaper, they're worse. And they're particularly worse on all fronts because of the impact that a barrel of oil has on our entire economy. That is why the atmosphere has gone from bad to worse for Republicans and why I still say they're likely to win the House and why the Senate is at least in play where it was not in play before.
- [38:40]
A
One thing that's so interesting is how much Trump himself is getting the blame for these things. And it's partly because he said he could fix it. And so if it's worse, then I think voters get the sense that, you know, he was either lying or he didn't, or he's sort of in over his head. He's, you know, again, there's an Economist YouGov poll that shows Trump's approval on inflation is worse than Biden's at any point right now. It's worse than Biden's approval on inflation at any time during Biden's presidency, and certainly at any time during Trump's first term. Trump's approval is worse now. And you think about the tariffs, by
- [39:18]
C
the way, Mike, I just have to say, for geriatrics like Jonah and I, it's worse than Carter right now.
- [39:22]
A
That's pretty bad.
- [39:23]
C
And Jimmy Carter was the king of lose your job because of inflation.
- [39:27]
A
Right?
- [39:27]
C
That was stagflation, and then Biden overtook him, and it's just. It's just bad. I want to point out one thing here which is really important. One of the reasons Trump is suffering, and therefore his party is suffering, is voters don't think he's focused on the economy. You know, he always says, oh, inflation, you know, fake news, hoax. I solved it. When you're not focused on the problems that voters want you focused on, then it's a double whammy against you. It's a double black mark. And so not only is he not delivering as far voters look at him and they're like, he's not even trying. He's not even focused. He got his ballroom. He's got the war. He's got everything except the one thing I want from him the most. At least try, at least focus on it. When you're not doing that, voters punish you.
- [40:10]
D
Well, I should also say, just as it says in the Talmud, it's worse than that. Because the other problem is. Pick a topic that's a problem for him. Iran, the ballroom. Venezuela is not a problem, but it's it. I think we're storing up some trouble there, but we'll see. You know, he's now talking about making it the 51st state, which will be. One can only imagine how much Stephen Miller is cutting himself at the idea that we just deported all these Venezuelans down there. And now you want to make them citizens. Right? But anyway, put all that aside, right?
- [40:39]
A
Make Ronald Acuna Jr. A citizen.
- [40:41]
D
Sorry. Because he has this. I have this. I don't want to get into a whole no kings thing, but he has this monarchical view of his own powers. He's actually told people that he's the most powerful man in the world and the only limitation on him is his own conscience when it comes to what he does in the world and all that, right? And so you got this thing where he didn't ask permission from Congress for the ballroom, he didn't ask permission from Congress for Iran, he didn't ask permission from Congress or the relevant architectural gitchy goo land, whatever public, you know, aesthetic commissions for the reflecting pool and the ballroom and all these different things.
- [41:20]
A
Didn't ask him on tariffs it because
- [41:22]
D
he thinks he's right about everything and he thinks everything's gonna be successful. Cuz he's got this power of positive thinking worldview. And so he doesn't wanna go through process, he doesn't wanna go through Congress, he doesn't wanna go through anything. And part of the problem is that the point, part of the advantage of going through Congress is that if things go south, you have people whose political interests have buy in and you can say, it's like why every schmuck CEO in the country hires McKinsey. It's not because they think McKinsey is brilliant, right? Or some other consulting firm. It's because they want to be able to say to their shareholders and their board, if things don't go well, hey, look, we hired the best consultants and we just did what they told us to do kind of thing, right? Trump doesn't want to pass any bucks. He doesn't want to when he's going into stuff, he wants to be pure, unilateral, monarchical guy. And then it's like him going to our NATO allies and saying, you didn't want to help us, you didn't ask until things went south. Like asking people to join stuff after it's unpopular is not great politics. And so one of the reasons I think that people blame Trump more than they would otherwise blame another president for the economy is, is that he's the I alone can fix it. I alone am doing this. I don't need Congress, I don't need courts, I don't need anybody. All you have to do is put your faith and trust in me. And when things go cattywampus after making that public argument, no one's rushing to take blame that isn't theirs. And he can't really persuasively point and say, oh well, if the Democrats had only voted for this, everything would be fine because he never asked them for it. Never mind, he didn't ask the Republicans to vote for.
- [42:59]
A
Right, right, Right. No, it's, it's a good point. And I think you are correct in analyzing sort of why voters have this view. And I think it also has to do with the fact that he is so ubiquitous as well. I mean, you know, Joe Biden, the rap against Joe Biden was that he wasn't out there and he seemed like he wasn't even in charge of his own administration. There is no doubt that Donald Trump is sort of in charge in his own chaotic way because he tells us all the time about that. I want to bring up and ask Charles about this. This happened this week sort of on the White House lot as I believe the President was either coming or going from somewhere and he was asked a bunch of questions by the press, including some tough questions from some right leaning outlets. I believe a question that prompted this answer came from the Daily Caller or another conservative outlet. But he was essentially asked when it comes to making a deal with the Iranians about opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the war, you know, does the economy, does financial considerations for America, you know, American consumers and American taxpayers, does that come into his thinking? And I. Can we play that clip of his answer?
- [44:08]
B
When you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, to what extent are American financing situations motivated you to make a deal?
- [44:16]
C
Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters without talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about any. But I think about one thing. You cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.
- [44:34]
A
All right, Charles, you were in the field reporting on a Democratic House primary. I'm looking forward to seeing that piece. When the president said this earlier this week, I want to know, did you see the Democratic staffers on the campaigns that you were covering, were they actually rubbing their hands together in excitement about being able to use a clip of Donald Trump in an ad this fall saying I don't think about Americans financial situation or were they just excited silently where. I mean, this is gold for Democrats who want to, you know, I mean, take any other number of things that he said. But this was a, this is a pretty big foot and mouth, you know, moment for Trump, right?
- [45:12]
B
That's right. And I'll tell you a story. On Monday, I was at an event. It was because the district is Pennsylvania, 7th district in the Lehigh Valley. Great hot dogs, beautiful area. And it's Ryan McKenzie's district who's the incumbent Republican. He narrowly beat Susan Wilde, the three term Democratic congresswoman in 2024. And this is going to be one of the most competitive districts in the country this fall. So it's a question of who are Democrats going to nominate? So I attended this event that this protest outside of Ryan McKenzie's, one of his district offices in Allentown. And people were just saying, like, you know, we don't like Trump. We don't like that Ryan McKenzie is enabling him. It's basically a bunch of retirees, elderly Democrats, and the at noon on a Monday. And there were quite a few. There were like five dozen of them, but, you know, a bunch of people outlining the street and saying, we don't like Donald Trump. We don't like what Ryan McKenzie is doing. And right across the street from that office was a gas station. And the, I believe was the price was 469A gallon there. So I was talking to one of the primary candidates, a Democrat named Ryan Croswell, at that protest, and I was interviewing him, and he actually references, he says, like, look at the gas prices just right across the street. So, you know, this is something that Democrats are going to be able to, you know, leverage, you know, sort of to leverage on for the campaign, both in the House and then also in the Senate. The only thing that I wanted to add to what Drucker was saying about the Senate were these races that are contestable in Ohio and Texas and the rest where, you know, even if Democrats don't win them, they can still force Republicans to spend money. There's that they could be using to either help out Susan Collins in Maine or help out Mike Rogers in Michigan or take down Jon Ossoff in Georgia. So even if they don't win, you know, that, that wouldn't be enough for them to take back the Senate completely. But, you know, they can still hurt Republicans and sort of put a foundation on to build on for a future election just by making those states competitive like Texas and Ohio, even if they don't win them.
- [47:13]
A
Yeah. No, I think that's a great point, Jonah. Real quick, before we move on, you know, what do you make of statements like these? Is this all baked in? And it's just things are just bad and Donald Trump and the Republican Party is going to be, you know, are going to face the political consequences or is Trump sort of unique in his ability to, you know, we always talk about how he's kind of able to say whatever he wants and people, I don't know, give him the benefit of the doubt or they don't care. They kind of look past it. Is his political luck running out and is he sort of losing a step by kind of throwing out lines like this that suggest that he's just as, if not more out of touch than Joe Biden was, you know, four years ago, as inflation was raging in that administration. Is Trump losing a step on these kinds of things?
- [47:57]
D
Well, I mean, he's falling asleep in Oval Office meetings, which is problematic, but
- [48:02]
A
you do that in Dispatch editorial meetings, too.
- [48:04]
D
That's true, but I don't, you know, but like, I'm not the president. But look, I mean, there are a few things, one I'm actually willing to defend, like what Trump meant to say here. I'm not trying to do a Trump splaining thing and all that, but, like, he's been kind of clever, attacking press, saying, why would I tell you that? Why would I let the Iranians know what I'm thinking? Kind of thing. Right. He does that all the time. Even though he has told them the one thing that we really shouldn't have told him, which was the deadline for when he wanted to get out of the war. Right. Which was incredibly stupid. But he says, like he should, he could have done a. Very easily. Could have done a. Hey, look, what you're asking me to say is that you want me to tell the Iranians that if they just squeeze the oil price for a little while longer, I'm gonna give up and let them have a nuclear weapon. I'm not gonna play that game. He didn't say that. And instead he said this thing that. Perfectly fair in politics to quote, saying, I don't care about American's finances. Let him eat it. That's fine. I think he is kind of losing a step. I think he's just, he's tired. But it's more that I think Americans are getting tired of the act. Right? They know the shtick. They know when he gets in trouble with one thing, he tries to create a controversy someplace else. They're tuning it out. Enormous numbers of Americans say they don't follow politics anymore, which is not great for us because they just don't want to hear about Trump. He's in everybody's headspace, and I think that's kind of his. There's just not a lot of juice in the tank. When you've been taboo violating and norm violating for so long, people price it into your personality in a way that it's just. It's not as entertaining as it once was. I do have a question for the group here, since you guys follow this stuff. I'm not on Polymarket. I'm not on Couchie. But at the beginning Warren said something along the lines of given the state of things with the gerrymandering and whatnot, the Democrats could win decisively the popular vote and still not take over Congress. Now I'm with Drucker and the rest of you that if you're just gonna make a straight line prediction bet. Right? And as we have to keep telling Charles, the rule for pundits is to use percentages because then you can always say, well, I said they had a 70% chance. Never do binary.
- [50:19]
B
But the government's definitely not going to shut down Joe and Elliot. It's not going to.
- [50:22]
D
That's right. But it dawned on me just listening to you guys talk about this for the first time, something really funny could happen. And I mean funny in a sort of nonpartisan kind of. Just like if the California gubernatorial primary leads to just two Republicans in the general election.
- [50:36]
A
Right.
- [50:37]
D
That would be funny. Right? Just on the merits, that would be funny. What is? Do you think it's 01%, 5%? Pick a number. I don't care. What is the likelihood that on the morning after the election we all have this holy crap moment where the Republicans hold on to the House but take the Senate.
- [50:56]
A
Wait, the Republicans hold on the House
- [50:57]
D
but Democrats take the Senate but Democrats take the Senate? I mean, is it 0.0? Is it 1%? Because like I could see like with all of this gerrymandering stuff, the logic of too big to steal like would happen in Hungary starts to kick in. And you could see since I think this is intuitively true, but I don't know, I haven't looked at the data that even in the states like Texas. Right. That you have to think Republicans have a built in advantage in which they do. Right. They're still more competitive than a lot of these. There's still more purple than a lot of these Republican districts or Democratic districts too. And could you have never seen this before? I don't think. Where we have a wave election that doesn't take the House but does take the Senate. Is that total science fiction or is it like in the realm of the possible?
- [51:51]
A
I mean it seems like a non zero chance. Drucker, what do you think?
- [51:54]
C
I mean, I would say it's non zero, but I'm skeptical it could work out that way. As far as I know, the last time the Senate flipped but the House didn't was 1986, which was Reagan's second midterm. But of course districts were Different. The country was different. And so it may not be sort of an apt comparison.
- [52:11]
D
That was a Reagan Democrat moment where the Reagan Democrats were the pivotal voters in America.
- [52:17]
A
Yeah.
- [52:17]
C
And, you know, Reagan had swept in a Republican Senate majority in 1980, and it was like in 86, they were just kind of swept out.
- [52:24]
A
By the way, there's a line that a consultant told me, I can't remember who years ago, that the. That someone, one of the senators or Republican senators who had sort of recruited that 1980 class, said in 1980, if we had known we were going to win the Senate, Republicans were going to win the set in 1980, we would have recruited better candidates because they all got. A bunch of them got washed out in 1986. Go ahead, Trucker.
- [52:45]
C
So here's the thing. I'm just gonna. I'm using Olson here just because I trust him. And these are the numbers I have in my head. What he was writing in this column that just came out in the last 48 hours or so was that a 4 point popular vote victory by the Democrats may not be enough to win the House. So my point is, given where this battle for the Senate is taking place, largely, let's just stipulate for the sake of argument that Platner beats Collins and Copper beats Mark Watley in that open till a seat in North Carolina. So two down, two to go. The Democrats have to pick off the other two in places like Iowa and Ohio. Those have been, you know, Trump plus 10 three terms in a row on average, or plus eight, plus nine, plus 10. Right.
- [53:35]
D
But Sherrod Brown's kind of popular, kind of a different kind of Democrat. Right? Right. Yeah.
- [53:39]
A
Yeah.
- [53:39]
C
I never trust retreads, though. And Brown, this Brown, isn't looked at the way the original Brown was.
- [53:44]
D
Fair.
- [53:45]
C
Retreads often lose. Sullivan seems exceedingly vulnerable. I know Republicans are super worried about it. It's in Alaska, but it's a red state. They haven't elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 08. He lasted one term. And in the entire history of the state, which, granted, is not as, you know, old as some of the colonies, they've only elected a Democrat to the Senate one other time. And then, of course, Texas. Right. It's like the white, the perennial blue whale. Democrats keep trying to get it, and occasionally they come close, but it never really happens. And I'd say 2018 was a bit of an anomaly where Cruz wins only by like two and a half points. He was so reviled by Republicans in Texas for how he handled the 2016 convention that it was this weird place where everything came together for a narrow, better Aurora gloss. So all that to say is that the popular vote margin for Democrats nationwide, I think would have to be in the five to maybe the five point range or at least above plus four. And if it's above plus four, then you're getting into the area where there's no way Democrats are not winning the House.
- [54:55]
B
Right.
- [54:55]
C
And that's kind of all I'm getting at. It's my initial thumbnail sketch on in answering your question without giving it much previous thought.
- [55:04]
A
But it would be so much fun, Jonah, if it happened. I mean, wouldn't it? The amount of analysis that would come out. I mean, it would help our industry for the next six months just grow in ways that unforeseen.
- [55:16]
D
I mean, there would be full time cable network janitors behind Kornacki and Enton just mopping up as they were like wetting themselves trying to figure out how to explain all of it. That's all I. Look, some people just want to see the world burn, right? I'm here just for the weird cephalogical abnormalities.
- [55:37]
A
I'm right there with you.
- [55:38]
C
Honestly, for the Democrats in 2028, the best thing for them might be to just not win any chamber of Congress because if they sweep this year, they're going to think they've solved all of their problems and they're going to roll into 2028 running so far left they're going to fall into the Pacific Ocean. And if they only win at least one chamber, it'll give them some food for thought. If they win neither, it's going to be back to the autopsy they're never going to release. You know, I mean, and it'll really train minds in terms of the candidates that are running in 2028 for them.
- [56:11]
D
But that's the flip side of my point about Republicans storing up trouble. Right. Is that they would arguably be better off for 28 if you had a powerless Democratic House being incredibly performative, letting AOC and Ilhan Omar define news cycles, giving Trump someone to attack. Right. That would be good for Republicans for a little while.
- [56:33]
A
Another pointless impeachment trial. Totally. Absolutely.
- [56:36]
D
Yeah.
- [56:37]
A
Yeah.
- [56:37]
B
All right.
- [56:37]
A
Well, we will keep our tabs on all of this, both the economy and I'll be watching Polymarket to see right now. By the way, since you asked about it, polymarket has 79% is the likelihood that Democrats win the House in 2026. But maybe they're a lagging indicator, not a leading indicator. Before we take an ad break. Consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use the promo code Roundtable, you'll get one month free. And speaking of ads, if they aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership, no ads, early access to all episodes, two free gift memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and so much more. Okay, we'll be right back. Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. Let's move on though. Before we head to Not Worth youh Time, I want to ask all of our panel here to recommend something that they've read or listened to here at the Dispatch that they'd like to recommend to our listeners here on the Dispatch podcast. And I'm going to just real quick mention mine and then I'm going to go to Charles and hear his Just because it's in the vein of what we've been talking about on this podcast, I really want to recommend the most recent and actually several of the recent episodes of Advisory Opinions, but a very useful and helpful deeper understanding of some of the particular cases and the fallout to Kalay and that decision. The most recent episode talking about this Alabama case, why it was sent down, what the dissents from the Supreme Court, the liberals on the Supreme Court said. So definitely check out that most recent episode of Advisory Opinions. Charles, what's your Dispatch recommends?
- [58:33]
B
Well, like you, I lived through Covid and it was not a very fun time. And I see the news about hantavirus and I thought, wow, I really hope that that doesn't happen again. And I think it was Friday tmd. Last Friday TMD published a very good report on pantavirus saying it's probably not gonna be in the next pandemic. But also there's been some sort of institutional problems that can kind of hurt pandemic response. So I think, as always, a very level headed and very worth your time issue of tmd.
- [59:02]
D
Jonah, just because every now and then I like it when Kevin Williamson takes out his trusty Davy Crockett pocket knife and opens up his spleen in rage. He had a great piece called Empire of Baloney. Great headline that just sort of cataloged all the ways in which we're debating things and our politics is defined by what social scientists call lies. And I just thought it was for people who sometimes don't like Kevin's extremely adjectival pros about politics and Trump. Sometimes it might be a bit much for them, but for those who find it cathartic, I thought it was great.
- [59:41]
C
All right, Drucker, Jessica Riddell's piece on the federal debt, why the federal Debt Matters, and really instructive piece. What I liked about it is right up top. She references an obvious and problematic fact, and that is that voters do not care about the federal debt. And it's one of the reasons why politicians do nothing about it, because there is no incentive to do anything about it. So I recommend that piece because it tells you why we should be doing something about it. But it turns it back on. I mean, the reader broadly turns it back on all of us. Because politicians are in the service business and if they thought we really cared and we're going to reward them for fixing it, trust me, they'd fix it.
- [60:22]
A
Debts and deficits, they are worth our time, but nobody seems to understand it. Speaking of worth your time, some not worth your time today. I read a piece in the Wall Street Journal recently. They reported that we live in a golden age of the bagel, and the article suggests that perhaps we have reached peak bagel. I'm going to read this from a recent Journal piece at the sixth Bagel Fest. I had no idea there was Bagel fest. At the sixth Bagel Fest. More than 2,000 devotees of new York's most iconic breakfast food had lined up to try samples and schmears from local favorites and shops as far away as Denmark and Hawaii. When a panel of expert judges announced its pick for best bagel. The crowd erupted with a mix of elation and disbelief. The winner, Starship Bagel, which is not based in New York or even London or Montreal, cities with venerable bagel traditions of their own, but in Dallas, Texas. So my first question here to the resident New York native Jonah why is Texas making a better bagel than New York?
- [61:35]
D
I want to be really clear about something here, okay? So you know how there's a whole school of left wing post colonial thought that talks about settler colonizing and all of these things, Right. And they say that they have to deny that Jews were ever indigenous to the Middle east because and to call them European implants, Right. These foreign outside things in New York City has so completely colonized the concept of the bagel that even in Dallas they are paying homage to the New York bagel and working within the paradigms created by the New York bagel. And I growing up, always thought that this is what the New York bagel was. Bagels like if you went to The Plato's realm of the ideal and looked at a bagel, it would mirror basically the H and H bagel. I grew up eating three blocks from my house. And it was not until I went to Montreal where I found out that the Montreal bagel is just as old as the New York bagel.
- [62:41]
A
Yep.
- [62:41]
D
Has just as much claim. You know, it's like when like some guy in exile has just as much of a claim to the British throne as somebody else. If you actually do the begats and look at their family trees and all that kind of stuff, you cannot deny the authenticity and the legitimacy of the Montreal bagels claim because the immigrants who came to New York also went to Montreal from the pale of the settlement and they brought their kind of bagel. And it's just slightly different. It's more like a biali, I have to say. But like, so I don't mind, really. It's like bringing democracy to the world. Like, I don't, I don't resent when some country becomes a thriving liberal capitalist democracy on the American model. I'm like, see, this is the power of our influence. We try really hard with New York style pizza to similarly colonize the mind and the palate of the world, and we failed. Chicago still has this major resistance with this souffle that they call Chicago pizza. The Midwest has these little squares of pizza that I. Whatever, it's a triscuit with cheese and tomato sauce on it. That's fine. But the New York bagel is supreme in the fact that, that the desire to emulate the perfection of the New York bagel has brought Dallas with its resources to take the top spot. I do not mind at all.
- [63:56]
A
Okay, well, this place in Dallas apparently does a pretty traditional New York style bagel. But the journal story does not stop there and say, basically, you know, this traditional New York bagel is what is being, you know, propagated. This is not alone why we're at peak bagel. I'm going to read you some of these other bagel places and other bagel styles that are, you know, happening throughout the culinary world. So there's, there's a, there's a chain that has really exploded in the last couple of years. Pop up bagels. They come whole, they do not slice their bagels. And you get a tub of some kind of schmear or butter or something, different flavors and the at pop up bagel. The motto is grip, rip and dip your bagel in chunks. You pull a chunk and you dip it in your tub of schmear. And that's how you eat it. You don't spread it on or eat it in a sandwich. Of course there's a, there's sourdough bagels, open faced sandwich bagels, Stuffed bagels is a big thing. There's a place in Brooklyn now we're back in New York called Bagel Joint which makes a miso flavored bagel Rise Bagels in Orange County, California serves a bagel egg sandwich that includes cheese, bulgogi, kimchi and cream cheese. And then at Chicago's Rosca, you can get a bagel topped with red mole drucker. Which of these wacky bagels are you going to try?
- [65:18]
C
I'm out of here. I gotta go get lunch. Driving me crazy here, look. You know a sign of economic and cultural gentrification around the country is the rise of a great bagel shop in your neighborhood. I've lived on Capitol Hill now 20 plus years. And when Capitol Hill started to acquire some really good restaurants and bars beyond dive bars, which I'm a big fan of, one of the signs that that was happening was not one, but two really good bagel shops may not be as good as New York, but you know, these were signs of improvement. I'm actually not surprised that the best rated bagel would be in Texas. There are, I mean, just to be crass about it, but there are a lot of Jews in Texas. The Galveston port was a huge pipeline for immigrants, right? We think of Ellis island all the time, but so many Europe Jews came through Galveston. And so you have a really great Jewish diaspora in Texas from the old country and their descendants, not just, you know, people who came west from New York and the Northeast. And so it totally makes sense to me, particularly as Texas has become more cultured beyond the things that we think about Texas, that you would end up up with the country's best rated bagel, even if it's not quite the best rated bagel. But it's one of those cultural things about the United States where there are particular ethnic foods or foods we think of as ethnic and they start as ethnic. I'm from Southern California, the places now where you can get great street tacos. But it all started from these catering trucks that I used to, you know, spend a dollar, you know, spend whatever, 75 cents for a taco while I was working for my parents in a factory in downtown LA in the summers in the 80s. It's just, it's what happens as the US assimilates other cultures and people start to experiment and that, that Last bagel. I'll just finish with that last bagel you mentioned in Orange county with the bulgogi and the kimchi. I mean, this is the classic California, Southern California melting pot sandwich, where there's probably six and a half cultures in that one sandwich. And I bet you it tastes amazing.
- [67:36]
A
By the way, there's a lot of Jews in Texas. Sounds like a lost Kinky Friedman track. So maybe we could find that and play that. All right, Charles, I'm guessing. Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm guessing you're a bagel traditionalist, right? Maybe you go a little crazy with an everything bagel, but plain cream cheese, toasted, all that or not toasted. What's your bagel order?
- [67:57]
B
I'll tell you my ideal bagel order as well. I guess my normal bagel order is actually. I'll usually go with the plain cream cheese. You're actually right. You are right about me being a bagel traditionalist.
- [68:06]
A
I knew it.
- [68:07]
B
Although, unless it's like a bagel breakfast sandwich, if I do like an egg and cheese and bacon type of thing, that's pretty good. I will tell you. And I don't know if Panera still has these, but I kind of grew up on the French toast bagel at Panera when I was younger, and I would always have it, and it was delicious. And I can't remember if they discontinued it or not, but they think they might have or they didn't have it at one point. So I haven't had one in legitimately years. So now I'm going to inquire as to whether it's on their secret menu or if they have actually discontinued it. So this, I guess Panera here's an appeal. If you're listening right now, bring back the French toast bagel. If it's discontinued, please. I will get one if you do it.
- [68:48]
A
The sound that everyone just heard was the screaming of New Yorkers listening to this podcast. As soon as, as Charles said Panera bagels, there was outrage.
- [68:58]
D
It's like vegan pastrami. It's just not a thing.
- [69:01]
A
It just ain't right. As we say down South. I don't know. I'm impressed, actually, that there has been less from you, Jonah. Kind of bagel philistine or accusing others of being philistines on these bagels. And I welcome it. I think it's a good thing, right? I mean, I think there is a sense that not just with bagels, but with pizza as well, that New Yorkers can be a little snooty about these food products, but everybody's just trying, I think, to emulate what they know is the best. And I think that is the case with New York bagels. Although I have had delicious bagels in places as far flung as Drucker would say, la, and also Charlottesville, Virginia. So I think bagels can be found anywhere.
- [69:45]
D
Bobo's in Charlottesville is very good. I mean, that's my point. It's like, I think Drucker's exactly right.
- [69:49]
A
Right.
- [69:49]
D
It's just a sign of sophistication and economic development and prosperity and enlightenment when various places outside of New York recognize the indisputable superiority of the New York bagel and start trying to make it on their own. And that's great. You know, it's like you can tell a place is civilized when they can offer you a really good cheeseburger. And one of the really shocking things is when you go to Europe and you discover most of Europe still doesn't know how to make a cheeseburger, in part because EU beef is horrible. But that's another conversation.
- [70:22]
A
Indeed. Indeed it is another conversation. But I think this conversation about bagels has been worth our time. Thank you, Jonah Drucker and Charles for joining this conversation and we will talk to you all next time. If you like what we're doing doing here, you can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtablehedispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people who prefer bagels from Panera. That's gonna do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in and thank you to the folks behind the scenes who made this episode episode possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.