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- [00:01]
Megan McCardell
Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money because behind every headline is a bottom line, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now@bloomberg.com chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more, can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox Anabachulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic
- [00:44]
Jonah Goldberg
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- [01:22]
Megan McCardell
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- [01:35]
Steve Hayes
Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Steve Hayes. On today's roundtable, we'll discuss the potential end of armed conflict with Iran as Operation Epic Fury wraps up and the administration pauses Project Freedom, the quote unquote humanitarian effort to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. We'll also discuss the coming end of the Trump era, looking at normie Republicans souring on the president and his disapproval at second term lows, but also his ability to exact revenge on Indiana state senators who defied his wishes on mid decade redistricting. And finally, not worth your time. Amidst some bad news about cruises, we weigh the pros and cons of starting dispatch cruises. I'm joined today by my Dispatch colleagues Jonah Goldberg and Mike Warren, and Dispatch contributor Megan McCardell. Let's dive. Welcome everyone. After a week of warning the American public that wars take a long time to win and announcing on Sunday the launch of Project Freedom to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Starting Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio went to the White House Tuesday to announce the close of Operation Epic Fury, thus theoretically ending combat with Iran and shifting to a humanitarian Project Freedom. But less than four hours later, President Trump announced himself on social media. A pause on Project Freedom in pursuit of a deal, a peace deal at the request of Pakistan and other countries. As of this recording Thursday morning, the world is eagerly and anxiously awaiting what has been reported as a one page piece deal. Reporting suggesting that the United States has made some offers, the Iranians have made some offers. Much discussion about a one pager. Mike Warren, you follow this stuff closely. I often turn to you to make sense of things that are hard to make sense of.
- [03:44]
Mike Warren
Why do you do this to me?
- [03:48]
Steve Hayes
I like to it's like it is like proverbially throwing the baby in the deep end of the pool and seeing what you can do. So I want to see you splash around a little bit on this. How do we make sense of that has just happened?
- [04:03]
Jonah Goldberg
So Steve, before Mike goes, I'll give Mike a second to think. This reminds me back when we were doing the Special Report panel on Fox all the time, how there were some stories that you would be perfectly fine. You'd often get the opening question would be the explainer question. It's like, what's going on? What happened today? And you never wanted it. Whenever it was like simmering civil war and Burkino Faso, right? And you're always sitting there like sweating, give it to Charles Krauthammer, give it to Charles Kraudhammer. And then you just get to come in and say, well, I largely agree with Charles, but I had,
- [04:40]
Steve Hayes
it's nice to go off the rails. And like three minutes into. I know I probably have told this story before, but I was on a Special Report panel one night when it was sort of in the aftermath of the Greek debt crisis. And I think we had talked about Greece for a while and then the crisis had sort of shifted, at least for a day or two, to Cyprus. And the lead topic, as I recall, was Cypriot monetary policy. Just like, what can you do with that? And I was the explainer person. Brett Baer had asked me to explain this and I had to sort of announce this will surprise nobody. But I am not an expert on Cypriot monetary policy. Mike, I think there's a better chance that you can make sense of what happened in the last few days. I do think there's actually an explanation for what's happened and it has to do, I think, with President Trump's decision making on this. But Also through the war and through his presidencies. As you watched these events, sort of lurching one policy choice to another, one declaration to another. What, what did you make?
- [05:50]
Mike Warren
I thought a lot about a story that you and I did together, Steve. It must have been about eight years ago, in fact, where there was essentially a need for the Trump administration to reaffirm. I can't remember the exact terminology that, that, that the, the actual agreement had, but this jcpoa, which was the, the, the joint agreement with the United States and Iran signed by the Obama, essentially a deadline in that agreement where it needed to be recertified. And there was a constant question about at every point in the Trump administration would. Something like every 90 days or something like that.
- [06:29]
Steve Hayes
Yep.
- [06:29]
Mike Warren
Where the president would need to recertify that agreement. And he was opposed to the agreement and his administration was opposed to the agreement. But it was, it was essentially almost like a formality of, of, of continuing that agreement until the new, the new, then new Trump administration could come up with a Iran policy. And there was a day that was the deadline day in which talking points had been drafted and decision had been made that he was going to, he was going to reconfirm this agreement. And then he rescinded it. In fact, he heard from John Bolton, who was not yet in his White House, basically begging him not to recertify this deal. And so he went back on it, which scrambled the entire national security process. You know, people were calling people. I mean, we were getting information that was conflicting with other information that we were getting from other people in real time. And at the end of the day, literally at the end of that day, the president did, in fact determine that he would recertify the deal. But the entire process reminded me of, I was reminded of that, not just watching this week and what's happened with the President's. We have a deal now we're pausing this now we have this new operation now we're pausing that. It is the way that he sort of lurches from one decision to the other, where we talk about it all the time. Whoever is the last person to speak with him in his ear, who's ever the last person in his ear, that's sort of who he goes with. And I think that there's no sort of grander explanation than that, which is, I think the president doesn't know what he wants to do in Iran. He's gotten in over his head. He's sort of confused that things have not gone the way he thought they would. And so he's lurching from decisions to decision. It's the same story we've seen now for 10 years. But, but just in a, in a new situation.
- [08:25]
Steve Hayes
I had the same thought. I thought about that same reporting. And I'll just add a couple details to make your point. The, as I recall, what the White House had to do was recertify that Iran was in compliance with the deal.
- [08:37]
Mike Warren
Yes, yes.
- [08:38]
Steve Hayes
And, and it was just that sort of perfunctory step, telling Congress Iran is in compliance with the deal. And the, you know, a lot of people in the administration did, didn't want to have to recertify, but couldn't point to anything specific that said they were out of compliance with the letter of the law, with the letter of the deal, even if they were, we think, violating the spirit of the deal. So they went back and forth. And if I recall correctly, this is testing my memory.
- [09:04]
Mike Warren
Mine, too.
- [09:05]
Steve Hayes
I believe the switch came after Steve Bannon presented Trump with an op ed that Bolton had written for the Hill.
- [09:14]
Mike Warren
For the Hill, yes. Printed out on why.
- [09:17]
Steve Hayes
He printed it out on why he couldn't do this. And the entire apparatus of the White House had been going in this direction to not certify, as I recall. And as you say, they had drafted talking points. I think they had begun distributing those talking points. And then the very same people who had drafted the talking points saying it would be a great risk to the United States national security if we recertified the Iran nuclear deal drafted an hour later a set of talking points saying it would be a grave threat to the national security of the United States if we didn't do this and sort of walk people through it. And they sent two different talking points and two different sets of briefings. I think that is an apt reminder of how so many of these decisions get made. And if you think about the history books that we'll read about this moment, I suspect that they'll be filled with similar details. Jonah, one of the things that really jumped out at me about President Trump's statements, sort of announcing, hey, we're going back to diplomacy here. We want to have some conversations. At the top of it, he, he literally said in his social media post, he's doing this at the request of Pakistan and other countries now after hearing the president disparaged our NATO allies, he is in a rhetorical war right now with the leaders of Germany, Spain, Italy, one time ally in Italy, you know, sort of kicking them to the curb, criticizing them at every point when they can, sometimes, I think with merit I mean, I think the Spanish, Spain has behaved poorly in the latest. Not act much like an ally, but Pakistan is at the very least a complicated ally. Why would the President of the United States point to Pakistan, whose intelligence services, I think most people believe gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden, worked with the Afghan Taliban when we were fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
- [11:23]
Jonah Goldberg
So Pakistan is also, by my understanding, has a spirit, has a relationship full of the spirit of friendship and mutual cooperation with China.
- [11:33]
Steve Hayes
Very true.
- [11:34]
Jonah Goldberg
And that's not, that's not great, Bob, either. I don't know. I mean, this is a little bit of sort of psychoanalysis stuff. I think part of it is because Pakistan is the home of where these
- [11:46]
Steve Hayes
negotiations, hosting the talks in Islamabad.
- [11:49]
Jonah Goldberg
Right, Right. So, like, it's sort of like saying back when there were negotiations in Qatar, Qatar has asked us like. So I think he thinks that gives it a certain credibility and that may be defensible at a certain level. I also think it's just cover for the fact that there's been reporting now that it was the Saudis that said, you can't do this and said that they had closed down their airspace and wouldn't allow American forces to use to fly American planes to fly from Saudi to enforce this Project Freedom thing. And so the. And other countries are the important ones in that. But I think just sort of more broadly, it's. Trump wants this thing to be over. Right. His whole life has been a story of bide your time, bide your time, tell people it's going to be two weeks, checks in the mail, all these kinds of things, until he sees an opportunity he thinks he can grab, and then he grabs it. And the Iranians, you say this for them, they are much better at negotiating than the United States and a lot of countries. And it is in their interest to drag this out, keep it, keep the talks going, but drag it out just enough that because our pain points are different than their pain points. And so it's entirely possible that the Iranians said, we got something, we can do a deal here. And Trump takes it, not realizing that they say that all the time. I mean, everyone keeps talking about how we had this, how hard it was to negotiate the jcpoa, which was the deal that the Obama administration made with Iran. And that was a crappy deal. I mean, it was a bad deal, but it took a really long time to get a bad deal. Because the Iranians, their posture is we keep saying no, we keep saying one more thing until the internal pressure on the American side is, wow, We've been here so long, we need this so badly. We've invested so much capital in this. What's one more little concession to get this thing done right? And I think that's been expedited, given the circumstances, with how Iran is dealing with the United States. But that's sort of the dynamic. And so I thought it was hilarious and sad and interesting where Rubio said yesterday or two days ago, operation Epic Fury is over because we've achieved all of our strategic goals, really. I mean, I can remember a lot of different strategic. Like regime change, the nuclear program. I think that was. He's saying that for domestic political consumption and legal consumption, because by saying they think if they say Operation Epic Fury is over, they no longer are in trouble with the War Powers Resolution. The problem is that I wrote about this in the G file yesterday, but operations are subunits of wars. And so Operation Overlord, the Normandy landing, that was over in a couple days, pretty much didn't mean World War II was over. And we currently have a naval blockade of Iran, which is just simply an act of war. Now, I think it's smart strategy. I think we should continue it, but it's an act of war. Like, we are at war with Iran right now. I don't. Cease fires, do not end wars. The Christmas armistice in World War I did not end World War I. You know, like, we are technically still at war with North Korea. So, like, a lot of this is just going for the headlines, going for the cheap sort of legal fictions, political fictions, trying to get Trump trying to extricate himself from this in one way or the other. But this thing is not over. And I do think that if the deal that we're hearing becomes reality, I think it'll be something of a disaster.
- [15:27]
Mike Warren
It's like Michael Scott standing up and declaring bankruptcy by saying, I declare bankruptcy. It doesn't really have any force of anything other than words.
- [15:38]
Steve Hayes
Well, let's spend a minute on these objectives, because as we've discussed several times on this podcast, it really has been. The objectives have not been clear. I would say from the beginning, they have evolved. Sometimes. Sometimes there are three, sometimes there are six. Sort of depends who's talking. The White House put a document. I was going to look for the objectives, the stated objectives, to try to just have us walk through. Okay, here's one objective the White House gave us. Is it, did we in fact meet this objective? And I came upon a document the White House put out on April 1, 2026. No, April Fool's Jokes, please. And it says, you know, the president has been very clear about his objectives from day one. The objectives have been clear and unwavering. Obliterate Iran's ballistic missile arsenal and production capability, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure the world's leading state sponsor, terror, never acquires a nuclear weapon. Now, unfortunately for the White House, in this document, if you go down it, it quotes senior administration officials talking about the objectives and how clear they are. But again, in some cases, the examples they provide have one objective. In other cases, they have multiple objectives. It's confusing sort of even internally. But if we look at the objectives that the White House gave us, that the president himself has cited, and he said this in a speech on March 2, President Trump did Iran's missile capabilities, their ability to produce brand new ones, pretty good ones they make, he said, annihilating the Navy. Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor, terrorism, can never obtain a nuclear weapon. And we are limiting their ability to project force using proxies outside of the borders. If we walk down those, Megan, how many of those is it accurate to say that we have achieved?
- [17:37]
Megan McCardell
Well, I don't think that we've made it so that they can never get nuclear weapons, for starters. And I think that honestly, that is probably the thing that would most justify the war, right. If we had somehow seized fordo, taken out the material that was there and made it really, really impossible for them to restart, simply not just because you took it, they can try to get more, but because their economy really is quite shattered. Their economy was struggling before this, and they are now in a position where we have destroyed a lot of their oil infrastructure and other infrastructure. We have blockaded them so that it's hard to get the stuff they were normally smuggling out. You could make a credible case that we had actually prevented them from restarting their nuclear program certainly anytime in the near future. The problem with that is that, of course, we have also given them even greater incentive to get a nuke. It's the one sure fire deterrent. And so, like, I, I don't think that there is any way that you can say right now that the administration has a plausible case that they've made things better. I think, you know, that that calculation is different for Israel, which has, I think, really made a dent in Hezbollah and has made it very costly to, to continue the proxy wars against Israel. But for the United States, what, what benefit to the national interest of the United States has been served by this exercise. I am struggling here to even make a vaguely charitable case.
- [19:11]
Steve Hayes
So I want to come back to you on the economy, because I think that's pretty crucial here and I think it does explain why we've seen some of the things that we've seen over the past few days. But if you look at those, to your point, Megan, on missiles, the New York Times reports that, quote, U.S. intelligence assessments suggest that more than half of Iran's missiles and launchers have survived. That's disputed. I think other Western countries have different assessments, but that's the assessment, consensus assessment, apparently, of the US Intelligence community. On Iran's Navy, it's destroyed. Trump wins. That's he has accomplished that objective. On nukes, again, citing the New York Times, Iran's nuclear stockpile has not been touched and there is no agreement, at least not yet, to ship it out of the country or to dilute it so that it cannot be easily used to manufacture weapons. And on proxies, I think it's a mixed picture, but as you point out, Megan, most of the damage to the proxies came via Israel and came before this current conflict, this current war. War, not war, I think we'll call it. On the economy, Jonah mentioned earlier this sort of competing pressures. It was the case that the proponents of the blockade that the US Imposed in the Strait of Hormuz, and I agree, I think it was a by and large good policy decision, had said at the outset that really what you needed was two or three months to fully choke off Iran's economy, which, as you point out, was tattered before this had even begun. And by most accounts, we have made progress, depending on how you know how, who you listen to and what assessments you believe. Hundreds of millions of dollars a day are not flowing to the Iranian economy because of the blockade. And yet here we are, I think, because the flip side of that is that is the impact on the US Economy and the fact that we're seeing gas prices now. 4 I filled up. We have one electric car and one big SUV. I filled up the SUV the other day and it was $110 to fill up the SUV. And it just made me want to cry. And I think people are seeing that every time they go and fill up their cars, to say nothing of the sort of downstream inflationary effects on this. Let's say that the war ends. The war ends. I'm using air quotes for people who are not watching on YouTube. This is part of the administration's efforts to rebalance the economic consequences of this. Do you have a sense of how long it will take to return to the pre March 1st economy? Is this a matter of weeks? You just stop this and it's over and everything returns to normal? Sort of springs back? Or are we in for a longer and bumpier ride?
- [21:59]
Megan McCardell
Well, I mean, that's a complicated question. The thing that people can see is the gas prices. And I have to take a long trip to Massachusetts in a couple of weeks and I am really, really, really not looking forward to filling our smaller suv. Possibly one could even call it a crossover. The trusty old Volkswagen Tiguan does not take like suburban level gas. But it's going to be painful because you got to stop a few times.
- [22:24]
Steve Hayes
It will be, yeah.
- [22:26]
Megan McCardell
But then there's other things like fertilizer and various petrochemicals. And how those things are going to ripple through the economy is, I think, harder to see. It's going to be a longer term shock in some ways more worrying. Right. The United States produces a bunch of oil. Eventually we'll figure this out. It's a worldwide commodity. But you know, the Straits of Hormuz is really throwing a kink in the general rule that, you know, these are fungible commodities, they just move where they're needed. But I think, you know, there, there's other stuff that is going to happen here that is going to be, that is going to cause secondary and tertiary effects. I don't think I've seen anyone offer a good projection of what that is. But I mean, the gas is bad enough because energy is fundamentally the input. You can argue that all economic growth over the last. Like I think this is an exaggeration, but there's a grain of truth here that the major piece of economic growth is just applying more energy to stuff than human muscles or animal muscles could do and that that's the fundamental source of economic growth. So when you make that a lot more expensive, it's going to show up in your GDP and it's going to show up in people's everyday lives. And that is eventually going to be not only an economic problem, but a big political problem. And I think that goes to the failure to articulate achievable goals to the American public that would justify the pain and that could be completed at a reasonable cost. And I don't think. And that in turn goes back to the failure to think things through. The just like, I don't know, let's try it, see what happens.
- [24:08]
Steve Hayes
Yeah, I mean the, if you go back to those early days, the president really didn't make the case, as we've discussed here before. And he certainly didn't warn the country of potential difficulties, of potential challenges where he said, in effect, hey, look, this is going to be worth it because Iran is the leading state sponsor of terror. They have been sponsoring terror, sometimes, you know, pounding their chest and doing it in public, many times sort of behind the scenes. And it would be good to not have that regime have a nuclear weapon. Therefore, we've got to do this difficult thing and there may be costs, it may be difficult, but it's really important for the country's security. But I think the reason he didn't do that, Mike, is because the President really did believe, and there's been a lot of reporting on this in the two months, two plus months intervening. He really did believe that this was going to be like Venezuela. And he has said this in public on a couple of occasions, was we were surprised that the regime didn't fall or that there was resistance here. Is it too late for the President to make a case, sort of a retrospective case, that, hey, I know this is difficult, I know these gas prices suck, but look at what we've done and try to, I think, you know, you're just going to have to massage the messaging on some of the stated objectives that they have not reached. But try to make the case that this was worth it. We needed to do this from a
- [25:36]
Mike Warren
civic health perspective or angle. I think it's not too late. It's never too late. Right. If you have made a mistake, which I believe he has, in not selling this, I'm not convinced that it was the right move. Regardless, given all the things that we've been discussing now for two and a half months about his sort of approach and lack of fitness for making smart strategic decisions. But now that he has made this decision and he has chosen not to sell it, yes, try to make the case to the American people, if for no other reason than that's your job. You know, you've got to make the case that all of this blood and treasure, more treasure than blood, thankfully, that we are spending in this war has a purpose, has a goal, has an end in mind. So from that perspective, yes, I think it is too late. From a political perspective. This is just beginning to montasticize in terms of the political problems that the President and his party are facing because of, yes, this war and the way it was not sold well and the way that it is dragging on longer than he seemed to have expected. I don't know if experts in this region would have agreed that it would be something quick like he thought. But that's what the President thought. And I think that is a sort of a bigger medium term problem for him and his party, that even if from this day forth he goes out there and does what I think is likely impossible for him to do, which is to make a coherent and steady case for why this is is an important thing for the United States to be doing. I still don't think it's enough because this is out there. I think we're going to talk about this later in the show. Just the political problems that he and his party are having, this has been compounded by the war. And I think there's no way that you can unwind the problems that he's created. But he should still do it because that's what a president is the right thing to do.
- [27:44]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, just one thing on the economy stuff, from what Megan was talking about, we could see very soon an economic crisis in Europe that topples governments, that causes really excessive political tumult. And Friedrich Mertz, why no one calls him Fred Mertz since that's the name from I Love Lucy, is beyond me.
- [28:10]
Steve Hayes
But yeah, it's so weird that people don't do that.
- [28:14]
Jonah Goldberg
So if someone was called Arturo Fonzarelli, you wouldn't just start calling him the Fonz anyway. No, but Friedrich Mertz said, I don't know, what, three weeks a month ago, that if this doesn't change soon, we are going to have a crisis, economic crisis here on par with what Covid was prices. I mean, I understand that the demographic that cares about international travel is not necessarily the majority making slice of the electorate, but even domestic truck jet fuel is poised to get crazy expensive. And already coach fares to Europe are getting crazy expensive. Coach fares go cross country are going to get crazy expensive. The summer driving months are coming, the summer travel months are coming. And if they don't start getting the flow, even if they got the flow of oil out of Hormuz back to the status quo ante of February 27, it will still take a long time for that oil to reach its customers. And you don't just turn on pumps once they've been turned off. Plus we're going to see stuff like, and I know it's weird, but I keep talking about helium. But a third of the world's helium comes out of that area like Oman and those places, and you can't make microchips without it. And so the only thing sustaining the stock market is basically the AI fab stuff. And if you start seeing huge hits to supply there, I mean, I think we're gonna see rolling hits to the economy for every day that this continues. And I don't think. And I think maybe this is a place to transition to politics stuff, but I think it's getting to the point where the way Trump talks about Iran, the vibes of the way Trump talks about Iran feel really familiar to voters by now because it's so similar to the way he talks about the ballroom. It's so similar how he talks about sort of everything. And I think we're seeing a sort of grand convergence between foreign policy and domestic policy. The way he does retribution with domestic political enemies, he's now doing retribution with international allies. Right. You know, like the Chancellor of Germany says something mean about him, and we're pulling 5,000 troops out. Right? Then Giorgio Meloni says, maybe you shouldn't attack the Pope, because it turns out the Pope is kind of popular in Italy. And Trump attacks Meloni and says, we're gonna screw with your defense posture too. And I think it's getting to the point where the patterns are similar enough across all these different spheres that people are just feeling like Trump is driving problems with politics, the economy, international affairs, because he's the hamster in the Rube Goldberg machine. No relation. Driving all of this drama. And I think that's a huge problem for him.
- [31:11]
Steve Hayes
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- [33:26]
Mike Warren
of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through Texas, Ohio, Alaska we're up there too
- [33:40]
Jonah Goldberg
Come comfort in it's calling your name Save on the stay oh, and free
- [33:48]
Mike Warren
waffles are yours to claim well, I hope you like my little song book.
- [33:52]
Jonah Goldberg
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- [33:56]
Steve Hayes
we are back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. So, taking my cues from producer Jonah, let's move on to politics here. Megan, I wanna ask you about what two, I think surface level, sort of apparent contradictions in the way that we're looking at Donald Trump and his political status right now. It has been the case over the past several weeks, maybe months, that Donald Trump has been losing altitude, not doing as well. His, his poll numbers have been falling and it has occasioned sort of a round of speculation that Donald Trump's second term popularity and thus his second term power has peaked. And we may be at the beginning of the end of the Trump era. There was a really good piece we published last week at the Dispatch from Yascha Monk basically making this case. It was a funny sort of lead in. He said, you know, there's no surer way to be incorrect as a pundit or observer than to predict this is finally the moment where Donald Trump is going to lose power and no longer be as popular as he has been. The end of Trump. But he then nonetheless says there are lots of indications that this may be that moment. There's a really good column in the New York Times from our friend Kristen Soltis Anderson, who talks about Trump's difficulties with Normie Republicans he's lost some support in maga. He of course, has never had support from never Trump Republicans. But his big challenge is that the, that Republicans who consider themselves Republicans first rather than Trump supporters first, he has bled support from that group. So at once it looks like Donald Trump is in trouble. This may be the beginning of the end. And then there were these elections in Indiana where the President and his team targeted these state senators in Indiana who defied his wishes on doing mid decade redistricting. I think most of them made very principled cases. I thought they were right to make the cases that they did. And there was, I think, an early sense that they might survive this, that they were willing to stick their necks out, they were willing to take the risk of potentially losing their seats, and that they might survive these pro Trump challengers that were being put up and funded heavily out of state. That mostly didn't happen. And the headlines that we saw coming out of Tuesday were that Donald Trump reasserts his grip on the Republican Party for Trump. I don't know if anybody's making the claim that Trump is as strong as ever, but it was seen as sort of a pushback on this idea that Trump was losing power, losing popularity. How do we make sense of all of that?
- [36:39]
Megan McCardell
I think I make sense of it the way I make sense of a lot of things in American politics right now, which is that the combination of primaries and high polarization and particularly high negative polarization, where people are less fans of you than they are terrified of the other party and willing to do anything to keep those guys out of power. And so what that comes down to is that people are more worried about the primary than they are about the general. And they are doing things for the primary that will make them lose the general. Like what the guys in Indiana did was both principled and probably on margin, although Indiana is a quite conservative state, but on margin nonetheless. Better for a general election. But you can't win a general election unless you get past the primaries. And the hardest core people are the ones who vote in the primaries. And also the hardest core people are more and more negatively polarized against their opponents. Right. And in this like reactive defiant disorder way where anything at all that the other side likes is bad and anything at all that they disapprove of is good. And if they disapprove of child murder, then I guess I'm for it. And that's kind of where we are as a society. It's really unhealthy. But I think that's the dynamic Here Donald Trump is losing the ability to win general elections. Not like he was ever that strong.
- [38:14]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [38:14]
Megan McCardell
He didn't win the popular vote in his first time. And first time around kind of eked it out on the second. It was fine, he's a legitimate president. I don't. But like, it wasn't like a, you know, 60% blowout. It wasn't a Reagan esque second term. It was like, I did get more votes. My party did kind of slide into a narrow majority. But I think those days are gone. And I do think that his influence over the party is going to start to wane for a couple reasons. I mean, first of all, the guy's going to be 80 in a month. Second of all, and he's just, you have to look, when you look at your future, how much longer is Donald Trump even going to be around to direct the party and healthy enough and vigorous enough to direct the party? Right. But also, I think Trump's tactics, and I think Democrats get this really wrong because you're seeing them like, we need to be more Trumpian. Actually, the stuff that people hate about Trump is the stuff that people hate about Trump, it's costly. The stuff people like about Trump is like, he's good on camera, he's a good showman. And he moved the party towards the center in ways I don't necessarily like. Like I, I saying we're not going to touch Social Security or Medicare. Bad policy, good politics. And everyone credits the wrong stuff. Normies never liked the, the, the meanness and the impulsivity and all the rest of it. They liked that. You know, he's a showman, he's good on camera. And he, he moved the party to the center and, and they liked that he won elections. Right? But they didn't love the stuff that the Democrats are now trying to emulate. And they're trying to emulate some of his dumbest policies, like maybe we'll have no taxes on anything. Look, I am second to none in my love of tax cuts, but first you got to cut spending. If you didn't cut spending, you didn't really cut taxes. You just raised them later. And I just think, like, it has to wane when he's out of office. A, there will be another person vying for the presidency. He can try to hand anoint that successor, but that person is not going to feel the loyalty to Trump that they used to. And also those normies, it's one thing, and I think you saw this dynamic in 2024 and also in 2016, when the party rallied around Trump. Right. Like when he won the primaries, the normies wanted to rally together and beat the Democrats. And people like us were like, no, I would like to. I would like to rally together and defeat Trump. They didn't like that. They disagreed with us. But when there's another president, the normies are going to get very angry. If Donald Trump is out there trying to rile people up against the sitting president, that will not go well for him. He will not win that fight. So one way or another, we got like two and a half years to go. But he will lose his hold on the party because there is no other way it can go. I'm staking my marker and I will probably be, like, roundly embarrassed. We can come back to this in two and a half years and see if I was wrong.
- [41:21]
Steve Hayes
We're going to play this clip when Donald Trump is sworn in for his third term.
- [41:24]
Megan McCardell
Right before I'm hauled off to jail.
- [41:26]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah. On the giant screen in the camp. Yeah.
- [41:34]
Steve Hayes
Jonah, you know, to Megan's point there, you know, one of the things that Normie Republicans generally have not liked about Donald Trump is this retribution politics, the politics of retribution. But it's one of the favorite aspects of Donald Trump, of this sort of core MAGA base. They might like it more than anything. They, as Megan said, they love it when he goes after their perceived enemies. And he made this case explicitly during the 2024 presidential. You know, they're coming for you. I'm just in the way. And how much was that a factor in these primaries where, you know, he was able to marshal his forces? I think using some, you know, they had a significant financial advantage, which I think mattered. And I want to ask Mike about that. But I also think just that argument. I'm going after the people who, you know, don't like me and. And don't like you. Was that a decisive factor in these Indiana elections?
- [42:32]
Jonah Goldberg
I think it was a factor. Right. I mean, this is always the problem with election returns, is everyone. All these people want to make them. This is the issue that won. Right. When in fact, it was multivariate. For some voters, that issue was 100% motivating, and for others, it was zero percent. And most people, somewhere in between, they spent. And all told, I want to say it was something like 13 and a half million dollars on races between the ad campaigns and the Flyers and the Club for Growth and all these things total.
- [43:03]
Steve Hayes
All in. Yeah.
- [43:05]
Jonah Goldberg
And so I listened to this great NPR piece about it where these state senators no one ever recognized them when they walked down the street before. And now for the last month or whatever, two months, their faces have been on tv. This rhino defied Donald Trump to help the left, right? And they're getting stopped at the supermarket and all that. And some people are saying, hey, stick to your guns. And a lot of people are saying you're betraying Trump and all that kind of thing. And so these are low turnout elections where motivating even a small group of people can have outside effects. I often make this point, I've been making this point for like 20 years about how we all like to, you know, like the mainstream media loves to talk about voter suppression in the south and come up with all these things. And I'm not saying there's never any truth to it or anything like that, but like, if you read the academic literature about voter suppression qua voter suppression, big cities like New York are really, really, really, really cynical and bad about this stuff. Teacher unions, municipal unions, public sector unions, and they love to have primaries in the dead of August when no one's around, because then you get these very low turnout elections where membership where rank and file members and affiliated allies can make up a huge share of the actual electorate. And if you had had them at a smarter time, their share of the electorate would be much smaller. But they can be decisive in these kinds of things. And so look, Trump's superpower, as Megan said, has always been to screw with people in primaries. And it was the fact that he was willing to do this that I think they got a bad midterm election coming and they were willing to spend all of this time and effort to take out Republicans who defied him. I think this has 0.0 to do with actual redistricting and only 50% to do with retribution. The other half of it is Trump is terrified of becoming a lame duck, his aides are terrified of becoming a lame duck. And Trump thinks he can weather any storm for good reason. Cuz he has in the past if he has a unified GOP that is purely defined as being about him, and people are terrified of defying him and so sending this signal. Michael Ledeen got in a lot of trouble when I wrote about this. I asked him for permission, but he had what came to be known as the Ledeen Doctrine, which was that in geopolitics, every 10 years or so, the United States needs to pick up a small, crappy little country and throw it against the wall just to show that we can. Right? It was sort of like this teaching Effect kind of point. And sometimes you have to make mobsters and empires make examples of people. From time to time, by Trump making an example of these very minor politicians who did the right thing in Indiana, partly because Mitch Daniels lobbied behind the scenes, it sends the signal to everybody else, well, look, you saw what happened to those guys in Indiana. I'm not gonna step out of line. And that's what Trump needs. And again, I think we tend to over, as pundits and election watchers and students of the American scene, we tend to try to come up with these deeply complex, rational explanations for some of Trump's behavior, when in reality, I don't think Trump sees a lot of distinctions here between getting personal retribution, having people fear him, demanding loyalty of people. These are psychological needs for him as much as they are political needs for him. And they've worked. Remember in 2018 when there was that massive wave for Democrats and Trump gives this press conference explaining that all of these Republicans who lost because Trump was so unpopular lost because they didn't fully embrace Trump.
- [47:07]
Mike Warren
Me, a love. She had no love for me.
- [47:10]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah. Did not embrace. He just went through all these people
- [47:12]
Steve Hayes
and it's like, did not embrace.
- [47:15]
Jonah Goldberg
That is his mindset and it's got him. 80 year olds do not change their characters. And this is the way he has navigated his life for half century. And it applies on international stuff, and applies on domestic stuff, and it applies on interpersonal stuff. And it's just, it gets a little boring to have the same analysis of, you know, doing psychoanalysis for everything. But, like, I still think it's the best way to understand the guy.
- [47:40]
Steve Hayes
Mike, how much did the money matter?
- [47:43]
Mike Warren
It was a big deal. There was, it was a sort of unbalanced war. If you look at the money our colleague David Drucker talked about with a source in Indiana and told us that essentially every incumbent who was a target of Trump and Trump's political operation was outspent. And they lost. Pretty much every single one lost. I would say that that reflects a couple of things to me, which is that Trump's hold on the Republican Party, however we define what the, what that means, it remains strong and as sort of strong as ever, I would even argue, on the political apparatus of the Republican Party. He was able to essentially marshal resources for this effort that he cared about, and he was able to say, this is important to me. And places like the Club for Growth said, yeah, we'll jump how high? Tell US how high, Mr. President? And spent that money. I just wonder what that's worth anymore. Now in 2026, as we head into those last two years of his presidency and I guess, official leadership of the Republican Party, he seems to be exerting a lot of influence still and having to spend a lot of money to exert that influence still here in this party that he's now controlled for a decade. And we can see that that is kind of where he's able to, to exert his power because he's unable to exert his political power in kind of the real world, like outside of the club that he has created. That, I think is important, too, right? I mean, we've talked about just how bad his poll numbers are and they're bad and getting worse. And the midterm elections are looking like they're going to be a rout. People expect the Democrats to win back the House. So, yes, his club remains and he spent a lot of money and political effort and political capital to make sure that, that the Republican club remains the Trump Republican club. And for what? You know, I mean, I think that's the question that maybe a lot of Republicans aren't thinking about long term here, which is what does it gain us to have a more unified party if that unity is getting us to 40% support, that's a problem. And I don't think so. I don't think the information that we've gotten over these last two weeks from from Indiana is in contradiction with what Yasha wrote for us and what Kristen Saltis Anderson wrote for the New York Times. In a lot of ways, those are kind of complimentary observations.
- [50:24]
Steve Hayes
Before we take an ad break, please 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 a 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 more. Okay, we'll be right back.
- [50:53]
Megan McCardell
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- [51:19]
Steve Hayes
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Megan McCardell
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Mike Warren
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Megan McCardell
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- [51:34]
Steve Hayes
No judgments.
- [51:35]
Mike Warren
But that's weird.
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Steve Hayes
Okay, one judgment anyway.
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Megan McCardell
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- [51:52]
Steve Hayes
Let's return to our discussion. So those claims I think are no longer operative. Republicans are talking about spending one day billion on the ballroom. It is now allegedly going to be double in size. And Republicans are making these arguments largely on security grounds after the most recent attempt on the President's life at the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Megan, is there any validity to these arguments about security? I mean if you look at what happened at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, we don't want that to happen to presidents.
- [52:27]
Megan McCardell
Sure.
- [52:27]
Steve Hayes
It probably is the case that security would be much more tightly held if these things took place at the White House. Is there, is this a valid argument that. A valid argument that justifies flipping the funding?
- [52:41]
Megan McCardell
I think. It's hard for me to imagine them holding it at the ballroom for a bunch of reasons. The security would make it impossible. Not impossible, but like, you know, I get offered a ticket to the correspondence dinner every year. I didn't go this year because I was at a conference. But would I want to go through White House security to go to the White House correspondence dinner? I think a lot of people would not. It's also just like the optics are weird.
- [53:07]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [53:08]
Megan McCardell
How would the correspondents get access to the White House ballroom which is government property? Would we rent it? Are we gonna rent out the. Just like a strange idea.
- [53:19]
Jonah Goldberg
The whole point is the correspondents invite the President, not the President inviting the correspondents. It's a completely counter to the mission.
- [53:26]
Megan McCardell
Yeah, the optics of that would be very strange. I mean, fun fact, the original east wing that is now being has been demolished was built to cover a bunker that was built during World War II. So I mean there is some, you know. Yes, probably the security will be better. I'm sure there's a nice bunker in the basement, you know, upgraded with all the latest. Got all the fallout games now. Like I just, I don't see this as really Being a thing about the correspondence, General, what I do think it is is an excuse to do what they ought to have done all along, right? This should have been a congressionally funded effort. That is how this stuff is supposed to work. So I guess better late than never. And better, you know, if it's hypocritical and, you know, kind of a fake excuse, a pretext. I guess that's the tribute that. That vice pays to virtue. And I guess I'd rather have that than. Than no tribute at all.
- [54:21]
Steve Hayes
Joe, where did all the. Where did all of the Doge enthusiasts in the Republican Party go?
- [54:26]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, look, I mean, put the Doge enthusiast aside for just two seconds, like two weeks ago, three weeks, I can't remember. You know, time is a flat circle these days. But very recently, the official position of this administration and this Justice Department was that Jerome Powell should go to jail for possibly the rest of his life because of cost overruns in a construction project. And now we've got a project that we were told was going to cost taxpayers $0, will now cost a billion dollars. Megan is the math person on this panel, but I think I am right that even if it was a $1 increase from zero, that would be an infinite increase, because all increases from zero are infinite. But a billion is a big infinite.
- [55:18]
Mike Warren
Right.
- [55:18]
Jonah Goldberg
And I don't think Trump should go to jail because he lied about it being. Not causing tax or any of that kind of stuff. But, like, the double standards here are really kind of shocking. And I just wrote this column about it. But, like, I think that the ballroom thing is an analog to the Iran war. Trump does things unilaterally for vanity, as a vanity project, for his own aggrandizement, because he wants to say certain things. He doesn't want to go through the process where he gets allies on board or rallies public opinion or gets Congress to vote on something, whether it's a ballroom or a war. You know, in Iran, he doesn't want to do that because he thinks it's all gonna work out great and he wants all the credit. And if he has to ask permission for people, it makes him look small, not strong, like bull. If he just does it on his own. And he thought Iran was gonna be like a replay of Venezuela, he thought the ballroom would just go great and be done, because this is the one thing he really knows about is building stuff with gold leaf. And then when he gets into trouble, he all of a sudden has to ask Congress to bail him out to fund the thing. He has to Go sort of come up with these national security pretexts to justify what he has done. He moves goalposts. And I just find the whole, I'm in favor of regime chairman Iran, and I'm totally fine with the President having a ballroom with a super cool Batcave underneath. That's all fine by me. But make the arguments, go through the process, have people kick the tires on the idea, make the argument to the public. Doing all this stuff unilaterally, then messing up wildly and then attacking people for not, you know, like, going to war with Iran and then getting mad without asking for the Brits to help and then getting mad at the Brits when they're not helping is crazy talk. Getting mad at people for not supporting a ballroom that you said you didn't need their help with. And then all of a sudden, you don't want to protect the President from assassins if you don't support this massive, you know, Great Gatsby Ballroom. It's just stupid and it freaks everybody out and makes people think this guy is not in charge.
- [57:23]
Megan McCardell
As the math person, I feel like I should. I should do a small correction. A $1 increase from zero is a $1. It's a $1 increase. However, in percentage terms.
- [57:34]
Jonah Goldberg
Right. Okay.
- [57:34]
Megan McCardell
You could multiply zero infinity by itself infinity times and still not get to $1. So in that sense, you are correct. But I felt we should specify its percentages and not absolutely.
- [57:48]
Steve Hayes
This is among the many reasons we love having Megan with us on this podcast. Mike, if the President did propose a ballroom with a Batcave underneath, would Republicans go along?
- [57:59]
Mike Warren
Yes. What else needs to be said?
- [58:02]
Steve Hayes
Okay, good. Last word on that.
- [58:03]
Mike Warren
Wait, can I say something real quick? It's always been a lie, and this latest lie about the national security implications of it. It's just a lie. It's not true. I mean, it's. There is. It has. One has nothing to do with the other. The President goes to all kinds of events that are not at the White House more than he would like because he's a big homebody. But, like, this has nothing. The White House correspondent's dinner shooter has nothing to do with the ballroom. And it's a lie. We should just be clear about it. And in fact, we should not be surprised at all by this. As Jonah's pointed out, it's the way that he operate, has operated with the war, but it's also the way. How many stories did we hear, were we reminded of throughout the 2016 presidential election of vendors that Donald Trump did not pay on his Various projects. The wall. Right. The wall that Mexico was going to pay for, that we ended up paying for. I mean, this is just a pattern. So the fact that anybody is surprised by this, you weren't paying attention. It's what he does. That's all I want to say.
- [59:11]
Megan McCardell
I am sort of. I'm trying to picture the secret bunker with the what cave? At what point would public support. Would Republican support stop like the human sacrifice altar?
- [59:24]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [59:25]
Megan McCardell
Would Republicans draw the line? I'm not sure.
- [59:30]
Jonah Goldberg
Well, when they wheel Stephen Miller into this cave in a leather onesie, you know.
- [59:38]
Steve Hayes
Wow, that went sideways fast. Jonah, can you lower your. Can you lower yourself? Jonah? I don't even know where to go after that visual. There goes for people who are not watching this on YouTube. Jonah is lowering himself off the screen now.
- [59:59]
Mike Warren
You stay there.
- [60:02]
Steve Hayes
The perfect.
- [60:04]
Jonah Goldberg
It's a similar device to one they used to lower Stephen Miller in his last.
- [60:09]
Megan McCardell
He is the color of a ripe strawberry. Just ready for eating.
- [60:15]
Steve Hayes
Let's try to wrap this up.
- [60:16]
Jonah Goldberg
That's what they said to Stephen Miller.
- [60:22]
Steve Hayes
All right, we want to do a quick round of dispatch recommends before we get to not worth your time. I will start because I have a couple recommendations based on our discussion of politics and sort of where Trump is. I will recommend the Yasha Monk piece that I made reference to earlier. There's also a new piece that we posted on the website by David Drucker. Will MAGA come for Thomas Massie? The president once again going after one of his Republican critics. And Nick Katoggio, our all opponent friend, wrote last night on Indiana Republicans prolonging the GOP's hostage crisis. Recommend all three of those. Mike Warren, what do you recommend?
- [60:55]
Mike Warren
It's sort of a different speed. We have a piece from a writer in Cleveland, Joseph Polonge, I believe is how you pronounce his name. My father's conservatism. It's really a nice little essay about a different kind of conservatism. Not the political kind, but the way in which he writes his father's just approach to life and trying to learn from the world rather than sort of bursting through like certain president and certain members of his cabinet, acting like you know everything when you know nothing. It's a nice little piece and I'm glad we ran it.
- [61:27]
Megan McCardell
Megan, Mike stole my recommendation.
- [61:30]
Mike Warren
Sorry.
- [61:30]
Megan McCardell
Thanks, Mike. No, I loved that piece because his description reminded me so much of my grandfather and who was. Was by the way, like an active Republican. He was an alderman. He was the chairman of his. Of the Republican County Party for Wayne County, New York for a while. But his fundamental conservatism was not about partisanship. It was about an approach to life. And it just resonated with me. Hugely recommend it to everyone.
- [61:59]
Steve Hayes
Jonah.
- [62:00]
Jonah Goldberg
So it's a, it's a very interesting piece. It's not one that you might expect for me to endorse or suggest, but John Aziz, a Palestinian writer in the UK had really just a great piece. It has things that has some pointed criticisms for Israel, but at the same time, as the headline says, he argues that anti Zionism is a dead end for Palestinians in part because it just simply prolongs the plight, the limbo for millions of Palestinian people and, and anti Zionism, which he goes after. Ezra Klein and Hasan Piker in the piece. Encouraging this kind of rhetoric gives another generation of Palestinian politicians, leaders, radicals, activists, the false sense that they're this much closer to finally destroying the Zionist entity rather than getting on with their lives and trying to figure out a way to live alongside Israel. And it empowers the people in Israel who are most hostile to the Palestinians.
- [63:00]
Megan McCardell
Good.
- [63:00]
Steve Hayes
Good piece. Finally, not worth your time. Today, I want to talk about the Hantavirus and cruising. There have been stories I'm sure most of our listeners have been following about this cruise ship that has seen a number of cases of hantavirus. Sounds absolutely miserable. But I want to just ask from that very serious news story and worrisome development about cruises in general, would you take another cruise anytime soon if this hantavirus proves even more problematic than it appears right now? And Megan, I will start with you.
- [63:36]
Megan McCardell
When my parents got divorced my mother and sold their apartment. My mother wanted to take a little bit of money and do something nice with me and my sister. This was in 2006, and she went to a travel agent and she booked us on a clipper ship cruise to the Greek Isles. This was fantastic. I was going through a hideous breakup. I was also in the uncanny valley of this kind of cruise ship. It's a very small ship. The ship itself was lovely and the, you know, cruising the ocean, the Greek Isles, with sails rather than an engine, although there was an engine for when the wind died. Glorious. But I was going through a bad breakup and my parents had just gotten divorced and sold their apartment. And also on cruise ships like this, there's this weird lacuna. So there were a lot of people over the age of 50 and particularly over the age of 60. And then there were some of their grandchildren. And then there was me and my sister, who were the only people between the ages of 25 and 40 on the ship. And so it was a little strange, but I guess under happier circumstances I might recommend it. If you are, for example, over the age of 55. High recommend, which sadly I'm approaching now.
- [64:54]
Steve Hayes
So Jonah's there. I mean, Jonah's already there. Mike. We did some cruises together, yes. Back in the Weekly Standard, including some for work.
- [65:05]
Mike Warren
So those are the only cruises I've ever been on actually were the Weekly Standard cruises that I attended. And I don't really have a strong desire to go cruising again. It's just not my idea of a vacation or time off. I do have a funny, I guess to me, cruise story, maybe I've told it before. So the very first Weekly Standard cruise that I went on, I was a Cub staffer at the Weekly Standard. And it was one of those situations where there was an extra room that they needed to fill or an extra. Actually what it was, was an extra spot at the dinner tables where we would talk with readers of the magazine. That was sort of part of the appeal, part of the sale, right, to readers was come on this cruise and you can talk with our writers and staff people like Steve Hayes and Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. And then sometimes they would be stuck with people like me. And so that was really why they needed me to come on this. And so it was a very last minute thing. Hey, we have an extra spot at these tables. Come and you can and we'll really sweeten the deal. We'll give you a room that has a balcony, which not everybody was, was getting on staff, but they had a balcony room. I was like, wow, this is great. And I invited my, my then girlfriend, who's, who's now my wife to come along. And it was this like literally like a month before the cruise, we found out this is amazing. I have, I have no money to go on a vacation. So this is, this is terrific. And we get into the room and it's just, it's great. You know, they've got like a bottle of champagne there for everybody. We kind of step out onto the balcony of this nice cruise ship in harbor and the sun is going down and we're sort of like, I can't believe the luck that we have and being invited to this. We didn't even know we're going to be here. And we're sort of arms around each other, just young and in love and having this wonderful moment. And we can hear suddenly from a, I believe a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, one of the giant, massive Ones that's got like water slides and bungee jumping and all this stuff. It's also getting ready to pull out of harbor and we could just hear from way like maybe a mile away across a big harbor. We could just hear like as loud as possible the song Everybody Dance now. It just completely ruined the vibe of the moment.
- [67:24]
Steve Hayes
And why didn't you just dance?
- [67:26]
Mike Warren
Well, we did, you know, at that point it's like, I mean, get into it. We had our marching orders, we knew we had to dance, but it was, it was like, okay, that's, that's good. And I went on a couple more, maybe one more week of standard cruise, but that's about it for now.
- [67:37]
Steve Hayes
So I, I love cruises. I think it's such a great way to see so many different places. You can see, you know, six, seven cities that you've wanted to see, staying on the ship and visiting different ports of call. And, you know, you get to spend your day or two days. You don't have to pack up your bags after every time. I loved the Weekly Standard cruise. I actually learned a lot from the folks who came, enjoyed talking to them. Jonah, we have talked about doing dispatch cruises over the years. I'm for them at the Weekly Standard. It was a nice way the magazine could sort of help supplement subscription fees and things with the money that we made on cruises. I've long been privately for doing dispatch cruises. I am now coming out in favor publicly of doing dispatch cruises. Where do you fall on that important question?
- [68:40]
Mike Warren
As soon as the hantavirus story hit, he was like, now's the time to publicly come out.
- [68:45]
Jonah Goldberg
So I mean to address the actual original question just for two seconds. As some of you know, National Review was the pioneer of this whole business model of magazines and ideological affinity groups doing these things. We were the ones did it first. It comes out historically from. It was an homage to William F. Buckley's reputation as a sailor. That's sort of like the original spark of the idea about it. And we did so many. When I was at National Review for 20 years, we did so many cruises. I used to start joking that I worked for a right wing cruise company that put out magazines on the side. And I thought long and hard, look, first of all, if it's good for the Dispatch, there are lots of things I don't like to do around the Dispatch that I do because it's good for the Dispatch. So this could just add to the list.
- [69:31]
Steve Hayes
Yeah, like this podcast,
- [69:37]
Jonah Goldberg
as listeners know. You took me, Steve. You made me go to a lot of meetings with politicians, and I did not enjoy it.
- [69:42]
Steve Hayes
And we learned a lot, though.
- [69:45]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah, I learned how much I dislike meeting with politicians. So I met a really wonderful bunch of people on NR cruises. I've also been on some other cruises for other organizations. I think the core of my reluctance has to do with, first of all, I could go the rest of my life happily without ever going on another Caribbean cruise. I don't really like the Caribbean that much. It's just not my thing, and it's hot and don't want to do it. But if that's what we have to do to help the dispatch thrive, I'm open to it. I always like European cruises more for some of the reasons that you get at Steve is like, whatever you think about cruise food, whatever you think about having to sing for your supper every night and all that kind of stuff. Once you're off the boat, you're in Italy, and that's awesome. Or Germany or France or whatever. That's cool. That's one of the reasons I like the riverboat cruises more. You get sort of to more cool places without having to go to these big, monstrous industrial ports first. Alaska tours are actually pretty great too, because, you know, even though the tourist stuff right in the port is sort of annoying, you can get to the. The out.
- [70:53]
Steve Hayes
The.
- [70:53]
Jonah Goldberg
The wilderness stuff is just beautiful, and you can get there pretty easily. My biggest problem with the NR cruises was just that. And it took me a long time to realize it, was that the model was less about the panels and the events. It was about the dinners. Because they promised that you get to sit two nights. At least two nights or at least with two speakers at dinner time. Which meant I had to, like, these are people who were paying real money. They care about this. This is like the dudes who go to spring training in Florida. They liked seeing the people they saw on tv. They liked talking to people that they read. You can't be rude to these people. You can't be dismissive. You have to sort of be on. And so it was just draining for me more than anything else to do that much at the height of it all. But I never really had a problem with the individual people. It was just too muchness. It's a lot of work. And I think if dispatch did it, we could figure out how to do it for cool locations that make sense, that maybe we don't have to replicate that model right away. So I'm open to it. I look forward to you organizing it and doing all the due diligence. And then me coming in and carp about it.
- [72:06]
Steve Hayes
We're going back to the Caribbean. We're gonna play Everybody Dance now for Mike Warren and his now wife Megan is already dancing. People who are not watching this on YouTube are really missing out.
- [72:18]
Megan McCardell
You're missing out on something.
- [72:20]
Steve Hayes
I so I I I will say I I loved doing the I probably did like 10 of them, maybe more. There goes Jonah again. I probably did 10 of them. I I loved them. I was able to bring my family on on many of them. I thought they were great. You had these sort of unexpected moments. I remember we cruised into Kotor, Montenegro, which was not a place I'd ever spent much time thinking about, certainly not a place that I dreamed of going. And it was absolutely beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful. As I say, I enjoyed meeting Weekly Standard readers and subscribers. And I do think, particularly in a politically polarized moment, bringing people together who believe in something like what the Dispatch is doing in our mission could be very useful at this time. We're not, I'm not obligating us to do it, but I thought we'd take the behind the scenes discussions and bring them out in front. So anybody who wants to see Mike Warren dance, please please send us emails to RoundtableDISpatch.com all right, thank you all for joining. We will see you again next time. Finally, if you like what we're doing here, you can rate, review and subscribe to the show on your podcast player of choice to help new listeners find us. And as always, if you've got questions, comments, concerns or corrections, you can email us@roundtableispatch.com we read everything, even the ones from people who wouldn't join us for a dispatch cruise. We are genuinely interested in your thoughts on a possible dispatch cruise, so send us a note that's going to 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 possible. Noah Hickey and Peter Bonaventure. Thanks again for listening. Please join us next.
- [74:19]
Megan McCardell
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Steve Hayes
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Megan McCardell
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Steve Hayes
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