WEBVTT - William Kristol Wants Biden to Succeed 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:05.600 I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing 0:00:06.120 --> 0:00:11.520 from my Heart radio. In February, none other than Bill 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:16.200 Crystal tweeted, we are all Democrats now. From one of 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:20.000 the nation's leading conservatives, it was yet another sign of 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:26.119 the chasm between moderate Republicans and Trump loyalists. Crystel earned 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:30.520 his political stripes serving in the Reagan and George H. W. 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.479 Bush administrations, then as founder and editor of The Weekly 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.919 Standard for more than two decades, he argued for hawkish 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:44.360 foreign policy, lower taxes, and against universal health care. After 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:49.199 the January sixth insurrection, Crystal says our democracy is facing 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.960 an internal crisis. It's all enough to make him regret 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.600 Hillary Clinton's two thousand sixteen loss. We would be much 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:02.200 better off. Just reckless disregard science and denial of truth 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.759 and demagoguery of Trump that's unmatched, in my view, really 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.440 by by a major party nominee of either of either 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:11.600 party in modern times, and bad enough that he got 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:13.400 the domination. I thought that would do real damage to 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.120 the country. But then winning the election, in which obviously 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:21.480 that damage is by no means over or even beginning 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.280 to be over. I think the degree to which having 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:28.160 a really reckless demagogue, nativist, authoritarian demagogue as president for 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.800 four years, that takes a while to recover from. You know, 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.479 New York is always new Trump. Yes, Trump was a vacuous, 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.000 I mean vapid nonentity in New York and people wouldn't 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:41.000 do business with him. Well, I mean, I think in 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.720 New York society, which I don't put myself in New 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.080 York society. I'm not an astor, if you will, but 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.360 but in my life of tickets and tables and going 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.200 to charitable events for the last thirty thirty five years, 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:54.800 Trump was always a drive by presidents. You know, he 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.560 had the tuxedo in the glove compartment, He jumped out 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:00.040 of the limo, snap snap on the red carpet on. 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:04.400 Never a tablemate, never a conversation to be had. But 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:07.840 let me switch back. Your father was obviously this figure 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.480 that looms large and the neo conservative movement. What was 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:13.400 your home life like? What was the intellectual were you 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:16.600 like the conservative Kennedy's at the dinner table you had 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.760 to beat Foreign Affairs Magazine before you sat down for 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.280 your salad course. No, I think my parents of anything bent, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:25.720 were a little bit backwards to you know, let me 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.639 go play baseball or football or basketball and Riverside Park 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.440 and and we were all big sports fans, including my father, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.919 and so many of my memories, like everyone else's memories, 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.320 I suppose of being ten, twelve, fourteen years old is 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:41.200 watching TV with my father and my mother, not so 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:44.400 much in sports, but watching, uh, the Jets and the 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:45.920 Mets that I was. I was a big New York 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.320 sports fan. And it was the sixties. You were Jets, Mats, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.520 not Giants Yankees. Yes, my junior senior in high school 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:55.000 featured the Jets winning the huge upset in the Super 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.600 bowlth three, sixty met swinning the World Series and sixty 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.240 nine and the nixt winning in nineteen seventy with Little 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.760 Street hobbling onto the court. So that was where I 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:04.880 always felt like. I never was quite as much of 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:06.560 a sports fan after that, because how can you do 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:08.880 better than root for these teams, which, as you say, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.639 we're pretty hopeless in the beginning of the decade when 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.919 I started to do do it for them, and one by 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:15.920 the end of the decade. But when they won these titles, 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.280 it was a shock to New York. Yeah, people forget 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.120 that it's like, well, of course, you know Joe Namoth 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.000 Willow Street, but it was it was in the Mets 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.560 were of course a total shock. So so that was 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:26.640 an exciting I had a good youth in that respect, 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.799 in terms of sports, and and honestly we watched a 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.960 lot of mysteries on TV and stuff, so we were 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.160 we were pretty um, I mean, my parents were intellectuals, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.800 and I grew up surrounded by more books, I suppose 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.520 than an average kid, and then therefore did pick up 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.840 a lot of that obviously. But actually, and also in 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.600 the sixties, this is sort of before neo conservatives, and 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.560 so they were kind of old fashioned liberals. They supported 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.200 Hubert hung Free from president and sixty eight and what changed, well, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:53.640 they would say, and they would have said, and I 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.040 would agree with this, that the left, the old fashioned 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.480 lived list and got overtaken by the new left, and 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.800 they didn't like that. Around what time, late sixties, I 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:05.200 would say, I mean, in New York the teacher strike 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.640 was a big deal. But the failure of John Lindsay 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.120 as mayor, the sense that domestic policy things were falling apart, 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.360 crime was increasing, the city wasn't being well governed. Some 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.400 of these big government programs weren't working too well. And 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.960 then in foreign policy that kind of George willgoverned victory 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:23.479 and the Democratic Party a very decent man, but a 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:26.360 very devilsh view of America's well in the world. So 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.240 they moved to the right, and uh, methought they were 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.200 always kind of heterodoxy liberals, I would say, sort of 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.880 contrarian and didn't just take liberal pieties for granted. But 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:39.880 uh yeah, in the seventies they certainly that's when do 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.680 conservatives came into existence. It was originally a term of 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.880 opprobrium used by a Democratic socialist, Michael Harrington, who attacked 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:48.520 my thought. He thought it would sort of be the 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.600 It would discredit all these liberals who were retaking liberalism, 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:53.960 to call them by the dread word. This is so 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.800 long ago conservative, ordo conservative. But he couldn't quite say conservative, 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.720 as they obviously weren't conservatives from youth. So they were 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.200 neo conservatives. And remember my father wrote My father wrote 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:05.280 a piece I think in nine seventy four saying, Okay, look, 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.120 I guess if they want to call me indio conservative, 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:10.400 I'll accept the term. A lot of his friends resisted 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.960 it throughout the seventies say no, we're the true liberals. 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:15.160 But you know how politics is, you sort of end 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:17.960 up with the term. They stick on you when you 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.760 talk about McGovern, devish and so forth. And I come 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.400 from a different place where I believe that, you know, 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.400 Vietnam is the stain we're never going to be able 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.680 to wash away. That's when the country really took the 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:32.720 turn down, and we've never recovered from that, and and 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:36.400 I'm curious as to whether we ever will because we 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.880 knew it was wrong way back when we knew Ran 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.080 Corporation Elsberg all that we knew it was wrong, and 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.960 when we pressed on. But the point is that how 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.560 much longer do you think the United States can afford? 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.120 And you can correct me if you think this is 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.560 that this is not an apt description to be this 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:54.320 world policeman going around the world and telling everybody else 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.000 what to do all the time in order to benefit 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:58.680 ourselves economically. How much longer can we afford to do 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.680 that financially? Well, I think we can afford to do it, 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.440 or in the sense I think the price we would 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:05.719 pay for not doing some of it is even greater. 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.800 I mean, Vietnam was obviously in retrospect, I mean a mistake. 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.880 I think we stumbled into it with decent intentions Kennedy 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:16.040 and to some degree Johnson, people like McNamara, who was, 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.760 you know, a person who wanted to do the right thing. 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:21.760 And then we got out in a way that was 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:23.560 was understandable why we got out the way we did. 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.440 And then of course Vietnam fell on seventy five and Cambodia, 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.680 it was pretty disastrous. On the other hand, Reagan came 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.120 back at eight and we won the Cold War, and 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:33.760 it felt it really what I was that firing a shot. 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.960 And in the nineties, you know, we managed to help 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.839 construct a Europe that was kind of whole and free. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:43.800 We defeated Milosovich. So I would still defend the kind 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:48.000 of US, uh, the model of US internationalism and to 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:52.120 some degree of interventionism that held through most of those years. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:54.680 And I think we had a world that wasn't getting 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:56.960 better and in pretty good shape for all the mistakes 0:06:57.000 --> 0:06:59.680 that various administrations have made. But you believe that there 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:01.679 are things that we need to do in this guy. 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:05.000 When I look at America now, I see, you know, 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.680 not just the floorboards creaking and the paint peeling. I mean, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.400 I see that this country is desperate for forget about 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.160 the COVID and and and and as Howard Dean said 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.400 on this program, will be interviewed him. I said, will 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.360 we be in trouble financially if we keep printing money 0:07:17.440 --> 0:07:19.440 to address the COVID economy? Said, We're gonna be in 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.000 trouble if we don't. We have to print this money 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:23.800 to keep this economy going, or we'll be in real 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:25.960 trouble if we don't. But my point is that you 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:32.280 turn around and education, healthcare, infrastructure, what's going on in Texas. 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:35.880 Everywhere you turn around, the country is fraying in terms 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.320 of some kind of infrastructure. How much longer can we 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.800 go on giving the Pentagon a blank check to do 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:43.880 whatever they want to do, to buy all this crap 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.040 bombs and planes and submarines, everything that we may or 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.800 may not need, when there's so many other things we 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:51.920 need to take care of this country right now. And 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.800 the Pentagon is what about seven fifty billion dollars a year, 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:57.160 so it's about three and a half four percent of 0:07:57.240 --> 0:07:59.720 g d P honestly, and we're about to spend one 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:02.720 point trillion dollars on the COVID relief bill, which I 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:04.960 think is fine, but it just shows how much it 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.160 dwarfs whatever saving is you're going to get for the 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.560 Pentagon with fifty billion a hundred billions. So I really 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.120 don't think it's fundamental. And I would say the COVID 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.960 Covidge reminds us the world is inter connected. It matters 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.840 to us how the w h O is governed, it 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:22.040 matters to us how China is governed. And so the 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.240 notion that we can just sort of not worry so 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.760 much about the world, I don't think it's correct. And 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:28.560 then I think the liberal answer what I just said 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.920 would be, well, we can worry about the world, but 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:32.480 we don't need all the military side of it. But 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:35.040 I think the military side backs up the diplomatic side. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.600 So I guess I'm I'm with the sort of Clinton 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.760 type Democrats on this now. And I think the Biden 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.480 administration and having reasonable defense preparedness and defense spending and 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:49.680 forward deployment to keep things stable and safe around the world. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.000 And I think and also free trade and some of 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:53.439 these things that are out of fashion. Look at the 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:55.920 vaccine development, which is really a tribute I would say 0:08:55.960 --> 0:09:02.199 to the kind of integrated flow capital and and also 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:06.160 of immigration accent only uh to America who they're They're 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:09.520 responsible for so many these scientific and medical breakthroughs out 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.600 of also just the medical care we're getting. So I'd 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.760 say I'm I'm a pretty unembarrassed globalist, and I think 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.080 part of that is having a reasonable military, you know, 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:26.839 capability neo conservative Bill Crystal. If you enjoy hearing from 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:30.840 independent minded conservatives, check out my two thousand and twelve 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:36.040 conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George Will. Today, we 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.120 have this cornucopia of news sources. People define journalism on 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.120 their own terms, get it on their own time. I 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.160 was told by an activist in South Carolina during the 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:50.120 primary this year that a survey showed that sevent of 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.160 all Republican primary voters in South Carolina get all, not most, 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.319 all of their news from Fox News. On a Republican 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:00.360 candidate buys an ad on Fox News, he's not broad casting, 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:05.080 he's narrow casting right in the Republican voters. Here more 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.440 of my conversation with George Will and here's the thing 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:12.760 dot org. After the break, Bill Crystal walks us through 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.320 the recent history of the Republican Party right to the 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:29.320 point where Trump lost Crystal's vote. I'm Alec Baldwin, and 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.000 you're listening to Here's the thing. Bill Crystal says his 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:38.079 initial enthusiasm for social media has faded. The changes have 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.320 been greater than I at first expected. I liked the 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.040 you know, the democratization of news to some degree. I 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:47.080 thought it was a healthy thing. I thought I discovered 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:49.280 personally a lot of people. I learned a lot from 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.160 whom I wouldn't have discovered in the old days, because 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:53.880 they wouldn't have been you know, fifty two year old 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:56.080 people who had moved moved their way, white males who 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:58.439 had moved up in the pecking order. And we're now 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.720 on partly frankly right. And so the kind of flowering 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.600 of a lot of voices was in many ways a 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.040 healthy thing, and I underestimated the damage it would do. Though, 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.520 the degree to which the echo chamber character of social 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.760 media Facebook, I think in particular, though, but also other 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:17.480 parts of social media have allowed people to live in 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.600 their own worlds and and believe that a lot of 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.400 things that aren't true. And also the kind of rewarding 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:27.040 of extremism and of a sort of superficial hot takes 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.760 as opposed to, you know, more serious consideration of things. 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:32.920 Having said all that, you know, when I talked to 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:35.720 young people go college campus, you know there's still that 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:40.720 hunger I think for real information and thoughtful analysis of things. 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:43.880 So I'm not despairing about it, but it does require 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:46.199 fresh thinking. I mean, I think in terms of regulation 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.400 and how we structure or how what government centers we 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:54.319 provide and distincenters for organizations like Facebook. Um, that's something 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.280 we've just let it develop on its own. Maybe that 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.320 was necessary for a while, understandable, but it is the 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:02.800 wild West, and it does require, Like the wild West 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:07.680 eventually did some law and order, some regulations, some sheriffs, Yeah, 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.439 some rules to try to get people to Uh, should 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.600 we bring back the fairness doctrine? I don't know how 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:15.599 important that would be at this point, honestly, and I 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:17.240 don't even know quite what it would applied to. I 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.200 guess is Fox News and news organization? Well, no, I 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:22.320 mean Fox News is so I was on Fox and 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:24.840 on the Sunday Show mostly I've been every week and 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.480 then somewhat on on the Special Report panel when when 0:12:28.440 --> 0:12:30.800 Britt Hume was the host of special Report and then 0:12:30.840 --> 0:12:33.520 a little bit with right there. I would say Fox 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:37.720 News was always conservative. It wasn't quite fair and balanced. 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:39.560 It was a sort of tugging cheek thing. But on 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.559 the other hand, it was very different. It's very different 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.520 have a conservative leading or even conservative oriented a news 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.920 organization with some shows with a little bit of demagoguery 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:53.000 frankly from Bill O'Reilly and a little bit of silliness 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.440 from Sean Hannity, but still kept in check mostly, I 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.640 would say, and balanced by other networks. And that is 0:13:00.720 --> 0:13:05.360 very different from the true conspiracy, theorizing no holds barred, 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.840 denagar green dativism, racism. Really that you now get. I 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.760 think it's I remember when Trump did the birth of 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:15.760 stuff inve I just thought it was ludicrous and dismissed 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:17.280 it on Fox to use, and I would say most 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:19.600 of my fellow panelists did as well. That Fox did 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.480 give him that platform on Fox and Friends, but we 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.439 thought that was kind of the ridiculous show in any way. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.520 People thought it was just idiocy. We underestimated how much 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.520 damage it would do. Obviously, I'm not trying to say 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.160 that it wasn't a big there'sn't a lot a lot 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.040 of people, including me, should be held responsible for being 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.560 part of that organization to the degree we were, but 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.360 I think the degree to which it spiraled out of control, 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:42.480 it's a big difference between having a sort of conservative 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.360 you know, pro tax cart, pro you know, conservative judges, whatever, 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.800 news organization and having one that truly deals and in 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.520 saying conspiracy theories and one that's a mouthpiece for the GOP. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:55.680 And as a total matter, yeah, we criticized. I mean, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.080 I was very I was pro the Iraq War, but 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:00.679 I was very critical of rumsfelt thought he should be fired. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:02.959 Was with McCain and wanting dout more troops in a 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.160 different strategy. And you know, I said that repeatedly on Fox. 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:07.800 It was a little bit of bristling at times. Was 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.760 they were already a little bit getting into the mode of, gee, 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.280 we don't want to antagonize the Bush administration too much 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:16.360 Obama to drive them a little crazy, especially in the 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.200 second term. And I I don't really understand why it's 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.640 in retrospect. In retrospect, was President Obama such a radical president? 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.760 Not really, But I feel like looking back at what 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:27.200 I said to I mean, I don't think I said 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:31.320 anything terrible racist or you know, crazy, but the intensity 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.320 even of my opposition on some of the issues, uh, 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.960 the President Obama, I can't, I gotta say, looking back, 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.000 I find it a little startling, you know. I I 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.000 still would wish to structure healthcare reform differently and so 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:46.120 forth that he would, but I don't quite remember. It's 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.280 hard to put yourself back there. I don't think in 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:50.920 my case, honestly it was race. Maybe it wasn't some people's, 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.960 but the general spiraling of the right into a kind 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:58.880 of insanity over the last decade is something that's going 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:00.960 to take a while to just disentangled. But I do 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.920 think the media incent is what you began with like 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.360 is an important part of it. The incentators were always 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.640 to get more extreme. Who is a person speaking of 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.120 the way that the the media has transformed over the 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.320 last many years, who's someone deceased? Who's the news for you? 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.800 You really admired from yesteryear, if you will, that you'd 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:23.160 love to see that kind of person come back. Yeah, No, 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.920 it's I mean you mentioned to brink Huntly Wrinkley and 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:28.680 I got to know David a little bit, and it's 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.080 very last iteration when he hosted the Sunday Show on 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.680 ABC that I was on a few times when he 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.000 still did it, and I think six and that kind 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:39.560 of worldly wisdom, a little bit of irony and a 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:41.480 little bit of I've seen it all. I'm not going 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.280 to get too worked up. At the time, I thought 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.600 I was young, and fairly young, and I was a 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.800 little more kind of an enthusiast one way or the other. 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.120 But I thought, in a way, that is a healthy 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.160 thing for people to see, you know, what these things coming. 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.800 Let's not think that every policy fight, every disagreement, every 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.600 confirmation of some on is the end of the world. 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.520 And I do think that kind of wisdom someone who's 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.640 seen real war, World War two, who had seen real 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:12.920 social transformation and the civil rights movement and real battles 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.040 against you know, deeply in trans racism and so forth, 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.040 and that kind of perspective is something that people don't 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:21.200 don't have much these days. I mean, I miss my 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.320 friend Charles Craudhammer, who I think would say now today 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.040 probably what I would say about myself. They probably went 0:16:27.040 --> 0:16:30.080 a little a little too harsh and his statements on 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:33.920 Obama and on the Democrats in that period, Where were 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.320 you too harsh on Obama. Well, I don't even know 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:40.080 that I would pull back too many of my differences 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.600 with him on some topics, whether it's Obamacare, which I 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.440 was critical of, or the Iran Deal and so forth. 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.960 But I just think the tone was too you know, 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.960 absolutist and uh just extreme in the sense that how 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.720 much damage Obama and the Democrats were doing and how 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:00.120 important it was to check him. And I mean, I'm 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.840 glad that he was checked in certain ways. But two 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.560 thousand nine, for example, the Tea Party began, and I 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.040 kind of thought, well, it's this sort of it's being 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:11.040 unfairly attacked. These are people who just don't like spending 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:12.480 all this money. You want to get back to a 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:15.359 world fashioned kind of conservatism. I think there was some 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.280 of that, honestly. Obviously there are a lot of decent 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:19.159 people who just thought, to you, why we spending all 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.639 this money to bail out the banks. But in retrospect, 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.560 it was it was an unleashing of passions that just 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.080 never got constrained. I mean, I think typically in American 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.000 history you get real passions. Sometimes they're for good, obviously 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.159 civil rights. Sometimes they're not so good, but then they 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.200 kind of get reined in and and and turned into 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.199 legislative agendas and sort of merged you might say, into 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:44.240 one of the parties and uh normalized a little bit 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.400 um and then the fringers get marginalized. But the opposite 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:50.720 happened here, the passions took over the party on the 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.240 Republican side, and again Trump Trump's It's hard to say 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.200 what would have happened. But what if Trump hadn't run. 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:57.159 What if he had just been like as he had 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.159 in the past, sort of pretending, getting some publicity, and 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.240 then he shows not to postured, right, What if he 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.440 had just posture? What if therefore the nominee had been 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:06.919 I don't know, Marko Rubio or Jem Bush or anyone 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:09.879 you want you know, or my favorite, Ted Cruz. Yeah, whatever, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.080 what our politics be pretty different today. I guess I 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:15.240 on the one, and I think so because I do 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.119 think he's an important part of it. I mean, you 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.679 can have a lot of problems in our society and 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.560 our culture, a lot of bigotry, a lot of craziness, frankly, 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.400 but if it doesn't have a president willing to constantly 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:30.520 amplify it and magnify it, if you don't willing to 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.320 throw the match every day. You know, the gas, I 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:35.680 mean that the gas can sit there, could be bad, 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:37.920 it's not healthy, but it can sort of be kept 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:40.680 under control. So I guess I often do come. People 0:18:40.720 --> 0:18:42.400 say you're a little obsessed with Trump, but I don't 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:44.520 think I am. But if I am, it's because I 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.480 do think this one man has done a huge amount 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.959 of damage. But I will hasten to say this. He 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.680 could not have done the damage without the enabling by 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:55.520 the Republican Party and the conservative elites. And that's if 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:56.879 you could have had a president who was a bit 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.399 of a crack pot, who was silly, who was the 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.600 demago was screened and yelled. But you know what if 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.600 the party, beginning in January seen and said, look, fine, 0:19:04.640 --> 0:19:06.840 your president, you propose your stuff, but we're going to 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.320 legislate soberly. We're not gonna echo you and everything crazy 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:12.359 you say. We're going to rebuke you when you go 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.400 too far, you would have had an unusual four years 0:19:14.440 --> 0:19:18.639 in American politics, but not maybe an excessively damaging four years, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.600 but the degree to which Republican elected officials, Republican donors, 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:25.440 and I would say conservative intellectual elite, so that last 0:19:25.520 --> 0:19:27.399 for me is the most painful in a way and 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.719 the most disturbing just we're willing to go along with 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:35.440 him because they wanted to be part of the winning team. 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.720 That that did huge damage. I mean, I'm a pretty 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:43.400 moderate Democrat, and I think to myself, you know, there's 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.359 a finer line between Trump and lb J than people 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.879 want to admit. I mean, lb J was a haranguing, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.720 furniture throwing I mean he was a real I mean, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:57.160 no matter how much Bob Caro has sanitized by lbj's reputation, um, 0:19:57.359 --> 0:19:59.640 the the lb J was somebody who he didn't get 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.200 his way. He's gonna make your life hell. He's me 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:03.000 on the phone till four o'clock in the morning. He was. 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:04.720 He was a bit of a lunatic as well in 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.560