Trump Rising

Thanks LeVar Burton.

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52

Disclaimer: In this episode, which was recorded Thursday morning, we speculated about the delay in U.S. military response to provocations from Iran. By the time the episode released, news broke that the U.S. forces had struck Iranian targets in Syria.

The House finally has a speaker … and he’s one of the architects of Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election. Sarah is joined by Steve and Mike Warren to explain who Rep. Mike Johnson is and what his speakership means for Trump’s hold on our politics. Also:

-Plea deals for Trump associates

-Joe Biden has a challenger?

-Pro-Hamas Democrats

-Jewish students harassed at Cooper Union

-“Reproductive freedom means Palestinian freedom”

-Qatar’s influence on college campuses

-Why institutions matter

-Iran’s real escalation

Show Notes:

-Collision newsletter

-Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show

-Video of Jewish students harassed at Cooper Union

-The Free Press: Qatar’s War for Young American Minds

-Twitter thread on Jake Sullivan’s Foreign Affairs essay 

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Comments (52)
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  1. Avatar photo
    Jonathan McAnulty

    Regarding the guilty pleas and the case against Trump, I appreciate Sarah's point that with Trump what you see is what you get and that he himself has put all the evidence out there in public so what can you have a witness give you that you don't already know.

    But... it's kinda impressive how much of Trump's defense is what you see is not what you get. You can't believe your lying eyes. It didn't happen. He meant something else. He is playing 4d chess. You can't hold his Twitter tweets against him. He has secret information. And so on and so forth.

    Trump argues what you see is not what you get. Many of his followers are persuaded what you see is not what you get. In such a situation there is real value in a multitude of witnesses that will testify what you saw was what you got. That the crime was right there in plain sight the whole time and there wasn't any secret information Trump was privy to which justified his behavior.

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  2. Mkliegman

    Mike Johnson has indeed shown himself pretty Trumpy. But my understanding is that he is deeply socially/religiously conservative, and that may ultimately collide with Trump's entirely opportunistic approach to such matters, and his newly re-found pro-choice and possibly other non-conservative policies.

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    Scott Lindroth

    Re Chris Stirewalt saying that institutions (universities) aren’t teaching students the “right” way to think about Israel and Palestinians: I’ll give you this - you did mumble that students might actually have agency to think for themselves. Imagine that.

    Weren’t universities a source of civil rights activists 60 years ago? Was that another instance of universities not teaching the right thing? Are 7000+ Palestinians killed since Oct 7 the right thing?

    Re Iran declaring war on the U.S. and we gave to hit back NOW: as belatedly noted, the US did retaliate, but wouldn’t the assassination of Soleimani constitute our declaration of war? Shouldn’t that provoke retaliation? We can keep up the “what abouts” all the way back to our installation of the Shah after removing the democratically-elected President in 1953. But, heck, like the Palestinians, the Iranians should just get over it, right?

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    Ben Connelly

    My take on the whole segment at the end about TikTok and Gen Z being pro-terrorist: as someone who is one year removed from Gen Z, young people are often callow and foolish and don’t have as much experience with the world for their opinions to be considered as fully-formed or wise as older adults. Most of them will grow out of it, and we should give them a bit of a break, because it’s not their fault for being young. At the same time, we should take opinion polling of “the youth” with a heavy grain of salt. Ever since the Baby Boom this country has spent far too much time obsessing over the tastes and preferences and opinions of young people. Maybe if we didn’t give them so much unhealthy attention, or treat the opinions of a bunch of teenagers on TikTok as being as wise or even relevant as the opinions of their parents, this wouldn’t be such a problem. Young people could go through phases that they would eventually grow out of, and their elders wouldn’t treat those phases as prophecies. Meanwhile, we could go back to a culture that venerated the wisdom of those who have been around long enough to see a bit of the world.

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    Jen

    I’m still a bit confused on what the ‘not worth your time?’ section of the podcast is. I thought it was maybe more lighthearted topics where maybe there was a disagreement amongst staff over whether it was worth discussing or not. But the NWYT section on this week’s podcast was about US military skirmishes with Iran. Seems to me a no-brainer that it’s worth discussing and probably could have led off the podcast (instead of Trump/GOP again) with the Dean Phillips discussion in the NWYT slot.

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  6. Avatar photo
    CJ

    I keep hearing this on podcasts, but not in life. Does "writ large" have an alternate meaning as a synonym for "at large" or "in general"? Prior to the last couple of years of listening to podcasts regularly, I had only ever heard that phrase used to mean literally something small made large or else something being obvious or exaggerated. I just noticed that some Dispatch podcasters have started using it as a stand in for "at large" or "in general" as well.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Daniel Jett

      It means, a clear and obvious example of a broader phenomenon. "Bribing people by way of tax allowances is the paternalistic state writ large"

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  7. Bigdonmck

    I think it's wonderful that the universities are caught up in this mess and being exposed as a bed of far left progressive thought. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Cohen from the radical group The Weatherman got jobs at University of Chicago an Northwestern University, respectively after all their shenanigans. How the hell did that happen?
    The universities could use a serious house cleaning.

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  8. Ackemma1

    Take a look, it's in a book
    Reading Rainbow!

    I guess I'm in Sarah's age cohort.

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  9. Avatar photo
    Daniel Jett

    Regarding the discussion on how Mike Johnson jumped to the front of the line to become House Speaker:

    I don't know anything about Johnson, but I watched his first speech from the rostrum of the House. I have to say, I was somewhat impressed and somewhat inspired, in spite of my inherent skepticism of Johnson's work to undermine Biden's legitimate election in 2020 and his support for Trump. Mike Johnson just sounds like a nice man. He was nice to Hakeem Jeffries. He was nice to Sheila Jackson-Lee. He made important pledges about allowing open debate on the House floor and "decentralizing" the legislative process. Will he actually return the House to the old practice of allowing committee and subcommittee chairs mark up and amend bills? If he does that, I will welcome him as Speaker.

    Is it possible that the mainstream Republicans ended up voting for him because he may be someone who is sincere and, dare we say, "honest"? I know, it's hard to call anyone honest who circulated a petition supporting the filing of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court, effectively promoting election fraud in favor of Trump.

    Is it possible that he can set that aside and be honest going forward? His opening remarks even had the Dems applauding. I have to say, it was rather genius. It gave me a little hope.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Daniel Jett

      The podcast discussion on Mike Johnson reminded me of the famous dialog between Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) in the diner scene in the film, "Pulp Fiction." I'm feeling a lot like Jules nowadays. The question becomes, is Mike Johnson ten times more charming than Arnold from Green Acres?

      VINCENT: You want some bacon?
      JULES: No, man, I don't eat pork.
      VINCENT: Are you Jewish?
      JULES: No, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
      VINCENT: Why not?
      JULES: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
      VINCENT: But bacon tastes good, pork chops taste good...
      JULES: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherf***ers. Pigs sleep and root in s**t, that's a filthy animal. I don't eat nothin' that ain't got sense enough to disregard its own feces.
      VINCENT: How about a dog? A dog eats its own feces.
      JULES: I don't eat dog either.
      VINCENT: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
      JULES: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy, but it's definitely dirty.
      But, dogs got personality, personality goes a long way.
      VINCENT: So by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
      JULES: We'd have to be talkin' 'bout one charmin' motherf***in' pig, I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

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    2. Avatar photo
      Guffia

      There’s an argument to be made that someone could have supported Trump’s plan to delay the certification of electors because he knew that if regular order prevailed then the “election conspiracy” would be given longer life, but if you give the conspirators every conceivable opportunity to make their case, and then they still fail, that the mania could be exhausted.

      I don’t know if it’s a good argument, but it could be the difference between Mike Johnson and Jim Jordan.

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      Ben Connelly

      “ I don't know anything about Johnson, but I watched his first speech from the rostrum of the House. I have to say, I was somewhat impressed and somewhat inspired, in spite of my inherent skepticism of Johnson's work to undermine Biden's legitimate election in 2020 and his support for Trump.”

      Heard it on the radio and I agree!

      “I s it possible that he can set that aside and be honest going forward? His opening remarks even had the Dems applauding. I have to say, it was rather genius. It gave me a little hope.”

      I second that.

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  10. Sunilsaha2

    One of these days ... someone on the podcast will admit that Biden has handled the crisis well. I have faith!

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    1. Sunilsaha2

      I’ll take it.

      https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/biden-israel-gaza-2024.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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