September 14, 2023 • 27 mins
Join Jim and Greg as they welcome Utah Sen. Mitt Romney recognizing that if your next term will take you into your mid-80s that it's time to retire. They also look at the good and the bad of Romney's time in the Senate and remember key moments and factors in his 2012 presidential loss to Barack Obama. They also shudder as inflation rises more than expected in August and how the average American family is getting pummeled by the cost of everything these days. Finally, Jim calls out Vivek Ramaswamy for changing his mind and joining the Chinese spyware known as TikTok because a prominent social media influencer told him to.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch grubsstool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garritty of National Review.Three Martini's coming up. Hey, very
glad you're with us for the Thursdayedition of the Three Martini Lunch. Good,
bad, and Crazy Martinis for ConservativesToday. And Jim, this one's
officially a good martini because we havesaid a lot that when people approach a
(00:29):
certain age, they should seriously thinkabout leaving their political office, particularly fits
one with a lot of stress anda lot of responsibility. Sometimes exceptions can
be made for people who are seemedto be in excellent shape. We've seemed
to make a pretty good exception forChuck Grassley, even though he's just about
ninety now. But other people Ithink are getting the message, and one
of those is Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Other people, of course, we'll
(00:51):
see this is a good Martini becausethey're frustrated with him, and we'll talk
a little bit about his legacy afterwe talk about the immediate announcement here.
But yesterday Mitt Romney said that heis not going to run for reelection in
twenty twenty four. He is seventysix years old, and in his video
announcement, he said a number ofthings. First of all, he talked
about what he liked in terms ofthe accomplishments he's been part of in the
(01:15):
US Senate. You know, contraryto a lot of expectations, I enjoy
my work in the Senate a gooddeal. The last few years have been
particularly productive, as I was ableto help lead and negotiate the bipartisan Infrastructure
Law, a comprehensive China Strategy process, religious liberty protections, a compromise gun
safety law, the Electoral Accountact reform, and emergency COVID relief funding. And
(01:41):
then he also went on to talkabout the help he brought back specifically to
Utah, which is something you notedyesterday on Twitter. I was also able
to help secure key Utah priorities,including funding for Hill Air Force Base and
its programmed to modernize our nuclear deterrent, as well as funding for wildfire prevention,
water infrastructure, rural broadband, removalof uranium tailings from Moab, expansion
(02:05):
and restoration of our highway and transitinfrastructure, and federal studies to save the
Great Salt Lake. But ultimately saysit's time for him to step away.
I've spent my last twenty five yearsin public service of one kind or another.
At the end of another term,i'd be in my mid eighties.
Frankly, it's time for a newgeneration of leaders. They're the ones that
(02:30):
need to make the decisions that willshape the world they will be living in.
It's one of the more compelling argumentsto step aside. You're actually gonna
have to live with the consequences ofyour own decisions. But he also made
it clear to no surprise that he'snot a big fan of either of the
leading candidates for president in twenty twentyfour. Now we face critical challenges modding
national debt, climate change, andthe ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China.
(02:55):
Neither President Biden nor former President Trumpare leading their party to confront those issues.
On deficits and debt, both menrefuse to address entitlements, even though
they know that this represents two thirdsof federal spending. Donald Trump calls global
warming a hoax, and President Bidenoffers feel good solutions that make no difference
(03:19):
to the global climate. On China, President Biden under invests in the military
and President Trump under invests in ouralliances. We're gonna give me some of
the content of the policies there injust a moment, as well as the
larger arc of Mitt Romney's legacy.Jim stop the top of my head,
I don't think in our lifetime anywaythat we've had a former presidential nominee from
(03:40):
a major party who later ended upin the US Senate. I could be
wrong about that. I'm thinking aboutthat off the top of my head.
Obviously some state in the Senate whohad already been there, like Kerry and
John McCain and so forth. Butyou know, we've talked a lot,
from Diane Feinstein to Mitch McConnell toNancy Pelosi, who still won't go away,
(04:00):
get out. It's time a timefor somebody else, you know,
and some of you clearly aren't upto just the basic mental and physical responsibilities
and requirements for the job. SoMitt Romney looks to be in hale and
hearty condition, looks to be readyto do something else, maybe just spend
time with Anne and the rest ofthe family for the rest of his life.
And who can blame him so fora number of reasons, just on
(04:24):
that front, good for him.Yeah, Greg, I feel it's a
sad happy Martini glad to see MittRomney hanging it up and saying I've done
when I wanted to do, oralmost everything he wanted to do in the
governmental sphere and choosing to ride offinto the sunset and a happy life before
he gets succumb. Starts to comingto the issues and ravages of age.
(04:46):
I have a great deal of admirationfor Mitt Romney, but I doesn't mean
I agree with everything he's ever done. And by the way, for those
who think that National Review is somesort of you know, relentless never Trump.
One note to Mitt Romney cheerleading squad. You know, some very critical
takes from my colleagues Phil Kleine,Matthew, Brendan Doherty. I'm sorry,
Michael Brennan Doherty and Dan McLaughlin andkind of recognizing that you think back to
(05:10):
his flipflops earlier in his career,there was a reason he was not the
first choice of most Republicans back intwo thousand and eight. There was a
sense that he was an opportunist.There was a sense that he was not
terribly conservative, or as he wouldlater put it, severely conservative businessmen who
just wanted to be in public officeand found the Republican label the most convenient.
(05:33):
Then he was the nominee in twentytwelve. And the one thing I
have found myself having a very limitedpatience for in the last twenty four hours,
greg are the number of people whospent twenty twelve denouncing Mitt Romney as
the devil and contending that he gavesteelworkers cancer and that he was the epitome
(05:54):
of corporate raiders and merciless and crueland you know, and anybody who really
looked at mittan his record that hewas a sharp businessman, but a very
decent guy, very old fashioned,traditional guy, but who was not in
your face, who was not goingto needlessly antagonize anyone who wanted to build
consensus where he could, that therewas a lot to admire there, and
(06:17):
that he got his name utterly draggedthrough the mud in the twenty twelve Obama
election campaign, and that I thinkthat had a lot of bad consequences for
our politics. I think a lotof Republicans took the lesson of that that
if even a guy like Mitt Romneycould be demonized, as you know,
metaphorically the devil, that we mightas well nominate the devil. There was
no point in trying to nominate aperson of good character if that person's character
(06:42):
was going to be smeared and falselyaccused and utterly destroyed in the process of
running through the election. We shouldalso point out that Mitt Romney welcomed to
Donald Trump's endorsement during that twenty twelvecampaign, and so the idea that Mitt
Romney became the leader of the opposition, there's a little bit of irony to
that that, you know, MittRomney had at one point treated Donald Trump
like he was just another Republican,that his endorsement was a you know,
(07:06):
something he was very proud of andthat he welcomed, and of course,
you know, people remember that youknow, rather awkward looking photo. For
a very short period of time,there was talk about Mitt Romney being the
Secretary of State in a Trump administration. Didn't go very far, but you
know, one of those indicators thatnow that he has seen as this perhaps
ironic word choice intended bulwark against Trumpismand populism and all that stuff. Kind
(07:30):
of ironic considering his role only moreironic than Mike Pennce warning us at the
dangerous of populism. It only hadbeen in some position to do something about
that. But look, I thinkby and large Mitt Romney stood for the
right things, fought for the rightthings, always tried to comport himself with
a dignity and with respect for alliesand for opponents. There were times he
(07:51):
could get preachy. There were timeshe could get a little bit of a
high horse. There were times heantagonized allies with his emplyee that he himself
was taking the right and moral courseand that everyone else was making a different
decision because of cynical or base motives. I can get on people's nerves,
but by and large, I think, you know, look, if Mitt
(08:11):
Romney had won the twenty twelve electionin the country would be in a very
different place, and I think amuch better place. And you know,
by and large, I can livewith his flaws. It seems like a
decent number of Utah Republicans could not. I don't know if he was a
surefire goner in another primary, butI think it would have been at minimum
very difficult, and I think it'sprobably best he recognized he sees the handwriting
(08:31):
on the wall and if some otherUtah Republican whose friendlier to Trumpism wants to
make that choice and wants to representthe state, they can go ahead and
do that. I think he's accumulatedrecord in the Senate he can be proud
of. I think it's indisputably ittakes political courage to vote for the impeachment
of a president of your own party, and I believe he's the only person
in US history he's ever done that, which you know, don't let anybody
(08:52):
tell you that. You know.Mitt Romney was some guy who was afraid
to make the tough goal. SoI will miss him, but I can
easily it's not hard to understand whypeople found him getting on their nerves.
Is this process still the same inUtah? I remember that Mike Lee became
the nominee and unseated Bob Bennett.I believe it was at a convention in
twenty ten. I don't believe itwas in a primary. But I don't
know that the system is still thesame. So whether he would have run
(09:13):
into the same problem there, Idon't know. You are correct that Mitt
Romney is the first Senator to evervote to convict a president of his own
party. He is not the onlyone now, because there were others the
second time around who joined the SusanCollins, you know, Lusa Murkowski and
a couple others on the January sixthone, But on the Ukraine one,
he was the first. I hadto cringe a little bit. Well before
(09:35):
I get to the criticism. Letme get to the part I like about
Mitt Romney, and you've already mentionedit a lot. He seems like a
very decent guy. I think he'dmake a great neighbor. He seems like
he's easy to get along with.It's obvious he and his wife get along
very well, not just in frontof the cameras. But they've got a
tremendous family. I mean, thefamily picture is so huge, its almost
like a Where's Waldo when you seetheir family gathering. Seventy four percent of
(09:58):
the entire population of Utah is inthe Romney family, little known fact,
and so they get because it's made. They get mocked for that. If
they get mocked for that, butI think it's awesome. You never hear
about anybody in the Romney family havingany any problems with the law or scandal,
as far as I know, alongthe way and they've just they've raised
a great family, and that's somethingto be extremely proud. If he had
(10:18):
a successful career that I think heshould be very proud. If you're right
that the Democrats demonized that unfortunately tosome success in the twenty twelve campaign,
but what it said main capital andelsewhere, his business career was a feather
in his cap for the most partas he as he ventured into politics.
Now, of course, his actionsin the Senate over the past six years.
(10:39):
I'm not even gonna get into theimpeachment votes. I'm gonna set those
completely aside and just react to whathe said in the announcement. The infrastructure
bill, trillion dollars not paid for, China policy framework, that's a that's
an executive branch thing that I'm notsure how much the Senate has to do
with religious liberty protections. That's afancy way of saying he voted a legalized
gay marriage. Not happy with that. At Guns Safety agreement, that was
(11:01):
a disappointment on a number of fronts. Electoral Account Act, Yeah, there's
some value in that. And thenthe emergency COVID relief were now up to
at least three hundred billion dollars infraud. A lot of people just voted
yes because we're in the middle ofa pandemic, But there are consequences when
you rushed through that much money inthat shorter period of time. What course
saw him first run for office innineteen ninety four Senate Massachusetts lost Ted Kennedy.
(11:24):
Two thousand and two he was electedgovernor. It was during that time
that he flipped his position on abortion, which is one of the position changes
that she mentioned, because he wasclear he was getting ready to run for
president. Did run in two thousandand eight, didn't win the nomination.
John McCain did came back in twentytwelve as the prohibitive favorite. I mean,
he won forty four states, soit's not like he depending on how
(11:46):
you count it, whether the accountby votes or whether he kind of by
delegates, he was clear of thedominant candidate. But it did go well
into the spring against Rick Santorum,and that made it so that he couldn't
really ramp up the general election campaignas soon as he wanted to, and
that let Barack Obama identify him inthe demonizing way that you mentioned, with
giving workers wives cancer and you know, all this stuff the mainstream media was
(12:09):
at perhaps at some of its mostshameless, at least to that point,
by digging up stories of alleged highschool bullying from the nineteen sixties. You
know, he was at a warmemorial in Poland after he had kind of
wrapped up enough delegates, and they'rescreaming, what about your cabout your CAFs,
What about your CAFs. The mediacould not have been worse, And
(12:33):
you're right, the fact that theytreated met like that is one of the
reasons why the voters just like,all right, if you're gonna lie and
demonize no matter who we throw outthere, we're gonna make some changes in
our calculation here. But then weget to twenty twelve Gym and I think
there's a couple of things in thatcampaign that ended up dooming Mitt Romney,
who I think had a decent chanceto win. We both predicted him and
narrow win on election day, buta couple of things happened there. First,
(12:58):
I think America was a little bitreluctant fire the first black president,
but it was close. He neededinside straight Florida, Virginia, Ohio,
Wisconsin to pull it off. Andhe narrowly lost all of those. Another
big factor in twenty twelve was Obamacare. Late June twenty twelve, we lost
at the Supreme Court and the individualmandate. The government was then allowed to
(13:20):
tell us that we had to havehealth insurance. And so the only way
to stop it at that point wasto win the presidential election and let Mitt
Romney dismantle it. But Mitt Romneyhad been the only governor in America to
pass mandated health insurance and in stateof Massachusetts. And you can argue about
the differences and so forth, butwhen that is one of your biggest arguments,
bringing a guy with that background madeit a lot harder to make the
(13:43):
argument there was a decisive change thatneeded to happen there. But the thing
I think I wish Mitt had back, and I wish Mitt wished Mitt had
back, was in the debates.He cleaned Obama's clock in the first debate
in Denver. Then they go tothe town hall and Met's doing really well
again and ben Ghazi comes up andhe talks about how Obama and Hillary Clinton
frivolously blamed the thing on a videoinstead of terrorism. Obama says, is
(14:07):
just sitting there taking the blow,the body blows, Candy Crowley jumps and
says no, no, no.In a statement he talked about terrorism which
wasn't which was either vastly misleading orcompletely untrue. Romney backs off at that
point because he doesn't want to saysomething that's wrong, and he lost the
chance to deliver a major blow.There was one more debate. Bob shee
(14:28):
Or teaed him up for it,and Mitt wouldn't go for it. He
started talking about al Qaeda in WestAfrica and Molly or Mauritania or something,
and wouldn't touch Benghazi again. AndI think that told voters who wanted a
fighter that if Mitt gets pushed backon, he's going to back down.
And I think that was a biggerdeal than we realized at the time.
No, I think that's a reasonableassessment there. Politics was changing in the
(14:52):
Obama years, and you know,for a guy who had campaigned as a
postpartisan healer of division, Barack Obamaand his and David Axelrod and the entire
Obama campaign came to the you knowpolitical race with you know, chains and
brass knuckles, and they were absolutelyready to destroy anybody who stood in their
(15:16):
way. To lie, to cheat, to instant you know, you're gonna
put you all back in chains,as Joe Biden had famously said. And
I think Mitt Romney was running anineteen eighties or nineteen nineties campaign under the
old rules, not expecting Candy Crowleyto jump in and argue the two plus
two equals five. And in factthe Obama had been made with the appropriate
(15:39):
remarks and stuff like that. Again, it was all incumbents have advantages.
Incumbents have, you know, allkinds of the wind at they're back in
a lot of cases. And thefirst African American president, there are a
lot of people who were not goingto want the first African American president to
be a one term president. ButI think for all of the flaws Mitt
Romney had, you know, hehad the Republican Party relatively unified behind him.
(16:04):
And you put Mitt Romney up againstHillary Clinton, I think Romney probably
wins. He put Mitt Romney upagainst Joe Biden. I think Joe.
I think Mitt Romney probably wins.I don't think it's certainly the Joe Biden
of twenty twenty. So I thinksome of his defeat, you know,
and the infamy, the infamy.That had a lot to do with his
opponent in the circumstances, and youdon't control those. But that is the
way history played out, and that'sgonna that's, you know, a big
(16:26):
part of how Mitt Romney will beremembered. All right, let's get onto
our bad martini now, Jim,let's talk about the latest economic numbers back
into the present here, and ofcourse, you know, we got bynomics,
bynomics inflations on the rise again androse in August on the back of
higher gasoline prices according to the ConsumerPrice Index, as this report from CNBC
(16:48):
tells us. But the good newsfor Americans allegedly is that the increase is
likely temporary. But Jim, themonthly jump was bigger than expected, the
year over year bigger than expected.And they just keep telling us, Ah,
it's down from where it was.But what they don't tell you,
what they say that is that it'sstill going up. And it's a lot
(17:10):
lot higher than it was more thantwo years ago now when this president took
office. And when you spend likehe's spending, it's not going to get
better. You can say it's goingto get better, but you can't pass
an Inflation Reduction Act worth half atrillion dollars and say, oh, this
will make it better when it's allabout climate change. It's not even about
inflation reduction, and it's actually addingto the problem. So they can spin
(17:32):
it all they want, but theproblems getting worse and people can see it
and can they feel it every day? Yeah. Look, first of all,
I would really love to see Ikind of like, if you want
to argue the American people are wrongin their perceptions of the economy and their
perceptions of inflation and the American peopleare foolish and you know, spun by
Fox News or Republicans or something.If you want to make that argument,
(17:56):
I think you should be obligated todisclose your income level, what you're paying
at your mortgage rate, what yourgrocery bill is. And although because my
suspicion is the people who are insistingthe economy is fine and inflation is resolved
fixed and that prices aren't something thatlegitimately complained about anymore, my guess is
these people are very, very wealthy. They may not even buy their own
(18:18):
groceries. They may have somebody whodoesn't forum, or they probably may not
even have cars. They may havesomebody driving them around or something like that.
Yesterday I pointed out that, youknow, the latest figures had came
in quote hotter than expected, whichI don't know about you, Greg.
That counts is unexpectedly, in mybook, unexpectedly. Everybody who remembers the
early Obama years like, oh,that's that phrase. I remember that,
(18:41):
taking you back, Taking you backbeen a lot of us do with energy
prices. The jump in headline inflationhit worker paychecks. Real average hourly earnings
declined one half of one percent forthe month, not good news. And
I'd also note that the last asof yesterday, the national average for a
price of regular gasoline was three eightyfive per gallon. As usual, it
(19:03):
may be higher in your neck ofthe woods, it may be lower.
Every time I just point that out, somebody says, nah, in my
gas station it's you know, threeforty one, And I'm like, that's
why it's called a national average.It does not mean that everybody's going to
be exactly the same. But anyway, so I hear four dollars a gallon
is that psychological threshold and when it'sabove that, people like really get angry
about it. Well, that isn'tit great that it's three eighty five America.
(19:25):
Don't you feel good because it's becauseit's not past that psychological threshold.
No, it's still really darn high. And then you know, like,
we get the full numbers for twentytwenty twenty two now and it says it
low and behold inflation outpaced household incomegains again twenty twenty one Americans. You
know, median household income and justedform relation inflation was seventy six thousand,
(19:45):
three hundred and thirty. Last year, it was seventy four thousand, five
hundred eighty. Since twenty nineteen,before the pandemic, it has dropped four
point seven percent. So people havegood reason to be upset about the state
of the economy. People have goodreason to believe inflation is not getting better
and is in fact getting worse,because it did get worse from month to
month, and it's still not good. Remember two percent is the goal.
(20:06):
And I just kind of you knowagain, I think like there are some
experts and you can read some implicationto that if you're like some figures like
say, well, inflation is down, okay, but prices aren't, and
what people pay attention to as prices, right, They're not going to feel
good about the economy. They're gonnafeel good about inflation until prices are back
in their mindset of what's normal.And they know how much they usually pay
at the groceries once a week ortwice a week, or however often you
(20:30):
go. They know how much itusually costs to fill up a tank the
tank of their car, and it'sconsiderably more. And that's what's at work
here. And the Democrats really seemto think that they can spin or hoodwink
or Jedi mind trick people into believingthe economy is doing great even though they're
paying more and it's not keeping upwith wage increases. Yeah, I mean,
you can't trick people on this.This isn't some esoteric issue where you
(20:52):
can bury them in, you know, science jargon or something else. This
is what they do with every dayand so you can't bsm on it.
And that's one of the issues thatthis president's going to have to deal with,
the fact that he and his politicalteam decided they want to own this
economy. I think he's going tobe settled around his neck for the next
year in plus, all right,onto our crazy Martini. Now Jim,
(21:15):
and this comes to us from afellow over at National Review named Jim Gartty.
That guy, Yeah, he's trouble. He's trouble. But this involves
Vivek Ramaswamy and TikTok. Now,Vivek is young. He's just turned thirty
eight. He's born in nineteen eightyfive, which means he was born during
(21:37):
the preseason of the year the Bearsput together one of the greatest NFL seasons
in history. But he's too youngto remember that glorious Super Bowl, which
is makes me feel old. Nonetheless, he has for the most part been
I think hostile towards China, althoughhe had some controversial comments about keeping China
(22:00):
at bay until we're semiconductor independent.I think he would argue that that was
taken out of context, but thecontext itself might not agree. Nonetheless,
TikTok has been established as basically away for the Chinese government, like you
say in your piece, to suckdata out of your phone and the digital
equivalent of going down the street toa strip club filled with fifteen year olds
(22:21):
not good in any way, shapeor form. And he's previously had said
that he didn't want to have anythingto do with TikTok. It was a
bad idea. But Jim then youpoint out that he tweeted out that he
had dinner with Jake Paul, thesocial media influencer on Sunday, and Jake
Paul changed his mind because kids andyoung voters specifically are on TikTok, and
(22:42):
if that's where they are, youhave to be there too to engage them.
So you are not impressed with thisflip flop on the part of Vivek.
And I keep running into people whoare I don't think of as dumb,
who I don't think of as beinggullible, who have maybe they've seen
a part of a Ramaswa speech oryou know, for whatever, something happened
(23:03):
that made them think, well andsay, oh, I know, you
really just keep an eye on thisguy. He's really sharp, it's really
smart, you know. I likewhat he's saying, and I look at
you know, and then some ofthese things I looked at in the past
about like oh, we can youknow, deter an invasion of Taiwan by
putting a R fifteens in everybody's homes. That's not gonna that's not gonna do
it. The Chinese have body armor Chinese have tanks. Chinese are going
(23:25):
to have a full military response.It's not gonna I prefer an armed populist
to an unarmed populist if I haveto do, you know, if it
needs to be defended, but byand large, I'm not thinking that's going
to be an effective response. Acouple other statements he made, but this
one like, well, I mean, you know, as you laid out
there, my view on TikTok isstraightforward, very clear. I don't I
(23:45):
don't think anybody should be on it. It's it's Chinese spyware. Effectively,
anything you put on your phone.You might as well just call Jijin Ping
and tell him it directly, becauseyou know this Chinese State security is gonna
have total access to any of thatkind of stuff. And it is now
there's a link to it. It'sa really devastating Wall Street Journal expose about
how a teenager can get on TikTok, not look for adult material, not
(24:08):
look for things that are sexual ordepict drug use or anything like that,
and the algorithm will feed that tothem anyway, and they may say they've
fixed it. I don't trust them. It's a very good way to make
sure the teenagers keep, you know, paying attention to TikTok. And I
just don't think there's anything good aboutit. I think that, you know,
there's And so here's the if youif you really believe that, oh
maybe I should be on TikTok,you talk to cybersecurity experts, or you
(24:32):
talk to somebody who does. Ifyou if you find some way to register
your disapproval of the way the algorithmtargets America's teenagers and stuff like that,
well then maybe I guess you won't. But Jake Paul convinces you really,
really that's the guy. That's theguy who's the tipping point. I would
say, well, at least itwasn't Logan Paul. But Greg, let's
(24:52):
face it, is there really anydifference doesn't matter. Can at least listen
to Rod Paul? Yeah, Iwould say there are much better Pauls in
this world to talk to. Iwould even go with Ron Paul, right,
you know, so the idea thatoh, you know, this is
a carefully you know like and Ikeep getting told take Ramaswamy seriously, it
doesn't look like he's taking it seriously. If he's making a decision on something
(25:15):
like this based on talking to asocial media influencer, Gee, what do
you think the social media influencer isgoing to think about TikTok? It's a
big part of how he builds hisaudience. He's not worried about Chinese spying,
he's not worried about inappropriate material infront of miners. So I get
like, I can't take this guyseriously. I'm surprised so many people.
(25:36):
Look, I you know, somebody'syou know, I saw a comment where
they just said, Ramaswamy just seemslike the guy who absolutely totally will throw
in the undercoating to get you tosign this deal to buy this car.
Maybe that's fair, Maybe it's not, because there are a lot of people
who you know, said that Romneysaid, what's going to take to get
you into this? BMW was thewhat he sounded. It looked like he
(25:57):
was saying, when you turn thesound down. But anyway, I just
I think it's a you know,I think it's a bad decision. I
think the justification is like ridiculous,And I don't understand why everybody's taking Ramaswami
seriously you know, he's still hadsingle digits and national polls, he's still
at single digits and most of thestate polls. But I still just think
like, this is a guy who'srunning a stick, not a campaign,
(26:18):
and I just I'm deeply frustrated thatdecision making. I mean, if you're
going to trust you know, Paulover the social media policy, you might
as well make it Secretary of StateAddison Ray. I don't know who that
is social media like whatever you're picturingwhen you say, oh, probably some
empty headed, pretty uh you know, narcissistic, self absorbed social media influencer
(26:38):
type, like like a Kardashian withoutall the brains, that's what you're getting
here. I would make fun ofKim Kardashian, but she already helped set
criminal justice policy in the previous administration. So no, I think we all
have the same vibe. In fact, you know, you were in Ukraine
when the debate happened, and Ithink Anez was there the day after and
as stepman. But eventually I talkedto John Gabriel about it, and he
(27:00):
had tweeted out that the vibe hegot was what's it going to take to
get you in this ninety six viewicks. So it's not just you. It's
not just you. People are gettingthat. I think there isn't He's popular
is because when Trump's not there,he says the stuff that sounds the most
liked, and so the good wayof summarizing it. Yes, So that's
I think why he got the responsethat he did from the debate. And
see where it goes from here.So Jim, quite a day, and
(27:22):
we will do it again tomorrow.See then, see tomorrow, Greg,
Jim Garretty, Nashtional Review. I'mGreg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so
much for being with us today.Do subscribe to the podcast if you don't
already, tell some friends about usas well. Thank you very much for
your five star ratings and your kindreviews. Please keep those coming. They
really do help us a lot.Also get us on your home devices.
All you have to say is playThree Martini Lunch Podcast. Follow us on
(27:44):
Twitter. Jim is at Jim Garretty, I'm at Dateline Underscore DC. Have
a great Thursday, and join usagain on Friday for the next Three Martini Lunch
Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch grubsstool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
and Jim Garritty of National Review.Three Martini's coming up. Hey, very
glad you're with us for the Thursdayedition of the Three Martini Lunch. Good,
bad, and Crazy Martinis for ConservativesToday. And Jim, this one's
officially a good martini because we havesaid a lot that when people approach a
(00:29):
certain age, they should seriously thinkabout leaving their political office, particularly fits
one with a lot of stress anda lot of responsibility. Sometimes exceptions can
be made for people who are seemedto be in excellent shape. We've seemed
to make a pretty good exception forChuck Grassley, even though he's just about
ninety now. But other people Ithink are getting the message, and one
of those is Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Other people, of course, we'll
(00:51):
see this is a good Martini becausethey're frustrated with him, and we'll talk
a little bit about his legacy afterwe talk about the immediate announcement here.
But yesterday Mitt Romney said that heis not going to run for reelection in
twenty twenty four. He is seventysix years old, and in his video
announcement, he said a number ofthings. First of all, he talked
about what he liked in terms ofthe accomplishments he's been part of in the
(01:15):
US Senate. You know, contraryto a lot of expectations, I enjoy
my work in the Senate a gooddeal. The last few years have been
particularly productive, as I was ableto help lead and negotiate the bipartisan Infrastructure
Law, a comprehensive China Strategy process, religious liberty protections, a compromise gun
safety law, the Electoral Accountact reform, and emergency COVID relief funding. And
(01:41):
then he also went on to talkabout the help he brought back specifically to
Utah, which is something you notedyesterday on Twitter. I was also able
to help secure key Utah priorities,including funding for Hill Air Force Base and
its programmed to modernize our nuclear deterrent, as well as funding for wildfire prevention,
water infrastructure, rural broadband, removalof uranium tailings from Moab, expansion
(02:05):
and restoration of our highway and transitinfrastructure, and federal studies to save the
Great Salt Lake. But ultimately saysit's time for him to step away.
I've spent my last twenty five yearsin public service of one kind or another.
At the end of another term,i'd be in my mid eighties.
Frankly, it's time for a newgeneration of leaders. They're the ones that
(02:30):
need to make the decisions that willshape the world they will be living in.
It's one of the more compelling argumentsto step aside. You're actually gonna
have to live with the consequences ofyour own decisions. But he also made
it clear to no surprise that he'snot a big fan of either of the
leading candidates for president in twenty twentyfour. Now we face critical challenges modding
national debt, climate change, andthe ambitious authoritarians of Russia and China.
(02:55):
Neither President Biden nor former President Trumpare leading their party to confront those issues.
On deficits and debt, both menrefuse to address entitlements, even though
they know that this represents two thirdsof federal spending. Donald Trump calls global
warming a hoax, and President Bidenoffers feel good solutions that make no difference
(03:19):
to the global climate. On China, President Biden under invests in the military
and President Trump under invests in ouralliances. We're gonna give me some of
the content of the policies there injust a moment, as well as the
larger arc of Mitt Romney's legacy.Jim stop the top of my head,
I don't think in our lifetime anywaythat we've had a former presidential nominee from
(03:40):
a major party who later ended upin the US Senate. I could be
wrong about that. I'm thinking aboutthat off the top of my head.
Obviously some state in the Senate whohad already been there, like Kerry and
John McCain and so forth. Butyou know, we've talked a lot,
from Diane Feinstein to Mitch McConnell toNancy Pelosi, who still won't go away,
(04:00):
get out. It's time a timefor somebody else, you know,
and some of you clearly aren't upto just the basic mental and physical responsibilities
and requirements for the job. SoMitt Romney looks to be in hale and
hearty condition, looks to be readyto do something else, maybe just spend
time with Anne and the rest ofthe family for the rest of his life.
And who can blame him so fora number of reasons, just on
(04:24):
that front, good for him.Yeah, Greg, I feel it's a
sad happy Martini glad to see MittRomney hanging it up and saying I've done
when I wanted to do, oralmost everything he wanted to do in the
governmental sphere and choosing to ride offinto the sunset and a happy life before
he gets succumb. Starts to comingto the issues and ravages of age.
(04:46):
I have a great deal of admirationfor Mitt Romney, but I doesn't mean
I agree with everything he's ever done. And by the way, for those
who think that National Review is somesort of you know, relentless never Trump.
One note to Mitt Romney cheerleading squad. You know, some very critical
takes from my colleagues Phil Kleine,Matthew, Brendan Doherty. I'm sorry,
Michael Brennan Doherty and Dan McLaughlin andkind of recognizing that you think back to
(05:10):
his flipflops earlier in his career,there was a reason he was not the
first choice of most Republicans back intwo thousand and eight. There was a
sense that he was an opportunist.There was a sense that he was not
terribly conservative, or as he wouldlater put it, severely conservative businessmen who
just wanted to be in public officeand found the Republican label the most convenient.
(05:33):
Then he was the nominee in twentytwelve. And the one thing I
have found myself having a very limitedpatience for in the last twenty four hours,
greg are the number of people whospent twenty twelve denouncing Mitt Romney as
the devil and contending that he gavesteelworkers cancer and that he was the epitome
(05:54):
of corporate raiders and merciless and crueland you know, and anybody who really
looked at mittan his record that hewas a sharp businessman, but a very
decent guy, very old fashioned,traditional guy, but who was not in
your face, who was not goingto needlessly antagonize anyone who wanted to build
consensus where he could, that therewas a lot to admire there, and
(06:17):
that he got his name utterly draggedthrough the mud in the twenty twelve Obama
election campaign, and that I thinkthat had a lot of bad consequences for
our politics. I think a lotof Republicans took the lesson of that that
if even a guy like Mitt Romneycould be demonized, as you know,
metaphorically the devil, that we mightas well nominate the devil. There was
no point in trying to nominate aperson of good character if that person's character
(06:42):
was going to be smeared and falselyaccused and utterly destroyed in the process of
running through the election. We shouldalso point out that Mitt Romney welcomed to
Donald Trump's endorsement during that twenty twelvecampaign, and so the idea that Mitt
Romney became the leader of the opposition, there's a little bit of irony to
that that, you know, MittRomney had at one point treated Donald Trump
like he was just another Republican,that his endorsement was a you know,
(07:06):
something he was very proud of andthat he welcomed, and of course,
you know, people remember that youknow, rather awkward looking photo. For
a very short period of time,there was talk about Mitt Romney being the
Secretary of State in a Trump administration. Didn't go very far, but you
know, one of those indicators thatnow that he has seen as this perhaps
ironic word choice intended bulwark against Trumpismand populism and all that stuff. Kind
(07:30):
of ironic considering his role only moreironic than Mike Pennce warning us at the
dangerous of populism. It only hadbeen in some position to do something about
that. But look, I thinkby and large Mitt Romney stood for the
right things, fought for the rightthings, always tried to comport himself with
a dignity and with respect for alliesand for opponents. There were times he
(07:51):
could get preachy. There were timeshe could get a little bit of a
high horse. There were times heantagonized allies with his emplyee that he himself
was taking the right and moral courseand that everyone else was making a different
decision because of cynical or base motives. I can get on people's nerves,
but by and large, I think, you know, look, if Mitt
(08:11):
Romney had won the twenty twelve electionin the country would be in a very
different place, and I think amuch better place. And you know,
by and large, I can livewith his flaws. It seems like a
decent number of Utah Republicans could not. I don't know if he was a
surefire goner in another primary, butI think it would have been at minimum
very difficult, and I think it'sprobably best he recognized he sees the handwriting
(08:31):
on the wall and if some otherUtah Republican whose friendlier to Trumpism wants to
make that choice and wants to representthe state, they can go ahead and
do that. I think he's accumulatedrecord in the Senate he can be proud
of. I think it's indisputably ittakes political courage to vote for the impeachment
of a president of your own party, and I believe he's the only person
in US history he's ever done that, which you know, don't let anybody
(08:52):
tell you that. You know.Mitt Romney was some guy who was afraid
to make the tough goal. SoI will miss him, but I can
easily it's not hard to understand whypeople found him getting on their nerves.
Is this process still the same inUtah? I remember that Mike Lee became
the nominee and unseated Bob Bennett.I believe it was at a convention in
twenty ten. I don't believe itwas in a primary. But I don't
know that the system is still thesame. So whether he would have run
(09:13):
into the same problem there, Idon't know. You are correct that Mitt
Romney is the first Senator to evervote to convict a president of his own
party. He is not the onlyone now, because there were others the
second time around who joined the SusanCollins, you know, Lusa Murkowski and
a couple others on the January sixthone, But on the Ukraine one,
he was the first. I hadto cringe a little bit. Well before
(09:35):
I get to the criticism. Letme get to the part I like about
Mitt Romney, and you've already mentionedit a lot. He seems like a
very decent guy. I think he'dmake a great neighbor. He seems like
he's easy to get along with.It's obvious he and his wife get along
very well, not just in frontof the cameras. But they've got a
tremendous family. I mean, thefamily picture is so huge, its almost
like a Where's Waldo when you seetheir family gathering. Seventy four percent of
(09:58):
the entire population of Utah is inthe Romney family, little known fact,
and so they get because it's made. They get mocked for that. If
they get mocked for that, butI think it's awesome. You never hear
about anybody in the Romney family havingany any problems with the law or scandal,
as far as I know, alongthe way and they've just they've raised
a great family, and that's somethingto be extremely proud. If he had
(10:18):
a successful career that I think heshould be very proud. If you're right
that the Democrats demonized that unfortunately tosome success in the twenty twelve campaign,
but what it said main capital andelsewhere, his business career was a feather
in his cap for the most partas he as he ventured into politics.
Now, of course, his actionsin the Senate over the past six years.
(10:39):
I'm not even gonna get into theimpeachment votes. I'm gonna set those
completely aside and just react to whathe said in the announcement. The infrastructure
bill, trillion dollars not paid for, China policy framework, that's a that's
an executive branch thing that I'm notsure how much the Senate has to do
with religious liberty protections. That's afancy way of saying he voted a legalized
gay marriage. Not happy with that. At Guns Safety agreement, that was
(11:01):
a disappointment on a number of fronts. Electoral Account Act, Yeah, there's
some value in that. And thenthe emergency COVID relief were now up to
at least three hundred billion dollars infraud. A lot of people just voted
yes because we're in the middle ofa pandemic, But there are consequences when
you rushed through that much money inthat shorter period of time. What course
saw him first run for office innineteen ninety four Senate Massachusetts lost Ted Kennedy.
(11:24):
Two thousand and two he was electedgovernor. It was during that time
that he flipped his position on abortion, which is one of the position changes
that she mentioned, because he wasclear he was getting ready to run for
president. Did run in two thousandand eight, didn't win the nomination.
John McCain did came back in twentytwelve as the prohibitive favorite. I mean,
he won forty four states, soit's not like he depending on how
(11:46):
you count it, whether the accountby votes or whether he kind of by
delegates, he was clear of thedominant candidate. But it did go well
into the spring against Rick Santorum,and that made it so that he couldn't
really ramp up the general election campaignas soon as he wanted to, and
that let Barack Obama identify him inthe demonizing way that you mentioned, with
giving workers wives cancer and you know, all this stuff the mainstream media was
(12:09):
at perhaps at some of its mostshameless, at least to that point,
by digging up stories of alleged highschool bullying from the nineteen sixties. You
know, he was at a warmemorial in Poland after he had kind of
wrapped up enough delegates, and they'rescreaming, what about your cabout your CAFs,
What about your CAFs. The mediacould not have been worse, And
(12:33):
you're right, the fact that theytreated met like that is one of the
reasons why the voters just like,all right, if you're gonna lie and
demonize no matter who we throw outthere, we're gonna make some changes in
our calculation here. But then weget to twenty twelve Gym and I think
there's a couple of things in thatcampaign that ended up dooming Mitt Romney,
who I think had a decent chanceto win. We both predicted him and
narrow win on election day, buta couple of things happened there. First,
(12:58):
I think America was a little bitreluctant fire the first black president,
but it was close. He neededinside straight Florida, Virginia, Ohio,
Wisconsin to pull it off. Andhe narrowly lost all of those. Another
big factor in twenty twelve was Obamacare. Late June twenty twelve, we lost
at the Supreme Court and the individualmandate. The government was then allowed to
(13:20):
tell us that we had to havehealth insurance. And so the only way
to stop it at that point wasto win the presidential election and let Mitt
Romney dismantle it. But Mitt Romneyhad been the only governor in America to
pass mandated health insurance and in stateof Massachusetts. And you can argue about
the differences and so forth, butwhen that is one of your biggest arguments,
bringing a guy with that background madeit a lot harder to make the
(13:43):
argument there was a decisive change thatneeded to happen there. But the thing
I think I wish Mitt had back, and I wish Mitt wished Mitt had
back, was in the debates.He cleaned Obama's clock in the first debate
in Denver. Then they go tothe town hall and Met's doing really well
again and ben Ghazi comes up andhe talks about how Obama and Hillary Clinton
frivolously blamed the thing on a videoinstead of terrorism. Obama says, is
(14:07):
just sitting there taking the blow,the body blows, Candy Crowley jumps and
says no, no, no.In a statement he talked about terrorism which
wasn't which was either vastly misleading orcompletely untrue. Romney backs off at that
point because he doesn't want to saysomething that's wrong, and he lost the
chance to deliver a major blow.There was one more debate. Bob shee
(14:28):
Or teaed him up for it,and Mitt wouldn't go for it. He
started talking about al Qaeda in WestAfrica and Molly or Mauritania or something,
and wouldn't touch Benghazi again. AndI think that told voters who wanted a
fighter that if Mitt gets pushed backon, he's going to back down.
And I think that was a biggerdeal than we realized at the time.
No, I think that's a reasonableassessment there. Politics was changing in the
(14:52):
Obama years, and you know,for a guy who had campaigned as a
postpartisan healer of division, Barack Obamaand his and David Axelrod and the entire
Obama campaign came to the you knowpolitical race with you know, chains and
brass knuckles, and they were absolutelyready to destroy anybody who stood in their
(15:16):
way. To lie, to cheat, to instant you know, you're gonna
put you all back in chains,as Joe Biden had famously said. And
I think Mitt Romney was running anineteen eighties or nineteen nineties campaign under the
old rules, not expecting Candy Crowleyto jump in and argue the two plus
two equals five. And in factthe Obama had been made with the appropriate
(15:39):
remarks and stuff like that. Again, it was all incumbents have advantages.
Incumbents have, you know, allkinds of the wind at they're back in
a lot of cases. And thefirst African American president, there are a
lot of people who were not goingto want the first African American president to
be a one term president. ButI think for all of the flaws Mitt
Romney had, you know, hehad the Republican Party relatively unified behind him.
(16:04):
And you put Mitt Romney up againstHillary Clinton, I think Romney probably
wins. He put Mitt Romney upagainst Joe Biden. I think Joe.
I think Mitt Romney probably wins.I don't think it's certainly the Joe Biden
of twenty twenty. So I thinksome of his defeat, you know,
and the infamy, the infamy.That had a lot to do with his
opponent in the circumstances, and youdon't control those. But that is the
way history played out, and that'sgonna that's, you know, a big
(16:26):
part of how Mitt Romney will beremembered. All right, let's get onto
our bad martini now, Jim,let's talk about the latest economic numbers back
into the present here, and ofcourse, you know, we got bynomics,
bynomics inflations on the rise again androse in August on the back of
higher gasoline prices according to the ConsumerPrice Index, as this report from CNBC
(16:48):
tells us. But the good newsfor Americans allegedly is that the increase is
likely temporary. But Jim, themonthly jump was bigger than expected, the
year over year bigger than expected.And they just keep telling us, Ah,
it's down from where it was.But what they don't tell you,
what they say that is that it'sstill going up. And it's a lot
(17:10):
lot higher than it was more thantwo years ago now when this president took
office. And when you spend likehe's spending, it's not going to get
better. You can say it's goingto get better, but you can't pass
an Inflation Reduction Act worth half atrillion dollars and say, oh, this
will make it better when it's allabout climate change. It's not even about
inflation reduction, and it's actually addingto the problem. So they can spin
(17:32):
it all they want, but theproblems getting worse and people can see it
and can they feel it every day? Yeah. Look, first of all,
I would really love to see Ikind of like, if you want
to argue the American people are wrongin their perceptions of the economy and their
perceptions of inflation and the American peopleare foolish and you know, spun by
Fox News or Republicans or something.If you want to make that argument,
(17:56):
I think you should be obligated todisclose your income level, what you're paying
at your mortgage rate, what yourgrocery bill is. And although because my
suspicion is the people who are insistingthe economy is fine and inflation is resolved
fixed and that prices aren't something thatlegitimately complained about anymore, my guess is
these people are very, very wealthy. They may not even buy their own
(18:18):
groceries. They may have somebody whodoesn't forum, or they probably may not
even have cars. They may havesomebody driving them around or something like that.
Yesterday I pointed out that, youknow, the latest figures had came
in quote hotter than expected, whichI don't know about you, Greg.
That counts is unexpectedly, in mybook, unexpectedly. Everybody who remembers the
early Obama years like, oh,that's that phrase. I remember that,
(18:41):
taking you back, Taking you backbeen a lot of us do with energy
prices. The jump in headline inflationhit worker paychecks. Real average hourly earnings
declined one half of one percent forthe month, not good news. And
I'd also note that the last asof yesterday, the national average for a
price of regular gasoline was three eightyfive per gallon. As usual, it
(19:03):
may be higher in your neck ofthe woods, it may be lower.
Every time I just point that out, somebody says, nah, in my
gas station it's you know, threeforty one, And I'm like, that's
why it's called a national average.It does not mean that everybody's going to
be exactly the same. But anyway, so I hear four dollars a gallon
is that psychological threshold and when it'sabove that, people like really get angry
about it. Well, that isn'tit great that it's three eighty five America.
(19:25):
Don't you feel good because it's becauseit's not past that psychological threshold.
No, it's still really darn high. And then you know, like,
we get the full numbers for twentytwenty twenty two now and it says it
low and behold inflation outpaced household incomegains again twenty twenty one Americans. You
know, median household income and justedform relation inflation was seventy six thousand,
(19:45):
three hundred and thirty. Last year, it was seventy four thousand, five
hundred eighty. Since twenty nineteen,before the pandemic, it has dropped four
point seven percent. So people havegood reason to be upset about the state
of the economy. People have goodreason to believe inflation is not getting better
and is in fact getting worse,because it did get worse from month to
month, and it's still not good. Remember two percent is the goal.
(20:06):
And I just kind of you knowagain, I think like there are some
experts and you can read some implicationto that if you're like some figures like
say, well, inflation is down, okay, but prices aren't, and
what people pay attention to as prices, right, They're not going to feel
good about the economy. They're gonnafeel good about inflation until prices are back
in their mindset of what's normal.And they know how much they usually pay
at the groceries once a week ortwice a week, or however often you
(20:30):
go. They know how much itusually costs to fill up a tank the
tank of their car, and it'sconsiderably more. And that's what's at work
here. And the Democrats really seemto think that they can spin or hoodwink
or Jedi mind trick people into believingthe economy is doing great even though they're
paying more and it's not keeping upwith wage increases. Yeah, I mean,
you can't trick people on this.This isn't some esoteric issue where you
(20:52):
can bury them in, you know, science jargon or something else. This
is what they do with every dayand so you can't bsm on it.
And that's one of the issues thatthis president's going to have to deal with,
the fact that he and his politicalteam decided they want to own this
economy. I think he's going tobe settled around his neck for the next
year in plus, all right,onto our crazy Martini. Now Jim,
(21:15):
and this comes to us from afellow over at National Review named Jim Gartty.
That guy, Yeah, he's trouble. He's trouble. But this involves
Vivek Ramaswamy and TikTok. Now,Vivek is young. He's just turned thirty
eight. He's born in nineteen eightyfive, which means he was born during
(21:37):
the preseason of the year the Bearsput together one of the greatest NFL seasons
in history. But he's too youngto remember that glorious Super Bowl, which
is makes me feel old. Nonetheless, he has for the most part been
I think hostile towards China, althoughhe had some controversial comments about keeping China
(22:00):
at bay until we're semiconductor independent.I think he would argue that that was
taken out of context, but thecontext itself might not agree. Nonetheless,
TikTok has been established as basically away for the Chinese government, like you
say in your piece, to suckdata out of your phone and the digital
equivalent of going down the street toa strip club filled with fifteen year olds
(22:21):
not good in any way, shapeor form. And he's previously had said
that he didn't want to have anythingto do with TikTok. It was a
bad idea. But Jim then youpoint out that he tweeted out that he
had dinner with Jake Paul, thesocial media influencer on Sunday, and Jake
Paul changed his mind because kids andyoung voters specifically are on TikTok, and
(22:42):
if that's where they are, youhave to be there too to engage them.
So you are not impressed with thisflip flop on the part of Vivek.
And I keep running into people whoare I don't think of as dumb,
who I don't think of as beinggullible, who have maybe they've seen
a part of a Ramaswa speech oryou know, for whatever, something happened
(23:03):
that made them think, well andsay, oh, I know, you
really just keep an eye on thisguy. He's really sharp, it's really
smart, you know. I likewhat he's saying, and I look at
you know, and then some ofthese things I looked at in the past
about like oh, we can youknow, deter an invasion of Taiwan by
putting a R fifteens in everybody's homes. That's not gonna that's not gonna do
it. The Chinese have body armor Chinese have tanks. Chinese are going
(23:25):
to have a full military response.It's not gonna I prefer an armed populist
to an unarmed populist if I haveto do, you know, if it
needs to be defended, but byand large, I'm not thinking that's going
to be an effective response. Acouple other statements he made, but this
one like, well, I mean, you know, as you laid out
there, my view on TikTok isstraightforward, very clear. I don't I
(23:45):
don't think anybody should be on it. It's it's Chinese spyware. Effectively,
anything you put on your phone.You might as well just call Jijin Ping
and tell him it directly, becauseyou know this Chinese State security is gonna
have total access to any of thatkind of stuff. And it is now
there's a link to it. It'sa really devastating Wall Street Journal expose about
how a teenager can get on TikTok, not look for adult material, not
(24:08):
look for things that are sexual ordepict drug use or anything like that,
and the algorithm will feed that tothem anyway, and they may say they've
fixed it. I don't trust them. It's a very good way to make
sure the teenagers keep, you know, paying attention to TikTok. And I
just don't think there's anything good aboutit. I think that, you know,
there's And so here's the if youif you really believe that, oh
maybe I should be on TikTok,you talk to cybersecurity experts, or you
(24:32):
talk to somebody who does. Ifyou if you find some way to register
your disapproval of the way the algorithmtargets America's teenagers and stuff like that,
well then maybe I guess you won't. But Jake Paul convinces you really,
really that's the guy. That's theguy who's the tipping point. I would
say, well, at least itwasn't Logan Paul. But Greg, let's
(24:52):
face it, is there really anydifference doesn't matter. Can at least listen
to Rod Paul? Yeah, Iwould say there are much better Pauls in
this world to talk to. Iwould even go with Ron Paul, right,
you know, so the idea thatoh, you know, this is
a carefully you know like and Ikeep getting told take Ramaswamy seriously, it
doesn't look like he's taking it seriously. If he's making a decision on something
(25:15):
like this based on talking to asocial media influencer, Gee, what do
you think the social media influencer isgoing to think about TikTok? It's a
big part of how he builds hisaudience. He's not worried about Chinese spying,
he's not worried about inappropriate material infront of miners. So I get
like, I can't take this guyseriously. I'm surprised so many people.
(25:36):
Look, I you know, somebody'syou know, I saw a comment where
they just said, Ramaswamy just seemslike the guy who absolutely totally will throw
in the undercoating to get you tosign this deal to buy this car.
Maybe that's fair, Maybe it's not, because there are a lot of people
who you know, said that Romneysaid, what's going to take to get
you into this? BMW was thewhat he sounded. It looked like he
(25:57):
was saying, when you turn thesound down. But anyway, I just
I think it's a you know,I think it's a bad decision. I
think the justification is like ridiculous,And I don't understand why everybody's taking Ramaswami
seriously you know, he's still hadsingle digits and national polls, he's still
at single digits and most of thestate polls. But I still just think
like, this is a guy who'srunning a stick, not a campaign,
(26:18):
and I just I'm deeply frustrated thatdecision making. I mean, if you're
going to trust you know, Paulover the social media policy, you might
as well make it Secretary of StateAddison Ray. I don't know who that
is social media like whatever you're picturingwhen you say, oh, probably some
empty headed, pretty uh you know, narcissistic, self absorbed social media influencer
(26:38):
type, like like a Kardashian withoutall the brains, that's what you're getting
here. I would make fun ofKim Kardashian, but she already helped set
criminal justice policy in the previous administration. So no, I think we all
have the same vibe. In fact, you know, you were in Ukraine
when the debate happened, and Ithink Anez was there the day after and
as stepman. But eventually I talkedto John Gabriel about it, and he
(27:00):
had tweeted out that the vibe hegot was what's it going to take to
get you in this ninety six viewicks. So it's not just you. It's
not just you. People are gettingthat. I think there isn't He's popular
is because when Trump's not there,he says the stuff that sounds the most
liked, and so the good wayof summarizing it. Yes, So that's
I think why he got the responsethat he did from the debate. And
see where it goes from here.So Jim, quite a day, and
(27:22):
we will do it again tomorrow.See then, see tomorrow, Greg,
Jim Garretty, Nashtional Review. I'mGreg Corumbus of Radio America. Thanks so
much for being with us today.Do subscribe to the podcast if you don't
already, tell some friends about usas well. Thank you very much for
your five star ratings and your kindreviews. Please keep those coming. They
really do help us a lot.Also get us on your home devices.
All you have to say is playThree Martini Lunch Podcast. Follow us on
(27:44):
Twitter. Jim is at Jim Garretty, I'm at Dateline Underscore DC. Have
a great Thursday, and join usagain on Friday for the next Three Martini Lunch
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