RCP’S BEVAN SAYS TRUMP REFASHIONED THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN HIS IMAGE： THE GOP IS NOW AMERICA FIRST, NATIONALIST AND POPULIST
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Summary
A new poll from the Wall Street Journal and NORC at the University of Chicago shows a dramatic decline in Americans' devotion to their country, its values, and the values that helped define it for generations, such as patriotism, religious faith, having children, and other priorities that help define the national character for generations are receding in importance.
Transcript
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Hello, everybody. I'm Lou Dobbs. This is The Great America Show. Welcome, thrilled we could
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get together, and thanks for joining us. Today, we, as usual, will be talking about our national
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politics, the economy, the quality of our lives in America. I want to bring to your attention,
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if I may, a poll in the Wall Street Journal this week that is more disturbing than any poll I've
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seen in my career in radio, television, and podcasting. I tell you that only to say,
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prepare yourself for bad news about our country. Our deal here is we talk straight, you and me,
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about every subject, every question, and today is no exception. It's such a sad reflection of our
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country, this poll. I feel like I should say I'm sorry at the outset. With that, here we go. This
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poll was done by the Wall Street Journal and NORC at the University of Chicago. I don't normally give
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too much weight to polls. I take them all with large amounts of salt, but this one seems entirely
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different, and unfortunately, it seems reliable. If it's off, I doubt it's off by much. Its findings
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are nothing short of dismaying to me, and I'm sure all who care deeply about this great country
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are great people. The journal said this of its poll, quote,
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Patriotism, religious faith, having children, and other priorities that help define the national
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character for generations are receding in importance to Americans, end quote. That description is something
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of an understatement, I'm afraid. Here are some of the numbers and a few of the categories
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important to those surveyed. You decide. First, I'll give you the value or the priority. Then the
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percent who felt the value was very important to Americans 25 years ago, and the percent who do so
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now. Here we go. Patriotism. In 1998, 70 percent of those surveyed felt patriotism was very important.
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Now, almost half that number, only 38 percent, still consider patriotism to be very important.
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Religion. Back in 1998, 62 percent felt religion was very important to them. That number has now fallen
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to 39 percent. Having children. Almost 60 percent felt having kids was very important in 1998.
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That number is now only 30 percent. Only half as many think having children is very important.
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And fourth, money. In 1998, 31 percent thought money was very important. Now, that percent has risen to
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43 percent. More than a third more now saying money is very important to them. After living through the
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pandemic, the Biden hyperinflation, volatile markets, it's understandable. As I said, those declines,
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both dramatic and dismaying, the declines in patriotism, religion, and having children hit me
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like a brick, frankly. I expect you as well. Half as many Americans putting a priority on having
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children. That is a sure statement of a lack of faith in our country's future, our future. The decline in
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the percent of Americans for whom religion is very important is troubling, but I can't say it was
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unexpected. Religion is constantly under assault from the secular left, the anti-religion culture that
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has grown up, and the national media that is aggressive. I don't like it, but can't say it's a surprise
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given the country's lack of moral values. And the freefall in American patriotism is horrific
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in what it both is and what it portends for the country. The Marxist left controls our government,
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of course, our schools, colleges, universities, media of all kinds. That amounts to a brainwashing
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on a national scale, an inescapable indoctrination of Marxist ideology that permeates now American
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society. Which means there's no clear way to recover our arguably most critical value, which
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preserves and protects all our founding values, our national values, or at least what once were our
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national values. As I said, the journal poll isn't inspiring, to say the least. But it is, I think,
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a credible snapshot of where we are as a people today. Not good. It should at the very least motivate
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us all to work harder for the America we prize, for ourselves, and for future generations. And now,
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new developments in the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's persecution of President Trump.
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The jury went home again yesterday without hearing evidence, without voting on any charge against
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President Trump. Barricades were also taken down. Uniformed police officers were pulled from the area
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around the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. All that leading to some speculation that the district
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attorney is about to drop his case against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C.,
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the chief D.C. District Judge has ordered former Vice President Mike Pence to testify about his talks
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with President Trump in the days leading up to January 6th. The Obama-appointed Judge James
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Bozberg is hearing the special counsel's case against the president's handling of top-secret documents that
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Mr. Trump had in his Mar-a-Lago office, and which he says he declassified, as well as allegations the president
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interfered in or obstructed the transfer of power. There are times it's hard to believe that the District of
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Columbia federal judges and DOJ prosecutors do anything other than work on cases and in courtrooms
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committed to nothing else but the deep state's persecution of President Donald Trump. And it's
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been going on now seven years. Three of the cases outside of D.C. are in New York. Our guest today is the
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founder and executive editor of the highly successful website dedicated to politics, national political
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reporting, elections, campaigns, and polling, Real Clear Politics. Welcome, Tom Bevin. Great as always
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to have you with us here on The Great America Show. President Trump under relentless lawfare by the left,
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the Marxist-MDA, Bragg, having trouble bringing, apparently, though, a grand jury to indict the president.
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A weak case, and it looks weaker by the day. Your thoughts, Tom?
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Well, I mean, we'll see what happens with this as, you know, this string plays out. Clearly,
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it seems, from everything that I've read and heard, and I'm not a legal expert, but I do, you know, I do read
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a lot of legal experts, and everyone that I've read suggests that this, should he be indicted
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for this crime, that it is, as Jonathan Turley put it, legally pathetic, that it's really
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an abuse of prosecutorial discretion to make these charges and stretch it into a felony for an action
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that was seven years ago, unrelated to, you know, campaign finance, et cetera, et cetera.
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It's been fascinating the way this whole thing has played out with Trump, you know, announcing that
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he was going to be arrested and sort of sent everybody into a tizzy, and now we're, everybody's
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sort of hanging on the grand jury every single day, and it keeps getting canceled, and, you know,
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so it's been a bizarre spectacle, unlike anything we have ever seen, and so we'll see whether we
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we actually cross the Rubicon here in indicting a former, not just a former president, remember,
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the potentially future president, and certainly he is the, one of the only announced candidates
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on the Republican side running for the nomination in 2024.
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Yeah, you're exactly right, and I do want to highlight the appearance of Robert Costello,
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who at one time was a representative, legal representative for Michael Cohen, also a former
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prosecutor himself, a terrific lawyer, puts himself before the grand jury and decimates
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Michael Cohen's credibility, calling him without question a pathological liar, staying straightforwardly
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that everything that he had said was a lie. It was powerful testimony, and then for Alvin
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Bragg to have over 300 emails and only produce six of them for the grand jury. I mean, Alvin
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Bragg, and as you said, I'm no attorney either, but that is, that sounds like a crime to me.
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What do you think, Tom? Look, Alvin Bragg is someone who has, you know, he's been vocally
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after anti-Trump and vocally after, not just vocally, but I mean, he's been after Donald Trump
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as, as a lot of folks, Democrats in New York have been, Letitia James and others. I mean,
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this has been, this is how, this is how they ran their campaigns, this is how they got elected,
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this is how they're demonstrating to folks that they, you know, these are the promises that they're
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trying to make good on. So, you know, Politico came out with a story the other day, which was
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just farcical, this, you know, that he's, he's a real by the book guy and, and, you know, which
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just the way the media has, has handled this as well, I think has been, well, unfortunate,
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let's just put it that way. I think that's probably a kind description. There's been a lot
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of talk about the process, but not a lot of talk about just how big of a stretch this would be and
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how unprecedented something like this would be. And certainly I think even, even Democrats could
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admit that this would set an awful precedent. I mean, this is the continued weaponization
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of our politics and, and, you know, Democrats may be jumping up and down and cheering now because
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they think, you know, the, the quote unquote walls are finally closing in on Trump. Um, but,
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you know, next time around, it could be, it could be a Democrat who's, it could be Joe Biden. It could
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be a future democratic president, uh, or office holder who is in the legal crosshairs. And it's just,
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it's a bad development for our Republic that we find ourselves in this kind of situation.
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Unquestionably. I was reading the other day of some comments and among them, uh, was why the,
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the Marxist dims are behaving as they are. Uh, because as you say, there are cycles here,
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but the commenter pointed out that the Marxists are now in it, uh, for the whole enchilada.
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There's not going to be a next time in their, in their worldview right now, their at least U S view,
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uh, and they are going to be the dominant, uh, party emerging victorious, uh, from what has been,
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uh, outright, uh, vicious, uh, assault on the constitution, on the American way, fundamental
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principles, ethics, heritage, you name it, they've gone after it. Uh, what do you, what's your reaction
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to that? You know, I, I'm not, uh, I, you know, if you, if you study politics and you study history,
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uh, that seems unlikely. I mean, there, there are ebbs and flows. There are, um, you know, rhythms to,
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to our, our political life. I mean, and, and there are also, you know, uh, constant proclamations
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that, that, you know, it's, it's end times for, for one side or the other. I mean, I can remember,
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you know, we started real clear politics in 2000. I remember in 2008 after Barack Obama was elected,
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that that was the end of the Republican party. I mean, that, that this was going to be a,
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a rump party. It was going to go the way, the wigs, et cetera, et cetera. And lo and behold,
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two years later, Republicans absolutely demolished the Democrats in that midterm election.
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Uh, they ended up winning, you know, the gubernatorial elections less than a year later
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in New Jersey and, um, Virginia. So I, I think some of those pronouncements are, are, uh, you know,
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a little bit, I mean, I do think we have gotten more, there's no question loom. And the data supports
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this. When you look at polls that we, we become more tribal and more partisan as a country. Um,
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and that's something that's been happening for some time, but it, it certainly has accelerated
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under Obama accelerated even more under Trump and has continued under Joe Biden. Um, and that people
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now look at each other. It used to be that we would just disagree about things, uh, about policies,
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but, um, now each side views the other side as an existential, literally an existential threat
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to their, uh, way of life. And so it has taken on, um, I think the, the, the tone of arguments,
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um, has taken on a more dire, um, more dire tone. And, um, but I, you know, I'm not,
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I'm not convinced that, that that's the case that we're headed towards civil war or that, uh,
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this is going to be, you know, the, the, the progressives, liberals, Marxists, whatever you
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want to call them are, are, are, you know, they're Marxists are going to be winning and, and, and have
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like some final victory from which, uh, the other side is never going to recover or reemerge. I just,
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I, I just don't buy that as a fundamental premise.
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Well, obviously I would hope that you're right. And my fears are misplaced. I, I have to wonder
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though, when I watch a man like the former president Trump, four years, uh, as president,
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he is under assault, uh, the FBI, the department of justice, the democratic party all aligned, uh,
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in an effort to, to frame him. Uh, they successfully framed general Michael, uh, Flynn,
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his national security advisor, uh, no, no accounting at all for what were obviously criminal, uh, acts
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by the, by the deep state and various, uh, members of the department of justice, the FBI for directors
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of the FBI successively lying to the American people about the Russian hoax, about the, uh, the
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investigations into it. Uh, and then here we are seven years later and on it goes only the,
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most of the energy is that, uh, now with the ebb of the January 6th committee, it's in the state
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prosecutors and Manhattan DA's offices that gives great teeth, at least to me, uh, to those concerns
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about, uh, uh, the intent, uh, and the, and the manifest anger of the, the Marxist Dems who are
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attacking, it seems every institution of every element of American life. Well, I will certainly
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agree with you that, you know, Donald Trump is, is, uh, in many ways, a unique historical political
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figure, obviously elected without any prior political, you know, holding, holding office
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or being in the military and the reaction to him, as you mentioned, you know, the, not just the
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Democrats, um, and the media, but also, you know, aspects of the, of the government itself turned on
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him, including his own party. I mean, don't forget how, you know, members of, of the Republican
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party sought to try and first deny him the nomination and then worked in opposition to him
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once he was inside, uh, once he was in, in, um, in the white house. So he, he definitely elicited,
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um, the kind of reaction that we have never seen by these different institutions. Um, and they did,
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I think the historical record is pretty clear that, that, um, these institutions acted in ways that
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they have never acted before. You had the media literally standing up and declaring themselves as
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part of the resistance. I mean, this was CNN, MSNBC, obviously, um, and others, but the media acting
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in a, in a, in a way, um, openly declaring that they were against him. Um, and as you mentioned
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across the board, you saw norms that were being broken because there was this end justifies the
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means mentality that, um, when it, when it came to Donald Trump, is that something that will, um,
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cause Donald Trump is, I mean, look, we're going to go through this again in 2024. Um, but at some
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point we're going to be on, we will be beyond Donald Trump. And the question is, are all of these
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institutions, have we sort of crossed a Rubicon there where these institutions are going to forever
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function that way toward, uh, whoever the Republican nominee is and, or, you know, president? Um, I
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don't know the answer to that. Uh, I hope the answer is no, but you might be right that, that we
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have, this is, this will become the new normal, uh, not just for Donald Trump, but for, for, for any
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Republican, any Republican that's in office, but that's a, that's a frightening proposition.
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It is a frightening proposition. And, and, and, and before we sort of turn to a world without
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Trump, let's look at the one that we've got. And that is, I, for the longest time, Tom, thought
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Trump derangement syndrome was just a silly nonsensical rationalization by the left, uh, to,
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uh, cover, uh, the venality of, uh, of their actions against it. Uh, but it turns out it's widespread
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and there is some considerable, uh, I think evidence that it's a real thing for many left
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wing, uh, Marxists, you name them what you will, uh, in this country, but it's still no
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excuse. It's no rationalization. And this president is the only certifiable president
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over the course of seven years who committed no wrongdoing. I mean, he went through, think
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of this. I mean, it's as if the American people are not keeping score here, two impeachments,
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two special counsels, almost four years of FBI investigation of one kind or the other.
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And that doesn't include their efforts, uh, to frame him, uh, and to create the, the great
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Russian hoax. It is, it seems to me, uh, a very serious and lasting situation that is going to
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have to be resolved. One hopes at the, at the ballot box, but one way or another, because this,
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this state of, uh, of conflict, uh, can't just smolder endlessly.
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Well, yeah, I think you're right about that. I mean, we're going to have a reckoning here with
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Donald Trump. The Republican party is going to have a reckoning with him. Um, and we'll see how
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that plays out. Um, but if he is the nominee, if he does end up winning in 2024, I mean, he's sort of
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telegraphed that in no uncertain terms that, that, uh, he will, is going to try and fundamentally
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reshape government and, and root out a lot of the, the, uh, you know, actors that, that worked
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against him the first time around. So there will be a reckoning, uh, with regard to, to Donald Trump
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here in the next year and a half. Um, and it may last longer than that if he wins, if he wins
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election. Um, but you're right. I mean, look, I think there are going to be textbooks written
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about Donald Trump's presidency, um, because of how unique it was, even in this kind of tribal
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environment. As I said, the, the reaction, you mentioned Trump derangement syndrome. I mean,
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it is, um, obviously with the media, obviously with the left, but I'll go back to the, you know,
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parts of the Republican party. I mean, that just absolutely, um, you think of like the Lincoln
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project folks, you think of all of the folks that worked, uh, against him because they had that exact
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same mentality, um, and could not stand. I mean, this is part of, I think this is part of, this was
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obviously part of Trump's appeal, being an outsider coming into Washington and having all of those,
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uh, forces sort of arrayed against him from the outset, uh, was something that we've never seen
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before. And obviously, you know, he, he managed to get some things done even while battling those
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forces on a, on an absolute daily basis. The fact that he was for the first time in 20 years,
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able to raise real wages for the middle-class working men and women and their families in this
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country, that alone speaks to significant historical achievement, particularly with those
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forces, as you say, uh, arrayed against him. Paul Ryan, uh, and Mitch McConnell were on a seven year,
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have been on a seven year jihad against Donald Trump. Uh, it's the most peculiar thing. Uh, Romney,
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the same. We, this class of, uh, rhinos, uh, within the Republican party is, have been every bit the
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obstructionists of not some cases, uh, uh, even more, uh, than the, the left of the democratic party.
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Uh, but we have a new formulation of power. It seems to me too, in the nation's capital, we have the FBI,
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uh, who's given up a portal to, uh, the Democrat law firm, the DNC law firm, the, uh, the Clinton,
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uh, uh, uh, law firm Perkins Coy, uh, how many law firms in the country have a portal right into the
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FBI? I would hesitate to say the more than I would say probably there's one for sure, but I think
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probably no more than three. And I bet you, none of them would go to a Republican so-called Republican
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firm. Uh, we're looking at a weaponization of government against the citizens, whether it's,
00:23:15.500
uh, the, the, the collusion of the education department, the department of justice FBI with
00:23:21.800
the white house to go after parents, uh, and the school board association. Uh, it's one thing after
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another, uh, in which they are attacking. And that doesn't even include 87,000 IRS agents, obviously that
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this president wanted, uh, and looks like he will get most of, uh, this is just a realignment of power
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in DC and across, uh, all of the nodes of the federal government, isn't it?
00:23:50.660
Well, I mean, look, I think there certainly have been disturbing episodes where you have seen the
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federal government, um, act as I said, in ways, whether it's against Trump or, or even against,
00:24:01.740
as you mentioned, the case of, of the FBI, like in these parent school board meetings, um,
00:24:07.960
and the IRS. I mean, there are certain episodes that I think, um, yes, give people pause. I will
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say also though, um, when you talk about Trump and we talk about how he, you know, you mentioned Paul
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Ryan and Mitt Romney. I mean, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed the Republican party. I mean,
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he did it and he did it in, in a matter of less than a year. He absolutely reoriented 40 or 50 years
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of Republican orthodoxy on trade, on foreign policy, um, on immigration, um, just across the board,
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massive, massive shifts. And he, for whatever reason, um, unlike all the 15 other people who ran
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from, you know, all of these, uh, qualified governors, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, you know,
00:24:59.840
senators, you name it. Um, none of them were able to tap into that, uh, which was clearly there in
00:25:07.420
the rank and file of the Republican party. I mean, those, those sentiments were, were clearly there,
00:25:12.940
but had been unaddressed for, you know, as I said, decades. And Donald Trump came in and was able to
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absolutely refashion the Republican party in his image and it will continue to be in his image
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beyond, uh, long after he's gone. I mean, we can see that very clearly now. I don't think there's
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going to be any going back to the, you know, John McCain, Mitt Romney, uh, Republican party. I mean,
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there, there is a pre Donald Trump phase of the Republican party and there is a post Donald Trump
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phase, which we are now in, and that's going to continue for a long, long time.
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You really think this is the post Donald Trump phase?
00:25:52.960
Well, I'm, it could still be the actual Donald Trump phase. I'm not saying, I'm not making any
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predictions about what's going to happen with him in the Republican primary, but I'm, I'm just saying,
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you know, that policy wise, uh, moving, you know, from when Trump ran for office, uh, from that point
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on policy wise, everything has changed and will continue to be in, in the sort of America first,
00:26:19.180
nationalist, populist, um, you know, wing of the party that that's the party or that's the,
00:26:25.540
that's where all the energy and enthusiasm and ideas are coming from. It is not the,
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you know, there's not a huge contingent out there that is, is yearning to go back to,
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you know, Paul Ryan's, uh, and, and Mitt Romney's sort of free trade, um, you know, open border or
00:26:45.560
whatever, whatever the policy was on immigration, um, prior to Donald Trump. I mean, there's just not
00:26:50.920
a lot of people in the Republican party that, that want to see the party go back that direction.
00:26:55.580
Yeah. And there are so many people in the party who are MAGA, who are, as you say, America first.
00:27:02.960
And that is one of the brilliant strokes, I believe of this, uh, of president Trump is that he brought
00:27:10.520
a populism that is rooted, uh, in the, his interest in the wellbeing of the middle-class, uh, working men
00:27:18.420
and women, this forgotten American as, uh, as he put it in his campaign and, and the democratic party
00:27:26.480
has just given all of that up for gender identity battles, uh, issues over, uh, uh, well, I guess it
00:27:36.080
all goes to the same thing, drag shows in public libraries, uh, adventurous, uh, wars. Uh, it looks
00:27:44.840
like this administration wants a war, uh, that it can join, uh, in Ukraine. Uh, it is impossible
00:27:52.400
to see what the constituency of the Democrat party under Joe Biden is because he is offering, uh,
00:28:01.600
nothing, uh, to most of the broadest demographic groups. Uh, he is focusing on the, uh, I guess a
00:28:11.100
series of, uh, minorities, uh, across society, but his policies are, are to me, it's just
00:28:20.540
balkanization rather than a, a constituency that's been brought together. Your thoughts.
00:28:27.660
No, I, I agree with that. And it's not just Joe Biden. I mean, this is something that's been
00:28:31.400
happening with the democratic party for some time. It's, it's, you know, identity politics and Barack
00:28:38.860
Obama was actually very good at this. I mean, he would, they would segment their messages and he
00:28:43.440
would go out and, and address, you know, all of the various constituencies, um, and provide them
00:28:50.160
with, you know, their, whatever policy tailored to, to make those folks feel, uh, like they were,
00:28:59.480
uh, included. But, but again, um, as you mentioned, I think that this is not FDR's party. This is not the
00:29:07.760
party of sort of the blue, blue collar working class. Um, and in many ways it's, it's anathema to
00:29:14.900
that in the sense that, um, it is, it is targeting these tiny little slices of the demographic of, of,
00:29:23.140
of, you know, the, the, the population, um, with this sort of, uh, hierarchy of, of victimhood and
00:29:33.400
this idea that it's, it's all about equity and it's all about, um, you know, not equal opportunity,
00:29:39.060
but equal outcomes. And the, the government's going to help engineer that. Um, and, you know,
00:29:44.000
for the 2% of you that are LGBTQ or whatever, you know, the government's going to step in and make
00:29:49.600
sure that, uh, you know, have all of these, um, protections and policies. Uh, and so I think that
00:29:57.700
that is, um, that's tough to be a national party when you do that, because if you're not speaking
00:30:04.400
to the broadest possible constituency, and that's, you know, if you look at what Donald Trump has done
00:30:08.760
and the Republicans have done, uh, when they talk about wages and, and things of that nature, um,
00:30:16.200
they're reaching across class lines. They're reaching across ethnic lines. Um, it is, it is, uh,
00:30:21.980
I shouldn't say, I meant, I didn't mean to say class lines. They're reaching across sort of racial
00:30:27.160
lines. Um, it is more class-based than, than race-based, um, because a lot of folks, regardless
00:30:33.700
of whether you're black or brown or, you know, purple or blue share the same economic, economic
00:30:40.760
interest. They want higher wages. They want lower inflation. They want, you know, reasonable gas
00:30:46.280
prices and energy prices so that they can, you know, increase their standard of living.
00:30:50.900
Um, and so I do think it's, it's, but look, the Democrats, um, you know, Joe Biden did get an awful
00:30:58.760
lot of votes. Um, and I think Republicans have to make sure that they're speaking in ways that don't
00:31:05.120
alienate pieces of the, of, of the population. Um, because there, there's a fight over the, you know,
00:31:10.880
10 or 15% in the middle. The fact that independents didn't go with Republicans in 2022, despite all of
00:31:18.080
the sort of horrendous numbers from the Biden administration, whether it was this job approval
00:31:22.240
rating, inflation, gas prices, you name it, the fact independents didn't vote overwhelmingly for
00:31:28.440
Republicans, um, I think is a cautionary tale. They have to be careful and they have to make sure
00:31:32.420
that they're, they're speaking to independents in particular. Oh, without question. They represent
00:31:37.180
such a sizable block of, uh, of votes, uh, arguably much larger than the, than the, uh, sympathetic
00:31:46.100
margins for the Democrats with Republicans and Republicans with Democrats. Uh, I, I do, I do want
00:31:53.940
to kind of explore this idea of, of president Biden with all of this now being at 38% in the most recent
00:32:01.700
polling, uh, coming very close to, uh, to the low point of his, uh, of his presidency. I'm one of those
00:32:08.980
people, of course, who thinks how in the world can anyone given this, this man's impairments, uh, his,
00:32:15.780
uh, his policies and his, uh, awful judgment, uh, and agenda, could he have even 38% of the American
00:32:24.420
people approve of the job he's doing? Uh, what do you make of it? Well, listen, part of this is,
00:32:35.400
you know, you have to look at, we're a country now that's watching two movies. I mean, when Donald
00:32:40.860
Trump was in office, Republicans gave him 90, 93, 95%, uh, uh, job approval rating. Democrats never gave
00:32:49.020
him more than five, six, seven, 8% approval rating. Um, and independence sort of bounced around in the
00:32:54.960
middle. It's the exact opposite with Biden, right? Democrats give him, you know, high marks for his
00:33:00.240
job. They think he's doing a bang up job and Republicans, you know, give him a terrible marks
00:33:05.940
and independence are somewhere in between. So he's got a little bit of a higher, uh, floor than
00:33:11.460
Donald Trump did, but not much. And, and you mentioned this, this poll that came out showing nationally
00:33:17.440
there, the Des Moines register poll came out last week. Biden's approval rating in Iowa
00:33:22.140
is 30%. And just to, just to sort of hammer home the point I just made, um, he has a 75% approval
00:33:30.760
rating among Democrats. He has a 3% approval rating among Republicans and among independents,
00:33:35.780
it's 29%. It's still that high. It's among independents. Yes. 29%. So, you know, that's
00:33:44.940
basically three out of four saying they disapprove of the job that he's doing. Um, so by the way,
00:33:52.440
that's not so different from where he was heading into the 2022 election. I mean, independents
00:33:58.200
overwhelmingly were against him, uh, didn't think he was doing a very good job, particularly on the
00:34:04.980
issue of the economy, which everyone rated as the number one issue in that election. Um, but yet if you
00:34:11.460
look at the exit polls from that election, they didn't hold it against him, uh, in the same way
00:34:16.400
that, uh, that presidents in the past had been, had been penalized for having, you know, 8% on, uh,
00:34:23.620
inflation or, or, you know, $4 a gallon gas. And so how big, how big a role do you think, uh, J6 and
00:34:32.340
Mar-a-Lago, the J6 committee and Mar-a-Lago, the raid played in diminishing, uh, mitigating, uh, that,
00:34:43.340
uh, earlier enthusiasm on the part of independents going into the election?
00:34:48.240
You know, it had some effect. Um, it's really, really hard to quantify, uh, you know, abortions.
00:34:56.280
The other issue is like, well, how much did that, did, did the Dobbs decision have on,
00:35:01.380
on, uh, impact, you know, the election? It had some, it had more, I think in certain states where
00:35:07.980
it was on the ballot, like in Michigan and other places. Um, but I mean, I went back and looked at
00:35:13.300
all the pre-election polling to find out, okay, well, you know, what exactly happened here? Um,
00:35:18.360
and it, it wasn't really there in the data. I mean, there was not really an indication. Every
00:35:22.980
single poll, pre-election poll, you know, showed the economy was number one and that, you know,
00:35:28.340
abortion was basically down the list for independents and certainly Republicans. It was,
00:35:34.080
it was up on the list of Democrats. Um, but at the end of the day, it ended up mattering. I think,
00:35:39.520
I think those two things probably, and then you look at candidate quality and some of the
00:35:42.840
candidates, uh, Democrats did a very good job, I think of, of, uh, you know, demonizing Republicans
00:35:50.020
in big races and also, you know, really pouring their resources into those four or five Senate
00:35:54.720
races that mattered the most where Republicans, I think, didn't do as good of a job strategically in,
00:36:00.440
in buttressing those candidates and also getting out of the vote in those states.
00:36:03.640
Yeah. And we have to give Mitch McConnell some credit for that or blame if, uh, you prefer,
00:36:08.140
uh, because he actually lined up money against candidates that were, uh, Trumpian are Trumpian
00:36:15.220
like and, uh, and did them dirty. Uh, that had an influence as well. And, you know, the, there is
00:36:22.420
one area in this that we, when I, we talk about mitigating forces, countervailing influences within
00:36:28.360
the, the body politic, we haven't even mentioned the media. Uh, the national media is aligned with
00:36:36.140
the democratic party, uh, almost absolutely. Uh, there is very little margin between their,
00:36:43.680
uh, their interest in that of the, of the, of the Marxist Dems. Uh, the coverage has been so
00:36:51.500
one-sided and overwhelming, at least in my judgment, uh, that the American people have been censored
00:36:58.620
by their FBI, their department of justice, uh, by, uh, by social media, by, uh, legacy media,
00:37:08.420
corporate media. And it's very difficult to break through. And if I'm running the Republican
00:37:14.940
party, uh, which would not be my favorite job, I can tell you, uh, I just can't even imagine where
00:37:21.540
you begin to break down that resistance to the ideas of Republicans and moderates and independents,
00:37:28.440
uh, and bring forth a real public discussion, debate, and dialogue about important issues.
00:37:35.780
We haven't had hearings in this country on, uh, transgender issues. We haven't had
00:37:41.660
debate about a wide open border. We haven't had discussions, hearings in Congress, and it goes on
00:37:48.920
major issues that are just simply leaving the American people out of the conversation. Uh, your
00:37:56.820
reaction to the, what has been a suppressive role, uh, rather than, uh, an enlightening and
00:38:02.360
illuminating role for the, for the fourth estate. Well, I, I will certainly agree. And having,
00:38:08.120
you know, not been involved in politics or journalism professionally before starting real clear politics,
00:38:13.740
I really didn't fundamentally understand, um, just how, um, influence the media was and,
00:38:24.820
and continues to be, um, by sort of, you know, democratic values and ideals. But you learn that
00:38:34.020
pretty quickly when you follow the news professionally, it doesn't take long before you're
00:38:38.160
seeing, you know, the way headlines are written, the pictures that are used, the language that's
00:38:42.660
used, the way, the way these stories are structured, um, just over and over and over again,
00:38:48.980
you see, uh, the major media in this company sort of in this country, um, really sort of putting their
00:38:55.980
thumb on the scales for, for Democrats and, and in many ways, giving Republicans, uh, the, the opposite
00:39:03.640
treatment. You know, I look immigration, for example, I mean, it was a big issue in a lot of
00:39:10.000
these races. I mean, it was, it was discussed. You had Mark Kelly running away from the Biden
00:39:13.420
administration on it in, in the Arizona Senate race. Um, I, so it's not that Republicans can't,
00:39:20.880
it's not that they can't, uh, emphasize their issues that they can't get those issues, um,
00:39:28.400
amplify them for the public. And they're certainly the way that the media has fractured. There are
00:39:32.980
opportunities and outlets for, for Republicans, uh, to, to drive those sorts of narrative, but they
00:39:39.440
have to do it in the face of knowing that at the, at the sort of national level, when you look at
00:39:45.380
most of the media outlets, most of the television outlets, and certainly most of the print publications
00:39:50.340
from the Washington post, the wall, wall street journal, even, uh, New York times, et cetera,
00:39:54.740
that, um, that they're going to be, they're not going to be given, uh, uh, um, a fair shake when it
00:40:01.980
comes to coverage of, of their campaigns and the issues that the American people are caring about.
00:40:09.440
They're in some cases, in most cases being absolutely censured though, Tom, uh, we're,
00:40:15.180
we're looking at the example of the 51 intelligence, former intelligence, uh, officials who put together
00:40:22.020
that, uh, infamous letter, uh, consigning the Hunter Biden laptop to Russian disinformation when every
00:40:31.140
single one of those people knew it was a lie, including five former CIA directors. Yet they were the tool
00:40:38.840
of the Democrat candidate for president. And obviously so. And the Republican attorney general,
00:40:46.440
Bill Barr, uh, sent out FBI agents to, to absolutely censure conservative and Republican
00:40:54.940
voices and the president of the United States in a critical election. And then didn't intercede when
00:41:01.480
he knew personally that the Russian disinformation letter was a lie. He didn't remark on it to the,
00:41:09.360
the, the, the intelligence community or to, uh, the American public who were trying to make a decision
00:41:14.780
between two men running for president. Uh, these are outrageous when we know in subsequent, uh,
00:41:20.320
polling that the New York post article that was censured, uh, would have made all of the difference
00:41:26.840
in the margin of victory, uh, and that Trump in point of fact would have been, uh, statistically,
00:41:32.920
at least we can say, uh, president of the United States. They all in combination leave aside all of
00:41:39.520
the issues about rigged electronic voting, rigged, uh, ballot harvesting, rigged, uh, election, uh, timing.
00:41:47.940
Uh, we are talking about changing history and we have a, a body, body politic. Yes. The body politic
00:41:56.860
was certainly influenced, but the elites of both parties, uh, stayed mum, ununderstandably in the
00:42:03.660
case of the Democrats on the issue and felt like it was better to protect the idea that we had a free
00:42:10.680
and fair election rather than one that was absolutely rigged, uh, by, by one party.
00:42:17.660
Well, you're not going to get any argument from me about the New York post, uh, story,
00:42:22.640
Hunter Biden laptop and the way that that, you know, the, uh, the letter from the 51, uh, security
00:42:30.400
officials or the way that Twitter and Facebook and social media colluded to, to suppress that story.
00:42:37.220
I mean, that's well documented. And I think it was just an outrageous example, uh, and a, and a true
00:42:42.800
low point in this country's history in terms of, uh, you know, free speech and journalism. I mean, this
00:42:48.060
is 20 years ago, 30 years ago. Um, that kind of story you'd have every, you would have every news
00:42:57.960
outlet in America taking and trying to figure that out, getting a copy of that and, and trying to,
00:43:05.480
you know, validate those emails and, and instead everybody just put up a, you know, said, no,
00:43:11.600
we, we're not dealing with that. It's just disinformation. And it was disgraceful. And so
00:43:15.700
you're not going to get any argument from me on that. Um, now whether it would change the outcome
00:43:19.740
of the election, you know, that's, that's debatable. Um, but it's certainly whether it would have or not,
00:43:27.380
uh, the fact that that went down the way it did was an absolute disgrace.
00:43:31.540
Yeah, it was a disgrace. And, uh, and I say it straight out, it changed history in, in my view,
00:43:39.400
uh, Tom, we always give our guests the very last word. And if, uh, you will, sir, uh, it's been a
00:43:45.400
pleasure talking with you. And if you will, you're concluding thoughts today.
00:43:49.700
Well, I just, I want to thank you for having me on. It's always great to be with you, Lou,
00:43:54.540
and I, I enjoy, uh, chatting with you. Well, those are concluding thoughts and they're
00:44:00.020
positive and I, and I hereby, uh, align myself with those remarks entirely. Tom Bevin,
00:44:06.000
real clear politics. Thanks so much, my friend. Thank you. American. Thank you. Thanks everybody
00:44:10.760
for being with us here tomorrow. We'll be Congressman Matt Gates champion for president Trump sponsoring
00:44:18.040
legislation to get our troops out of Somalia. That's right. President Biden put our troops
00:44:25.000
into Somalia among his very first orders as president. Please join us here tomorrow till