Trump on Their Minds

Is Trump inevitable?

By , and

It’s been a week for the former president: new polls showing him beating President Biden, an already notorious CNN town hall, and a verdict on the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit.  Sarah, Steve, and Jonah gather to collectively sigh at the seeming inevitabilities of the 2024 race, the Biden family’s international dealings, and the bipartisan hypocrisies about ethics in government. Also: will someone ever take the economy seriously again?

Show notes:
–Ben Shapiro’s tweet about the CNN town hall

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Comments (66)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

    "Frolicsome detour" is a phrase I first heard in my first-year torts course at Texas Law School in 1977, to describe the situation in which an employee/agent of a defendant corporation has committed a tort. The employer/principal's liability is derivative of the employee/agent's own, but is imputed to the employer/principal if the employee/agent was acting "within the course and scope" of his employment. So if the milkman is driving his route when he negligently runs over your goat, you might sue the dairy. If instead the milkman was paying a visit to the unhappy housewife six miles off-route, and they weren't just churning butter, then the milkman's frolicsome detour was considered outside the "course and scope," letting the dairy off the hook.

    My torts teacher attributed the phrase to the longtime (but before my time) dean of Texas Law School, W. Page Keeton, who was a principal author for and an editor of the Restatement of Torts (Second). If you heard the term in your torts class at Harvard, Ms. Isgur, I hope Dean Keeton got appropriate attribution. Or do they teach at HLS that Dean Keeton got it from Prof. Prosser?

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  2. Avatar photo
    The Bell Tower

    There is one person who wants Donald Trump to be treated as an abnormal, existential threat to republic: Donald Trump. Every time some outraged journalist or frustrated pundit goes for the kill shot, as Steve called it, Donald Trump benefits. It’s like he’s wearing that Black Panther suit in Avengers and every time you hit him, it’s building up energy to release on his adversaries.

    I think Steve is entirely correct that it would be journalistic malpractice not to ask him about stolen elections or E Jean Carroll. However, treating him as an abnormal actor is exactly what he wants. He derives strength from having an enemy.

    He’s also not a good faith actor. I know that’s a very uncontroversial statement but I saw this abortion tack coming from a mile away. Why didn’t DeSantis see it? He’s the clear target. Trump moved left of Ron on this issue like Rocky switching hands against Apollo and nailing a clean head shot.

    Was someone expecting Trump and his zombie horde of sycophants to stand on principle or something?

    Asking Trump about normal things Americans care about like inflation or entitlement reform is the guy’s weakness. Boring is his kryptonite. He’s far more likely to gaffe if you’re throwing him questions about that stuff because he’s too lazy to know much about any of it.

    You’ll note a very subtle nuance in a comment I heard here about how the entire system worked to undermine his election. That is a very compelling point in the sense that the system absolutely worked as intended to prevent him from stealing an election he clearly lost. Trump is very adroitly blurring that reality to his advantage.

    Bad faith actors will exploit the rules and norms to further their own ends and that’s what Trump is doing. It’s what he’s always done. The last thing we should do is play into his hands.

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  3. Kbirkett

    Christie-Manchin to run against both parties :-) !

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  4. Mrjsfisher

    Found the discussion of the debt ceiling issue particularly wanting. Jonah saying McCarthy should (somehow absent control of 2/3rds of the relevant branches of government) “win” because he managed to get his caucus to do the thing they said they were going to do if they won the house is an insane lowering of the bar of basic party functioning.

    Here’s the premise the GOP debt ceiling brinkmanship is based on that y’all didn’t discuss meaningfully: when a budget is passed as law by a congress, it is perfectly fine for the next congress to try to invalidate that budget law by f’ing around with the full faith and credit of the United States rather than by passing their own budget with spending cuts and get it through the normal legislative process.

    Steve got close, but there no “both sides” here. A couple people in congress or the senate voting against debt ceiling increases during the dubya administration on the Democratic Party side isn’t the same thing as a party endorsing this insanity as policy. The fact that Biden didn’t negotiate with the MINORITY party in 2020-2022 doesn’t mean he won’t negotiate with the MAJORITY now. I frankly had no idea what you were talking about here. Why would any party listen to the minority opposition when they are out of power? It doesn’t mean Biden wouldn’t listen to them when they are in power.

    I have no idea why democrat controlled congresses can’t seem to get around to just voiding 31 USC 3101. But Fundamentally what the Biden administration should and must do here is take away this nonsense as a negotiating tactic. It’s an irresponsible weapon in the hands of the most irresponsible party. Negotiating with terrorists just encourages them.

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  5. Avatar photo
    Marianwcates

    I like frolicking detour. Great podcast!

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    I’m totally with Steve on the need for humility when forecasting elections and the failure of most straight-line projections. We don’t know the future. The smart bet is the one he’s made (the conventional wisdom is wrong and in all likelihood at least one of the obvious choices at present for nominee of each party won’t be the nominee). If given a choice between one specific option (ie Trump or Biden) and “all other options combined,” always bet the latter.

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  7. Mkliegman

    Please tell me Sarah was kidding when she expressed surprise that July 4 is not a holiday around the globe. (“I found out that’s really not an international holiday.”)

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    1. Kbirkett

      She was absolutely kidding.

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      1. Mkliegman

        Yeah, I agree that she had to be kidding, but ordinarily she makes it very clear when she's joking and this was uncharacteristically deadpan.

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        1. Kbirkett

          It was deadpan for sure . . . that didn't strike me as so unusual for her, but maybe you have paid better attention! I think one key is that she isn't at all worried about whether someone will not catch the humor and will think she was making a mistake.

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    Gabrielle G

    Loved this punchy episode!

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  9. Mark

    Steve and Jonah missed the point about the Ben Shapiro tweet. Steve insists that Kaitlin Collins had to start with January 6 and the 2020 election. I think most GOP primary voters have heard enough about those issues. It isn't that they think Trump's behavior was okay, it's that we've talked those issues to death and opinions are set. Left wing media figures and politicians have hung J6 around the necks of everyone that voted for Trump for two years, and Republicans are sick of hearing about it. It's like picking a scab at this point. Now, I'd like to hear a Chris Christie broadside on Trump on those (and other) issues, but no GOP primary voter is interested in hearing CNN's take for the one-zillionth time.

    Nothing that Trump said about January 6 and the 2020 election is new. We already know what he thinks about those. CNN breaks no news by revealing that Trump thinks the same thing as he did yesterday. It just wastes time, makes people roll their eyes, and indeed, side with Trump. As such, it was, at best, a missed opportunity, at worst, another in-kind campaign donation to Trump from a major news media company.

    To Shapiro's point, there are a lot of GOP primary voters who are ready to give someone else a shot, who are ready to criticize Trump on a number of issues (Shapiro provides a pretty good list of them), but don't share Steve's Resistance mindset about Trump. Like it or not (and I assure you, I hate it), Trump is the leading GOP candidate. Reporters treating him like a pariah, per Steve's suggestion, isn't going to hurt him. We've seen this before. That kind of treatment wins him favor among GOP voters, even those who would be ready to move on from him. Trump's nomination isn't a done deal, but continuing to bang on about January 6th crowds out other discussions that could end up changing some people's minds. Which brings me to Jonah's comments....

    Jonah, my man! You say: "No one gives a rat's ass. The GOP electorate right now does not care about policy, it does not care about issues, which is one of the reasons why I have a real problem with the Shapiro thesis." This is not true, and I must think, Jonah, that you didn't really mean it.

    The GOP electorate includes a lot of people who do not eat out of Trump's hand the way you suggest. If you had restricted that comment to the MAGA rump that represents roughly, let's say, 25-35% of GOP primary voters, then it would be true. Yes, those people would literally follow Trump through hell, but don't do them the favor of overestimating their size and influence.

    The MAJORITY (yes, the majority) of the GOP electorate are people who: a) voted for Trump with some degree of reluctance; b) are ready to entertain criticisms of Trump ON THE ISSUES, from conservatives (see Shapiro's list), and c) will defend Trump to the death when he's attacked by people they perceive as dishonest mainstream media hacks. This is the point Shapiro was trying to make.

    Shapiro is putting his finger on something very important: how to beat Trump in the primary. If you listen to his show, you'll know that Ben is not a guy who wants to see Trump get the nomination. And I think he's someone who has thought a lot about Trump's strengths and vulnerabilities in the primary. A serious discussion about the point he's making would have been much more productive and interesting than the dismissiveness and the expressions of despair that we got here.

    Trump is beatable in the primary, but he's going to win if everybody from CNN on down continues to play their part. Respectfully, talk more about the issues he's vulnerable on (I highly recommend the Dispatch's recent interview with Chris Christie--it actually got me excited) and despair less.

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      KLeeC

      This would be easier to agree with if it weren't for the primary poll numbers... and our politicians showing too much fear of him to speak the truth that needs to be said for the sake of country and party.

      If he wins the primary, then functionally, he's completely redefined our party.

      ... And I expect J6 is still a topic because of Trump's posts, the ongoing legal cases, etc., and really, what it says about his fitness for office. I really can't imagine its not coming up from someone in the audience. CNN would be remiss not to try to correct misinfo he gives as an answer, if they lend him their megaphone.

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      1. Mark

        Well, you touched on something else that wasn't raised in this discussion, the part about CNN giving him their megaphone. Why did they do this at all? They had to have known this was going to happen, right? It went exactly the way you would expect it to go. And why now, when the field isn't even yet set? Are they going to do a townhall for all the GOP candidates, or is this a special deal just for Trump? They pretend to be his adversary, yet they hand him a free victory. CNN is knowingly playing into Trump's hand and that's gross and extremely frustrating to those of us who would like an opportunity to vote for a Republican not named Trump.

        I would guess that most Dispatch members can agree that GOP primary voters should care more about the stolen election thing and Jan. 6 than they do. I'm sure everyone here can agree that Republican politicians have shown a lack of backbone in taking Trump on. The point I was trying to make (and what I think Shapiro was saying) is that there are persuadable GOP voters out there, we need them, there's a way to get them, but talking about Jan. 6 over and over again isn't going to do it.

        I'm not suggesting that we all forgive and forget Trump's past actions, but those of us who would like him not to be the GOP nominee need to be disciplined and focused on what's actually going to work, not what we wish would work. I will again commend the Dispatch's recent interview with Chris Christie (May 7, "Fake Town Halls (w/ Chris Christie)). He is leveling real, substantive criticisms at Trump on the issues, including, but not primarily, election fraud and Jan. 6. I think that's what's going to make the difference if anything can, and good for the Dispatch for having him on!

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        1. Avatar photo
          Aylene Wright

          Christie had a surprisingly good answer to the entitlement question posed by Drucker, that he wants to save it, but do so by fixing it.

          That being said, although I agree we have to be pragmatic in order to beat Trump in a primary, and that we have to make both principled and pragmatic arguments to convince Republicans to move past him, I admit I don't like the whole assumption that "in order to beat Trump his opponents have to attack him just as nastily as he attacks them", that's obviously behind the many anti-Trump laments that so far, Trump's primary opponents have mostly just been too nice to him. This I agree with, to a point. But only to a point.

          Because the idea that beating Trump involves being as nasty as he is, seems to concede that being an elimination orifice is just what's needed to win in politics these days, that Trump has just changed the rules, and the only two options are either the dangerous fentanyl of Trump, or the safer but still addictive methadone of a Trump-lite, whether that be Desantis or Christie or some dark horse candidate.

          While I certainly hate how Trump has made being a synonym for a donkey, ironically acceptable for his followers ... increasingly it seems he's made it acceptable for his enemies, too.

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  10. Nicneufeld

    Re Sarah's point about Mother's Day being broadly "international" these days...the dates do seem to vary wildly (although a good amount of countries have adopted our date), and the UK celebrates it months earlier than we do (in March) which has had the significant effect of giving me a minor cardiac event some years when I open Twitter and find Paul McCartney wishing everyone a happy Mother's Day (with me taking a moment to realize, oh, it's not actually Mother's Day here).

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