This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be No Fifth by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. And I think it's just a disgrace. And we'll keep fighting. We'll fight till the end and we'll win because our country's gone to hell.
And we will fight for our constitution. This is Lord from overt.
This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November fifth by the people, and they know what happened here, and everybody knows what happened here. Yeah, he's right about that. The real verdict is on election day. And we've talked to a judge, we've talked to a lawyer. We haven't talked to somebody whose speciality is politics. So that's what we need to get into.
Who better than David Drucker, senior writer for the Dispatch. You know him from his years as a senior correspondent for the Washington Examiner as well. David, welcome, how.
Are you well? Good? Thank you.
So we've been talking about this for hours and just anecdotally, it seems to us text emails going through Twitter, that sort of thing. I see a lot more energized people who are on the fence about Trump, who want to vote for Trump, than moving any votes for Biden. How do you read the political fallout of what happened yesterday?
Well, I think it's far too early to read the political fallout. I mean, clearly, you know, anger is always more energizing in politics, especially when you're the out party trying to win something back. But I wouldn't I wouldn't make any snap decisions about how this is going to impact things. First of all, I don't want to see immediate polling. I want to see polling that's in the
field after the first ten days after the verdict. That's number one, Because pulling in the next few days or even the next week, I don't think it gives you necessarily an accurate read on where people are. Second of all, we you know, we've seen over the past ten years in politics, particularly the Trump era, where you know, it's like today, there's a crisis. Today, there's the biggest thing to ever happen in American politics, and that's going to
change everything forever. And then it doesn't, and things just kind of revert to whatever the normal is. We saw that with the Access Hollywood tape in the twenty sixteen campaign where Trump Trump's numbers take a dive and you know, ten days to two weeks later, he's back to parody. He ends up winning the election. There are going to
be a lot of intervening events. There are going to be a lot of different ways Americans can process this, voters can process this, And so I think that that partisans may have their predictions and may feel strongly about them, and somebody's going to turn out to be right potentially, but we don't actually know with any educated certainty or even educated sort of guessing, how this thing is going to play.
Yeah, I think I coined a term earlier in the show, David, and you, of your vast experience and savvy you can be the judge of whether it's a legit invention. I said, will this be an event of enduring significance or is it a vacation tennis racket. It seemed like a great idea to buy a tennis racket because you played a little on vacation, but then you put it back in the closet and you forget about it. It's no big deal, really, is there an analogous term in political analysis.
I don't know, I might just steal that and say I can't. I kind of liked it. You know, one of my colleagues that we were discussing this at a Dispatch editorial meeting and we have every Friday, and one of my colleagues suggested that this can have all sorts
of indirect impacts on the campaign. You know. One indirect impact, for instance, could be that Donald Trump becomes so consumed by being you know, mistreated in this way if he sees it that it's all he talks about, right, and he forgets to talk about inflation and gas prices and in crime and in foreign policy and all the things he has going for in the border. And so that's that's one impact. The other, you know, on a you know, indirect impact could be that the Biden campaign decides they
need to talk about this at nauseum. I don't think that would necessarily be a good look, especially since you know, the Republicans are painting this as a sort of party wide engineered dragnet to get Trump, and you know, the parties these days are so weak that you know, if if Joe Biden could control Alvin Bragg. I don't know that Alvin Bragg would have ever brought this case. So who knows how this is going to play out? I mean, I think we do know. In the immediate it's certainly
helping Donald Trump's fundraising. It's certainly giving voters who say they've been on the fence or unenthusiastic about supporting Trump a reason to do so. And they're telling us this is now why they're doing so. I still wonder if these are the same voters that would have found a way to come home to the Republican Party by November
one way or the other. But look, in politics, you prefer not to have any guineas, right, So if you're the Biden campaign, why have any reason for Donald Trump to raise thirty five million dollars overnight or any reason for voters claiming to be skeptical of him to decide they're no longer skeptical of him by the same token. You know, this could impact swing voters or independence in
a negative way. It could remind suburban women of all the reasons why they didn't, you know, like Donald Trump, or were glad to be rid of him four years ago, even though you know, they've been unhappy with let's say, President Biden's leadership on the economy and things like that.
So do you steal cars while you're talking to us? Is that what's going on there?
Listen? I live in Washington, DC, and I pulled over just to talk to you, which means you're gonna get all sorts of around here.
Hey, he's risking a carjacking. We appreciate it. Hey, So, speaking of things being a good look or not, what did you think of ancient rambling Robert de Niro in from of the courthouse the other day? Was that a good move by the Biden people?
You know? So look, the easy answer is, know, why would they do that? Joe Biden supposed to be the candidate of norms and value, you know, norms and and and in doing things the normal way and all that stuff. But you know, I sometimes I think we overthink this. And I like to remind people that the Democratic Party also has a base and they also like candidates who
are fighters. And they think Donald Trump has been getting away with, you know, everything for years, and when is somebody going to stand up to him and finally put him in his place? So it's paulib it's sending the nero there to to yip yapp made a lot of Democrats feel like, yeah, good, somebody's sticking it to Trump. How come it's only Republicans to get to go before the cameras and hogg the spotlight and look again, it's
one of those things. Are people really going to go into the voting booth or voter early and you know, beginning in September October and said, well, you know, I was going to vote for Biden. He was a normal guy. But man, that Robert de Niro, that just that just rounded for me. I just I just don't think it matters.
Well, good to see one of Joe Biden's contemporaries getting some attention anyway, Speaking of which David, various wags and sources and and thinkers have said the whispers have become murmurs or even louder than that about President Biden's mental acuity at this point, and is decline, what are you hearing?
I don't hear that from Democrats. What I hear from Democrats is that he obviously presents physically impaired. Right. He presents like an old man, the way he walks, the way he shuffles around sometimes the way he turns this way or that way, and that's why voters think that he is too old for this job. And it's a problem. I have not talked to any Democrats who have told me, oh my god, the guy's lost it. And in fact, if you look at how the White House is functioning,
it occurred. It would not occur to me that he's lost it, because this is functioning exactly the way you would expect that Joe Biden white House, you know, foreign, domestic policy, in politics to function. Joe Biden's always trying to please everybody. It's always trying to find the center of the Democratic Party, not the center of American politics, the center of the Democratic Party. He's always been a left of center liberal Democrat, and the further than the
left the Democratic Party has moved in recent years. For a guy that wants to be in the center of that would also have moved left. I don't think that's an issue.
I think I just I couldn't. I couldn't disagree more strongly. We play a lot of audio on this show. You listen to Joe Biden two years ago. He is a different human being than Joe Biden twenty twenty four.
Yeah, I don't think he's that different. I think he's older, but I don't think he's incoherent. It sounds much different than Joe Biden of twenty or forty years ago in terms of the substance coming out of his mouth. He talks a little bit more like he's an old man. But you're asking me like, is he mentally diminished? Has he lost his marble?
No?
I think if you look at the breath of his career, this is the Joe Biden that I would have In fact, I would have expected Joe Biden to be further to the left on certain issues than he is. And I just he presents like somebody who is a lot older than he used to be but still functioning. So, by the way, I'm not saying this to say there's no problem, this is a huge problem for him. I think it gets in the way the way he presents and what people think of their ability to believe he can do anything,
even things they disagree with. And I think that impacts the polling. In other words, when Joe Biden says, look at my economic plan compared to Trump's, I think a lot of voters say, what's the point of looking at your economic plan. You can't do anything. You're too old. And that's a huge problem for him because if he's going to convince people that are persuadable, hey, listen, you might like to be better than Trump when you really
take a look at things. If their whole thing is we just don't think you're up to this one way or the other, that means he can't even have a debate on issues, or a debate on Trump's ethical foibles or things like that. It's like he's got to just convince people that he can get up in the morning.
And that's a problem. But when you ask me, like, what are the whispers about his mental acuity, I can tell you what Democrats tell me is they recognize how it looks, but they tell me that they don't see anything in his decision making or ability to process information. His ability to communicate is a whole different story. But processing and deciding, they say, is still there.
Well, we've got to uh, we got to let you go. We're big fans of the Dispatch, man. I take in all the podcasts and read it every morning and all that sort of stuff. So glad you're there.
Thank you.
Hey. I remember I don't know if it was the day after Trump announced nine years ago, it was certainly, And like in the first couple of days we had you on and I remember you coming on and the first thing you said, we introduced you and you said, trump trump trumpety trump trump trumpety trump trump trump. It's the only word I've heard in the last couple of days. And it's been that way for nine years now. It's amazing.
Listen. I'm in my early fifties and I'm just hoping that before I'm dead, which I hope is not for a long time, just to make things interesting, we get to a day when that doesn't happen.
Yeah, me soon would that it were.
David Drucker, senior writer for The Dispatch, Absolutely worth a reading to click David. Always a pleasure.
Thanks he got guys, take care yep.
Yeah, he's uh. He's just nuts to think that Joe Biden isn't significantly different than he was a few years ago.
I involve our institutions, Yeah, I don't. I don't doubt anything he said about his processing ability at times, uh, and his decision making and where he stands on issues and stuff like that. But uh, what I call that?
Drucker said, Democrats tell him they don't see a difference. I don't doubt that.
Yeah, what do his best friends say off the record? But you know that's fine.
Yeah, well I don't
The evidence of your eyes slash ears, amigos, amigas,