Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman discuss the unanimous decision by SCOTUS to keep Donald Trump on the ballot on Colorado. They pivot to Super Tuesday and how Trump will most likely sweep, sending Nikki Haley out of the race altogether. This leads to some analysis on the latest New York Times poll that indicates Joe Biden needs to get a lot more active in a hurry.
EXCITING NEWS: Jared and Nick will be recording the podcast LIVE in VEGAS as part of Pete Dominick's Stand Up PodJam that takes place March 22-23 in Henderson, Nevada. Click HERE for info and tickets: https://events.humanitix.com/stand-up-podjam
For more Muckrake, including access to the Weekender show on Fridays and live tapings, head over to Patreon and become patron of the show.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I'm here with Nick Halsman, who, your voice, what'd you say?
81%?
Well, not the voice.
I think the overall feeling, uh, and how I'm doing is probably like 80, 81%, but yes, the voice I think is a hundred.
Hey.
You know what though, Nick, your 80, 81% is better than most people's 100%.
Okay, we'll find out.
And thank God you feel better because, you know, I don't know how you felt about it.
It was like when we did The Weekender last week, it was like jam-packed.
There was so much to talk about on The Weekender.
I was like, man, I wonder what's going to happen when we do the Tuesday episode and we got a humdinger of an episode here.
It's completely full.
Well, you know what's fascinating is that I think we're all sort of like Wolverine or Deadpool, right?
A little slower on the timeline, but we naturally heal.
Things will heal.
We just can't look at it like within 10 seconds and your arm just regrows, but still.
You're talking about you.
You're not talking about democracy, correct?
Oh, if only.
If only democracy had... If only democracy healed itself, and unfortunately it does not.
Before we get into these headlines, everybody, a couple of table-setting things.
One, we will be doing a live taping of The Weekender episode Thursday night, March 7th, following the State of the Union by President Joe Biden.
The State of the Union starts at 9 p.m.
Eastern.
He goes for about an hour, give or take.
We're going to preview that speech in a little bit.
So as soon as that's over, we'll be doing a live reaction analysis show of the State of the Union and that will be The Weekender.
All you got to do, go over to patreon.com slash Mike Gregg podcast.
Get on there.
Talk to us.
Listen to us.
Ask questions.
That'll be part of the show.
It's a good time.
Also, a reminder, it's March, Nick.
And we're taping this on the 4th of March.
That means in 18 days, on Friday, March 22nd, you and I are going to be in Henderson, Nevada, outside of Las Vegas, for Pete Dominic's stand-up pod jam.
I'm going to be doing a bourbon talk that Friday, March 22nd.
We're going to be doing a live show Saturday, March 23rd.
We're almost there.
We're getting there.
It's frightening.
What is time?
What is time, man?
February went so fast.
Go into the show notes in order to get information on going.
We've already heard from people who are going.
We're very excited.
Very, very excited to hang out with each other, to hang out with you.
Meanwhile, Nick, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, the highest court in the land, man, they do not get tired of making headlines.
They handed down a 9-0 unanimous decision against the state of Colorado dropping Donald Trump from their ballots.
They have ruled that that decision by the state of Colorado to drop Trump off the ballot was unconstitutional.
They agreed that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment couldn't be used by the states Five of the justices, the conservative justices, went even further and went on the record saying that only Congress can make this happen.
There's a lot to talk about here in terms of the decision, the split between the justices, what they said in their opinions.
What is your initial reaction, Nick?
Well, you know, I think my initial reaction is that they kind of are saying that it's unenforceable, basically.
Now, they want to focus on the fact that Congress needed to do, has to enforce this at all, but it doesn't say that in the Constitution.
Now, the reason why we have a Supreme Court is to fill in the blanks among all the things the Constitution doesn't say.
So this is why you get these like activist courts that get to just make up whatever they want.
And on this one, and by the way, precedent doesn't mean anything to them.
Nothing.
You talk about stare decisis at all when they're getting confirmed, but it doesn't mean anything to them.
It's simply a political act here.
But it's worrisome for a couple different reasons, and part of it is, it's like, well, if he can't be taken off the vote for being an insurrectionist, then where are we?
What is the state of our democracy if it says it in the Constitution, yet they're not going to make it enforceable?
It is a fascinating decision, and there's a lot to react to here.
First things first, the Supreme Court was created to be the judiciary between the states in terms of disputes.
They gave themselves the power to decide what was constitutional and unconstitutional, which is important to remember, particularly when we're dealing with such a corrupted and stolen Supreme Court now.
Which is that this was an institution that was created to serve the interests of white wealthy men doing a hell of a job of it.
It really truly is.
I am of a few minds here.
First things first, Nick.
I don't like the idea of states just being able to handle this.
Like, I'm not a states' rights guy in general.
I kind of think states' rights is just a code for using white supremacist ideology and hiding it behind, you know, dubious legal theories.
I do not like the idea that certain states are just going to drop people from their ballots.
I say this all the time.
The last time that happened was prior to the Civil War, in which Abraham Lincoln was dropped from the future would-be Confederate states.
I don't like it.
That being said, It is the Supreme Court's job, if they have given themselves this power, to be the ones to say whether or not a person who tried to overthrow the government of the United States of America should be allowed to run for the presidency.
Here, they have decided that they are not.
And do you know why they said that?
Not because they don't want the power, because they don't want the responsibility.
They've said that Congress has to be the body that enforces it.
Is Congress going to throw Donald Trump off the ballot neck?
Wait, well, what's the threshold for Congress having to enforce this rule?
Did you see that in Section 3?
Go ahead.
It's two-thirds majority of both houses, which they know doesn't exist and will never exist.
It will probably never exist again unless something really, really dramatic happens.
So what they are saying at this point is that there is no way for this to be done.
And it's once more, it is the same thing that has happened in this logjam iteration of the United States government, which we talked about on The Weekender with Mitch McConnell.
Thanks a lot, Mitchie.
Bang up job you did here in creating this situation where Congress isn't going to get anything done.
As a result, all of the protections that were put in the Constitution aren't going to work.
And quite frankly, have never really worked to begin with.
We didn't take care of the Confederates after they came back into the fold.
We allowed them to come back and have power and, you know, dance around.
Thanks, Andrew Johnson.
And now we have a situation where a person who tried to literally overthrow the government, and we'll talk about this later, is currently the frontrunner for the presidency going into 2025.
Right.
And we have to remember what the order of operations is here.
So there was a compelling argument in the front of the Supreme Court of Colorado that proved that he was an insurrectionist.
Because remember, if you're going to take him off the ballot for being an insurrectionist, you have to prove that.
Well, real fast, Nick.
Listen, I am not a jurist.
I'm not a lawyer.
I understand that the Mutt Craig Podcast is not a court of law.
Can I enter one piece of evidence into the record for Donald Trump having led an insurrection?
I'll allow it.
I fucking watched it.
Right.
I watched along with millions of other Americans.
I watched it in real time.
So what, what almost seems, you know, cause in theory, if you're going to follow the constitution, what triggers taking him off the ballot or not allowing anyone to run, who was already a sworn officer of the, uh, of the country, uh, is, is being an insurrectionist.
So you have to imagine, okay, maybe they're going to say he needed to be convicted in a federal court of being an insurrectionist.
It just so happens, Jared.
Go figure.
We're in the middle of that right now, but we can't get to that until they rule on another case, which is another... These are connected, by the way.
So the question is, are they signaling with this ruling here that basically is covering Trump for being an insurrectionist for the rest of the campaign?
Are they signaling something about what they're going to say about absolute immunity coming up?
And that's another interesting case.
Now, they might.
And here's my theory.
My theory is that because this was all the liberal and conservative justices all agreed on a 9-0 decision, perhaps part of this calculation or negotiation was that they're signaling they are going to not let him have absolute immunity.
And that's why the other justices were willing, the liberals, were willing to go along with this decision.
Am I sounding crazy or not?
You're not sounding crazy, but do you know what I hate?
I hate that we're sitting here trying to deign the signals that are being sent by powerful people behind closed doors.
I feel like I'm back in freaking Greece talking about what Apollo or Dionysus wants from us.
You know what I mean?
This is not how a functional society is supposed to work.
This isn't how a representative government, a democracy, a liberal democracy is supposed to work.
This is so beyond pale.
And what you just said, Nick, I went with you, and I think you have a point, and I also felt my brain shut off.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like this stuff.
That's the problem.
The only thing is, what's in the balance is our democracy and not like, you know, whether maybe a little law on the outskirts of things changes something.
But that's what I'm saying!
Like, I understand, like, how you can get into weeds on this stuff and start to look at, like, the jurisprudence and all of that.
But, like, when it really comes down to it, like, this isn't what's supposed to happen.
You know, you try to overthrow the government.
And guess what?
That's like one of those places where, like, again, I'm not really into the death penalty, but we got things on the books, Nick!
You know, that's how this stuff is.
And you're exactly right.
It goes back to the thing.
I've had phone calls with automated customer service lines that make more sense than that.
You know?
Like, well, I mean, if he's convicted, well, he can't be convicted until he does this.
And then if he's convicted, you're telling me that I have to rely on Congress coming to do this?
Like, Mike Johnson, who needs to pray to the big man upstairs to put his pants on in the morning?
Like, that guy?
And the House Freedom Caucus has to somehow or another get on board with this thing?
Nick, some of the people who would be voting on this Try to help him overthrow the government!
It gets worse, Jared.
Wait, how does it get worse than that?
Well, I mean, here's the scenario that I think is interesting, because let's just pretend they actually get all their ducks in a row.
April 22nd, they did the immunity.
They deny it, which they should, because it does not exist in the Constitution.
Jack Smith gets his case.
He gets a guilty conviction of Trump being an insurrectionist, right?
Well, that should certainly allow the states to pull him off the ballot.
Let's just say that happens in, like, September, and they pull him off before November.
Can't do it now.
Can't do it now because by the way, remember the argument that the defense had by Trump's guys was that he wasn't an officer of the state.
They were trying to parse language as to why it doesn't apply.
They weren't even like denying that the law exists and it should trigger.
They're just trying to say, oh, he wasn't really the person that they're referring to.
That didn't hold any water.
But then for the Supreme Court to go above and beyond that question, to start weighing in on the fact that they're not going to take him off the ballot going forward, that's the thing that was criticized by the liberal justice, because you shouldn't be answering a question that wasn't asked.
You know what I mean?
That's the signal that they're covering for him a lot more.
That's the signal that this whole court is probably a sham.
And that they're not, you know, ethical.
And that's where we're at with this right now.
One comment before I get to the larger comment.
This whole court's out of order.
And never has that been more appropriate.
It's true.
Joking aside, Nick, what pisses me off about it?
You know, it's one thing for Sotomayor, Kagan, and Brown-Jackson to say, hey, this has gone too far, but also we're in agreement that a state can't do this.
First things first.
The temerity of these people to say that Roe v. Wade is no longer law and the states should make up their minds about how to deal with abortion.
And then to say that the states can't do this.
I happen to think that both of them are flawed rulings for the exact same reason.
Because, you know, they're doing this ideologically.
That's how this is being driven.
And we've talked about this.
How much work they're having to do to thread the needle to get the results that they want without giving away too much power, right?
Here's the other thing about it.
It would be one thing if these corrupted assholes would just own up to what they are.
By the way, if I ever see John Roberts again, I will go outside screaming.
I'm so tired.
of this pencil pusher who wants to pretend like this court has any legitimacy.
But guess who showed up today and put up big numbers in that club?
That's Amy Coney Barrett.
And Amy Coney Barrett, her contribution to the opinion is going to go down in the history of the Supreme Court.
It's one of the most disgusting pieces of opinion writing.
She wrote, quote, This is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.
The court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a presidential election.
Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up.
She literally is trying to PR fix.
The opinion of the court.
She's literally trying to frame it like, yay, I understand some of you people aren't going to enjoy this, but like, really, can we have some people write about this in the right way?
Why can't anybody in this country?
Own up to what they're doing.
Why can't anybody in this country admit that they messed up?
Why can't anybody in this country just go ahead and do what they want, ruin the systems that they want to ruin, and then just take their medicine when people write about them?
Why are these people such crybaby assholes?
Why can't they just sit with it?
Right.
It's amazing.
People complain about getting cancelled on a national TV show.
It's incredible!
As if they're being cancelled in the moment.
I always thought when fascism came, Nick, I always thought that it would be, like, strong or something, at least.
Like, you know, disgusting.
Like, crushing of people with boots.
But my God, these crybabies are unbelievable.
I hear you.
It's interesting because it's probably their conscience trying to like leak out a little bit and just sort of scream out in the wilderness, help me!
I have a conscience that's being shoved down, you know.
I gotta tell you, any conscience that Amy Coney Barrett had, it leapt out and ran and rode the rails years ago, is what it did.
I knew this was probably how this thing was going to play out, and I gotta tell you, before we get on to this next segment, Nick, I'm looking around at people They are.
They still believe that the institutions are going to save them.
They still think somehow or another, like Kavanaugh is going to have a sleepless night and he's going to like, you know, look out the window longingly and and rule on the side of democracy that people really do not understand still that like this thing is not going to just go away, that we can just hope that these people will take care of it for us.
It's just not going to happen that way.
I mean, at least you understand that.
I think I understand that after the Mueller report and after everything else.
So, yeah, we just have to get out and vote.
We gotta vote and we gotta do a hell of a lot more than that.
Speaking of the vote, Nick, the Republican primary is just about cooked.
When you're listening to this, Super Tuesday will be underway.
That means Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado.
Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia are all going to the polls.
Trump is poised to sweep after Nikki Haley won her first contest with DC, which was basically just a bunch of lanyard-wearing nerds who went out and voted for her, more or less.
And now Trump is going to run this thing, and probably by the end of the week, if not the end of next week, be in control of the Republican National Committee.
And that will be it.
Yes, as you referred to, Lara.
Is it Lara?
It's not Laura, right?
It's Lara.
Lara, I believe, yes.
Lara Trump gets to take over.
Maybe.
I mean, that's not for sure, but probably.
Right.
She's talking like she already is, and she's already pledging all this different stuff.
And so, you know, we'll see.
Maybe that'll piss off enough people where it won't happen, but...
You know, if you weren't sure about like where the country is going or whether the legitimacy of the court is there or whether, you know, Trump was sycophantically, you know, corrupt, then, you know, this is our examples right here.
I do feel like I had a funny, I had somehow a fever dream, you know, that Haley had won D.C.
and I thought maybe in my brain it got messed up or I thought she was like ahead in Virginia or was winning Virginia, was going to win Virginia.
I missed something.
I want to check the polls, Jared.
You know what the polls are in Virginia?
In Virginia?
Can I take a guess?
I haven't looked.
You can take a guess while I look it up.
Is it Trump at like 75%?
65.
65?
And by the way, Haley would usually like overperform in Virginia because that's where the military-industrial complex is.
And that's her people.
And by the way, it's not 65-35.
It's 65-16.
Oh, that ain't good.
No.
So, you know, I guess it's good for Nikki to kind of, you know, dip her toe in the waters, feel how it's like, you know, move around a little bit in the space.
And then, you know, this is it.
She's wasting money at this point.
I can't wait, by the way, for him to sweep Super Tuesday and for us to see one post on Twitter after another and one article in these magazines of repute that say, he underperformed.
I can't wait for more, like, people trying to explain, like, that we should not be worried about a Trump presidency.
Meanwhile, Nikki Haley, the rumors are running wild that she is going to run as an independent.
I've actually heard those same rumors from people within her campaign.
I understand that you want to go in there and spoil this thing, but I don't think that's going to make any difference.
On top of that, Nick, Joe Manchin has now dropped out of contention for being the No Labels Party member, which I think, by the way, means that Hogan could possibly be the nominee for them.
I don't know.
But it feels like this cake is baked.
At this point, doesn't it?
It feels like this thing is over.
The general election is going to begin in March.
Yeah, I'm not so sure she can't be a spoiler.
I mean, right?
In a few, in a couple states, if she can get, you know, But here's the thing, Nick.
Are Republicans going to play that game?
Don't they understand that a vote for her would take away from Trump, and as a result, they wouldn't want to give away power?
Are there Republicans of conscience, do you think, that would vote for Trump otherwise?
Now it's only you're indicting Democrats who have done this in the past, who have voted for those third-party candidates.
But the Democratic Party's different!
Right, okay, so that's the difference.
The Democratic Party will do all kinds of things, man.
Yeah, I suppose, but there is a zealotry in the Republican Party, too, and a fervor, and so it's possible.
But again, I'm only talking about, like, there's such tiny margins, which, again, if it's 10,000 votes or 20,000 votes in one of these states and whatever, like, you know, if it ends up being something like that, Then, you know, maybe, but I'm here, I'm with you.
I don't, I don't, I don't really feel like that's going to happen.
And I, like I said before, I get so frustrated with a lot of these, these campaigns because they're, you know, that the tens of millions of dollars are going to spend, it's just wasted in my mind.
Not that they would put it in any better use, but it just makes me frustrated from a value standpoint.
They might as well just light that money on fire.
The entire system sucks.
It sucks so bad.
It really serves not much of a purpose outside of getting the same people wealthy, is what it is.
The same people have been benefiting from this for a very, very long time.
So there it is.
That is our general election at this point.
It does not appear like the Supreme Court is going to take Donald Trump off of any ballot.
It doesn't appear that the states are going to have the power to do that.
Obviously, he is going to run roughshod over Nikki Haley.
By the way, Nick, before we even get into the general election, I think sometimes we can lose sight of something.
Donald Trump has been convicted of sexually assaulting somebody.
Donald Trump has been convicted of criminal fraud.
Donald Trump is currently under investigation and trial and indictment for trying to overthrow the government of the United States of America, for trying to rig the election process in a state.
Like, this is the nominee of one of the major two parties, and it's not even close.
He dominated the entire primary process, ruined careers, and establishment Republicans has effectively taken over one of the two major parties in the main superpower in the world.
And look at what he is.
It's really amazing when you look at it.
It's really, really amazing.
What's more amazing to me is this fantasy that like in 2024, there are voters out there who haven't decided who they would vote for.
I had said this in 2004 when it was Bush versus Kerry.
And I couldn't understand it then either.
But I guess I probably can now looking at what we have today.
Who are these voters who are?
Who are these people who are like, yeah, I kind of like Trump.
He's pretty cool.
We know Biden, you know, I like some of his policies too.
Who is, this is not a real person, is it?
They're, they're, it's, it's like trying to find Sasquatch is what it is.
And they are, they are, the American voter in general is pretty terminally confused.
The, the, the undecided voter in 2024 is pretty, pretty confused, I think.
By the way, I would go with you to the Pacific Northwest and try and find Sasquatch.
That is an obsession of mine, and I would love to figure out whether or not he exists.
He doesn't exist.
You sure?
No, he doesn't exist.
Dick, we got it!
We can't argue about Sasquatch.
Leonard Nimoy told me about it in search of in 1977, and I believe it.
- I'm gonna argue about Spencer. - Leonard Nimoy told me about it in search of in 1977 and I believe it, but I have something for you.
Where is this?
I took a little thing where there are voters who voted for Biden in 2020 who are now going to switch their vote to Trump.
Who are those people?
I can't follow that at all.
I think they are people, and you know, you read these articles.
We're going to talk about one of the big polls that came out that actually has some heft to it.
You read these people, Nick, and they are perpetual change voters.
They're so pissed off about what's going on in this country.
And they just always believe that whatever the alternative to what is happening, like they do this.
I mean, there's going to, there are going to be, I'm not going to say the millions, but I am going to say at least tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans who voted for George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Biden, and are going to go back to Trump now.
That's, that's, they're going to be tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of Americans who did that.
Um, are drugs involved?
Is this, are these people like... No, they just, they literally, they're just perpetually pissed off at the status quo.
Which may, in a way it makes sense if you're not If you're not keyed in politically, and all you are is you're alienated from power, and quite frankly, you should be pissed off at the status quo right now, it can at least start to make sense.
But when you actually start looking at the specifics of the candidates, it's pretty harrowing.
Right.
And so it's like, at this point, these campaigns need to target, you know, people and, you know, voters.
And, like, for instance, well, are we gonna get to Michigan?
We'll get to Michigan.
Well, we're gonna get to Michigan in just a second.
Before we do, Nick, let's just go ahead and set up what we heard from the New York Times Siena poll, which is a pretty reliable poll.
It came out Trump 48, Biden 43, 47% of the country currently strongly, strongly disapproves of Biden's job.
Only 25%, one in four, believes that the country is in the right direction, which I can't believe it's at 25%.
It should be a lot lower than that.
Trump has higher marks on basically every major category, economy, safety, you name it.
Uh, this is a rough poll.
And, uh, you know, I keep seeing these people are like, New York Times, why are you running this?
And it's like, one, New York Times is not your friend.
Number two, like, this is the results of a poll.
I'm sorry that it pierces your bubble of reality.
Uh, but as this race is starting to take shape, this is not a good start.
Oh, I got a quote for this article.
Can I, can I read it?
Do it.
Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are unpopular.
Mr. Trump had a weak 44% favorable rating.
Mr. Biden fared even worse at 38%.
Among the 19% of voters who said they disapproved of both likely nominees, an unusually large cohort in 2024 that pollsters and political strategists sometimes call double haters, Mr. Biden actually led Mr. Trump 45% to 33%.
This is interesting.
So you have these double-haters, right, who disapprove of both of them.
But Biden actually is more popular among them, and that might actually indicate who's going to win this race.
I just hope that my double-haters will soon become my double-waiters at my table of double success.
That's incredible.
Double-haters.
And by the way, let's be frank, Nick.
Nobody likes the boss.
You know what I mean?
Like, no one likes the current president.
It's like being the mayor.
Speaking of, you know, New York City, like, nobody likes the mayor.
Nobody likes who's in charge because things aren't good and they're getting worse.
Like, it makes sense that Biden would have less than that, but also, I'll just say this, Nick.
I lived in a very small, rural college town in Georgia for a decade.
I was telling somebody about this the other day.
I got food poisoning at every restaurant in the city, you know, and multiple times.
There was really, there weren't enough places, right?
But I'll tell you what, I'll be damned if I went back to eat at a place that gave me food poisoning, like, the next night.
You know, at least I waited a little while to let the stink get off.
Like, it's incredible that people still want to go back here.
The disadvantage that Biden has, though, is that he can have this asshole Trump just railing on him and lying about everything he's done in terms of his performance.
And everybody that's following Trump will believe that.
So we constantly see the manless street interviews of Trump followers, right, of Trump supporters.
And it's kind of sad and heartbreaking because they will spew all these unreasoned thoughts and these lies and whatever that Trump has just said.
And I think maybe it's possible that in the past when an incumbent is running against someone who's challenging him, the challenger didn't lie like this, I don't think, as much or as, you know, as well as Trump can do it, right?
And so that's the real problem that the built-in disadvantage is that Biden can't seem to deal with, you know, or I don't know if anybody can.
This guy who's just out there lying and everything that he's done, he projects on the Biden and everyone seems to just assimilate it into their brains and believe it.
And then that's and then it's done.
And now Biden gets these little approval ratings and, you know, mixes with everyone's brain.
And and I don't know how he's supposed to combat that.
Well, I think, first of all, you're right that Trump is not at all fastened by reality or the limits of decorum.
I mean, in the past, like, you would watch political rivals go after each other, but they would still do it with, like, a measure of decorum.
They would still be like, you know, may not agree, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like, that's not what's happening here.
But there's also a problem with this, and this is, again, one of the really, really dangerous, poisonous elements.
There's an element of truth in all of this, which is that it doesn't matter who the president is at the moment, the country is getting worse.
Right?
Like, things are declining in this country.
Now, is it getting a lot more worse, which is what would happen with Donald Trump?
Like, it would accelerate with Donald Trump.
It would be a whole lot worse if Donald Trump was president right now.
And if he wins the office again.
There's a natural momentum to it.
So as a result, to go out and say, you know, these idiots don't know what they're doing and everything's getting worse, well, Technically, a lot of that's true.
Like, things are getting a lot worse, and a lot of people don't necessarily know what they're doing in this situation.
So, it does sort of, like, coagulate.
It also doesn't help that there are a lot of things that Biden is screwed up on.
There are a lot of things that they haven't communicated about well, and it just so happens that he's captaining a ship that is currently taking on a lot of water.
And so as a result, the guy who's screaming, you know, absolute insanities, like, yeah, it's going to catch purchase with some people.
And this is, I believe this.
I truly believe that we are probably in a situation where Trump is somewhere between five and eight points ahead of Biden right now, where this, where this stands right now.
Right.
And if you look at any kind of historical data, the incumbent being that far down at this state of the year.
It's, you know, over.
Now again, you can also then say that nothing, we can't use any precedent in the past to predict what's going to happen this year, which I hope is true.
But, you know, the weird thing is that some of the fundamentals are not bad.
You know, the typical fundamentals about like how, you know, inflation has gotten better.
You know, unemployment is very low.
The stock market is very high.
You know, unions are stronger.
Like, there are things.
But but no one seems to want to either admit it or feel it or whatever, or they let the other outside forces that may be a little bit less of their control really just sort of dictate their mood on everything.
And I think all that's true, but it's also the old measures of success have become increasingly decoupled from the measures of success for Americans, right?
Like the average American, outside of the fact that their 401k and retirement are linked to the stock market like that, that doesn't mean anything to them.
The stock market and the economy are just measures of how well they're being exploited.
I mean, people know that things are getting worse.
They can feel it.
They can see it.
They can live it.
And on top of that, it's not like Joe Biden can wave a magic wand and suddenly reverse all of this.
It would take a transformative presidency, is what it would take.
It would take a movement, the likes of which are not currently there.
I happen to believe that they could be there.
But they're currently not.
Now, Nick, we need to talk about the State of the Union and a couple of the things in terms of what Biden can do and how these things are taking place.
We're going to be, again, recording this episode live after the State of the Union on Thursday.
I have my thoughts on what this needs to be and what it could be going into it.
And again, we're basically looking at the beginning of the general election race here.
What do you think this needs to be?
What do you think it needs to do?
Well, the weird thing is that foreign policy is coming up.
The only thing that comes to my mind about talking about these things, and I already mentioned he'll probably do all the usual shoulder padding, self shoulder padding, I suppose.
Um, on the things like he'll say some things about, you know, uh, inflation coming down, uh, in unemployment, stop market, he'll say all that kind of stuff.
And again, it probably won't resonate with the average or normal, almost anybody else in America.
Um, but the, the, the foreign policy things I think are what would be an opportunity for him to start to reverse some of the trends that have been weighing it down.
So I, I think what he should do is basically say, we will starting tomorrow, we will not send any more missiles to Israel.
And as soon as this is over, we pledge to rebuild Gaza for all the, you know, innocent Palestinians who are there to rebuild their lives.
And, you know, we pledge whatever amount of money to help rebuild Gaza.
I think those two things would probably go a long way politically toward helping him get some sort of footing on that on that issue that seemed to be dragging him down.
Well, so for the people who maybe haven't seen this because, you know, it doesn't get reported all that much, the Democratic primary in Michigan was rough.
Really, really rough.
Biden won it, but 18% of the people who showed up to vote in this primary voted uncommitted.
And I've talked about it on this podcast.
One of the things that Politicos have been talking about behind the scenes, and I mentioned it before, is that Michigan's in, like, real danger of just being an automatic Republican win in the general election.
In large part, it's because of how the Biden administration has handled the situation in Gaza, which, by the way, has been an absolute shitshow and an embarrassment and a stain on this presidency.
Immediately after this 18% in Michigan, which was a warning shot over the bow, Vice President Kamala Harris went to Selma, Alabama at the Edmund Pettus Bridge and made some news by saying this.
Nick, I believe you have the clip.
The immense scale of suffering in Gaza.
There must be an immediate ceasefire.
For at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the table.
Hamas claims it wants to cease fire.
Well, there is a deal on the table.
Now, Nick, I want to hear from you in a second why you think Harris was the one to make this announcement.
On top of that, I want to talk about, like, what this means for the State of the Union and what you just said in terms of, like, you know, sort of showing a tough face to Israel, which is something I think we need to discuss.
But before we do, I just want to point out the rhetorical Maneuvering that needs to be done here, right?
The war in Gaza is tremendously unpopular, especially among Democrats, for that matter, who oppose this thing.
They want a ceasefire to happen.
The Biden administration has tried all kinds of communication strategies, saying, you know, we don't want this, but Netanyahu's a madman.
We can't do anything about it.
Meanwhile, we need to send them more weapons.
It's been disastrous and embarrassing.
But you'll notice now what Harris had to do here was sort of, again, thread the needle.
We need a ceasefire.
The onus is on Hamas, right, in order to try and do both things at this point.
And the question is whether or not that gets landed.
And why do you think she was the messenger here?
I have thoughts, but yeah.
I mean, I think that they're just A-B testing here.
They already had dropped the leak of Biden calling Netanyahu an asshole, I think was the word, or whatever it was.
Oh, they've dropped all kinds of leaks.
I mean, if it's to be believed, I mean, he is not very fond of that Netanyahu fella.
Yeah, and then, you know, this has been a pretty good dispute at White House, in a way, that didn't leak by accident.
And here's another like you know what we got to find out how this is going to pull like we'll let Kamala do it because you know they obviously don't care that much about her and her position in the White House, right?
I don't think I'm talking about a turn here.
So I think this is all just the groundwork to find out what the what the response is going to be and how far they can go in a State of the Union or another speech a week later or an interview he does to ultimately commit to doing something to put more pressure on Israel.
Now, you have to remember, if they don't send missiles anymore, it's not like Israel can't buy missiles from a host of other people across the world, right?
They can buy bullets from anybody else as well.
It doesn't necessarily mean it stops anything.
But politically, it's the thing that will help them the most is just to be able to distance themselves from what's going on there and what is dragging their numbers down.
So first things first, I think you're exactly right in terms of testing to see how this message goes over.
Also, if it's not very popular, you said this White House is disciplined in terms of leaks.
The biggest leaks from this administration have been leaks saying that Kamala Harris is terrible.
Like, that has been one of the main things that the Biden administration wants to talk about.
They have tried to foist all of their struggles on Kamala Harris, right?
There's not a major publication that they haven't sold that story to multiple times.
On top of that, I think there's also...
A rhetorical strategy that's happening here, which is, you know, Kamala Harris, like, you want to worry about Biden's age, that's totally fine.
You want to think he's out of touch when it comes to Israel and Gaza.
Just remember that Kamala's there.
Just remember there's someone younger and maybe she gets it, right?
Like, there's a little bit of jujitsu that's happening in terms of expectations, I think.
And on the subject of Israel and Gaza and the State of the Union, first things first, Nick, I think we should cut off weapons to Israel and I think we should have done it a while back.
You know, the fact that we have been complicit in this ethnic cleansing while meanwhile saying, man, we've been talking to Netanyahu and he just won't do it.
Netanyahu should be in the Hague.
Period.
That's the end of the story there.
And on top of it, like, I'm sorry, do you have the ability to stop this?
Or are you too weak?
And why is either one of those a better rhetorical political strategy?
They both suck.
But the question is, and I think you're right, by the way, I think the State of the Union has to have something splashy in it, something that gets headlines.
And most Americans don't give a shit about the State of the Union.
They'll read the paper the next day.
They'll read the headlines the next day.
But, you know, most people aren't like, oh man, what was in the fourth graph?
You know, how did he do this?
I think Biden, first of all, has to give a speech where he doesn't fumble his way through it.
If he fumbles his way through it, the narrative about his mental and cognitive abilities are just going to go through the roof.
And by the way, you and I both know this and everyone listening, he's not good at giving a speech.
He's just not.
And so that's going to be interesting.
But also, you need to say something about Israel and Gaza that changes the fundamental stance on this entire thing.
So it's the thing that we can talk about the day after and move forward with.
And the Democrats better get their shit together because they have been wrong on this thing.
They have been absolutely, fundamentally wrong, and you have to do something that shows something going forward.
And it probably wouldn't hurt, Nick, to have a little bit of ambition in this speech that tells, like, okay, give this guy four more years.
What's he going to do with it?
And we don't have an answer.
I would think it should also be added that, you know, the Hamas leadership should be in The Hague alongside Netanyahu as well.
I mean, you're not going to find the Hamas leadership, you know?
They're just having, you know, a good time, you know, in some nice building and away from all the fighting.
So, you know, lest we forget, they still have hostages.
They still are, you know, are a terrorist organization.
Okay, I'm sorry.
Why do you have to both sides this at this point?
Everybody understands that what Hamas did was shitty and awful and shouldn't have been done.
Why does every criticism of Israel have to be met with, look at what Hamas did?
Like, it's not, it's not the same thing.
Well, I don't understand why, well, I think that because it's not said.
I don't, I don't think that part is added to it where that is never, where they're there.
The reason why we're in this predicament now is because Hamas did a ridiculous, horrible atrocity.
Well, yeah, but does that mean you have to destroy every hospital and university and meanwhile, mow down hundreds of people trying to get food?
And also, you know, they're the ones who intentionally put their own people.
Okay.
Okay.
But you're, we're going in circles here.
I don't know.
Like the, the point of this is it's gotten out of control, period.
It was never in control in the first place.
Like, I understand that, like, we have to like sit here and say that Hamas did something awful, but at the same time, we can't be complicit in this.
This is, I'm sorry, but this is a really disgusting thing that the Biden administration has been a part of.
Well, yeah, and those just won't be true.
I agree.
I agree with exactly everything that you're saying.
And I also want to make sure that, you know, the people who are behind the attack, what they did, it needs to also... Well, yeah, I would, listen, the hostages that Israel hasn't killed already, I would love for them to be released.
And by the way, that's not at all what Netanyahu and anybody around him is interested in.
I mean, they have not shown any sort of good faith in any of that.
I want all of them released, the ones who survived.
I would love for this ceasefire to take effect and for this peace to happen.
But by the way, unless Biden puts his shoulder to the wheel in some way or another, like, I don't see in any way, shape or form the way, any way that this calms down.
And for the record, I think Biden has been so weak on this thing, that at this point, if he says we're not gonna send them weapons anymore, like, the narrative has already gotten away so bad, Netanyahu can just be like, oh, look, look at America, our great friend.
You know what I mean?
Like, at this point, even to, like, get aggressive with it, I feel like it's been so out of the box that there's no putting it back in.
Oh, maybe.
I also do think that if he did that at the State of the Union and said they weren't going to send any more weapons, it would be a political positive for him.
I think it would be.
What do you think the Republicans would do?
You mean if it was a Republican president having a State of the Union?
No, if Biden says, this is the situation.
We're not going to send any more weapons to Israel.
I mean, for that matter, it wouldn't just be the Republicans.
John Fetterman would lose his shit.
Like, it would be obscene.
It would be obscene.
But here's another mistake I think that the White House made.
There are going to be relatives of the hostages invited to the State of the Union.
But not from the White House.
It's from a smattering of Republican and Democratic.
I hadn't read that.
Oh, my God.
And so I think that that would be, I think that's a mistake.
I think that at the very least, the White House should have been the one spearheading that to continue to accentuate whatever the point of that is, which I'm not even exactly sure.
I mean, solidarity, I suppose.
But that's another one, I think, political mistake that they missed out on.
I just want to say, because again, we're going to be doing our analysis immediately after the State of the Union, Nick, what we're talking about, I don't think it's going to happen.
I honestly, what we've seen out of Biden, what we've seen out of the Democrats, what we've seen out of the response, it's all mealy mouth bullshit.
It's just trying so hard to not really talk about it.
It's just sort of like, Hope and pray.
I'm sorry, but I thought him eating an ice cream cone with Seth Meyers and talking about a ceasefire that should be done by Monday.
And by the way, it's not done.
Like, I think it sucks.
I don't think that they've handled this the right way.
I don't think they've messaged it the right way.
And I don't think the State of the Union is going to be some sort of a showcase for a restart.
You know, we're talking about what needs to happen, but I don't have faith it will.
Do you?
Well, I mean, well, I guess we have the choice between the eating ice cream and calling for no more weapons to Israel.
I don't know.
Do you believe you just said that out loud?
If it's going to be somewhere in between, like, I'm trying to figure out what's in between there that's like some mealy-mouthed, you know, half-assed version of that.
Well, we're going to eventually stop sending missiles, and we're going to eventually tell them that they should stop, you know, you have to have the ceasefire.
I mean, what is the middle ground at that point that would be probably the more likely scenario here?
I can't believe you.
And you're not wrong.
You literally have to find the middle ground between eating an ice cream cone and taking a stand.
Like, that's where we're at.
That's lame.
That's lame as shit.
I'm sorry.
It just is.
What would that be?
Because I'm interested now if we can predict where he's going to end up, what he's really going to do.
I'll tell you what I think is going to happen.
I think it's going to be a punt.
I think he's going to take a strong stance on Ukraine.
We have to help the freedom fighters in Ukraine fighting for democracy.
I think he'll probably say something that like sort of both sides the situation in Gaza while talking about conscience.
I'm sure something along those lines.
And then meanwhile, I mean, I think he's going to highlight some of his achievements, but, like, do you know of anything that's in the works right now?
Do you know of, like, any major plans that have been put on the table in terms of any of this?
They've talked about protecting Roe, but they haven't put anything forward.
There's nothing really on the table that way.
There's no agenda that has been told to me that they're going to push for.
Do you know of anything?
I mean, when you get to Super Tuesday and the primaries, I don't think, as a matter of campaigning, nothing gets done from this point on, right?
Well, it should, though!
Isn't that what you're supposed to be doing?
Isn't this, like, this has become a dead period for the White House?
Like, you know, nothing is going to be proposed.
You're not going to, you know, they have to keep, by the way, they have to keep funding the government.
He's down!
What's that?
He's down!
Yeah, I know.
You don't want to run out the clock when you're down.
Yeah, I would be.
But again, wouldn't we be surprised if no legislation gets passed between now and November?
Oh, absolutely!
Unless like a major corporation needs bailed out.
No, nothing's going to get passed.
The only thing to worry about right now is keeping the government functioning and getting the budget done.
And that's, again, talking about kicking the can.
And that wouldn't be necessarily weird compared to all the other times we've seen races.
But that's the whole point is how bad it is.
It's not functional.
Where do we end up on the whole if he should be replaced or not?
Biden.
Well, I would.
At this point, I don't think it matters.
I've said that I don't think he's the right guy for the time, but he's not going anywhere.
Right.
Well, I mean, I don't know.
Listen, I'm just going to say this, you know, and I don't know.
You look at how things are right now.
Everything you just said is exactly right, Nick.
But there's a problem.
There's an issue here that isn't being taken care of.
And what do you do when you get to an election?
Like a lot of people, you're double haters.
I'm going to eat dinner tonight and I'm going to be between bites of dinner and just the word double hater is just going to be rattling around.
Like, what do you do at that point?
What do you think this speech is going to be?
What do you expect out of it?
You know, it would be awesome if he did at least remind us all about Roe v. Wade and how important that is.
And I imagine he'll have some words to that, but I think what you want him to do is let's start to work on legislation to codify that so it doesn't get Taking away completely across the entire United States.
That would help.
But yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I would only hope that he doesn't present as a feeble old man who trails off on every other sentence.
That would be something.
Which is possible, right?
It's possible he can get through it if it's a 30-minute speech or whatever.
But you're right, it's probably going to go long and he'll have to struggle with that.
But that's probably the only thing I can hope for at this point because again, we know he's not going to do much besides what you described already, the platitudes and stuff.
Ukraine.
He'll do some sort of like historical notion of our partnership with Israel and how we support each other.
He'll throw that off there, whatever golden year.
I'm sure he'll mention meeting her or something like that.
And, and I, and I imagine he'll also say some nice things about Gaza and maybe some notion of like wanting to rebuild or like, you know, reconnect with that, that segment of the population.
But here's the problem about the Michigan thing is even though the people that voted not committed for him, that is ominous, it doesn't really affect what they think of the numbers in the general for him.
So that there is less incentive there.
It didn't put the kind of pressure I think they were hoping for.
But it's a message.
It's a message which is, you need to work for my vote.
Right.
And Hillary already learned this about Michigan, right?
That's the entire point.
The stranglehold over Michigan was not a stranglehold.
Right.
So it looked like what I'm sure it looks like to the Biden administration, too.
And for right now, we could scoff and say or just dismiss that.
But yes, that could grow.
You know, that could metastasize, become a real problem for them.
And probably as it should.
And so, you know, they better not make that same mistake that Hillary did in Michigan, for instance.
You better hope that there's a position that Gretchen Whitmer is interested in in your administration.
Like, you better hope that you can somehow or another get her interested in, like, really working her ass off going into November.
And I'm sure she'd offer a cabinet position.
I'm sure she would take it.
Man, this sucks.
I really, as somebody who has studied this and seen this thing, like, coagulating and coming together, man, and foaming, I wish I felt better about this right now.
I wish, like, hell that this felt better.
The choice between anybody and Donald Trump is so obvious at this point.
You know what I mean?
Listen, I hate that what you said is correct, which is the best that we can hope for at this point is that the sitting President of the United States who is asking for four more years in office can make it through a speech without exposing himself, basically.
Like, that sucks.
And then on top of it, you have this, like, this albatross around his neck with Gaza.
You have, like, one of the main states that he needs, which is not interested.
The Supreme Court is, like, doing all this.
I just want to feel better than this.
I do.
I agree.
I want to feel better.
I'm trying to think, when did I last feel good?
In general?
About about this.
I mean, I think maybe Clinton at some point.
I felt like you know, I feel like there's a lot of smart people in the administration is smarter than me who are going to be able to make good decisions.
But I mean, I think I felt that I don't know if it was true, but I might have had that feeling somewhere in the mid 90s.
I was excited when Obama won, and I was so frustrated that, you know, it's like watching your favorite team play with their hands tied behind their backs.
Like, and realizing how much the hope and change message was a slogan.
You know, and a sales pitch that really bothered me.
And then all of a sudden, like, you know, for a lot of the neoliberalism just to, you know, continue and even get worse.
Like, I felt better for a while and then I was just frustrated.
And this, watching Trump as an existential threat, and again, he's a symptom of a larger disease.
Watching this stuff come together is just, and watching the people make the same mistakes.
Nick, I saw something the other day on Twitter, somebody who's like, I hope the Supreme Court rules that he has total immunity, and then Biden will be able to do this, this, and this, and it's like, people have lost the thread.
You know?
Like, they really, truly have.
Yeah, but that is an interesting case, though, by the way.
If Trump gets absolute immunity, that kind of means that so does Biden.
But don't you want that?
People are celebrating that idea.
Yeah, I mean, it kind of backfires in a way, which is why they shouldn't do it and they won't do it.
I'm willing to go on record saying they will not give him absolute immunity.
Well, that's a horse of a different color.
But also, if you really think that the only thing holding Joe Biden back is the idea of prosecution, that's the only reason he can't get the agenda you want done, I don't know what to tell you.
Nick, it's just the lack of seriousness in this country and the lack of urgency.
And I talk to Democratic consultants all the time, and so many of them are pulling their hair out.
Others are way too delusionally overconfident.
And I just, I don't know, man.
I hate that we're sitting here in early March and it feels like this.
This is shitty.
Yeah.
Something is going to have to happen.
Something positive that needs to happen between the next several months that can galvanize everybody.
Obviously, the only thing that can happen would be that they pick somebody younger and more energetic to run.
I don't know.
I think there's some paradigm changing things that can happen, but we shall see.
All right, everybody.
A reminder, this Thursday, State of the Union, 9 p.m.
Eastern is when it begins.
These things, I was so shocked, Nick, when we talked about this, when we were talking about how long we thought Biden would go for, and like, most states of the union are, would it be state of the unions or states?
It's states of the union, right?
State, plural?
No, because it's the State of the Union, so it is the State of the Union, you know.
The State of the Unions?
Yeah, I don't know.
State of the Union addresses.
It's like the plural of Attorney General is Attorney's General.
Yeah, I don't think it's that.
It's more the wild one.
Anyway, and it was like, wow, Biden's only been going for about an hour.
Which is, that's quick.
That's quick in the State of the Unions.
Thank God.
I'm sure.
You ain't kidding.
If you're giving a speech over an hour, like you're doing something wrong.
But we will be reacting to it, analyzing it immediately after.
Go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
Join in and all the good fun.
We look forward to seeing everybody for the live weekend or taping.
In the meantime, you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me?
