Careful analysis and frank discussions as we dissect the aftermath of the third Republican debate. We'll walk you through the performances of Desantis, Nikki Haley, Ramaswami, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses, and discussing why Desantis emerged victorious. Curious about Donald Trump being the GOP's nominee for the 2024 election? We'll delve into this controversial decision and offer reflections on its wisdom – or lack thereof. We're also shedding light on a worrying video that puts the spotlight squarely on Biden's health - with an astounding 75% of voters questioning his fitness for presidency - and the implications for our political landscape.
America's political scene and its far-reaching effects on global trade and the dollar's value. The recent United States credit rating downgrade by Moody's is a hot topic, and we're here to explore its impact. And of course, we can't ignore one of the burning issues of our time - immigration.
Transcript:
Good morning. It is November 13, 2023. I'm going to talk to you about the third Republican debate last week, as well as some news stories that I think tap into what's happening in the country at present. For the debate, desantis came out on top. I was glad to see. He showed himself to be steady as well as vocal and more animated than he has in the past. So if there's a winner of the debate, it would be him. Nikki Haley is proving herself to really be unfit for the stage, as is Ramaswami, I'm sorry to say. I really liked Vivek. I considered him my candidate to watch in the beginning and I still think he has much to offer, but he's taking his theatrics to far too much of a cartoonish level and it's not working. He's coming across as glib and theatrical and it's transparent. Nikki Haley comes across as quite vicious. Now, perhaps some of the swipes at her from Ramaswami and others require viciousness, but it doesn't wear well on her and it's probably not going to work in the long run. So I don't think she's going to edge out DeSantis for the top number two spot in the field. Interestingly enough, chris Christie showed himself to be more temperate and almost like the old stable guy on the stage, which is an odd thing for Chris Christie to present himself as, but it did sort of work. Tim Scott did okay, but, to be honest with you, I had a hard time remembering him in this lineup. So there's something about him receding into the background of the other candidates and, at the end of the day, what does any of this matter? Donald Trump is the nominee of the GOP for 2024. I think that's very unwise, but fine, I'm not in charge. I think we've got two bizarre candidates who we'll have to choose between in the general election. But fine, maybe that's a good representation of where we are as a society right now. A decrepit old man and then an opponent who says the most bizarre and, frankly, anti-democratic things in memory, and yet he was probably in a better position to run the country from a managerial standpoint in terms of his cognitive functions. If any of you were paying attention to the latest Biden disintegration video, you would have seen the Veterans Day ceremony, with Biden walking up to the tomb of the unknown soldier, laying the wreath down, and all he had to do was turn around and walk back to where he was previously standing, and he forgot that that's what he had to do, and he turns to the soldier who was presiding over the ceremony, who looks at him in a muted manner and then realizes that the president is searching to him for directions and motions to the president of the United States, to his own commander in chief, to walk back to where he was previously standing. Now there's a lot of clickbait out there in terms of Biden and his gaffes and his seemingly frail state caught on video that is presented in an untoward manner, but this is not one of them. The ones that I present to you are actually representative of a man who is stumbling along the way of age, and this is no exception. These are concerning, especially during these globally tumultuous times, and voters are showing that they are quite frightened of Biden's state. 75% of voters in a general election roundup say that they think he's too old and frail to be president, contrasted with only 47% of voters saying that about Donald Trump, and what that means is that 47% for Trump who say he's too old to occupy the office of president are really the people who would be against him in any fashion. It's roughly a 50-50 split in this country at present, so a 47% divide for Trump is nothing unusual, but a 75% split for Biden of people saying he's too old to occupy the Oval Office means that there's roughly 25% of people above the typical 50-50 split who are essentially saying that they're not going to vote for Biden in the general. That is extremely significant and that's why people like David Axelrod are the mastermind behind Obama's presidency and a political scion in some sense. The Democrats side has started to say this is not wise. The Democrats need to find somebody else. Former Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland is also joining Axelrod in that sentiment. Now here's something for Trump supporters to think about. If such a frail man is running as the incumbent in 2024, really a laughable candidate in terms of his cognitive functions and fittedness for the Oval Office why is your candidate only beating him by a few points? I gather it's a 50-50 split country. I really gather that but don't you think that a better candidate would be beating Biden in the polls, given his frail state, by double-digit points? Isn't that what should happen? So it's just something to reflect on. Is Trump really a wise person for you to catapult yet again into the candidacy, or is he displaying by only relatively minor leads against Biden that he's really an unfit candidate, that a fit candidate, should be leading by double digits. Look, I get that many of you are loyal to your candidate, trump in this case, but I'm asking you to consider that this might not be a wise choice, just from a technical standpoint. That's all. But I don't think I'll change anybody's minds. Did you know that it's almost impossible to change anyone's minds on virtually anything? That's why I have a job as a psychologist. I spend years with people subtly and gradually changing thoughts. Do you know how hard it is to change someone's thoughts? It's almost impossible. Most of us maintain what we believe to be true and right throughout our entire lives, with very little change at all. It's much like BMI. Bmi basically doesn't change. The entire diet industry is nonsense. If you measure BMI across the population, across the aggregate, most people's BMI is entirely stable across their lifespan, with minor fluctuations along the way called diets, they end very quickly. Most of us don't change what we consume in terms of nutrition and we don't change what we consume in terms of thoughts and news and ideas. We prefer to feel correct versus feel unstable by information that unsettles us Even. That's why social media's algorithms and online algorithms have learned how to hand feed us what we would like to hear so that we can exist in an echo chamber. It's brilliant. There's nothing like going about the world with a sense of being right all day long. One of the ways that the algorithm has made sure that you feel like you are correct is by producing outrage in you, by hand selecting sources, new sources, to provide you explosive stories that make you feel like the world is crumbling in just the way that you always knew it was. That outrage registers for you as proof proof that you are right all along. And yet there are things to be truly outraged about and to look at for what it is. I'm looking at a story right now from the Guardian called Secret Service Agents protecting Biden's granddaughter Fire Guns after break-in. The story's headline seems to present the idea that some sort of far-right extremist was breaking into Naomi Biden's house. One could be further from the truth when you read this story. It's actually high crime in the DC area. That is the problem. Some people were trying to break into an unmarked Secret Service SUV outside of her house and the story goes on to talk about record crime in the area and in the country Many, many more carjackings than ever before 750 carjackings, by the way, folks, if you don't know what that is, that means you're in your car and someone comes and yanks you out and probably assaults you along the way, takes your car and runs off. 6,000 stolen cars in the Capital District Unbelievable. So the story goes on to talk, interestingly enough, about problems of crime, as I have been doing for some time now. But then if you go to the bottom of this story from the Guardian, it says the following as we head into 2024, our journalists are already hard at work preparing for one of the most consequential news cycles in our lifetimes. I'm interrupting you now because we need to raise 1.5 million to fund our reporting next year as we take on these high stakes challenges. The first challenge the 2024 election Quote. With the threat of another Trump presidency looming, there are countless angles to cover around next year's election Extremism, misinformation, reproductive rights, the economy, foreign policy, immigration and democracy itself. Will be there to explain, contextualize and report on it all with our unique global perspective. Now, I don't know about you, but you do not have to be a Trump supporter and I'm really not in order to find this to be laughable and ridiculous. Are you really trying to tell us, guardian, that you need us to urgently contribute to your organization because there is a threat of a candidate you don't like. And let's talk about the bullet points there Extremism how about extremism called anti-Jewish, anti-israeli extremism on the left all over America right now, which goes virtually unnegated by your organization, in my view? They mentioned the economy. How about record inflation, which we haven't seen in many decades? They mentioned foreign policy. Are they paying attention to what's happening globally right now? The Middle East is erupted in war, china and Russia are forming an alliance which has never been done before in recent memory, and we're about to lose Taiwan. Oh, did I mention? Russia and Ukraine are in a proxy war that is depleting our military resources at a pace that has never been seen in modern history. They mentioned immigration. Are you looking at the southern border? If they're not, let's turn to another story. It's called I do not condone this. Migrants enter US through homeowners backyard. In the southeastern United States actually not far from where I'm recording this, there is a video actually on CNN, interestingly enough, that shows a man who Owns a house that is basically a trail for migrants coming across from Mexico. He has been told by border protection, as well as by the local sheriff's department that he cannot tell them not to cross his land and he cannot tell them to turn around. Or let's turn to a story from the New York Post called residents of rural Mexican town are struggling to cope with migrant crush and say American cities should brace for impact. And it discusses the town of Tapa Chula, which is a little coffee mining town in central Mexico that has started to serve as basically a waypoint, a middle point for migrants in caravans pursuing the United States that have overwhelmed the town and have caused massive problems in that little community. Human and drug traffickers have started to descend on the town and residents are Quite frightened and they're saying that this is probably a snapshot of what's going to happen in American cities. The various caravans have Disrupted traffic in these small towns because they believe that they should have a more clear route and path and accommodations along the way, as if it's some sort of right to migrate to the United States illegally. Now I for one believe that the Hispanic community writ large may actually be some sort of savior to America, and by that I mean they have excellent cultural values in terms of family cohesion and Traditional conformity to things that have always been important in civilization, but this is not the right way to import people and the United States does need to import people, or we need to start Accelerating our own domestic childbirth. You realize that the United States is in a population decline. We're not reproducing at a degree that we need to, so, from simply a numbers standpoint, for consumption, we need to have increased production and, again, this is not the way to do it. So I don't know what the Guardian is talking about when they discuss threats of immigration, of the economy, of foreign policy and Extremism. I think they need to get their facts together, like the fact that Moody's is changing the United States credit rating. They have downgraded us from stable to negative because they have looked at the fiscal deficits, which remain very large and are weakening our debt affordability. You should care about this because it affects our global trade policies as well as the value of the dollar. We routinely run one to two trillion dollar deficits per year. We've got upwards over thirty trillion dollar in total deficit spending. At this point, it's quite a problem. And who do we have at the helm? Well, we don't have a couple people at the helm who we really should. Long-time New York House Democrat, brian Higgins. Reading from the Hill is going to step down over frustrations in Congress. Now, I don't know Brian Higgins in depth, but I've looked into him a bit after this story and he seems like a pretty reasonably minded person and he's decided that Congress after 10 terms is no longer a place that he'd like to be in. He says that the house does not function as it used to, that is too polarized and nothing gets done, and so he's leaving, as is Joe Manchin, the very reasonable Democrat from West Virginia. He will not seek re-election and I know many of you probably don't like this man, but I do like this man. Mitt Romney is no longer seeking re-election and he's going to retire as well. Now, that may be because he was not going to win his re-election against his opponent, but who knows? These are people who believe in compromise, who believe in working through things. You may not like them, you may be polarized against them, you may have valid reasons for not liking them. Okay, fine, but they're all people who believe in dialogue and talking about things and working through matters. But who are we left with? We're left increasingly with the Alexandria Ocasio Cortezes, with the Marjorie Taylor Greens, with the Mack Gaetzes of the world who disrupt Congress for no apparent reason. It's as though now, if anyone comes to the table without a preconceived notion as to how things should be run and they actually want to listen and talk about the matters, we view that as weakness. Look, there are some things we should be clear on right from the beginning, like the fact that Jewish students have been blocked from going to class by pro-Palestinian, pro-hamas groups on MIT and other campuses. Yeah, we don't need to look into that for nuance. That's wrong. It should be denounced immediately. But when it comes to our deficit, our spending, how to orchestrate the matters of government on a daily basis, why not sit down to the table? Why not elect people who actually know how to dialogue with others? Do you know who your local congressperson is? I bet you don't. I bet you don't know the person who actually runs in your district. As I sit here now, I don't know the person running in my district. We only care about the president, we only care about the point guard, we only care about notable senators and maybe a secretary of state or two. That's it. That's all most Americans know as politicians Three or four people by name. You should know the person running in your local district. All politics is local. Start there. Well, okay, that's the thought for the day. Those are the reflections of the day, and we'll see what happens with Real Clear going forward. If you like what I'm doing here, please remember this does rely on listen or support for me to dedicate this time. I hope you'll consider going to realclearpodcastcom so that you can get more of this kind of I don't know, perhaps you call it nuance, perhaps you call it thoughtful, perhaps you call it clear, maybe it's all three, but at least I strive to be something other than needlessly polarizing. Talk to you soon, be well.