Stuart Stevens

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, everybody. I'm Stuart Stevens and I am very, very
happy to be here with one of my favorite people
on the planet are James Fallows. James, thank you for
joining us.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
You know, James, I'm amade to say thanks. I'm a
big friend, admirer and follower of what you do, so
so the pleasure of mutual I.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Have to take a moment of personal privilege and embarrass you. Uh,
James is what my mother wanted me to be. A
most extraordinary career. Rhodes Scholar, National Book Award winner was
at some ridiculously early age a White House speech writer

(00:48):
for Jimmy Carter. He has reported from and lived around
the world, including a longish stint in China, which I
think is becoming increasingly relevant to what's happening in America now.
Is sort of the writing of history. Someone I really
want to get your thoughts on, James. He's a pilot

(01:12):
and whenever something horrible happens involving airplanes, the the go
to guy to write, like the sensible this is probably
what happened. Perspective is James been with the Atlantic forever

(01:32):
uh now and wrote a book that became well, let's
put up just for a second. Here, Look look at
the This isn't all of James books. In fact, we
put this together, we realized we left out the National
Book Award war It's just like you know, when when
that becomes like yeah, anyone in the National Book Award.
I mean this is like you know, saying yeah. And

(01:56):
also he's in the NFL Hall of Fame. I don't know,
but he he and is wonderful life. Deb have this
passion for showing, for telling stories that people are focused
on them and don't know. And you know, I always
thought the definition of a great writer was to take

(02:17):
a subject you didn't think you were interested in, and
by the time you're finished reading it, you're fascinated by
it and they tell you why it is. And James
has that. So that book go back, if you could
please send the book Our Town was also, which really
profiles different small success stories. Is that a fair way

(02:39):
to put it, James?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yes, And how things look better at the local level
than they do nationally. And it's interesting that the New
York Times, which you and I often bewail, has been
having this series over the last year of fifty Fixes
and fifty States, which is sort of the same approach
of things that you haven't heard about that are happening
in Idaho or in Florida or whatever in South Carolina.

(03:03):
So that was our approach when we came back from China,
spent a couple of years seeing smaller town America, including Mississippi.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
In Tupelo, someplace I want to talk about. And this
was also became a HBO documentary.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Correct, Yes, yeah, we had worked with great filmmakers there
and it's still streaming on HBO Max or whatever it's
called now.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yeah, fantastic. Well, look, James, obviously January sixth reading this
piece that you wrote about Governor Waltz, and you made
a point I think that you know, it's one of
these things that when I read it, I like not
in my head and go, that's right. But I haven't
thought about this in a long time that there used

(03:46):
to be considered a advantage in American politics to understand
how government works and to be good at it. And
can you I'd love to get your thoughts on that,
And how is it that we've lost that, at least

(04:06):
on the Republican side. I don't think we have on
the Democratic side.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
So I'll say first Stewart thinks it's real pleasure to
be connected with you again. And you know how much
I admire your work and your forthrightness, and your adventuresomeness
and your literary flair and all the rest. And I'll
say two backstory elements to this recent mention of Governor
Wallace on the occasion of his saying he's not going
to run for a third term in Minnesota. One is,

(04:34):
as you mentioned, I worked for Jimmy Carter back at
the dawn of time, and I started working for his
campaign in nineteen seventy six for the reason many young
people work for presidential campaigns at the beginning, which is
most candidates are going to lose, so the people who
work for them are mainly young people with So I
didn't have a job at that time. I just finished
at the Washington Monthly or Charlie Peters was the editor.

(04:57):
We are living in Austin, Texas because deb who you mentioned,
starting graduate school linguistics, and I was just kind of
freelancing and they needed somebody to, you know, churn stuff
out for the Carter campaign. So I worked in the
campaign then the White House for a couple of years,
but part of the reason. There are many reasons that
Jimmy Carter had what is still, I believe, the fastest
ever assent in public life, from one percent name recognition

(05:20):
to the presidency within one year. Part of it was
the chaos of that time, Vietnam, Nixon, Watergate, and all
the rest. Part of it was he talked about getting
things actually done in government and budgeting and the things
he'd done in Georgia and environmentalism and in housing and
with race relations and all the rest. And so he
had his rough spots as president, as everybody knows, but

(05:43):
he focused on getting things done as so that that
was one backstory that has made me think about governeurs
and governments that think they can do things. The story
of Governor Walls, who I met a couple of times
over the past three or four years, is that he

(06:03):
was originally trained, apart from being a farmer, as a geographer,
as a geography specialist.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Piece I read this piece, I guess I'd heard that,
but I hadn't really thought about it.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
And he went back in the early eighties, he taught
in southern China for a year teaching geography or something,
and then when he was in Minnesota, and Nebraska, I
think where he's from originally using geographical tools, including those
from this company Ezra, that I know about to plan
where how to protect from floods, and where the housing
shortages are and where what kind of crops you need

(06:40):
to plant, just all the things where the knowledge of
where makes a difference in how people live. And so
the piece I wrote was after Joe Biden had announced
he was not going to run. So we knew Kamala
Harris was going to be the nominee, but she was
just beginning to consider prospects as vice president. And so
I said, here's somebody you haven't heard about. But I

(07:01):
know this guy, and he really knows something about using
the tools of public life to make life better. And
he has and I saw him get an unprompted standing
ovation from twenty thousand international scientists when he gave his
presentation at.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
The famously raucous crowd. I'm sure known for their standing ovation.
You know, crazy exuber it's those scientists.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
And so I can ask you something Backsteward, that we
know that politics has always been a matter of the person.
There's a person who captures the moment, whether it's FDR
or Teddy Roosevelt or Jimmy Carter weirdly at his time,
or Ronald Reagan and conditions of people, whether they're feeling
better or worse than war and peace and the economy

(07:54):
and all the rest, and then what this person seems
capable of doing. And it does seem to me that
until there was a time, maybe starting with Newt Gingrich,
when the Republicans threw the switch, that it was just
going to be all about culture war. Is that a
fair reading of when it became all culture war and
not not delivering the goods. You're the expert on this, Yeah, God, I.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Wish I wasn't so. Uh. Look, I think it's a
complicated quest because you know, one of the criticisms of
Mitt Romney, who I worked for and we lost, by the.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Way, which which is how we first met when when
deb and I were reporting on your campaign.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
And you know, one of the criticisms Met got, particularly
I think from the right, was that he was a technocrat.
That he was he was a guy that was running
on a platform of confidence versus ideology. Uh, And there

(09:01):
was a lot of truth to that, and that you know,
Mitt is someone who has been extraordinarily successful in different
situations at helping take something that's broken and fixing it,
which is what he did with the Massachusetts health system,
which you know is a success story. He was always

(09:25):
careful to point out, though it didn't seem to matter that,
you know, as a model for Obamacare, Massachusetts is a
unique state. What works in Massachusetts, you know, this wealthy,
small state. You know, it may not work in Texas.
And it's difficult to do a blueprint. But Mitt, you know,
when he ran in two thousand and eight, one of

(09:45):
his standards, sort of smallish gathering stump speeches, was he
would do a whiteboard. The first time I saw it
was up in New Hampshire, thought I was, you know,
the goddamn this thing I've ever seen? Like, what is this?
He's up there like a white board like we were
at you know, some Mackenzie uh Baying meeting. And I

(10:09):
know that he picked Paul Ryan because he thought that
for good reason. You know that Paul understood how Congress worked,
which you know he never served in Congress, and he
thought this is someone I'd like to govern with. But then,
you know, I mean, has there ever been such a

(10:29):
change from Mitt Romney a party that nominates Mitt Romney,
that the nominates Donald Trump. And you know, my analysis
of this was that sort of the it just exposes
the fraudulent nature of American conservatism, that that it never

(10:54):
really became a governing philosophy, that was Apple Coble uh
in practice. And you know, when when Bush ran, there's
a lot to be said. I think that, you know,
Republicans are in a situation where you know, bushboardy three,
where you know, crime, welfare and taxes and sort of

(11:18):
a manswer. But you know, crime was way down by
two thousand, uh, taxes were down. Clinton, you know, ended
welfare as we know it, Cold War was over. And
I think that there's somebody said that Republicans really were
at lost a drift sort of of what would why

(11:41):
is it that we exist as a party. And this
is when Bush started talking about capacitor conservatism, and you know,
people forget, you know, not today she really remember. But
you know, Bush got a lot of criticism from the
right about that because they would say, trying to say
that being conservative is a compassionate and his basic answer was, yes,

(12:02):
that's what I'm saying. And you know what did that
mean for him? It was mainly focused on the issue
that he knew the most about, h cared most was education.
So you know, there's sort of an interesting part of
the game among a bunch of us who worked for Bush,
what would have been like if you hadn't become a
wartime president. I mean, the one big piece of legilation

(12:22):
he passed was no Child Left Behind, which I mean,
I'm not an education savannah, policy savanna. I don't know
if it's a good thing bad thing. But there's that
famous picture of SIMSONI it would take Kennedy over his
right yoder yep. I mean that would be submitted now,
like in a war crimes tribunal, you know, in the
Republican Party, like I have truth here. So I think

(12:48):
it was a as I said, I think that Donald
Trump didn't change the party, he revealed the party. Now. Democrats,
you know, I think have suffered from not particularly in

(13:09):
recent years. You know, well, you could say, going back
to Ducaucus, you're not being able to make a passionate
enough argument to connect policy with emotion.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
Yeah, So when you look back on that that eighty
eight election, when we were living in Japan, so we
weren't here firsthand, but think of the first George Bush
versus Ducaccas As sort of there there there's never been
sort of a greater clash of the expertise guys than
those two. You know, the first George Bush, who was

(13:45):
you know, just so so experienced in Ducaccas, whose whole
message was competence and having the subways and the Metro
and in Boston run on time. It's you know, writing
the the t himself, so so sorry. It's just it's
almost an unrecognizable country from that election, as you know.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
I mean, look on the internet as we exist at
this moment. There is a piece of video from the
nineteen eighty Republican presidential nominating campaign when George Bush is
in a debate in Texas with Ronald Reagan and they
are arguing over who is more liberal on immigration, each

(14:29):
trying to prove that they were more liberal. I mean,
you watch it and it's like something from like, you know,
a last civilization. It's like you stumbled across something like
from the Mayan's like, you know, human sacrifice.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
But that's so I'm going to be become the journalist
interviewer here again. Here's something I wonder as a Californian myself.
I grew up in southern California, small town southern California.
As you know, California politics was sort of sent permanently
against the republic apparently with Pete Wilson and the Prop
eighty seven or whatever it was, you know, for anti immigration.

(15:07):
Why is that not happening on the national level to
the Republicans of just becoming you know, sort of untouchable
because they were so extreme on immigration, or will it
happen to Republicans?

Speaker 1 (15:18):
Well, first, let's kind of set that up for people.
So in nineteen ninety four, Pete Wilson was running for
re election in California and he ran this famous ad
called showing people Mexicans remember coming over the crawling over
what was in the border wall and it opened up,

(15:39):
they keep coming and it really was a precursor to
what ran on. So at the same time, in nineteen
ninety four, George Bush was running the governor of Texas
and he couldn't have been more inviting to Hispanics. It

(16:00):
is there is a cultural difference in Texas as you know.
Living in Austin, I mean we have a text Mexiculture.
You have so many families, you know, You'll have a
father in law who lives in Mexico. I mean, it's
just you know, it is different there. But as a result,
since nineteen ninety four, no Republican not named Short Sneker
can win in California and no Republican can lose in Texas.

(16:22):
Now that's not the only reason, but it's it's it's
a fascinating study. And you know, I this goes back
to the Walls thing too, because you know, I think
that it is a tragedy that okay, Harrison Wall's laws,

(16:44):
that happens in politics. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Somebody has to lose. I mean, that's a whole lessence
of democracy. But because you loss doesn't mean that you
were wrong. I Mean one of my frustrations with the
Democratic Party has been this sort of, well, we lost, therefore,
you know, we need to have two hundred focused groups
about how to connect then or something. You know. But

(17:10):
they lost that election because the right track of the
country was at twenty seven. No incombent parties lost if
it was under forty five. Yeah, and Joe Biden's approval
was forty. No party's ever gotten no incoment parties ever
gotten to much. So it was a perfect party for
a challenger. So a perfect election for challenger when we know,
like Nikki Haley, Pauls show her doing better than and

(17:37):
that coalition that existed for that one day I think
was just a Faberge egg because you had he did
do better with Hispanics. He got up to the low forties,
which is kind of the high wordmark we got with Bush.
But you knew that that couldn't sustain if they were

(17:58):
going to follow through with what Peter Miller. And here
we are a year later, and whereas where we just
had an election, uh in November and Republicans fell back
down to maybe thirty one with Hispanics, you know, uh,

(18:25):
nineteen sixty four, go Order got seven percent of the
African American vote. You had a Republican nominee for governor
Virginia who happened to be African American and she got
seven percent. That's pretty much like a flat one. And
you know, I just uh, my question, you know, for

(18:49):
you just do you think we've reached a point where
this is unrecoverable as a country.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
So let me buy thirty seconds of thinking time with
an indirect answer, which is in journal I've in journalism.
I feel as if the question I've always been dealing
with is can the US make it? You know, I
was a kid, I was in the high school.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
During the Vietnam War.

Speaker 2 (19:18):
I was in college when things are just flying apart,
with you know, the assassinations of King and Kennedy and
just everything going to hell. In nineteen seventies, when I
was working for Carter, things were going to hell. And
there's been always I think this contingent question of you know,
can't Is it too much for the US?

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Now?

Speaker 2 (19:39):
And we've learned, and politicians have learned to say, and
people who are old like me have learned to think
that there is always more resiliency to the US than
you think. But the institutional destruction now is different from
anything else in my lifetime. I wrote a piece a

(20:00):
number of times there, in the first just a filibuster
for a second. More during Trump's first time and the
first few months of his second time, I wrote often
saying I've seen worse than this, because I was alive
in nineteen sixty eight, and that was that was really
sort of a needa of the post Civil war US.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
I think in terms of institutional damage. We have seen worse,
but I think we have. We're seeing pushback too, and
the question is whether we'll ever see anything out of
Republicans in the legislature and the Supreme Court.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
I have believed in the US resilience, but its institutions
are more damaged now than in my long previous lifetime.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
Yeah, I don't you know the whole premise of make
America Great Again, which is a phrase that others had used.
I mean, I think used it as well, a card Clinton.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Used, Reagan used it I as the subtitle of a
book after I if I lived in Japan, I read
a book saying that people were saying America should be
more like Japan. I was saying, no, we should be
more like us. The title was more like us making
America great Again. This was in nineteen eighty one, but
your Reagan had used it before then too, and many

(21:17):
other people. That's sorry, I interrupted.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
These things with context matters, you know. In Trump's case,
it basically is some sort of mythical fifties where if
you were driven by race, if you were white, you
knew you had a certain place in the world, and
that that's been threatened. But you know, it wasn't that

(21:40):
long ago. Republicans like to nominate big state governors because
we would say that government states for the laboratory of ideas.
And you know, there was a brief moment, I mean
you could hold your breath when the Heritage Foundation actually
had interesting people who would argue over policy working for

(22:03):
them before they became a white nationalist, Russian funded front,
which is what they are.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
So I'll give you another unasked for theory of American history,
which is essentially everything since the beginning has been this
tension between idealism and resentment, you know, possibility and hatred,
and it's sort of that yin and yang balance that
goes back and forth. And this is you know, there

(22:35):
are candidates who are mainly have this hopeful message and
their candidates who mainly have this this angry message. And
you and I have talked over the you know, ever
since the Romney campaign against Obama about this balance in
American life, including in the last year's election, where I
think both you and I believed that the resentment quotient

(22:57):
finally would be a little less than the hope quotient.
And that's always the question for the US, whether there
are more of us than of them, whether there's more
people who think there is a kind of American prospect
and ideal than who are just driven by resentment, which
I think is the main motivation of the Trump Stephen

(23:18):
Miller group and Russell group. So that's my theory. We're
a country that is in the sort of Yin and
yang sign wave of the hope versus resentment, and I
hope that the hopeful note will come up, but also
with a tough message, as we're seeing from Senator Kelly
for example.

Speaker 1 (23:39):
Yeah, Beck, let's run Sam. Could you run this clip?
Sinator Kelly's response.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
How many generations of Donald Trump's family have served in
the military.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Zero.

Speaker 3 (23:54):
Now, for me and my family, service to our country
is in my blood. My great grandfather served in the
US Navy after immigrating from Ireland. Both of my grandfather.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
Served during World War Two.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Both of my parents were uniforms, my dad in the
eighty second Airborne and both of them as career police officers.
And when it was our turn, my brother and I
started as volunteer mts as teenagers before becoming Navy captains
pilots in the United States Navy and NASA astronauts. Donald

(24:29):
Trump he deferred the draft five times because he had
bone spurs. Look, not everyone has to serve in our military.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
I get that.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
But when you're gonna question my patriotism and lecture me
about duty to this country and threatened me with a
court martial, four generations of service to this country earns
me the right to speak. Five deferments earns nothing.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah, that's that's how you do it. Yeah. So so,
I mean when you see that, h, why is it
that Democrats can't do more of that? You know, that's

(25:24):
such a so so.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Senator Kelly has a uniquely powerful story. You know, how
many other people have been combat fighter pilots for the
Navy and astronauts and have have their their wife be
a congresswoman who was you know, gravely wounded in a
gun massacre, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
So the fact that he in a way, it's like
you can't be there.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, and that that just as Dwight Eisenhower did not
have to puff himself up like Pete Hegseth. He was
the five star general who had won World War Two.
Senator Kelly doesn't need to, you know, he you have
this sense which I think came across masterfully and that
clip of finally you've got him mad. You know, he's

(26:15):
slow to anger, but go to hell if you challenge
his patriotism. And also I think he artfully didn't was
trying to say, look, you know, not everybody needs him
in the military, et cetera, et cetera, but I know
what I'm talking about, and bring it on. And so
I think the bring it on spirit, the yin and
yang Governor Waltz in Minnesota also had a bring it

(26:36):
on spirit, you know, And so I think having being
happy warriors, as FDR might have put it, that that's
the combination we're looking for. And I think so we're
seeing I hope more. You know, the both of the
female governors who won West Fall and in New Jersey
and Virginia have national security background. So having people who

(26:58):
have that tough background that maybe that's the next wave
of democratic exemplars.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Well, you know, I mean, to me, it's a historic
opportunity for the Democratic Party to get back to what
they once had. I mean, you know, nineteen sixty people
forget he watched the Nixon Kennedy debate. You know, Nixon
was on the left when it came to missiles. I mean,
he you know, he accused Kennedy of having a secret
plan in Bay Cuba. You know, it turns out he

(27:27):
was right, and you know, Kennedy was there's a missile gap,
we need to be more aggressive. And that was a
muscular foreign policy. Tragically, it's probably something to do with
us stumbling into Vietnam, but it was, you know, the

(27:50):
Democratic Party had that strain, that Scoop Jackson strain of
very muscular foreign policy. And to me, this is a
real opportunity for the Dimocratic Party to get that back.
I mean, you have it is a true statement that
Bernie Sanders is to the right of Donald Trump on

(28:13):
the largest land war in Europe.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Yeah, yes, I mean yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Bernie honeymoon in Russia, but he didn't like fall in
love with Russia. And it's just an amazing moment. You know,
remember when Nancy Pelosi went to Taiwan, Yeah, you know,
I mean, and you know, the Chinese, like you know,
criticized it.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
Can I say something on the just the Chinese angles,
As you mentioned, I've dev and I lived in China
for a long time. I've stayed in touch both with
people in China and people who know about China who
are not there anymore. And I think the Chinese leadership
right now has gone through a sort of like the
rest of us, a city of unease about Donald Trump.

(28:59):
At first, I thought they could just buy him off,
if they just gave him deals and money, then it
would all be fine. I think now his simple unpredictability
has become a cause for concern for them. But just
having no idea what the hell this guy is going
to do next. And maybe that's conscious and deliberate on
Trump's part, but I think interestingly, a year ago, the

(29:19):
Chinese thought they had him in their pocket just by
buying him, and now they're sort of wondering about this
loose cannon so to say.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Yeah, I mean, and there's no greater example of that
than snatching a head of a foreign state and not
being able to explain why. I mean, Yes, I don't
square today that you know it's historically you listen to
so darkly hysterical, you know, you listened to jd. Vance.

(29:51):
He says that it was because you know, they broke
American law. They broke law. There's an indictment. You don't
get to live in a palace in Caracas and invade
American law. It's kind of like makes the whole thing
like an episode of The Liar. Yes, you know, and
we're going to go in and get these guys, you know.
And then you know, you had Marco Rubio who didn't

(30:14):
blame it on drugs, maybe because his brother in law
is a convicted Narco hotel Cuban born drug dealer, but
as it may, for one of the more bizarre aspects
the policy that Rubio now is so excited about. You know,
these extraditional killings would have killed his brother in law,
so yeah, you know. He he says that it's about

(30:36):
regional dominance, as if this is all like a game
of risk, and Trump talks about it like it's a takeover. Yes, and.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
It's like a stick up for the oil, give me
your oil.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
We've taken over the board, you know, and we're gonna
run Venezuela. And I just don't know how many people
that like, you know, we're in this America first thing,
We're like, yeah, and we're going to run Venezuela on
the side, like really, Jesus.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
And then there is Greenland, which, again, as I mentioned,
then we'll mention again you and I last saw each
other while in Greenland. Somehow it has not entered public
discussion that the US already has every possible strategic advantage
you could ever want from Greenland at this moment. You know,
there are US warplanes there, there are US naval docks.

(31:33):
You know, it is just crazy that this becomes an issue.
But yes, there's Greenland. Do you have any Greenland thoughts?

Speaker 1 (31:41):
Well, you know, here's for me, you know, play this out.
So what Denmark defend? I think the answer is probably yes.
I mean they would, they would, they would put military
forces in there. So then you have a potential United
States versus NATO country military conflict. So how does that

(32:06):
not trigger Article five? So now we have a NATO
versus America military conflict, which is like in the wildest
dreams of the most crazy people in the Kremlin, they
couldn't dream up a better, more delicious scenario to completely

(32:29):
you know, screw the West.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yes, and and just just on that scenario, I think
I heard this afternoon that the UK and Germany and France,
maybe Italy all sort of all the major NATO partners
have lined up with the Danes. Yeah, and so against
the US, which of course means that Trump will this
will become just Oh, I was only kidding, you know,
one more of those things that he taking literally and

(32:56):
not seriously or whatever the formula is. But you mentioned
in Putin's dreams, this is the wildest fantasy you could imagine.
I think that is an interesting difference between Russia and China.
I don't know much about Russia, even though my brother
is a big expert there, But my sense is Russia
actually wishes harmed the US, and one of their goals

(33:16):
is anything that's bad for the US is good for them.
I think for China, they meanly care about China and
if it hurts the US, fine, but it's not not
their main goal. And so I think that China is
actually more discomfited by the chaos, whereas Russia is saying, ah,
you know, bringing on, What do you think about that
contrast or comparison.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I have to wave my Romney flag here, you know.
It's in the twenty twelve campaign were Romney called Russia
our greatest geopolitical folk. That's right, And I can tell
you there was no polling that indicated that was, like, well,
people are really going to respond to that. It was

(34:00):
in fact, you know, before that third debate, I had
this sort of thought, like, zybody really care about foreign policy?
So we polled, and in the national poll, those that
thought foreign policy was in the top ten issues was
under ten percent. I mean, you know. And then I said,
we're talking about the debate. I said, it doesn't matter
what you say, no one's gonna fail. But you know,

(34:24):
he was, I think regrettably criticized publicly by Democrats. Yes,
I remember the eighties had called for them, you know,
and he was. So this was before Georgia, before Syria,
before they attempted to uh steal a US election, perhaps
with some success. They certainly played a factor in Trump

(34:44):
getting elected, according to Marco Rubio Centate Intelligence Committee. And
you know, it's sort of fascinating to me. This was
just something that Romney cared about, and and internally we
got a lot of green from Republicans like why are
you saying this? It's China. Now. They would hold the

(35:06):
line and they wouldn't, you know, go on Sean Hannity
and attack Romney. But nobody was cheerleading for this. Nobody
I remember that very well, calling Mitt and saying, Hey, dude,
this is so great you're doing this. It's like, you know,
but he thought it was important to do. And I
think that he said, all right, you would.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
So you would remember, as I don't how did Obama
answer that same question in the debate. Did he say
it was China or what did Obama say?

Speaker 1 (35:41):
I really can't remember. I mean, I think that the
the goal of the Obama campaign in that in that
race was to present Rodney as a Cold War relic

(36:01):
who hadn't adjusted to the new realities of what the
world was. And I mean it's a whole separate, long conversation,
but I mean I think in many ways foreign policy
was well, it's hard to say, and I think it
was Obama's greatest failure. But then you could say it, certainly,

(36:22):
God does know, multiple multi multiple times more was George
Bush's greatest Ye? Yeah, so I mean it wasn't you know?

Speaker 2 (36:36):
So, Stuart, can I actually circle back on you for
one of my other theories, which is related to what
you're saying, which is the role of contingency and luck
in how things have worked out for the US, that
how different the late eighteen hundreds would have been without
John Wick's book Booth. You know, if he had been

(36:56):
six inches off in his aim. As you know, FDR
there was an assassination attempt on him before he was
inaugurated in Miami. Instead, it was the mayor of Chicago
who was killed, not FDR. How the world would be
different if FDR had been killed. What would be the
story of Vietnam? If Kennedy had been alive? And my
sense is that the US has been big enough and

(37:18):
rich enough and cushioned enough to absorb this bad luck.
But the run streak of bad luck that started with
the Iraq War and the contested election before that and
has run through Trump coming in the first time when
he thought it was going to just go back into showbiz.
This may be more bad luck than we can absorb.

(37:42):
What is your view on luck?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
I think in our system, the major political parties in
part are supposed to form a circuit breaker, folks, and
the Republicans never pulled a circuit breaker Trump, And so
a sort of interesting, you know thought exercise, as they

(38:05):
say to go through is what would Democratic Party have
done if George Wallace had been nominated. They wouldn't have
nominated George Waller, but they would they have accepted George
Wallace and everybody fallen in line behind George Wallace? Absolutely
fucking not. No, what are you know people forgetting the
sixth in the nineteen In the two thousand and four election,

(38:26):
Busten declare victory on election night because there were enough
provisional votes out in Ohio. Now, I was in the
Bush campaign. We knew that we had won. But theoretically
you could say, if Carrie got eighty percent, I think
he could still win. So believe me, there are a
lot of people on election night that were telling Bush like,
go out there, dude and claim it, you know, you know, Okay,

(38:49):
So wait till the next day, and they had this
weird thing at the rn C, which if you ever
watch it on video, it's like so awkward and everybody
just doesn't it's like, okay, yeah, But imagine if John
Carrie had said I won that election Ohio was stolen.
What would the Democratic Party have done? The Democratic Party
were taking its head off, you know. The New York

(39:10):
Times wouldn't have done what Fox and all these rights,
you know, they wouldn't have fallen in line even though
they knew it wasn't true. New York Times would have
called for his like, you know, to resign from the
Senate the disgrace. So I don't think that there's an
equivalency there with parties. And I think that I think

(39:32):
something happened James inside the Republican Party over decades that
we evolved a system that rewarded compliance, not leadership, that
you waited your turn. You do that for decades, and
in part it was because since nineteen sixty four you

(39:56):
really were only playing to a white audience. I mean,
it's it's obvious, but to me it's still kind of
mind boggling statement the truth, that's truth. No Republican has
been elected without the majority of the white vote. And
I think I stood down to the school boards last. Yeah.

(40:19):
So you know, if if you're you're a company and
major corporation, and you know that your market is a
certain section, you get good at talking to that market
and you kind of don't care about the others. So
something happened that allowed us to end up with like

(40:40):
the Republican US senators we have now and I have
to elect a lot of these guys, and I never
would have thought it had happened, but they you know
that someone like Roger Wicker from Mississippi. Yeah, you know
what I mean. Roger ages in Washington together if dads
or friends I worked for. He's somebody whose entire life

(41:01):
if want to be chairman of the Armed Services Committee,
and you know, like when most people wanted to be
like you know, football stars. Right, So now he is
and what does he what does he do? His first
official act is to usher Impete hexit and I don't

(41:23):
I think it's desertion. He would not have let Pete
has said, cut his long. Yeah, I want this drunken
guy with like tattoos and weirdos thing about women around
the house like no, you know, and now you know.
And he didn't have to do that. I mean, if
if Wicker had said to Trump, picked there's two hundred
and eighteen million Americans, Yeah, pick somebody else, not this guy,

(41:49):
pick a real conservative. Yeah, and he had done that
quietly or done it publicly. Trump would have done it.
He wouldn't have on the Pete headset hill.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
So you can maybe answer a question I find impossible
to answer myself. So I personally have been fired from
jobs because I was the editor of US News from
a report I got fired because I wouldn't do something,
and that was fine. I went on to did different things.
I assume you've been fired or had episodes like this.
There are times in life where you know it's not

(42:25):
that bad. And how can it be for Republicans who
are now either in the House or the Senate, like
Lindsey Graham, where getting reelected and avoiding primary Trump's every
so speak, Trump's everything else in your life. I just
don't understand that on a human level. So you've worked
with these people when I have just as people, how

(42:46):
can you understand this?

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Listen? I you know, when I wrote this book, it
was it was a lie, which really, you know a
lot of people were wrong about Trump and sixteen, but
it's really hard to find anybody it's more wrong than me.
I didn't think he were in the primary of the
general didn't either, and then when he did, I had
to ask myself, like, why is it I didn't see this?
I mean I was there. You know, there's that trope

(43:10):
of books people write about watching like if only they'd
listened to me. I couldn't write that listened to me,
you know, and I didn't see it. So in that
sort of high school English teacher way. If you can't
write it, you can't do I started start writing about nothing.
He would be a book, but it it really came
to me. I think post World War two Publican Party

(43:32):
there were these two strands then Eisenhower strand that was governing, sane, boring,
uh and a Joel McCarthy strain conspiratorial, often racist, always
in aphobic, non governing. And I think those of us
who were around Bush, you know, I mean literally me

(43:53):
Nicole Wallace, Matthew Dow, mart McKinnon, Pete Wayner, Michael Gerson,
who said, we saw the same room, and I think
we thought, certainly, I thought that we were the dominant gene,
only because the country was changing so much that it
would have to be that. Yes. And you know, if

(44:14):
you go back and you read Bush's acceptance speech in
two thousand convention in New York, it reads like something
from like literally another sort of lost artifacts all about
like the current mayor of New York. It sort of
passion and humility and service and like that guy couldn't

(44:35):
get fired for certain Republican Party. So a long way
saying this is so I wrote this book, and then
I did the US of publicity stuff on on out there,
which you've done eighty million times, And I got to
ask a very simple question on television. It was very
early on, like did you ever think that these people

(44:55):
you helped alect would do this? And I got I
found I really even couldn't talk about it. I joked up.
It was it felt like such a personal betrayal, like, no,
I didn't I mean ender that Roger John Corny, I
mean John corn was Supreme Court justice in Texas who

(45:18):
really didn't want to run for attorney general because he
thought politics was sort of I don't know. I just
course this is intellectually interesting. I think I'm good at it.
I don't know politics. But he was sort of talked
into running for attorney general when I worked in that campaign,
and we wanted to go out and make ads about,
you know, being the toughest sheriff west to the pay coast,

(45:38):
and he was like, no, that's not really what the
attorney general does in Texas. We deal more like with
white collar crime stuff, you know, And he wouldn't let
us make those ads. And somehow that guy now is
a Trump pumpin I haven't up there.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
One of my sons lives and one of our sons
lives in Dellas with his family. We were seeing him
at Thanksgiving in early prior to December. John Cornyan is
already running ads toughest sheriff west of the Pecos. You
know that he already is doing ads for those for
his next year or for this year's run.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yes, I mean it's it's really but you know, I
just I think it well, it goes to what I
was saying that the system that we evolved where we
rewarded compliance and it was like a genetic grooming experiment.

(46:36):
We took this field and we bred it and bred
it and bred it until we've got a certain kind
of you know plant, and that plant is a plan.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
Plant is jd Vance.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
A compliance and rather than leadership. And yeah, that's that's
how I don't see it changing.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
You know what, I was going to give you an
upbeat point for a moment. I've been trying to talk
and deb I've been trying to talk with people and
institutions around the country that are standing up and doing things.
I think the foundation world in general, led maybe surprisingly
maybe not by the MacArthur Foundation out of Chicago, they've

(47:26):
been really standing up and trying to say we're going
to protect our grantees. We're going to try to make
up for these the cuts in federal institutions. You know,
the federal bench at the non supreme court level has
been mainly brave. The district court judges and most of
the circuit court judges have been brave. Libraries have been

(47:47):
standing up for their communities debtne I met as undergraduates
at Harvard. Harvard has this is the first time in
our lives we've been proud to say we went to Harvard.
And Harvard is doing the right thing now and is saying, Okay,
we're rich enough, we can outlast year. We're not going
to bend the knee, even though they're making little adjustments.
So there are lots of and people are turning out

(48:11):
in the way they've not done before in either you
r my lifetime to say okay, we we want something different,
you know, for demonstrations on these off year elections and
all the rest. So there is at least there's tension
in the situation as opposed to just being rolled over.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Yeah. Look, you know, if I were in there were
to party got to help us, you know, I would
I would make everybody wake up in the morning and
chant we're right there wrong. Yes, there's more of us
than there are of them, don't you know? I don't
want to find common ground with the guy in the
camp Auswitch sweatshirt standing in the back. I don't want to.
I don't care about understanding that guy. I don't, you know,

(48:48):
I don't. How are you going to meet him halfway?
You know? I mean you shouldn't. I don't want to
meet Stephen Miller halfway. I own O Miller and prosecute.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yes, Stephen Miller to me stands for the worst in
the American experience, and like he's the Joe McCarthy of
our era, and in a way has more power than McCarthy.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yet these badly damage things. And you know there's something
here in Aniversary of January sixth that is happening. It
seems to me to have its roots and totalitarian societies
like China. Yeah, we're trying to rewrite history. I mean, yes,
you saw that firsthand, with you know, the literally airbrushing.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
Yes, h And let me just say a couple of
things about it. I mentioned earlier that the current Chinese
regime has gone from being sort of cackling at Trump's
corruption to now being a little upset about his unpredictability.
But there are ways in which I think are two
very similar points where where our time in China to

(49:50):
US seems to inform we see about the US. One
is the kind of attack on knowledge itself that's happening
in the US. It's very much like the Chinese cultural
Revolution of the nineteen sixties, where anybody who knew anything,
you know, had to run for the hills, and we
knew families who had buried their families, scrolls and literature

(50:12):
because otherwise they'd be torn apart. The other is the
erasure of history. If you talk to Chinese people under
the age of like thirty, most of them have no
idea of Tianman Square. The don't know what you're talking about.
They don't know any about any of you know, the
the great famines of the Mao era, and so the
erasure of history that we're seeing from the January sixth

(50:33):
plaque to the Smithsonian that is that is all too
resonant with the worst parts of China.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Yeah, and Republicans are silent about it. I mean, we
were looking at earlier. Sam, do you put up this
new White House posting about redefining Yeah, so here there
you know light House is I mean, this is.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
I'm gonna put on my glasses to read this on
the screen.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Coldblood. Mike Pence refused to act.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Oh Jesus, I'm sorry to say that, but Jesus.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Yeah, uh stolen. You know this is I wish Democrats
to do more, you know, when they're in those confirmation hearings.
I would have had every Democrat asked every nominee for anything,
do you believe that Donald Trump lost a free and
fair election? And if you said, well, maybe it doesn't matter,

(51:37):
that's it. There's nothing else you need to say, because
once you say that, you disqualified. Yeah. And you know
the thing about this, Uh, the Vice President of the
United States was sitting around his office and saw that

(51:59):
a group group of youngish not you know, under age,
not teenage, the youngest Republicans or had a chat group
where they had like thousands and thousands of pro Nazi,
like explicitly pro nazi views. So you know, he was
sitting in his office and thought, you know, I've got

(52:20):
to defend this. Like you know, you've been at eight
I've been an what are you to say to your
boss like, I don't want, sir, I really don't know.
Look like that thing going out and defending Nazis. Maybe
maybe we could just talk about that, like internally, like
what what a tragedy it is that the pro Nazis
loide of things is being suppressed in America? But do
we really need to go out and talk about it?

(52:42):
But he did so? Why did he do it so?
Jd Vance? You know, if he told jd Vance that
he could advance, if you know, one of his children
had to be offered up for tribute, the best you
could hope for is that he might senmon up the
courage to say, well, can I pick which one? You know?
I mean, you know, I mean here, here is a
guy who attacks the fourteenth Amendment, who's married to a

(53:06):
woman who is an American because of the fourteenth Amendment,
who stirs up this hatred against immigrants, and you know,
goes on about heritage Americans and as children, let me
tell you that they don't look like Kentucky coal minters.
You know, it looken't unless.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
The black lung problem was really bad.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
They called us heritage Americans, dude, And you know that
might be a real problem if America had a history
of you know, rising your patriot against Asian Americans. I
see that never.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
So I'm going to tell you just one other thing
on if you let me choose which one to give
up for sacrifice. You mentioned we lived in Austin with
Dev was a graduate school at UT This would have
been in nineteen seventy three. There was a sort of
party for the English Department at Austin and Dev was attending,
and there was a speech by William Styron who was
there coming to visit a lecture, and so I said,

(54:03):
I was working for Texas Monthly. Then said, oh, mister Siren,
I guess know. This would have been in seventy four.
What are you working? I said, well, I'm working on
a novel set in a concentration camp about a woman
who has to choose between her children. And so this
was when he was in the middle of writing Sophie's Choice,
and it was still sort of something in his brain
that is something I have that in watching Roger Federer

(54:26):
play from twenty feet away or at the Beijing Olympics
are two things to stick in my mind. Yeah, and
going to Greenland.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
So why did Jed Evans do that. He did it
because he believed, I think correctly, that the way to
assume in the Republican Party is to be the most
transgressive and proud of it. So, you know, Donald Trump
launches into politics attacking Mexicans as rape and murderers. All right,

(55:02):
well that's kind of been done. So what are we
going to do next? Well, let's defend Nazis. Well, I mean,
you know that, like, I'm going to really distinguish myself
because you know, you think about other people that might
run for the Republican nomination, don't are they going to
be willing to defend Nazis? You know? So I'm going

(55:23):
to step up here and I'm going to defend Nazis
and I'm going to be rewarded for it. And the
horrible truth is, in the Republican nominating system he probably would.

Speaker 2 (55:33):
Be so yes, And as I say, in the improv world,
the only silver lining I feel about Vance is that
Donald Trump has gotten this far because there's a certain
spectacle value to him. He is interesting.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Vance is not.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
You know, people don't like Vance, and so I think,
you know, if Trump's on TV, people watch Nobody's gonna
watch Vance.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
So that that is you agree or not. No, I
think look in many ways, I think politics is a
perfect marketplace because people will say and do anything to
get votes and should and people get to do it.
So you Advance ran for the Senate, he only won
that Republican I worked for the previous Rob Portman, Republican senator.

(56:22):
That Vance has took a seed. The only reason he
won is because Peter Thiel came in with a fifteen
million dollars super pack, which was a lot of money
in the Republican primary at the very end, and pushed
Vance over the top in a Republican primary. So then
he's a Republican nominee for Senate running with a Republican

(56:45):
governor running for reelection. And Vance got four hundred thousand
fewer votes than the Republican governor. I would if you
had asked me in a political science is that possible?
Four hundred thousand eyes went in there and said, I'm
got to both the Bublican governor, but I'm going to

(57:06):
both of the son of a JV. Van. You know,
nothing like that ever happened. You know what we call
an undervote, And so yes, I think he absolutely isn't
and you know. I mean it's just say, I think
if you look at someone like Marco Rubio or at

(57:30):
least Dephonic who used to work for it the one time,
had they had stayed who they were saying, you know
about Chris Christie, who sadly endures Trump, I mean broke
my art. Had they stayed who they were, they would
have standing to try to leave the party in a
different direction. Yes, they could have been. Look, we didn't

(57:51):
think Trump was going to be a good president. I
didn't think he tried to overthrow the government. You know,
I didn't think that he would uh go make billions
for his family the first year he got re elected.
So he turned out to be worse than even I
thought and given me led some reform in the Republican Party,

(58:13):
but they didn't.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
And there's nobody left. Is there anybody who stood up
to him? Well, if Rubio had stayed in the in
the Senate, you know, he could have done that.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I guess. Sure there's people. I mean, you know, they've
all been expelled from the party. Yeah, you know, uh
Liz Cheney, Yeah, yes, of course, like Joe, what would
you do about a Republican Party that didn't have room
for a Cheney. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, it's

(58:45):
you know, how does that? How does that happen? Mitt obviously? Yeah,
you know another example, and there is no anti Trump
space in the Republican Party. There's not. I mean, and
I think that that ultimately votes very well for the

(59:07):
Democratic Party. You know, it's it's interesting to go back
to his politics as a sort of perfect marketplace. So
after the Harris Waltz lost, what did Governor California do?
His immediate instinct was to go and try to make
some calls with the right, you know podcast. You know,

(59:27):
he would have conservative figures and you know, Democrats sort
of universally threw up on his shoes and like, what
are you doing? And he looked at this and realized it.
So what has he done? Now? He's gone the other
way of you know, attacking Trump as Trump would attack others,

(59:48):
and he's been greatly rewarded for it, which I think.
You know, if to me, if you start, whoever, whoever
can articulate the need in a compelling way that the

(01:00:09):
next Democratic president must hold those in the current Trump
administration libel, Yes, that person, I think, yes, can get elected. Yes,
make a case I will elect a mainstream Democrat who's

(01:00:30):
going to, by example, be a very normal president, and
America is going to be so relieved that there will
rule that. I would have argued yes on that, but
we tried that, and you know, Garland was very slow. Yeah,

(01:00:52):
after these people, and it didn't work. So you know,
I think like in posts out to Africa, although it
was not really about criminal convictions, but there there has
to be a legal structure that yessuh Christy no response

(01:01:16):
in a criminal sense. Yes, there has to be one.
Hold Stephen Miller, there's the one that goes after the
Trump family.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yes, and the Democratic candidate should come out and say
that directly. This is a truth and reconciliation need. We're
not going to just pretend, you know, just look forward
and not backwards. You need to hold people accountable, as
we've done other times in our history, but unfortunately not
not recently. And you know, if Jack Smith were a politician,
the prosecutor, he's been uh you, I've been watching his testimony.

(01:01:51):
So yeah, I've been trying to avoid any handicapping of
the next presidential race until we get through the next midterms.
But Mark Kelly is Senator Kelley. What he's saying is
very strong, very tough, and going to take none of
this because he doesn't need to stand up for it.
So I think that is the tone we need.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Yeah. Absolutely, and look Trump was going to pardon everybody,
but you know, there are state crimes that being violated
every day by ICE. I mean, I don't know any
states where it's legal to kidnap and human traffic people
and that's what they're doing. And I think that there

(01:02:31):
needs to be a coalition of attorney generals, which will
sadly only be Democratic attorney generals. But just as there
was a coalition in the tobacco settlement, yes, some coalition
here that we are going to have an organized structure
to pick the cases that we think that we can win,

(01:02:52):
and we're going to go in and we're going to
arrest and try these people. I think that's that has
to happen, or there it will be more likely that
it will happen. Again.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I agree there have to be any parent knows how.
There haves to be consequences for things, and I think
fortunately there have been a number of strong democratic governor.
Governor Newsom has been strong governor Pritsker has been strong.
Governor Waltz has been strong in Washington State and in Oregon.
I think the new governors of New Jersey and Virginia
will be strong. That they're centrist figures, but I think

(01:03:32):
they'll be strong. So I think there is critical mass
to do what you're talking about, and.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
I think it's going to be about that passion and
desire to fight. I mean, you know, there is no
ideological structure to the Republican Party now. I mean, Republicans
are going insane because the I got elected mayor of
New York in one of the maybe open five grocery stores,

(01:03:58):
and we're nationalizing Intel, really, you know, and I can't
wait to see, you know, Tim Cook instead of bringing
golden offered to Donald Trump when Trump says he wants
ten percent of Apple, which is going to happen. Yes, yes,

(01:04:19):
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:04:21):
And this is the greatest failure, the greatest failure. Okay,
hierarchy of failures, the Republican Party, as you've written, the
Supreme Court, as we've talked about. But high tech leadership,
corporate leadership is sort of third, or it's maybe the
three in that pantheon of evil right now, of complicity

(01:04:43):
and the seeing all those tech people kind of groveling
to Trump is really disgusting. You know, Musk was not
war even among them, but the rest of them. Tim
Cook doing this is is bad. So, uh, you know,
not accountability for the tech companies maybe on this, but
for people who had political power like from Christy Nome

(01:05:04):
undown I agree.

Speaker 1 (01:05:08):
Well, look, brother, I can't let you go and tell
you promise that you'll come back and do this again.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
And whether it's in Greenland or on the zoom camera,
I'm happy to be in touch.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
You made a recording from the front lines of Greenland,
you know, the Greeman resistance movement. But uh, you know
you think that because now you know NATO has sent
a stick together, I don't know if that to stop.
I think that Steven Miller is going to feel like, well,

(01:05:46):
what really is it really going to happen?

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
I think Stephen Miller is he's gotten what he wants
by what he did yesterday. Over the weekend, all the
preening on the shows of saying, oh, yes, you know
this is the American seer of him influence actually invading
Greenland against the UK, France, Germany, NATO. That's that's another
step I think even Trump might think, huh, do we

(01:06:11):
really need to do that?

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Yeah? Plus, but god knows, are American military leaders really
gonna go along with that. I mean, I just find
that hard hard to believe. All.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Yeah, So, so thank you so much. It's a great
pleasure to talk with you, Stewart, and thank you for
the guidanting to us.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
All everybody out there should stop whatever they're doing and
subscribe to James Breaking the News. That's correct, right, that's
the correct title, that is correct, Yes, and be a
paid member and uh uh start reading his books. Which

(01:06:58):
what's fascinating about it is you can be interested in
a lot of different things and there'll be a book
that Jane wrote about. It's just it's just amazing. So
thank you James, my pleasure and congrats on what you're doing.
Why I support cloning, appreciate you taking the time. Great,

(01:07:20):
I'll see you