Now, if I were if in Texas, I may say he's Donald Trump is scared as a cat at the dogtown. But since I'm from New York, I put it this way. We're scaring the living hell out of him, and we're just starting right now. Well, he's like a charisma black hole. He not only has no charisma, he sucks charisma out of other people. That hurt me. That was Do we
have the other one? At least is better delivered. The jackass one reminds me of Sam Raybert's saying that you might know, any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one. That betrays either a gross lack of knowledge about jackasses, barnes, or both. You need a gigantic jacks as a tiny barn or barn that is not of the code. We're right, not
of anybody's code. What's going on here? Lana heat Chen is the David and Diane Staffy Research Fellow too Over Institution, also director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, hosted the podcast Crossing Lines with lan Hea Chen. A lot ye, how are you, sir? Oh? I'm fine. I'm just trying to find some charisma all that and this is this is this entire lead up you heard from us is very similar to what you get on Fascination, isn't it.
You know, this has been the issue with Bloomberg all along. I think you know, I mean, the reason why he is not the presumptive favorite of the establishment is precisely because of the two clips you just played. I mean, well, I I think so. I mean, look, I mean, look at all the things objectively right, the guy's got a ton of money. He's willing to put a lot more
of it into the race. He's had a pretty good record as uh as mayor of New York, with the exception of the whole stop and frisk controversy, which is it's a big deal to summon the Democratic Party. I get that, But if you look at the guy's record, what's pretty clear is he's probably the Democrat who is going to be able to attract the support of anyone, you know, in the center or center right. So the
establishment should love this guy. I think the challenges that he just as you as you've said, he has zero charisma. Now we have been pronouncing that it seems clear the establishment has gotten behind the guy judging by you know, the the MSNBC's and CNN's of the world, that can couple of guys from the Congressional Black Caucus coming out and saying, yeah, don't worry about that racial stuff. He's fine,
we love him. So are you saying they're they're they're not latching onto him or just taking a cautious look or where do you think it stands? I think they're cautiously. You know, he's kind of like the the you know, the thing you've got in your back pocket in case everything sort of goes goes badly. It is here's someone who could be credible badly well that maybe maybe it's
time to break the glass. I mean, I think, look, I think there's still some discomfort with him for a variety of different reasons, you know, the stop and first pieces one of it. I think I think that the fact that he is somebody who is perceived as being, you know, willing to spend whatever it takes at a time when the party itself, uh, you know, seems to be be trying to take a more populous route. I think for all these reasons, he hasn't been fully embraced.
But you're right. The reason you're seeing more and more positive information flow on him is precisely because, you know, I think the Democratic establishment wants a place to go when Biden doesn't perform the way that Biden you know, thought he would, and you know, arguably we're there. I think South Carolina and Nevada will be telling um, I don't think you're going to see any large scale movement
until after South Carolina. Fair enough, We'll wait and see. Then, Hey, an he come in on the William Barr telling the President to stop tweeting story we were talking about in the last segment. I mean, it's obviously a notable thing for an attorney general to essentially send a rhetorical shout across the president's bow and a threat to resign. It sounded like us. Well, you know, I think a couple
of things. First of all, bar bar happens to be right, which is that you know, he's he's got to do a job, and you know, I think the President is probably making it a little harder for him to do that job. Well with all of the commentary and tweeting that aside, I think it is quite remarkable how this kind of came out of out of left field. I mean, it seemingly came out of nowhere. It's not like bar had given a few interviews where he was like, well, yeah,
you know, maybe it's not the best thing. He just sort of came out guns blazing, and and the the speculation. The big question is to what extent did he give the president heads up? To what extent did he say to to to the even senior White House team. Look, uh, this is starting to get really hard for me. I'm going to have to say something to cover myself and to cover you know, what we're trying to do. Um. So,
I think that's a big question, but it was. I was quite surprised, not not at the fact that he said, but in the words he used. The words he used were pretty sharp, right Well, you know Bill Barr's career in history and everything like hett, He's a serious man, and I don't think he appreciated anybody, including the potus giving fuel, giving you know, energy, to his opponents for calling him a hack. He doesn't like being called the hack,
right well, and I mean he's he's not. If you look at his career and you look at all that he's done, he has, he served a number of presidents. He's been uh, you know, a guy who's always been well regarded, and so, you know, I do think it's some level part of this is Bill Barr trying to stick up for himself a little bit and saying, look, you know, for for all the things that the president is saying and doing, I'm trying my best to hold things together. Now, that may not be a credible argument
in fight, I don't think. I think the left now is completely uh you know, sort of on the anti bar bandwagons. It doesn't really matter what bar does at the end of the day. So that's in their interesting question, which is if he wasn't going to be able to change the media narrative, why come out and do this
in a way that potentially would offend President Trump. That having been said, I think part of it is Bill Barr wanting to set the record straight about himself and and just for posterity's sake, you know, I was looking at texts we got. We read the Bloomberg article in g Q. I don't know if you saw that. They came out yesterday. Bloomberg and g Q are two things that don't usually go together. But okay, now they had an article that the title of it was why is
Bloomberg Sexual history not being discussed? And it basically goes through a whole bunch of different stories that have been out there, and some of them I remembered when I was reminded of them at a little Trump esque that's hanging out there. So it's gonna be fun to watch
that and see how it plays out. Yeah, and and in a Democratic primary that has a lot more salience than than in the Republican primary, I'd argue, right, I mean, if if you think back to all the accusations lobbed against Trump, many of them quite serious, the the way in which they were able or not able to gain traction in Republican primary, I think in a Democratic primary
the context could be very different. Yeah, I would agree, Although you know, from my perspective, and I've argued this many times when we discussed Trump's various sins and idiosyncrasies, is it's still a binary choice. And if I'm, for instance, a Midwestern evangelical and I might personally be offended by Trump's conduct and I brought up my kids not to act that way, etcetera, etcetera, I still am looking at Supreme Court nominees. I'm looking at the you know, the
judiciary from top to bottom. I'm looking at, you know, finally enforcing immigration policy. And look, I might hold my nose and vote, but I'm sure it's heck not going to vote for Bernie or somebody like him. Right, And by the way, the same logic might apply for a Democrat, sure progressive looking at looking at Bloomberg and saying I don't like the stop and frisk thing. I don't like the fact that he seems to be a billionaire that's
out of touch. I don't like blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, I want to be Trump. And if I want to be Trump and Bloomberg is willing to spend a billion dollars to beat him, will heck, you know that that's a bandwagon I'm willing to jump on. So I think that that analogy is very apt. You may have missed this, but this was the most interesting punditry I saw in the last week after the debate.
Friday Night, Chris Matthews is on MSNBC and he said, I want to know if Bernie is a Castro socialist or a Sweden socialist, which is he is he with Castro because of the socialist school to one when I was young, I have been shot in Central Park. I want to know which one he is. And I thought that is an interesting of view. By the way, Chris Matthews was not seen again that night on MSNBC. Yeah, well, you know, it's it's a good point. I don't know
that people. I think the way this race is shaping up, it almost doesn't matter though. I mean, he being branded a socialist, whether you're a Castro socialist or a nice clean Swedish socialist, I don't think it really matters. I think a socialist as a socialist as a socialist our in our current dialogue, in our current dialogue, and uh, you know, I think, look, Trump is gonna gonna make mincemeat out of the guy. So you know, if the Democrats really want to have a shot, they gotta wake
up and smell the coffee. Which is why Bloomberger is willing to spend a billion dollars because he believes that exactly he ought to spend a million on a Charisma transplant. Is that a thing? God, you go to like David Lee Roth or I don't know. Some aging movie star and and and get their charisma and planted. It's like, exactly, there's a good for instance, he's not using it for anything good. It's like those poop transplants people get to
get their digestive system going. I'll tell you what. It wouldn't be a very good look for the world's oldest democracy and most powerful country to have two billionaire old white men from the same neighborhood running against each other for president. Yeah. Well, this is the America we live in now. It's our politics, you know, it's it's gotten well passed trying to predict what's going on. I mean, I think I think I told you guys, I thought Biden what was was probably going to be the nominee.
And I just it's staggering to me how poorly he's done. It's really staggering. And we will we will end on staggering Joe Biden as we are up against a hard break. But la Chan with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University crossing lines with long heat Chen it's always too short, but it's it's great fun to talk on. He will do it against soon, all right, thanks, good, Thanks, This podcast is crossing lines with long heat chan if you want to check that out sometime. Yeah, it's good. It's just
clear eyed realism. Um, you know, looking at politics. What he said there at the end, you got to get out of the prediction business. No precedent matters and getty