And go ahead, Peter. Sorry, no, I was going to say, you're not being here, so I'm just jumping. Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Mister Gorbuschoff, tear down this wall, read my lips. It is the Ricochet Podcast. And guess who's joining us tinerant Odessean Peter Robinson. It's me Rob Long and Steve Hayward, and we are joined by Henry Olsen to talk about you know what, politics, et cetera. So stay tuned. What
has taken place here is a travesty of justice. We did nothing wrong. I did nothing wrong. Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of President of the United States. Welcome to the Ricochet Podcast. This is number six hundred and fifty six, six hundred and fifty six podcast. That's how many we've clocked. That's crazy. I'm Rob Long coming to you from New York City and join
me is Steve Hayward. Steve is in a very unusual location. Can you you can disclose it right? It's not unexclosed. I can't. I'm sitting in John U's office. At Berkeley Law School at this very moment. Where where is John is he can be? Is he listening in? No, he's on his way. He may drop in and wave to the screen at some point during the hour. Well make sure he does no more than that. Please, let's not yet noon, So there's no reason for John you
to show up. And that voice you heard, which you may not even remember or recognize, because the voice of my co Recochet co founder Peter Robinson, who has been on I think quite literally an odyssey theater the longest. We set our youngest off to college as COVID was hitting. So this is the first summer when the world has been open since we became empty nesters. And we traveled. My wife kept saying, what do we do this? And I in the winter, I say yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever,
fine, and lo and behold she stitched it all together. We traveled more than we ever had before in our married lives. Wyoming, New York, Greece, to which I'll return in just a moment. Back to New York, out to the Hamptons, and then a week up in Tahoe which just ended yesterday. Damn, Grease was fascinating. This is where the Odyssey comes in that rob was referring to. We spent a day in Athens and went up to the top of the Acropolis, confusing it with apocalypse for reasons
it will become clear in just a moment, and often here's grease. Was fascinating because it's Greece, of course, but also because it's a remarkable place to be an American. Off in the distance there was an aircraft carrier visible, and the guide said, yes, yes, of course, that's one of yours. Interesting. Interesting, we have an aircraft carrier you can see in the Mediterranean from the top of the acropolis. The Brits have two, the French have one. We have eleven, and one of them sails the
Mediterranean ought more than one from time to time. Then off to the little tiny island of Potmos, which is much closer to Turkey. It's just two miles off the coast of Turkey than it is to the mainland, which is about one hundred and fifty miles away. And there we were staying with very good friends, lovely wonderful people, both of Greek background, and we met It turns out that we four were among the few Americans on the island,
so again and again and again. It was Europeans, the European view of the United States. And there were several older people there who were very pro American, very pro American, because they could remember remember the help that Harry Truman. They were children, but they could remember the help that Harry Truman gave them after the war, when there was a communist insurgency in the north of the country and a civil war and we helped the good guys win.
That was remarkable that there are still people that was such an event in Greece, civil war, people being killed, that people who were children at the time remember it and remain grateful. And then, of course, well the presidential politics came up again and again. I was not able to enlighten them because I'm as confused as anybody could be. But Ukraine came up again and again, and the basic European attitude was, you know, we can't fix
this. When are you going to theory for granted that they would be helped. No, well, no, no, no, no, excuse me, I have to say that wasn't this was this was a conversation with a Frenchman an Italian and Frenchman Italian. And then there was an American who was just listening and smiling as I took all this in because he knew what was well, he knew and he knew the European but they simply took it for
granted that it was our job. So which is very strange because if I have to say, in terms of Ukraine, the French and the Italians, and especially the Germans, and ultra especially the English, I should say the British are stepping forward and showing the kind of leadership that we have been wanting them to show, and the kind of commitment to defense, a defense build up, in defense buying and defense whatever that we wanted them to show.
In the light of Ukraine. Well, they are stepping forward and beginning to show a little bit of what we want them to show. The Germans talk a good game, the English actually play a good game, but they're all two or three steps behind us. We're right behind you. You go first, you provide the material real and weapons and advice and intelligence that they really really need, and then we'll come along and fill in as best we can. Is roughly roughly the attitude, excuse me, roughly the case. I
think that's a that's a fair representation of the case. Anyway, I suppose this is a segue into the debate. We have Vivic Ramaswami saying we should get out of Ukraine. We have Nikki Haley and others saying no, don't be ridiculous, you have I love Nikki. I don't know why that. It's not in itself an especially memorable line, but it was a good one turning to Vivic and saying, you have no experience in foreign policy, and
it shows. All I can tell you is on this little fly speck of an island where this at the top of the island is a monastery that has stood there since ten eighty eight. Now, the Byzantine Emperor John Commemnus the second I'm sure I have that wrong, gave the island. I don't think
what's the second. I think it was. Actually there's a museum in the monastery where with this long scroll in Byzantine Greek, which is signed at the bottom in red, only the emperor could sign and read, we were told, and there's an actual signature of the of the Emperor of the day from ten eighty eight, and that the island to this day, I was told, retains a special legal status within Greece. It's a kind of state within
the state. Technically speaking, it's the monastery that runs the whole island, but it has very thick walls. It's served not only as a religious center, but as a kind of fortress. So for nine hundred, almost a thousand years, this island has seen empires rise and fall and pirates attack. Yet and of course, seven hundred years before that, we have Saint John
taking refuge in a cave. He's an exile during whose persecution Diocletian's persecution of the Christians, and experiencing the vision that he then writes as the Book of Revelation. So it's a fly speck of an island, but the sense of I don't know, talking about Ukraine, talking about American presidential politics, you get the feeling that the present is only a very thin layer on mound after mound after mound of history of human There's nothing cooler, I think, historically
than the Mediterranean. All around, every single country that rings that, every single island in it is just riveting. And can we just I hate to do this, can we just put a pin in that? Briefly, of course, we're gonna get back to Mediterranean talk. Although it might make you sleepy, and if it makes you sleepy, you got to be thinking about how can I sleep better? Well, you know, go to bed earlier, you can silence your phone, you could read in the evening. These
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at ball and Branch dot com. That's ball and Branch all. When we're b O, L, L, A and D branch dot com promo code ricochet three. Some exclusions apply see the site for details. We thank boll and Branch for sponsoring the Ricksha podcast and for making such incredibly great cheats. Let's just get into like the politics of it all? Why not? We are joined by Henry Olson. Henry's been here before, we're welcoming back.
He's a Washington Post columnists senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Listeners need to check out his newly launched podcast series Beyond the Polls, which I'm sure is going to be burning up for the next nine months, and that is available of course here on the ricosche Audio Network. All you got to do is go to Rickie Auto Network and subscribe to it and you will get it. I think every week Henry can illuminate me on that. Welcome,
Henry Olson, Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks for having me back. Henry, give us again once again the name of the of your podcast, your campaign podcast, which is going to be you're going to be recording from now until somebody wins the darn thing. Yeah, well, it's called Beyond the Polls. Beyond the Polls. Okay, right, there's nothing beyond
the polls, Henry, what are you talking about? Well, I my goal here is to evoke thoughts of the original Star Trek, and every episode we're going to reach for the stars and venture beyond the polls, discovered a new civilization. Let's hope it's every other week until Thanksgiving. Every other week, alright, when enough is going to be happening that I think we can justify listener audience for a weekly podcast, and then it will be weekly all
the way through to election to the end. Okay, so it kicked off. Let's just I mean, I know, if it's been skirmishing and yelling and screaming and tweeting and retweeting and all that stuff. But really it just kicked off this week the Republican primary fight. And I'll just give you my impression. You tell me how wrong I am. If you shut your eyes or you didn't shut your eyes, you open your eyes, and you just ignored the big orange elephant not in the room, and you just looked at
that dais. Those are the Republicans running for president. Assuming all the Republicans running for president were on that days, it was a pretty good lineup. I mean, some I like, some I don't like. Some of I want to be presidents. Would I'm not so crazy about. But by all, these were not the seven Dwarves. These were not also rans. These were like some accomplished men and women up there. What am I missing? You're not missing anything, you know that. Obviously some are stronger than others,
and some are in better position or more experienced than others. But every one of them had a debate moment, even if some of them were small moments and others were big moments. And I think the real weak sisters, she used the old fashioned phrase, were weeded out. You know, we didn't have a Perry Johnson or Larry Elder, Ryan Brinkley. Those people weren't on stage, and it really showed there was no Mary Anne Williamson moment to
take it from the bottom up, so to speak. Talking of weeding out, can we also say that by the end of the debate there really was no longer any conceivable justification for Asa Hutchinson, a good, kindly accomplished man but not going to be president and not adding anything to the race. Or for Doug Bergham, a tremendously impressive businessman to find governor, a major figure in the state of North Dakota, but this is not his moment. He
started at the wrong level. Senate maybe presidency four years from now, cabinet position in the meantime, those two should drop out today. Fair So I'll agree with Asa Hutchinson. He wins the Jim Gilmour Award for the irrelevant. The only reason I'm not one hundred percent agreeing with Bergham is the guy tore his achilles tendon that day. So now, if I had the physical stamina to rip my achilles tendon and show up and not be completely zoned out on
painkillers, I would want to be winnowed into the next round. So I don't think he's going to win. But if he's willing to spend ten million dollars of his own money and which is nothing to him, apparently at least a billionaire, right, yeah, he says he's only a cent a millionaire, you know. So so my my goal is not my proposed to him is Okay, you're not a billionaire, you say you're sent a millionaire. Give me the difference you Actually, I won't call it even. But yeah,
I don't think he's going to be president. But the fact is we don't know whether he would be a better performer but for the personal accident. So let's see how he goes in a second. Okay, next one up, if I may working my way up from the bottom, and then Steve Hayward has to come in when we get to the really tricky bits. But this is a question I have to ask, even though it breaks my heart.
Tim Scott, whom I find enormously appealing, impressive in all kinds of ways, But if he couldn't find a moment to break out in that debate, is it over for Tim Scott over? No, Because anybody with thirty million dollars of super pac money and a personal story that has excited you. Yes, is not over given me? Is what you mean? Henry especially is that, look, this was unbelievably weak, that this should have been
a moment, where as you say he could have found a moment. The Washington Post IPSOS five thirty eight joint poll that came out yesterday I had everybody having some extreme reaction. Some people was negative, like Hutchinson said they lost the debate. Some people were positive on that, like DeSantis or Nicky Haley. Scott was notable that he had neither positive nor negative strong react. He was kind of like, you know, to borrow from Mario Cuomo talking about
Walter Mondale nineteen eighty four. He was the Polenta of this debate. Now, you know Cuomo after the Mondale campaign said, well, that's kind of an insulnce. No, Polenta's nourishing, it's a stap ball. No, it's bland. That's what he meant to Scott was. And you can suffer problems like the vague Ramaswami, who I'm sure we'll talk about if you show some charisma. But the worst thing in a debate format like this is to be planned and Tim Scott was blander than tapioca, blander than tapioca. I'll
jump inner, Henry, and if we have time. By the way, Henry, I do need to do a Maya kulpa. You were right about the pitch clock in baseball, and I was wrong, but maybe later, so acts let's do Vivek. By the way, I understand that's the correct pronunciation of his name is Vivek, which means it's only a matter of time before Trump or somebody calls him fake Vavec. It seems to me that's obvious. I'm getting. I'm sort of getting up to the Trumpian idiom of campaigning.
As you know, Republicans always flirt with the novelty candidate, the outsider who's even outside of politics, going back at least to Pat you Cannon ninety two, and often they're front runners for a while, you know, Herman Kane and twenty twelve and Carson Trump the ultimate outsider, right, And it looks to me like Vivek is this year's novelty candidate that people are going to get excited about and then he's going to fade. Is there a scenario in
which that pattern is going to break this time? And he's actually gonna rank a series run for it. So here's the thing. I tend to agree with you that Vvek is this year's novelty candidate. I like that, you know that that approach of categorizing him. But the thing to understand about the Republican primaries, there's basically three types of voters. The voters who will always vote for Trump and the voters who will never vote for Trump, and the
voters who could go either way. The people who could go either way right now are splitting overwhelmingly for Trump. But that's the sweet spot. So the question for me is can Vevey get the attention of the people who will never vote for Trump? And the answer is pretty much no, because those are the remnants of the moderate Bowldguard Reagan night Wing. They want a Mike Pence and Nicky Haley at Tim Scott. Yes, Peter raises his hands, congratulations.
You are a demographic subgroup. You know you are highly likely not to want to back Veg because he is not what you are or what you want. And then you've got the Trumpians And I could see the Trumpians liking him, but they'll never abandon Donald Trump. So the question is, does vaveg Ramaswamy have a shot to basically shoot up the middle and get fifty percent of the people who can go either way against the competition from Ronde Siantis and everybody
else. And I just don't see it. There was a line I feel bad because it's such a good line, and I did not note whose line it was. Anyway, was in my Twitter feed and somebody said, somebody wrote this, and I thought that's it. Vec was new at the beginning of the debate, but old by the time it ended. Yeah, that's
sure. Yeah, in other words, his manner. I actually i'd like to ask just pause on this for one moment, because I found him insufferable almost from the beginning, but certainly by the end, just in personal not even at the policy level, where I guess I like about half of what he says or two thirds of what he But even before you get to that, I just thought, this man is a walking mouth. We've all met, We've all run into this apple polisher in class, this move trying to
move, just annoying human being. And yet I was watching the debate with friends, good friends, and a couple of them just love THEVEC. So we had this strange this guy really want the Barbell reaction? Love him or hate him? What does that portend, if anything, for his political standing? Henry? Well, you know the thing is it all depends on who hates him, you know, is that if the people who hate him are the people who are never going to vote for him anyway, it's actually a
good reaction because you know, you've alienated the people. You drive people from moderately against you to passionately against you. But where he needs a breakout moment, and that means he needs fans. And if getting enemies means you get
fans, and that's the trade off. But if what it is is the sort of people who would vote for him, maybe the sort of people who would say I like Trump, I'm looking for an alternative to Trump, they're kind of looking at the Santa's kind of looking at Scott, and then they look at the vague and their reaction is, oh, well that's death. Now. Typical Peter to ask one of these style questions, right, which broad But I'm going to ask another one, Henry. Now, I didn't
watch the debate because I'm a snob. And if it ain't Lincoln and Douglas in that format. I'm not showing up, but I've read a lot of the accounts. I'm I'm only asking you a dumb question, except you'll give a smart answer to it. Who won or who do you think helped themselves the most? And why? So? I think I actually tend to agree with the results of the poll that I mentioned, which is I think de Santis helped himself a lot. I think he helped himself a lot by being
both forceful and being a reasonable adult in the room. I think Ramaswamy may have helped himself on the margin because people are talking about it. Again, the worst thing in the world in a debate like this is to be blander than tapioca. He was spicier than let's just say cheat him myself to continue. Yeah, ethnic humor is welcome on this podcast. Hey, he's not somebody who people are forgetting about, so to that extent it helps him.
He's got a huge road to a huge mountain decline. But that's not bad. And I think Nicky Haley really helped herself, you know, is that I think Haley came across as a person who is knowledgeable, a person who sounds like an executive who can make decisions, and she is more to the old guard case than the center of the Republican Party once. But to the extent that they want a fighter who's not irrational, she fits on that.
So. You know, the rumor that was floated by the Haley campaign is that they had a great online fundraising night in the twenty four hours after the campaign. You know, great for the Haley campaign, maybe half a million dollars in one night. Now, it's not like their Trump's money machine, but I think Haley helped herself as well. Yeah, all right, one more and then I'll yield floor thought experiment. If I've had shown up,
obviously, it will be a very different debate. H speculate on exactly how different it would have been, and is that good or bad for the rest of the field. I'm my head is just thinking we're in two parallel universes right now, between Trump and the rest of the field, which looks more normal this abnormal world we've been in since twenty sixteen. Yeah, you know, Look, I if Trump were the debate, everything would be about Trump, because if Trump is in the room, it's always all about Trump.
The one thing that I know would have happened, is you would have had in Mike Pens versus Donald Trump. Yes, and you know, I think rightly. You know, I was reading online all I worked right for the Washington Post, and you know I was with conservative commentators live blogging the debate and even they were asking no questions about Trump and online on Twitter, you know, where it's much more left wing. It was where There's no question
that's what Republican voters want. They don't want to Caitlyn Collins, congratulations. I'm going to represent the Acela Corridor and all my questions I actually want to talk about them. Republicans are focused on rightly or wrongly, but there's no way we could have avoided on Mike Pence versus Donald Trump. Yeah, and
I don't think Donald Trump wants that. I think as long as Mike Pence is the reason Pence is so crucial in this and why I hope someday he will stand up even more than he did on the other night, is Mike Pence is the only person who can say along with Donald Trump, I lost
right and say I was your running mate, I wanted to win. I backed you, you backed me, and we It wasn't all square, but we lost fair and that's why Donald you asked me, you put them you put yourself above the constitution because literally, you know what Trump is doing in denying that he ever asked Mike to do that is basically playing word games. No. I never used the word constitution saying that you should put yourself above
the Constitution. I said you should interpret the Constitution. And I said that the word or meaning in some bizarre way. Yeah, which means that he can be able to a professor at Harvard now. But yeah, I don't think Donald Trump wants that because so that fraud narrative is punctured, right, Yeah, Republicans will start looking elsewhere. So do you think that? I mean, I've got a bunch of questions, but I want to because you gotta be talking about Pence, because I always I've been saying for a year
that Pence is the silver bullet. Pence is I think, the only, maybe the only living American, certainly the only living American in politics who has emerged from his relationship with Donald Trump with a shred of his integrity and honor and manliness. If you really want to get right down to it, intact, does Donald is Donald Trump got to show up at any of these debates.
I don't think Donald Trump will show up at a debate unless one of two things had I think he will show up if he starts to plumb it. Yeah, you know, there's this assumption in the media, and it may be right. You know, I just have to recognize that this is something in the media that nothing can be done to bring Donald Trump down until you start acting like the media has for the last seven years and attacking Donald
Trump. I actually don't agree with that. You know, I think that we in the Republican Party, to talk to Republican electors, you actually have to kind of be more sorry than hey, than than hurt phone. You know, hey, you know sorry, this is happening to you. So if I were going to deliver the nuclear submarine that'll hit st. Trump below the waterline, I will do it after Thanksgiving, not when the media wants
me to, which is direct. But if that you know, there were apparently thirteen million people who were watching the you know, I'm sure disproportionately Republican primary and caucus stores. If you start to see Trump's numbers go down, and then after the second debate, you start to see Trump numbers gone down, then I think Trump comes back. The only other way I see Trump going on the debate is one and if it does narrow to a two person rates, then I think he comes back, because if it narrows to a
two person rates, he can lose it. Can I ask you a larger question for the Republican parties that you mentioned it, because it always seemed to me the Republican you know, everybody in the party always says, my party's fill with stupid people, but we can lose, We can bumble any opportunity,
right, Republicans never miss the opportunity to miss the opportunity. But I'm old, right, I can remember people running for president, and I cannot remember, as I said, the beginning of dais with four distinguished governors ex governors of some pretty important states, Mike Pant's governor by VP, Nikky Haley governor, Chris Christy governor, Roder Sanna's governor, burg of governor. And this is exactly what Republicans say they want chief executives, conservative chief executives in
various different states. Are the Republicans going to blow this because they're gonna say, look, we got this a list here and we're gonna go for uh something else. I mean, how likely is it the Republicans are just going to blow this opportunity? Added quick addendum to Rob's observation about the impressive standing
of those people. It included a woman, It included two East Asians, and it included an African American. All right, now, our Republicans been last week in Iowa, look asking evangelicals, you know where do they stand? My column about that will come out, so I'm not going to scoop myself. What i will say is one person was aware of their county to a degree that I didn't expect. They actually knew that Trump had finished fourth in that county in twenty sixteen, and they said correctly, and he finished
behind two Latinos in a black men. So, in other words, in Iowa, in Iowa, right, you could remember Cruise, Rubio and Carson and now Scott, Scott and Ramaswamy and Haley. The Republican Party electorate has yet to nominate a non white, but it continues to show itself very open to non whites in a way that the Democrats, with the exception of Barack Obama, has yet to show. So. With that. What I would do is slightly dispute your premise, Rock, which is I don't think the
middle voter wants chief executive. I think they want I think they are not certain if they want somebody with experience or not that you know, I remember seeing in the last cycle that you know, if you if you were running for Congress in a Republican seed, the thing to do is say that you were a maga fighter in an outsider not having political experience was a plus to the swing vote of the campaign. It is not a plus to the old
establishment Republican. But you know, news flash, the establishment Republican is now a minority in the Republican voting primary process in most places, and especially in deep red places. So so I dispute the premise in that way. The larger question I was can Republicans blow it? Well? Look, my view is that it has been for a while that both parties bases continue to push themselves to victory and going back to nineteen ninety four, by pointing out the
overreach of their opponent, and then they overreach themselves. It's a continuing match of tennis, where as soon as you break serve, you double fault and give it back to the the Democrats do it, you know. And so this is a political version to switch metaphors of who wins the irresistible force or the immovable object, really which one stops being less incompetent. And we've got
a president with a forty one point six percent job approval rating. Biden is less approved of today than Donald Trump was at an identical stage in his presidency. No president in history has one reelection with a job approval rating this love he gets the benefit of running against somebody if the nominee who is equally unpopular. And what this means is we run of twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen, the election came down to the eighteen percent of Americans who didn't like either
candidate, and they've broken the last week to Trump. I call them double doubt. We now have over a fifth of Americans already who don't like either of the two leading candidates. So, yeah, the Democrats can promote this and the Republicans can blow it. So so what you're saying is that that Republicans will have to work very hard to lose this election, and they're already
at it. So that's a very good Peter so Henry, by the way, you certainly win a special award for metaphor is the most the richest metaphors. In ten minutes, we had polenta, chicken massala. Yeah, alright, alright, So back to the debate. One or two more questions about the debate, if I may, before we get to and Steve I think
wants to ask about the opposition Joe Biden and so forth. Chris Christie, you mentioned a moment ago that the press wants somebody to run against Donald Trump, just the way the press wants him to do so, and Chris Christie's doing that, And as far as I can tell getting nowhere, I actually thought Chris Christie had two of the finer moments during the debate. One of
the questions was did Mike Pence do the right thing? On January sixth, and Ron des Sandis gave this excruciatingly long answer in which he tried to change the subject and Brett Baer wouldn't let him do it, and then he sort of grudgingly said, yeah, he did the right thing. And then onto Chris Christie, who said, Mike Pence did the right thing and he deserves not just a grudging acceptance, but our gratitude. It was a beautiful answer.
And then at the very end when Chris Christie got that cockam made me answer question from Martha McCallum about UFOs. If you were president, would you level with the people? And Chris Christie got a couple of jokes out of the UFOs and then he said its job of the president to level with the American people about everything. Beautiful. Okay, So I thought Chris Christie is really good at this game. He is a man of substance and experience,
but he is positioned himself. There's nothing to him in this campaign. But he's an attack dog going after Donald Trump and he's getting nowhere? Is that correct? Or is he saving everything for New Hampshire? Well? I think this is like ten clover Field Lane. The fact is he John Goodman is a craze murderer and the Aliens invaded the earth. Both can be yeah, that Christie is not going he Mike Pants is the second least popular of the
Republican nominee's. About fifty something percent of Republicans have favor of Impression and Chris Christie is the least popular. He's flip side of that he's like sixty five percent negative thirty something percent positive. So he is not going to be elected. The fact is Donald the swing voter is somebody who likes Donald Trump actively, thinks he was unfairly to targeted, thinks the election was probably stolen.
Isn't concerned about January sixth, But they're willing to look somewhere else. So Chris Christie's not talking to that book. But Chris Christie is getting support among moderates and that means he could very well if De Santis fades, he could very well finished second to New Hampshire. All right, So this brings us to the big So Chris Christie going nowhere might finish second in New Hampshire if De Santis fades, which brings us to the big question we haven't addressed.
As of two three months ago, DeSantis looked like overwhelmingly the likeliest opponent to Donald Trump and in a pretty good position to knock Trump off he went. He was re elected governor this past November by an enormous margin. He assembled, as far as I can tell, the most impressive collection of major donors
he was getting. He had a meeting in what Palm Beach or West Palm of one hundred plus billionaires, as far as I could tell, is roughly what the guest list amounted to. And he seemed articulate and tough, and the general formula Donald Trump without the crazy seemed that made a lot of sense to a lot of us. And he's had nothing but trouble. Question one, how come? Question two? Did he did he turn himself? Did he turn himself in the campaign? Around? In the debate? I'll answer
a question too first. I don't think Payne was in as bad a shape as people think. You know. Is the thing is I look back at the numbers, is that people tend not to move challengers immediately when they get into the race, you know. So you take a look, and Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders didn't suddenly jump up when they got in the race. Obama pretty much stayed level in national polls for months, even though he was gaining ground. And Iowa, so I think part of this is the national
media's attempt to renominate Trump so that they can re elect Biden. So they're downplaying the Santists. And I think he had a very good debate. There are two snap poles I've seen that Santists was the person who was rated by viewers as having the best debate in the Washington Post five thirty eight episodes poll, and he was a snarrow second to the vague and a snap pole conducted by Teresa May's former polster James Johnson, who is now polling in the United
States. So they're basically within the margin of air of each other a couple of points. He had a very good debate. I think that the larger question is why did a drop? And this gets to the question of who's the decider. Well, after it looked like Trump was a loser, and before all the indictments came down, the person in the middle, the person who likes Trump, is willing to consider someone else thought the Santists looked pretty
good. And then the indictments come down, and that drives those people to want us or their their first choice for now. But then you have what Trump did. And Trump immediately went after de Santis, and he went after De Santis on the title notes. And the media doesn't want to notice that, but the fact is the Republican Party is not Orthodox Ryanite, not orthodox AEI to refer to my Nste's former employer on this question, they actually would
rather raise payroll taxes and keep benefits. You know, I had a pull of twenty twenty Trump voters and I asked them, which of these two do you prefer, even if none is could exactly right, keep Social Security benefits level even if payroll taxes rise, or keep payroll taxes same even if benefits have to be got. Trump voters sixty three to thirty seven preferred the level benefit question. So I think that hurt a lot more to the voters at
the Santas needs. And then you have the third thing, which is you know that the Santist I think did not have a great start to the campaign. But the first two things, it's the indictments and it's Trump's attacks on De Santis. But he's still He's still there. The fact is he is still in second in Iowa. He performed well in the debate. He is still in second. In South Carolina. He is second or third in New
Hampshire, a much more moderate state. I saw poland Pennsylvania that had Trump won fifty seven percent there in twenty sixteen, He's only had by eighteen over De Santis. De Santis for everything that people are saying, is still the only standing alternative to Trumps? Did we just spend the last twenty minutes wasting our time? Is Trump going to be the nominee? Can even Ron De
Santis take him down? Is there really an open endedness to this race or is it over Henry Well, there's a different queen being over and open ended. I would still say that there's a seventy percent. I would have said before the debate there's a seventy five percent chance Trump will be the nominee.
I think I'm down to sixty five or seventy percent because De Santis and a couple other You know, if there's you know, the fact that Haley easily outperformed Tim Scott could be an odd game changer, you know, in the sense that Scott was gaining momentum. But if Scott can't perform well online television, time and time again, all of the ads, money in the air and in the world is not going to save him. He may be the sort of person who ends up at ten percent, which is where he's roughly
follow right now. So I think it's still overwhelmingly favorite. The thing is, I'll tell you an anecdote that's going to make it into my piece, not scooping, but give you an indication. I'm sitting in the air talking with average Joe Republican evangelicals and we're talking, talking, talking. I say, one of the guys said, you know, we haven't had a chance to look at the Alternative show, and I said, oh, so you're going to watch the debate next week. They didn't know the debate was taking
place. Yeah, the median primary voter did not tune into the debate. The median primary voter is not following the inslot. They will do it when the election starts to get closer, and that's when I don't know. Yeah, I see all of us political junkies, we follow these things at the gray level. And forget that point that you has made, Henry. But can I change the subject, in part because it turns out that DeSantis has swim in the polls. Happened almost immediately after I went down to Florida to
spend a day talking to him. So it might be my fault without Ryan. Okay, I got it. You don't mean Paul Ryan. I know the Ryan you mean. All right, I want to talk about the other side of the street, the other team. You know, I remember doing research years ago and finding the story in the New York Times from around January first, nineteen sixty eight, where the chair of the Democratic Party said, we've got our nominee. It's Lynda Johnson. The Republicans are the ones who
have all the problems. Well, we know how that story turned out. And so at this point in nineteen sixty seven, as you probably know, on the Republican side, George Romney wasn't tied or ahead of Richard Nixon. And so we know how that story turned out. So you know the old Mark Twain line that he actually never said that history doesn't repeat itself. It rhymes. I look at Biden and I say, he's going to pull a Lyndon Johnson or they're going to have to affect that kind of outcome. He's
going to have to go. How likely do you think that is? And do you have one or two plausible scenarios about how that happens? Okay, So here one, everyone on the Democratic Party knows that he's too old. The polls show that Democratic voters. Yeah, but depending on the poll, between the third and a half of Democratic voters say he's too old. He's got two nobodies, and he can't break seventy percent in the polls. So
here's my three scenarios. One is, the guy is eighty If Mitch McConnell can have a brain freeze on camera because of a health condition that's not necessarily debilitating, but reminds you that Mitch McConnell is eighty one years old, Joe Biden has that he's toes it just it's it is when George H. W. Bush got sick in Japan and threw on the dial, right, it wasn't a serious health risk, but it fed into a growing narrative that he
was kind of not in control. Or when George Romney got brainwashed. George Romney got brainwashed. That's right. You never know what's going to happen. So that's the first scenario that I don't think is implausible. I'm not, you know, twenty percent chance that he has some sort of on camera, off camera health reverse that just can't be ignorant. Second thing, let's not
talk about in nineteen sixty seven. Let's talk about in nineteen ninety one pp people in George H. W. Bush, right, got people who wanted an alternative to him. All of the people who thought they had a future in politics said no, I'm not taking on a sitting president after he doesn't want a war. You freaking nuts. And it takes a media person who wants to make a name for himself to jump in the race. So I look, and I say, where's this racist jip Puchanic. You're gonna say
Rachel Maddow, aren't you. I've said Rachel madd out before. Are you? Maybe that hurt you because she would be the Well, if you listen to my podcast, you've heard me because I mentioned that's it. Yeah, but look, that's the sort of thing. I mean, she's probably making too much money. But what about an Ashy Valley. You know, somebody with some credibility in the progressive base who's thirty or forty years younger, who says, look, we just can't have Grandpa, you know, do this
anymore. And you know what's the incentive. The fact is the Progressive Women of the Democratic Party has no obvious national leader for twenty twenty eight. It's not going to be the vice president because they never trust her to begin with. The shop As funny as it is, the real progressives don't trust Kamala Harris and Bernie and Elizabeth of Aged Now. So I look at this and s this is a huge market opportunity for an entrepreneur to come in and make
themselves either the candidate or the list broker. And it just strikes me that when there's one hundred dollar bill on the ground, sometimes people ignore it and sometimes somebody picks it up. So the filing deadlines are in November, and so we've got two months for the path Buchanan scenario. And then you've got the third scenario, which is wildly implausible, but I like to tell it so, which is, let's say you're Joe Biden, your self aware,
you know you're too old. Okay, let's say you are Joe Biden and yourself aware, and you also know that dropping out of the race will tear your party apart. Because Kamala hasn't established yourself. You can't clear the field. You'll have seven or eight candidate. You will have a race that makes
the Republicans look like sesame strip. So what do you do? You freeze the field right right, you get the delarates and then on August first, after the Republicans have made your nomination, but three weeks before the convention, you say that a recent my doctor, my annual physical tells me that unfortunately my health is declined in the last sixty days. I didn't know. Yeah, And then what you do is try and stage manage a convention that is
now completely staffed with your loyalists. So that is the implausible. But third way that this happens that they actually know he can't run again, and this is all kabuki theater, and that stage convention nominates whom well, I think that depends who they see as the nominee. If it's Trump, it might be somebody, right. And also you've been seeing this constant effort to try and reboot Kamala three point zero. I think Joe Biden would like to go
out having endorsed a black female as his successor. But I see he has
to be able to beat whoever it is. And so I think she's got like eight or nine months under this implausible but the last few years sailable to Hollywood scenario that you know, if she's sitting on July thirty first, and she hasn't turned it around in some way, then I think it's more likely that he goes in another direction in which case, you know, it could very well be that he gives a list of three or you know, I think if I were him and it wasn't going to be Kamala, I think
he's got to choose between Whitmer and Newsome. The only reason that it's not a good idea to put both of them on the ticket is there's not a minority. But you know, if you say it's Newsome Witmer, Witmer Newsom, Newsom would probably not like that. I could see take it that way. So you take governor from the biggest state, which is twenty percent of it's needed, and the governor from the next day which is five or ten
percent, and the informative president and all the super delegate. That's the way I would do it. So I know we got to rap Henry, but
I just I just want to ask you this question. Are the Democrats in this ridiculous position right now because we in general and the politics, but the people at the top of the ticket treat the vice presidency like it's a marketing ploy rather than what it's supposed to be, which is somebody who could actually step into Put it this way, if if if Biden's vice president had been anyone competent or anybody you know, reasonably accomplished, he wouldn't be in this
trouble. And the Democrats between in this trouble. Isn't this really just because they just treat this The second part of the ticket is kind of a way of you know, marketing and segmenting and too clever by half kind of audience getting Well, clearly they did that. But what I'd say is, why, how is this any different? You know, like, why is it that Dwight Eisenhower thought it was a great idea to put a first term US senator who hadn't finished their second year yet as his vice president. The name
of Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon is Richard Nixon is thirty nine years old when he joins the ticket Richard Nixon. One of my favorite moment old clips is if you go back and look at on YouTube, there's this moment where they do the old hands above the podium and Richard Nixon is so excited that six years after he was a discharged lieutenant JG. He's standing on the stage as the partner of the greatest man in mythology that he's literally pointing to his hand
with a grin on his faith. Look at me, look at me. Yea, let's bring Nixon moment, by the way, next moment. Yeah, So you know, it's like spirou Richard Nixon said, said, you know, I've got all the people in the entire country, all these distinguished governors and senators, but this unknown county executive of Baltimore County and a two year governor of Maryland, he's the best qualified. It's always been about this, but yeah, this time, yeah, this time they what the thing
is that I think they thought. I think Biden thought that she was better than she is. Yeah, that's right. The failed campaign should have clued them in. But I think Biden wanted Amy Klobuchar, but she defend herself against the insinuations of racism, and that left him with no choice but to choose in African American. And then you take a look and it's her, Corey Booker, and who would you choose? Yeah, right, yeah, point made, Henry. Thanks for joining us. Once again. I'll remind
people the podcast is called Beyond the Polls. It is available right here on the Ricochet Audio Network. It's going to be every other week until the burner goes on too high, and then it's going to be every week until we until we either close up shop or we uh or we we successfully annoint a new president. Thanks joining us. We'll see we'll see you, uh, I know we'll see you quite soon. Great well, thank you for having me back, Henry. Thank you so much. Beyond the polls. If
you love politics, you'll love Henry Olson. Thanks Henry. So this is just like a t I felt like we were just like you know how it is when you're you know, you go to the You're in a fancy hotel, but buffet, I don't know how you do, and you're gonna walking to your hope, you're walking to your your table, and you pass all the French buffet stations as a guy gouts in indulgion waffles and all that stuff, and you just think, oh my god, I can't wait to stand
and eat everything. That's kind of what we just did for this if you if you love this stuff for the next year or so. We just had kind of the little walk through the buffet. And I know we're late, so I'm just gonna I'm gonna go right to it. By the way, if you are listening to this podcast and you are a fan of sa Ricochet Audio Network. That's where Henry's a podcast appears and this one too. You should go to ricchet a common join Ricochet. We'd love to have you be
a member of Ricochet. We do all of this stuff. We do have great conversations online a lot of great people. We also do in real life IRL meet it meetups. There's one August twenty eighth in Montgomery, Alabama that's gonna be either happen before after Paul Raised lecture at the Airwork College. I would not miss Paul Raised lecture at the air Work College. He is spectacular, spectacular speaker, thinker, and a longtime ricochet a member and contributor.
Labor Day weekend in Cookville, Tennessee, there's going to be a whiskey tour and a little State Park co Waterfall View and the meetup is going to be in Cookville, Tennessee. Come and go to Rick schet to common find out more about it. And then if this is two, this is too soon. The notice is too soon. We got a long one for you long. Oh, you got plenty of notice of this one April eighth in Texas, Ricochet is gonna meet up to look at the eclipse. So market calendars
Texas meet up. A Mega Paladin member, a Mega palattin is organizing April eight to watch the Sol total solar eclipse. April eight. That's gonna be great town. Which town in Texas? Texas is a big place, of course, I don't know yet. I don't know yet. Stop, we don't have it yet, but it's it's it's happening. It's gonna it's happening, and we don't want We know one thing that's gonna happen on April eighth, that's gonna be an eclipse, and we know another thing's gonna happen.
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I wanted to just I want to just get my licks in right now. Bad new, ridiculous news. This is why I think that that run De Santist may may experience a surge. Masks, gentlemen are back. No, no, no, no, no, there is an uptick in COVID nineteen or some variant or something. I no longer pay attention to those things yet, and they are you know, for instances, is a college Atlanta saying no parties or large student events on on campus for the next two weeks.
The studio lions Gate in Santa Monta, California. I know that, see you very well. I know the people run that. They are now requiring all employees to do self screening for COVID daily before running the office. And I think a mask mandate is on its way. Have I thoroughly depressed you? No? I mean no. This is good for De Santists. This is all I care about at the moment. This is good for De Santists. That's actually not that great for Trump, he'd but Desands is the
one. As you know, our friend Jay Botcharia got a call out of the blue one day. I am deeply aware of this because I happened to stop by Jay's office for our two or three time weekly jabber the day after it happened, and the man on the other end of the line was the governor of Florida, and they talked for something like three hours, and Jay said, I have never talked to anybody, even at the Stanford Medical School, who was as well versed in the research. He's read all the papers,
he knows more. And Ron Desanders refused to shut dat wealth. There was a moment when he shut it down, but then as he's got into it, the open California right back up. By the way, he give credited right. I was criticized by the sitting the sitting president for doing so. Trump took him to task for doing it. By the way, Rob,
why is it that you would know so much about this well? As you know, Peter, I'm working on a long form podcast about and I really thought to myself, I'll be honest with you, I'm not I'm mad the COVID's coming back because I just think, I know, I can't keep
adding stuff to this. I gotta like get it's gotta be smaller. And uh, we're talking about it again, and I feel like what I was hoping to do is to create a kind of an eight chapter audio series where if you could listen to it at your leisure and you could store it in your people could listen to it in ten years and it would be a snapshot of what we went through to never go through again. And it seems like we're going through it again. Can I just ask this sort of an overall
question about that your project? How are you This is the first we've talked about this for years and now Rob Long is actually doing it a long for a serial podcast. Why do you like the medium? How are you enjoying? It's great. It's a lot of fun because you can kind of like, uh, you know, you meet people, you think, oh, can I kind of call you up and just record I kind of ask you those questions again, and you can kind of like you quilt it together,
so you get all this audio, get all this audio. You know, I got tons now hours and hours, and I'm getting more and more hours. I have to wait. Some of it's being delayed because of people are running around in August. And then you stitch it together. It's easier and easier to do now with all this like AI technology, frankly, it's amazing.
Put it this way. When I started, we were doing another podcast and we had a bunch of about China, and we have a bun We have hours and hours of interviews, and I had to go to get them transcribed, right, I had to go to get a transcription service. And this is Look, this is like nine months ago, barely nine months ago, of cost a thousand dollars per hour or no, no, just for all all you know, but a lot right now it's AI, doesn't it
for free? About fifteen? So yeah, so it's pretty great. And then you gotta get I edited the audio and you get to get music in it. It's gonna be really great. It's gonna be a real story. And I was hoping would have a happy ending. But now I'm worried that it's it's really just a stay tuned for the sequel, but maybe not. Maybe be if we all we all remember it's still pretty raw. We remember the disaster of our response to COVID almost entirely wrong in almost every realm.
Let's hope that cooler has prevailed. Rob. I know we're running along, but but I would be remember you're talking about catastrophe, which puts me in the mind of the rise and fall of Empires, which reminds me that at the top of the show you said there's no place in the world as interesting as the Mediterranean. Put a pin in that. We come back to the pin and closing, well, I just feel like, oh, I guess what. I just love talking about it. I can talk about so I
spent I've been. I's been in Spain. I was in Spain last week, as in may Orca, and then earlier the summer I was in the south of France, and last summer I was in Tunisia. And this is typical rob By the way. Yeah, it's like this. You could be everywhere you go, right everywhere you go, you see some weird you're sailing around the black and then oh, what's that? That's a crusader for it. Now, I don't know what the crusaders joining my Orca there they were.
I thought you were gonna say, everywhere you go you find a sign that says rob Long was here. That's right, right, right, Yeah, I wish I have a feeling that with set sets, so you know, the summer's over, let's we gotta like get back to work, speaking it back to work. This podcast was brought to you by Ball and Branch, so you support them by supporting us. They've been loyal advertisers for a
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