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Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Boomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.

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Speaker 1: He is Bruce Bartlett. And if you're not familiar with

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Speaker 1: h Bruce, you really should be. Uh. He started his

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Speaker 1: career UH working for Ron Paul and then Jack Camp.

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Speaker 1: He helped to put together what eventually became the Kemp

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Speaker 1: Rough tax cuts, which were passed by Ronald Reagan in

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Speaker 1: the early eighties. Eventually, due to some of the policies

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Speaker 1: of George Bush, he broke with the far right and

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Speaker 1: became an independent voice and a critic of the move

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Speaker 1: of the GOP away from its traditional roots to areas

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Speaker 1: never seen before. I know I'm gonna get all sorts

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Speaker 1: of angry emails from people, um, mostly because I agree

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Speaker 1: with pretty much everything Bruce says, and some of you

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Speaker 1: are going to disagree with everything he says. UM, you

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Speaker 1: can send me angry emails at m IB podcast at

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. I don't know how else to describe

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Speaker 1: this other than just a tour to force conversation about

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Speaker 1: a from a certain segment of the political firmament, which

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Speaker 1: is the conservative Republican never trumpers and Bruce Bartlett is

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Speaker 1: a perfect um example of that. Previously, we've had Mike Murphy,

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Speaker 1: who was a Jeb Bush's campaign manager, who gave a

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Speaker 1: slightly different perspective. UH, And we try and bring all

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Speaker 1: sorts of of perspectives onto the show to discuss these things.

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Speaker 1: I found it really fascinating and I expect you will too. So,

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Speaker 1: with no further ado my conversation with Bruce Bartlett, I

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Speaker 1: have an extra special guest today. His name is Bruce Bartlett,

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Speaker 1: and he has a storied career in politics in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. He has held senior policy roles in both

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Speaker 1: the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administration. He started

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Speaker 1: in in DC working with Congressman Ron Paul on the

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Speaker 1: Banking Committee. He has also worked with Jack Kemp. He

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Speaker 1: was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. UH.

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Speaker 1: He's written for various publications, including The New York Times,

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Speaker 1: Economics Blog, for The Washington Post, and other fine publications.

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Speaker 1: He is the author of multiple best selling books, including Reaganomics,

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Speaker 1: Supply Side Economics and Action, and Impostor, How George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. Most recently,

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Speaker 1: he wrote the book The Truth Matters, a citizens Guide

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Speaker 1: to separating facts from lies and stopping fake news in

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Speaker 1: its tracks. Bruce Bartlett, Welcome to Bloomberg. Happy to be here.

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Speaker 1: So that's quite the CV. Let's let's let's begin by

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Speaker 1: going to your political beginnings. You, in nineteen seventy six

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Speaker 1: began working for a then unknown congressman named Ron Paul

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Speaker 1: out of Texas. Uh. What did you do for him?

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Speaker 1: And how did you guys ultimately find each other? Well,

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Speaker 1: at that time, Texas was a very solidly democratic state. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, the old story down there is the Democrats

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Speaker 1: were yellow dog Democrats. They'd vote for a yellow dog

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Speaker 1: if it was running as a Democrat. And there was

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Speaker 1: only two other Republicans in the Republican House delegation, and

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Speaker 1: one of the Democrats, Uh, resigned because he got a

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Speaker 1: higher level appointment of some kind, and so they had

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Speaker 1: to have a special election in April nineteen seventy six,

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Speaker 1: And I saw a brief story, uh in the Washington

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Speaker 1: Post in which this this fellow Ron Paul, whom of

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Speaker 1: course I'd never heard of, Uh, was elected Republican to

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Speaker 1: a Democratic seat, and he was quoted in the article

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Speaker 1: saying he was to the right of very goldwater Well,

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Speaker 1: which is hard to imagine. Well, at the time, that

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Speaker 1: sounded like a good idea to me. I was very

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Speaker 1: conservative at that time, libertarian and uh so and I

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Speaker 1: was I was just finishing up some work at graduate

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Speaker 1: school and was looking around for a real job. Saw

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Speaker 1: out of the blue, I just sent him a letter

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Speaker 1: and uh some things I published and uh A few

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Speaker 1: days later, I get a call from his secretary and

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Speaker 1: I interviewed with him. And I remember when I entered

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Speaker 1: his office, he had a bookcase, and in the bookcase

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Speaker 1: was every book published by the Foundation for Economic Education,

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Speaker 1: which is still around in a robust website. That's right,

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Speaker 1: and but at the and but at the time it

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Speaker 1: was was the most well known, well established free market

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Speaker 1: oriented think tank in the United States. And I had

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Speaker 1: already published a couple of articles in its little journal,

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Speaker 1: which was called The Freeman. And so I think that's

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Speaker 1: probably what caught his attention. And when I saw all

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Speaker 1: these books, I knew I was in pretty good shape.

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Speaker 1: So what was it like working with him? He that

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Speaker 1: was he was on the banking committee. Uh. I don't

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Speaker 1: think people had any idea of how his politics would

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Speaker 1: evolve to really full blown libertarianism. Uh. Nor did people

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Speaker 1: understand that he would one day mount a fairly um

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Speaker 1: significant run for the presidents, multiple runs for the president,

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Speaker 1: and that his son would become a United States Senator. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean at the time, we thought what we were

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Speaker 1: doing was very quicksodic and uh and I think we're

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Speaker 1: just trying to make a point. And in order to

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Speaker 1: do so. Uh, you know, Ron like to to do

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Speaker 1: things in a very outrage just manner. For example, one

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Speaker 1: of his things he most enjoyed was being the only

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Speaker 1: no vote against some piece of legislation that passed would

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Speaker 1: otherwise have passed unanimously. And since he was a medical doctor,

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Speaker 1: he got people would call him doctor No and he

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Speaker 1: he very much enjoyed that. How did you move from

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Speaker 1: run poland Texas to Jack Kemp up in upstate New York. Well,

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Speaker 1: the problem was that Iran was elected in a special

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Speaker 1: election in April of nineteen seventy six and therefore had

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Speaker 1: to run for election for for a full seat that

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Speaker 1: very same year, and unfortunately he was defeated in his

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Speaker 1: first bid for h I guess he was his first

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Speaker 1: effort at re election and uh, and so he was defeated,

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Speaker 1: and Uh, I was looking around for a job, and

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Speaker 1: uh one of the women in the office that she

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Speaker 1: had heard that Jack Kemp, who I really only knew

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Speaker 1: about as a football player. I remember watching him in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen AFL Championship game. He when he was playing

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Speaker 1: for the Buffalo Bills, and he had been elected to

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Speaker 1: Congress in nineteen seventy and he always said that the

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Speaker 1: reason he was elected because he threatened to come and

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Speaker 1: come back and play for the Bills another year if

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Speaker 1: he lost. And that's very funny. So you leave Ron

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Speaker 1: Paul after he was defeated in what was that seventies

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Speaker 1: eight or and you join um Jack Kemp's office. Kemp

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Speaker 1: was tapped by Reagan to help push forward a very

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Speaker 1: big set of tax cuts. Tell us, well, that was

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Speaker 1: much later. So I went to work with Kemp, and

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Speaker 1: he was very interested in tax policy, and he had

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Speaker 1: come under the influence of a guy named Jude Winnisky,

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Speaker 1: who in turn had come under the influence of too economists,

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Speaker 1: one named Robert Mundell, who later won the Nobel Prize,

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Speaker 1: and Arthur Laugher, who was still out there and very

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Speaker 1: active in in in tax affairs. One of the things

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Speaker 1: that Jack was very interested in was the Kennedy tax

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Speaker 1: cut of the nineteen sixties, which he felt had done

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Speaker 1: a lot to invigorate the economy. And remember, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: seventy seven, inflation was the overwhelmingly large problem, and this

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Speaker 1: tended to make it very hard to do any kind

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Speaker 1: of fiscal policy because anything that would increase the deficit

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Speaker 1: was considered per se inflationary. But what Jack argued, uh

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Speaker 1: really based on Mundel's theories, was that if you enacted

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Speaker 1: some kind of policy that increased the production of goods

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Speaker 1: and services, then this would be anti inflationary, you see.

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Speaker 1: And so that meaning you would have more supply and

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Speaker 1: it should not see runaway prices. The additional supplies should

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Speaker 1: actually keep a cap on prices. Well well, yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you could just hold the line on the money supply

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Speaker 1: and and then do something that would raise supply, then

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Speaker 1: you should get a diminishing diminishment of of inflation. At

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Speaker 1: least that was our theory and our argument. And uh so,

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Speaker 1: you know, one day, I remember he uh you know,

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Speaker 1: just said to me, Bruce, why don't we instead of

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Speaker 1: just talking about the Kennedy tax cut, why don't we

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Speaker 1: just do it and just reintroduce the same legislation. Well,

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Speaker 1: obviously you couldn't literally do that because the Kennedy tax

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Speaker 1: cut was already in effect, So we had to find

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Speaker 1: something that replicated it in in my in current terms,

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Speaker 1: remind us, how what were the top rates like under Kennedy.

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Speaker 1: What was the actual impact of the cuts that were

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Speaker 1: passed in the early sixties. Well, the the you have

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Speaker 1: to remember that when Kennedy took office, all the World

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Speaker 1: War One to Korea War, tax rates were still in

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Speaker 1: effect because Eisenhower refused to cut them on the grounds

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Speaker 1: that he wanted to balance the budget. And but Kennedy,

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Speaker 1: remember and on saying he wanted to get the economy

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Speaker 1: moving again. And so he's at that time the top

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Speaker 1: tax rate in the federal marginal statutory income tax rate

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Speaker 1: and the bottom rate was I believe, and so he

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Speaker 1: cut those from He cut the top right down to

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Speaker 1: uh sev and the bottom right down to fourteen percent.

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Speaker 1: And that's where those rates were when I started working

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Speaker 1: for Jack Kemp. Now, the real problem was remember inflation,

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Speaker 1: and everybody was getting pushed up into higher tax brackets. Inflation.

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Speaker 1: At the time, tax brackets um were not adjusted for inflation,

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Speaker 1: you could just be inflated into a higher bracket, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And so workers were getting cost of living adjustments which

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Speaker 1: just kept them even, but they were actually were soft

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Speaker 1: because they were getting pushed into higher brackets that had

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Speaker 1: been originally put in to place the tax people whose

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Speaker 1: real incomes were very substantially higher than their's. And actually

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Speaker 1: the rich, we're we're in somewhat of a better shape

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Speaker 1: because if you're already in the top bracket, you can't

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Speaker 1: get pushed any higher. But there were some other problems.

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Speaker 1: Capital gains was a very serious problem because a lot

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Speaker 1: of the gains that were being realized at that time

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Speaker 1: was pure inflation, and so you're you're being it was

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Speaker 1: confiscatory taxation. You were paying a tax on on zero

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Speaker 1: real gains. So what had Kemp proposed doing based on

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Speaker 1: where taxes were in the late He proposed cutting the

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Speaker 1: top rate from seventy to fifty and the bottom rate

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Speaker 1: from four to and so we just we just asserted

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Speaker 1: that this is essentially the Kennedy tax cut, another twenty

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Speaker 1: points off the top and a third off the bottom.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, so we argued that everybody was getting a

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Speaker 1: tax rate cut and all the rates in between were

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Speaker 1: cut at about this by the same amount, and so

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Speaker 1: we introduced this legislation in the middle of nineteen seventy seven.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, a Senator named Bill Roth from Delaware

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Speaker 1: had contacted Kemp saying he really liked what he was

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Speaker 1: saying and suggested they worked together, and so we asked

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Speaker 1: him if he wanted to be to co sponsor this

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Speaker 1: Kennedy tax cut legislation. He was very interested in doing so,

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Speaker 1: and that's how it became the Kemp Roth Bill. But

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven there was not much interest in

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Speaker 1: this legislation because Republicans were still very wedded to the

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Speaker 1: balanced budget idea and they didn't want to cut taxes

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Speaker 1: and less they cut spending simultaneously by an equal amount.

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Speaker 1: This was the widespread view in the Republican caucus. So

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Speaker 1: so we were having trouble getting co sponsors. And of course,

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Speaker 1: inflation was a serious problem, and all the conventional administration

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Speaker 1: economists said, if you don't act a big tax cut now,

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Speaker 1: it'll it'll be massively inflationary, we'll have hyper inflation. So

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Speaker 1: we had no support really from anybody except these couple

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Speaker 1: of people like Arthur Laugher. And uh, speaking of which

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Speaker 1: comes along, Ronald Reagan gets elected in in pretty much

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Speaker 1: a landslide, not as big a landslide as eighty four,

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Speaker 1: but still substantially trounced the Jimmy Carter. Then what happened?

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Speaker 1: How did we get from that too? All those tax

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Speaker 1: cut Well, there was something in the middle in between

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Speaker 1: happened that's extremely important, which is in eight they passed

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Speaker 1: Proposition thirteen in California, and now I remember that's what

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Speaker 1: That was a huge cut in the property tax rate.

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Speaker 1: And the really important part about this is there were

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Speaker 1: no accompanying spending cuts, because everybody just said, there's plenty

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Speaker 1: of fat in the government. Let them worry about. It's

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Speaker 1: not our problem. We just want to pay less taxes.

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Speaker 1: And when this was enacted, it d everybody in the

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Speaker 1: United States, everybody in Washington certainly to believe, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: there's a tax revolt. We got to do something about this.

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Speaker 1: And Kemp's legislation suddenly became the thing that every Republican

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Speaker 1: wanted to be the sponsor of. And as you say,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, when Ronald Reagan was running for president,

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Speaker 1: he he officially endorsed the kemper Off Bill and said,

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Speaker 1: this is my legislation, this is what I will send

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Speaker 1: to Congress if I'm elected. And he did, and it

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Speaker 1: was signed into law in August of And what was

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Speaker 1: the impact of those taxes. I think they're grossly exaggerated

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Speaker 1: to this day in terms of their economic impact. You

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Speaker 1: have to remember the the the the tax cut took

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Speaker 1: effect in the middle of a huge recession, and so

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Speaker 1: in that sense it was very well timed fiscal stimulus,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of other but but of course the

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Speaker 1: economy continued downward for well over a year after the

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Speaker 1: tax cut took effect. Let's talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: some of the changes that have taken place in politics

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Speaker 1: over the past twenty or thirty years that led you

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Speaker 1: to really break with your conservative roots. And probably nothing

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Speaker 1: epitomizes that more than the book you wrote, How George

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Speaker 1: Bush Bankrupted American Betrayed the Rigging Legacy. What led to

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Speaker 1: this fairly dramatic pivot from the right to I would

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Speaker 1: say the middle, Other people would say the left. What

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Speaker 1: what led to this? Oh? I can tell you very

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Speaker 1: very specifically, even give you the exact date. Now up

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Speaker 1: until two thousand three. I was a very conventional Republican conservative.

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Speaker 1: I was very happy in the Republican Party. And then

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Speaker 1: on November two thousand three, Uh, you may remember, we

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Speaker 1: woke up too, and when we read the newspapers, we

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Speaker 1: found out that in the middle of the night, the

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Speaker 1: Republican Congress had passed something called the Medicare Part D program,

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Speaker 1: and they literally kept the vote open for three hours

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Speaker 1: while they twisted arms and did all kinds of things

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Speaker 1: to ram this piece of legislation through, which was the

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Speaker 1: creation of a new entitlement program for big with big

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Speaker 1: giveaways to the industry itself as well. Well, that's right,

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Speaker 1: it was. It was a four billion dollar costs, not

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Speaker 1: one penny of which was paid for, and they explicitly

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Speaker 1: wrote into law that the Medicare program was prohibited from

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Speaker 1: negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies in the same way that

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Speaker 1: every single private health insurance plan does. So they have

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Speaker 1: to pay the list price whatever they charge of dosage,

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Speaker 1: the Medicare program has to pay it, and there's nothing

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Speaker 1: they can do about it. Was that a stop to

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Speaker 1: the industry, It was what was an attempt to bankrupt Medicaid. No,

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Speaker 1: I don't think they are consciously trying to bankrupt Medicare.

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Speaker 1: What I think is they were trying to throw billions

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Speaker 1: and hundreds of billions of dollars at their pals in

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Speaker 1: the in the in the in the pharmaceutical industry. I

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Speaker 1: think that they were. And the Republicans felt that they

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Speaker 1: had to do this because they knew the Democrats would

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Speaker 1: the first chance they got, but the Democrats would make

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Speaker 1: sure that there were provisions in there to control drug prices,

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Speaker 1: and they absolutely did not want that to happen. So

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Speaker 1: they had to do take the initiative to pass this

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Speaker 1: legislation themselves. And uh, and I was just horrified because

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Speaker 1: I thought Republicans existed to cut entitlement programs, reduced spending,

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Speaker 1: and creating a new entitlement program was just the opposite

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Speaker 1: of what I thought the party existed to do. So

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Speaker 1: you sat down and wrote a book called Imposta about

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Speaker 1: George Bush. What was the response and you published a

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Speaker 1: variety of different columns about it while it was in

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Speaker 1: the arks. What was the response from your colleagues on

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Speaker 1: the right. Well, first of all, I I started writing

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Speaker 1: very very negative columns about George W. Bush, and at

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Speaker 1: the time was working for a conservative think tank which

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Speaker 1: basically said stop doing this or you're gonna be fired.

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Speaker 1: So so that was what led me to decide to

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Speaker 1: write the book, which I had originally thought I might

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Speaker 1: have to do uh anonymously. But anyway, I wrote this

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Speaker 1: book during UH two thousand five, and UH, to my surprise,

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Speaker 1: there was interest in the publishing industry about it, and

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Speaker 1: UH it came out in in early two thousand and six,

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Speaker 1: a Reagan advisor with strong right wing conservative credentials writes

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Speaker 1: a book calling George Bush the person who's bankrupting American

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Speaker 1: be trading the Reagan legacy. Was it any surprise at

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Speaker 1: a conservative think tank said you're out? Uh? In retrospect,

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Speaker 1: I was rather naive about all of this, But I see,

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Speaker 1: I thought that I had written a book, and if

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Speaker 1: you read it, it's it reads like an academic book.

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Speaker 1: It's very, very heavily referenced. And not only that, virtually

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Speaker 1: every person in the entire book who's cited or quoted

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Speaker 1: is a good solid conservative. Because I was, in a

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Speaker 1: way distilling what a lot of conservatives were saying. And

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Speaker 1: I thought of people simply read the book, they'd be

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Speaker 1: UH persuaded by it. They'd agree with me. Isn't it

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Speaker 1: shocking you could go through this whole process of putting

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Speaker 1: all these facts on paper, and yet still the same

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Speaker 1: myths and misunderstandings persist. People don't want to believe that

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Speaker 1: which they don't want to believe. That's right, And uh,

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Speaker 1: it was really my first experience with this whole phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure quite sure what we call it now,

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Speaker 1: where confirmation by a selective perception. But there's another quote

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Speaker 1: of yours I have to mention because at this point

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Speaker 1: I think you're just trying to get your concern OVD

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Speaker 1: of Allies and Friends angry. You wrote, no one has

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Speaker 1: been more correct in his analysis and prescriptions for the

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Speaker 1: economy's problems than Paul Krugman, a prominent Kingsie economist. He

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Speaker 1: is the boogeyman for the far right, and yet you're

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Speaker 1: saying this guy has been more right than anyone else.

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Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly when I said that, but I

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Speaker 1: do remember saying it, and and I agree with that.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about your most recent book,

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Speaker 1: The Truth Matters, A citizens Guide to separating facts and

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Speaker 1: lies and stopping fake news in its tracks. First question

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Speaker 1: is the truth matters. Isn't that self evident? Don't we

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Speaker 1: don't we all believe the truth matters? One would think so.

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Speaker 1: But there's obviously a great deal of evidence to the contrary,

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Speaker 1: at least as far as Donald Trump is concerned. I mean,

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Speaker 1: you've probably read this recent story where he continues to

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Speaker 1: insist that he owns a ren Wi, an original ren Wi.

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Speaker 1: Now has he actually said that, because the Chicago Art

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Speaker 1: Institute recently came out and said, the renoir pictured in

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Speaker 1: Trump's apartment, the original is here. We have the providence,

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Speaker 1: we could trade trace it back from when it was

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Speaker 1: painted to who it was sold to. We know exactly

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Speaker 1: who and who and where it is. How can Trump

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Speaker 1: really believe that that's an original? He simply continues to

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Speaker 1: assert it, just as he asserts so many other things

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Speaker 1: that are simply lies. Now, the reason I wrote the book,

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Speaker 1: it's because I was horrified by the election results. Were

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Speaker 1: you surprised by them? Yes? I was on election night.

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Speaker 1: I mean it was quite early in the evening when

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Speaker 1: I saw the handwriting on the wall, when I saw

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Speaker 1: the Hillary was was not hadn't yet been called in

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Speaker 1: states that I was quite certain she was going to

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Speaker 1: I knew that was a very bad sign. And uh,

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Speaker 1: and and I didn't stay up to watch the final

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Speaker 1: results of No. I just couldn't handle it. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: I refused to read any of the news for about

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Speaker 1: two months after the election. I was just sick to

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Speaker 1: my stomach. Oh you miss them, fascinating thing. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: imagine I did. But but as I you know, got

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Speaker 1: out of my stupor or whatever and began to think

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Speaker 1: about what was going on, the thing that struck me

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Speaker 1: was the problems of the media, because it seemed to

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Speaker 1: me that that the media that had existed throughout most

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Speaker 1: of our lifetimes, you know, when you had three major

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Speaker 1: news broadcasts in the evening, you didn't have cable. Everybody

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Speaker 1: got a newspaper delivered to their house that were responsible

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Speaker 1: newspapers that had a great deal of power and authority.

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Speaker 1: They wouldn't have allowed any of this to happen. And

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Speaker 1: so I felt that the weakness of the media, certain

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Speaker 1: things that were going on in the nature and the

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Speaker 1: structure of the media. Uh, we're very much to blame

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Speaker 1: for the Trump phenomenon. So let's unpack that a little bit,

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Speaker 1: because we have we have a couple of things driving that,

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Speaker 1: you have the overall move to digital, which hurt newspaper classify.

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Speaker 1: Everything from Craigslist to Amazon to Google have all taken

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Speaker 1: a big chunk of the traditional media's revenue stream. And

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Speaker 1: so we've seen big cutbacks and newsrooms. We've seen consolidation.

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Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of newspapers closing. And that's before

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Speaker 1: we get to the rise of Facebook and fake news.

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Speaker 1: These are all related phenomenon. Obviously, the media don't have

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Speaker 1: the economic strength to oppose a pop you know, somebody,

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Speaker 1: I won't say Trump is popular in the conventional sense,

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Speaker 1: but he's obviously newsworthy and and people paid in an

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Speaker 1: ordinate amount of tension. Whenever there was a story about him,

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Speaker 1: it got lots of clicks. Somebody said that the media

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Speaker 1: gave him and I'm I know, I'm mangling this number

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Speaker 1: two billion, eight billion dollars at the free coverage. And

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Speaker 1: and that's why he ran a fairly shoe string campaign,

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Speaker 1: not a big budget. That's exactly correct. And and but worse,

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Speaker 1: what they did is they tended inadvertently, perhaps to normalize him.

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Speaker 1: They share they shaved off the rough edges and didn't

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Speaker 1: make him seem like the total clown that he in

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Speaker 1: fact is and always has been. They felt like, how

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Speaker 1: can we justify spending so much time covering this this

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Speaker 1: this clown. We have to elevate him up so that

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Speaker 1: he seems important enough to justify us giving him so

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Speaker 1: much airspace, so many column inches of coverage. So now

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Speaker 1: it's funny you say that, because I'm a lifelong New Yorker,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna oversimplify this. But most New Yorkers know who

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump was before he ran for office, and he

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Speaker 1: was kind of looked at as, yeah, the guy inherited

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Speaker 1: a bunch of money and he's kind of a a goofball,

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Speaker 1: but nobody really took him seriously. Some people thought he

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Speaker 1: was a grifter. I know other people who talked about

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Speaker 1: him not paying contractors and all the lawsuits and all

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Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. But I think the average New

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Speaker 1: york had kind of looked at him and said, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this guy is in a serious candidate. It was shocking

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Speaker 1: to those of us here that the rest of the

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Speaker 1: country he found such a robust resonance with Well, I

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Speaker 1: suppose you have to give the devil his due and

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Speaker 1: say that. However, instinctively he figured this out. He did

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Speaker 1: tap into a very deep strain of political and cultural

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Speaker 1: trends that were really invisible frankly to even two polsters.

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Speaker 1: Let's focus on on the media itself and what you

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Speaker 1: think they're doing wrong and what do they have to

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Speaker 1: do to fix the problem they have with not being

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Speaker 1: perceived as truthful or reliable. Well, I felt when I

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Speaker 1: when I conceived this book that given the nature of

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Speaker 1: the media environment, people needed to know more about the

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Speaker 1: nuts and bolts of how the news is created, how

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Speaker 1: it's produced, how it's distributed. Uh. It's sort of like

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Speaker 1: if you had a situation, perhaps not unlike someplace in Cuba,

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Speaker 1: where you couldn't have a car unless you knew how

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Speaker 1: to repair it yourself and maybe even build it from scratch.

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Speaker 1: And so as as the the the infrastructure of the

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Speaker 1: media has started to sort of collapse, people are going

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Speaker 1: to have to create their own uh media for themselves.

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Speaker 1: They have to curate their own news feed and rely

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Speaker 1: on whatever they They can't rely on just reading a

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Speaker 1: decent daily newspaper every day and field that they knew

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Speaker 1: know whatever they needed to know that day. Uh. Many

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Speaker 1: of the cable channels are ranked uh propaganda. The Fox

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Speaker 1: News channel is just literally a subsidiary of the Republican

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Speaker 1: National Committee. And when you when you say that, I

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Speaker 1: don't just necessarily disagree. But when I say that to

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Speaker 1: Republican friends, the answer I usually get is, well, the

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Speaker 1: entire media landscape is completely liberal. Well, that's a why

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Speaker 1: they tell themselves to justify watching a media source that

432
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 1: just lies continuously. But I will concede, and I say

433
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 1: in the book, there was a time, uh when I

434
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: think the vast bulk of the mainstream media did tilt

435
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: to the left, perhaps not nearly as much as as

436
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: conservatives thought they did, but there's no question that if

437
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:49,119
Speaker 1: you interviewed or talked to the typical New York Times

438
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: Washington Post reporter circle of the nineteen seventies, they were

439
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 1: clearly to the left of center. The data shows that

440
00:27:56,560 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 1: reporters tended to be educated and younger that will skewed

441
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 1: to the left. Their editors tended to be also educated

442
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 1: in urban but higher earning and older that skewed them

443
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 1: a little more to the right. The theory was they

444
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: would kind of balance each other out. Has the liberal

445
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: media trope? Has that been wildly overstated or is it is? It?

446
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 1: Is there still truth to it or is it just

447
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 1: a little bit of truth and it's exaggerated for effects. Well,

448
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: what I think happened is that beginning I'm not sure

449
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: precisely when, but let's say the nineteen mid nineteen nineties

450
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:40,840
Speaker 1: or so, I think the the mainstream media tried to

451
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: tilt itself more towards the center. That is, they moved

452
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: to the right from where they were, but they moved

453
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 1: to the center, and I think they're by and large

454
00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 1: they stayed there. Now, what happened with Foxes, I think

455
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: they originally started more or less in the center. I

456
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: think they were pretty sent trusts, but they were to

457
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: the right of their competitors, so they weren't really to

458
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: the objective right. They were right relative about what happens

459
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: when the rest of the media moved to the center,

460
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,560
Speaker 1: they then moved very far to the right, and I

461
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,239
Speaker 1: think especially nine eleven had a great deal to do.

462
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: That's when they went full on off the reds and

463
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 1: became so so that this is a good time to ask,

464
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: what is the Overton window. You discussed this in the

465
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: book and it's fascinating. Well, we're basically talking about it

466
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: right now. Is the window is what you can see

467
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:40,440
Speaker 1: out of an ordinary window. You can see, let's say,

468
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: a parade going by, but you can only see that

469
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 1: little section of what might be a long parade that

470
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: is right in front of your window. You can't see

471
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: what's the left, you can't see what's the right. But

472
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: if the window itself moves to the right, you may

473
00:29:55,640 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: think you're still seeing the same part of the parade,

474
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 1: but you're not. You're now seeing the right part of

475
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: the parade, and so your perspective is distorted. And we

476
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: were just talking about this. The mainstream media moved to

477
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:12,360
Speaker 1: the right and ended up in the center, and the

478
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: Fox and the right wing media moved much further to

479
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 1: the right. But because the mainstream media is relatively still

480
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: on the left, this allows those on the right to

481
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: claim falsely that the media is left wing, and this

482
00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: justifies there being very very right wing, which they claim, well,

483
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: we're simply off setting what they're doing, but in fact,

484
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: what they're doing is lying, doing propaganda and distortion, whereas

485
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 1: the mainstream media is still stuck trying to tell the truth. Bruce,

486
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: you don't mince words. Can you stick around a little bit?

487
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: I have a lot more questions for you. We have

488
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: been speaking with Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan policy advisor, on

489
00:30:54,560 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: taxes and economics. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure

490
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 1: and check out the podcast. Extra is Will we keep

491
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 1: the tape running and continue to talk about all things policy,

492
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 1: media and tax based. Be sure and check out my

493
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: daily column. You can find that on Bloomberg View dot com.

494
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at rid Holts. We love your comments, feedback,

495
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:20,560
Speaker 1: end suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at

496
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,480
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. I'm Barry Ridholts. You're listening to Masters

497
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: in Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast. Thank

498
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:43,840
Speaker 1: you Bruce for doing this. I've been looking forward to

499
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: having this conversation because I know you don't mince words,

500
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 1: you say it as you see it, and you have

501
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: been on both sides of the political spectrum. I know

502
00:31:54,520 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 1: no one better situated to observe the current political media

503
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: whatever situation than you. There's there's a few people who

504
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: have done the sorts of things that you've done well.

505
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: I'll tell you when I first broke with the GOP

506
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: over the Medicare Part D legislation, I thought I didn't

507
00:32:20,760 --> 00:32:22,720
Speaker 1: really break with the GPA. What I did is I

508
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:27,440
Speaker 1: broke with the elected Republicans who were not I was

509
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:31,200
Speaker 1: breaking with Bush more than anything else, and I thought

510
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: I was helping my party. I still consider myself to

511
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: be a Republican. And what I was afraid of is

512
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:41,720
Speaker 1: that bushes and competence and screw ups, we're just teeing

513
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: the ball up for the Democrats to win in two

514
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. And what I thought, remember my book

515
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand six, as I thought, if

516
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:53,600
Speaker 1: we had a debate about why Bush was a failure,

517
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: maybe we could nominate somebody who would have a chance

518
00:32:57,680 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: of winning in two thousand eight. And everybody thought I

519
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: was being a trader for even raising doubts about the

520
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: possibility that that the next Republican wouldn't just win in

521
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: a heartbeat. And I didn't know anything about Obama. He

522
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: wasn't even on my radar screen. I just knew that

523
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: from from long history that two terms of one presidency

524
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:26,600
Speaker 1: one party, you know, you tend to get the next one.

525
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: And I thought there was a very very small chance.

526
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: But I thought, you know, purging bush Ism was was

527
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: part of what needed to be done. And this is

528
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,800
Speaker 1: what everybody got upset about me about I think it

529
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: was the the old you know, the little kids saying

530
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: the Emperor's not wearing any clothes. Phenomenon is you just

531
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: not allowed to say certain things in the Republican Party.

532
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: And we've seen this now just the last few days

533
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: with Senators Corker and Flake, where they're just being savaged

534
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: by their own party for saying simply for saying out

535
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: loud what they have said. We've been talking about this

536
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: behind closed doors with other members of the Republicans in

537
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: the Senate for months and months, and we can't take

538
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,720
Speaker 1: it anymore. We're going public and and everybody's just shocked,

539
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:18,399
Speaker 1: and they're afraid they're gonna get primaried from the right

540
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: and they will. Uh. You have this absolute lunatic named

541
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: Steve Bannon, whom I actually know slightly. I was in

542
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: a movie that he directed called Generation Zero. You can

543
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: go to IMDb, i amdb dot com and find that

544
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 1: the entire movie is available on YouTube. And I know

545
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: a few other people who had lots of people were

546
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:46,759
Speaker 1: in that movie and worry. Okay, Well, I actually got

547
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:49,520
Speaker 1: to go to a party at the bright Bart Mansion

548
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill and I met Steve Bannon and I

549
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:55,919
Speaker 1: don't remember too much about the nature of our conversation,

550
00:34:56,000 --> 00:34:58,880
Speaker 1: but at least I did meet him long before. This

551
00:34:58,960 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: is ten years ago or so, right after the financial

552
00:35:02,080 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: crisis exact, that's right, that's right round two thousand nine

553
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: or ten thereabouts, but I think it was before the

554
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: big Republican victory in the elections that year, so so

555
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:15,879
Speaker 1: there were still sort of on the outs, but now,

556
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,560
Speaker 1: of course they're very much on the inside. So here's

557
00:35:19,840 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: here's the issue that um. I don't even know if

558
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,439
Speaker 1: this is pushed back to you, but people always seem

559
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: to be surprised when I say I was a Jacob

560
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: Javits Republican. Just I have a libertarian streak. I don't

561
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: think the government should tell people who could get elected

562
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: what they can smoke and consume, whether or not they

563
00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:42,799
Speaker 1: can have an abortion, and all those sort of things

564
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: are very paternalistic overreach from government. So I tended to

565
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: affiliate and believe more, um with the libertarian Republican side,

566
00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: and Jacob Javits was the traditional moderate Northeastern Republican. And

567
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: what's astonishing is the party from that era sixties, seventies,

568
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:11,839
Speaker 1: even early eighties, the modern Republican party does not remotely

569
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: resemble that previous Republican party. So when people were pushing

570
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 1: back at you saying, hey, this is not what we

571
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: stand for. Really, the party was moving elsewhere and you

572
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 1: weren't keeping up. Is that a fair assessment? You leave

573
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:33,680
Speaker 1: the party so much as it it left the part

574
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: of the political spectrum where you were residing. Well, the

575
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 1: the deep historical trend that explains what you're talking about is,

576
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 1: of course what goes by the Southern strategy. That is,

577
00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: you had, for for a hundred years or more after

578
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,439
Speaker 1: the Civil War, a weird situation in which you had

579
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:57,959
Speaker 1: very conservative politically, culturally, economically, and so on, a group

580
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: of people in the South who, for purely historical reasons,

581
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,400
Speaker 1: associated with the Liberal Party, and there were too many

582
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: of them to be pushed out, so they had to

583
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: be accommodated, meaning meaning Republicans or whoever was in the

584
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: Deep South didn't feel comfortable voting for the Party of

585
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 1: Lincoln because of the vestiges of of the was simply

586
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:23,759
Speaker 1: a waste of time. You couldn't win uh and uh in.

587
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: The one group of people who you could have gotten

588
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:31,640
Speaker 1: support from were, of course African Americans, who were widely

589
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: you know, had their votes suppressed, So there was simply there.

590
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: You simply couldn't win. So if you wanted a career

591
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: in politics, you had no choice but to be a Democrat.

592
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 1: And now let's let's talk about the modern era. You

593
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,480
Speaker 1: go from Bushism to eight years of um Obama. I

594
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: argued in OH eight, in the middle of the financial crisis,

595
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 1: it didn't matter who the Republicans put up, they were

596
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,280
Speaker 1: going to lose because the financial crisis was Hey, first,

597
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: non eleven. Now this happened on your watch. We're we're

598
00:38:05,640 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: tapping at We're done. Um. I get that sense, whether

599
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: it was subconscious or or verbalized, that's what the middle

600
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: was thinking. And you could arguably say nine eleven was

601
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: something that could either it couldn't have been stopped or

602
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 1: we just didn't understand how how significant the threat was.

603
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,160
Speaker 1: But the financial crisis, hey, it's coming in the last

604
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: year of eight. It's very hard to pass the buck

605
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 1: on that, even though there were forces that were ten

606
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 1: twenty thirty years in the making that led to it.

607
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: So I thought the Republicans were destined to lose an

608
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 1: OH eight. I didn't feel that either party was a

609
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: sure fire victor in what what do we take away

610
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: from the election in Well, it's lots of people have

611
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 1: dissected that election, will continue to do so. And it's

612
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: pretty clear that Hillary Clinton had deep, deep flaws as

613
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: a candidate, and and everybody knew that. But she, but

614
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,399
Speaker 1: so did he, so did Donald Trump. Neither of them

615
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: were good candidates. No, I agree, but I thought Hillary

616
00:39:14,239 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 1: was gonna win. But then again, I always assumed that

617
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: she was doing competent polling in places like Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota,

618
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: and knew what her situation was and could put resources

619
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:29,280
Speaker 1: into these places rather than just pretend to thinking, Oh,

620
00:39:29,400 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 1: they're in the bag. I don't need to waste my

621
00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: time there. I'm gonna have a big rally the night

622
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 1: before the election in Philadelphia. You know my pals, you know,

623
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: Beyonce and Jay z or whoever you No, Pennsylvania, for

624
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: sure was an issue, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina. There was

625
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 1: a big article recently that some of the voters suppression

626
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,839
Speaker 1: rules in Wisconsin may have thrown that state. So I'll

627
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: give her the benefit of the doubt with one state,

628
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: but the rest, there's no other way to say it.

629
00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 1: She blew it. But look if she had won, she

630
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: wuld have won by the skin of her teeth. And

631
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: you can imagine what the Republicans would be doing to

632
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 1: savage her. I mean, she'd have already been impeached by now,

633
00:40:09,080 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: so I she would have been impeached already. Quite possibly.

634
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 1: They just started a new investigation of Hillary's involvement some

635
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: uranium sale. You know, they never you know, you do

636
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: think about Niger, but we're still talking about Benghazi. I mean, Republicans.

637
00:40:27,400 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: What you can always say of them is they never

638
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:32,799
Speaker 1: learn and they never forget, and so they will be

639
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 1: dredging up these things for the rest of our lives.

640
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,280
Speaker 1: Which raises which raises a question, because I don't think,

641
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 1: you know, I never want to draw a false equivalences

642
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. Hypothetically the Congress is retaken by the Democrats,

643
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: are we going to see impeachment proceedings against President uh Trump?

644
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: Quite possibly depends. I think that the Democrats have a

645
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: better chance of retaking the House than the Senate. I

646
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:04,759
Speaker 1: think it's going to be tough in the Senate, sent

647
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 1: us a real long shot houses probably with your better

648
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: it's it's within uh striking distance. But the point is

649
00:41:14,040 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 1: I was getting at is. Even if they win, they're

650
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: not going to have an overwhelming majority. It's not gonna

651
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:22,799
Speaker 1: be like ninety four, where you know, a huge Democratic

652
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: majority comes in. And so I think that there and

653
00:41:26,200 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: they'll have their hands full just trying to stop some

654
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 1: of the Trump initiatives that more than likely will still

655
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: be I think we'll still be talking about tax reform

656
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,600
Speaker 1: in I don't believe that they have the competence or

657
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: the wherewithal to pass anything. Uh certainly not this year,

658
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: and I don't think next year either. So let me

659
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:48,839
Speaker 1: ask you another question. And I've shared this with some

660
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 1: of my Democratic friends. Um, Trump is makes a lot

661
00:41:54,719 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 1: of noise and and maybe he bothers you on Twitter,

662
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: and maybe he's a little bit of an harassman internationally,

663
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: but he's not competent. He's never run a real organization,

664
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,879
Speaker 1: he's never run a large business. He certainly has never

665
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,720
Speaker 1: run a state or a city. He's gonna get nothing done,

666
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: and he's just gonna piss everybody off. On the other hands,

667
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:18,359
Speaker 1: if you wish him gone, well say what you will

668
00:42:18,400 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: about Vice President Pence. He was a fairly competent governor

669
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:26,399
Speaker 1: of a fairly substantial size state, and he knows how

670
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 1: to do politics. Pence will get a lot more legislation

671
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: through than Trump ever could. So be careful what you

672
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:36,560
Speaker 1: wish for. If Trump is gone, now you're dealing with

673
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: a competent even further right individual, What what are your

674
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 1: thoughts on that? Well, I think Pence is nominally more competent,

675
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,919
Speaker 1: but that's damning him with the faintest possible But he's

676
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 1: but he's such a religious fanatic. I think it would

677
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: be like having Jeff's sessions really as president. And and

678
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:02,000
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't under estimate Trump's ability to get things

679
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: done because he has absolutely no consistency. I mean, he's

680
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: willing to just flip under nati degrees from what he

681
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: said yesterday. And what he really cares about is the

682
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,560
Speaker 1: art of the deal he wanting. He wants something in

683
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 1: the wind column. He doesn't care what it is. That's

684
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: precisely right. So that sort of flexibility should have led

685
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: him to get some sort of repeal and replace through.

686
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: Why couldn't he get that that that issue is still

687
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: open as you know, Uh, there there are people in

688
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: the Congress so working on an Obamacare fix that he

689
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:41,359
Speaker 1: has on various days said he supports or opposes, and

690
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: I think I think there's still something that at the

691
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,160
Speaker 1: end of the day could get across the finish line

692
00:43:46,200 --> 00:43:48,839
Speaker 1: there and he'll stand up there and pretend he never

693
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: said anything negative about any of this stuff. That's that's

694
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: his strength. It's of course it's a weakness as well,

695
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 1: but let's not underestimate the strength part. Let's call it

696
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:02,439
Speaker 1: an intellectual flexibility. Well, that's one way putting it. So

697
00:44:02,760 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: we were talking before about the media moving, the mainstream

698
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: media moving from somewhat left of center to center, and

699
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:15,440
Speaker 1: that just your your description in The Truth Matters reminded

700
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 1: me of Stephen Colbert, who when he was uh doing

701
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: the Colbert ra poor, one of his first things to

702
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 1: go viral was liberal reality has a well known liberal bias.

703
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 1: Is that is that any truth to that? Or? I

704
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:36,000
Speaker 1: think that's absolutely true. I think part of the problem

705
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,759
Speaker 1: with those on the right is many of them are

706
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: are very religious, and they are very accustomed to taking

707
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: things on faith. It could be ideology, it could be

708
00:44:46,080 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: belief sys and I think it's very easy for them

709
00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 1: to just kind of just gloss over the fact that

710
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:58,399
Speaker 1: facts don't fit their worldview and and create an alternative

711
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: universe in which they do when cognitive dissonance written large,

712
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 1: that's one way of putting it. So, so how do

713
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: they rationalize when the Pope comes out and says, hey,

714
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:15,480
Speaker 1: climate change is real and and we were given the

715
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: earth and you therefore should be working to protect it,

716
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:23,439
Speaker 1: not despoiling it. How do the conservatives rationalize, Well, he's

717
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:25,560
Speaker 1: just the Pope. Well, as far as I can see,

718
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:29,440
Speaker 1: even Catholics have pretty much or I should say Republican

719
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 1: Catholics pretty much ignore what the Pope said. I mean,

720
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 1: look at the fact that we are ambassador to the

721
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: Vatican is a woman who's an admitted adulterer. Okay, that's right,

722
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:48,480
Speaker 1: It's yeah, they had It's well known that she had

723
00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: an affair with new while he was still married. And

724
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 1: and and he of course he's been married three times.

725
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 1: I doubt that he had his marriage as annulled and

726
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:03,759
Speaker 1: so the legitimately so. And these are paragons of Catholicism, now,

727
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: isn't that? Isn't that Trump just kind of tweaking the

728
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: Pope because the Pope has said not nice things about him.

729
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 1: Perhaps I think he mostly just doesn't care. Uh, you know,

730
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 1: Nuke called him up and said, my wife is a

731
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: big Catholic. She really wants to be ambassador of the

732
00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 1: UH to the Vatican. When he said, my wife is

733
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:26,399
Speaker 1: a big Catholic. Hold that whole adultery thing aside. Well,

734
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: I'm just hypothesizing how this came about. Nude asked for

735
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 1: a favor, and Trump said, sure, why not? You want

736
00:46:33,280 --> 00:46:35,759
Speaker 1: to be ambassador? You want to? I don't care. And

737
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: because he clearly has shown absolutely no interest in the

738
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: highest level appointments in his administration. I mean, it's quite

739
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 1: clear that the Secretary of State hates him. And uh,

740
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 1: this I don't know. I mean, who knows what Kelly

741
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: is going through Kelly's mind these days when he's forced

742
00:46:56,200 --> 00:47:00,160
Speaker 1: to stand up there and tell rank lies about to

743
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 1: what this woman, this congresswoman said at an event they

744
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,399
Speaker 1: had video tape of, and he and he and he

745
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 1: he won't say, he okay, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.

746
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: I misremembered. He stands up there and says, I stand

747
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:15,360
Speaker 1: by the lie that I said the other day, and

748
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:17,360
Speaker 1: I'm not changing. Who are you gonna believe me or

749
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: you lying? That's one of those jokes. It's you know,

750
00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:24,279
Speaker 1: someone had said that nobody comes out of the Bush

751
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: administration with their reputation intact, which really wasn't true because

752
00:47:28,040 --> 00:47:31,080
Speaker 1: there were a handful of people on the economic side.

753
00:47:31,080 --> 00:47:34,719
Speaker 1: Greg man q is back at at Harvard teaching, and

754
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: Richard Clarida is at PIMCO. And Jose are just too

755
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: off the top of my head. Although certainly some people

756
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: suffered some reputational damage, the neo cons and a bunch

757
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 1: of other people involved in the Iraq War, I get

758
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 1: the sense that this administration is just a reputation devouring machine.

759
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: Is anybody going to come out of this administration reputation?

760
00:47:57,080 --> 00:47:59,879
Speaker 1: And one reason I think that you haven't seen more

761
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:03,720
Speaker 1: people leave is because there's no place for them to go. Stuck.

762
00:48:03,960 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: They're stuck, I mean to literally have a paycheck coming in. Uh,

763
00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 1: they have to stay there and maybe hope for the best.

764
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,919
Speaker 1: Aren't most of many of them wealthy and or billionaires?

765
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:16,200
Speaker 1: Oh not Well, if you're talking about the cabinet, sure,

766
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 1: guys like Steve Manuchin and Rex Tiller's fabulously wealthy. But

767
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 1: I mean they're there the people who do the real work,

768
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, the the assistant secretaries and the people of

769
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:32,200
Speaker 1: that sort, the White House staff, they're just paid whatever

770
00:48:32,200 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 1: they get paid fifty or a hundred thousand dollars a

771
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: year and now and many of them now have to

772
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 1: hire private lawyers because they were involved in the campaign.

773
00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 1: And you saw the other day Trump was offering to

774
00:48:43,800 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 1: pay some of their legal expenses. Uh and uh, I

775
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,320
Speaker 1: think some of these people are are really really hurting that.

776
00:48:51,320 --> 00:48:56,400
Speaker 1: That's interesting. My pet theory about why so many political

777
00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: appointed positions are unfilled is Trump didn't expect to win,

778
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: didn't want to win. Everybody else has a list of

779
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: here the three thousand people we're gonna bring with us.

780
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:11,160
Speaker 1: He was scrambling on November ten, too, all Right, who

781
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: are we gonna name? Secretary of state? Who we can

782
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: It seemed like they were wholly unprepared for the requirements

783
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,960
Speaker 1: of office because they It's even worse than that, because

784
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 1: they apparently did absolutely nothing between election day in jan

785
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: He was just as unprepared the day he took the

786
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: oath of office as he was the day he won

787
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,600
Speaker 1: the election. Did not hit the ground running, not exactly. No,

788
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:37,879
Speaker 1: So let's let's talk a little bit about some of

789
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 1: the other items in the Truth Matters, And I also

790
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 1: want to talk about Reaganomics supply side economics in action.

791
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: There's a line that you said, and I'm gonna say

792
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 1: two things, and they're a little contradictory. Um, but I think, uh,

793
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: I think they are are somewhat consistent. First, you you

794
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:04,320
Speaker 1: wrote to Washington Post column headlines, I helped to create

795
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:08,000
Speaker 1: the GP tax myth Trump is wrong. Tax cuts don't

796
00:50:08,040 --> 00:50:12,799
Speaker 1: equal growth. So the first question is what are the

797
00:50:12,840 --> 00:50:18,920
Speaker 1: benefits of tax cuts and and or fiscal stimulus. Well,

798
00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:21,400
Speaker 1: I think you have to look at it from at

799
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,399
Speaker 1: least from the theory of what the supplies of what

800
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:29,280
Speaker 1: the Republicans say happens when you cut taxes. They believe,

801
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:33,200
Speaker 1: basically in the and Randy and great Man theory, that

802
00:50:33,320 --> 00:50:36,440
Speaker 1: the wealthy carry the rest of us on their backs,

803
00:50:36,920 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: and their incentives count for everything. The average guy contributes nothing.

804
00:50:42,640 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 1: It's the it's the wealthy who do everything. Are you

805
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: overstating that or do you know? I think that this

806
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:49,160
Speaker 1: is what they believe in their heart of hearts, and

807
00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:51,680
Speaker 1: so that's why they're obsessed with the top rate of

808
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,239
Speaker 1: taxation and why they're obsessed with getting it down no

809
00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: matter what the problem is. They also want to be

810
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:02,280
Speaker 1: able to say that tax cuts benefit the average person.

811
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: The problem is, you can't help the average person with

812
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: federal income tax cuts because they basically don't pay any

813
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:13,239
Speaker 1: They pay a lot of payroll taxes, yes, but they pay.

814
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:17,720
Speaker 1: The families with incomes below the median are paying virtually

815
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:20,439
Speaker 1: nothing in terms of income median being around fifty three

816
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,839
Speaker 1: thousand or something like that. I think in the aggregate,

817
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 1: no family with an income above forty pays any federal

818
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:32,280
Speaker 1: or below pays any federal income taxes at all. So

819
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 1: so they have to make up some way of claiming

820
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:40,399
Speaker 1: that these people will benefit. And that's why they've come

821
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: up with this crackpot theory that wages will rise by

822
00:51:44,480 --> 00:51:47,359
Speaker 1: at least four thousand dollars and maybe as much as

823
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:50,840
Speaker 1: nine thousand dollars if you pass this big cut in

824
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:56,200
Speaker 1: the corporate income tax rate. There's no credible think tank economist,

825
00:51:56,280 --> 00:51:59,919
Speaker 1: anybody who's looked at the numbers. It's just holly fabricated

826
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: out of whole cluse. It's just complete nonsense. So so

827
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: let me throw another quote you. I can't. I just

828
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:08,080
Speaker 1: say one more thing about this. If you go, it's

829
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: very easy to go to BLS dot gov and look

830
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: up the data for wages. Real wages start in Night six.

831
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: And look at what happened to average real median wages.

832
00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: And you'll see that after the six Act, which lowered

833
00:52:23,560 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: the top personal income tax rate from fifty to twenty

834
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: eight percent, which is much lower, and they lowered the

835
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: corporate tax rate from forty to thirty. I mean, this

836
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:38,880
Speaker 1: is like, you know, the best tax reform imaginable. And

837
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: what happened to wages is they fell for ten solid

838
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:47,880
Speaker 1: years after the Act. It was only after the ninety

839
00:52:47,960 --> 00:52:53,239
Speaker 1: three tax increase that wages started to rise again. So

840
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 1: you don't believe is it safe to say that? Well,

841
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:01,520
Speaker 1: let me let me let me re say state that

842
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:06,239
Speaker 1: another quote of yours, supply side economics was appropriate for

843
00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties. Supply side arguments do not fit

844
00:53:10,160 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 1: contemporary conditions. So explain what is so different today versus

845
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:19,200
Speaker 1: five and thirty years ago that makes supply side arguments

846
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,680
Speaker 1: just not work here? Well, look, we in the early eighties,

847
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: in the late seventies, early eighties, the biggest problem was

848
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: we had too much demand not enough supply. And the

849
00:53:29,719 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: proof of that is we had inflation. That is per

850
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:35,400
Speaker 1: se evidence of that being the case. We always used

851
00:53:35,440 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: to say inflation is too much money chasing too few goods.

852
00:53:39,440 --> 00:53:42,399
Speaker 1: So you could argue that we did need to do

853
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 1: things to help uh encourage the creation the production of

854
00:53:48,239 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 1: more goods and services. And that's what the supply side

855
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 1: theory was about. Today, we have a persistent problem of deflation,

856
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,719
Speaker 1: and the proof of that is the current level of

857
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: and trust rates, which are ridiculously low ten years into

858
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 1: an economic expansion. It's absurd. Now this is per se evidence.

859
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:12,760
Speaker 1: I think that we have a lack of aggregate demand.

860
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,799
Speaker 1: We have the reverse problem. So we don't need a

861
00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: supply side solution. We need a demand side solution. And

862
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:24,160
Speaker 1: my own preferred solution would be something that Trump allegedly

863
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:27,239
Speaker 1: is in favor, which is a big infrastructure program that

864
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,360
Speaker 1: would be the medicine the economy needs, which raises the

865
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:34,839
Speaker 1: obvious point why you would think that is the easiest

866
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,920
Speaker 1: thing for any president to get through this support on

867
00:54:38,960 --> 00:54:42,240
Speaker 1: the left, this support and the right. Everybody gets a little,

868
00:54:42,280 --> 00:54:44,919
Speaker 1: a little gravy to spread around their own district because

869
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,120
Speaker 1: it's going to be a national spend. Whether it's highways

870
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:51,760
Speaker 1: or rails, or electrical grid reports or fill in the blank,

871
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: there's a ton of infrastructure needed. Why wasn't that the

872
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 1: first thing that was done? Why wasn't something past You

873
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: would think that's a no brainer to get. If you

874
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:06,000
Speaker 1: want to chuck up a victory, what at ends? You

875
00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,640
Speaker 1: could even tie it to a little bit of overseas

876
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: profit repatriation, which people both hate a special Some people

877
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:19,840
Speaker 1: hate a special one time tax cut, but not as

878
00:55:19,920 --> 00:55:23,160
Speaker 1: much as they hate all these these billions of dollars overseas.

879
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 1: Why could not that have have been done first and

880
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,080
Speaker 1: been passed? And here's the wind, you know, chalk this

881
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 1: up for your wind column. I don't know for sure,

882
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:36,960
Speaker 1: but what I think happened is Trump was simply misled

883
00:55:36,960 --> 00:55:41,120
Speaker 1: by congressional Republicans. They lied to him, well, one of

884
00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:43,440
Speaker 1: the things they lied to I mean, Trump is on

885
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:47,239
Speaker 1: record as saying he thought an Obamacare repeal bill was

886
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,719
Speaker 1: going to be on his desk the first time he

887
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: walked into the oval office after taking the oath of office,

888
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 1: because remember the Congress was gonna had been in session

889
00:55:56,560 --> 00:55:59,880
Speaker 1: for three weeks before he took the oath of office,

890
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 1: and so but he also said, I have a plan

891
00:56:03,320 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 1: right here, and it's gonna cover everybody. And but but

892
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 1: I think he did think that Republicans in Congress had

893
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:16,000
Speaker 1: been working since two thousand nine on a replacement for Obamacare,

894
00:56:16,200 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: because that's what they've been saying they've been and nobody

895
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:22,600
Speaker 1: had done any thought. He thought there was a bill

896
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:26,040
Speaker 1: that somebody had written and was was ready to go. Wait,

897
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: So the whole time we've had what fifty three votes

898
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: to repeal Obamacare, nobody on the Republican party ever actually

899
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 1: drafted a here's a legitimate repeal and replace bill. There

900
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:44,200
Speaker 1: was nothing, nothing, because you see, the Republican plan was

901
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:47,719
Speaker 1: simply to abolish Obamacare. They never intended to replace it

902
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:50,560
Speaker 1: with anything. Once you give thirty or forty million people

903
00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:53,920
Speaker 1: health insurance, you can't just yank that away. That what

904
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 1: you suddenly you've created a giant health crisis. Well, they

905
00:56:58,800 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: didn't see it that way. I don't know why. I

906
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:03,640
Speaker 1: don't really understand how they think about these things anymore,

907
00:57:04,040 --> 00:57:06,720
Speaker 1: but it's clear that that's what what they were trying

908
00:57:06,760 --> 00:57:11,640
Speaker 1: to do. And Trump the problem was Trump believe them.

909
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: And remember he screwed everything up by saying, no, no,

910
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: we're not going to just repeal Obamacare. We're gonna have

911
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:22,880
Speaker 1: repeal and replace. So it was really a Trump who

912
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:27,640
Speaker 1: upset the apple cart by insisting that there be a replacement.

913
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,600
Speaker 1: He didn't have one, but he a sessional. If you

914
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 1: think about it, you know, once you give somebody an entitlement,

915
00:57:34,640 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 1: it's all but impossible to remove it. So the thought

916
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:41,280
Speaker 1: process was, for whatever reasons, we don't like romney Care,

917
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: which eventually became Trump Obamacare, but that traces its roots

918
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:50,120
Speaker 1: to the Heritage Foundation and a fairly right wing free

919
00:57:50,160 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 1: market um roots. The idea of replacing it with something

920
00:57:57,560 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 1: sounded great on the campaign trail. Nobody had done any

921
00:58:01,720 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 1: of the heavy lifting. I'm still apparently has no staff

922
00:58:04,160 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 1: people to have picked up the phone and called Paul

923
00:58:07,040 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: Ryan and said, could you please send us over you

924
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 1: know HR sixty three or whatever it is your legislation is,

925
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:15,440
Speaker 1: so that we can take a look at it for

926
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:18,520
Speaker 1: your Obamacare. There was nothing. There was nothing there. And

927
00:58:18,800 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 1: I think this was true of so many other things.

928
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: I think he thought that the Republicans had a fully

929
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 1: developed tax reform plan and all he had to do

930
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: was endorse it. There was nothing there. There was nothing.

931
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 1: What have these guys been doing for eight years other

932
00:58:33,520 --> 00:58:37,920
Speaker 1: than that's it. That's it. That's all they did. I

933
00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: mean you've argued that the Republicans are better as the

934
00:58:41,120 --> 00:58:44,680
Speaker 1: out of party rangers, out of power ragers than actually

935
00:58:45,120 --> 00:58:48,480
Speaker 1: having to run government. Yes, that's quite clear. But I

936
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 1: want I'm not going to let the Democrats entirely off

937
00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 1: the hook here. They don't deserve to be left. Why

938
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:58,080
Speaker 1: couldn't they have drafted an infrastructure plan? Why couldn't they?

939
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 1: You know, a couple of weeks ago, we had a

940
00:59:00,320 --> 00:59:03,080
Speaker 1: big debate in the Senate and the House about we're

941
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: gonna allow we're gonna put one point five trillion dollars

942
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,200
Speaker 1: of increase in the national debt into the budget to

943
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,760
Speaker 1: accommodate the revenue loss from the tax plan we're going

944
00:59:14,800 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 1: to pass. Why didn't some Democrat offer as a substitute

945
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 1: a one point five trillion dollar infrastructure plan. See, they

946
00:59:24,400 --> 00:59:27,000
Speaker 1: don't have the sense to do that. You're absolutely right

947
00:59:27,000 --> 00:59:29,840
Speaker 1: on that, because given the lack of staff and the

948
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:33,000
Speaker 1: lack of anyone willing to roll up their sleeves and

949
00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 1: the Trump administration and do the heavy lifting, why haven't

950
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,480
Speaker 1: Schumer and company said, Hey, you wanted a profit repatriation

951
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 1: and an infrastructure bill here, you don't even have to

952
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 1: put our names on it. Slap your name on it

953
00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:48,080
Speaker 1: and work with this. I think the problem is the

954
00:59:48,120 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 1: Democrats have internalized the basic Republican view of the world. Okay,

955
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:59,480
Speaker 1: they argue within parameters that are established by the Republicans.

956
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: So Republicans come out and say we're going to have

957
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: a tax cut. The Democrat reaction instinctively say say, well,

958
01:00:08,160 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 1: we don't want to cut it for the for the rich.

959
01:00:10,560 --> 01:00:13,160
Speaker 1: We need to tilt us more towards the middle class.

960
01:00:13,480 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: But we're still but we still agree with the principle

961
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,360
Speaker 1: that we need a huge tax cut. We just want

962
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: to reoriented towards our an on whatever. The Republicans so

963
01:00:23,480 --> 01:00:26,200
Speaker 1: so they don't seem to have the guts or the

964
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:29,560
Speaker 1: intelligence to say we don't need a goddamn tax cut.

965
01:00:29,800 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 1: What we need is all this other stuff. We've got

966
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:37,440
Speaker 1: problems with climate change. We have one hurricane after another.

967
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:40,760
Speaker 1: We need to be building sea walls across you know,

968
01:00:40,880 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 1: the the entire southern part of the United States. Look

969
01:00:43,320 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 1: at Puerto Rico. I mean this, and and and why

970
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:53,480
Speaker 1: Democrats are afraid to talk about the seventy five million

971
01:00:53,560 --> 01:00:58,439
Speaker 1: dollars that Donald Trump has spent so far just golfing. Well,

972
01:00:58,480 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: you know, if it was the Republicans would be screaming it,

973
01:01:01,520 --> 01:01:04,440
Speaker 1: but they did. They did scream about it. It's very

974
01:01:04,440 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 1: easy to find Trump's tweets about it. So so there's

975
01:01:07,160 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: two things I have to remind you, Bruce, and these

976
01:01:09,240 --> 01:01:12,920
Speaker 1: are these are very very important. One is the United

977
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 1: States is the most heavily text country in the world.

978
01:01:15,240 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 1: And second, climate change is the Chinese hoax. We know

979
01:01:19,080 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: both of those from from some of the tweets from

980
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: the President. So why should we worry about either of

981
01:01:23,560 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 1: those things? Well, because the truth matters and those are lies.

982
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: Thank you for the nicely. So before I get to

983
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: my favorite questions, there's one last question I have to

984
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 1: ask you on the issue of the truth matters. So

985
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:43,520
Speaker 1: you you followed a fairly standard DC career arc You

986
01:01:43,720 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 1: worked in Congress, then you worked in the White House,

987
01:01:46,760 --> 01:01:49,160
Speaker 1: and then you left to write some books and worked

988
01:01:49,200 --> 01:01:52,480
Speaker 1: with some think tanks. You were at both CATO and

989
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:56,960
Speaker 1: the National Center for Policy Analysis, Theritage at the Harris Foundation.

990
01:01:57,360 --> 01:02:00,320
Speaker 1: But and I used to read a lot of these

991
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 1: white papers that came out of the think tanks decades ago.

992
01:02:05,040 --> 01:02:08,919
Speaker 1: But my understanding of these think tanks are they are

993
01:02:09,080 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: no longer objective pursuers of the truth starting from a

994
01:02:14,280 --> 01:02:19,360
Speaker 1: certain fundamental ideological perspective. Now it's what's they're just shills

995
01:02:19,400 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: for higher what sort of stuff can we crank out

996
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:28,200
Speaker 1: to pursue what this industry wants or or that association wants.

997
01:02:29,040 --> 01:02:33,720
Speaker 1: Have think tanks lost their ability to objectively think pretty much.

998
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:36,080
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're talking about Washington think tanks, I

999
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:38,760
Speaker 1: think the most part. Uh. There may be still some

1000
01:02:38,880 --> 01:02:43,800
Speaker 1: affiliated with universities and such that are worth paying attention to.

1001
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 1: But in a way, the the Internet made the think

1002
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 1: tank as it was originally created superfluous, because what think

1003
01:02:51,760 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: tanks did is they're the intermediaries between the policy people

1004
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: and the academics who theoretically were the the sources of

1005
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 1: of original uh deep thinking. And so the idea, at

1006
01:03:05,920 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: least when I was a Heritage Foundation in the nineteen eighties,

1007
01:03:09,120 --> 01:03:12,280
Speaker 1: is okay, you know, we'll talk to Milton Friedman. He'll

1008
01:03:12,320 --> 01:03:14,760
Speaker 1: give us his ideas. You write them up in a

1009
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:19,120
Speaker 1: way that a policymaker can understand, will pump this stuff

1010
01:03:19,160 --> 01:03:22,200
Speaker 1: out onto Capitol Hill. Because there's the pre Internet era,

1011
01:03:22,320 --> 01:03:26,160
Speaker 1: you had to have a printed documentation that was written

1012
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:30,120
Speaker 1: in a short way easily understandable, and that was what

1013
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 1: our job was, to be the middleman. But let's let's

1014
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:37,440
Speaker 1: get to some of um our favorite questions. These are

1015
01:03:37,440 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 1: what I ask all of our guests. Let's let's start

1016
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,800
Speaker 1: with UM, your background. Tell us the most important thing

1017
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:48,720
Speaker 1: that people don't know about your background? Well these days

1018
01:03:48,760 --> 01:03:51,560
Speaker 1: would probably be that I was a senior fellow at

1019
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 1: the Heritage Foundation for two years, or that my boss

1020
01:03:54,680 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 1: in the White House was a guy named Gary Bauer,

1021
01:03:57,240 --> 01:04:01,280
Speaker 1: who is one of the uh epitomes of of UH

1022
01:04:02,040 --> 01:04:07,400
Speaker 1: Evangelical Christianity. UM, tell us about some of your early mentors.

1023
01:04:07,400 --> 01:04:10,600
Speaker 1: Who do you think was most influential in shaping your

1024
01:04:11,240 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 1: views and career. Oh, Jack Kemp was unquestionably the person

1025
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 1: who influenced my thinking. I remember when I used to

1026
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 1: work for him. I would sometimes think I was wrong

1027
01:04:21,840 --> 01:04:23,760
Speaker 1: and or he was wrong and I was right, And

1028
01:04:24,480 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 1: eventually I realized he was right and I was wrong.

1029
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: And I've discovered that about a lot of other people.

1030
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:32,880
Speaker 1: There was a an economist named herb Stein that I

1031
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:35,960
Speaker 1: would argue with all the time, and the last and

1032
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 1: probably the last time forever that I was at the

1033
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 1: American Enterprise Institute, I confess that in every instance in

1034
01:04:42,480 --> 01:04:44,840
Speaker 1: which her I thought her was wrong and I was right.

1035
01:04:44,840 --> 01:04:46,880
Speaker 1: It was the other way around. And you know, so

1036
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:50,479
Speaker 1: I've I've been and you pointed out my comment about

1037
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:55,160
Speaker 1: Paul Krugman, so I'm trying to make amends. Tell us, um,

1038
01:04:55,400 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 1: what other politicians influenced your thinking about out both partisan

1039
01:05:01,840 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: politics and policy. Well, if you're talking today, I'm still

1040
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: educating myself. I spend an enormous amount of time reading

1041
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:14,480
Speaker 1: the literature, especially, and I've learned that I have to

1042
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:20,440
Speaker 1: study things like psychology and sociology, uh that in political science,

1043
01:05:20,880 --> 01:05:25,120
Speaker 1: that to try to understand why things are so screwy.

1044
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:28,680
Speaker 1: And the academics are only just barely scratching the surface.

1045
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 1: But I do believe the psychologists will eventually be the

1046
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:36,240
Speaker 1: ones who tell us that is that seems to be

1047
01:05:36,280 --> 01:05:40,560
Speaker 1: taking place on on economics and investing for sure. Tell

1048
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:46,640
Speaker 1: us about some of your favorite books. Oh, I hate

1049
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:48,959
Speaker 1: to say this, but I don't actually read very many

1050
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:52,800
Speaker 1: books because I read all day long on the internet.

1051
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:55,320
Speaker 1: I'm just kind of a junkie about this sort of stuff.

1052
01:05:55,840 --> 01:05:57,880
Speaker 1: One of the things I talk about that I'm sure

1053
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:00,480
Speaker 1: you're familiar with is A is an RSS A reader

1054
01:06:01,200 --> 01:06:03,920
Speaker 1: which I depend on absolutely to keep me up to

1055
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:06,920
Speaker 1: date on all the stuff that is being published all

1056
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 1: around the internet, and it it aggregates and brings these

1057
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:14,840
Speaker 1: specific items from specific websites to me directly, so I

1058
01:06:14,840 --> 01:06:18,200
Speaker 1: don't have to I never go to homepages anymore. I

1059
01:06:18,320 --> 01:06:20,600
Speaker 1: just read what comes to me and my RSS reader,

1060
01:06:20,960 --> 01:06:23,720
Speaker 1: and I do this all day long. I get thousands

1061
01:06:23,720 --> 01:06:26,040
Speaker 1: and thousands of items that I have to scroll through,

1062
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:28,360
Speaker 1: and so the last thing I want to do is

1063
01:06:28,960 --> 01:06:32,640
Speaker 1: read for pleasure. And secondarily, when I write things, I

1064
01:06:32,720 --> 01:06:34,479
Speaker 1: like to be able to link to them. I think

1065
01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:39,520
Speaker 1: links are underutilized by readers and your reference that in

1066
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: the book as well, that when you're writing you have

1067
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:46,720
Speaker 1: to not only source specific details, but source um your

1068
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:49,600
Speaker 1: sources via a link. Well, that's right. I think that

1069
01:06:49,880 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 1: a lot of writers are lackadaisical about using links, which

1070
01:06:53,680 --> 01:06:57,880
Speaker 1: may explain why readers are lackadaisical. I'll give you an example.

1071
01:06:57,960 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 1: I was I used to write for a public a

1072
01:07:00,000 --> 01:07:02,920
Speaker 1: shan and one day I was writing something where I

1073
01:07:03,000 --> 01:07:06,120
Speaker 1: quoted Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, and

1074
01:07:06,160 --> 01:07:08,600
Speaker 1: I quoted her and I provided a link that went

1075
01:07:08,680 --> 01:07:11,240
Speaker 1: to the Department of State website where you could find

1076
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:18,080
Speaker 1: the text of the speech that she gave and where. Well,

1077
01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:20,800
Speaker 1: later I was I needed to find that quote again,

1078
01:07:20,840 --> 01:07:22,880
Speaker 1: So I went to my article, clicked on the link.

1079
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:25,520
Speaker 1: It did not take me to the State Department. It

1080
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:29,640
Speaker 1: took me to some random article on that organ at

1081
01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:34,760
Speaker 1: that publications website that happened to mention Hillary Clinton in passing.

1082
01:07:35,200 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 1: It was not documentation for the statement that I need.

1083
01:07:38,440 --> 01:07:42,200
Speaker 1: It had nothing whatsoever to do with what the editor.

1084
01:07:42,760 --> 01:07:46,400
Speaker 1: But whoever checks your own links after they're published, You see,

1085
01:07:46,640 --> 01:07:48,200
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of this sort of thing

1086
01:07:48,280 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: goes on, and it's not the writer's fault, and and

1087
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:54,720
Speaker 1: and so anyway, I think there's a lot of blame

1088
01:07:54,800 --> 01:07:58,600
Speaker 1: to go around here. But I do think that quite

1089
01:07:58,600 --> 01:08:01,720
Speaker 1: often I'll come across some worry that sounds quite interesting.

1090
01:08:01,760 --> 01:08:03,960
Speaker 1: I'll click on the link and it turns out it's

1091
01:08:04,040 --> 01:08:06,160
Speaker 1: it's it's a secondary source, and I have to click

1092
01:08:06,400 --> 01:08:09,520
Speaker 1: three or four more times to find the original source.

1093
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:12,919
Speaker 1: I think writers should do more to try to give

1094
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:16,800
Speaker 1: credit to the original source that broke a story, or

1095
01:08:17,000 --> 01:08:19,599
Speaker 1: is the primary source. It makes a lot of sense.

1096
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 1: So we've seen huge changes in politics and policies. What

1097
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:27,400
Speaker 1: do you think is the single biggest shift that is

1098
01:08:27,439 --> 01:08:31,760
Speaker 1: affecting the state of modern politics. I think it's that

1099
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:35,720
Speaker 1: the Overton window, which we discussed earlier, has moved very

1100
01:08:35,760 --> 01:08:39,160
Speaker 1: sharply to the right, so that what used to be

1101
01:08:39,280 --> 01:08:43,280
Speaker 1: considered the center is now the left wing, so to

1102
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:46,920
Speaker 1: speak of policy debate, and all of the debate takes

1103
01:08:46,960 --> 01:08:50,640
Speaker 1: place between the center and the far far right, and

1104
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:54,800
Speaker 1: the right is very clever about continuously pushing to the

1105
01:08:54,920 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 1: right so that positions outright racism, knee know, Nazism, people

1106
01:09:01,960 --> 01:09:07,520
Speaker 1: going around carrying flags withou Nazi the Suastika on them

1107
01:09:07,760 --> 01:09:11,879
Speaker 1: is not treated as outrageous or beyond the pale. It's oh,

1108
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:14,400
Speaker 1: that's what the right is doing today on all sides.

1109
01:09:14,520 --> 01:09:18,559
Speaker 1: This is find people on all sides. It's it's crazy

1110
01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:21,320
Speaker 1: that it's see. I don't see that as a right

1111
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:25,120
Speaker 1: left thing. I there's a spectrum of right left, and

1112
01:09:25,360 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: as you describe beyond the pale, that sort of stuff

1113
01:09:29,040 --> 01:09:35,840
Speaker 1: is beyond the pale, and what's disapp that's normal behavior.

1114
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:42,280
Speaker 1: I don't understand why there aren't more rational conservatives. And

1115
01:09:42,680 --> 01:09:45,400
Speaker 1: by the way, you can look at National Review screams

1116
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:49,040
Speaker 1: about this. You can look at American Conservative screaming about this,

1117
01:09:49,720 --> 01:09:52,560
Speaker 1: but you don't quite hear the same sort of pushback

1118
01:09:52,720 --> 01:09:56,800
Speaker 1: from as you mentioned Fox and other places, certainly not

1119
01:09:56,880 --> 01:09:59,000
Speaker 1: to the same degree as n r O has just

1120
01:09:59,120 --> 01:10:03,599
Speaker 1: been all over this. It's amazing. Well, the the facade

1121
01:10:03,720 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 1: is cracking. I mean, I think the Corker flag business

1122
01:10:07,040 --> 01:10:12,200
Speaker 1: is potentially far reaching in its impact because finally there

1123
01:10:12,200 --> 01:10:17,439
Speaker 1: are people articulating uh views that perhaps you and I

1124
01:10:17,520 --> 01:10:20,679
Speaker 1: may have, but they have credibility because they are elected

1125
01:10:20,800 --> 01:10:24,680
Speaker 1: officials in the Republican Party. Corker is still chairman of

1126
01:10:24,760 --> 01:10:27,840
Speaker 1: the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He's in a position to

1127
01:10:27,920 --> 01:10:31,719
Speaker 1: actually do something. So let's get to our final question.

1128
01:10:32,439 --> 01:10:36,479
Speaker 1: Um final two questions. If some millennial recent college grad

1129
01:10:36,600 --> 01:10:40,120
Speaker 1: came to you and said, I'm interested in a career

1130
01:10:40,640 --> 01:10:43,880
Speaker 1: in either politics or policy, what sort of advice would

1131
01:10:43,880 --> 01:10:49,320
Speaker 1: you give them? Well, just as a pure career element,

1132
01:10:49,360 --> 01:10:52,040
Speaker 1: I think the health ish area is going to be

1133
01:10:52,240 --> 01:10:56,679
Speaker 1: a huge continuing growth area. The baby boomers are getting older,

1134
01:10:57,400 --> 01:11:02,360
Speaker 1: gerontology care for my generation. I think this is the

1135
01:11:02,400 --> 01:11:05,960
Speaker 1: way the wealth will be transferred from our generation to

1136
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:08,640
Speaker 1: the younger generation. They basically are going to have to

1137
01:11:08,680 --> 01:11:11,639
Speaker 1: take care of us in our old age and that's fine.

1138
01:11:12,080 --> 01:11:14,360
Speaker 1: And then our final question, what is it that you

1139
01:11:14,439 --> 01:11:18,040
Speaker 1: know about politics today? You wish you knew thirty years

1140
01:11:18,080 --> 01:11:22,000
Speaker 1: ago when you were first getting started. Well, you know,

1141
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:25,880
Speaker 1: that's a continuing problem. I I wish I had understood

1142
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:30,720
Speaker 1: tribal loyalty and the extent to which people on the

1143
01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 1: right have are not motivated by ideas. They it's just

1144
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:40,400
Speaker 1: guts and and it's all about the tribe. And if

1145
01:11:40,439 --> 01:11:44,720
Speaker 1: you're a Republican and you're saying something, and I'm a Republican,

1146
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:47,599
Speaker 1: I have to support you, have to agree with you.

1147
01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:52,080
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to independently evaluate what you said because

1148
01:11:52,080 --> 01:11:54,439
Speaker 1: I might discover you're wrong, and if and if I

1149
01:11:54,479 --> 01:11:57,479
Speaker 1: discover you're wrong, that creates a crisis for me. So

1150
01:11:57,560 --> 01:11:59,240
Speaker 1: it's better if I just don't even think about it.

1151
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:04,599
Speaker 1: I just lock step, say yes, you know Hale, Kyle Hitler,

1152
01:12:04,760 --> 01:12:09,360
Speaker 1: you know, us versus them. We have been speaking with

1153
01:12:09,400 --> 01:12:12,960
Speaker 1: Bruce Bartlett, author of The Truth Matters UH and former

1154
01:12:13,040 --> 01:12:18,679
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan and first George Bush administration policy adviser. If

1155
01:12:18,720 --> 01:12:21,200
Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, be sure and look up an

1156
01:12:21,240 --> 01:12:25,960
Speaker 1: inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes, Overcast, SoundCloud,

1157
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:29,760
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com wherever fine podcasts are sold, and you

1158
01:12:29,800 --> 01:12:33,080
Speaker 1: can see any of our previous hundred and sixty or

1159
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:38,000
Speaker 1: so such conversations. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions

1160
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:42,240
Speaker 1: right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net.

1161
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,360
Speaker 1: I would be remiss if I did not thank our

1162
01:12:45,400 --> 01:12:48,840
Speaker 1: crack team here who helps put together the podcasts each week.

1163
01:12:49,200 --> 01:12:53,639
Speaker 1: Medina Parwana is my producer and audio engineer. Taylor Riggs

1164
01:12:53,800 --> 01:12:57,000
Speaker 1: is my booker. Michael Batnick is our head of research.

1165
01:12:57,680 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Retolts. You've been listening to Matt Staers in

1166
01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:12,080
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio. H