The Dispatch Podcast

Ohio Representative Anthony Gonzalez was one of only 10 GOP House members who voted for President Trump’s second impeachment, and he’s faced quite a bit of backlash from his constituents for doing so. “In the long arc of history, I believe it was the right vote, and I believe it sends the right message,” Congressman Gonzalez tells Sarah and Steve on today’s show. But Gonzalez still fears for the future of his party, especially considering most Republican voters still believe the election was stolen: “I don’t know how to govern in a world where we believe things that aren’t real.” Tune in to hear Gonzalez talk about social media censorship, our country’s crisis of leadership, and his former NFL career playing for the Indianapolis Colts. Show Notes: -Take our podcast survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Biden administration folks are claiming they inherited a nonexistent coronavirus vaccine rollout plan from the Trump administration, with one anonymous administration official going so far as to tell CNN last week that the team will “have to build everything from scratch,” a claim that even top epidemiologist Dr. Anthony Fauci later disputed as patently false. Joe Biden spent months on the campaign trail criticizing Trump for deliberately misleading the public. Is his administration now falling into the same trap? “It’s a meaningful stumble,” Steve says on today’s podcast, “and I think they got caught basically misleading the public about the status of the vaccine program.” After Sarah and the guys chat about vaccine distribution logistics, they discuss Trump’s upcoming second impeachment trial, the media and its rewriting of history, and the latest drama with former DOJ officials in the Trump administration. Show Notes: -“Come on, President Biden. Set some loftier COVID vaccination goals” by Jonah Goldberg in the Los Angeles Times. -“Biden inheriting nonexistent coronavirus vaccine distribution plan and must start 'from scratch,' sources say,” by CNN’s MJ Lee. -“The Washington Post Tried To Memory-Hole Kamala Harris' Bad Joke About Inmates Begging for Food and Water” by Eric Boehm in Reason. -The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project. -“Send In the Troops” by Sen. Tom Cotton in the New York Times. -Take our podcast survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Will Joe Biden’s governing strategy be effective? “I don’t think Biden has ever been driven on ideological issues, what he’s driven on is keeping his party together,” NBC’s Chuck Todd tells Sarah and Steve on today’s episode. “There is a part of me that says Biden can be the Reagan for Democrats.” How does the filibuster fit into the president’s call for unity? Is Joe Biden really a centrist? What role will Kamala Harris play in this administration? Todd answers all of these questions and more. Stick around for their thoughts on the Democrats’ $15 minimum wage proposal, the future of immigration reform, Biden’s relationship with Congress, and the evolution of cable news over the years. Show Notes: -“Biden's centrist words, liberal actions” by Dion Rabouin, Courtenay Brown, and Jennifer A. Kingson in Axios. -Take our podcast survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joe Biden was officially sworn in as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday. He assumes office at one of the darkest moments in United States history, when a global pandemic has taken the lives of more than 400,000 Americans and rampant polarization continues to test our nation’s character. Did his inaugural address meet the moment? Was his call for unity too idealistic? On today’s episode, our hosts discuss Biden’s day one executive orders and the once and future Republican Party before breaking down today’s inauguration ceremony, speech and all. Show Notes: -“Biden's Two Tasks: Repairing Deep Divisions and Defeating a Deadly Disease” by David French in The Dispatch. -Take our podcast survey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“I was proud that after the assault on the Capitol, we were back in the chambers a few hours later,” freshman GOP Rep. Peter Meijer from Michigan’s 3rd District tells Sarah and Steve on today’s episode. “There was someone’s blood drying, right? And we’re going back to work to send the message that our constitutional process—it got erupted—but you’re not gonna scare us away.” Rep. Meijer—who holds Justin Amash’s old seat—joined today’s show to discuss what it was like certifying the Electoral College vote, evacuating the House chamber on January 6 amid the Capitol siege, and undergoing impeachment proceedings just days after being sworn into office. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack,” said Rep. Liz Cheney late Tuesday afternoon. “Everything that followed was his doing.” This week, our hosts discuss the brewing showdown over impeachment between Cheney—the House’s No.3 Republican—and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. How does one party accommodate vastly different levels of acquiescence to a rogue president? What is the value of impeachment and conviction over censure? Should the president be pardoned after conviction in a concession to Republicans? To David, one thing is clear: “He needs to be so thoroughly defeated in the here and now that there is no possibility of a later,” he says. “He has to be deplatformed, he has to be defeated, and he has to be discredited.” Show Notes: -Take our podcast survey -Amazon filing in response to Parler’s lawsuit, citing violent content -Rep. Liz Cheney’s statement in support of impeachment -Video from Capitol Hill riot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol should not have come as a surprise to anyone who has paid attention to Donald Trump’s election-related conspiracy-mongering in the weeks since November 3. Politico’s chief political correspondent Tim Alberta has been interacting with Trump supporters for months now and joins today’s show to explain why Wednesday’s Capitol siege was almost inevitable: “What we saw at every step of the way was a coordinated and deliberate campaign” by the president, high ranking Republicans, and far-right media personalities “to deceive the American public,” Alberta tells Sarah and Steve. Show Notes: -“Jan. 6 Was 9 Weeks — And 4 Years — in the Making” by Tim Alberta in Politico. -American Carnage: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump by Tim Alberta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Was Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol by Trump rally-goers inevitable? Should President Trump be impeached? Where does the Republican Party go from here? Our staff members have been warning about the dangers of Trumpism long before The Dispatch was launched in October 2019. But as David says, “never has vindication felt so miserable.” After all, as he points out, “the vindication was while the republic was under direct attack.” On today’s episode, Sarah and the guys break down the series of events that led to yesterday’s violence. Andrew and Audrey join the show to discuss their on-the-ground reporting at the Capitol on Wednesday, where they spent all day interviewing rally attendees. Show Notes: -“The Storming of the Capitol” by Andrew Egger and Audrey Fahlberg in The Dispatch. -“Impeach Donald Trump, Remove Him, and Bar Him From Holding Office Ever Again” by The Dispatch staff. -“We in the ‘shallow state’ thought we could help. Instead, we obscured the reality of a Trump presidency.” by Sarah Isgur in the Washington Post. -“A Day at the Million MAGA March” by Audrey Fahlberg in The Dispatch. -“If He Loses, Trump Will Concede Gracefully,” by Mick Mulvaney in the Wall Street Journal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

House Democrats are heading into next year with the slimmest majority either party has seen in two decades. How might this shape intra-party relations among Democrats moving forward? “The new dynamic will force Democratic leaders to change their tactics, both in drafting bills and in reining in the rank and file,” Haley Byrd Wilt writes in her debut piece for the website. Haley joined Sarah and Steve on today’s show to forecast these shifting dynamics as we approach the 117th Congress. Stick around for a breakdown of the latest drama in the House Republican conference, Donald Trump’s NDAA veto threat, and whether Congress can avert a government shutdown. Show Notes: -“Democrats Grapple With Slim House Majority” by Haley Byrd Wilt in The Dispatch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the weeks following November 3, a surprising number of state Republican parties have made it their mission to attack any high ranking GOP officials in their state who have certified or somehow acknowledged Joe Biden’s electoral victory over President Trump. How will this GOP infighting play out over the next few months? Declan joins Sarah, David, and Jonah on today’s show to discuss his new piece on the site explaining this strange phenomenon, with a close look at Arizona and Georgia in particular. Stick around to hear our hosts discuss the 2021 races they are keeping an eye on, all things Hunter Biden, and Joseph Epstein’s controversial Wall Street Journal op-ed about Jill Biden. Show Notes: -“Begun, the GOP Civil War Has” by Declan Garvey in The Dispatch. -“Is There a Doctor in the White House? Not if You Need an M.D.” by Joseph Epstein in the Wall Street Journal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How might the Supreme Court respond to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s lawsuit contesting the results of the election? Why did so many House members and state attorneys general file amicus briefs in support of the lawsuit? Is Paxton’s legal effort just a political stunt? On today’s episode, Sarah and Steve are joined by Ilya Shapiro—director of the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and publisher of the Cato Supreme Court Review—for the breakdown. Show Notes: -Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s new lawsuit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. -106 House Republicans sign amicus brief supporting Texas lawsuit and Chip Roy’s tweet thread explaining why he will not join Texas’s lawsuit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Supreme Court denied injunctive relief on Tuesday to Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly in a one-sentence order that unceremoniously ended the Republican lawmaker’s bid to overturn his state’s election results. “What distinguished this case was it actually had an interesting question of law in it,” David argues on today’s show, in reference to the Pennsylvania state legislature’s alleged violation of the state’s constitution in 2019. That Rep. Kelly brought this lawsuit after the presidential election was another question entirely, David concedes, as was Kelly’s requested remedy. On the menu for the rest of today’s episode: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s new Supreme Court election lawsuit, Biden’s latest Cabinet picks, and the origins of “believe-Trump-no-matter-what” syndrome among once-respected GOP figures. Show Notes: -Supreme Court’s one-sentence order denying injunctive relief to Rep. Mike Kelly. -Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s new lawsuit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin. -University of California-Irvine law professor Richard Hasen’s December 8 blog post on the Paxton lawsuit’s legal shortcomings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Georgia election official Gabriel Sterling asked GOP lawmakers to tone down the unsubstantiated claims of vote fraud in his state earlier this week, the Trump campaign shared a 90-second video on Twitter alleging another Georgia related election conspiracy theory. “Video footage from Georgia shows suitcases filled with ballots pulled from under a table AFTER supervisors told poll workers to leave room and 4 people stayed behind to keep counting votes,” the tweet said. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other GOP figures have since demanded a signature audit of the presidential election in the Peach State. Where do we go from here? Sterling joined Sarah and Steve on today’s episode to debunk election conspiracy theories about his state and offer a pathway forward for the GOP. “To me, this is the playbook that was run by Stacey Abrams in 2018 in Georgia,” Sterling tells Steve and Sarah of the Trump campaign’s claim that the election was rigged. Show Notes: -90 second clip of Georgia election conspiracy theory shared by the campaign on Thursday and Lin Wood’s rally on Wednesday excoriating Gabriel Sterling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During an interview with the Associated Press on Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr said that “to date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.” In what seems to be a clever attempt to appease the president, Barr also said during the interview that he had appointed John Durham as special counsel to investigate the Russia-Trump probe in October. Will news of Durham’s appointment appease Republicans? Is there a legal defect in the Durham appointment? Sarah and the guys give us the breakdown. On today’s episode, our podcast hosts also analyze Trump’s election litigation madness, the ethics of COVID-19 vaccine prioritization, and last week’s killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Show Notes: -Attorney General Bill Barr’s interview with the Associated Press. -“As Trump Rages, Voters in a Key County Move On: ‘I’m Not Sweating It’ ” by Elaina Plott in the New York Times. -Statement from Sen. Ted Cruz urging SCOTUS to hear the Pennsylvania election challenge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charles Koch and Brian Hooks joined Sarah and David to discuss their new book, Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World, which is about social entrepreneurship, the principles of human progress, and empowering people to discover their gifts. On today’s show, Koch and Hooks explain how finding common ground with people across the ideological spectrum has helped reorient their approach to public policy reform as it relates to the criminal justice system, education, and more. Show Notes: -Believe in People: Bottom-Up Solutions for a Top-Down World by Charles G. Koch and Brian Hooks. -Good Profit: How Creating Value for Others Built One of the World's Most Successful Companies by Charles Koch. -After Life: My Journey from Incarceration to Freedom by Alice Marie Johnson with Nancy French. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg were in the hot seat again on Tuesday, answering questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members about the policing of misinformation and controversial speech on their platforms. The biggest takeaway from the hearing? Both political parties want to regulate Big Tech, but for very different reasons. As David argues, it’s not just that liberals want more censorship and conservatives want less of it. “It’s that liberals want Big Tech censorship in exactly the areas where conservatives want less censorship,” especially as it pertains to hate speech and disinformation. Is there any room for compromise in the war against big tech? Our podcast hosts break it down in layman’s terms. Also on today’s episode: an update on COVID-19’s third wave, Biden’s Cabinet picks, and Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election. Show Notes: -Reuters poll on Republicans’ perception of election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the Republican Party in the midst of a policy wasteland? Today’s guest, Ben Ginsberg, surely thinks so. According to Ginsberg, who is perhaps the most prominent Republican election lawyer of our time, the future of the GOP rests on its ability to transform its policy agenda into one that appeals to minorities and women. “If [the GOP] can avoid the circular firing squad and instead concentrate on positive policy ideas to appeal to voters,” Ginsberg warns, then “there is a chance for the resurrection of the party.” Stick around for a conversation about our democracy’s nonexistent voter fraud problem and the GOP’s concerted effort to restrict access to the polls. Show Notes: -“My party is destroying itself on the altar of Trump,” by Ben Ginsberg in the Washington Post. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper got the boot on Monday in a characteristic Twitter announcement from President Trump. Esper’s sudden dismissal was accompanied by a firing spree of numerous other Pentagon officials who were quickly replaced with Trump loyalists, raising a lot of questions and alarm bells in D.C.’s national security bubble. Sarah and the guys break down competing theories that have tried to dissect what the Pentagon purge is all about. According to David, “the moves only really make sense in the context of planning for a second term.” Tune in for a discussion of emerging arguments surrounding the future of the GOP, ongoing election lawsuits, and the conspiratorial trajectory of conservative media. Show Notes: -The Dispatch Fact Check. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does a video show someone burning ballots with votes for Trump? No. Did Michigan ‘magically’ find 138,339 votes for Joe Biden? Nope. What about Wisconsin? Did voter turnout exceed the number of registered voters in the state? A thousand times no. But tight vote counts in battleground states have laid the perfect groundwork for election disinformation to explode online over the past few days. As Steve points out, some bad actors on social media and cable news simply “don’t care whether what they’re saying is actually true.” But not to worry, Dispatch fact checkers Alec Dent and Khaya Himmelman—along with staff writer Andrew Egger—join the podcast today to debunk conspiracy theories surrounding election fraud so you don’t have to. Show Notes: -Join The Dispatch for a post-election gathering featuring congressional leadership and top policy experts November 9-10: Sign up here! -Click here for all of our latest fact checks. -“Biden Had No Election Coattails,” by Karl Rove. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Minutes before 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, the president took to Twitter to claim victory in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. The president also said he “hereby [claims]” Michigan “if, in fact,... there was a large number of secretly dumped ballots as has been widely reported!” The president and his closest allies are also alleging that late-arriving votes are evidence of fraud. What should we make of all this? “This is the president of the United States acting like a Third World dictator,” Steve says on today's episode. “It’s complete nonsense. It’s made up. The only rhyme or reason to what he’s doing is he wants to count votes that he thinks are his and disqualify votes that he thinks are not.” On today’s show, our podcast hosts dissect this year’s polling catastrophe, where their electoral predictions went sour, and what our country might look like in January 2021. Show Notes: -Jonah’s Wednesday G-File: “The Most Chaotic Timeline,” The Sweep: “Your 2020 Election Night Guide,” The Morning Dispatch: “It Ain't Over Till It's Over.” -Join The Dispatch for a post-election gathering featuring congressional leadership and top policy experts November 9-10: Sign up here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do Republican lawmakers want the Republican party to look like in a post-Trump era? “There’s a great fear of one scenario which is that Donald Trump loses in a race that is extremely tight,” Axios reporter Jonathan Swan tells Sarah and Steve on today’s show. “In that scenario, it would be much more difficult for elected Republicans to disown Trumpism and make the case that this was an aberrant cancer that needs to be excised.” Tune in for a discussion of Trump’s spending problem, the state of the polling industry, and what to expect from a Biden administration. Show Notes: - Join The Dispatch for a post-election gathering featuring congressional leadership and top policy experts November 9-10: Sign up here! - Preview of Jonathan Swan’s HBO interview with Sen. Ted Cruz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The idea that Joe Biden will somehow heal America in a post-Trump era has become the closing argument of the Democratic candidate’s campaign. Will Biden’s “return to normalcy” pitch constrain his presidency? There’s a lot of ill will festering among congressional Democrats over coronavirus relief negotiations and the confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. Assuming post-Election Day Democratic majorities in both the House and the Senate, will Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi pull Biden further left? Our podcast hosts are here for the breakdown. With less than a week until Election Day, Sarah and the guys discuss both presidential candidates’ closing rally schedules, ongoing election litigation, and whether Mitch McConnell is the real savior of the Trump years. Show Notes: -Tim Alberta and Chris Stirewalt on the Remnant, David’s French Press: “The Curse of ‘Pandemic Law’ Strikes the Electoral Process,” today’s Morning Dispatch: “Election Litigationpalooza,” and “How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk” by Josh Katz and Wilson Andrews in the New York Times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is the presidential race where the polls say it is? What might pollsters be missing this election cycle? Is there a scenario in which Biden wins the electoral college handedly and Republicans somehow hold the Senate? Polls suggest that Republican senators’ reelection odds aren’t looking too sunny in Maine, Colorado, and Arizona. But what about Republican Senator Thom Tillis in North Carolina? “Everything comes down to whether a late breaking sex scandal in North Carolina can preserve a seat that Republicans a few weeks ago thought was lost,” says Josh Kraushaar, National Journal’s senior national political columnist, on today’s episode. “Ultimately, they’re hoping on a Democratic blunder on the last month of the campaign to save the Senate.” Join Sarah, Steve and Josh for a conversation about prospective voter turnout, party infighting on both sides of the aisle, and the senators who are distancing themselves from Trump to save the Senate. Show Notes: -The Economist’s presidential election forecast, “Republicans learn the benefits of diversity … the hard way” by Josh Kraushaar in National Journal, “McCarthy locking up support despite fears of GOP losses” by Melanie Zanona and John Bresnahan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story that the New York Post published last week about Hunter Biden raised all sorts of red flags for veteran journalists. How did they come into possession of the information in the first place? How did they authenticate the story before publishing it? All things considered, the available reporting process indicates that the New York Post’s story was so shaky within the Post’s own staff that the person who wrote it didn’t want his name on the byline. “That doesn’t say that the information is false,” David concedes on today’s episode, “But what it says is that the procedures to vet the information before they put the information into the public square were inadequate.” Tune in to hear our podcast hosts discuss voter enthusiasm, liberal anxiety over a 2016 repeat, and what to expect from Thursday’s presidential debate. Show Notes: -Join The Dispatch for a post-election gathering featuring Congressional leadership, top policy and political experts Nov. 9-10: sign up here! -Post-Debate Dispatch Live tomorrow, “Liberal Anxiety Over a 2016 Repeat May Be Why We Won't Have One” by Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch, “The Hunter Biden Story: A Microcosm of Our Miserable Times,” by David French in The Dispatch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do journalists and tech platforms determine what information is verifiable online? How can news consumers determine which media outlets to trust when the line between partisan bias and disinformation becomes hazier and hazier? On today’s episode, David and Sarah are joined by Renée DiResta—a technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and a writer at Wired and the Atlantic—for a conversation about disinformation online. “Anybody with a laptop can make themselves look like a media organization, can use a variety of social media marketing techniques to grow an audience, and then can push out whatever they want to say to that audience,” DiResta warns. Where do we go from here? Tune in to learn about journalistic ethics surrounding the New York Post’s Hunter Biden story and what to expect from disinformation actors this election cycle. Show Notes: -“Emails reveal how Hunter Biden tried to cash in big on behalf of family with Chinese firm” by Emma Jo-Morris Gabriel Fonrouge in the New York Post, “The Conspiracies Are Coming From Inside the House” by Renée DiResta Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How is Amy Coney Barrett holding up in her Senate confirmation hearings? Well, her record is squeaky clean, she’s held fast to the Ginsburg rule, and she’s remained calm and collected despite the Democrats’ best efforts to break her composure. Another benefit from this hearing, as Sarah points out, is that “the media has finally come around to understanding that the Affordable Care Act is not going to be tossed in the trash.” On the flip side, the language of court packing on the left has shifted in the opposite direction, where Democrats now argue that the term simply refers to the act of filling existing vacancies with conservative judges they don’t like. On today’s podcast, Sarah and the guys walk us through the evolution of court packing in recent decades before giving us a temperature check on the presidential election, several competitive Senate races, and the unmasking probe commissioned by Attorney General Bill Barr. Show Notes: -Morning Consult poll on ACB’s confirmation, the Cook Political Report, and David’s latest French Press: “Amy Coney Barrett and the Obamacare Debacle, Explained.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump is trailing in the polls by roughly 4.2 points in Arizona, a state Republican presidential candidates have won consistently in recent decades (with the exception of Bob Dole in 1996). Our podcast hosts are joined today by New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin, who explains the demographic changes that have resulted in such a quick political realignment in Arizona and the Sun Belt more broadly. If the polls are all correct and the GOP is at risk losing Arizona, then why is Trump spending so much time campaigning there? “The difference between a modest Biden victory and an electoral landslide is the Sun Belt,” Martin tells Sarah and Steve. Beyond demographic changes in key battleground states, public opinion surveys have continuously shown that the American public is much more cautious about the coronavirus than the president. For months, President Trump has downplayed the pandemic by holding in-person rallies, refusing to wear a mask, and railing against the efficacy of mail-in-voting. Do Trump’s advisers simply not have the guts to tell him that his mishandling of the coronavirus is losing voters? “It’s just hard to use polling data to get him to act in ways that he does not want to act,” Martin argues. Listen to today’s episode for some thoughts about online campaign fundraising, Mitch McConnell’s last ditch effort to save the GOP’s Senate majority, and the life expectancy of “Anti-Fake News” Trumpism in the Republican Party. Show Notes: -Today’s Morning Dispatch about Mitch McConnell’s GOP strategy, “Trump's Path to Victory (With a Nod to Washington State)” by Sean Trende in RealClearPolitics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do this week’s national presidential polling averages doom Donald Trump’s chance at winning the election? Joe Biden has maintained a steady national polling lead of 6 to 9 points for months now, with no signs of letting up as we approach November 3. The latest CNN, NBC, and Rasmussen polls from this week show Biden in a 16-, 14-, and 12-point lead, respectively. “Even if [these polls] are outliers on the top number,” Jonah says, “The unspoken story about all of this is Biden is running away with it with seniors.” Trump won seniors decisively in 2016 and a Democrat hasn’t won the demographic since former presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000. All things considered, our podcast hosts warn that this could be one of the biggest presidential sweeps since Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole in 1996. Tune in for a conversation about the right’s transition to online social media trolling, the president’s Twitter addiction, and tonight’s upcoming vice presidential debate. Show Notes: -Post-debate Dispatch Live tonight, 30 day free trial at The Dispatch, CNN poll showing Biden in a 16-point lead, NBC poll showing Biden in a 14-point lead, Rasmussen poll showing Biden in a 12 -point lead, “4 Funny Feelings about 2020” by Tim Alberta in Politico, -“Fan Service Is Not Serving Trump Well” by Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump shocked the world when he announced overnight via Twitter that he and the first lady tested positive for the coronavirus, a startling development in an already news-saturated week for the president. Who better to discuss these momentous developments than Dr. Jonathan Reiner—a cardiologist, professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University, former physician to Vice President Dick Cheney, and a consultant to the White House Medical Unit during the Bush, Obama, and Trump years? Reiner joined Sarah and Steve for an insightful discussion that covered virtually all aspects of this significant development—from the details of the spread of the virus to the protocols of the White House Medical Unit, from the hopefully distant possibility of the need for continuity-of-government measures to the cardiological implications of COVID-19. How did we get to this nightmare scenario? “It’s a failure of common sense,” Reiner tells our podcast hosts. “It’s a failure of masking.” Frankly speaking, the White House could have avoided this situation by limiting staffers’ and visitors’ proximity to the president, conducting meetings via secure video link, and instituting a universal mask-wearing mandate for all White House staffers at all times. None of this happened. Trump has downplayed the risk of the coronavirus for months now, interacting with White House staffers on a daily basis without a mask. “For those of us who know how viruses are spread—and it’s not that complicated—it was horrifying to see all these people in close proximity to the president,” Dr. Reiner said. “I thought it was really malpractice for the White House to allow so many people so close to the president.” The president’s physician, Sean Conley, issued a statement on Friday saying he expects the president “to carry out his duties without interruption while recovering.” But how will the White House Medical Unit ensure a continuity of government if Trump becomes temporarily unfit for office due to COVID-19 complications? The 25th Amendment provides a pathway for a majority of the Cabinet secretaries to determine if the president is no longer fit for office or for the president to relinquish his duties voluntarily. “The Cabinet doesn’t have the medical capacity by themselves to make the determination so they would defer to the White House Medical Unit,” Reiner explained, which is staffed by career Army officers. “It would take a very mature, confident officer to say to the president, ‘Sir I don’t think you’re fit for duty right now, I think you should consider the 25th Amendment.’ Imagine that conversation with this particular patient.” Tune in for Reiner’s expert opinion on herd immunity, the nonsensical partisan split on mask-wearing, and how the country can move forward during such a perilous moment in American history. Show Notes: -Heart: An American Medical Odyssey by Jonathan Reiner, “Trump says he and first lady have tested positive for coronavirus” by Josh Dawsey and Colby Itkowitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last night was the first presidential debate and it was … not a great moment for the country, to say the least. As Sarah reminds us, presidential candidates go into debates with a strategy, basing their metric of success on their ability to boost turnout among an already existing base. Did either candidate achieve what they wanted to achieve? Are undecided voters who watched the debate now more or less likely to show up to the polls? If you haven’t been following every twist and turn of the race, Trump appeared strong and forceful during the debate, interrupting the moderator and his doddering opponent in perpetuity. But were Trump’s interruptions strategic? As Jonah argues, “He didn’t let Biden talk when Biden was talking badly.” Rather than give Biden the opportunity to fumble, the president was just a “blunderbuss of interruptions,” a problem that was compounded by his refusal to condemn white supremacy. Biden, on the other hand, somewhat succeeded in his do no harm, let Trump be Trump strategy, minor gaffes aside. But it was by no means a show-stopping performance from the Democratic nominee. All things considered, it mostly served as a reminder that maybe mute buttons would be a good idea next time around. After a debate recap, Sarah and the guys discuss the electoral and national security implications of the New York Times’ report on Trump’s tax returns, as well as the DNI Director John Ratcliffe’s letter to Sen. Lindsey Graham regarding the FBI’s handling of Crossfire Hurricane. Stick around for a fun conversation about our podcast hosts’ favorite cult classic films. Show Notes: -30 day free trial at The Dispatch, Dispatch Live Post-Debate Edition, Frank Luntz’s focus group, post-debate Telemundo poll, New York Times’ report on Trump’s tax returns, DNI letter from John Ratcliffe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why are Supreme Court vacancies more important to Republicans than they are to Democrats at the ballot box? It all goes back to conservative resistance to living constitutionalism, Judicial Crisis Network president Carrie Severino tells Steve and Sarah on today’s episode. “We know historically, it has been conservatives who are incredibly engaged by the Supreme Court,” Severino argues, because “it’s been conservatives on the receiving end of judicial activism.” In recent decades, the Supreme Court itself has made a point of constitutionalizing issues that simply aren’t in the Constitution, which can be traced to the left’s complete misunderstanding of our country’s founding charter. Severino argues that the underlying logic of judicial activism is as follows: “If it’s constitutional it must be good, if it’s not constitutional it must be bad, and likewise, if it’s good, then it must be required by the Constitution, if it’s bad it must be forbidden by the Constitution.” Tune in for some punditry on Democrats’ religious tests for conservative Supreme Court nominees, the prudence of confirming a Supreme Court justice during an election year, and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s insistence that he won’t confirm a Supreme Court nominee who hasn’t vowed on record to overturn Roe v. Wade. Show Notes: -Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, by Carrie Severino and Mollie Hemingway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death on Friday immediately kickstarted a battle among conservative pundits and politicians over the prudence of pushing through a Supreme Court nominee before November 3. The first problem is that mail-in voting is already under way, meaning Republicans would technically be advancing a nominee during an election. Republicans have also been hypocrites about this in the past with their opposition to Merrick Garland’s hearing in 2016. Steve thinks we should push through a nominee, but David, Jonah, and Sarah are more sympathetic to arguments that Trump should nominate a justice and the Senate should wait to confirm until after the election, keeping in mind Democrats’ threats to throw out the filibuster, pack the court, and add Puerto Rico and D.C. to the union if Republicans have their way with Trump’s forthcoming nominee. David and Jonah propose a deal: If Trump wins, the Senate confirms his nominee; if Biden wins, he agrees not to pack the court. Others argue that confirming a justice during an election year is just politics, meaning whichever party is in power gets to do whatever it wants. But what about principled conservatism? “My main critique of philosophical pragmatism is we are now talking about basically saying power decides every question of principle,” Jonah says on today’s podcast. This puts Republicans and conservatives in a bind, he argues, “particularly because for the last give or take 5,000 years, one of the jobs of conservatives has been to make a distinction between things you can do and things you should do.” Tune in for a conversation about the forthcoming attacks on Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith should she be Trump’s nominee, the upcoming presidential debate next week, and the New York Times’ eagerness to rewrite its own history surrounding the 1619 Project. Show Notes: -“As U.S. Supreme Court nomination looms, a religious community draws fresh interest” in Reuters, “Vote on President Trump’s Nomination, Senators—the Sooner the Better” by Matthew J. Franck in The Dispatch, and the New York Times’ 1619 Project. -Check out our The Dispatch30 day free trial of . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“People ask me this all the time, ‘Why the hell did you stay?’ ” explains Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration and founder of the Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR). “And my response is: If you saw what was happening, why the hell wouldn’t you stay if you cared about your country?” On today’s episode, Miles Taylor gives Sarah and Steve an inside scoop as to what it’s like working for a president who constantly gives you orders to break the law and who believes he has “magical powers” to do whatever he wants. The most frustrating part of his job as DHS chief of staff, he said, was watching high officials who expressed disdain for the president in private but refused to speak up when it mattered most. “There was another time that we were in [the Oval Office] and he went off on a tirade about the Mexicans,” Taylor explains, “In the conversations he said, ‘Look, Mexico is just a total hellhole, isn’t it? It’s just a total hellhole.’ And he kind of looked around the room for agreement, and he was like, ‘Right? You know I can’t say shithole countries anymore but it’s a hellhole, right?” Taylor said most people in the room—except for one official who Taylor didn’t name—laughed it off and nodded rather than standing up to the president. Taylor said he and his colleagues went into that administration recognizing that Donald Trump was a man of pretty poor character, but there was a hope that the office itself would perhaps change the president for the better. “I really think once he had the powers of the presidency, he got drunk on the powers of the presidency and they did not have that sobering effect, they had a very inebriating effect on President Trump and magnified some of his worst impulses.” Tune in to hear Miles explain what it’s like having a Trump tweet change the trajectory of your entire day as a DHS staffer, whether Republicans should vote for Biden this election cycle, and how REPAIR hopes to fix the GOP in the post-Trump era. If anything, tune just in to hear Taylor explain why “every single day in the Donald Trump administration was a pride swallowing siege.” Show Notes: -The Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday, Israel signed two historic peace agreements with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates in a major step toward greater diplomacy in the Middle East. Though the Trump administration played a crucial role in brokering both peace deals—with the signing ceremonies themselves taking place in the White House—media coverage of the deals has been scarce, begrudging, and dismissive of the president’s involvement in the negotiations. How much credit should the Trump administration get for facilitating the deal? And more importantly, will other countries follow suit in normalizing relations with Israel? “The UAE is like a beta test of the bigger deal with Saudi Arabia if it is to come,” David explains on today’s episode. “This is sort of dipping the toe in the waters.” As we inch toward November 3, will this deal be a major selling point for Trump’s re-election campaign? According to Sarah, probably not. “Our politics goes in cycles of foreign policy having domestic policy relevance, normally when we’re talking about having our people overseas,” Sarah explains, “This is not one of those elections.” Much to the Trump administration’s chagrin, this deal is simply not getting the coverage it deserves and many Americans who are more focused on domestic issues may never even hear about it at all. After a foray into the foreign policy world, our podcast hosts discuss The Big Ten’s return, the conspiratorial trajectory of American politics, many Republicans’ conviction that Joe Biden is nothing but a cardboard cutout for the progressive far-left, and … Grover Cleveland! Show Notes: -The Remnant episode with Ken Pollack, yesterday’s Dispatch Live, and “Steve Bannon Is Behind Bogus Study That China Created COVID” by Adam Rawnsley in The Daily Beast. -Make sure to take advantage of The Dispatch 30 Day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s the 19th anniversary of September 11, 2001, one of the most harrowing historical events in living memory. Today, our podcast hosts reflect on their personal memories of the day as a launching point into a discussion about the United States’ current understanding of al-Qaeda nearly two decades later. In reality, we don’t talk about al-Qaeda much anymore other than within the context of Trump’s “endless wars” rhetoric. Just this week, the Trump administration announced that troops in Iraq will be reduced to 3,000. What’s more, peace negotiations are taking place with Taliban representatives, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and representatives of the Afghan government this weekend. So as Steve points out, “You’d be forgiven for thinking this is all over.” But as Dispatch Podcast guest Tom Joscelyn reminds us on today’s episode, “Al-Qaeda is still very much alive.” Though Tom concedes that there’s a lot you can criticize about U.S. military intervention post-9/11, “It’s much more common, in my experience, that people who are against the U.S. using military force or U.S. military action to play disconnect the dots than it is for some sort of a so-called hawk to overconnect the dots.” On today’s episode, Tom, Sarah, and Steve discuss American intelligence officials’ current misunderstanding of al-Qaeda, the UAE and Bahrain’s plans to normalize their relationship with Israel, and the real and imagined foreign threats to the upcoming election. Show Notes: -“Why ‘Outside-In’ Diplomacy Could Be the Key to Middle East Peace” by Jonathan Schanzer, “This 9/11 anniversary arrives with the end of the war on al-Qaeda well in sight” by Christopher Miller, director of the National Counterterrorism Center in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and “The Falling Man” by Thomas Junod. -Tom Joscelyn’s Vital Interests newsletter for The Dispatch. -30-day free trial of The Dispatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

News broke overnight of President Trump’s plans to reduce U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, less than a week after Jeffrey Goldberg’s bombshell article in The Atlantic highlighted anonymous accusations of the president’s poor conduct toward American veterans. Sarah, Steve, and Jonah tackle some of the move’s political implications for Trump’s re-election campaign before launching into a lively debate over the ethics of using anonymous sources in journalism. “It is the case that reporters can pick and choose their anonymous sources to tell the story that their predetermined narrative would have them tell,” said Steve. “But I think you judge anonymous sources to a certain extent based on the amount of credence you give to the particular reporter who’s using them.” The Dispatch Podcast also covers curveballs that could upset current polling favoring a handed Joe Biden victory—namely, the Hispanic vote and presidential debates. New data out of Florida reveals that the former VP might not have the Hispanic vote locked down, but as our hosts point out, assuming that a diverse group of people will vote as a monolithic bloc has always been a dangerous oversimplification. Steve, Sarah and Jonah also chat about the upcoming debates and how possible Biden blunders could either hurt him or paint him as a sympathetic figure, depending on how the president chooses to respond. Show Notes: -Jeffrey Goldberg’s controversial investigative journalism: Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Erick Erickson, host of 95.5 WSB’s Atlanta’s Evening News and creator of The Resurgent, joins Sarah and Steve on the latest Dispatch Podcast to state the case for the president’s re-election, despite his own wide-ranging reservations about Trumpism and the future of the Republican party. To Erickson, Trump represents the lesser of two evils—acting on the better judgement of behind-the-scenes administration officials to move forward beneficial policies like the Israel-UAE deal, the Trump Tax Reform Plan, and economic deregulation. When pressed about dangerous outgrowths of the populist right, like the QAnon conspiracy theory, Erickson contends that the misinformation crisis coincided with the country’s lost faith in the media. He says that when journalists for self-described nonpartisan mainstream news sources publicly exposed their biases on verified Twitter accounts, many Americans abandoned orthodox news sources in favor of word-of-mouth and alternative media. “All of this plays into more and more people tuning out of media and tuning into their friends on Facebook, and not being able to distinguish truth from fiction,” Erickson said. Listen to the end for a spirited discussion about the luxuries of adulthood, during which Steve inevitably brings up Spanish wine and Sarah shares her clever method to track down the best mattress in your area. Show Notes: -Erick Erickson’s online publication The Resurgent -Atlanta’s Evening News with Erick Erickson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the campaign trail and throughout his presidency, Donald Trump has painted himself as a law and order candidate. We’re now three years into Donald Trump’s America and waves of violence and racial unrest are sweeping across America, most recently in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Do the riots and looting in Kenosha benefit Trump electorally? It’s hard to say whether the rioters and Antifa supporters—who are burning down small businesses and hitting innocent bystanders with concrete water bottles—are supporting Biden’s campaign or even voting at all. But if everyone thinks that the left is a monolithic movement—as alleged by Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump—that’s a bad look for the Biden campaign. “If you can get successfully tagged as the party of people who are setting fire to Korean grocery stores,” Jonah warns, “You’ve got a huge problem.” Listen to today’s episode for some thoughts on the way our preferred media outlets warp our worldview, ongoing Senate races nationwide, and an update on election meddling from foreign actors as we approach November 3. Show Notes: -“Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests After Police Shooting” chyron on CNN and last month’s statement from NCSC Director William Evanina on foreign election interference. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Democratic and Republican conventions are finally over but most of the major credible pollsters are waiting for the dust to settle before tracking public opinion of both presidential candidates. The critical message pushed by the RNC this week was that Trump kept the promises he made to voters, but is that a real policy agenda moving into his second term? Is Biden’s “nice guy,” “Build Back Better” strategy winning over wobbly Republican voters? Do conventions even affect voters’ perceptions of candidates all that much? “I don’t know that anything unexpected or dramatic came out of the last two weeks, and I doubt that to the extent there are persuadable voters, a lot of them are spending eight hours of their life in front of the tv each week watching this,” said Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson on today’s episode. “I would highly suspect you had more hardcore Democrats hate-watching the Republican Convention than you did genuinely persuadable voters in the middle.” Tune in to hear Sarah and Steve chat with Anderson—co-founder of Echelon Insights and columnist at the Washington Examiner—for a conversation about the historical importance of conventions in moving the needle for presidential candidates in the polls. Show Notes: -Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel, Alice Johnson’s speech at the Republican National Convention, “The ‘Rage Moms’ Democrats Are Counting On” by Lisa Lerer and Jennifer Medina in the New York Times, Donald Trump’s RNC acceptance speech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Widespread destruction of businesses and private property has devastated Kenosha, Wisconsin, in the wake of the police shooting of a Jacob Blake last week. As we explained in today’s Morning Dispatch, “Blake was airlifted to a hospital, underwent surgery, and is still alive, but reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.” The details leading up to Blake’s shooting are still murky, but protests, riots, and looting have ravaged the city for days in response. “Suppressing civil unrest is one of the most difficult things that any law enforcement agency can do,” David says on today’s episode. But still, we should expect leaders to draw brightline distinctions between constitutionally protected expression and violent protest. There has been a predictably partisan reaction to the riots: Democrats have been reluctant to condemn the violence in fear that doing so will alienate young voters. Republicans, on the other hand, have been quick to ridicule even peaceful protesters. When it comes to quelling the violence, there is also a difference, David adds, between “overwhelming force, which can be often extremely counterproductive and inflame further violence, and overwhelming and prudently deployed presence.” Beyond the events in Wisconsin, tune in for some punditry about the Democratic and Republican conventions, the GOP’s non-platform, and comparisons between the presidential elections of 2020 and 1988. Show Notes: -The Morning Dispatch, “Riots in Wisconsin”, the president’s second term agenda, and Jonah’s column: “About Those Bush-Dukakis Comparisons …” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Politico reported on Republican congressional candidate Marjorie Greene’s racist and bigoted comments in June, several top GOP officials—including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—condemned her campaign. But after she beat her Republican opponent Dr. John Cowan in Tuesday’s primary race, McCarthy immediately switched gears. A spokesman for McCarthy’s office told Declan that the GOP leader “looks forward” to her win this November. Why on Earth is the House minority leader welcoming a racist conspiracy mongering candidate into the GOP with open arms? Our Dispatch Podcast hosts have some thoughts. It’s also worth exploring how she was able to win her primary in the first place, especially with all the negative media attention she’s gotten in recent months. A source close to her opponent’s campaign has a theory: “The most consistent thing we heard [about why voters were supporting Greene over Cowan] was that, ‘Well, she’s gonna go and she’s gonna fight, she’s gonna fight, she’s gonna fight.’ When you prodded a little bit deeper and asked, ‘Well what does that fight look like?’ They couldn’t tell you, but they just know she’s going to fight.” Tune in for some insights into what the future of the Republican Party will look like with a QAnon supporter in its ranks. Show Notes: -Declan’s piece on the GOP’s reaction to Marjorie Greene’s primary win, Audrey’s piece on the growing conspiracy fringe in the Republican Party, Politico article on GOP condemning Greene in June, Trump’s tweet congratulating Greene on her win, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Tuesday, Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his running mate. But let’s be honest—we all saw this coming. As we wrote in The Morning Dispatch today, “D.C. conventional wisdom had Sen. Kamala Harris pegged as Joe Biden’s likeliest choice for months.” Despite Harris’ numerous attacks on Biden over his busing record and relationship with segregationist senators —not to mention her dicey criminal record as a prosecutor in California—she checks a lot of boxes. She’s a senator in one of the country’s biggest states, she’s the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, and she has experience running her own presidential campaign (albeit a failed one). “When she was running for president, it was pretty obvious she didn’t know what she was running for,” David says on today’s episode. “But now as a good lawyer she sort of has a client, and the client is the guy at the top of the ticket and the Democratic platform, and that will unleash some of her better skills.” Today, Declan joins The Dispatch Podcast for some punditry on what Biden’s VP pick means for the future of the Democratic Party, a deep dive into foreign election meddling, and a much-needed update on the status of sports during the pandemic. Show Notes: -The New York Times’ front page spread of Kamala Harris, Trump’s tweet this morning about suburban housewives, and the DNI Report about election meddling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, President Trump experienced one of the most challenging interviews of his presidency when he sat down with Jonathan Swan from Axios. Swan asked some tough follow-up questions, and Trump’s responses demonstrated that he is not used to this level of pushback. What’s more, the interview highlighted the fact that the White House’s media strategy revolves around reassuring the president rather than getting the facts straight. The gang breaks down the interview and Trump’s answers on the latest podcast. According to Jonah, the videography of the interview was also damning for Trump: “It was sort of like one of these twenty-something consultants from McKinsey going and interviewing the paper mill owner who still uses the fax machine.” If he knew what he was walking into, why did Trump agree to this interview in the first place? Our hosts have some theories. For weeks, the president has been telling his supporters that mail-in ballots will rig the election in every state except for … Florida? Trump knows many of his supporters in Florida are elderly Americans who will vote absentee. But as Sarah points out, telling all of his other supporters that mail-in voting is rigged might just work in his favor. Polls show that there will be a partisan divide in this election when it comes to in-person versus mail-in voting, with Democrats more likely to vote by mail. What these polls aren’t telling you is that a not-small percentage of mail-in ballots that are likely to be invalidated for technical reasons, especially given most states are wildly unprepared for the sheer number of mail-in ballots that are coming their way. Whatever happens, the election is going to be ugly. Tune in to today’s podcast for some punditry on how American civil society has mishandled the pandemic, a debate over whether calling female political candidates “ambitious” is inherently sexist, and some bickering over America’s best sit-down diners. Show Notes: -Jonathan Swan’s Axios interview with the president, Sarah’s newsletter The Sweep, Jonah’s column this week on mail-in voting. -25 percent of the mail-in ballots cast from Brooklyn for the primary election were disqualified. -“How the Pandemic Defeated America” by Ed Yong in The Atlantic. -“ ‘She had no remorse’: Why Kamala Harris isn't a lock for VP” in Politico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As our colleague Jonah Goldberg always says, the parties have never been weaker than they are right now. Democratic political strategist Joe Trippi joins Sarah and Steve today on The Dispatch Podcast to discuss how parties no longer have the power to push out irrelevant, personality driven candidates from the establishment. According to Trippi, this phenomenon is here to stay: “You’re going to have 20 or 30 people in both parties running from now on,” he tells Steve and Sarah. Political outsiders now see throwing their hat in the ring as a win-win situation, because “the worst thing that happens to you if you lose is you get a TV show or you can sell books.” As we approach November 3rd, Joe Trippi believes that Trump allows Democrats to speak to both sides of the aisle, meaning unenthused progressives and politically homeless Republicans. Speaking for progressives, Trippi tells Sarah and Steve “He both inflames our base to turn out and he’s making it possible to reach Republican voters that we could never have hoped to reach.” Check out today’s podcast to hear Joe, Steve and Sarah discuss campaign mechanics, including the Biden veepstakes and both presidential candidates’ fundraising efforts. Joe Trippi has been at the forefront of numerous Democratic presidential, gubernatorial, senate, and congressional campaigns for nearly 40 years. Most recently, he was the senior strategist behind Democratic Senator Doug Jones’ historic 2017 victory. Show Notes: -That Trippi Show -Sarah's new newsletter The Sweep Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This morning, Trump told Jonathan Swan from Axios that he has never confronted Vladimir Putin about Russian bounties that were paid to the Taliban to kill American troops, partly because the president doesn’t believe it happened in the first place. But we know from several credible intelligence reports that the president was briefed on the Russian bounties months ago. On today’s episode, Steve reminds us, “It’s been weeks since this was first reported, it’s been months since this was first briefed, and the president of the United States is officially silent on the fact that Russians are trying to kill our troops in Afghanistan.” In other news, a fledgling theory has taken hold among Trump’s staunchest acolytes: that the president is falling behind in the polls because cancel culture has made MAGA supporters afraid to publicly profess their support for the president. But are there enough SMAGA supporters to sufficiently account for Biden’s double digit lead in the polls? Jonah suggests that this “silent majority” rhetoric has simply become a coping mechanism for the GOP to keep Trump from losing his mind. Tune in to today’s episode to hear our Dispatch podcasters discuss the Burn It All Down Wars, Biden’s veepstakes, and what they’re all reading at the moment. Show Notes: -Axios interview with Jonathan Swan and Donald Trump. -Charlie Sykes’ Bulwark piece, “Burn It All Down?” and David’s Tuesday French Press, “Another Salvo in the ‘Burn It Down’ Wars.” -Monmouth poll on secret Trump voters, Jonah’s Wednesday G-File, “Are Silent Trump Voters Real, or Just a Myth?” and Sarah Isgur’s Monday newsletter, “The Sweep.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan had some blunt criticism for the incumbent president of his own political party on the latest Dispatch Podcast, and all but ruled out supporting Donald Trump in November. “This week the president said he was going to cut funding for testing,” said Hogan, in conversation with Sarah Isgur and Steve Hayes. “That was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.” Hogan continued: “My biggest criticism was at the beginning the president didn’t take it seriously enough, and was downplaying the severity of the crisis.” Hogan believes that the Trump administration has since made progress with its coronavirus strategy, and he’s encouraged that Trump finally donned a mask in public and spoke publicly about the importance of wearing one. But, he added, the federal government is still months behind on testing and tracing and appears to be no closer to coming up with a national testing plan, an inexcusable oversight. Hogan went further than he has before in discussing whether he intends to support his fellow Republican in November. “Probably not,” Hogan said. Hogan also believes the GOP has a lot of work to do to recover in a post-Trump era. When pressed on whether the president has grown the Republican Party, he said, “No I don’t think he has at all,” pointing to Haley Barbour’s truism that politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division. “Quite frankly, I think the president has really been focused on, you know, dividing and subtracting.” Listen to Hogan, Sarah, and Steve discuss the ins and outs of coronavirus strategizing from a policymaker’s perspective and his hopes for the future of the Republican Party. Show Notes: -Hogan’s recent book, Still Standing: Surviving Cancer, Riots, a Global Pandemic, and the Toxic Politics that Divide America Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During Tuesday’s press briefing, a reporter asked the president about Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein who is facing charges for grooming and sexually abusing minors. When pressed on whether Maxwell will turn in other powerful people, the president said, “I just wish her well, frankly.” This took many by surprise, but as Steve reminds us in today’s episode, “it’s not as if this is the first time he has had kind words or well wishes for a moral bottom-dweller.” Tuesday also saw a fiery showdown in the Republican House Freedom Caucus, when members bullied Liz Cheney for being insufficiently loyal to Donald Trump. In today’s episode, Sarah, Steve, Jonah, and David talk about how the biggest fault line in the conservative movement ultimately boils down to unswerving fealty to the president. Tune in to hear our podcast hosts also discuss the long-term relevance of the Lincoln Project, the Chinese government’s human rights abuses against the Uighur people, and end with a lighthearted discussion on their favorite concert memories. Show Notes: -Trump’s comments on Ghislaine Maxwell. -Steve's reporting on the Liz Cheney attacks. -Washington Post interview with Greg Sargent and John Weaver about the Lincoln Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is happening on the ground in Afghanistan and why are we still there? The Trump administration has closed five bases, reduced the number of American troops to 9,ooo, and signed a peace deal with the Taliban. But as Thomas Joscelyn points out in today’s podcast, the peace deal is really nothing more than a “pretext for justifying withdrawal.” While the United States reckons with its military presence in the Middle East, other foreign threats are lurking behind the scenes. From the Russian bounties intelligence leak to recent cyberattacks on coronavirus vaccine-related targets on American soil, Russia is engaging in shadow wars against the United States. And as Thomas reminds us, China’s deep-seated anti-Americanism is also cause for concern. On this week’s foreign policy episode, Sarah, Steve, and Thomas dive into these issues and address Israel’s sabotage efforts in Iran, Trump’s reflexive isolationism and business-minded foreign affairs strategy, and the implications of a Biden presidency for American interests abroad. Show Notes: -This week’s Vital Interests newsletter on the world’s most dangerous alliance, and Thomas Joscelyn’s podcast Generation Jihad. -Trump’s West Point commencement speech,and the latest reporting on Israel and Iran. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy for the Trump administration, published a scathing hit piece against top epidemiologist Anthony Fauci in USA Today this morning. “Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on,” Navarro writes. For months now, Fauci has bickered with White House officials and pleaded with reporters to not turn his interview sound bites into a personality contest between him and Donald Trump. Sarah, Steve, and David are joined by Andrew to discuss Navarro’s op-ed and why our public health crisis has become subsumed into the culture war. On the topic of cancel culture, opinion columnist Bari Weiss resigned from the New York Times yesterday, citing the paper’s toxic culture and her editors’ acquiescence to persistent bullying from her colleagues. Many journalists in the Twitterverse came to her defense, but others pushed back, arguing that she was not really canceled, but simply unwilling to take criticism from her colleagues. After all, isn’t disagreement with one’s colleagues a perfect exercise of free speech? But as David points out, “If you are using your words not to debate a human being but to try to inflict pain on them in the hopes that they shut up, that’s different.” Sarah and the guys take on these questions and address the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on school reopenings, the Goya boycott, presidential election polls, and a very serious debate over French fries. Show Notes; Peter Navarro USA Today op-ed about Anthony Fauci, Chuck Woolery tweet. Kaiser Family Foundation study. David’s French Press on Bari Weiss’ resignation from the New York Times, her resignation letter, Nicholas Christakis’ definition of cancel culture on Twitter, Harper’s Magazine letter, Ivanka Trump Goya tweet. Jonathan Martin New York Times article on Biden’s swing state strategy, FHQ electoral map. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The day after his son was born on October 2, 2009, Jake Tapper watched a news report about a team of 53 American troops who were relentlessly attacked by 400 Taliban insurgents at the Combat Outpost Keating in Afghanistan. “In the haze of it all, there was a moment where I was sitting there holding my son and watching this news report about eight other sons, taken from this earth,” he said. Inspired by this story of American valor, Tapper began researching the story and eventually published a book chronicling the events in 2012. Fast forward eight years and his book, The Outpost, is now a movie. On today’s episode, Jake Tapper discusses the new blockbuster film with Sarah and Steve, and spends some time discussing the Taliban exit deal, the effectiveness of counterinsurgency abroad, and a sneak peek into the novel he’s working on. Show Notes: -The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor book, “The Outpost” movie, and Tapper's political thriller The Hellfire Club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices