White House Lost: Why Biden Can't Control The Narrative
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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the troubled messaging from the White House and why they can't get his approval ratings above Trump's. Many of the issues are completely self inflicted as the Democrats head into the midterms with severe head winds.
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The White House did decline our invitation for a member of the administration to come on the show today, saying they were leaving it up to Congress to act.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the Weekender Edition of the Muckrake Podcast.
I'm Jared Yates Saxton.
I'm here with Nick Halsman.
Nick, it's the summertime, baby!
Yay, I guess.
Summertime!
Living is not so easy, Jared.
It's not.
It's not.
And it's hot.
And it's brutal.
And I'm a creature of summer.
I enjoy the summer.
I enjoy the fruits of summer.
I'm once again, and I believe this is for the second summer running, I'm declaring it the summer of Muckrake.
Okay, that's right.
I forgot about that.
I'm just planting the flag again.
Welcome to it everybody, and thank you to our patrons who of course went over to patreon.com slash muckrake podcast to listen to this show.
Everybody else should go over there, listen to this show, you're hanging out, you're enjoying the vibes.
Go on over there and support us.
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Meanwhile, the summertime is a time to reinvent yourself.
Every now and then like to buzz the hair, buzz the beard, try something new, go to the beach, see what's happening.
It's time to change the narrative, Nick.
Okay.
Please change the narrative, Jared.
I'm ready to change the narrative.
Well, I got good news for everybody.
President Joseph Robinette Biden has decided to change the narrative.
People aren't feeling necessarily great.
The vibes have been off.
I don't know how you've been feeling because we need to talk about the fact that existential dread Sure.
has been absolutely soaking this country for, by my watch, years.
It's been particularly rough lately.
Can we go ahead and acknowledge that?
Can we just admit that fact?
Sure.
I mean, listen, Biden's approval ratings are like the Trump's at this point.
They are roughly equal, if not lower at this point.
The country is frustrated.
Of course, Biden in his capacity as the president is being screamed at to do something about any of this stuff.
We are hearing word that there might be some sort of bipartisan push.
Biden came out in the past couple of days I don't know, but I think there's a realization on the part of rational Republicans, and I consider McConnell a rational Republican, and Cornyn is as well.
but I think there's a realization on the part of rational Republicans, and I consider McConnell a rational Republican, and he corny means as well.
I think there's a recognition in their part that today we can't continue like this.
Well, I don't know about that narrative, Nick.
That narrative ain't doing great.
That dog ain't hunting, as some people would like to say.
I mean, gosh, it's a strange choice of words to call him a rational actor, right?
Like he kind of just sort of gives him, lets him weasel around what he should be saying about Mitch McConnell, of all people.
It's gross, is what it is.
And I say it's gross on behalf of literally millions of Americans, Nick.
Literally millions of Americans whose lives have been made worse by Mitch McConnell.
On behalf of people of color, vulnerable populations, women who very well might have their reproductive choices ripped away from them because Mitch McConnell literally stole the Supreme Court.
I don't know.
I think it speaks to a larger problem.
The idea that anybody who understands politics, particularly from a democratic perspective, a liberal perspective, a leftist perspective, would hear the words rational actor.
In reference to Mitch McConnell come across from their lips.
Well let's pull this apart a little bit because does Biden get any like good points for trying to reach across the aisle at this point?
Like does anybody give him any any does his approval rating go up from this?
At some point Nick when your child keeps reaching for a hot burner on the stove You stop saying, you know what?
He's courageous.
At some point, you don't say, you know, he's inquisitive.
At some point or another, you say, stop reaching for the damn stove.
Yeah.
No, no, no, no.
You let him burn the shit out of his hand.
Right?
Well, I have to say that Biden has burned the shit out of his hand a couple of times.
Here's the president of the United States being completely wrong about the Republicans and what's going to happen with them.
You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.
I did not anticipate that there'd be such a stalwart effort to make sure that the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done.
But fear not everybody because there's apparently a bipartisan response that is being cooked up.
We're currently talking about Blumenthal and friend of the show, Lindsey Graham, apparently are reaching across the aisle in order to work on some sort of a solution for gun violence.
In this case, it is these red flag laws, the possibility that we might be able to take guns from people who are in extreme duress or are having some sort of a breakdown or whatever.
Again, as we talked about on Tuesday's show, this probably would not have prevented the Uvalde shooting, but I guess pretend like you're going to do something about the problem.
Pretend that you've solved it.
Well, for what it's worth, I don't believe that Mansion will ultimately quote-unquote get there.
Nick, he said that he feels different about it this time, which by the way is also what he said after Sandy Hook, but that's neither here nor there.
Oh yeah, he's picturing his grandkids in school now and that really has shaken him to the core, but again... It's exactly what he said last time!
I fucking hate this shit!
Yeah.
Um, I thought we weren't going to talk.
Well, can we?
Can we not say Joe Manchin?
We can't.
We just, no.
See, I have to say, I wanted to throw this out there because I feel like I've been relatively muted and not, uh, I have not let my true rage about guns come out in the last several.
I think I've just been, I don't know what the word is, um, just disaffected so much.
I don't even, I can't let my emotions out, but I want everyone to know out there, uh, that I'm that guy who wants every single gun across the entire world removed.
So here's the problem in all of this, and I'm glad that you said it the way that you did.
This stuff is so enraging.
It's so horrifying that it's almost too much to process.
Do you know what I'm saying?
Like, I was reading this article, and I sent it to you off air, like, that mentions of Yuvaldi, of the shooting, of all of these shootings, you know, basically fading away as America sort of, people say it's like we're becoming callous to it.
I don't think we're becoming callous to it.
I think there's like a certain level of trauma.
That comes in, right?
And even now, as we're talking about this bipartisan sort of attempt to pass gun legislation.
First of all, Nick, do you have any real hope that this thing is going to get passed, regardless of it being an impotent, unworthy sort of a bill?
Do you really think it will get passed?
Well, with 60 votes, right?
That's what they're going to do?
Yeah, it would have to be 60.
No, they're not going to do it with 60.
Yeah, I don't think they are either.
And that's just sort of a thing where it's like, eventually, after enough trauma, you just sort of throw up your hands.
You know what I mean?
And you're like, I don't think this is going to get handled.
And I have to function at some point.
Well let me ask you this do you do this is what I do when these things happen I've my you know I have a writing background I have an imagination I tend to like sort of envision what it must have been like to be in that room for whatever that fault that is in my psyche I do this there are times when the shit is on you know video that they you know don't watch this thing like I end up watching it for what I can't you know not watch it
Part of me feels like it's because I need to motivate myself to continue to want to affect change, and this is a good way to do it.
Do you ever do that?
Do you find yourself sort of imagining that?
You know, I have this problem as a writer where, I don't know if I've mentioned this on the podcast before, if I think too long about breaking a bone or suffering an injury, I can feel it.
Like I can like sort of manifest it like I can put myself in a situation.
By the way, that's how anxiety works.
Also, kids is is you start thinking about all of the possibilities, particularly, I don't know, when you wake up in the middle of the night with a start and you think about everything that you've ever said and everything that you've ever done and everybody that you've ever known.
So, yeah, I get that.
And I wonder if you're bringing up this possibility that people are talking about, about whether or not we shouldn't censor this stuff, if we should actually take a look at what this violence does and what happens in a society.
I do have to tell you, I think that there's an argument to be made, but I also think this society is sick enough.
And I wonder what you think.
I think it's sick enough to where like, even if that was widespread, if people would just sort of cloister themselves in their entertainments.
I don't know if the answer can be done.
stuff and that it would just sort of roll on.
I don't know if the answer can be legislated.
I don't know if the answer can be done.
It feels like there needs to be some sort of a societal sea change at this point. - I mean, I guess I'm old fashioned but I'm gonna bring up like the Vietnam War footage, which did a lot to change everyone's minds in the US.
against the war, right?
Like that was brutal imagery, and it wasn't even as brutal as it could have been.
They censored that.
I would, I choose to believe that if they were going to release footage of You know, what happened in Uvalde, that there would be a lot of people who would change their minds and say, we don't need this.
I'm choosing to believe that would happen.
Not that I would hope that we'd have to endure that, but like, I can't envision, you know, a scenario where you'd have everybody or, you know, the same people who don't want gun control now, nobody changing their minds.
I just choose to believe that there would be a significant portion of those people that would.
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