Not A Lot To Be Optimistic About: Sarah Westwood Talks to A&G

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Much to talk about politically, as there always is, we
thought we'd have our old friends, Sarah Westwood on. She
was previously a White House reporter for the CNN. She's
currently an investigative reporter with the Washington Examiner. We've been
talking to her for years. Sarah west would welcome to
the Armstrong and Getty Show. How are you. I'm great,
Thanks for having me. I'm kind of interested in following
how everybody is treating the economic news. It's just come

(00:22):
out because obviously economic news becomes political news very quickly.
But CNN has been a neutral to positive on it.
The Wall Street Journal was pretty positive. The New York
Times I just read from, was very grim on the
very same numbers that don't get excited. This still means
a recession is coming. Was the New York Times version
of it, which I thought was kind of interesting. But
I suppose Biden will be talking to about it at

(00:43):
some point today. You have any thoughts on the economic news, Yeah,
I think that there's not a lot of reason for optimism.
I mean, whatever boost that the bind administration would potentially
be able to get out of this politically, um, I
think is mitigated by people's big exerience. You know, they
can't they can't afford uh, you know, the same things

(01:05):
that they could two years ago. They're real income is
therefore dropping, and the bind administration with when they have
played up good economic news and when they have focused
on their economic agenda, it's actually turned people off because
they want to hear Democrats and Republicans, but they want
to hear the president speaking to the problems that they're

(01:27):
feeling and taking it seriously. And when he cherry picks
good numbers that suggestings are better than they are, I
think that that can backfire. Do know it does on
me if I if I get gas and go to
the grocery store, any rosie talk about the economy doesn't
make me happy anyway. UM, I just brought that up
because it was kind of breaking news. You called Fetterman.
We played a bunch of clips, just like everybody did,

(01:49):
of the Democratic candidate there for the Senate in Pennsylvania
who had the stroke. You called Fetterman's performance a disaster.
That's a strong word. I think it's inappropriate word for
we saw on Tuesday. I mean, it was at times,
you know, quite frankly painful to watch. John Cutterman struggled
to keep up with the pace of the debate, to

(02:10):
understand the questions, to remember his own policy positions, at
least two of which he bungled. I think, you know,
obviously there was a strategy behind waiting this long to
have the debate with your the Sederman campaign, right, they
wanted to sort of bank as many early votes as
they possibly could before they had it. More than half
a million Pennsylvanians have voted already, in the vast majority

(02:31):
of those are Democrats, so you know, potentially the damage
from the debate could be somewhat limited. But yeah, I mean,
to the extent that there were questions about his health
before the debate, I think they were answered in a
way that's really unflattering for the Sederman campaign. Much how
much do you think it would how much do you

(02:51):
think it would affect his ability to be a U
S Senator? Um, I don't want more brain addled people
in the Senate. But is he worse off than Diane
finds Stein or Jesse helms Back was back in the
day people like that? I mean, the problem is that
part of being an effective senator is being able to,

(03:11):
you know, speak on the Senate floor, to negotiate with
your colleagues, to advocate for your state, uh in the media,
and those are all things that he can't really do capable.
I mean, it is fair for voters to wonder if
he would be uh an effective advocate for Pennsylvania, if
he would struggle so much on all of the you know,

(03:34):
the public facing parts of the job. And you know
this this attempts by the media to shield him from
criticism because he's had a health problem. Obviously, everyone who
watched him felt sympathy for him and had you know,
empathy and could relate to their own relatives having health challenges.
But elections are about determining fitness for office, and so
it's a completely fair question to ask whether he's physically

(03:56):
capable of doing the job. Yeah, that that NBC re
order that said he struggled to make small talk before
the interview, and you know, she got beat up for
that pretty bad by the left leaning media for saying
something so awful about him. But from watching c Span
over the years, it looks like there's a lot of
quick little conversations that happen among senators. They're like when

(04:17):
they're voting and all that sort of stuff, and he
wouldn't be able to do that, right, I mean, that's
that's an important part of doing the job, beyond just
the facts that you have to represent the state to
the public and sort of forums that he struggled with.
But but yeah, deliberating with your colleagues, being able to
strike deals, being able to participate in committee hearings, uh,

(04:37):
closed door and public. You know, those are all things
that are required of a senator. That would be very
difficult given his recovery. That's not to say that he
could never do the job years in the future, but
he's going to be expected to do it come January.
And you know, again, voters who may not have been
tuned into the race, but who are seeing clips of

(04:58):
the debate and watching coverage of it, maybe cluing in
on it, just how bad is health problems are for
the first time they have Obviously many Pennsylvania voters not
been following the whole able ism debate and the naval
gazing media story about the NBC reporter who made that
quick about but they're certainly tuned into his health problems now.
So you have your ear to the ground there. Um.

(05:21):
I've heard a couple of national reporters say pretty much
two days after the election, So we'll have the election,
will have the results the next day. Um, some of them,
a lot of them, and uh, but then we're on
to quickly and the conversations are going to be start
to leak out about Joe Biden's ability to finish out

(05:43):
his term, whether or not Kamala Harris should be the candidate,
blah blah blah. Do you think that's the case that
that we're going to go? Presidential politics are really quick?
I do. That's typically how it happens, right, and if,
as expected, Republican take one or both chambers of Congress,
then Joe Biden has sort of the ability to announce

(06:08):
and open up the Democratic primary field that he's not
going to run because it won't matter if he gives
up some of his political capital by becoming a lame
duck president Republicans control Congress and he can't get anything done.
I do think you'll you'll see that announcement sooner rather
than later, because Democrats don't have a natural next successor
and they really need that time to one out. We

(06:31):
wait a second, here, sir, you seem to be you
seem to be implying that in your mind or in
your world of people you talk to, that's a done deal.
He's going to do that, you think. I think there's
an expectation that really, okay, more likely than not. Yeah, wow,
and and and so the next step would be he
opens up the field. So when he makes some sort

(06:51):
of speech races, I just think it would be good
for the country to have a good, you know, vigorous
debate about who should be the next president, kind of
overlooking hiss president. You know, it's sort of a something
that hasn't happened in a long time. So it's really
hard to see exactly what would be the most politically
strategic way to do that. If I was the Democratic advisor,

(07:13):
I would say, I think that the for the good
of the party and for someone who is in his
twilight years in it would announced that he's not running.
As the other Republican candidates start to launch their campaigns,
which you'll start to see next summer, right summer three fall,
you'll see these candidates who have been sort of preparing

(07:33):
start to to formally jump into the race. That would
be a time for Joe Biden to sort of step
aside and let Democrats do the same thing. If he
knows he's not going to run and and continues to
maintain the pretense that he is, he sort of freezes
the field and he lets Republicans be out there getting
all the oxygen pushing their message and not allowing Democrats

(07:55):
to do the same thing. That's really setting up a
smooth trend into another Democratic president. The most bipartisan consensus
we've had on anything in so many years is the
war in Ukraine. Is it starting to fractory? You had
thirty progressive Democrats this week send a letter to Joe
Biden saying, hey, let's tap the brakes on this whole

(08:16):
Ukraine thing. You had Kevin McCarthy last week saying no
blank check. Now the Democrat progressives pulled their letter. McCarthy,
according to CNN yesterday, is behind the scenes trying to
reassure people that no, no, No, will continue to fund
re Ukraine. How how bipartisan is the support still for
Ukraine at this point? I think in the mainstream it's

(08:39):
still relatively bipartisan, But there is, and there has been,
of course, of Conservative House members who think that sending
so much aid to Ukraine and seemed so little return
is not worth it. And in a Republican Congress, you know,
a group like the House Freedom Caucus, for example, of
a voting block of conservative member would wield a lot

(09:01):
of influence on that issue. They could put pressure on
a on a then speaker, Kevin McCarthy not to continue
the funding. Um, it's it's certainly a populist position right
to say that that funding should be directed within the
United States when people are struggling, instead of being sent
to Ukraine. So I do think in a Republican House
you would see pressure on a speaker not to proceed

(09:22):
with more aid. How certain is it? Everybody, including me,
talks about Kevin McCarthy being the speakers If it's a
done deal? Is it pretty much a done deal? We
actually have known Kevin McCarthy since he was an assemblyman
from the Baker's Field area when we were all much
much younger. He'll be the most powerful person I've ever
actually known if he become a speaker. But is he
a pretty much a done deal? You know? It seems

(09:46):
that way there's no natural challenger. The Freedom Cocus would
be you know, has historically been the only real threat
to the ascendant speaker, you know, Majority Leader and um
and they have not threatened to withhold support. They threw
vaguely said if some of their demands about process and

(10:06):
committee assignments aren't met, they would consider it. But then
who would they back. Right, There's no one right now
in the conference who has as broad of an appeal
as Kevin McCarthy. So yeah, I think it's it's pretty
much a lock, but anything can happen, right. Sarah Westwood
is the investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner Era reporter,
Do you make predictions or is that something uncool for

(10:27):
for reporters? You know, I've been horrifically burned by making
I said, and what do you know what year I
said that about eating my truck, Michael, It was a
long long time ago. I think it was like two
thousand twelve. Yeah, I think so. For some reason, But
so Mitt Romney went to Trump Tower to basically get

(10:49):
Donald Trump's approval to, you know, be the nominee or
something like that, and I just I thought it was ridiculous.
Why why do people care what Donald Trump thinks? Donald
Trump is never going to be anything in the Republican Party.
Blah blah blah blah. I said, I'll eat my truck
if he's ever the nominee of the Republican Party. And
I don't know if you follow the newspapers, but how
that turned out anyway, So yeah, that's a pretty bad

(11:10):
burning people regularly, almost every day somebody says, hey, to
eat your truck yet, you know, like in the grocery store,
parking lot or something. So yeah, I understand making predictions
like act burn. But it's Trump again. Trump gonna announce
he's running or not. Do you think that is the
hardest question to answer. I think most Republicans, pretty much

(11:32):
all of them in Washington are really hoping he does not.
I think his base is so eroded by the way
he's behaved since that, you know, I I don't know
if that path to the nomination would still be there,
especially when there's some really exciting populist alternatives for conservatives
like um A, Rhonda Santists. And keep in mind, we're

(11:53):
going to have another crop of Republican stars come out
of this election. I mean, Obama ran for president successfully,
her winning, and you know, the mid terms right before,
so you're gonna have a good point all over the country.
Who could who could emerge. I'm amazed that that that
that Trump won't pivot away from the election being stolen.

(12:13):
Carry Lake, who was seen as a Trump protegee, she's
she gets asked that on a debate stage, she immediately
pivots the economy or CRT in schools. If Trump did
the same thing, I think he'd get elected president. But
he wants to stay with the election. That's right, And
I think that's frustrating for a lot of Republicans. And
you've seen that there's a path forward, uh, for for
people who sort of distanced themselves from Trump and rejects

(12:37):
the election language, like Brian Kemp in Georgia for example,
And so you know, I don't know that that is
the future of the party anymore. UM like talking to
you about politics, Sarah Westwood, thanks for coming on, appreciate it.
Thanks for having me