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- [00:00]
A
The Dispatch Podcast is presented by Pacific Legal foundation, suing the government since 1973. Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss the newly announced investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. We'll also look back at the Minnesota shooting, discuss the Iran protests and not worth your time. Spend a moment on the national championship for college football. Stick around for my discussion with Valerie Pavalonis, our ideas editor, about the launch of Dispatch Culture newsletter.
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- [01:25]
A
Joining me today for the roundtable are James Sutton, John McCormick and Michael Warren, all Dispatch colleagues. Welcome everyone. I want to start today by taking, if I can, a big picture look at the kinds of things that have been happening in the country and in the world over the past couple of weeks. And I'm going to borrow for the domestic part of this from our old friend Irwin Stelzer, who writes a terrific newsletter and he starts his newsletter this way. It's been a busy week for the President as he overcame his reluctance to interfere in capitalism's market system. He decided that $50 per barrel is the right price for crude oil and will use his control of Venezuela's oil industry to drive prices down. He decided that 10% is the most Americans should be forced to pay on their credit card. He decided that private companies should not be allowed to buy homes for rentals. He decided that banks are charging too much for mortgage loans and ordered Fannie and Freddie to buy 200 billion in mortgage bonds. And on and on it goes. That's what the President has done on the domestic side of things. Overseas, we have conducted strikes in Nigeria and Syria. We have removed the leader of Venezuela. The President has threatened kinetic action in Iran, Mexico, Colombia. I'm undoubtedly forgetting some other hotspots. He has repeated his threats to take over Greenland, refusing again to rule out military force and doing so, and sort of shrugged his shoulders at the possibility that NATO might react negatively or even go away. And then in news that broke late Sunday, we're recording this about 10:30 Monday, January 12th, we learned that the Department of Justice is investigating Fed Chairman Jerome Powell related to renovations, theoretically related to renovations at the Federal Reserve and alleged cost discrepancies and discrepancies in testimony that Powell has given. But I thought it was worth laying out in that kind of a way the number of massive stories that we have been dealing with here in these first couple weeks of 2026. So I'm very glad to have James, Mike and John help us try to make sense of this. And look, as, as I've said, as I say to you and to everybody else on staff, we'll make sense of what we can. And when we can't make sense of the events, we'll just tell people we can't make sense of this. More reporting to come. Gentlemen, welcome. Glad to have you this morning.
- [04:20]
C
Hey, Steve.
- [04:21]
D
Hey, Steve.
- [04:22]
A
Okay, Mike, we're going to start with you. Can you walk us through this news about the investigation into Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve and the subpoenas from Friday? What happened?
- [04:35]
C
Well, the subpoenas came on Friday, but we didn't learn about this until Sunday, we being the public, when Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, made a remarkable statement. It's a printed statement, it's also a video statement that was released online on social media from Powell in which he revealed that the Federal Reserve had been served these grand jury subpoenas informing the Federal Reserve that I should say the chair is under threat of criminal indictment. It's, there's a lot to unpack about sort of the text or the pretext of what this indictment is likely to look like and sort of the real story behind it. But the pretext is essentially, and this is what Powell said in his statement, it's related to testimony that he gave last summer, summer of 2025 in front of the Senate Banking Committee about these renovations being done to Federal Reserve office buildings. And the issue seems to be a discrepancy in what Powell testified about regarding the cost of those renovations and arguments that that was from, from administration officials and allies that there was a different number or that that maybe he was even misleading or lying to Congress about that number. And it's sort of a bizarre thing because Jerome Powell is, is an economist and he is the Federal Reserve chair and this is a very important sort of independent institution setting short term interest rates. The idea that he's about to be undone, indicted, possibly convicted on lying to Congress about renovations sort of boggles the mind. What are we really talking about here? So I think taking another step back and realizing that this is something that Powell is alleging in this really remarkable statement is really about Donald Trump's frustration with Powell and with the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates enough. And this is not some big secret. Powell is not revealing something that has been said behind closed doors or has been sort of veiled threats against him that he's now revealing to us. We've been hearing about this for the better part of a year that Donald Trump has been actually saying out loud he wishes that Powell would lower interest rates more, that the Fed would lower interest rates more, and that it's hurting him that Powell isn't doing that.
- [07:09]
A
Open and direct calls for lowering of interest rates Anytime President Trump talks about the Federal Reserve at all. And I would also say open and direct threats to Powell to remove Powell, there's been sort of an open public discussion about who will replace Powell. Trump has made no secret of the fact that he doesn't like Powell, doesn't agree with Powell, and thinks Powell is ruining his presidency.
- [07:34]
C
So we have that context, and then we have this grand jury subpoena, this potential indictment coming down from Donald Trump's Justice Department, it all smells a little fishy. And it smells fishy enough that you even have a member of the Senate Baking Committee, a Republican member of the Senate Baking Committee, Thom Tillis, essentially saying, this stinks. I don't like it. And in fact, I'm going to be, you know, placing a hold on any nominations to the Federal Reserve until we get some answers on this. I think this. There's a lot we have to learn. We have to learn exactly what the investigation looks like. We have to learn if there's actually going to be an indictment, although the grand jury subpoena really suggests it's coming down the pike. But the fact that you're seeing a Republican member, Yes, a retiring member, one who has been more willing than others in his conference to criticize Trump in recent months. Nevertheless, this is not simply misspeaking or lying before Congress issue that Trump has made it clear that. That he doesn't like Powell and he would like to see him go. And the context of everything else we've seen from the Justice Department in terms of the issues of retribution going after Donald Trump's political enemies, we should be watching this story very closely.
- [08:52]
E
To Mike's point, you know, we need to wait and find out exactly what is in this subpoena. But we do know from Last summer, Anna Polina Luna, a Republican mega congresswoman, referred Powell to the DOJ for, you know, potential indictment of prosecution. And these are the two statements she highlighted from his testimony to quote From Powell in June 2025, there's no VIP dining room. There's no new bar mole. There are no special elevators, just old elevators that have been there. There are no new water features. No. There's no beehives and there's no roof terrace gardens. Paulina Luna cites this statement is false. According to the Federal Reserve's final submission to the National Capital Planning Commission, nearly all those assertions, excluding the beehives, are contradicted by the actual project plans. I mean, come on, like whatever the, whatever the discrepancy is, there maybe there's more to it. Like that is the definition of pretext, the idea that you're going to take out the Federal Reserve chairman over a misstatement over water features.
- [09:43]
A
And just to put this in context, it's worth noting that the White House itself put out a revisionist history of January 6th last week, which contained multiple claims that are far more egregious and misleading, provably false than anything that you just read from Jerome Powell in his testimony. James, we should note that President Trump was asked about this on Air Force One last night, said that he didn't know anything about this. Apparently the investigation was approved by Janine Pirro, who is a former Fox News warrior on behalf of Donald Trump who spent most of her time and I can testify to some of this personally, making sure that people on Fox's air and beyond Fox's air were loyal to President Trump and she apparently approved this investigation. And Jerome Powell now is going to have to answer for this. What do you make first of the news over the weekend? And then also Mike mentioned Thom Tillis, senator from North Carolina, has been occasionally critical of the president in the past. He is now retiring. How much should we pay attention to his words? And do you expect that anybody will follow him?
- [11:04]
D
Okay, so a couple things. First off, I don't like, like you've all said, I don't think this is, this should be surprising at all given the track record of the Trump doj. I mean, not only Trump's statements on the interest rates and Jerome Powell, he's expressed his personal dislike of Powell many times. I believe last year when he was did that very strange tour of the renovation site, he was asked by reporters if there was anything that Powell could do to kind of get a better relationship with the president. And he said, well, Maybe lower interest rates. So even if he doesn't know anything about it now, he knew something about it then.
- [11:38]
A
Hey, James, let me pause you there because I want to play that audio for our listeners. So the 2.7 is now 3.1 and.
- [11:46]
E
Not aware of that.
- [11:47]
A
Yeah, it just came out. Yeah, I haven't heard that from anybody at the Fed.
- [11:55]
C
Are there things the chairman can say to you today that would make you.
- [11:58]
E
Back off some of the earlier criticism?
- [12:00]
A
Well, I'd love him to lower interest rates.
- [12:03]
C
Other than that, what can I tell you?
- [12:05]
D
And it should be noted, tmd, of which I'm a representative, is a big fan of Jerome Powell. Not because we have strong opinions about monetary policy, but because they're always on schedule and on time, which really helps our workflow process. Anyways. So I think, you know, and I watched Jerome Powell's statement, which he released publicly, saying essentially that he wasn't going to back down, that it is the job of the Federal Reserve to set monetary policy according to their best data and analysis without political pressure. And I saw Thom Tillis's statement, too, saying essentially the same thing and he would block any nominees until the matter is resolved. I think I'm quoting there. Well, I think the first thing for Tillis is to say give him time. Right. Like, you know, we've seen this before with Bill Cassidy, with other republic. We've seen this before Thom Tillis on Pete Hegseth that they make a very strong statement and then they decide to go along with the president. But assuming that this is more genuine from Tillis and it's definitely genuine from Powell, I think the main takeaway is that the only people we can see who consistently are willing to defy the president's wishes and public life are people who aren't accountable to Republican voters. Right. Because Tillis is retiring and Jerome Powell is, you know, is an appointee with a protected term. And I sort of think that's basically the best way to understand how any, any Senate figure, congressional figure, figure acts in this administration so far.
- [13:25]
A
Let me read the statement from Thom Tillis issued late Sunday. If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none. It is the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question. I will oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed, including the upcoming Fed chair vacancy, until this legal matter is fully resolved, end quote. Tillis obviously believes that Powell is being targeted because of his willingness to defy. There was A New York Times article over the weekend suggesting that congressional Republicans are sort of finding their spine and might be signaling a new willingness to challenge the president, whether it's on Obamacare subsidies, Whether it's on War 4 powers, where five Republican senators defied the president in a, in a sort of a first pass vote. We've been talking about this for as long as Donald Trump has been president, as long as Donald Trump has been on the, on the scene. Really. Is this the moment that Republicans stand up and say in public the things that they say in private? I will just announce to you that I'm skeptical that this is that moment. What say you?
- [14:45]
C
I share you your skepticism, James's skepticism. I think James's framing of it was a pithy one, which is if any of these senators feel any sort of fealty or pressure from Republican voters, they're not going to do it. Now, on some specific areas, you have seen some of that kind of pushback. And I think it is targeted. And I think if you talk to some of these Republicans, either their staff or the members of Congress say themselves a lot of what they say behind the scenes, they are trying to influence the president from behind the scenes from the inside and tried to push him in the right direction. That was sort of the argument that was made in the first term. I think the big difference, and really this ties into sort of your, your big statement at the beginning, Steve, about the kind of go, go, go. There's things happening all the time with this administration is that Trump and his administration, I should say, are much more active this time around and they are much more willing to just go and do, do. And I think the ability for people to, in his own party to sort of influence behind the scenes is severely curbed. Not to jump ahead here. I think it would be interesting to get John's take on some of this when it comes to tariffs. And again, I don't mean to jump ahead to you, Steve, on this.
- [16:14]
A
Sure you do, Mike.
- [16:15]
C
Yeah, no, I want, I'm hijacking.
- [16:18]
A
Mike is warming up for his hosting of the Dispatch podcast on Thursday. Just jumping right in. We'll just jump in the host, the host title and the reduction in pay that comes with it.
- [16:28]
E
Well, Mike, I'm not going to get to that question until I get a chance to weigh in on Thom Tillis, so.
- [16:32]
D
Okay.
- [16:33]
C
All right. Well, all I'll say, I'll throw this out there and then you could jump in, John, and talk about whatever you want. But I do think on an issue like tariffs which you wrote about last week. And the sort of pressure that might or might not be felt by Republicans. I mean, there are the voters and they, they like Trump, the Republican voters like Trump. But these economic issues, the feeling that things still cost a lot of money, inflation or tariff driven cost increases, that is not nothing. That is something that they also are responsive to. Maybe you have something to say on the, on the fact that that kind of pressure could make Republicans sort of stand up and say, wait a second, this is too far. Even if they're not doing so yet.
- [17:16]
E
Yeah, well, one, one on Tillis, I would say it's a big deal because Tillis is essential accounting to 4. I mean you actually need these Senate confirmed positions and you've always had people like Murkowski, Collins and McConnell in the Senate, Senators from Kentucky, Alaska and Maine. But Tillis has been wobbly even after he announced his impending retirement. He voted to confirm a Trump judicial nominee who is totally unqualified, who was alleged to have engaged in a corrupt quid pro quo in dropping corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams, the judicial nominee, now Appeals Court Judge Emil Beauvais. The fact that Tillis was able to, willing to go along with that showed me that he was still just in the Republican fold. The fact that he is preemptively breaking and saying I will not confirm anyone, I mean that's a big deal. I think that you're definitely going to get McConnell follow behind him. There's going to be a lot of pressure. I would assume that people like Collins, Murkowski, so you know, there are 53 Republican senators, you subtract four, nothing can get through. So that's a big deal. That's a real consequence, a real policy consequence thing where on a lot of these other issues, you know, even if you have a majority on war powers, well, Trump's still going to do what he's going to do as long as he's not, you know, there's not a super majority to override him. On the broader question here, what's going on? I mean this is, this just goes to show you that Trump will by any means necessary, you know, in his own Trumpian way, authoritarian way, try to address the affordability issue, whether it's Venezuelan oil or pressuring the Fed chair through lawfare to lower interest rates. He'll do anything he can. The one thing they won't do is fix their biggest self inflicted wound, which is tariffs. Scott Lincecomb has written, you know, our monthly, the monthly tariff revenue right now has jumped about, you know, 2024 billion a month. That would translate to something like, you know, 290 billion over a year. We usually talk about these things in 10 year increments. So a $3 trillion tariff, effectively, if this were to stay in effect for 10 years, 3 trillion dollar tax, like paid by Americans, businesses and consumers. And so I went around the Capitol before and after Christmas break, just asking Republicans what exactly explains why, you know, your approval rigs are, aren't so great, you know, that Trump's been stuck in the low 40s, you're on track to lose the House. And you know, there's this thing where Republicans can't exactly say anything that Trump has done is wrong. Trump can only be failed by other people. And so the two main arguments I heard one from Ted Cruz was that, well, it's just a messaging problem. You know, we just had the greatest success in 12 months. So much more successful than the past. You know, the one big beautiful bill. And Josh Hawley gave the substantive argument, which is that Congress has failed Trump because it hasn't been populous enough, that we haven't raised the minimum wage at $15 an hour, that we haven't passed legislation capping credit card interest rates, that we haven't set caps on the price of pharmaceutical drugs. So I think this is just goes to show you that Republicans are just whistling past the graveyard on their biggest vulnerability, which is tariffs. It's $3 trillion tax, like something that everybody feels. You look at the polling, you know, something like 73% of Americans say they believe prices have gone up because of Trump's tariffs. The reason interest rates are where they are is because Powell is trying to keep inflation in check. Inflation was the number one reason why Trump is president now, why the Democrats lost in 2024. So the idea that you're going to put this political pressure share in a way that could increase inflation is just, it's political malpractice, insane. It's a whole bunch of things that's authoritarian, it's sluggish, but it also is counterproductive in terms of actually, you know, obviously interest rates. Yeah, they are hurting people who are. Anyone considering buying a house in the next five years is looking at those and thinking this is greatly affecting my cost of living and my future plans. You know, goes against what happened in the 80s where with, with Reagan, you know, interest rates were, you know, sky high to tame inflation. And by there was a huge backlash against that, but it was all taken care of by 84 and it was morning in America then and he won in A landslide. And Trump is not allowing that process to play out.
- [20:52]
A
So let me, let me agree with you that this is authoritarian and thuggish. And I think we've done a pretty good job of addressing these announced investigations sort of on their merits, cards on the table. I think this is absurd. I think this is just one in a number of things the President has done where he's just going after his political enemies. He's clearly trying to punish Jerome Powell. This is the kind of thing that Republicans should be outraged about. I think when we uncover what the real lack of substance to the charges, this is the kind of thing that would be one in a long list I could put together of potentially something that would be impeachable for President Trump. Having said that, John, back to you. I'm not sure it's that stupid. Isn't one of Trump's bits of true genius that he is able to, to redirect anger and frustration with, I would say, not just his policies, but reality by creating villains and what he's doing here rather than address the underlying economic problems, as you suggest, Although I think he probably would say, what do you mean? I am underlying. This is what we're doing. We're generating this revenue. I'm going to give 2000 tariff, $2000 tariff, rebate checks to people, you know, morning in America again. We're rich. We're going to pay down the debt. He said last week he might actually believe that what he's doing is, is good for the economy. But I think what he's, what he's really trying to do is create additional enemies. And when we sort of break this down and look at the substance and pay careful attention to the charges and the counter charges, what people, including many Trump voters who don't pay as careful attention to the day to day twists and turn of these news stories, what they hear is Trump's taken this oil so that we can have cheaper gas. And then they look up and they say, man, I'm only paying 247 for gas. This must be working. Trump's going after Jerome Powell, this fancy pants banker economist in Washington who's created inflation along with Biden and the deep state. And thank goodness he's finally going after somebody in Washington who's made things worse. I'm glad Trump is going to. Is it? That's what we're watching here. Rather than any sort of detailed economic policy moves, we're just watching Trump create villains that he can then turn to blame for the economic challenges facing the country.
- [23:27]
E
Sure, I think that's totally right. He's made a whole lot of villains over the last year. He's created a whole lot of villains and his approval rating is in the low 40s. So if he's playing to rile up that base of support at 40, 42%, sure, he can. He can maintain that support, he can rile them up, he can get them angry, but that's not playing for 50%. And the fact is 100% of Americans feel inflation. So the idea that you're going to attack the Fed chair in a way that could raise inflation, that will just take away confidence that in the markets that this is going to get, that we're going to have an independent Fed that's going to use interest rates and make judgments based on facts and reality. Yeah, it's ultimately counterproductive. I think that, yes, that is, there is to Trump, there is a method to the egomania, egomaniacal madness. It's not a 50% plus coalition. It is a, that is inherently a appeals to a minority of people and the majority of Americans. They actually want things to get better. And the truth is that the policies that Trump and the Republicans in Congress have enacted have not done a lot to make things better for the average person. I mean, the one big beautiful bill, it wasn't that big, really. It was, it was that we talk about it being this Frankenbill and this hodgepodge of different things. It basically kept us taxes as a status quo. You know, keeping taxes out of quo doesn't change a lot of things for, for Americans. And then on healthcare, you know, they're talking about maintaining the status quo implemented by Democrats in 2021 and 2022. To what extent are they going to give that away? They're not actually talking about dramatically improving things for people. And so I think that if you want to look at how people are going to vote in two year, in a year and then three years down the road, it's going to be how they feel, they personally feel about their economic situation. I think you can only spin things so much. You can only create so many villains that we people in politics and media think that words can shape reality. And that only applies at the margins, that people actually, I actually think people are a little smarter. They can kind of, I mean, maybe they, maybe they're drawing a wrong causality of, you know, the economy, who's in power. The economy's bad. I'm going to vote against them. Obviously, there's a lot of factors that go into economic conditions, but I think people on economics vote how they are actually feeling.
- [25:26]
D
Yeah, the, the vote is we're talking about that powered Trump to victory in 2024 and Republicans more broadly actually not just Trump are not these kind of people who are watching Fox News, who are watching, reading various forms of online conservative media are more likely to buy into a narrative that Powell is keeping inflation up. It's these as we've, as has been discussed ad nauseam, not very high information, not very clued in voters, they have better things to do, they don't care about politics, but they notice that grocery prices are higher. So this is a case where to John's point, you can say what you want, but at the end of the day, if you're not actually dealing with inflation, it's really hard to convince that sort of lower, less engaged middle of Americans that we fight over every four years that inflation is actually better. You know, I'm not a very experienced reporter, but I remember literally a year ago when the Biden administration was saying almost the exact same things, that the messaging isn't right. We haven't communicated to Americans how inflation is actually bad, but not as bad as they think it is. We need to do full. Full Bidenism has never been tried. I mean, it's total deja vu. You're just replacing the red team with the blue man.
- [26:33]
A
You're awfully cynical for a young buck reporter, James. Yeah, I'm sorry if I can tell you the number of times you will hear over the course of what is sure to be a long and illustrious career in journalism. We've got the right policies, it's just the messaging. You will hear that again and again and again. You're astute for picking up on it. 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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- [28:32]
A
Welcome back. Let's return to our discussion. JAMES Going back to John's reporting on the Hill and these questions of affordability, I was struck in the interviews that that John did. He mentioned Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. He also talked to sort of very MAGA House member Eli Crane and and some others. It's been the case for, I would say, most of the Trump era, if we date it Back to the June 2015 descent on the golden elevator, that and we've talked about this sort of incessantly here at the Dispatch that you have members of Congress who are sort of true hardcore MAGA Trump supporters. They were, I think, few in number at the beginning of the the Trump era and have grown significantly. It is still the case in my conversations with Republicans on Capitol Hill that you have Republicans, many of them, who will say one thing privately, say another thing publicly, roll their eyes at the president in private, go and praise him before the microphones, but fewer and fewer of those. And I wonder, as you read John's piece and looked at the polling, are we getting to the point now where this, you know, once divided and somewhat complicated Congress is really just much more a MAGA Republican conference?
- [30:00]
D
Yes, I think definitely. And I think think I don't speak with nearly as many like nowhere near as many Republican politicians as you and certainly without the same level of candor. I do speak to a lot of people in D.C. who are kind of young right of center staffers and think tankers and activists. And even though these are not necessarily people who you would call fully bought in maga, they don't love Trump necessarily. They're all kind of on board with this is this is the agenda. And I think it's kind of hard to articulate why exactly they are. I think it's a combination of the voters have been convinced of this over almost, you know, 10 years of the Trump quote, unquote, the Trump era. And then I think also like A political party, a political machine like Democrats or Republicans in Washington is a massive boat, to mix metaphors horribly, but is a massive boat. And once you kind of turn that boat in one direction, it kind of assumes its own momentum. And so I think there's been an almost subconscious decision that, listen, tariffs these sort of aggressive, you know, hard power interventions abroad and blaming elite DC Elites for everything. This is what we're doing. This is what we think the voters want. I, you know, when in doubt, blame voters always, I think for reasons politicians do something. And that's kind of just the overwhelming momentum.
- [31:15]
A
So, Mike, I want to use this discussion of voters and polling and the politics of this to spend a moment on the shooting in Minnesota. We spoke about it on the Dispatch podcast last week when news was still relatively fresh. We had had the opportunity, I think, to look at some of the, the videos that had come out and assess the, the various claims and counterclaims over the weekend. We had much more discussion about this. We had much more analysis of, of the videos. You had members of the administration out on the Sunday shows sort of advancing the argument that senior administration officials had made, including President Trump, Vice President J.D. vance, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the spokespeople at the various agencies, that the woman who was killed, Renee Goode, was, you know, effectively a domestic terrorist, an agitator. And the unstated part of their argument, although in sometimes it was stated, was that she got what she was asking for. You had certainly folks on the other side who were making the counterargument that this was sort of an unprovoked killing of an innocent protester who was raising issues of ICE overreach. And by just looking at what happened, proved the point. The president's numbers, if you look carefully at his numbers on immigration over the past couple of months, have slipped pretty considerably, and slipped especially among Republicans. Immigration had been his strongest issue. It remains one of his strongest issues. But if you look at the AP poll from mid December, for instance, his support among Republicans for his immigration policies slipped from 88% to percent.
- [33:08]
D
80.
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A
80%. Now, 80% is pretty strong, but that's not an insignificant slide. And if you look at his slippage among independents, he slipped even more. I think you can trace the deterioration of the president's approval on immigration issues with a shift, a shift in news coverage, but also just the, the sheer number of these videos that we're seeing, many of them real and verified, some of them not that show ICE in cities around the country using extraordinarily aggressive tactics with people that they suspect are illegal immigrants or illegal immigrant criminals, and in some cases, with everyday average American citizens who are filming them. I wonder if you see it the same way. Is it. Is there a cause effect to the slippage in those immigration numbers? If so, does that imperil the president's support? Further, if what James is saying is, you know, ultimately this is about the voters. If Republican voters become more and more uneasy about the way that ICE is doing its job, does this create greater risks for the president heading into 2026?
- [34:28]
C
So one thing I've learned in 15 years or so of reporting on American politics is voters in mass and in individual situations can hold what those of us who cover politics or are in politics would think of as contradictory ideas or opinions. They can hold them. And it doesn't mean they're dumb. It doesn't mean they're uninformed. It just means they're complicated and complex. And not everybody fits into easily described and proscribed boxes of what a voter should think about a certain thing. I think there is strong evidence that the majority of voters, and certainly the vast majority of Republican voters, want strong immigration enforcement, something along those lines. They want enforcement of immigration laws. They would like for illegal immigrants to be deported, and that's what they voted for in 2024. And at the same time, I think what you are seeing is the reality of what immigration enforcement looks like, or I should say the reality of what immigration enforcement looks like under Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, when confronted with the reality of that is distasteful certainly to a lot of Americans, and I think even to some, and not just some, a significant number of Republican voters. And I think that contradiction explains also why immigration is such a thorny issue for both parties, why everybody seems to be sort of puzzled and vexed by it. Nobody can agree on a solution. And even the solutions that people want, they don't actually like it when it comes into practice, whether it's this actual sort of the physical enforcement mechanisms are icky when we're confronted with it on video. I think that's that. Yes, to answer your question, that is absolutely what is happening. It's interesting because I, like probably everybody on this podcast, and maybe some of you listening, watched the video, then the next video, then all the videos last week of Renee Goode, of the shooting of Renee Good, different angles, how I'm supposed to interpret it. I was struck, of course, by how partisans on both sides saw exactly what they wanted to see. Opponents of Donald Trump saw opponents an execution and supporters of Donald Trump saw someone who was not complying with legal orders from a law enforcement officer. And I think those who pay close attention to this stuff are watching that sort of Zapruder film, like to try to figure out whether or not she had turned the steering wheel or whether or not he was supposed to or not supposed to be in front of the car. I think what you're seeing that video, in the totality of all of the videos that are coming out, the result of which is it looks ugly. It sort of makes Americans in general that sort of natural way that Americans kind of bristle at authority, which I think is just inherently an American viewpoint. Doesn't matter. Your background. Doesn't matter. If you're a heritage American, you don't like authority. I think it rubs us the wrong way. Even if it doesn't change how people feel about immigration and enforcement in the general, I think in the specific, it's having a negative effect and that's hurting Donald Trump. And it's not helping to see, I'm sorry to say, to see, like, white Americans being being sort of treated this way. I think a lot of other Republican voters view that and think, is this really what we wanted? I don't think so.
- [38:06]
D
I do think it's worth. I think you're broadly right, Mike. I think there's something worth saying, though, in that, you know, the first major police shooting incident that I remember in my lifetime was Ferguson and people debating over it. And the exact. The exact same thing happens every time people go over the film. They start talking about legal concepts that they're not competent to address. But always. And usually from the conservative side, I noticed there's a pretty strong segment of Americans who say something to the extent of, listen, it's terrible this happened. She should. She or he or whomever shouldn't have died. But if you put yourself in this sort of situation with law enforcement, you know that you take. You're taking your own life in your hands. I have also seen that bleed into statements like the one Wesley Hunt made over the weekend, which was essentially, you comply with. I'm not quoting exactly, but he said, you comply with federal law enforcement, you get to keep your life. And that's the deal. And so I think there is.
- [39:01]
A
This is a Republican representative.
- [39:02]
D
Yes, a Republican representative. I think there is a segment of Americans who actually does like seeing the use of authority like that. I think it's. And I don't think that's actually a new thing. America's a big country and there's a lot of people who have both beliefs. And I certainly think there's a lot of Americans who are either are very supportive of law enforcement and feel polarized, feel kind of isolated by recent protests against police over the past decade and people in law enforcement themselves, including ice, who do feel like their authority is not being respected and that sort of needs to be re established.
- [39:34]
C
Yeah, well, look, I would say on that front you're correct, just as I think you'd be correct if you were to say that there is a sizable portion of Americans who have an anarchic streak and want to burn down federal buildings during the George Floyd protests. What matters in politics, of course, though, is the margin. And I think that is what that is where I mean, this is, to Steve's point, about 88% to 80% of Republicans that shift to. It's that margin that matters. And I think speaking marginally like we're still a fairly libertarian, small l libertarian country. I think the effect of all of these videos is to give a general sense that this is a, it's a little foreign, it's a little alien to see the, this kind of sort of massive force of law enforcement that's like, kind of militarized, like marching through American cities that look, look familiar, that look like places that we might live or where our kids or our parents might live. That, I think, is the difference. It's on the margin.
- [40:38]
A
Well, you had just in the last several hours, the head of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Martin, make this an explicit comparison suggesting that Donald Trump's America is beginning to resemble Iran under the, under the clerics. As worried as I am about the direction that Donald Trump has taken the country and the tactics of ICE that we are seeing, again, some of these verified, some of the videos, it's hard to know what's true and what's not. Some of them have been verified and some of the stories that have been told are, are, I think, truly chilling. We're not yet where the Islamic regime is in Iran who have over the past two weeks killed, depending on the estimates, a minimum of 200, upwards of several thousand, depending on again, your, your sources to put down the protests that we've seen expand and grow in Iran. And James, you wrote a terrific item for the Morning Dispatch late last week looking at the protests in Iran. I want to start our conversation on Iran by asking you to put this in historical context. We have seen moments like this before. I have covered moments like this before. And I think for those of us who have been frustrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and the mullahs, you know, certainly their use of proxies to attack US and allied interests, their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, but also, and maybe even in particular, their repression of the Iranian people. We have seen that in the extreme. And every time we've seen these kinds of protests, there's a sense of excitement that this might finally be the moment, you know, in each of these moments, 2009, 2019, 2022, that hasn't come to pass. This feels like it could be different. And if you talk to people, as I know you did for this item, people who follow this very closely believe that this might be different. Why do people think this might be different? And what did you learn in reporting that item?
- [43:02]
D
Yes, so, and I've been talking to people since the item, too, actually trying to kind of keep a handle on this as it develops as much as it can. I think first off, revolutions often actually take quite a bit of time. You know, I don't know if you've been watching Ken Burns American Revolution, but the story of, like, the American issues with Britain really begin in, like, 1757. We don't have a revolution until 20 years later. French Revolution. There were bread riots and disturbances for over a decade before that took off. Not to get into history teacher mode as a former. As a former teacher. But all that being said, the window we should be looking at is starting in 2009 and kind of increasing in tempo and intensity these popular protests in Iran until now. But what makes these protests different? Because certainly there have been big protests before, there's been bloody protests before. There's two main factors that people who are observing and discuss talking with people inside Iran tell me the first of all is that this is a couple months after Iran was humiliated, or more than a couple months. But this is within the. Within a year of Iran being humiliated by the Israeli and American militaries. Basically, the whole. One of the whole claims of the Iranian regime to legitimacy is that we oppose American imperialism, we oppose Israeli imperialism. That has been very potent to a lot of Iranians who are not committed Islamists for a long time. That has been completely wiped away. And it also just has made the security forces seem that much less scary, a lot more feeble than people thought they were. And then, so there's also President Trump's threats that, hey, America's prepared to back you up. That has some sort of effect, too, though it's hard to say exactly what the other big factor, and this is A generational issue in Iran that people tell me is really important. Kind of my generation, the Gen Z ers, the. Well, I guess I'm a. I'm an elder Gen Z, I'm a very young millennial. But anyways, that generation is totally done with sort of reformist politics or at least a large chunk of the generation. So in Iran, during a lot of these protests, like 2009 where it was example in protests in favor known as the Green Revolution protest in favor of kind of the reformist factions in Iranian politics. And in Iranian politics, Iran has politics, it's not a dictatorship in the way that we, we often assume it is. There's been a push and pull between reformists who want more opening of diplomatic relations with other countries, opening the economy, kind of hardliners who are committed revolutionaries, want to, you know, go to war with Israel, that sort of thing. A lot of the younger generation, people tell me has assumed that that is basically a shell game, that essentially no matter if we elect reformist or not the kind of ayatollah, the theocracy remains in power. Iran remains committed to this mortally destructive foreign policy. So we need to get rid of the regime totally. That's kind of the big difference. There's been an increasing radicalization of protest movements, aims for 15 years. That's basically as radical as it's going to get now. And that gets into the kind of third big difference which you hear a lot of them chanting in Farsi, a lot of the protesters chanting long live the Shah. Like it is not in favor of a current Iranian political figure. It is not in favor of specific policy. It is, we want the Shah back. Now, as people told me, that doesn't mean that there's a whole lot of committed monarchists in Iran because the Shah has his own kind of spot checkered history. It does mean that people want to very clearly signal we're done with the current regime, we want to transition past it. And they've responded by calls by the current Crown policy. Well, claimed Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, who lives in the D.C. area, who issued a call on Friday night for people to protest and to chant specific slogans including down with the regime. And then people who are connected to his organization told me that they were blown away by the amount of Iranians that they could tell, went out into the streets and chanted those specific things. And it showed that the Shah, who is, you know, not a political mover and shaker within Iran, but is, or the Crown Prince, but at the very least is one person with a kind of voice and a platform that people are responding to it. So that's what's different, the reasons for pessimism. Again, if you look at historical revelation, revolutions and authoritarian regimes, I really recommend following on Twitter. The work of Julian Waller, who's a political scientist who covers a lot of this and is kind of a prominent Twitter figure, is that you need to see elite states kind of switching sides. You need to see, you know, back in the American Revolution, you need to see the colonial legislature switching side. You need to see the French Revolution figures taking the tennis court oath and saying that they were going to install a constitutional monarchy. We have yet to see anyone from the Iranian security services, from even the kind of elected officials from the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to switch sides. And that's really key. You need, as people kept telling me, you need to have somebody willing to say, I'm not willing to slaughter my own people in mass numbers. And there's reasons to think. I mean, Iranians have a sense of national identity that's not just Islamic theocracy. Like I said, it's not a pure dictatorship. It is a real nation. There's reason to think that there's people who don't want to do that, but they haven't. They have not come out yet. I mean, I'm reminded of, I did a story earlier last year in Georgia with their mass protest movement when they had 10% of the people, estimated 10% of the country, out on the street in the capitol protesting. And if nobody from the regime ends up switching sides and there's not that cascade effect, then you've got a lot of people on the street and that's kind of it.
- [48:29]
A
Yeah. I mean, I would say there are reports of varying degree of credibility perhaps that those kinds of changes are taking place at the lower levels that you have IRGC folks who are sort of stepping away, who are refusing to fulfill their responsibilities, not discharging duties as they've been assigned. But certainly we haven't seen anything or heard anything about senior level people doing this. Part of that also could be explained by the fact that it's very difficult to get information out of Iran at the time. You have people who are able to communicate via Starlink, but the admin. The regime has been effective in throttling that, I would say, for going house to house.
- [49:13]
D
A new report emerged today trying to see Starlink from people's houses.
- [49:17]
A
So it is the case that the news that's coming out of Iran is spotty. We're going to take a break, but we'll be back shortly. We're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. John, as you look at what you're hearing from politicians here in the United States, I will say I'm a little surprised given the, the magnitude of the protests all of James, I think very important cautionary notes notwithstanding, I do think this feels different. It does feel certainly more widespread spread all, all 31 provinces. You have people taking risks that you wouldn't have seen or that we haven't seen in, in these previous protests. I guess I'm a little struck that we haven't seen and heard more from American elected officials here. First of all, do you agree with that? And two, is that because of just this flood of news that we've seen on all of these other issues, you have a sort of a national conversation that's been dominated by the Minnesota shooting, appropriately, and that where people are still talking about Venezuela and people are talking now about the Federal Reserve and you know, the reason that we were originally going to talk about the Iran protest as our first topic and we moved things around because we thought we should talk about the Federal Reserve story. Is it just the, that that has sort of a muted response from the United States or am I just wrong? Am I just not not appreciating the response correctly?
- [50:55]
E
I think you're right that the flood of news explains a lot. And I would actually say the biggest surprise about statements from American politicians is just how what Trump said at the, at the beginning of the year, which was, I'm gonna read the quote. If this is garbled a little bit from truth Social. If Iran shots, shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for attention. This man or President Donald J. Trump, that's shocking to me. I mean, this comes in the context of him basically throwing the pro democracy elements of Venezuela under the bus after we, you know, just, just took out their, their, their dictator. So I don't know what explains that. And Trump, you know, I mean, he's been Jacksonian in his foreign policy with relation to Iran. I mean, he took out Soleimani in his first term. He, you know, with after is basically taken away Iran's air defenses. He did Operation Midnight Hammer and struck the Iranian nuclear program. But to say on a human, this is purely humanitarian. I mean, I was just, that's maybe the most shocking statement to come from Trump. On foreign policy, I've seen in the past decade the fact that simply killing protesters, this is the guy who sort of praised, when he was, before running for office, he basically praised Tiananmen Square or at least admired the strength which the Tiananmen Square protesters. And so I don't know what explains this other than that Trump, Trump just has a sort of, you know, locked in this, you know, his, his worldview is sort of locked in the 1970s and the idea that these Iranians are these evil people who, you know, kidnapped the Americans and the hostages. And I guess he's called it a red line. And so will Trump actually do something? I mean, he's, he's, he's acted a lot in ways that other people haven't. So for all the negatives that we just discussed, I'll be shocked to see what happens. I think Secretary of State Rubio put out a statement saying the US Stands with the people of Iran over the weekend. And I think you're right that in Congress it hasn't been, there's not this wall to wall. This is the moment, I think, because of what James had all these previous moments. Right. You know, why are we, we're not going to get ourselves worked up. And, and there's probably also some view that, you know, not, it's not necessarily helpful to have, you know, Americans being, you know, the Iranians want to say, this is a Israeli, the Great Satan and the little Satan back protest movement. So I don't know exactly what he explains, but I would, I'd be curious what your take is on Trump, Trump saying, you know, we're going to come to the rescue of Iranians if they kill the innocent protesters. What, what explains that?
- [53:17]
A
Yeah, I mean, it's, I think you're right to point out the contrast. I mean, this is not a president who spends a lot of time, I mean, we had a discussion on this podcast before the New Year about essentially the Trump taking morality out of the United States. Foreign policy just hasn't really been a concern. Even in the conversations or Trump's public statements about Russia, Ukraine. I can't imagine making any comments or any observations about what's happened in Ukraine without, you know, making moral observations about what's happened there. The Russians invaded. They're an aggressive aggression power, and they're slaughtering Ukrainian civilians by the tens of thousands. How do you talk about that without making a moral argument? And, and President Trump has managed to do so, by and large. So in all of these conflicts that he's seen that he's observed that he's threatened US Intervention in. He has not made those arguments, including and especially, I mean, his comments from Mar a Lago, the day of the raid in Venezuela in which the US Forces captured Nicolas Maduro, you know, sort of shrugged off any question of the will of the voters or the repression of the Venezuelan people. Cast aside Maria Carina Machado, as the leader of the Venezuelan opposition was, seems unpersuaded, unmoved at all by claims, those claims to power. So it is a striking contrast here. Mike, I want to end by asking you about what John said about the president's threat to the Iranian regime to intervene militarily. Should they kill protesters? That came at the very beginning of the year. Unquestionably the Iranian regime has been involved in killing protesters to this point. Reports over the weekend suggest that Donald Trump was presented options, military options to intervene. He has not done so yet. At a certain point, does the president have to do something because he said he would do something?
- [55:33]
C
It's a good question. Look, I think when it comes to Donald Trump and credibility, none of the normal rules apply. You know, we talked a lot, I remember talking about it at the time, the red line in Syria that Barack Obama set for the Assad regime. And it really hurt American credibility when Assad crossed that red line and we did nothing. I think Trump is different and that's in some ways you can't sort of analyze it in the normal ways because part of his, I don't know if you even want to call it a strategy, but, but his sort of MO is to throw people off and leave foreign actors guessing about what, what he could do. I do think it was ill advised for him to say that because of this point, that if it was going to happen, if there were going to be these protests that kept going, that of course the Iranian regime was going to kill protesters again. I mean this is, this is like not a surprise is it's like the sun coming up every day. Of course they were going to do this. And I do, I do think for, you know, take the Donald Trump out of, does hurt to not take some action here, even if it's, it's simply to do some kind of diplomatic support. I don't know. I think it's, I think he's gotten himself into a mess. And I think he did this because at the time it looked like the protesters, things were going to maybe keep going well for them. And I think the, the backlash to the protest, which have gotten, I mean, it's gotten bloodier over the last couple of years, couple of days, Donald Trump likes to put his finger up into the air and see where the wind is blowing. And sometimes shocker, I know, says things without thinking through the long term consequences of it. This is the peril of, of having a president who sort of shoots off with his mouth before, before we know all the facts.
- [57:33]
A
Yes, indeed. Indeed it is. Well, thank you all for helping us sort through all of these pretty significant issues that are part of the national conversation right now. I want to talk in our final segment, not worth your time, about some issues that I think a lot of people, the rest of the country are talking about maybe not getting the attention in Washington that it otherwise would. And that is college football. So we, we finally have, we've got to the point as we near the end of the College Football Playoff where we have a national championship game, Miami University, who seemed to have snuck into the College Football Playoff jumping ahead of my Notre Dame Fighting Irish at the very last minute in what was then, I think remains a controversial.
- [58:23]
C
Steve, Steve, I have to stop you there. We're talking about the University of Miami, not Miami University. It's an important statistician.
- [58:31]
A
Oh, you're right. University of Miami Hurricanes. Correct. Not Miami. University of, of Ohio, which is in Oxford, Ohio. Very famous alumni including Paul Ryan and Dan Hayes. Yes, University of Miami and Indiana University. Not University of Indiana. We have a national championship game. Indiana University has, I think, surprised everyone in the college football playoffs with the dominance of their play. They were a very good team. They were a good team last year, made the College Football Playoff, were dispatched by Notre Dame and has just been unbelievably dominant over the first couple rounds, first its first couple games. And Miami, which as I say, snuck into the college football playoffs has also acquitted itself very well beating higher ranked teams. We have the game coming up. I have two questions for you. Do you have a pick for the national championship? Indiana versus Miami. And given Indiana's dominance, given the fact that they beat another Big Ten team in Oregon to make the national championship game, given the fact that Ohio State was for most of the year the number one ranked team in the country and also made the College Football Playoff before losing, is the Big Ten now once again the dominant college football conference in America? James, I go to you first.
- [60:14]
D
Okay. I guess first of all, my boring pick is Indiana because they've been so dominant all season. And you know, Miami hasn't been the, I would say TMD's job is to be right down the middle on reporting. We don't do opinion. But the Dispatch is a conservative publication. I am no in. I am nowhere more conservative than I am in college football. So I kind of refuse to discuss the conference that killed the PAC 10. I refuse to discuss this thing that we call the playoff. For me, it has the same legitimacy as the Iranian regime. I just want the ro. I want the winner of the conference that killed the Pac 10 playing the Pac 10 in the Rose bowl. And that is all I care about.
- [60:53]
A
So just denying reality is what you're doing.
- [60:56]
D
Oh, completely, completely. Like I. But that's, that's the point of college football, right?
- [61:00]
A
It allows us to at least escape reality from time to time. Mike, you're. You're. You're Vanderbilt. What are they? The Commodores?
- [61:08]
C
The Commodores, of course, your.
- [61:09]
A
Your Vanderbilt this year. Your Vanderbilt team, which hasn't been good for decades, really had an impressive run. Pretty good last year, too. Everything was. Was going swimmingly. They did not make the college football playo had a Heisman contender who, let's just say, didn't necessarily represent the university very well after he was not awarded the Heisman.
- [61:37]
C
Is there a question coming here, Steve?
- [61:39]
A
No, I just wanted to take some shots, actually. You can talk about any of that. Feel free to correct me on it. Defend that, that horrible behavior by Vanderbilt's quarterback after the Heisman ceremony, but also give us your pick and tell us why the Big Ten is the best conference in the land.
- [61:56]
C
Nice try. Indiana is. Is my pick to win the national championship. They're dominant. Kurt Signetti is. He has taken a team, which I don't mean to. To denigrate this, this Hoosiers football team by saying they are a very good team. They are not a team of elite players. This is a team that has gone as far as they have because of their. Of their coach and superior coaching. And I do think that's important in this really topsy turvy college football world that everything has the last several years have wrought with the Nil and the transfer portal. All of these sort of abominations to college football. At the end of the day, a scrappy team with a great coach can still go to the national championship and I think will win the national championship. Then, then there is hope even, even in these dark and dismal times. Look, the. The problem is the conferences don't. Don't mean anything anymore. I mean, I'm with James on this, which is. Look, the PAC 10 is. The PAC 10 is. Was a cute conference, you know, playing their. Their sort of crazy you know, offense, that, that was nice out there on the west coast, but they were.
- [63:18]
D
Won the Director's cup for 25 years in a row, I believe, which is the. For the best sports programs in all Division one.
- [63:24]
C
Okay.
- [63:25]
D
You just have to watch a lot of swimming.
- [63:27]
C
Sure. Okay. But it was, it was a part of the fabric of college football.
- [63:32]
D
So.
- [63:32]
C
So the sort of evisceration of, of the PAC 10 is, or the PAC 12, as it was called, is a tragedy. But look, the Big Ten, the sec, the acc, these conferences are nothing like what they were. We used to add these teams in ways that made geographic and sort of. And the geographic sort of collection of them is important because same sort of recruitment was going on. You know, a lot of these players were being recruited by the same SEC or Big Ten teams. Look at the acc. There are members of the acc, which stands for. For Atlantic Coast Conference, that are located in California. Look, I'm not, I'm not a genius, but my sense is that California is not located near the Atlantic Coast. So what are we doing here? I think we need a back to basics in college football. We'll never get there. We need to get rid of either nil, which we won't, or the transfer portal. You're actually seeing colleges in places like Texas advertising, just advertising, throwing it out there on social media that they don't have an income tax in their state. It's. It's all corrupt. It's all driven by money. It's. It's gross.
- [64:45]
A
What's the matter with reminding people that they don't have income taxes? I don't know.
- [64:49]
C
It's.
- [64:49]
A
It's taking advantage of market conditions.
- [64:51]
C
Look, I don't blame those, those schools for doing that, but it suggests a sickness in college football, which is, you know, supposed I'm all for paying players, but this is gay getting. This is getting a little out of hand. The SEC just beats up on each other. That's, that's why the SEC is not. Did not proceed in, in these playoffs. That's why Vanderbilt did not get in. There's just too many good SEC teams.
- [65:14]
A
That would be a. That'd be a more convincing, a more convincing argument if, if the SEC had beaten the Big Ten. John.
- [65:20]
C
Well, don't. Don't pay attention to the results, John.
- [65:22]
A
I just want to point out that Mike did not address the issues I raised about Vanderbilt's quarterback. That's fine. We don't need to hear from, hear from him on that. We don't.
- [65:31]
C
Can I say real quick.
- [65:32]
A
Wait, wait, wait.
- [65:32]
C
Wa. Let me say real quick, all these other schools get their jackass quarterbacks. They get to go around and buy fancy cars and do all this crazy stuff. Vanderbilt gets one shot at doing this. We're going to leave Jay Cutler aside. It gets one shot at doing this. And everybody piles on him for. For being competitive because he wanted to win the Heisman Trophy and he was competitive. He's a little angry. Give.
- [65:59]
A
Is that what you describe being?
- [66:01]
C
Leave Diego Pavia alone, please, people.
- [66:04]
A
I encourage you not to read into Mike's general judgment and reporting abilities based on his description there. John, question to you. Who's your pick for national champion? And is the Big Ten the greatest football conference ever?
- [66:21]
E
The Big Ten is the conference you should always root for, or at least I do, because I believe in pan Midwestern pride. I only have this.
- [66:29]
D
This.
- [66:29]
E
This approach only applies to college football, let that be clear, not the National Football League. But, yeah, as a kid, you know, Wisconsin number one, Notre Dame number two. Then I'd always root for, like, you know, Michigan or Ohio State, and I guess now Indiana. My brother had a shirt, you know, Indiana shirt back in the way. Like, there's an Arabic phrase. I think it's a bedouin phrase. Like, me against my brother, my brother and I against my cousin, my brother and I and my cousin against the world. And, like, that is definitely the way that I think you should. Should approach college football. So I'm rooting for Indiana. I predict they win. I would say that a group of hardscrabble Midwesterners hasn't been underestimated this badly since General Sherman marched to the sea. And I think that not only is the return of the Big Ten a big story, but the downfall of the sec. I mean, it has been three years since you've even had a team competing in the championship game. What happened? I want to know that.
- [67:20]
D
I think the one good part about realignment for me has been watching Texas become a 500 team. Pretty fun.
- [67:26]
A
Also watching Mike Google feverishly trying desperately to come up with some response, any of that. But unfortunately, we're out of time, so we're going to have to move on. Close this chapter of the Dispatch podcast. Thanks for joining us and stick around for a discussion that I had with Valerie Pavalonis about Dispatch Dispatch culture. Very exciting new addition to the Dispatch family. And before we leave you today, I want to spend a few minutes with Valerie Pavalonis, who is the ideas editor here at the Dispatch, to tell us about the birth of Dispatch Culture, a newsletter that we sent for the first time this weekend featuring Kevin Williamson on Hunter S. Thompson. And if that's not enough to get people excited, I don't know what is. Valerie, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Good to have you.
- [68:15]
C
You.
- [68:16]
B
Thanks, Steve.
- [68:17]
A
So, G, give it to us. What is Dispatch culture and why? Why are we, as people can hear in my voice, why are we so excited about Dispatch culture and the launch this weekend?
- [68:28]
B
Well, I will say that Kevin's maiden piece for Dispatch Culture was indeed very exciting. I love anything, everything. Hunter S. Thompson. And that got some really good responses. And that piece, piece was part of the section in the newsletter called American Artifacts. And so that will form like the new kind of bulk of the newsletter. And each week we'll pick some sort of piece of Americana, American paraphernalia, some unit of American culture from the past, and then just have someone discuss that. The other sections have to do with just our other kind of cultural coverage. So this past weekend, we had something on the man who Shot Liberty Valance. And I think that that really, really tends to get the Dispatch members going, because I know that it gets the. The internal dispatchers going, too. Then we also had something on why literacy matters beyond just, you know, plain being able to read road signs and another essay from one of our contributing writers, Louella Damico, on women and aging. And then beyond those things, we'll also have a couple of sections where Dispatch staffers will share recommendations. So this past weekend, we had our TMD editor, Ross Anderson, recommend a whole suite of fun apps for your phone.
- [69:43]
D
Ross is a nerd.
- [69:45]
B
I don't actually know if I will use these apps, but I also got a couple of emails saying, please don't make this apps every weekend because we all have enough apps and don't worry about that. We will not do that every single weekend.
- [69:59]
A
How does Dispatch Culture newsletter that we're sending differ from the culture stuff that we're doing on the website? Or does it. Are we overlapping? Should people expect new, fresh material for it? Is it a combination? How should people think of this?
- [70:13]
B
So there definitely is a bit of an overlap. I think that, you know, we're using the newsletter to kind of marry what we already have on the website and just kind of present it in a more cohesive form. So typically, culture content is most. It goes up early in the morning on Saturdays, and you can just kind of find it on the website, but it's not sent out to anyone in a cohesive form. Sometimes it's sent out in our morning tmd, but besides that, you don't really get these pieces in your newsletter or in your email. The Culture newsletter right now. It begins with a roundup of our Saturday pieces and then also includes that new content that I talked about. So American artifacts, that sort of thing.
- [70:52]
A
Yeah. And so for people who are dispatch members, they get all of this the way that they would get anything else. And they can sign up for this in their on as. As one of the choices in their membership dropdown.
- [71:05]
B
Yes, exactly. And we also have a fun members only feature in the Culture newsletter called Work of the Week. And so in Work of the Week, you can submit a piece of art that you like and then for a chance to be featured at the bottom of the newsletter and you'll have to answer questions like why am I a dispatch member? And also why did you choose this work? And we've already gotten some pretty exciting responses.
- [71:25]
A
And this includes things from say, the Prado in Madrid, as well as my daughter's third grade drawing of a horse or a unicorn.
- [71:35]
B
Yes, I would honestly love to see your daughter's drawing of a horse.
- [71:38]
A
Good. It's pretty good, I'm not going to lie. And finally, as someone who, who skipped the Golden Globes last night, as I think I have for every one of my 55 years on this, on this earth, I'm not sure the Golden Globes have been around that long, but that's kind of the point. If you're not into. I'm not a pop culture guy, occasionally taking a movie, but I care about all sorts of other kinds of art. Will there be things in dispatch culture for me? I mean, it will include presumably pop culture, but go beyond pop culture.
- [72:10]
B
Yes. So we try not to focus too much on pop culture, honestly, because those things come and go very quickly. And I try to make sure that all of our cultural coverage does have some staying power. And so we might do say a one off review of a movie. We had one of our internal people review Marty supreme, for example, the new Timothee Chalamet movie. But most of the time our pop culture coverage is going to be limited to the really big stuff for. So for example, back when Barbie and Oppenheimer came out at the same time, you know, that was something that, that was, that's something that, that we, that we might review. But you know, but for example, the piece that I mentioned from earlier this weekend about the man who shot Liberty Valance, that might be more up your culturaly.
- [72:54]
A
We also written by Timothy Sandifer, who's a vice president for legal at the Goldwater Institute, this is sort of something he wanted to do on the side. Terrific writer. Yeah. Really, really smart guy.
- [73:05]
B
Yeah, Tim's great. And I think that one of the things that I love about working on the Culture section is that I can actually work with the vast majority of our political writers and they usually have something to say about the culture. I think that if you're a good writer, you're pretty much a good writer about anything. Yeah. But I think in general, you know, we have people writing about podcasts, but we also have people writing about poetry. Of the one writer who's contributed to the Culture section before is AM Juster. He used to be the poetry editor at Plow magazine, and he's very into formal concepts, kind of more traditional stuff. Whereas I myself might write a review of an art exhibition. So I think marrying the old and new is something that I think that we can do really well.
- [73:50]
A
Excellent. Well, thanks for coming on and talking to us about it a little bit. I'm eager to read next Saturday's edition. If you like what we're doing here, there are a few easy ways to support us. You can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And if you want, actually pause this right now and go rate, review and subscribe to the podcast, we'd very much appreciate it. We also hope you'll consider becoming a member of the Dispatch. You'll unlock access to bonus podcast episodes and all of our episodes, our exclusive newsletters and articles. You can sign up@thedispatch.com join and if you use my promo code Roundtable, you'll get one month free and help me win the ongoing, deeply scientific internal debate over which Dispatch Podcast is the true flagship. And if ads aren't your thing, you can upgrade to a premium membership. No ads, early access to all episodes, two free annual memberships to give away, exclusive town halls with the founders, and much more. More Shout out to a few folks who recently joined as Premium members. Theron Scott, Julio Martinez Deandino, and Dan Edney. We're glad to have you aboard. As always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtabledispatch.com we read everything, even the ones attempting to defend the SEC that's going to do it for today's show. Thanks so much for tuning in and a big thank you to the folks behind the scenes and who made this episode possible. Victoria Holmes and Noah Hickey. We couldn't do it without you. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next time.
- [75:43]
C
Sam.