Speaker 1: Now, if I were if in Texas, I may say
Speaker 1: he's Donald Trump is scared as a cat at the dogtown.
Speaker 1: But since I'm from New York, I put it this way.
Speaker 1: We're scaring the living hell out of him, and we're
Speaker 1: just starting right now. Well, he's like a charisma black hole.
Speaker 1: He not only has no charisma, he sucks charisma out
Speaker 1: of other people. That hurt me. That was Do we
Speaker 1: have the other one? At least is better delivered. The
Speaker 1: jackass one reminds me of Sam Raybert's saying that you
Speaker 1: might know, any jackass can kick down a barn, but
Speaker 1: it takes a good carpenter to build one. That betrays
Speaker 1: either a gross lack of knowledge about jackasses, barnes, or both.
Speaker 1: You need a gigantic jacks as a tiny barn or
Speaker 1: barn that is not of the code. We're right, not
Speaker 1: of anybody's code. What's going on here? Lana heat Chen
Speaker 1: is the David and Diane Staffy Research Fellow too Over Institution,
Speaker 1: also director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University, hosted
Speaker 1: the podcast Crossing Lines with lan Hea Chen. A lot ye,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir? Oh? I'm fine. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to find some charisma all that and this is this
Speaker 1: is this entire lead up you heard from us is
Speaker 1: very similar to what you get on Fascination, isn't it.
Speaker 1: You know, this has been the issue with Bloomberg all along.
Speaker 1: I think you know, I mean, the reason why he
Speaker 1: is not the presumptive favorite of the establishment is precisely
Speaker 1: because of the two clips you just played. I mean, well,
Speaker 1: I I think so. I mean, look, I mean, look
Speaker 1: at all the things objectively right, the guy's got a
Speaker 1: ton of money. He's willing to put a lot more
Speaker 1: of it into the race. He's had a pretty good
Speaker 1: record as uh as mayor of New York, with the
Speaker 1: exception of the whole stop and frisk controversy, which is
Speaker 1: it's a big deal to summon the Democratic Party. I
Speaker 1: get that, But if you look at the guy's record,
Speaker 1: what's pretty clear is he's probably the Democrat who is
Speaker 1: going to be able to attract the support of anyone,
Speaker 1: you know, in the center or center right. So the
Speaker 1: establishment should love this guy. I think the challenges that
Speaker 1: he just as you as you've said, he has zero charisma.
Speaker 1: Now we have been pronouncing that it seems clear the
Speaker 1: establishment has gotten behind the guy judging by you know,
Speaker 1: the the MSNBC's and CNN's of the world, that can
Speaker 1: couple of guys from the Congressional Black Caucus coming out
Speaker 1: and saying, yeah, don't worry about that racial stuff. He's fine,
Speaker 1: we love him. So are you saying they're they're they're
Speaker 1: not latching onto him or just taking a cautious look
Speaker 1: or where do you think it stands? I think they're cautiously.
Speaker 1: You know, he's kind of like the the you know,
Speaker 1: the thing you've got in your back pocket in case
Speaker 1: everything sort of goes goes badly. It is here's someone
Speaker 1: who could be credible badly well that maybe maybe it's
Speaker 1: time to break the glass. I mean, I think, look,
Speaker 1: I think there's still some discomfort with him for a
Speaker 1: variety of different reasons, you know, the stop and first
Speaker 1: pieces one of it. I think I think that the
Speaker 1: fact that he is somebody who is perceived as being,
Speaker 1: you know, willing to spend whatever it takes at a
Speaker 1: time when the party itself, uh, you know, seems to
Speaker 1: be be trying to take a more populous route. I
Speaker 1: think for all these reasons, he hasn't been fully embraced.
Speaker 1: But you're right. The reason you're seeing more and more
Speaker 1: positive information flow on him is precisely because, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the Democratic establishment wants a place to go
Speaker 1: when Biden doesn't perform the way that Biden you know,
Speaker 1: thought he would, and you know, arguably we're there. I
Speaker 1: think South Carolina and Nevada will be telling um, I
Speaker 1: don't think you're going to see any large scale movement
Speaker 1: until after South Carolina. Fair enough, We'll wait and see. Then, Hey,
Speaker 1: an he come in on the William Barr telling the
Speaker 1: President to stop tweeting story we were talking about in
Speaker 1: the last segment. I mean, it's obviously a notable thing
Speaker 1: for an attorney general to essentially send a rhetorical shout
Speaker 1: across the president's bow and a threat to resign. It
Speaker 1: sounded like us. Well, you know, I think a couple
Speaker 1: of things. First of all, bar bar happens to be right,
Speaker 1: which is that you know, he's he's got to do
Speaker 1: a job, and you know, I think the President is
Speaker 1: probably making it a little harder for him to do
Speaker 1: that job. Well with all of the commentary and tweeting
Speaker 1: that aside, I think it is quite remarkable how this
Speaker 1: kind of came out of out of left field. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seemingly came out of nowhere. It's not like bar
Speaker 1: had given a few interviews where he was like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it's not the best thing. He just
Speaker 1: sort of came out guns blazing, and and the the speculation.
Speaker 1: The big question is to what extent did he give
Speaker 1: the president heads up? To what extent did he say
Speaker 1: to to to the even senior White House team. Look, uh,
Speaker 1: this is starting to get really hard for me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have to say something to cover myself and
Speaker 1: to cover you know, what we're trying to do. Um. So,
Speaker 1: I think that's a big question, but it was. I
Speaker 1: was quite surprised, not not at the fact that he said,
Speaker 1: but in the words he used. The words he used
Speaker 1: were pretty sharp, right Well, you know Bill Barr's career
Speaker 1: in history and everything like hett, He's a serious man,
Speaker 1: and I don't think he appreciated anybody, including the potus
Speaker 1: giving fuel, giving you know, energy, to his opponents for
Speaker 1: calling him a hack. He doesn't like being called the hack,
Speaker 1: right well, and I mean he's he's not. If you
Speaker 1: look at his career and you look at all that
Speaker 1: he's done, he has, he served a number of presidents.
Speaker 1: He's been uh, you know, a guy who's always been
Speaker 1: well regarded, and so, you know, I do think it's
Speaker 1: some level part of this is Bill Barr trying to
Speaker 1: stick up for himself a little bit and saying, look,
Speaker 1: you know, for for all the things that the president
Speaker 1: is saying and doing, I'm trying my best to hold
Speaker 1: things together. Now, that may not be a credible argument
Speaker 1: in fight, I don't think. I think the left now
Speaker 1: is completely uh you know, sort of on the anti
Speaker 1: bar bandwagons. It doesn't really matter what bar does at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. So that's in their interesting question,
Speaker 1: which is if he wasn't going to be able to
Speaker 1: change the media narrative, why come out and do this
Speaker 1: in a way that potentially would offend President Trump. That
Speaker 1: having been said, I think part of it is Bill
Speaker 1: Barr wanting to set the record straight about himself and
Speaker 1: and just for posterity's sake, you know, I was looking
Speaker 1: at texts we got. We read the Bloomberg article in
Speaker 1: g Q. I don't know if you saw that. They
Speaker 1: came out yesterday. Bloomberg and g Q are two things
Speaker 1: that don't usually go together. But okay, now they had
Speaker 1: an article that the title of it was why is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Sexual history not being discussed? And it basically goes
Speaker 1: through a whole bunch of different stories that have been
Speaker 1: out there, and some of them I remembered when I
Speaker 1: was reminded of them at a little Trump esque that's
Speaker 1: hanging out there. So it's gonna be fun to watch
Speaker 1: that and see how it plays out. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: in a Democratic primary that has a lot more salience
Speaker 1: than than in the Republican primary, I'd argue, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if if you think back to all the accusations lobbed
Speaker 1: against Trump, many of them quite serious, the the way
Speaker 1: in which they were able or not able to gain
Speaker 1: traction in Republican primary, I think in a Democratic primary
Speaker 1: the context could be very different. Yeah, I would agree,
Speaker 1: Although you know, from my perspective, and I've argued this
Speaker 1: many times when we discussed Trump's various sins and idiosyncrasies,
Speaker 1: is it's still a binary choice. And if I'm, for instance,
Speaker 1: a Midwestern evangelical and I might personally be offended by
Speaker 1: Trump's conduct and I brought up my kids not to
Speaker 1: act that way, etcetera, etcetera, I still am looking at
Speaker 1: Supreme Court nominees. I'm looking at the you know, the
Speaker 1: judiciary from top to bottom. I'm looking at, you know,
Speaker 1: finally enforcing immigration policy. And look, I might hold my
Speaker 1: nose and vote, but I'm sure it's heck not going
Speaker 1: to vote for Bernie or somebody like him. Right, And
Speaker 1: by the way, the same logic might apply for a Democrat,
Speaker 1: sure progressive looking at looking at Bloomberg and saying I
Speaker 1: don't like the stop and frisk thing. I don't like
Speaker 1: the fact that he seems to be a billionaire that's
Speaker 1: out of touch. I don't like blah blah blah. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, I want to be Trump.
Speaker 1: And if I want to be Trump and Bloomberg is
Speaker 1: willing to spend a billion dollars to beat him, will heck,
Speaker 1: you know that that's a bandwagon I'm willing to jump on.
Speaker 1: So I think that that analogy is very apt. You
Speaker 1: may have missed this, but this was the most interesting
Speaker 1: punditry I saw in the last week after the debate.
Speaker 1: Friday Night, Chris Matthews is on MSNBC and he said,
Speaker 1: I want to know if Bernie is a Castro socialist
Speaker 1: or a Sweden socialist, which is he is he with
Speaker 1: Castro because of the socialist school to one when I
Speaker 1: was young, I have been shot in Central Park. I
Speaker 1: want to know which one he is. And I thought
Speaker 1: that is an interesting of view. By the way, Chris
Speaker 1: Matthews was not seen again that night on MSNBC. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a good point. I don't know
Speaker 1: that people. I think the way this race is shaping up,
Speaker 1: it almost doesn't matter though. I mean, he being branded
Speaker 1: a socialist, whether you're a Castro socialist or a nice
Speaker 1: clean Swedish socialist, I don't think it really matters. I
Speaker 1: think a socialist as a socialist as a socialist our
Speaker 1: in our current dialogue, in our current dialogue, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, look, Trump is gonna gonna make
Speaker 1: mincemeat out of the guy. So you know, if the
Speaker 1: Democrats really want to have a shot, they gotta wake
Speaker 1: up and smell the coffee. Which is why Bloomberger is
Speaker 1: willing to spend a billion dollars because he believes that
Speaker 1: exactly he ought to spend a million on a Charisma transplant.
Speaker 1: Is that a thing? God, you go to like David
Speaker 1: Lee Roth or I don't know. Some aging movie star
Speaker 1: and and and get their charisma and planted. It's like, exactly,
Speaker 1: there's a good for instance, he's not using it for
Speaker 1: anything good. It's like those poop transplants people get to
Speaker 1: get their digestive system going. I'll tell you what. It
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a very good look for the world's oldest
Speaker 1: democracy and most powerful country to have two billionaire old
Speaker 1: white men from the same neighborhood running against each other
Speaker 1: for president. Yeah. Well, this is the America we live
Speaker 1: in now. It's our politics, you know, it's it's gotten
Speaker 1: well passed trying to predict what's going on. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think I think I told you guys, I thought
Speaker 1: Biden what was was probably going to be the nominee.
Speaker 1: And I just it's staggering to me how poorly he's done.
Speaker 1: It's really staggering. And we will we will end on
Speaker 1: staggering Joe Biden as we are up against a hard break.
Speaker 1: But la Chan with the Hoover Institution, Stanford University crossing
Speaker 1: lines with long heat Chen it's always too short, but
Speaker 1: it's it's great fun to talk on. He will do
Speaker 1: it against soon, all right, thanks, good, Thanks, This podcast
Speaker 1: is crossing lines with long heat chan if you want
Speaker 1: to check that out sometime. Yeah, it's good. It's just
Speaker 1: clear eyed realism. Um, you know, looking at politics. What
Speaker 1: he said there at the end, you got to get
Speaker 1: out of the prediction business. No precedent matters and getty