Speaker 1: And what you've got. Honestly, every time I hear you,
Speaker 1: I feel a little bit dumber for what you say.
Speaker 2: Last debate, he said we were all bought and paid for.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine how you could say that, knowing that
Speaker 3: you were just in business with the Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 3: We opened a subsidiary in China.
Speaker 4: But you know what I did that was different than
Speaker 4: every other company. We got the hell out of there.
Speaker 3: That's just wrong.
Speaker 4: And let's just get real here.
Speaker 3: My plan will get the job done. You literally bring
Speaker 3: it fifty thousand dollars on curtains at a fifteen million
Speaker 3: dollar subsidized location. Next, you got bad information.
Speaker 1: They were there before I even showed up.
Speaker 2: At the residents who make you stop?
Speaker 1: You know that that is a good like of the speaking.
Speaker 1: But we need a little of that cacophony before we
Speaker 1: get Gary On thirty four.
Speaker 2: Michael thirty four, you.
Speaker 4: Said you can't on both sides.
Speaker 3: Gentlemen, you'll have your turn.
Speaker 2: One of the challenges we have a focus on the
Speaker 2: show business and China.
Speaker 4: Everybody knows that I just on holding Joe Biden accountable.
Speaker 3: That's how we need to be.
Speaker 4: I actually agree with Ronson's Tower of bab Well, if
Speaker 4: debate after debate for years and years, you reward the
Speaker 4: person who jumps in and takes the mic, that's what
Speaker 4: you're going to get.
Speaker 2: We're joined by old friend of the Armstrong and Getty Show,
Speaker 2: non partisan political analyst Gary Dietrich. He's a great follow
Speaker 2: on Twitter at Gary Dietrich. Gary was at the scene
Speaker 2: of the debate last night. How was the dumpster fire
Speaker 2: from your perspective, Gary.
Speaker 3: Well, Joe, you stole the exact colloquialism. I think it, Uh, Jack,
Speaker 3: of course, pretty dead up. Gave it a nice gentil cacophony,
Speaker 3: which is also a good way to describe it, at
Speaker 3: least initially. And then really what happened was I think
Speaker 3: all the candidates can finally check in when the moderator said,
Speaker 3: look at one point, you know, listen, we're going to
Speaker 3: cut off your mic. If you continue, that's it. Let's
Speaker 3: go to break them and we'll come back. So I
Speaker 3: think they kind of got it about a third of
Speaker 3: the way in. But it was tough to watch initially
Speaker 3: and certainly tough to either be there. The spin room
Speaker 3: not any better. I mean, we are right now, guys.
Speaker 3: I think the reality is out of last night. It's
Speaker 3: political survival mode for some of these folks going forward.
Speaker 3: The next debate in five weeks of Miami on November eight,
Speaker 3: criteria go up to four percent in the two national
Speaker 3: polls are won, and then a couple from the early States.
Speaker 3: Some of these folks right now do not qualify in
Speaker 3: that regard. You could take Bergham, you could take Christy,
Speaker 3: you could take Scott. Unless their fortunes turn around, they
Speaker 3: are not going to be on the next debate stage.
Speaker 3: That's going to leave DeSantis, Hailey, hence and Ramswami, who
Speaker 3: took a lot of hits last night, we can talk
Speaker 3: about that. I mean, so the field is starting to
Speaker 3: win on like it or not.
Speaker 2: You know, the particulars of last night's debate don't interest
Speaker 2: me that much. I have my own impressions. I've read
Speaker 2: a fair amount of echo chamber and spending that sort
Speaker 2: of thing, and more or less we emerged with the
Speaker 2: status quo that we went into it.
Speaker 1: With, which is Trump getting the nomination and an asteroid hits.
Speaker 2: But having said that, what we're most troubled about is
Speaker 2: the whole primary system, the debate system, the coherence of
Speaker 2: the Republican Party last night was was was awful.
Speaker 3: So you're wanting me to come out on the fact
Speaker 3: that these debates are what inconsequential or even delagias to
Speaker 3: the party?
Speaker 2: Yes, well, I guess I'm sorry. I gave you a
Speaker 2: very very broad set up there. What we discussed a
Speaker 2: little earlier was the fact that the Republican Party, which
Speaker 2: exists for the sole purpose of getting people elected, is
Speaker 2: now completely incompetent to that purpose. In my mind, they
Speaker 2: have to take a serious look at the way they
Speaker 2: do what they do and change it. Would you agree
Speaker 2: or was that just an unfortunate, you know episode last night?
Speaker 3: Well, Joe, I think you're onto something for this election cycle.
Speaker 3: I mean Trump people last night said let's just call
Speaker 3: off the rest of the debates. Of course they would
Speaker 3: say that, but you know, this is and having and
Speaker 3: if you just look at the polling, they're right on that.
Speaker 3: Right now. You know what's going to happen in the
Speaker 3: next four months before iowen in Hampshire, et cetera. Who knows,
Speaker 3: but that's certainly true. Now. I think the unique part
Speaker 3: of this one, guys, I was thinking about this last
Speaker 3: night after debate one of the uniquenesses is a leader
Speaker 3: in the party's nominating process that has a forty percent
Speaker 3: lead nationally and a thirty percent lead in iowand in Hampshire.
Speaker 3: Who's unique to this whole nominating position and who's decided,
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm just not going to bother to
Speaker 3: show up. I think all those uniquenesses in this cycle
Speaker 3: certainly lead to what you're talking about, Joe, and that
Speaker 3: is different from what we've seen in the past.
Speaker 1: Well, so you talked about the spin room. Did any
Speaker 1: of you all get together, like I don't know, over
Speaker 1: drinks after the debate or anything like that and have
Speaker 1: any conversations about like really changing the way we do this,
Speaker 1: like actually have an on off switch for the mics
Speaker 1: and everybody gets to speak only when their MIC's ot.
Speaker 1: I mean, like really revamping it because it's it's degenerated
Speaker 1: into just a mess.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I do think. I think that one change you're
Speaker 3: talking about there, Jack, in terms of mics is probably overdue,
Speaker 3: and I think it's probably likely to happen, you know,
Speaker 3: just the turning down to the mics, or you ask
Speaker 3: somebody a question and their mic is the only one
Speaker 3: on for at least the initially designated whatever its right,
Speaker 3: sixty seconds or whatever. I think that's probably something that's
Speaker 3: going to be considered because it did render i'd say
Speaker 3: about a good third of debate debate nearly intelligible.
Speaker 2: Well right, and I think unfortunately that unintelligible stuff was
Speaker 2: front loaded at the beginning and drove most of America away.
Speaker 2: I can't wait to hear the numbers for you know,
Speaker 2: hour one versus hour two. But anyway, putting aside the
Speaker 2: utter incompetence and cacoffey of the thing, if Trump is
Speaker 2: not to win the nomination, it's because Republicans, and there
Speaker 2: are enough Republicans don't ont Trump if they were to
Speaker 2: unite around one candidate that that would be enough to
Speaker 2: overcome Trump, at least theoretically. Who, to your mind, has
Speaker 2: the most momentum, Gary in terms of appeal, maybe even
Speaker 2: fund raising the early primary states. Who would you bet
Speaker 2: on as the dark horse?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question, Joe, and I'd say right now,
Speaker 3: you'd pick two. I mean, first would be Ron DeSantis, who,
Speaker 3: while he slipped in some of the poles, still retains
Speaker 3: that number two position. And I think most people's estimation
Speaker 3: last night didn't do himself a disservice at least held
Speaker 3: you know, sort of steady even or went up some.
Speaker 3: And the second is Nikki Haley, who you know, in
Speaker 3: the first debate we sell numerically. Afterwards her poll members
Speaker 3: went up demonstrably, I mean some poles almost fifty percent.
Speaker 3: So I think those are the two. If there's some
Speaker 3: that clearly sank last night, you'd have to save with
Speaker 3: vek Lamaswami, I mean people, it was a dog pile
Speaker 3: on him. You guys probably know, and they got some shots,
Speaker 3: especially related to China that seemed to do some political damage.
Speaker 3: And then Mike Pence just kind of holding on. I
Speaker 3: don't think he's likely to you don't have any momentum
Speaker 3: going forward. So those are the two I'd say right
Speaker 3: now coming out of this probably best position to if
Speaker 3: there is one, become the Trump alternative.
Speaker 1: How do the political parties not have more power than
Speaker 1: they do at this point to like somehow narrow these
Speaker 1: fields because this didn't used to happen when I was younger.
Speaker 1: You didn't you didn't end up with fifteen people on
Speaker 1: every stage all the time shouting at the same time.
Speaker 3: Well, Jack, remember this that you know political party political
Speaker 3: power cuts both ways. Remember the Bernie Sanders argument, you're
Speaker 3: rigging this election, which if you look, I remember this
Speaker 3: very distinctly, thinking, why aren't there any debate schedules. I mean,
Speaker 3: you got Bernie Sanders out there sitting in US center Gal,
Speaker 3: He's moving up rapidly in the pulse, and they just
Speaker 3: ice the whole de right desolutely on. And you know what,
Speaker 3: there are many people who have gone back. Political sciences
Speaker 3: has gone back and looked at all the trends and
Speaker 3: the polling trends and all the rest of it and said,
Speaker 3: you know, had it been a quote unquote normal primary
Speaker 3: season with those debates were on anything else and the
Speaker 3: nominating prossis the delegate count, the super delegates, all that.
Speaker 3: Remember that Bernie Sanders had a serious chance of winning
Speaker 3: that nomination. And to this day, these people believe that
Speaker 3: the DNC did him dirty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that's absolutely true. But they also
Speaker 1: saved themselves a horrific loss. Bernie would have got just stomped.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what the point of the party is,
Speaker 1: as Joe started this is to win elections. So they
Speaker 1: stepped in to make sure a candidate that couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: win nationally, didn't get the nomination. Isn't that what they're
Speaker 1: supposed to do?
Speaker 3: Well? The problem with that, you might on a pragmatic sense, Shoe,
Speaker 3: you might excuse me, Jack, you might be right, but
Speaker 3: remember we were right in the beginning, right. The big
Speaker 3: throws of the battle within that party that is a
Speaker 3: democratic party, you know, the progressive wing versus the old
Speaker 3: kind of traditionalist wings, and that is some people say
Speaker 3: those are debates and sort of momentum worth having. You know,
Speaker 3: where is the Republican Party going to go post Trump?
Speaker 3: Remind people elected or not next time around, there's only
Speaker 3: one more shot for Donald Trump than what And I
Speaker 3: think those are the big debates that some people say
Speaker 3: the small debates small d debates actually serve a purpose
Speaker 3: over several election cycles.
Speaker 2: Well after the second term. He can play kingmaker and
Speaker 2: bring us more doctor Oz's and herschel Walker's. Anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: the counter to Jack's argument, which I happen to be
Speaker 2: pretty sympathetic to, is that you can't alienate your customers.
Speaker 2: And there's a widespread perception among Republican leaning voters, conservative
Speaker 2: voters that the fat cats of the Republican Party have
Speaker 2: brought us nothing but higher and higher deficits, you know,
Speaker 2: promising us that globalization would lift all votes and empty promises.
Speaker 2: So I understand the populist right saying, no, I don't
Speaker 2: trust the fat cats to find me somebody who's quote
Speaker 2: unquote electable. I don't want that. So it's a tough
Speaker 2: time for the Republican Party. It's tough time for Democrats too, Honestly, Well.
Speaker 3: I think the small de democratization of the entire political process,
Speaker 3: and it certainly, you know, some people like talk radio
Speaker 3: got in there, but most importantly social media. I mean
Speaker 3: that's really what built you know, the initial Donald Trump momentum.
Speaker 3: It was not remember, you know, it was sort of
Speaker 3: universally understood the Republican Party at large did not want
Speaker 3: Donald Trump as their nominate, you know, and just whittled down,
Speaker 3: whittled down, whittled down. So I think we are witnessing
Speaker 3: the wholesale change. I mean, even in terms of donors,
Speaker 3: small donors have come to begin to dominate a lot
Speaker 3: of the early fundraising process, which makes candidate's bible. So
Speaker 3: we are in a transition in our political process in
Speaker 3: the United States. But I'm not sure anybody knows exactly
Speaker 3: where it's going to end up, but it certainly is
Speaker 3: changing rapidly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really, really good point, because that is
Speaker 1: what's happening. We're going through a transition. We're going to
Speaker 1: come out the other end with something different. We just
Speaker 1: don't know what it is yet.
Speaker 2: You can trust Gary Dietrich for non partisan political analysis.
Speaker 2: He's not going to throw you one party spinner or
Speaker 2: the others, and we really appreciate that. Follow him on
Speaker 2: Twitter at Gary Dietrich. Hey Gary, always a pleasure, Happy travel,
Speaker 2: It's good to talk to you.
Speaker 3: Thanksuck, your so
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty