Speaker 1: Because we have political breaking news as the you know,
Speaker 1: the the meeting with Nancy and then the House Democrats
Speaker 1: just got over and they had a discussion about impeachment.
Speaker 1: So we have the news. Now we've got the analysis
Speaker 1: with one or one of our favorite analysts. Indeed, we're
Speaker 1: gonna caucus with Lan heat Chen, the host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Crossing Lines with Lan hea Chen. Lan he is
Speaker 1: a David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution.
Speaker 1: He's also something behind Sean's head director of Domestic Policy
Speaker 1: Studies and Lecture in the Public Policy Program at Stanford.
Speaker 1: Thank you for moving Sean, Lonie. How are you, sir? Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm doing fine. Guys, how are you good? It's always
Speaker 1: great to talk. So we're just playing a clip, playing
Speaker 1: a clip of Nancy and AOC not sounding like they were,
Speaker 1: you know, loaded for bear for impeachment. Certainly, while I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's certainly still on the table, they're not. We're
Speaker 1: not going there yet. But what I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about is I keep hearing about the conventional wisdom
Speaker 1: that uh, impeaching Clinton hurt the Republicans and so it
Speaker 1: would be a bad idea for the Democrats, dude for Trump,
Speaker 1: and I just feel like there's no conventional wisdom that
Speaker 1: matters anymore. I mean, everything's gotten thrown out the window
Speaker 1: in the last several years with the conventional wisdom. Do
Speaker 1: you still hold to the the idea that would obviously
Speaker 1: be a bad political move for the House to impeach Trump. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the reason why it is a
Speaker 1: bad political move is not because of the conventional wisdom,
Speaker 1: but if because of who Trump is and what Trump
Speaker 1: is able to do with the platforms he has. All Right,
Speaker 1: It's not so much that impeachment and of itself would
Speaker 1: be of great benefit to the Democrats, would be a
Speaker 1: great benefits to the Republicans. It's just Trump would find
Speaker 1: a way to take all of that energy and redirect it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, He's like one of those forces in the
Speaker 1: universe that absorbs that energy and then spews it out
Speaker 1: in an opposite direction. And I just and I see
Speaker 1: that this would be a very predictably bad outcome to
Speaker 1: the Democrats, which is why, by the way, I think
Speaker 1: Matthew Pelosi is the only thing holding that that team
Speaker 1: together right now. There weren't for her and sort of
Speaker 1: the way that she's thinking about this. They would they
Speaker 1: would have been well down the road on impeachment already,
Speaker 1: and I think politically it would harm them going into
Speaker 1: the next election side. Well, to your point, Lonnie, about
Speaker 1: taking energy and redirecting it, it is undeniable at this point.
Speaker 1: I don't care who you are and how you vote.
Speaker 1: That the narrative Number one of why Trump is illegitimate
Speaker 1: or should not be president was the whole Russian collusion
Speaker 1: thing Lett turned out to be baseless, and so the
Speaker 1: president could easily say, all right, here's another effort to
Speaker 1: overturn the election, exactly exactly, and and you know it
Speaker 1: just it fits into the narrative that President Trump is
Speaker 1: out there and in part trying to uh to continue,
Speaker 1: which is that his opponents are willing to oppose him
Speaker 1: at all costs, even if that means overturning the will
Speaker 1: of the people, the will of the people who supported him.
Speaker 1: And I do think that the other piece of this
Speaker 1: is that when some of these Democrats start to talk
Speaker 1: about impeachment, they get this look in their eyes, this
Speaker 1: sort of crazed look almost and and and it doesn't
Speaker 1: serve their party. Well, I don't think that's what the
Speaker 1: American people want as an alternative. I don't think they
Speaker 1: want fire breathing opponents of the president who are willing
Speaker 1: to go to the match op post him at all costs.
Speaker 1: I think there will they want someone who's willing to
Speaker 1: point out when he's wrong or point out areas where
Speaker 1: he's not doing things well, but I don't think they
Speaker 1: want someone who opposes him at every turn. Well for
Speaker 1: the crowd in the Democratic Party that does want impeachment, though,
Speaker 1: what is their thinking since they know they don't have
Speaker 1: the votes in the Senate, do they think they would
Speaker 1: change public opinion with the impeachment hearing somehow or well,
Speaker 1: I don't even understand what their strategy is. Well, there's
Speaker 1: two measures of thinking I've heard about. One is exactly
Speaker 1: your point, which is this would be a saga played
Speaker 1: out on television that surely something negative would come out
Speaker 1: of impeachment proceedings that would hurt the president. It would
Speaker 1: be a spectacle that would finally allow them to be
Speaker 1: at the same bandwidth as the President in terms of
Speaker 1: the getting of information out there and the propagation of information.
Speaker 1: So that that's one theory. The other theory goes to
Speaker 1: energy for the Democratic base that because there are many
Speaker 1: in the Democratic Party primary base, the sort of died
Speaker 1: in the world Democratic Party activists who want this to happen.
Speaker 1: If the Democratic Party in Congress does not do this,
Speaker 1: they're going to suck the lights out of the base
Speaker 1: and suck the energy out of the base and make
Speaker 1: them less motivated how to turn out to vote. I
Speaker 1: don't subscribe to that theory because I think the base, frankly,
Speaker 1: the Democratic base hates Trump so much. I don't care
Speaker 1: what the Democrat in Congress do or don't do. They're
Speaker 1: gonna come out and vote against him. But but there
Speaker 1: is this theory about political mobilization which goes to the
Speaker 1: necessity of firing up your base, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: is why Trump continues talk about immigration and the issues
Speaker 1: that the Republican base cares about. I think in the
Speaker 1: same way that Democratic politicians are saying, Look, we know
Speaker 1: our base cares about impeachment. That's we're going to keep
Speaker 1: talking about it. Lan he Chen as host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Crossing Lines with Lan heat Chen. Yeah, I see
Speaker 1: your point, although I think there still is some danger
Speaker 1: for the Democratic base in the same way that prior
Speaker 1: to Trump coming along the energy and the Republican Party
Speaker 1: I think was really on the decline, partly because the
Speaker 1: Republicans up and down the roster showed no interest in
Speaker 1: fiscal responsibility, which is one of the great causes of
Speaker 1: the Republican base. And so yeah, I guess you have
Speaker 1: to keep throwing the breadcrumbs. But it's just it seems
Speaker 1: idiotic to me, the idea of uh impeaching him, especially
Speaker 1: now it's mid en We've got an election in the
Speaker 1: like an hour and a half. Yeah, exactly. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the point about fiscal responsibility is really interesting because I
Speaker 1: think you're absolutely right that for many years that was
Speaker 1: a hallmark signature issue amongst Republicans and the Republican base.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure anymore. You know, I don't know
Speaker 1: that Republican voters care nearly as much about the fiscal
Speaker 1: condition of the country and fiscal responsibility the issues you're
Speaker 1: gonna make, you know, you know, I've I've been I've
Speaker 1: been crying for for years about this one. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's the reality though, of of what federal spending does,
Speaker 1: is that federal spending eventually sort of lures people in.
Speaker 1: And I think we've seen that happen on on many
Speaker 1: many issues, and certainly with Republican base. Um, what's to
Speaker 1: come clear with the polling over the years is that
Speaker 1: fifcal responsibility does not test nearly as well as it
Speaker 1: used to. And I have to because uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people just don't care and so there's no party. So
Speaker 1: there's no party for that anymore. There's no constituency for wow.
Speaker 1: So you don't think, though you're a political scientist, is
Speaker 1: there any way there's a soft landing from this profligate spending.
Speaker 1: We're well over twenty two trillion dollars in debt now
Speaker 1: or will it be exorbitant taxes and a choked economy
Speaker 1: that the more doomsday issue scenarios that people like me,
Speaker 1: you're constantly so you're cuts the Proah, yeah, well you know,
Speaker 1: I I really hope it doesn't go the way of
Speaker 1: higher taxes and choking off economic growth. By the way,
Speaker 1: one interesting thing to think about is this the Social
Speaker 1: Security program. When the Social Security Program trust fund runs
Speaker 1: out of money, which will happen here, you know, within
Speaker 1: the next few decades. When that happens, it's not just
Speaker 1: the wealthy who get their benefits cut. Every single beneficiary
Speaker 1: on Social Security will have to get their benefits cut
Speaker 1: by an equivalent amount. I don't care if you make
Speaker 1: twenty dollars a year or you make two million dollars
Speaker 1: a year. The reality is that entitlement cuts are coming,
Speaker 1: whether we like it or not. And that's why dealing
Speaker 1: with it now is the right answer. In terms of
Speaker 1: what it's gonna take, it's gonna take transformational leadership. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's something where you know, we we can
Speaker 1: scare people into it, as we've tried that. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's something where we can say, well, taxes are coming,
Speaker 1: because you know, we all know that's probably gonna happen
Speaker 1: if a Democrat gets elected. I don't think people are
Speaker 1: really phazed by that. It's got to take a leader
Speaker 1: who's willing to stand up president I think, and say, look,
Speaker 1: this is some some here's some medicine. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to have it. It It doesn't taste great, but we need
Speaker 1: it to keep the country on track. And that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that I think is going to change this.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, see anybody out there who's willing to have
Speaker 1: that message, Well, Alan he if you're asking me to
Speaker 1: run I accept your call I have, but I would
Speaker 1: I would warn your oppo research guys, they're gonna see
Speaker 1: some stuff that will shot. We're gonna have to start
Speaker 1: spinning immediately. Well it got it got no news coverage
Speaker 1: that Mitch McConnell got a bipartisan deal in the Senate
Speaker 1: to raise the dead ceiling and that whole thing. No
Speaker 1: fight on that whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, you know that
Speaker 1: the issue with the death ceiling is is it's become
Speaker 1: For a while, there was a real political hoppotade. Remember
Speaker 1: back in two thousand thousand eleven during the fiscal fiscal
Speaker 1: cliff and the fiscal crisis. Now, I think everybody has
Speaker 1: agreed that this is sort of mutually assured destruction if
Speaker 1: we don't raise the death ceiling. So they've tried to
Speaker 1: be politicize this, but at least it was a point
Speaker 1: of levels for something, not like there's just nobody cares anymore, no,
Speaker 1: I know. And and think back to when we have
Speaker 1: every we had that Bowl Simpson Commission, which was put
Speaker 1: together to come up with ideas, and they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's some ideas that both sides are gonna hate. And
Speaker 1: I said, wow, that's great. That's actually exactly what we need.
Speaker 1: We need ideas that both sides are gonna hate, because
Speaker 1: that's the only way we solve this problem. And unfortunately
Speaker 1: we've come really far from that. It's only been nine years,
Speaker 1: eight eight or nine years since we had that commission,
Speaker 1: and I gotta say we are we are as far
Speaker 1: away from fiscal responsibility today as we've ever been. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: that's fabulous. That is something ancient Rome calling, ancient Rome calling. Uh.
Speaker 1: Lana he Chen is the host of the podcast Crossing
Speaker 1: Lines with lanh Chan. He's a big brain to the
Speaker 1: Hoover Institution, director of Domestic Policy Studies, and lecturer at Stanford.
Speaker 1: Lan He always enlightening. We enjoy it very much. Thanks
Speaker 1: for the time. Hey, thank you guys. And we'll have
Speaker 1: a link to lan He's podcast. You can find it quickly. Listen.
Speaker 1: You're tiring me out. You're like some guy who wants
Speaker 1: to rescind Louisiana purchase year cause your issue is so
Speaker 1: old and dumb. Nobody cares. I was just thinking we
Speaker 1: should stop talking about it. I mean, if nobody cares
Speaker 1: about it, talking about it is not good for you know,
Speaker 1: ratings or listenership either, nobody. We're We're the fat guy.
Speaker 1: The doctor told him, look, you keep eating like that,
Speaker 1: you're gonna die. Whatever. I'm just going, We're not that guy.
Speaker 1: We're the dietitian crying outside his window is he hammers
Speaker 1: down chocolate cake by the fisto. We're saying, please, we
Speaker 1: love you, Mr America. We don't want you to kill yourself.
Speaker 1: Stop it, so you know, to drop my sarcasm for
Speaker 1: the moment. Uh, and probably only for a moment. I
Speaker 1: just I feel like we owe it to the kids.
Speaker 1: I mean, your kids are young. I don't want them
Speaker 1: to row up, and I'm going to drain the blood
Speaker 1: of the young and live forever. So this concerns me
Speaker 1: as well. They're gonna wait, grow up the way Brits
Speaker 1: did whatever, like seventy years ago, where you just have
Speaker 1: to realize, oh, we're not going to be a dominant
Speaker 1: world power anymore. That's over. It's entirely possible, and and
Speaker 1: the cuts to the there are going to be you think,
Speaker 1: you know, you hear these sob stories now about America's
Speaker 1: poor food insecurity. They got cable TV and a jet ski. Well,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be real poor when all these benefits are cut.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, everybody's gonna say what happened? I help him
Speaker 1: around to yell at you are strong and getty