Speaker 1: The Armstrong and getting show very sure. I'm sorry as
Speaker 1: we await for the records from the National Archives. Are
Speaker 1: you absolutely certain? Are you absolutely positive there is no
Speaker 1: record of any complaint by terror read against you. I
Speaker 1: am absolutely positive that no one that I'm aware of
Speaker 1: ever has been made aware of any complaint, a formal
Speaker 1: complaint made by or a complaint by terror read against
Speaker 1: me at the time this allegedly happened twenty seven years ago,
Speaker 1: or until the I announced for Prett well, I was
Speaker 1: a guess it was in April or May this year.
Speaker 1: So that's from Joe Biden this morning. Now he did it.
Speaker 1: At some point he opened with the unequivocally stated that
Speaker 1: that's never happened. He never u raped or whatever you
Speaker 1: want to call it, this woman terror read. I said
Speaker 1: to Sean, though, we might as well play the embarrassing
Speaker 1: Biden clip, and Sean said, Sean said, You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to be more specific, but um, I picked out the
Speaker 1: one where he sounded the worst, but mostly it was fine.
Speaker 1: It was Joe Biden saying, no, I never did this. Uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything like this. I've never done anything
Speaker 1: like this. There's no complaint blah, blah blah, and we're
Speaker 1: thinking it's over. Lany j h N is the David
Speaker 1: and Diane Stiffy Research Fellow to over Institution Director of
Speaker 1: Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, and Jones is now
Speaker 1: long here. How are you, sir? I am fine. How
Speaker 1: are you? Gentlemen? We're We're great, you know, all things considered.
Speaker 1: So do you think the Joe Biden sexual assault thing
Speaker 1: is more or less over? Um? You know? I I
Speaker 1: don't know, And I say I don't know because the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and where it is now, uh, it's very
Speaker 1: different than where the Democratic Party was when Joe Biden
Speaker 1: spent most of his time in politics. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is the elements of the far left
Speaker 1: that have essentially occupied the party. And we saw this
Speaker 1: during during the presidential primary. I think we're going to
Speaker 1: continue to push Biden. They're going to continue to push
Speaker 1: him on this, and while uther ordinary circumstances, an interview
Speaker 1: like that would have would have kind of lanced the boil.
Speaker 1: I'm just not so sure that folks are going to
Speaker 1: be willing to let go of this at this point.
Speaker 1: And this is just one of those issues. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: I mean, how do you square what he said with
Speaker 1: the way that he treated, for example, Brett Kavanaugh during
Speaker 1: during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. I think, I think these
Speaker 1: are questions that are going to continue, and I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure that that interview today did it well. I
Speaker 1: get those a questions from the right because I do
Speaker 1: still have those questions. The way you wanted to change
Speaker 1: college campuses, the way you went after Kavanaugh, I need
Speaker 1: more explanation for how that squares with this. But in
Speaker 1: terms of the left, what would the left push him
Speaker 1: to do? I mean, what else can he do well?
Speaker 1: I I think you know, you saw this with the
Speaker 1: Washington Post editorial board saying he ought to release his
Speaker 1: pay ferms, make make them completely open. The ones that
Speaker 1: are that are that are held at the University of Delaware. Um,
Speaker 1: I think more questions will arise. There's some dispute, for example,
Speaker 1: over whether, in fact the National Archives is the place
Speaker 1: where a complaint from his Senate time would be would
Speaker 1: be held. I think that's that's a question. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: said no personnel stuff would be in those archives that
Speaker 1: people are demanding opening, so there's just no point. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but you know, I think that's not going to
Speaker 1: be satisfactory to some, you know, particularly and hit who
Speaker 1: are the thing on the left comes to play because
Speaker 1: I think on the left, you know, there there are
Speaker 1: some who are agitating and saying, look, you know, is
Speaker 1: there more there? We cannot have a nominee of our
Speaker 1: party who the nominally Democratic party, that is, who who
Speaker 1: is tainted by this kind of thing, and they want
Speaker 1: to know more. Now that may just be a way
Speaker 1: of them trying to get Biden out, which is highly
Speaker 1: highly probable now. But my point is simply that I
Speaker 1: just think that that the agitation among some core that
Speaker 1: the left is going to continue to dog his campaign.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm reminded of the quote from Orwell that
Speaker 1: we more or less started the show with this morning,
Speaker 1: in which he's talking about the the reason you acquire
Speaker 1: powers for power. Power is the goal, and if the
Speaker 1: AOC crowd can get rid of the last vestige of
Speaker 1: the old moderate Democrat crowd, they don't care if they
Speaker 1: lose to Trump in the doing of that, in the
Speaker 1: same way that like your dispatch anti Trump Republicans, they're
Speaker 1: more than willing to lose to Biden to get rid
Speaker 1: of Trump. So anyway, oh a. Speaking of the election
Speaker 1: and parties and the rest of it. As a libertarian
Speaker 1: leaning fellow, I was fairly excited to see Justin Amash,
Speaker 1: a non crackpot mostly get into the race. What do
Speaker 1: we know about him? What do you think of the
Speaker 1: dynamics of that if if indeed he doesn't, I think
Speaker 1: he will. Yeah, you know, this is a tough one.
Speaker 1: I've kind of heard it argued both ways that his
Speaker 1: presence hurts Biden and his presence hurts Trump. I've kind
Speaker 1: of heard it both ways. I mean, look, I think
Speaker 1: our political them is better off when we have people
Speaker 1: who fill parts of of lanes or parts of people's
Speaker 1: political interests that wouldn't be filled otherwise. And I do
Speaker 1: think that there are a number of people who are
Speaker 1: concerned on the right about how the Republican Party seems
Speaker 1: increasingly comfortable embracing big government, how it's increasingly comfortable embracing
Speaker 1: lots of spending, how it's increasingly comfortable embracing the role
Speaker 1: of the nanny state in in policing people's lives. And
Speaker 1: I think that Amash presents an alternative to them now
Speaker 1: for the left. Yeah, so you you just explained the
Speaker 1: part to me, that makes the most sense. So that
Speaker 1: damages a Republican candidate because he's small government. But I
Speaker 1: I have heard also the arguments that it hurts Biden more.
Speaker 1: Please explain that to me. I don't get it at all. Well,
Speaker 1: I think I think that the notion there is that
Speaker 1: you've got this this uh, this this sort of group
Speaker 1: of voters who are they're just uncomfortable with Biden for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, but they can't vote for Trump because they
Speaker 1: really don't like Trump, so they need to put their
Speaker 1: votes somewhere else, So they're gonna put it with Justin
Speaker 1: Amash that basically he's a placeholder for whatever it is
Speaker 1: they don't like about about about Joe Biden and they
Speaker 1: don't like about Donald Trump. I don't think that's a
Speaker 1: very big percentage of people to to sort of betray
Speaker 1: my my my true feeling on this. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a ton of people who would vote that way.
Speaker 1: But the idea again is just do you have an
Speaker 1: alternative to vote for who's not you know, you just
Speaker 1: you really don't like Joe Biden for whatever reason, and
Speaker 1: you can't bring yourself to vote for Trump, and then
Speaker 1: you vote for someone like Amash, who has been you know,
Speaker 1: principled on on a number of different things. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so you know that's where you that's where you put
Speaker 1: your vote. Hey, Jack, do you mind if we do
Speaker 1: a minute. I know we've been talking about this a lot,
Speaker 1: but it's always great to talk to Lani Chan of
Speaker 1: the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and get your point of view.
Speaker 1: Alan he let's talk a little bit about civil liberties
Speaker 1: in the COVID response. What's your take on what's happening
Speaker 1: these days? Well, people are understandably uncomfortable with the idea,
Speaker 1: for example, of tech companies like you know, Apple and
Speaker 1: Facebook having more control over personal data that could be
Speaker 1: used at some point down the road for for for
Speaker 1: the gain of those companies. It'll be one thing if
Speaker 1: you said, look, we're going to use the data to
Speaker 1: gelocate people to ensure we're not spreading coronavirus. That's one thing.
Speaker 1: But I think people are are nervous because the tech
Speaker 1: companies in particular have been shown to not be trustworthy. Well,
Speaker 1: what about the in the limited time we have and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to interrupt, but what about the mass closures
Speaker 1: of so many businesses and the rationale going from flattening
Speaker 1: the curve to just eliminating cases if we can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just last night you had Southern California say no, we
Speaker 1: make our own decisions in our county, not the governor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean to be clear that the goal post keeps
Speaker 1: shifting on this. The reason why we were sheltering in
Speaker 1: place to flatten the curve was precisely because we didn't
Speaker 1: want to overburden our health care system. It's clear our
Speaker 1: healthcare system is not going to be overbur so now
Speaker 1: that we've achieved that goal, we do need to responsibly
Speaker 1: reopen the economy. We we cannot be out there. I've
Speaker 1: heard people argue, but what we need to do is
Speaker 1: we need to save every life possible. That that is
Speaker 1: not the goal of public policy in this case. It
Speaker 1: should not be the goal because it's unachievable fundamentally, we
Speaker 1: we we have to realize that. By the way, there's
Speaker 1: a ton of other problems with closing the economy and
Speaker 1: keeping it closed. People's livelihood, of people's health that's affected too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the point we've been trying to make. And it
Speaker 1: was funny, strange I read this allegedly great peace in Politico,
Speaker 1: in which the guide did not even acknowledge that a
Speaker 1: crushed economy will cost lives maybe half as many lives
Speaker 1: as the COVID, maybe as many, maybe three times as many.
Speaker 1: So we're not trading lives for money. We're trading lives
Speaker 1: for money and lives. Yeah, and and and that's one thing,
Speaker 1: by the way, these epidemiological models they never account for
Speaker 1: They don't account for the fact that people are sheltering
Speaker 1: in place, which means rates of obesity and rates of
Speaker 1: other diseases are going to rise. That elective procedures have
Speaker 1: been canceled, which means cancer diagnoses have been missed. There's
Speaker 1: all sorts of things. And I'm not saying that that
Speaker 1: the number of those people overwhelmed the number of people
Speaker 1: who would have died from coronavirus. But you've gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta consider all of that, and public policy has to
Speaker 1: be balanced. It can't be out of balance. And I
Speaker 1: fear that right now there's a little bit about a
Speaker 1: balance in some states, California especially. Well, we appreciate you
Speaker 1: taking the time to talk to us today. I hope
Speaker 1: you're you and yours are healthy. We are, thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks lon um I heard another explanation of why they
Speaker 1: Some people think that Amash getting into the races libertarian
Speaker 1: hurts Biden more than Trump. I could get into that
Speaker 1: if you get next hour. If you don't grab it
Speaker 1: at Armstrong and Guinea dot com via podcast. If you're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of mystified by that theory too, so I'd
Speaker 1: like to hear it. There's another hour of this show.
Speaker 1: Some people get it very exciting. Armstrong and