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- [00:00]
Megan McArdle
Psst.
- [00:01]
Steve Hayes
It's mushrooms with Matty Matheson. Let me tell you the secret of how to look like you know what you're doing. Use mushrooms. Toss em on eggs, noodles.
- [00:09]
Jonah Goldberg
Boom.
- [00:10]
Steve Hayes
It's delicious.
- [00:10]
Megan McArdle
It's not magic.
- [00:11]
Steve Hayes
It's mushrooms. Hit up mushroomcouncil.com and get cookin'.
- [00:16]
Ellie Fox
Hi everybody. My name is Ellie Fox, an associate director on the 92nd Streetwide Talks Team. So nice to see so many of you here for this. Thanks for being here. Tonight's program is part of the Newmark Civic Life series and is brought to you through a generous gift from Craig Newmark Philanthropies. Within the series we aim to feature leaders who are propelling pro democracy efforts at this critical moment in the US and around the world. And tonight we are so grateful to be with these guiding voices who are doing just that. Within the Civic Life series, we're also raising awareness for Take 9, a public service campaign created to help protect individuals against cyber threats by taking a nine second pause before you click download or share Here tonight to dig into the biggest news stories of the week and to talk about what's left of the right is the Dispatch founders Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg with contributing writers Megan McArdle and Chris Stirewalt for a special live taping of the Dispatch podcast. Before we get started, please note that we'll be taking your questions, so please start thinking of those and write them down. Our ushers will give you cards if you're viewing on the live stream. Hello out there. You can submit your questions in the chat. Thank you all so much for being here and for supporting our programs. And with that, please give a very warm welcome to Steve, Jonah, Megan and Chris.
- [02:05]
Jonah Goldberg
Hey everybody, how's it going? Welcome. Happy to be here. Thanks to the 92nd Street Y. We are very happy to be here. Happy to do this taping. We're in good company. They've had lots of people who are more important than we are over the years, but we're happy to be. Happy to be here. Happy to have you with us. And we want to jump right into it. And my first question is going to be for you, Jonah. On February 28, Donald Trump launched a war against Iran. This followed the June 2025 airstrikes. There was then some intense bombing in the Caribbean of drug boats. There were airstrikes on Christmas Day last year against Islamic radical terrorists in Nigeria. January 3, the United States extracted Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela and the President has threatened military action against Cuba, Greenland and a few others for good Measure. This is the same guy who ran for president pretty consistently promising, I'm not going to start a war. I'm going to stop wars. What happened to Donald Trump?
- [03:33]
Chris Stirewalt
All right, so first of all, we want to get to a lot of stuff. So like Trump ceasefires. My answer won't last very long, I guess, I guess I kind of reject a little bit of the premise.
- [03:48]
Jonah Goldberg
There's a shocker. Literally the first question.
- [03:53]
Chris Stirewalt
Trump said lots of things when he was campaigning. I always used to joke about Joe Biden, that there was always a non trivial chance that at some point he would just start shouting, get these squirrels off of me. And something similar applies to Donald Trump. He says whatever the room wants to hear. I think no more forever wars. No more wars was coded to mean a certain kind of war, like a certain kind of commitment. He also, you know, in his first term, he took out Suleimani. He did all sorts of things with isis. Right. Like, and that was all popular with the Beys. And I think he thought going into it also depends on, I mean, campaign trail is one thing, but you gotta remember he also really wanted a Nobel Peace Prize for a long time and kept talking.
- [04:39]
Steve Hayes
He has the FIFA prize. Shona, you act like the FIFA prize isn't real.
- [04:44]
Chris Stirewalt
Well, and he also has that. What's the Florida senator guy? Oh, Rick Scott.
- [04:49]
Steve Hayes
Rick Scott, Defender of Freedom Award.
- [04:51]
Chris Stirewalt
Yeah, the Defender of Freedom Award, which was just like literally, let's go to the trophy store and buff out MVP of soccer league and put Freedom Awards.
- [05:02]
Megan McArdle
Well, and also you have to remember all of the incredibly brilliant, the Nobel Prize winners, the top CEOs and so forth, who called Donald Trump frequently to tell him that he's the smartest, most
- [05:14]
Chris Stirewalt
brilliant with tears in their eyes.
- [05:15]
Steve Hayes
And they say, sir, sir, sir.
- [05:20]
Chris Stirewalt
And so I think that it's really important to point out because when you say the premise of the question is that Trump somehow betrayed some campaign promise, the only time anyone ever said he was betraying a campaign promise about starting wars was when he attacked Iran. Before that, they had no problem with Megyn Kelly and Tucker and all those people and Goering and Himmler. They had no problem with. They had no problem with him doing all that stuff. It was only because the Iran thing was coded as the kind of wars that that crowd thought you shouldn't do. And then it got compounded with the fact that, that he messed it up.
- [06:03]
Steve Hayes
Right?
- [06:04]
Chris Stirewalt
I mean, his plan was maduro redux. There was gonna be a quick thing. He thought he could just roll up victory win after Win. And he thought this would be very fast. And he was. You should guys write this down wrong. And so I don't think anything happened to him. I think Trump is the same. I mean, he's getting a little weird how much he likes to talk about the male physique of some people, but for the most part, he's the same guy he's always been. He's just unrestrained and in the moment, does whatever he thinks he needs to do to get out of a moment if it's a bad moment. And so I don't. He was never constrained ideologically by anything.
- [06:43]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah. So, Chris, I mostly buy that answer from Jonah, but it was the case that a lot of people invested sort of confidence or hope in Donald Trump that he would be the guy who wouldn't start wars.
- [06:58]
Steve Hayes
That was what J.D. vance wrote in his editorial endorsing Donald Trump for president for 20, which is that he didn't start any wars. And that he was.
- [07:07]
Chris Stirewalt
He also added, and I love his musk.
- [07:08]
Steve Hayes
And I love his musk. When Trump ordered the Operation Midnight Hammer, which is also a marital aid, when he ordered Operation Midnight Hammer, and he loved the reaction that he got, right? People who normally hate him were like, oh, that was pretty good. And then you can listen to him talk about the bombs and the bombers and do all of that stuff. So he's getting popped, the audience likes what he's doing. And then the Maduro thing was like a dream come true, right? It generated memes, the Maduro in the sweatsuit and doing all of that stuff. And there's a really revealing interview.
- [07:49]
Jonah Goldberg
What kind of dreams do you have?
- [07:53]
Steve Hayes
There's a lot of rendition. If you listen to Trump or read Trump's interview, I think it was with the New York Times, but he said it in a few places. What he said about Iran was that we would do a Venezuela, right? And that what we were gonna do in Iran would be the same thing. We would remove this leader, we would replace a better leader. Not a better leader, but replace him with a more pliant leader that would do the things like Delsey Rodriguez in Venezuela. We'd install somebody in Iran who would do the things that we wanted. And that sort of the suzerainty of Iran, and we were gonna take the oil and it was gonna be great. So here's what I assume happened. I assume that people from the Pentagon, people from the CIA, people from the NSA said to the president, well, we could do this in Iran, and it might go like this. It might go like this. Or it might go like this, or, you know, five or six weeks, and maybe we'll get somebody else in place and it'll go great. And Trump was like, I wanna do that one. And they said, we didn't mean that. That was our option. Meant that the range of outcomes included quick and relatively easy. But the high end of this is going to be hard and painful. And so he believed the best. We're not far from Norman Vincent Peale's church and the power of positive thinking. And Donald Trump is governed by the power of positive thinking. How's it gonna be? It's gonna be Great. How's the 4th of July celebration gonna be? It's gonna be the most fantastic ever. Everything is the best. Everything is always gonna be better than anything that ever happened before. He glommed onto it. They went for it. And then, of course, when the generals came back and said, okay, well, now we're in, and now we have to, like, do more. Now we've gotta commit more force. We gotta do whatever. He was never gonna stay and fight because I think Jonah's broader premise is right. So I think he liked the adulation that he got from the military interventions overseas. He wanted to be the new Teddy Roosevelt and expand the United States and do all that stuff. And then when it got hard, he just said, no.
- [10:01]
Chris Stirewalt
I do think the power of positive thinking thing is one of the most important aspects of Trump. He thinks he can make the wish, the father of the thought if he just keeps saying it. So like today he said 19 million barrels, which I don't know that that's actually true, but he said 19 million barrels came out of the Strait of Hormuz today. All time record. I looked it up. Iaea, you know, all the average per day in February before The war was 20 million barrels a day. So not only was it not a
- [10:32]
Megan McArdle
record, this is the low record. Joe.
- [10:39]
Jonah Goldberg
So it sounds to me, Megan, like neither of the gentlemen to your right believe that there really is such a thing as the Trump Doctrine. Do you think there's a Trump Doctrine?
- [10:51]
Megan McArdle
I mean, yes, but it doesn't have anything to do with, like, American power in the world or anything else. The Trump Doctrine is that whatever Trump believes should be true, that he believes he is the greatest man who has ever lived in history. Or he. I actually don't know. So there's this interesting thing about depression. I'm going to land this plane. Give me a sec. There's a word for people who have a very accurate perception of what other people think of Them, what their skills are, how smart they are. And that word is clinically depressed. And Trump is. Most people have an optimistic bias because you need it, because the universe, it's a little scary out there sometimes. And Trump is like, in some ways, the opposite of that. But I don't know whether that conceals underneath a hollow fear that none of it is true, an awareness that he's full of it, or whether he is like, you know, like a kitten that thinks that if it can't see you, you can't see it like that. He thinks if he lies the way you thought would, like. I don't know. When I was in, like, third grade, I thought if I told people, like, fantastic stories about my family, they would believe me and then it would be socially true, because I was in third grade. And some people kind of never grow out of that. But also, he's really good at, like, selectively forgetting anything that has ever gone wrong in his administration. He may actually believe his own nonsense. I really don't know. But the Trump Doctrine is basically, anything that is good for Donald Trump is good for the world, because Donald Trump is the world. He is like the We Are the World concert, except it's just him. Just him bellowing at everyone else. And I remember when John. He was running, he was talking about John McCain, and John McCain said something mean about him. I don't remember what, condemned some outrageous thing he'd said. And he said, oh, I. You know, I like war heroes who didn't get shot down. And I thought about that. When he claimed that he'd been against the Iraq war. He wasn't against the Iraq war, he was against losing the Iraq war, which joined the club. And somehow he didn't think it could happen to him. Or somehow he thought he could just BS his way through, like, maybe if no one. It's like the Jedi mind trick theory of American politics, right? These are not the Straits of Hormuz you're looking for. Gasping prices have never been lower. And this, shockingly, has not worked just
- [13:42]
Chris Stirewalt
on a policy point. That's why all of us could point out flaws with the mou.
- [13:49]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [13:49]
Chris Stirewalt
I think that's fair to say, in
- [13:53]
Jonah Goldberg
a very real sense, mou, Memo of Understanding.
- [13:57]
Chris Stirewalt
Oh, I thought you were about to do the Mickey Mouse thing. Mou.
- [13:59]
Steve Hayes
Sorry.
- [14:00]
Chris Stirewalt
But the simple fact is he could not give a rat's ass what the thing actually says, and neither could the Iranians. And so a lot of this is, like, a distraction for people like us. In clause 4 of the 14 points from Versailles, which is just crazy. Right? People want to argue. This doesn't make sense. In some ways, Vance is right when he said, and it hurts me to say that, but when he says words don't matter, like Trump just wanted a document to get the straight of Hormuz open. He might comply with it, he might not comply with it. He probably will comply with some of it, like lifting sanctions, which is terrible, and letting oil revenues go to Iran because he has to do that much just to like kick the can. But like this. Three, why settled for 300 billion for this reconstruction fund. It could have been 500 trillion. Right? Because it doesn't matter to him.
- [14:55]
Megan McArdle
Yeah. No, it's sort of like you used to be able to save up a certain number of serial box tops and send away and then you could get your secret decoder ring and your membership
- [15:05]
Steve Hayes
in the Pepsi jet.
- [15:06]
Megan McArdle
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, this is basically that. It's like he has saved up all of his box tops and he sent them to Iran and he got back his very important piece of paper that allows him to say that he has ended the war.
- [15:21]
Steve Hayes
Donald Trump adopted the phrase America first, and when he did, people said, this is resonant of the American Nazi Party. This reeks of the isolationism of the 1930s. I don't think Donald Trump was dog whistling. I think he liked the way it sounded to say America First. Yeah, America first. That's good. I think he liked it the way that John McCain liked to say country over party or whatever. Sounded like a good slogan. I'm sure he thought he made it up in the same way he thought he made Make America Great Again up, even though he didn't make that up. There is an America first movement, though, and it long predates Donald Trump. Is it connected in part to the Lindbergh, Henry Ford vibes of the 1930s? Yeah, but it's definitely connected to Pat Buchanan and it's definitely connected to the right wing populism that has been present in the Republican Party for a long time. Those people are not isolationists per se, but they are definitely not internationalists. Right. They're willing to blow things up, they're willing to kill people, they're willing to do whatever. And what J.D. vance sort of represents in this is the fullness of the Patview canonism, the fullness of. I'm not gonna say John Birch because that's not exactly fair, but. But it's the same current that runs through. I think those people are genuinely angry at Israel. I think that those People are genuinely upset about Donald Trump's internationalist turn. I think that they're very angry about all of this stuff. And they're the same people who would have voted, the same kinds of people who would have voted in previous primaries. Do you think the Herman Cain success, the boomlet of Herman Cain, was because people love 999 as a phrase for taxes? No, he was talking to those same voters.
- [17:24]
Megan McArdle
Is it anti internationalist, though? Because, like, the people who have been telling me about, like, we don't need to get into foreign wars, we don't need to do all this became curiously silent when we just randomly started kicking Venezuela around for no particular reason. My favorite theory, by the way, of why we invaded Venezuela is that Donald Trump wanted to invade Mexico. And in order to talk him out of it.
- [17:51]
Steve Hayes
You know what we could do, though? You know what we could do, though? We can't go to the movies tonight, but you know what we could do? We could watch something on Netflix.
- [18:00]
Megan McArdle
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm not vouching for this theory, but it did strike a certain resonance with me when I heard it. But none of the. Like, none of those people seemed very interested in Venezuela. But, boy, when we did something with Israel, all of a sudden. And look, I am actually the person who has long been saying, like, don't call everything anti Semitic. Don't get into, like. But no, it seems like it's not really about international. They didn't get upset when he started, like, messing around trying to buy Greenland.
- [18:32]
Steve Hayes
How many O's do you put in the word Jews Is the.
- [18:34]
Megan McArdle
Yeah, it's like, it's not really anti internationalist, it's just anti Islamist.
- [18:39]
Chris Stirewalt
So this gets to me. Like, I agree with Chris's version that it does directly come from Buchanan, but the connective tissue there is very strong because Pat Buchanan, like, literally wrote a book called America first that harkened back to the America First Committee and all
- [18:53]
Steve Hayes
that, and then became a Holocaust denier. Right. So, yes, and.
- [18:57]
Chris Stirewalt
But like. So listeners of my niche podcast have heard me talk about this many times. But, you know, I have this thing about certain words that people use just to describe the versions of that phenomenon they don't like.
- [19:09]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [19:09]
Chris Stirewalt
So everyone talks about censorship. Oh, I'm against censorship. And then they say, well, what about, you know, like, hardcore porn on Saturday morning broadcast tv? That's ridiculous. That's just community standards. No, that's censorship. And it's fine.
- [19:21]
Steve Hayes
Right?
- [19:21]
Chris Stirewalt
It's just. We just use the word censorship to describe the censorship. We don't like. And everything else has some other, like, community standards, some other doctrine. We do the same thing with isolationism. Pat Buchanan during the Balkan war, who had carved out this massive amount of space for himself as a quote, unquote, isolationist and reviving. The American First Company wanted to send, I think, the seventh Fleet to protect Christians in Kosovo because they were part of the main. And they had all this sort of grandiose stuff. It's the exceptions that tell you who people are. So like, you know, Israel, like the U.N. i keep harping on this, going by the standards of, you know, institutional racism and disparate impact. The UN is structurally anti Semitic because it has a separate standard just for the one Jewish country. These guys didn't complain about threatening NATO allies to take Greenland. Right. They didn't care about Venezuela stuff. They liked Trump going around being strong, like bull, but then when he did something that protected the Jews and made the Jews here happy, they lost their minds. And that's the revealed preference. Right? There are exceptions of this. Like, Trump can do whatever he wants. He's bestriding the world like a colossus. It's awesome. Screw Ukraine, whatever, all that stuff is great, but don't help the Jews. Yeah, I mean, that's what set these people off.
- [20:41]
Megan McArdle
To be clear, I was against this operation in Iran. I did not see how this was gonna end well. And you can argue, like, look, this was much more of a quagmire. It had bigger costs. That's all fair. But the thing is that it was not obvious that Venezuela was gonna go fine immediately. No one had, nor is it clear
- [21:01]
Chris Stirewalt
it's gonna end well.
- [21:01]
Megan McArdle
Yeah, indeed. No one had an opinion. They didn't wait on Iran. They dived right in and like, how can we do this?
- [21:11]
Steve Hayes
I don't know anything about foreign policy, but I do know that Venezuela is a hollowed out petro state that has been overrun by drug lords and has a population smaller than Texas. And knocking over Venezuela. Look, I do not think there is a cogent doctrine by which the United States can pick and choose which leaders of which countries in the world without congressional authorization, without anything to to de. We've killed 200 people in the oceans off of the coast of South America. More than 200 people. Totally extrajudicially, the United States government has ordered the killings of these people, including some people that may not have been those people. Call it unconstitutional, call it illegal, call it whatever you want, but it is way outside the bounds of normal behavior for a decent country that holds itself to the kind of boys of Puandu hoc standard of what the United States is supposed to be in the world. But I feel very certain that if you took the offensive lines of the sec, they could take Venezuela. I feel pretty good about the US we could take. How about West Virginia's National Guard? I like West Virginia's National Guard's chances against Venezuela. But they go to Iran and it's like, Iran, right? And you're like, no, Iran is huge and ancient and the Persian culture goes back all of this time and it's a complicated. And it's possible that some of the people that have these fanatical beliefs. Here's a core problem Donald Trump has. It's a problem he had with Mike Pence. He doesn't think anybody else believes anything either. Right. He thought that when Mike Pence said, I love Jesus, it is the animating principle of my life. It animates how I am married. It animates every. It is the tent pole that holds up my life. Donald Trump thought, well, that's some stuff that you say, right? That's just some stuff you say to get elected or whatever. But you don't really mean that. And when it's in your interest, you're gonna do whatever you want. And I think he assumed the same thing about the suicidal cult of in Tehran, that it was like, yeah, they say that, but when we give them the opportunity to get rich off this thing, they're gonna come right over.
- [23:37]
Megan McArdle
Which is really funny for a guy who is a critic of the Iraq war.
- [23:41]
Steve Hayes
Yeah.
- [23:42]
Megan McArdle
To not have observed exactly where it all went wrong.
- [23:46]
Steve Hayes
But if you believe that, you go with your gut and you can solve any problem. When you get into it, you don't think through the consequences. Right. It's childish behavior of saying, well, we'll just get into it and then I'll know what to do because I'm different and I'm special.
- [24:01]
Jonah Goldberg
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back soon with more from the Dispatch podcast.
- [24:08]
Steve Hayes
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- [24:10]
Chris Stirewalt
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Megan McArdle
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Steve Hayes
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Chris Stirewalt
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Steve Hayes
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Chris Stirewalt
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Steve Hayes
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- [24:34]
Jonah Goldberg
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- [26:06]
Jonah Goldberg
and we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. So let's talk for a moment about those consequences because I think they're likely to be very significant and long lasting. Jonah, if I heard you correctly, and I don't have to invite you to correct me if I'm wrong, because I
- [26:22]
Steve Hayes
got a married couple being around with
- [26:24]
Jonah Goldberg
you too, you said Donald Trump didn't think much about these words, and the Iranians didn't think much about these words either. So I disagree with that. I think the Iranians thought long and hard about every single syllable in the Memorandum of Understanding, and what we're seeing them do now is exploit a situation where we sent Steve Witkoff to negotiate the terms of this Memorandum of understanding. Or J.D. vance, who didn't care then and I don't think really cares now, and seems to have gotten virtually every aspect of the Memorandum of Understanding wrong in his subsequent public statements. But the Iranians know what's in it, and they know what it gives them permission to do, and they know what they're getting from it. United for Against Nuclear Iran interest group that tracks the stuff very carefully estimated that between the 14th, when the memorandum was signed and yesterday that there were 33 million barrels that went through the Strait of Hormuz, giving the regime roughly $3 billion. That's real money. That's the kind of thing that Republicans, when Barack Obama did it as part of the jcpoa, went absolutely ape shit over. And you're not hearing anything about it. Now, what are, in your view, some of the other consequences that we're likely to see as a result of this memo?
- [27:47]
Chris Stirewalt
Yeah, I want to be clear. I think you were right. And if I said that, mark it down in the sense that Iran cared about the MOU because they wanted to roll the United States and embarrass the United States and get what they could up front. Right. I agree with that. My point is they don't care what the thing says, insofar as if they think it's going to restrain their ability to control the straight of Hormuz. They're like, screw that noise. Right. And that's the whole thing about this 60 day thing. And we're never going to get another final document. Right. They're just going to keep kicking the can on this. They want to be able to claim that they can toll the straight ohar moves after 60 days. And they're going to toll, in one way or another, service fees. Right. It's like when I go to hotels driving across country, and I say, are you allowed to have. And they say, yeah, but you need a deposit. And I'm like, oh, a deposit.
- [28:39]
Steve Hayes
Okay.
- [28:40]
Chris Stirewalt
And, well, it's not refundable. A not refundable deposit is a fee. Right. But so that part. I think you're right. They rolled Witkoff. I know that's shocking. Look, I think there was a period where this thing looked like it was going really well. Right. Where you could see how China and Russia were scared. Oh, my God, look at how these guys can project power. They're sending this signal that you want to be America's friend, not our friend. Russia's getting its ass kicked in Ukraine, yada, yada, yada. The Chinese were like, oof. This makes Taiwan seem kind of scared. Fast forward to now. America does not look like this country that you necessarily want to invest in. I mean, you don't want to be left holding a bag of crap like Bibi is right? So, like, how much do you want to line up with these guys? Because you're gonna get burned. That credibility thing, I think is real. I think that there are just anytime you give a bunch of fanatical jihadis billions of dollars, there are going to be consequences that you don't like. How they manifest themselves, I don't know. But Israel is now left holding a bag in such a profound way because its standing in the world has taken a hit. I think Midnight Hammer is totally defensible and was a good thing. But this thing, it's going to make America seem like an even more unreliable ally going forward, which is impressive given how much effort Trump made it, to seem like we were an unreliable ally beforehand. And other than that, I don't know. I'm sure there are some more legal, technocratic things that are coming out of the MOU that are bad and I have long term consequences. But on that front, I think it's more just this idea that strategically we lost even if we won militarily.
- [30:31]
Jonah Goldberg
Chris, I want to ask a little bit more about the credibility question. Erik Erickson, conservative, known to all of us, probably to most of you in the room. Nobody would describe him as a fan of Donald Trump. He supported Donald Trump, sometimes reluctantly, he's criticized Donald Trump.
- [30:48]
Steve Hayes
It's transactional kind of support. Support on this, won't support on that.
- [30:52]
Jonah Goldberg
Right. He had a post today looking in particular at JD Vance and his spinning of the memorandum of understanding and said basically everything that JD Vance said as he went on his book tour, MOU
- [31:07]
Steve Hayes
promotional tour, pickle cake incident. Yes.
- [31:10]
Jonah Goldberg
The whole, the whole thing that Vance was spinning things and making claims again and again and again that proved not to be true. And that the Iranians, when they were describing what was in the memo of understanding, point by point by point, those things turned out to have been basically true. And he ended his post by writing last week when Iran disputed American statements, it turned out the Iranian side was telling the truth. Can we believe the vice president this week? And you don't have to answer that question. This is sort of a bigger question. I think we all probably have moments like this that hit you that this is a moment. Are we really wondering out loud whether the Iranian negotiators are being more honest with the public, with the world, than the Americans?
- [32:03]
Steve Hayes
I mean, I don't think the American people have a very high expectation for truth telling from our. I don't think, I think part of the reason Donald Trump won in the first place was that when Hillary Clinton was like, how you can't have this person ever be president. And the people said, look at you, like, what are you talking about? So I think since I don't know anything about foreign policy, I will just give you the politics answer that I know more about. And that is today is primary day in New York, New York has 25 primaries or whatever you people do up here. It's insane, it's super annoying and it makes my life more complicated. But it's primary day in New York and Zoran Mamdani and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are doing a no look pass so that they can make sure that every single most radical democratic socialist candidate in New York has a high profile endorsement so that they could put a picture of one or the other. He endorsed the ones that she couldn't conveniently endorse and she endorsed the ones that he couldn't. And so it is a full boat. And I don't know how the primaries are gonna go, but I know that Washington just elected, de facto elected, a democratic socialist. I know that Graham Platner is probably going to be the next senator from Maine. Right? That's the safer bet. What JD Vance is going to tell America and tell Eric Erickson about whether he lied or didn't lie. He'll say, do you know what time it is? He'll say, why don't you shut up with your cavailing and your complaining about whether or not I told the truth about our conflict with Iran. When these radical socialists, when Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is gonna come and eat your liver, when Zoram Hamdani is going to put you in a prison camp and you're gonna talk to me about whether I did that. And we are in the stakes our for the things that don't matter are insanely high. Which of these two terrible parties is in charge matters relatively little, as it turns out. Neither are competent, neither are able, neither are deserving of the public trust. So it doesn't really, it's easy for me because I don't really care which of these terrible parties is in charge on the things that do matter, where trust is important and those things are important, like the competent carrying out of government functions or telling the truth about what the government does. It matters a great deal, but we've traded one for the other.
- [34:34]
Chris Stirewalt
I want to congratulate Chris on definitely segueing us to what we were supposed to be talking about tonight.
- [34:41]
Jonah Goldberg
We're right on schedule. We're about halfway done and we were shifting to politics. Megan, let me go to you next. There is a Republican Senate lunch tomorrow on Capitol Hill. Donald Trump is reportedly showing up to this lunch and if you read the previews, this is going to be something of a battle royale. The Republican senators who have been restrained
- [35:08]
Steve Hayes
for all of these years throw their fruit cups at him.
- [35:12]
Jonah Goldberg
The yolo caucus, they're gonna give it to him. They're gonna give it to him on Iran. They're gonna give it to him on this weaponization fund with money theoretically designated for January 6th. They're gonna give it to him on a number of things that we've heard Republicans speak out about recently. Why are those Republicans speaking out?
- [35:32]
Megan McArdle
Now, look, there is nothing more offensive than writers who quote themselves. But standby, allow me, allow me to offend. I wrote a column a few years ago when they were thinking about nominating Donald Trump again, which I was opposed to. And I said, there is no Trumpism, right? There's all of these guys who thought, well, you know, it's like listening to someone talk about their decision to stay in a really bad marriage. It's like, you know, sure, she drinks too much, she hates my kids, she stole my television and sold it to pay for drugs. Sometimes she hits me. But my ex wife hates her, right? And like, not a good reason to stay in that marriage. But they had decided that he seemed to have some sort of magic and they were gonna hitch themselves to that star and then they were gonna fight to be the next Trump, right? They were gonna pick up the mantle of Trumpism and carry it forward into the bold future. And as I wrote then, there's no Trumpism. He has no ideology. He doesn't even have a movement because he's incapable of being loyal. He is the fable about the scorpion on the frog that's swimming him across the water and he is definitely going to sting you and kill you because he can't help it. He just can't help it. He can never think long term enough, systematically enough, or about things like loyalty and character. He doesn't have it in him. And he's, you know, while I like to believe that we're all capable of personal growth, I feel that it's 79, 80.
- [37:27]
Steve Hayes
80.
- [37:28]
Megan McArdle
Yeah. You have probably reached the end of your personal growth phase, or at least the rapid phase. And so I said, like, look, you can't pick up the mantle. It's him. It's just him. And, and he is, meanwhile that thing is going to destroy your party. He is gonna do again. Writers who talk about the predictions they got correctly are terrible. But stand by, he is going to do crazy, impulsive stuff that's gonna be bad and is gonna be a bad look and that people will not like just like he did in his first term. Correct. And he is going to turn this party into a cult of personality. He will not appoint a successor you can see he hasn't. Right. He has not really leaned into who he's grooming for the succession because that would mean admitting that he's not going to be in charge forever. And he is going to leave you with a hollowed out shell of a party. He will damage your brand. And you can see all of it. Look at poor John Cornyn in Texas with his, what was it, 99.3% votes to support Trump. Fat lot of good that did him because he didn't endorse quite fast enough in 2024. And so we got Ken Paxton in Texas instead. Because I guess what's really important is not whether someone is, I don't know, of good character, an able administrator, able to keep his own party from voting to impeach him for dereliction of duty. But is he obsequious enough to Trump? Does he not merely bend the knee, but touch the forehead to the ground in front of him? That is what Trump is selecting on. And he's gonna destroy your party and he's gonna destroy you. And damn it if he hasn't done it. But they have just figured out that a, they knew he'd done it, but that like, they're gonna be free in two years and that there's nothing he could really do because he's super unpopular and he's losing his own caucus. And guys, you could have done this earlier. You could have saved so much if you just did this earlier.
- [39:42]
Jonah Goldberg
Many.
- [39:42]
Megan McArdle
I am not the only person who told you. Everyone told you. If there is any Republican senator listening to this, I'm sorry, I told you so. We all told you so. And you deserve what you're getting now. Too little too late. I mean, better late than never, but too little too late.
- [40:07]
Jonah Goldberg
Joan, I'm gonna go to you next to try to follow up on that. Megan mentioned a couple of specifics there. I think actually the endorsement of Ken Paxton over John Cornyn really was a motivating factor. Those guys were pissed. The Republican senators were pissed, both because they liked Cornyn. He'd raised a lot of money for them. They knew that that was gonna make it harder for them to keep the Senate, not only because Ken Paxton has to get elected, but because a lot of the money that would have been going to other competitive races is now going to flow to Texas to try to get Ken Paxton elected. But if you look at the other issues, is it just because people like Bill Cassidy not coming back? Donald Trump did him dirty. Thom Tillis had been outspoken. He's not coming back Donald Trump did him dirty. John Cornyn is now sort of the leader of the YOLO caucus in the Senate. He's speaking out about kind of anything. And everything certainly seems to be liberated. And you add to that group people like Mitch McConnell, who was speaking out before, and Lisa Murkowski, who's quirky, and Susan Collins, who more or less speaks her mind. Is it just that? Is that all it is or is there something more? Is this sort of an awakening? Are they understanding? Yeah, we could have done this before we blocked this weaponization fund. We could have done this before.
- [41:28]
Chris Stirewalt
Well, I want to offer a little less nuance than Megan offers. Look, I think the YOLO thing is a big part of it, right? I mean, it is. It's the political equivalent of F U Money, right? They get like. They're all gonna go home and make more money, you know, even if they just get weird little sinekir jobs. Cause senators don't get paid that much money. And they. And they're gonna have time. And now all of a sudden they're actually thinking about crap historians are gonna write about me. And my record so far is basically, you know, the cranial insertion past the sphincter version of ass kissing for the last decade. Maybe I need at least a footnote that says I criticize the guy, right? So there's some of that kind of thing going in. There's also, I mean, like, I think they also can see that. Even though I don't think Trump has fundamentally changed, I think what's changed more is the deterioration of guardrails. I mean, this term, there are a lot of people. I mean, we've been talking about this for 10 years now. The number of people who will say to you, you have no idea what we stopped over and over again in the first term, right? Those people, I think there's some at the margins in there, like Scott Besant doesn't want the economy to crater, so every now and then he'll step up and that kind of thing. And Rubio, I think at the margins, tries to. He picks his fights a little too selectively, but, you know, he does what he needs to do. But for the most part, there's nobody there saying, slow your roll. Susie Wiles is no John Kelly.
- [43:11]
Steve Hayes
Right?
- [43:12]
Chris Stirewalt
And so these guys now are the next line of defense in a certain way. And they're seeing this thing really kind of go off the rails. A lot of these guys actually believe in NATO. Like they're those kind. They're still kind of Reaganites somewhere. And they're recesses of their soul and they care about Israel and they think this stuff is folly. And so I think at that level they're like, first of all, I'm out of here, so why bother lying anymore? And second of all, the responsibility is washed out to them more than it had certainly in the first term. And it's also just becoming apparent the stuff that Megan was talking about, like he gave a quote. Someone from CBS posted it yesterday on the Twitters. He said, Trump said, in effect, look, it's really simple. If you like me, I like you.
- [44:03]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [44:04]
Jonah Goldberg
That is almost, I think that is a direct quote.
- [44:06]
Steve Hayes
That is the quote.
- [44:07]
Chris Stirewalt
It is such an important heuristic, like second to the power of positive thinking thing. That's how Trump sees the world.
- [44:14]
Steve Hayes
If you like him, you are nice or not nice.
- [44:16]
Chris Stirewalt
Yeah. You're either nice to me or you're not. Right. Remember when he got shellacked in the 2018 midterms and he went and gave a press conference saying that all of these sort of like moderate Republicans who got killed because Trump was so unpopular that they all lost cuz they didn't embrace him?
- [44:33]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [44:34]
Chris Stirewalt
My favorite example of this thinking is when he was asked about pardoning, was it Diddy or Kanye, who's the guy who got into the sex parties?
- [44:43]
Steve Hayes
Oh, sure. Act like you don't know. Act like your backpack's not full of baby oil, Jonah. Okay, sure.
- [44:51]
Chris Stirewalt
Well, now that the Strait of Hormuz is open, not the visual, oil prices are going down. But he said, hey, look, he was asked, would you pardon him? And he said, well, you know, this is a really, like, he was thoughtful for Trump, right? You know, best gas station sushi in Alabama, thoughtful, you know, standard. But still, he says, you know, this is a really interesting question because he said some things about me that weren't nice. And then he started saying things about me that are nice. And so I'd be inclined to give him a pardon. But we haven't figured all that. Literally this awesome power that I think needs to be seriously amended in the Constitution that we've given the President about the ability to suspend, to erase criminal convictions for serious wrongdoing. The standard for him wasn't, has he served his time? Was he unfairly, you know, was unfairly prosecuted? Has he shown repentance or remorse? You know, all that, it was purely personalist. Was he nice to me? And I think a lot of these guys in the Senate and the Cornyn thing, I think is one of the things that really sort of crystallized it for Them, they're like, I can never be nice enough to this guy that if he has the opportunity to screw me, he won't screw me. So maybe I should stop trying a little bit at the margins. I mean, I don't want to, like, talk like, the YOLO conference is just this, you know, caucus of Reinhold Niemollers and, like, these heroic truth tellers. Now they're doing a little bit closer to what decent people should be doing in politics, and we should celebrate.
- [46:32]
Steve Hayes
Can I offer? So if you were playing tennis with an orangutan, as one does, as one does, as one will, you're playing tennis with an orangutan, right? And the orangutan beats you at tennis, you're going to be super embarrassed, right? You're going to be super embarrassed because it's an orangutan. And, like, maybe it's a smart orangutan, like the any which way but loose orangutan. But it's still an orangutan. So you're all like, I've lost to an orangutan. But then, right? You're still playing by the rules. The way that the orangutan beats you is that you're still playing tennis and he's just throwing feces at you. He's just doing orangutan things, and you're over there still playing tennis. The members of the Senate believe in the idea that elections have consequences. They're lifetime politicians. John Cornyn has been in elected office since the earth cooled. He has won 10 million elections in a row. John Cornyn never lost an election until this month. He was a very good, very successful politician in Texas, successful career as a judge. So he, we can do the whole thing. And John Cornyn backed other people to beat Donald Trump. Donald Trump won his party's nomination. The name of the game that he's playing, his version of tennis is like, okay, well, they won. My side lost. So now I have to follow the 11th Commandment and not criticize other Republicans and do it. But also by his version of this game of tennis, now, now he can throw excrement back, right? Like, now it's over. So the consequence of endorsing against somebody in your own party, coming out against a sitting senator, then under the rules of tennis that John Cornyn plays, that these people play, well, now it's on. And what you're watching in John Thune right now is a person who wants to be a institutionalist, somebody in the mold of Mitch McConnell, wants to save the Senate from itself, wants to keep the Senate Senate and do all of this stuff. And Donald Trump is throwing excrement at him, but he's also throwing lawn furniture at him and bowling balls. And he's climbed to the top of the fence around the tennis court and is just raining it down on John Thune. And John Thune is like, I think I may have to stop playing tennis, right? I think I may need to have to stop playing tennis here. Because we are at the point, and the last time we stood at that point was after January 6, 2021, where the Republicans said, I think we should keep playing tennis and the orangutan is going to go away and we don't have to worry about this, and we're just going to continue to play by the rules. And what you see now is they're playing by the rules, but they're in the olly olly oxen free phase, the lame duck phase. And I don't think they are prepared for what's next.
- [49:32]
Megan McArdle
I want to slightly quibble with the idea that they were playing by the rules. The rules are that when you get elected Senate and you have someone who has attempted to stage insurrection, auto coup, whatever you want to call it, right? The rules are you're supposed to impeach the guy I know, bar him from office for the rest of his life. Those. That was the oath they took, hand
- [49:59]
Steve Hayes
on the Bible, I would play tennis with an orangutan. I would never play tennis with an orangutan.
- [50:05]
Megan McArdle
I'm just saying I don't think they were following the rules. And like, that is a big. Because, like, this is the thing is that actually in the end character matters. And in the end, it actually does matter to have rules. And they thought, well, Donald Trump apparently suspended the rules. I guess I'll go along to get along. And if I attach my lips to his ample behind with sufficient sucker like force, perhaps he will just drag me and my party. Yes. And he did. He dragged you and your party, but not where you thought you were, but a place.
- [50:39]
Chris Stirewalt
That's why Mike Lee got all those scabs on.
- [50:42]
Steve Hayes
Oh, my gosh, it's rough up here. It's a very rough.
- [50:45]
Jonah Goldberg
We're gonna get ready for this podcast.
- [50:48]
Steve Hayes
Yeah. Where are we gonna publish this?
- [50:49]
Chris Stirewalt
Well, no. So what we left out. So the YOLO stuff I think is interesting. It's worth talking about. But the people like Mike Lee are in some ways much more interesting to me because this is a guy who has to, on an intellectual level, know how wrong he is at some. You would think he would have to
- [51:14]
Megan McArdle
know I was on the convention floor when he attempt, when Mike Lee led the attempt to get the convention to nominate someone else.
- [51:25]
Jonah Goldberg
Yeah.
- [51:26]
Megan McArdle
So he knew then.
- [51:27]
Steve Hayes
Vote your conscience.
- [51:28]
Megan McArdle
Yeah.
- [51:29]
Chris Stirewalt
Ted Cruz is pushing really, really hard to get Mike Lee appointed to the Supreme Court. And I just think, and you can literally like, you know that whole like you can just take a core sample to understand what like thousands of miles of Arctic ice. Get the chemical composure over this. Any 24 hour period of Mike Lee's Twitter feed is enough to disqualify him for the Senate. Nevermind the Supreme Court. But there are these people who have like, they're like, screw this tennis, you know, like, have you ever.
- [52:03]
Steve Hayes
I'm an orangutan.
- [52:04]
Chris Stirewalt
Have you ever flung orangutan poo? It's awesome. And he's got the best orangutan poo flinging arm I've ever seen and they love it. And that is like the corrupting power of his character in some ways. And that's gonna take a long time to fix.
- [52:19]
Steve Hayes
And if I can just add one last thing.
- [52:21]
Jonah Goldberg
Of course you can. Keep going.
- [52:24]
Steve Hayes
The last thing is if you look at the President's endorsements, he didn't need to endorse in Texas because Ken Paxton was gonna win anyway. So he just wanted to back a winner and he didn't need to endorse. So if we look across at these endorsements and his choices, where the Republican electorate agrees with him, he does great. Where the Republican electorate disagrees with him. We just saw it in Iowa. Right. We just saw it in Georgia. People, you could do, you can write the piece that says Trump flexes his power because all of the Indiana state senators that got voted out over redistricting, he put a bounty on their heads and they were gone. Or the radicalized voters of Indiana wanted gerrymandering. Right. That's true too. Because just like the Democrats in Virginia wanted gerrymandering, I assume the Republicans in Indiana want to eat the livers of Democrats. The President's power among the Republican base is great. The endorsement is valuable, but it won't work in places. In Iowa, it was a straightforward repudiation of the Trump backed candidate. Right. They went for the Maha adjacent like cuckoo bananas candidate. Very intentionally spurning the candidate that Trump told them to back. So I think we should just bear in mind that he only looks like he's leading the parade when he makes sure that he's out in front of it.
- [53:50]
Megan McArdle
So let me offer a Slight note of hope. And this may just be naivete, but I do think that Trump really is just sui generis. I think that he's a celebrity candidate, and celebrity candidates play by completely different rules. He bypassed all the gatekeepers, and therefore, someone like Trump normally doesn't go anywhere in politics, because you can't get to the point where you're running for president without this incredible confluence of, like, really crowded primary field. Everyone in the primary field, with the noble exceptions of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, behaving like a completely insane person and running like Jeb Bush, burning his whole war chest to destroy Marco Rubio.
- [54:33]
Steve Hayes
Most amazing thing I've ever seen.
- [54:35]
Megan McArdle
Yeah. Well, no. I mean, yes. Close second. John Kasich staying in for no apparent reason.
- [54:41]
Steve Hayes
Pizza with a fork, though.
- [54:42]
Megan McArdle
Yeah. Yeah.
- [54:43]
Chris Stirewalt
Did you know his dad was a mailman?
- [54:44]
Steve Hayes
Oh, you guys are so right. It's the meanest podcast I've ever been on.
- [54:50]
Megan McArdle
And Trump. So Trump is of unusually bad character for a politician. Right? I think we can all agree on that. And even by the arguably low standards of politicians, you know, standard joke, I won't argue whether it's true or not. But he. The thing is that, like, after he's gone, whoever replaces him is gonna be another normal politician. It's going to be someone who is part of a coalition. They will have loyalties. They will have some investment in how the rules work. And so I actually think in some ways, he has done phenomenal damage both to the political system, to the Republican Party, to many things. But I think nature will actually probably heal faster than we think for this reason. If you saw what happened, he didn't. In the 20, 2016 primary, he didn't get a majority. Right. He got a plurality. But the thing was. So there's his base, but there's actually, I would say, a larger group of people. I think we've talked about this before, Chris. There's a somewhat larger group of people who are just party loyalists.
- [55:53]
Ellie Fox
Yep.
- [55:54]
Megan McArdle
Right. They hate Democrats. Right. They can all agree on that. But then they were mad at the establishment trying to get Trump because they were like, he won, and those are the rules, fair and square. And now we all have to rally behind him. And they were mad at people who said no. But here's the thing. When there's a new nominee and there will be a new nominee, they will get mad at Trump. If he tries to destroy that nominee, his base will stick with that. But the actual, like, that kind of inchoate mass that just thinks, like, we rally behind Republicans they will get pissed off at the MAGA bays.
- [56:29]
Steve Hayes
So I have a Denver Trump, always Republican. Yeah, the three guys.
- [56:32]
Megan McArdle
Yeah, the always Republican Republicans are the biggest group. And I think between those two things that we are going to have normal politicians again, I'm not saying our politics will be good. Look what's happened in the Democratic Party now. Not great, Bob, but there's nothing there with the exception of Graham Platner, who I assume is not going to be president, God willing. They're just kind of more normal folks and that politics is not going to be great after this. But I do think it will. I think it will be better and faster than you would think for the sheer amount of damage is done to our institutions, our party, in our country.
- [57:08]
Jonah Goldberg
So I want to get back to that point because I want to end with a conversation briefly about 2028. I want to work in a couple of the questions that we got from the audience. But I have a specific question for Chris first. Jonah mentioned sort of old Reagan. I scratched some of these senators that they have some Reaganism in them. If we were to look at the current Republican members of Congress, House and Senate, and we put them in three buckets, sort of Reaganites, party firsters, Republican types and maga give me percentages.
- [57:44]
Steve Hayes
Well, I mean, I guess I would just say conservatives. The people who are conservative conservatives in the Coolidge Ian Taftian sense of the word, of the ancient faith that Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater were a part of have always been a very small number, relatively speaking, in the Republican Party. Right. The Republican Party has not typically been a conservative party. They've been more conservative than the other party. But having the reason that those three in the 20th century stand out is because they're unlike what Republican Republicans are typically a lot more like Richard Nixon, not characterologically, but like they're more like Herbert Hoover. They're more like the people who are like Mitt Romney. It's not that I'm against big government, right. I'm against big government run badly. I just want to be in charge of it. We should have a powerful government and if we have the right people in charge of it, it's going to do well. So the number of actual conservatives of the Reaganite kind is, I don't know, two in the Senate. I don't know what the number is. The number of people who are more conservative than Democrats and always Republicans is like most of them, right? That's the overwhelming majority. When John Barrasso and John Thune and whoever else they would rather be conservative than they would be whatever. But they'd rather be conservative than nationalist. But they'll do what it takes. So on the MAGA front, discerning between which members of Congress are pretending to be MAGA, which ones are really America first, really whatever, I think Meghan's 100% right. We will not know until after the show is over. Right? Because as long as Trump is around, we won't know whether or not they have been changed by the experience and think differently now. But in the Senate, just, it's gonna
- [59:48]
Megan McArdle
be like Lord of the Rings, the finale. It's gonna go on for like 45 minutes, like John Barrasso going back to Hobbiton.
- [59:57]
Steve Hayes
And like, so, like, there are people. Bernie Moreno, Senator from Ohio. He exists because of Donald Trump. Bernie Moreno would not be a senator if it were not for Donald Trump,
- [60:07]
Jonah Goldberg
but was at one time. A never Trumper, but was at one time.
- [60:10]
Steve Hayes
Well, there's a bunch of those people, right?
- [60:12]
Megan McArdle
Like many, I believe, Vice President J.D.
- [60:16]
Steve Hayes
vance, Vice President J.D. which was hardcore. And then I guess I would just say in the Congress, it's probably fairly reflective of what the Republican Party is nationally. I think it's probably fairly representative, open to correction on this, that there are some conservatives, there are a ton of Republicans, and then there's a small band of whether you call it America first or whether you call it maga, but this nationalist edge here, and we don't get to find out till later how much of those people are Trump suckers who are just along for the ride. And then later we'll cast that off to be something else or have actually. How much has the nationalist energy that's entered the Republican Party? How real is it? I don't know.
- [61:02]
Jonah Goldberg
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 for 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.
- [61:37]
Steve Hayes
This episode is brought to you by Fox 1. Watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World cup live in 4K for just $19.99 a month with 3 days free. Build your own multi view, choose up to three streams and follow player spotlights Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights and instant replays. The FIFA World cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions.
- [62:05]
Chris Stirewalt
Choice hotels get you more of what you value.
- [62:08]
Steve Hayes
Here's a little tune to help you remember.
- [62:10]
Chris Stirewalt
Same drive, different day don't you wish you were getting away? Pack your bags and come on through
- [62:18]
Steve Hayes
Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there, too Comfort Inn, it's calling your name Save
- [62:26]
Chris Stirewalt
on the stage oh, and free waffles
- [62:29]
Steve Hayes
are yours to claim Well, I hope
- [62:31]
Chris Stirewalt
you like my little song book. Direct@sourceville tales.com
- [62:37]
Jonah Goldberg
and we're back. You're listening to the Dispatch podcast. Let's jump in. Final question before. Not worth your time. And you can choose to answer this question in any way you like, starting with Jonah, then Chris, then Megan. In 2028, will Donald Trump be the most important Republican in the 2028 cycle?
- [62:59]
Chris Stirewalt
So I get to answer it any way I want? Does that mean, like, I could do it in Esperanto?
- [63:03]
Steve Hayes
Esperanto. That's amazing.
- [63:08]
Chris Stirewalt
Yes, he will be the most important person in the Republican cycle. But what that means, I think is hard to figure out.
- [63:15]
Steve Hayes
Right.
- [63:16]
Chris Stirewalt
Look, the most important figure you could argue in the 1976 presidential election was Richard Nixon. Ford's pardon of him, Jimmy Carter, I'll never tell a lie. It was all cleanup operation for Watergate and for Nixon and all that. And you had this insurgency from Reagan that almost pulled it off. Which was a response to, in many ways a response to Nixon, too. Right. More of an ideological one. So much depends on whether or not there's gonna be an impeachment, whether the impeachment is total performative ass clownery or really justified Splitting the Republican caucus.
- [63:59]
Megan McArdle
Is there a more than E rating that we're gonna get? Exactly.
- [64:04]
Steve Hayes
Tonight on the main stage. Performative ass clownery. That's right. Put your hands together.
- [64:11]
Megan McArdle
I think I saw them touring with Nine Inch Nails.
- [64:14]
Steve Hayes
That's right. They opened for Nine Inch Nails.
- [64:18]
Chris Stirewalt
So, like, I think it's unlikely Trump ever gets a very high approval rating again. But it's very possible it gets higher than it is now. Right. And this is one of the reasons why we don't have to do my full why. I think the Vance inheriting the mantle thing is wildly overdone. Historically, we don't like the math of sitting vice president's running. They have to run for four more years. Running for four more years when you have an unpopular president is just not a great slogan.
- [64:47]
Ellie Fox
Right.
- [64:47]
Chris Stirewalt
So there could be a real headwind against him. But how you responded to Trump, what Trump says about you, whether you were in favor of, you know, his last gasp effort to seize Canada or not, I mean, there's gonna be so many unpredictable things that we don't know. The Iran thing, look, people say Trump will never bomb Iran again. And I understand the argument, and I think there's that.
- [65:13]
Steve Hayes
That's the way I would bet.
- [65:15]
Chris Stirewalt
But it's entirely possible that we get to some critical mass thing where he is just so humiliated by Iran that he's like, screw it, let's take those bridges, right? And so it's very difficult to predict, but no matter what, but the idea that he's going to recede into the background and let the Republican Party figure out who they want to succeed him, I think is inconceivable. I've heard more and more people in green room chatter talk about how it's too soon for Don Trump Jr. To run for president, but maybe vice president. And like, that could be some whole weird subplot. It's why I may continue to cut myself for another five years. So I don't know. But, yes, he will be the most important figure.
- [66:02]
Steve Hayes
Chris, there's only one thing that Donald Trump, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, or whatever's left of the mainstream media agree on, and that is that Donald Trump should be the focus of every single political story, right? Every story, every question should be about Donald Trump. And that's how Donald Trump likes it. And there is no way that the former proprietor of the Miss Universe Pageant and the former host of this Celebrity Apprentice is going to let this go off untrammeled, right? There's no way he's gonna be like, you guys go and figure it out. JD's got my blessing. You guys have fun. It's been fun. You go enjoy yourself. So there's that part, but then there's this part. What in the heck is gonna happen this November? How do we think Donald Trump would respond if the polls are predictive, and they may not be, and the polls will change. And Jonah's point is, right, that the President's job approval number, which has been roughly equivalent to that of wet baloney, has, like, let's say it gets back up to the lukewarm baloney level. Let's say he's back at a 40% doing whatever. But if the current polling is predictive, the Republicans are in for a brutal November, right? They just lose. They're losing everywhere. And Democratic turnout primaries have been through the roof. Do we think that Donald Trump is going to accept the results of the midterms and say, you beat us fair and square and I look forward to working with Hakeem Jeffries on the priorities of the future?
- [67:38]
Jonah Goldberg
No.
- [67:39]
Steve Hayes
Right. It's gonna be absolute bedlam. And he's going. When somebody puts an idea in his head about, well, you could call out the National Guard, you could seize the ballot boxes, you could do whatever.
- [67:49]
Jonah Goldberg
Send in ice.
- [67:50]
Steve Hayes
Send in ice. It's all gonna be discussed or actually happen.
- [67:54]
Chris Stirewalt
It's gonna be called nice.
- [67:55]
Steve Hayes
It's gonna be called nice. Steve, don't call them ice. They're nice.
- [67:58]
Megan McArdle
If they lose the Senate, that trial is gonna be the impeachments, and the trials are gonna be brutal. It's not gonna be the little pliant Republican Senate giving you a little show trial. It's gonna be grueling. Yeah.
- [68:17]
Steve Hayes
And so how that goes. How are.
- [68:19]
Chris Stirewalt
Tell me more.
- [68:23]
Steve Hayes
I will just shut up.
- [68:23]
Megan McArdle
By saying, picture.
- [68:25]
Steve Hayes
Quadrennial elections now are backward looking. And the consequences of midterms shape the perceptions of the electorates. For the quadrennial election, it used the other way around, is that they were echoes. Now, what people think happened in the midterms, and I have no idea what is going to happen in the midterms in that way.
- [68:45]
Jonah Goldberg
Meghan, final word to you on this.
- [68:47]
Megan McArdle
Who was the most important person in the 2024 election? It was Joe Biden. And he wasn't even on the ballot. Right. It was all of. But it wasn't just the fact that he had sort of broken the story of his cognitive issues on national television after the mainstream media inexplicably failed to get the story. But cover up. Well, no, that was not fair. Actually. There were some people, Alex Thompson at Axios, Annie Linsky at the Wall Street Journal, who did great work on this. But in general, there was too much credulousness and that drove so much of what happened afterwards. Right. Structurally, just because Kamala Harris. I'm not actually sure. I think it might have been better for Kamala Harris if she'd had like a month, but I think maybe she had too long a week. But he will be the most important person in the race, but I'm not sure he will be the most powerful person in the race. And I think those are two different things.
- [69:46]
Chris Stirewalt
A word.
- [69:48]
Megan McArdle
So what he has done will shape the race and the probably unlikelihood of his successor getting another term, whoever that is. Another Republican term, I should say. But I don't think he's gonna get to drive the outcomes, I think. And I don't just mean that he's not gonna get to drive the outcomes in the general, which he definitely is not. But I think, like, okay, so you imagine he's going with a Republican presidential candidate who is, you know, like, tell you what, I'm gonna endorse you in the primary, and then you have to make Don Jr. The vice president. Okay, sir, I'll do that. How does he enforce that? What, are you gonna withdraw the endorsement? At that point? It might help you to not have the endorsement of Donald Trump in the general. He has no power.
- [70:42]
Chris Stirewalt
Yeah. So I think it's a good distinction. He'll be the most important issue, but he may not be the most.
- [70:47]
Megan McArdle
He may not. He's gonna want to keep pulling the puppet strings, but I think they will slip out of his hand. At the moment when the nomination is clinched, the next person is going to be in charge of what happens. And you know what? They're gonna be kind of like Harvard. Their job is gonna be to go out and fight valiantly and lose, but kind of like the Harvard football team. But whoever it is, I'm not really sure why you should want this job, but they're gonna make the decisions. It's not going to be Donald Trump anymore.
- [71:19]
Jonah Goldberg
Finally tonight, not worth your time, I bring you Thomas Danz, chairman of the U.S. arctic Research Commission, a Trump appointee, influential advisor to the president on Greenland. Oh, I saw this told the New Yorker magazine the other day as making a case for why the United States should take Greenland, quote, my view is the United States could take all the seafood Greenland could produce and cut out the middleman and keep it from China, and you could bring back all you can eat shrimp at Red Lobster. So question to the panel, starting with you. You, Chris.
- [72:09]
Steve Hayes
Yes.
- [72:11]
Jonah Goldberg
If you were advising our marauding president on which country to attack next so that you can have an endless supply of one food, what country would you invade and what food would you consume until your heart's content or explosion?
- [72:31]
Steve Hayes
My heart's content or explosion? I'm going to. I guess I'm gonna go with Spain. I'm gonna take your adopted homeland.
- [72:41]
Jonah Goldberg
Dirty dog.
- [72:42]
Steve Hayes
For the ham. For the ham. I love Virginia ham. I love the ham of. I love the Surrey ham. It's fantastic. It's great. Edwards, feel free to send me another ham. I'm here for you. I love you. But the Spanish ham is a banger, and you can't really get that. We can get all the beef we want in the United States. But the Spanish ham is really, really
- [73:03]
Jonah Goldberg
good for the acorn fed pigs.
- [73:05]
Steve Hayes
Yeah, the acorn fed pigs. So I'm gonna also Spain's, you know, they're a little lippy. So let's just. Let's go. We'll take Spain out and then I get unlimited ham. I'm in. Let's go.
- [73:16]
Jonah Goldberg
I mean, we could end right there because that in fact, is the correct answer.
- [73:19]
Steve Hayes
It's delicious.
- [73:20]
Chris Stirewalt
Ham both ways.
- [73:22]
Megan McArdle
Megan, are we prepared foods or like raw materials here?
- [73:29]
Jonah Goldberg
Prepared foods.
- [73:30]
Megan McArdle
Okay. I think I'm invading France for the cheese. I mean, first of all, those of us who lived through the war blogging years during the Iraq war remember the famous epithet for the French, the cheese eating. Surrender monkeys. So hopefully it won't be all that difficult. Although, no, I shouldn't say that. Actually, France has probably the best military outside of Ukraine at this point in Europe. But I'm sorry, my French brethren, I love your country, but I love your cheese. I'm taking it.
- [74:06]
Jonah Goldberg
Jonah, this is tough.
- [74:08]
Chris Stirewalt
Cause, I mean, first of all, you know, and I've written this column several times, Trump ruins a lot of the ideas that I think are good ideas. I was in favor of going for Greenland before, like peacefully, a negotiated thing, like have them do a referendum. And their shrimp is actually really good. And I like all you can eat shrimp. But if you're talking about prepared, I think first of all, it would be wrong for me not to be on brand. So it's a toss. Cuba has ruined its cigar industry and we're going to get it anyway. So I don't need to talk about them.
- [74:46]
Jonah Goldberg
And it'd be a little weird if you were eating cigars. Don't eat cigars, I should point out, are not.
- [74:52]
Megan McArdle
If we could do an entire, like,
- [74:55]
Chris Stirewalt
it's an expansive answer. It's food for the soul, I think, I feel, and I don't give a rat's ass that I'm extending beyond the boundaries of your self imposed question. But I do feel bad because I really love the tartan army and I think I love that stuff in Boston.
- [75:18]
Jonah Goldberg
You want all the haggis?
- [75:19]
Chris Stirewalt
I don't want any of the haggis. Although I have to say, I actually really do like blood sausage now, which I never thought I would.
- [75:24]
Steve Hayes
This is how we keep it sexy for the younger listeners.
- [75:27]
Chris Stirewalt
I was thinking about. I was actually.
- [75:29]
Steve Hayes
I was thinking about getting on board blood sausage.
- [75:32]
Chris Stirewalt
I was thinking about pissing off Chris and saying. Cause he was talking about how great the West Virginia National Guard is And just say we can get all their spam. But I think I gotta say I want Scotland, Scotch and.
- [75:47]
Megan McArdle
Okay, if we're going expansive, who did. I want to invade.
- [75:50]
Jonah Goldberg
Hey, we're here for another three hours.
- [75:52]
Megan McArdle
I want to invade Israel. I know. This is like. You know what? We're not playing on easy.
- [75:56]
Chris Stirewalt
You're at the 92nd Street. Why you cannot talk about.
- [75:59]
Steve Hayes
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
- [76:01]
Jonah Goldberg
But listen, we don't want to give Trump any ideas.
- [76:03]
Megan McArdle
Israeli hotel breakfast buffets.
- [76:06]
Steve Hayes
Amazing.
- [76:07]
Megan McArdle
If you know, you know, right?
- [76:08]
Chris Stirewalt
Oh, my God.
- [76:09]
Ellie Fox
Yeah.
- [76:09]
Megan McArdle
If like. And besides, like, it seems too easy to invade France. Let's. Let's go. Let's. Let's go hard. We're playing on brutal.
- [76:18]
Ellie Fox
Yeah.
- [76:19]
Megan McArdle
I want the Israeli breakfast buffets.
- [76:21]
Steve Hayes
I'm keeping ham. I'm good with ham. Steve, I want you to know I'm good with ham. I'm playing tennis. Whatever these orangutans are doing, I'm still playing tennis.
- [76:31]
Jonah Goldberg
I will join your coalition of the willing and take all the wine in Spain. Please join me in thanking our panel for a wonderful discussion. Thank you all for coming, and thank you to the 92nd Street Y for hosting us. Good night.
- [77:19]
Megan McArdle
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- [77:34]
Steve Hayes
Okay, one judgment. Anyway.
- [77:37]
Megan McArdle
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