Speaker 1: I'm Josh Hammer, and this is the Josh Hammer Show
Speaker 1: you've all livin of national affairs. Will join us momentarily
Speaker 1: for a deep policy wonker dive on healthcare, political economy,
Speaker 1: and much more. Be sure to stay tuned for that.
Speaker 1: But for now, the big story continues to be Venezuela
Speaker 1: protests and Iran and all sorts of global affairs that
Speaker 1: are really shaking up the geopolitical chess board in the
Speaker 1: year twenty twenty six. Just earlier today, a Venezuelan tanker
Speaker 1: putting on a false Russian flag trying to escape the
Speaker 1: naval blockade They're off Venezuela, and the United States military,
Speaker 1: not wasting any time, not mincing any words, they promptly
Speaker 1: went ahead and boarded and apprehended the vessel. So tensions
Speaker 1: continued to play out. When it comes to Venezuela. The
Speaker 1: big question there in that particular country still is Delus Rodriguez,
Speaker 1: this socialist communist loombag who was Nicholas Muduro's former vice preser.
Speaker 1: Is she going to be up for doing anything other
Speaker 1: than just running this poor, grieving country into the ground,
Speaker 1: much as her two predecessors, Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Muro
Speaker 1: have been doing for decades. So that is what is
Speaker 1: going on in Venezuela. By the way, the polding on
Speaker 1: the Venezuela Operation Operation Absolute Resolve somewhat mixed at this time.
Speaker 1: I don't particularly buy much into that, but for what
Speaker 1: it's worth, Trump has very very strong Republican support within
Speaker 1: his own flank when it comes to what the administration did. Again,
Speaker 1: all this talk of all this foreign policy debate, there
Speaker 1: you have the hardcore Lindbergh Ron Paul isolationist wing that
Speaker 1: is ready to cry anything whatsoever when it comes to intervention.
Speaker 1: Even Megan Kelly, even Megan Kelly on her show on Monday,
Speaker 1: was saying how she is lukewarm at best on this.
Speaker 1: But in terms of actual Republicans, in terms of the
Speaker 1: elected official class, they are very very, very very much
Speaker 1: behind President Trump. For instance, here Senator Rick Scott of
Speaker 1: my state of Florida on Fox Business.
Speaker 2: Proud of what the President did, and Marco Ruby and
Speaker 2: Pete headsef than everybody, our military, Maria Corina Machago and
Speaker 2: what they did in Venezuela is going to change Latin America.
Speaker 2: This is the start of changing Venezuela. Then we're going
Speaker 2: to fix Cuba. Nicaragua will get fixed. Next year, We'll
Speaker 2: get a new president in Columbia. We're going to start
Speaker 2: the democracy is coming back to this hemisphere.
Speaker 1: So your minds mad various to what exactly to make
Speaker 1: of that statement. Now, this rhetoric of democracy coming back,
Speaker 1: I think will probably give a lot of people the
Speaker 1: hebgbs when it comes to the memories of the Middle
Speaker 1: East boondoggles in Iraq and the mountains of Taliban ridden
Speaker 1: overrun Afghanistan, things like that. I submit to you that
Speaker 1: when it comes to the Western Hemisphere, when it comes
Speaker 1: to Latin America, things fundamentally actually are quite a bit
Speaker 1: different because it is quite literally on our doorstep, and
Speaker 1: we do have a greater interest in a country like
Speaker 1: Venezuela and not being used as a launching pad literally
Speaker 1: and proverbially, as the case may be, for America's arch
Speaker 1: geopolitical enemies, for Russia, Iran, and for China. There were
Speaker 1: Hesbola money launching operations, Iranian military facilities. That was all
Speaker 1: happening in Venezuela, in our own hemisphere backyard. During the
Speaker 1: presidential tenures of Chavez and Nicholas Maduro. So is it
Speaker 1: gonna be the beginning of all these totalitarian dominoes falling
Speaker 1: throughout the Western hemisphere? Is the Castro regime in Cuba
Speaker 1: going to be next? Certainly Center Scott's of Florida would hope,
Speaker 1: so that'll be very popular here in Florida, where I
Speaker 1: live as well. I'm not totally sure, but at a
Speaker 1: bare minimum, what's happening in Venezuela augurs positively for these
Speaker 1: United States. Meanwhile, I mentioned Iran, and the protests in
Speaker 1: Iran are really just frankly going to the next level.
Speaker 1: Some of these images, some of these videos are utterly astonishing.
Speaker 1: They are taking over parts of cities, they are taking
Speaker 1: over parts of town squares. At this point, this is
Speaker 1: probably the largest scale uprising against the Iranian regime, probably
Speaker 1: since the regime came to power in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 1: in the very tail end of the Jimmy Carter presidency.
Speaker 1: You could talk about the two thousand and nine Green Revolution,
Speaker 1: which Barack Obama famously failed to support. But these images
Speaker 1: that were images and videos that we're seeing now from Iran,
Speaker 1: which is very much part of this axis of totalitarian
Speaker 1: thuggery along with their allies in North Korea, China, Russia
Speaker 1: and formerly Venezuela. I guess now we shall see. Look,
Speaker 1: Iran is a complicated country. Persian culture goes back many millennia.
Speaker 1: It's very proud country, very proud civilization. In fact, the
Speaker 1: exiled Shah, the exiled crown Prince putting out a very
Speaker 1: fascinating video in the Farsi language calling for exiled Persians
Speaker 1: to pray for what happens, and teasing that there might
Speaker 1: actually be some sort of special announcement actually coming sooner
Speaker 1: rather than later. So you take that, you combine it
Speaker 1: with what the British newspaper The Times of London has
Speaker 1: been reporting, which is that the Supreme Leader or the
Speaker 1: Ayatollah Khamene apparently allegedly has an escape patch planned to
Speaker 1: grab his twenty person inner circle and then high tail
Speaker 1: it to Moscow to pull a Boscher alssade, and then
Speaker 1: ultimately live out the rest of his probably fairly few
Speaker 1: and limited years there under the protective embrace of lamyr Putin.
Speaker 1: If you put two and two together, you're looking at
Speaker 1: a potentially potentially very serious situation in Iran. Now, it's
Speaker 1: not like the United States is going to be directly
Speaker 1: involved in getting in sending in one hundred first airborne
Speaker 1: or likely even getting to the point where they are
Speaker 1: trying to vet and select individual dissident individual protesters, things
Speaker 1: like that. But certainly, when you look at Venezuela, when
Speaker 1: you look at Iran, when you look at some of
Speaker 1: the other pieces of the geopolitical chessboard, the fact that
Speaker 1: Russia and China and America's various other foes seem to
Speaker 1: be very much on the defensive. This has been nothing
Speaker 1: short of his historic, a truly historic first year for
Speaker 1: his Secretary of States, Mark or Rubio. In fact, Chris
Speaker 1: van Holland, one of the biggest adults of the generally
Speaker 1: doult Field Senate Democratic Caucus, Chris van Holland was actually
Speaker 1: just on CNN where he was talking about Marca Rubio
Speaker 1: as mister Maga. Go ahead and watch this.
Speaker 3: I said, probably way back in March of last year,
Speaker 3: that I regretted deeply voting for Mark Rubio as Secretary
Speaker 3: of State, because as soon as he took that position,
Speaker 3: he became the dear leader man. He became mister Maga.
Speaker 3: And he used to give these speeches on the floor
Speaker 3: of the Senate about an American foreign policy based on
Speaker 3: our values, based on human rights, based on freedom, based
Speaker 3: on democracy. But ever since he's gone into the Donald
Speaker 3: Trump orbit, he's thrown all of that out the window.
Speaker 3: And we saw the proof of that again in their
Speaker 3: National Security Strategy document from a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 3: where they essentially through American principles overboard, and in its
Speaker 3: place they've put this gunboat, you know, New Monroe doctrine,
Speaker 3: where the United States, by you know, stint of its
Speaker 3: military power can just go do what it wants throughout
Speaker 3: Latin America. That story doesn't end well for people in
Speaker 3: Latin America, nor for Americans.
Speaker 1: First of all, the notion in that Chris van Holland
Speaker 1: knows anything whatsoever about American principles is so utterly foolhardy
Speaker 1: as to make you want to pinch yourself to make
Speaker 1: sure that you're still sitting there listening seriously. But also
Speaker 1: the fact that Chris van Holland is referring to Mark
Speaker 1: Rubio trying to belittle him as the dear leader as
Speaker 1: mister Maga. Frankly, that just means that Marca Rubio is
Speaker 1: over the target. But the twenty twenty six midterms this
Speaker 1: fall are not necessarily going to be contested solely or
Speaker 1: perhaps even predominantly, on the terrain of foreign policy. Look,
Speaker 1: foreign policy is definitely important. I care about it quite
Speaker 1: a bit. I think that many American voters care about
Speaker 1: it quite a bit, especially above all when it comes
Speaker 1: to situations and countries like Venezuela, given the fact that
Speaker 1: it's in our hemisphere, given the fact that they are
Speaker 1: complicit in shipping drugs right through our southern border, given
Speaker 1: the energy interests and other interests as well. But overall,
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six mid terms of this November, which
Speaker 1: now are getting really really close, they will be contested
Speaker 1: primarily on domestic issues, on issues like immigration, on issues
Speaker 1: like crime, on issues like healthcare, and on issues like
Speaker 1: the economy. Eve all in our guest will join us
Speaker 1: just a few minutes here to break down some of
Speaker 1: the angles and some of the train on which this
Speaker 1: midterm election will will be contested. But our working theory
Speaker 1: here on the Josh Hammer Show is that Jimmy Carvill
Speaker 1: did indeed have it right. Back in nine ninety two,
Speaker 1: back when he was running the Bill Clinton presidential campaign,
Speaker 1: Carvill famously said that it's the economy stupid. Now, Carville
Speaker 1: himself may ironically be quite stupid these days, and some
Speaker 1: of the things that he has said, but his quip
Speaker 1: from thirty four ish years ago has largely held up.
Speaker 1: It indeed still is the economy stupid? What exactly are
Speaker 1: Republicans going to do when it comes to healthcare, when
Speaker 1: it comes to affordability, when it comes to inflation. Is
Speaker 1: there going to be another government shutdown coming at the
Speaker 1: end of this month? Both sides are talking like there's
Speaker 1: going to be a viable off ramp coming up here
Speaker 1: and we're not looking at another shutdown. Recalled that the
Speaker 1: shutdown from just a few months ago ends up being
Speaker 1: the longest shutdown in the entire history of the United States.
Speaker 1: No one wants to repeat that debacle. How is that
Speaker 1: going to unfold? There's a lot of questions. Meanwhile, there
Speaker 1: was a tragic passing, a terrible, terrible passing at just
Speaker 1: the tender age of sixty five, just yesterday of Congressman
Speaker 1: Doug LaMalfa of California. Congressman Jim Baird, also in the
Speaker 1: Republican Caucus, is now recovering from a serious car accident.
Speaker 1: There is a jungle primary special election coming up for
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green seat in northwest Georgia. Meanwhile, Thomas Massey
Speaker 1: is basically a vote for her King Jefferys and House Democrats.
Speaker 1: So Mike Johnson's margin in the House to do anything
Speaker 1: this year any of this is shockingly, shockingly small. And
Speaker 1: by the way, don't think for a second, don't think
Speaker 1: for a second that if Democrats don't retake the House
Speaker 1: this November, that they will not move immediately, literally immediately
Speaker 1: to impeachment. For instance, here was Congressman Jason Crow talking
Speaker 1: about this very topic on CNN.
Speaker 4: Well, impeachment is something that I haven't been to know
Speaker 4: a lot about because I was a prosecutor in Donald
Speaker 4: Trump's first impeachment trial, one of two. So that is
Speaker 4: a tool that Congress can use. But there are other
Speaker 4: tools that Congress can use. I am not holding my breath,
Speaker 4: but a Democratic controlled Senate and I'm sorry, Republican controlled
Speaker 4: Senate and ablic Republican controlled House, Jim Jordan or others
Speaker 4: are going to move and do anything on an initiated
Speaker 4: impeachment proceeding right now, which is why the midterms are
Speaker 4: so important.
Speaker 1: So the translation is very simple. If Democrats retake the
Speaker 1: House of November, race yourself for more impeachment theater, raise
Speaker 1: yourself for more manufactured jin Dove Fox controversies similar to
Speaker 1: that laughably, laughably insignificant Vladimir Zelenski phone call in two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. I had to think about the year was
Speaker 1: for second year because it was so insignificant, I just
Speaker 1: forgot about it. Do you all remember that this five
Speaker 1: to six page transcript of a nothing burger phone call,
Speaker 1: and that led to dontrmp's first impeachment. That's what will happen.
Speaker 1: The rest of Danton's presidency will be gone unless Republicans
Speaker 1: keep the House. Now, look, you can have your equipmals
Speaker 1: with Republican party. Lord knows, I have many, many of
Speaker 1: my own objections, many of my own quibbles. But for
Speaker 1: the midterms this fall, but again will be primarily contested
Speaker 1: on domestic issues. The key point is this, who'se hands?
Speaker 1: Whose hands should the House remain in. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have a shot at reforming social Security, at helping healthcare,
Speaker 1: helping affordability. On the other hand, all you're gonna get
Speaker 1: is impeachment theater. I know it's way, I'll be voting.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after the break with Evan Levin
Speaker 1: of AI and National Affairs. Welcome back. So there's really
Speaker 1: no one that we'd rather bring on to talk about
Speaker 1: all things midterm elections related, as well as the broader
Speaker 1: conversation that you may or may not have been paying
Speaker 1: attention to as to what the heck is going on
Speaker 1: on the American rite at this time. That man is
Speaker 1: you've All Levin. Y've all Levin is a very smart fellow.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend that you check out all of his work,
Speaker 1: all of his writings, but for present purposes, you've all
Speaker 1: is a senior fellow as well as the director of Social,
Speaker 1: Cultural and Constitutional Studies at AEI, the American Enterprise Institute.
Speaker 1: He's also the editor of National Affairs, one of the
Speaker 1: most air udite journals on the American rights. I'm honored
Speaker 1: to have been published there a number of years ago.
Speaker 1: Now probably overdue for another submission at some point, but
Speaker 1: in any event, you've all thanks so much for joining
Speaker 1: the Josh Hammer Show. We really do appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, Josh. She took the words out
Speaker 5: of my mouth. So yeah, anytime, look forward to it
Speaker 5: very much.
Speaker 1: So, Look, there's a lot to get to you've all,
Speaker 1: and I want your thoughts in a few different topics,
Speaker 1: but I think the number one reason I really want
Speaker 1: to bring you on the show you You are one
Speaker 1: of the fairly rare people on the right of center
Speaker 1: who I think of as being something of a healthcare
Speaker 1: policy want. It's somewhat of an arcane topic, to be clear,
Speaker 1: your wankery extends to a lot of different areas, but
Speaker 1: I definitely think of you, among other things, one of
Speaker 1: the foremost Obama era critics of Obamacare. You've done a
Speaker 1: lot of the intellectual legwork putting forth alternatives to Obamacare,
Speaker 1: and we're currently in the midst of this continued fight
Speaker 1: as to the extension of Obamacare subsidies. Potentially there's going
Speaker 1: to be even another brinksmanship shut down fight in Congress
Speaker 1: later this month. I keep on hearing from sources on
Speaker 1: Capitol Hill, including unlimited to congressmen themselves, the Republicans are
Speaker 1: working on a healthcare plan or some sort of alternative.
Speaker 1: What is that? Perhaps more accurately, you've all, what should
Speaker 1: it be?
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, Yeah, I've suffered and labored for a
Speaker 5: long time and the vineyards of Republican health care policy,
Speaker 5: and it's a very, very challenging issue for the Republican Party.
Speaker 5: It has been for a long time. The basic challenges straightforward,
Speaker 5: it is that ideas that make sense economically and healthcare
Speaker 5: tend not to make sense politically, and Republicans have never
Speaker 5: gotten themselves out of that thicket. Democrats have solved it
Speaker 5: by advancing ideas that don't make sense economically, and Obamacare
Speaker 5: is one of those. It drove costs up and not down,
Speaker 5: exacerbated the problems rather than addressing them, and here we are,
Speaker 5: so many years later, essentially still stuck with its consequences.
Speaker 5: The ideas that Republicans advance on this front tend to
Speaker 5: be ways of making the health system more market oriented,
Speaker 5: allowing more of a consumer market to form around purchasing insurance,
Speaker 5: and so that means allowing people to have more choice,
Speaker 5: allowing people to exercise more consumer power to face real prices.
Speaker 5: At the center of that for a long time have
Speaker 5: been ideas like health savings accounts, and ways of enabling
Speaker 5: people to enter consumer markets with some subsidies that they
Speaker 5: can chew how to use, rather than have those markets
Speaker 5: replaced by government systems like Obamacare or like Medicaid. In
Speaker 5: a way, the debate we're having is very much a
Speaker 5: traditional left right debate now. But I would say the
Speaker 5: problem with it is that it's driven by a short
Speaker 5: term problem, which is the temporary extension of the Obamacare subsidies,
Speaker 5: which it's really important to stress was a COVID era
Speaker 5: emergency measure. It was intended to last for one year
Speaker 5: to begin with, and then ultimately extended for another three years.
Speaker 5: Republicans the whole time, we're saying this is a trap,
Speaker 5: We're going to end up having to renew this forever.
Speaker 5: The Democrats said, no, we're not, and here we are.
Speaker 5: We're going to have to renew it forever. That short
Speaker 5: term problem is a significant political problem for Republicans because
Speaker 5: really for two reasons. One, it drove up enormously the
Speaker 5: number of people in the Obamacare exchanges from about eleven
Speaker 5: million to almost twice that now at twenty one to
Speaker 5: twenty two million people. And secondly, the changing electorate of
Speaker 5: the Republican Party, the fact that Republicans really are more
Speaker 5: of a working class coalition now means that a lot
Speaker 5: more Republican voters depend on these subsidies than was the
Speaker 5: case during the Obamacare debates, and so Republicans have to
Speaker 5: take this seriously, have to have something to offer on
Speaker 5: this front, and they've been stuck in a tough place,
Speaker 5: getting dragged around by the Democrats in this debate.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of folks sympathize with the
Speaker 1: need for the government to do something that the everprising question,
Speaker 1: of course, is actly what that something is. And this
Speaker 1: conversation is not limited to healthcare. I think back to
Speaker 1: the off off year elections a couple months ago and
Speaker 1: now in New York City, in Virginia, New Jersey, and
Speaker 1: pretty much all of the exit pollsters that I saw
Speaker 1: were unanimously reporting that the number one, two, three, four
Speaker 1: issues for American people in those jurisdictions was inflation, cost
Speaker 1: of living, affordability. Healthcare is a big part of this.
Speaker 1: Housing certainly is a big part of this as well.
Speaker 1: What should the administry and their allies in Congress, and
Speaker 1: I think also crucially their allies in the States. What
Speaker 1: are some concrete things that you think that they should
Speaker 1: be working on and addressing in these next few months
Speaker 1: as we start to get ready for the midterms this fall.
Speaker 5: I think this is the right way to think about it,
Speaker 5: which is part of a larger cost of living challenge.
Speaker 5: And the way that the way that I'd least have
Speaker 5: been talking about this for fifteen years since the kind
Speaker 5: of reformicondas is that it's worth Republicans thinking about this
Speaker 5: problem in terms of the three ahs, healthcare, housing, higher education.
Speaker 5: Those are three areas where a lot of middle class
Speaker 5: families face costs that are exorbitant, unreasonable, and unconnected to
Speaker 5: the quality of what they're buying in ways that it
Speaker 5: is possible for public policy to help with. And the
Speaker 5: way in which it could help, first of all is
Speaker 5: by recognizing the ways in which public policy is causing
Speaker 5: the problem. And I think that's fundamentally about the Democrats'
Speaker 5: basic approach to social policy, which is to restrict supply
Speaker 5: subsidizing demand, and so you set strict rules about what's
Speaker 5: allowed to be sold, and then you give people the
Speaker 5: money to buy the things they're being allowed to buy,
Speaker 5: and the incentives that kind of system creates as an
Speaker 5: incentive for higher and higher costs and lower and lower quality.
Speaker 5: That's what's happening in every regulated sector, and it's very
Speaker 5: much the case in healthcare, and so the solutions look
Speaker 5: like deregulating supply while allowing consumer pressures to drive demand,
Speaker 5: so giving people more options and the real power to
Speaker 5: make choices. This is a problem in healthcare. It's not
Speaker 5: a simple matter. Healthcare is a complicated market. What you're
Speaker 5: buying is something you need in an emergency, when your
Speaker 5: kid is sick, when your elderly parents need care. This
Speaker 5: is not a simple choice, and we shouldn't pretend it is.
Speaker 5: But that's why what's sold in that market is insurance
Speaker 5: more than care in the moment, and it's important to
Speaker 5: give people real options, to let them make choices among
Speaker 5: genuinely distinct and different options in healthcare we've really seen.
Speaker 5: I mean, this is this is essentially what Obamacare is.
Speaker 5: It restricts supply, It says you're only allowed to sell
Speaker 5: these three kinds of products, and then it subsidizes demand.
Speaker 5: It says, whatever this cost, the government will pay for it. Well,
Speaker 5: what's going to happen in that kind of market is
Speaker 5: insurers have a reason to increase prices rather than reduce costs,
Speaker 5: and so over and over, that's what we've seen, and
Speaker 5: Republicans know in the abstract what the solution looks like,
Speaker 5: but they've never really had the nerve to propose a
Speaker 5: major reform along these lines. John McCain did it to
Speaker 5: his great credit in two thousand and eight, and it
Speaker 5: was used to undermine his presidential campaign. Republicans have been
Speaker 5: afraid of it ever since, and so when they have to,
Speaker 5: when they're pressed, like right now, you hear them talking about,
Speaker 5: you know, various kinds of consumer measures. It's not their priority.
Speaker 5: It's not what they do most of the time, and
Speaker 5: I think we're seeing the effects of that.
Speaker 1: You've all. Levin is a senior fellow at AI in
Speaker 1: the editor of National Affairs, highly recommend that you check
Speaker 1: out all the National Affairs publishes on a quarterly basis.
Speaker 1: You've all just a couple of minutes left here before
Speaker 1: our first break. We'll hold you over until the next segment,
Speaker 1: but for now, on a related topic, speaking of affordability,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that our seemingly annual trillion dollar
Speaker 1: plus deficits are not necessarily helping the matter when it
Speaker 1: comes to the pinch that the federal government find itself in,
Speaker 1: and all then the secondary tertiary effects when it comes
Speaker 1: to inflation, federal Reserve Monetary policy twenty twenty six, this
Speaker 1: is the first year that a US Senator could be
Speaker 1: elected that will then face reelection twenty thirty two, which
Speaker 1: is the year that some say Social Security actually is
Speaker 1: looking to go bankrupt. So it's kind of a long
Speaker 1: winded way of teeing up this question for you, which
Speaker 1: is is there any chance that we see something when
Speaker 1: it comes to entitlements here or is that just ever
Speaker 1: a pipe dream?
Speaker 5: Well, look, I think it would take a broad bipartisan coalition,
Speaker 5: which is probably in this moment another way of saying
Speaker 5: that it feels like a pipe dream. I think the again,
Speaker 5: the political pressure all push in the opposite direction, and frankly,
Speaker 5: Republicans have become much less interested in advancing solutions on
Speaker 5: the entitlement front than they used to be. Democrats have
Speaker 5: never been interested in advancing them, and so if there's
Speaker 5: a bipartisan coalition, it's in the other direction. There's now
Speaker 5: very broad agreement that we should basically do nothing about
Speaker 5: this enormous oncoming train. I do think it's connected to
Speaker 5: the healthcare debate. The biggest entitlement challenge is Medicare, much
Speaker 5: more than Social Security. It's growing more quickly, and you
Speaker 5: know that's an area where the kinds of reforms you
Speaker 5: need are again to allow people to use some consumer
Speaker 5: power to reduce costs. Republicans have had these ideas. They
Speaker 5: know really how to solve this problem. Paul Ryan was
Speaker 5: advancing this fourteen years ago, and he was right. The
Speaker 5: fact is if we had done that, then we would
Speaker 5: be in a much better place on this front.
Speaker 1: He no doubts right about that. You've also sorry, we're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break here. Stage tuned. Folks
Speaker 1: are much more with evolven and AI on the other
Speaker 1: Welcome back, So we're continuing our conversation with you've all
Speaker 1: events senior fellow at AEI and editor of National Affairs.
Speaker 1: You've all may just take us just a minut or
Speaker 1: two just to finish up what you were saying before
Speaker 1: the break about Social security Medicare, which frankly is an
Speaker 1: issue for me that I think that the ECONI populists
Speaker 1: are totally out to lunch on. I myself have some
Speaker 1: national's populous instincts on some of these economic topics, but frankly,
Speaker 1: when it comes to the notion of intilent reform, it
Speaker 1: seems to me to be pretty pretty black and white.
Speaker 1: These things are going bankrupt, and they're going to go
Speaker 1: bankrupt probably in our lifetimes.
Speaker 5: I think there's actually an argument for reform that is
Speaker 5: fundamentally a populist argument, which is the way these programs
Speaker 5: are structured now is as a wealth transfer from the
Speaker 5: young to the old, and in America, that also means
Speaker 5: it's a wealth transfer from the less wealthy to the
Speaker 5: more wealthy, and that doesn't make sense, and so there
Speaker 5: is room for public programs that may make sure that
Speaker 5: Americans are not in poverty when they are older. That
Speaker 5: makes sense, But the way these programs now work creates
Speaker 5: an enormous burden on younger generations. And they can be
Speaker 5: means tested, they can be reconceived in ways that would
Speaker 5: even better address the problem of poverty in old age,
Speaker 5: which has not been solved by sober security, but do
Speaker 5: so in a way that poses less of a burden. Look,
Speaker 5: we're a wealthy society. We can afford to help older
Speaker 5: Americans stay out of poverty, but we're doing it in
Speaker 5: a very profoundly foolish way. And the idea that politics
Speaker 5: means you can never change that, I think is just
Speaker 5: something that we have to get beyond. It's not true.
Speaker 1: That's very well said. It's certainly not true. And this
Speaker 1: moment calls for a statesmanship, as many moments do, and we'll,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll find out sooner rather later whether we
Speaker 1: are going to get So you've all among the things
Speaker 1: that you are. You're not just a policy walk. I
Speaker 1: think of you also as being a genuine conservative intellectual.
Speaker 1: So I imagine at times that you've found yourself as
Speaker 1: I've found myself as well, sometimes kind of wanting to
Speaker 1: pull your hair out when it comes to some of
Speaker 1: the extreme rhetoric that we hear in certain parts of
Speaker 1: what is typically the very online parts of the so
Speaker 1: called right, but increasingly it seems is starting to seep
Speaker 1: out into the moment as well. I kind of want
Speaker 1: to just turn over to you a pretty broad question.
Speaker 1: Much to your great credit, you're actually not on social media,
Speaker 1: and to be clear that that is much to your benefit,
Speaker 1: and those of us who are on social media are
Speaker 1: suffering on a daily basis. But you've been in this
Speaker 1: game for some time now. You're really quite formidable during
Speaker 1: the Tea party days, the Obama era and so forth. There,
Speaker 1: how do you assess the current state of the right.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, maybe for those of us who
Speaker 1: are so online, is easy to kind of get lost
Speaker 1: in the weeds a little bit. But do you think
Speaker 1: that there is is ultimately sufficient intellectual heft and policy
Speaker 1: seriousness that can get us through this very difficult moment
Speaker 1: that we're often in.
Speaker 5: Well, look, I think the right today is certainly not
Speaker 5: focused enough on governing, which is a particular problem when
Speaker 5: the right is in power and is not focused enough
Speaker 5: on policy. But what that really means is that we're
Speaker 5: not focused enough on how to make the lives of
Speaker 5: the American people better. For a political movement to succeed,
Speaker 5: you have to offer a vision, fundamentally, a vision of
Speaker 5: peace and prosperity. You have to offer people a sense
Speaker 5: of what you propose to do to make their lives better.
Speaker 5: And there's no hope to win. However much we might
Speaker 5: be worried about the terrible things the left wants to do,
Speaker 5: we can't hope to succeed unless we offer that kind
Speaker 5: of vision. And for conservatives in particular, that vision begins
Speaker 5: from what we love in American life, not what we hate.
Speaker 5: It has to start by what we're trying to defend,
Speaker 5: but what we're trying to conserve, and that's always a
Speaker 5: powerful way to speak to people, because what we mean
Speaker 5: by that is we want to conserve the preconditions for
Speaker 5: flourishing life, for family, for religion, for community, for real education,
Speaker 5: for meaningful work. That's what conservatives are for. That's what
Speaker 5: we want to conserve. When we become too obsessed with
Speaker 5: what's dangerous about the left, and it is dangerous, but
Speaker 5: when all we have to say to the public is
Speaker 5: what we're against, what we're opposed to, and especially when
Speaker 5: in doing that we fall into these kinds of dangerous
Speaker 5: internal squabbles where frankly, we just take the margins much
Speaker 5: too seriously and we imagine that the fringes of the
Speaker 5: left and the right are really what matter in political life.
Speaker 5: We lose sight of what we're trying to achieve and
Speaker 5: of how we might be able to achieve it. And
Speaker 5: so I think conservatives need to reconnect with the purpose
Speaker 5: of a conservative movement in a free society, which is
Speaker 5: to sustain the preconditions for that free society, to preserve
Speaker 5: what's necessary for us to be able to be a
Speaker 5: free people. Right now, frankly, we're not doing a good
Speaker 5: enough job of that, and that means that we do
Speaker 5: have to reconnect with those core objectives, with those core principles,
Speaker 5: remind ourselves of them, as you have to do in
Speaker 5: every generation, and we can't expect the younger generation on
Speaker 5: the right to do this on its own. There has
Speaker 5: to be a reconnection with those foundations that reach us
Speaker 5: to everybody.
Speaker 1: You know, you've all, if I'm mistaken, you reread the
Speaker 1: Federalist papers in their entirety every year. I think, right,
Speaker 1: It's true.
Speaker 5: It's a strange, it's a strange hobby, but yes, I do.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm probably one of the rare folks out there
Speaker 1: who genuinely deeply appreciates that about you. Actually, in fact,
Speaker 1: that's something that I've long admired about you so very much.
Speaker 1: Staying on this note of trying to reimbue and reconnect
Speaker 1: those who are somewhat lost from the great titans of
Speaker 1: this American experiment, there, what are one or two nuggets
Speaker 1: of wisdom from the Federals papers, or perhaps if you
Speaker 1: would like, from other sources as well, whether it's Lincoln
Speaker 1: or elsewhere, But a couple of nuggets of wisdom, perhaps
Speaker 1: above all, on prudence and statesmanship for a moment like
Speaker 1: the current American rights pass.
Speaker 5: Well, it's a wonderful question, thank you. I think that
Speaker 5: a lot of what is most wise in our political
Speaker 5: tradition begins from the premise that politics is hard, that
Speaker 5: in a free and therefore also divided society, it is
Speaker 5: difficult to bring people together and to act on the
Speaker 5: problems that we confront together, and therefore that what's required
Speaker 5: is politics, which is to say, engagement across lines of difference,
Speaker 5: actually directly confronting people you disagree with, exercising whatever leverage
Speaker 5: you have, and fighting over what needs to be the
Speaker 5: direction of our society. That does start by seeing our
Speaker 5: fellow Americans as part of one society, and they can
Speaker 5: be hard when we're divided as we are, but it
Speaker 5: has to begin from that sense that when we talk
Speaker 5: about America, we're talking about us. The constitution. The first
Speaker 5: ward of the Constitution is we, not they, and that
Speaker 5: means that our politics requires us to be in constant
Speaker 5: engagement with people we don't agree with. And the way
Speaker 5: in which that engagement can become practical for us is
Speaker 5: by letting the structures, the systems we've got in place
Speaker 5: work and force us into negotiation. Ultimately, politics in a
Speaker 5: free society is negotiation. The reason for that is the
Speaker 5: basic principle of the Declaration of Independence. Because we're all
Speaker 5: created equal, we can't have a politics of coercion in
Speaker 5: this country. We can only have a politics of negotiation.
Speaker 5: And that's a demanding kind of politics. That means you've
Speaker 5: got to be willing to engage with people you don't
Speaker 5: agree with. It means you've got to be willing to
Speaker 5: build coalitions, to make some concessions in order to make
Speaker 5: some gains. I think not enough of us approach politics,
Speaker 5: but that practical prudential mindset. Now we think it's more
Speaker 5: pure to say, well, only accept everything we want. But
Speaker 5: that's not more pure. That's stupid. That's a way to lose.
Speaker 5: That's not a way to engage in a stronger kind
Speaker 5: of politics. And ultimately, I think to cover the knack
Speaker 5: for coalition building, the sense that I could win this
Speaker 5: guy over, I do need to offer him something, but
Speaker 5: in return for that, I can get something that matters
Speaker 5: to me. That's what it takes for the politics of
Speaker 5: a free society to function. And I think over and
Speaker 5: over that's the core insight that we can draw out
Speaker 5: of the American political tradition. It's not a failure to
Speaker 5: engage in a politics of bargaining. That's actually what politics
Speaker 5: is all about. And that doesn't mean compromising your principles.
Speaker 5: It means achieving something practical in the world in the
Speaker 5: name of those principles. I think seeing that we have
Speaker 5: in a sense confused strength and weakness. We think strong
Speaker 5: as weak and weak as strong. We think it's strong
Speaker 5: to stand outside and say these people are all failing.
Speaker 5: I don't want any part of it, when in fact
Speaker 5: it's strong to stand inside and drive the process in
Speaker 5: a direction that achieved something for what you care about.
Speaker 1: That's extraordinarily well saided. Look, I think it was Aristotle's
Speaker 1: politics who refers to prudence as being the queen of
Speaker 1: the virtues. And in my mind, there's really no statesment
Speaker 1: in American history who most exudes the virtue of prudence.
Speaker 1: Then Abraham Lincoln, my son of those, favorite leader in
Speaker 1: American history, and I think that at times to this
Speaker 1: twenty twelve Republican presidential primary debate where they ask hypothetical,
Speaker 1: if there's every ten dollars a spending card for one
Speaker 1: dollars of taxes raised. I think I think it was
Speaker 1: only John Huntsman of Utah raise his hands. I mean
Speaker 1: that's that's not prudential. That is ideology, and frankly, our
Speaker 1: current politics, as you correctly note, could use a lot
Speaker 1: less zealous ideology and a lot more prudence and statesmanship.
Speaker 1: So one final time, folks, you've all live in as
Speaker 1: a senior fellow at AEI and the editor of National Affairs.
Speaker 1: Check them out at National Affairs dot com. All you
Speaker 1: are a wonderful, wonderful scholar on the right. I thank
Speaker 1: you mosted by the Josh Hammers Show. We really do
Speaker 1: appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thanks very much, Shosh. It was a.
Speaker 1: Wonderful conversation and there's a lot to chew on there,
Speaker 1: a lot of chew on there, folks, when it comes
Speaker 1: to prudence, when it comes to what the rest of
Speaker 1: this legislative year is going to look like, Republicans are
Speaker 1: down on the account. There lots to unpack for the
Speaker 1: months ahead. Stay with us, we'll be right back after break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back, great stuff there from Yevlovin. Always appreciate him
Speaker 1: stopping by. In related news, this we'll tie back to
Speaker 1: our conversation with Yvlllevin here momentarily in related news. Today,
Speaker 1: January seventh is the one year anniversary of the Pacific
Speaker 1: Palisades Fire. You might have forgotten about the Pacific palis
Speaker 1: Ads Fire. You might have forgotten about the fact that
Speaker 1: much of the initial reporting and the internal investigations and
Speaker 1: the assessments as to what the heck went so egregiously
Speaker 1: catastrophically wrong much those conclusions seemingly have been memory hold,
Speaker 1: they've actually gone away. You might have forgotten about all
Speaker 1: of the DEI controversy there in the Los Angeles County
Speaker 1: Fire Department, in terms of who the fire chief was,
Speaker 1: where the protocol was fired, and this and that. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I think back as well to the Maui, Hawaii fire.
Speaker 1: That fire was in twenty twenty three. It was two
Speaker 1: and a half years ago. Now have we got accountability
Speaker 1: for either of these horrific conflagrations that burned up countless
Speaker 1: homes and killed tragically thousands, yes, thousands, of innocent Americans.
Speaker 1: This is now part of a long, long and very
Speaker 1: sad trail of unfortunate events. When it comes to lack
Speaker 1: of political accountability for lack of justice, I personally start
Speaker 1: this trail at least as far back as the Russia
Speaker 1: Gates hoax, the Russia collusion delusion, the hoax back in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, this notion that Donald Trump was a Manchurian
Speaker 1: candid running on behalf of Lammer Putin. Let's not forget
Speaker 1: about the Steele dossier, This bought and paid for dossier
Speaker 1: by the Hillary Clinton campaign, laundered through the shady political
Speaker 1: consulting firm Fusion GPS with the hoity toity white shoe
Speaker 1: law firm Perkins Koolie. They're paying for it all long,
Speaker 1: and how that dossier did make its way into the
Speaker 1: infamous January twenty seventeen presidential Transition era Intelligence Community assessment,
Speaker 1: therefore justifying the spying on the campaign leading to the
Speaker 1: Crossfire Hurricane investigation, the Molar probe, and all and all
Speaker 1: that ended up engulfing half of the first Trump term.
Speaker 1: I think a lot as well about the infamous year
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty COVID nineteen. Are you kidding me? There's
Speaker 1: been no accountability whatsoever for all that this nation, frankly
Speaker 1: the world endured when it came to the lockdowns of
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen era. We will not know the full
Speaker 1: cost of many of these children who went an entire
Speaker 1: year or more of their lives not going to school,
Speaker 1: whose social skills, whose elementary education was retarded, was set backwards.
Speaker 1: We're not going to know the full cause of this.
Speaker 1: For years, perhaps even decades. Have we faced any accountability
Speaker 1: whatsoever when it comes to that. Have we faced any
Speaker 1: accountability whatsoever when it comes to to the Hunter Biden laptop,
Speaker 1: and the FBI and the Deep States, all of them
Speaker 1: working in collusion with big Tech. The laptop comes out
Speaker 1: there a month before the election, in October of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: The very next day, you have this infamous letter the
Speaker 1: fifty one Deep State spooks. You have Brandon Clapper and
Speaker 1: the rest of the whole clown brigade linking arms with
Speaker 1: Jack Dorsey formerly of Twitter, and Zuckerberg and all the
Speaker 1: rest of them, and saying that this is Russian misinformation. Therefore,
Speaker 1: you can't even share the link on social media. I
Speaker 1: am are trying to DM that link to send a
Speaker 1: direct mess on Twitter. You could even DM it. How
Speaker 1: we face any accountability whatsoever for that? How we face
Speaker 1: any accountability whatsoever for the myriad, the myriad scandals of
Speaker 1: the horrific presidency known as the Joe Biden tenure, arguably
Speaker 1: the worst four presidential years in history, at least in
Speaker 1: my book. In my ranking of this, the Biden presidency
Speaker 1: ranks below even the Jimmy Carter presidency. How about the facts,
Speaker 1: most obviously, that the Democrats had a mental patient running
Speaker 1: the country, someone who was not even aware of the
Speaker 1: executive orders, of the clemencies, of the pardons, of the commutations,
Speaker 1: of the bills, of anything that he was doing. Dude
Speaker 1: probably didn't even know what day of the week it was.
Speaker 1: You could ask him on a Wednesday, what day the
Speaker 1: weekn is? Oh, I don't know some day Indian Why
Speaker 1: he wasn't there? This is not an ageous thing. People
Speaker 1: get old. I have old grandparents. We all do. But
Speaker 1: in no world whatsoever was that man fit to run
Speaker 1: the nation in that particular state. Have we gotten any accountability?
Speaker 1: Do we even know who for large swaths of those
Speaker 1: four years was actually running the country on an effective
Speaker 1: data basis? I have my own thoughts on that. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure we know the answer. In fact, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure we don't know. How about the lawfair Attorney General
Speaker 1: Merrior Garland and by the way, Thank god, Raric Garland
Speaker 1: did not end up on the United States Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: Recall that that was who Barack Obama nominated after Anthony
Speaker 1: Scalia passed away in February twenty sixteen. In one of
Speaker 1: the great all time Senate procedural maneuvers, Mitch McConnell and
Speaker 1: Shuck Grassley linking arms to block Merrick Garland from even
Speaker 1: getting a hearing on the Santurtiary Committee. Thank goodness that
Speaker 1: that wildly, wildly zealous partisan did not end up on
Speaker 1: the United States Supreme Court, but as Attorney General and
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, Merrick Garlands presided over the most egregious use
Speaker 1: of lawfair in this nation's history. So called Special Counsel
Speaker 1: Jack Smith, so called because he's actually not a legitimate
Speaker 1: special council as Clarence Thomas correctly deduced, and is concurring
Speaker 1: opinion to the Trump versus the United States Presidential Communiy
Speaker 1: case a year and a half ago at the High Court.
Speaker 1: But regardless, so called special Council Jack Smith attempting with
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland. They are cheering him along, as was the
Speaker 1: President himself, Joe Biden, when he actually was able to
Speaker 1: pay attention and be convenident of what was happening before him.
Speaker 1: They were all cheering on the prosecution and attempted bankruptcy
Speaker 1: and incarceration of the then former and also as a
Speaker 1: casement be then future President of the United States Donald J. Trump. Folks,
Speaker 1: we have never seen this level of vindictiveness, of petty
Speaker 1: vindictedness in our nation's history. How Jacksmith has not already
Speaker 1: had charges filed against him, as my colleague got the
Speaker 1: Article three project Mike Davis has been clamoring for for years. Correctly, so,
Speaker 1: there's at least one charge that stands out eighteen US
Speaker 1: Code Chapter two forty one for a conspiracy to deprive
Speaker 1: your fellow American citizen of his or her constitutional rights.
Speaker 1: That is exactly but Jack Smith working hands in glove
Speaker 1: with Fannie Wills in Fulton County, Georgia, with Alvin Bragg
Speaker 1: in Manhattan, and with Tis James in Albany, New York.
Speaker 1: That's what all of them did together. I wait patiently
Speaker 1: for eighteen US Code Chapter two forty one to be
Speaker 1: invoked and ideally for Jacksmith to be prosecuted on those grounds. Folks.
Speaker 1: Zooming off for a second here, whether it's the one
Speaker 1: year anniversary of this horrific confagation in the Pacific Palisades
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles County. Whether it's the Maui fire, whether
Speaker 1: it's Russia Gates, whether it's COVID nineteen, whether it's the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election in general, but especially the whole Hunter
Speaker 1: Biden laptop and the Deep State spook letter dismissing its
Speaker 1: rush disinformation. We don't have accountability. We don't. A free
Speaker 1: republic can only long endure to take us back to
Speaker 1: where conversation is a promise due with evol evant. A
Speaker 1: free republic can only endure when there is some notion
Speaker 1: of understanding your fellow Americans, as indeed your fellow Americans,
Speaker 1: that we have more in common with them than we
Speaker 1: do not in common with them. That means that at
Speaker 1: least to some extent, we have to consume and process
Speaker 1: the same information. We cannot be incredibly deeply euremically siloed
Speaker 1: in our own silos where we consume different information we
Speaker 1: process information, then we deduce wildly differing, perhaps even irreconcilable
Speaker 1: conclusions as to what to do for the country. In
Speaker 1: other words, we have to have some level of baseline
Speaker 1: trust in institutions, in narratives, and so forth. The corporate
Speaker 1: press has done more work than we could possibly elaborate
Speaker 1: on this show to discrete itself and the ability of
Speaker 1: American people to take the core press at their word.
Speaker 1: But this is our very difficult, arduous task, is to
Speaker 1: try to get some justice for the great gas lightings
Speaker 1: of the American people that we have endured now for
Speaker 1: years and years. Only with some kind of juice, only
Speaker 1: with some kind of accountability, can we begin to trust
Speaker 1: the ruling class again, to trust media elites, to trust
Speaker 1: elites in both the public and the private sector. And
Speaker 1: only then by it once again having some baseline level
Speaker 1: of trust in elites and some baseline level of acceptance,
Speaker 1: can we work together in this quid pro quo style
Speaker 1: negotiation or the deal style negotiation that you've all lived
Speaker 1: in was so correctly describing as being one of the
Speaker 1: great inherited inheritances of the American political tradition. There is
Speaker 1: really really a lot of work to go to get
Speaker 1: us back to that there. But we need accountability. The
Speaker 1: American people are thirsting, they are thirsting for accountability. I
Speaker 1: don't pretend that's going to happen tomorrow. I don't pretend
Speaker 1: it's going to happen after that. But you want to
Speaker 1: shut up the conspiracist kooks. You want to get this
Speaker 1: nation back to work in a meaningful, earnest sense. Accountability
Speaker 1: and justice, folks, that's what we need. I was always
Speaker 1: hoping you enjoyed today's episode of The Josh Hammers Show.
Speaker 1: Make sure to subscribe to our show everywhere to get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, and watch it every evening on the Sale
Speaker 1: New Channel until tomorrow. I'm Josh him
Speaker 3: M hm