The Dispatch Podcast

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