Yesterday’s AI Summit at the White House

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2:17Welcome to Real Clear Politics on the Making Kelly Channel. CERIUS XM 111. Welcome to Real Clear Politics on CERIUS XM. For Wednesday, September 30th, I'm Andrew Wallworth and joining me are RCP co-founder and president Tom Bevin, Washington, Bureau Chief Carl Candon and our RCP White House correspondent, Carolina Lumada. Carolina, you were at the White House yesterday for this extraordinary all day conference between the tech high brotherhood president Trump and speaker Mike Johnson, the result of which is this voluntary accord to put some guardrails on AI development. Trump says it is morally binding, which is an interesting turn of phrase. And here's Mark Zuckerberg on how he sees the document. The basic idea is that we want to give the American people and our customers confidence that

3:18the technology works in the way that we intend. So every company is building something that's a little bit different. Having one set of standards for what everyone should want to build, people want to do some different things. But I think what we can all agree on is that the American public and our customers want to know that what we're building is working in the way that we all intend. So Carolina, you were there. Does the White House really believe that these voluntary guidelines will satisfy voters? Is that the plan? Well, I actually kind of wish I was there. I was actually a little farther away at the Mellon Auditorium for this other event that was launching this AI federal website. At the same time, Trump was having his two hour long lunch with all these tech and CEOs. And then he brought them all outside to do spontaneous gaggle. I was actually very frustrated to miss it. But yesterday was really just the White House going all in on AI and

4:22trying to change the messaging slightly. The president still believes very firmly that whoever he says wins AI wins. But he's starting to grapple with the very low popularity among the American public and the concerns about what does this actually mean for humanity, for quality of life, all these things. So yesterday was his attempt, I think, to start rebranding it, repackaging it and show the American people who's trying to do something about their concerns. Step one of that was him launching this website where you can, it's powered by some sort of combination of GROC and Gemini and it's like a government chatbot where you can ask it questions and get the government services you need. Then he signed an executive order to have all the federal agencies work with this website so that by next year it can do a lot more things. You can apply for a passport on there. You can legally change your name. You can register to vote. You can do anything that you would need to go to the DMV for or an office for it. You could do online.

5:25Then he decided to rebrand the entire thing of artificial intelligence to super intelligence. So now the government standard is called SI and then he went and talked to all these tech CEOs. They came out with this accord and people are calling it sort of an accord, a constitution, a set of guidelines. What was really interesting to me is that Dario Amade was part of this group and he's the anthropic co-founder who wrote that essay last few weeks ago actually and said, hey, we're building something that can destroy humanity. He's been kind of the most fearful slash publicly concerned and he was part of that group and he the president pulled him out in front of the press and he said, hey, I still have concerns but I think if we all can agree to work together, we could do something about it. We're still not clear exactly what this accord means. It's very voluntary. It's kind of vague of will set up auditors. Most companies are not super eager to let other companies come in and monitor them.

6:31I don't know exactly where it's going to go but I think it's an interesting push from the White House to try to write the ship on AI especially close to the elections. There's a great scene in Pirates of the Caribbean when they're talking about the pirate code and they're asking, you know, you would hear the pirate code and one of the pirates says, well, it's actually more a set of guidelines. And I'm when I thought about it. That's what we're asking. What I was saying is so good. I was thinking about this. This is really just a guide line, says we say. Yes. And you know, you know what's interesting about that Mark Zuckerberg statement. A word that he did not mention was safety. He just said, the public needs to understand and have confidence that the things we're building are doing what they intend. Well, what if they intend to kill a human race? You know, but he didn't. He wasn't out in front saying, look, we're going to build something that's really safe. We're all committed to safety blah, blah, blah, blah. It was,

7:32that was not part of the discussion. But that's what people are worried about. And that's what I think that the Trump needs to, he needs to, he wants to, you know, get on the right side of public opinion, try and move the needle on public opinion to where the public is where, where he is, which is AI, SI, whatever we're calling it now, is the greatest invention since, you know, the internet itself. And it's going to completely transform our country in a whole bunch of fundamental and fundamentally great ways for the American people. And we need to be leading the charge on this full stop. You know, Trump says he doesn't, he doesn't want to throw up any roadblocks or barriers or strangle this, this technology. So, um, I think that's, that's what this entire thing was about. And we'll see, we'll see whether he's able to move the needle or not. I mean, to get the buy-in from these companies, as, as we talked about yesterday, just to have this kind of,

8:35this kind of summit where you have all the best and brightest minds on this issue in one place together talking, I think, is a display of leadership, especially when, you know, some of these folks are at odds with Trump's view on this and, and he's at odds with them. So, I thought it was, it was a good event, and we'll see where it leads. Carl, you've satisfied that these guidelines will save the day. In a word, no. I, I, there's two things going on that, that I'll comment on, and then I'll ask Caroline about something that Trump said. You and I, Andy, were both struck by the Washington Post editorial that ran the day before this, this conference. AI doesn't need a conscious and need you a leash. And that, the point was there's this, this idea that we're going to, we're going to, we're going to teach this thing to be good, but we're not good ourselves. We,

9:39we're still warring over religion and land and property and, you know, we haven't progressed in that regard since Kane's slewable. We are still wrestling with what it means to be human and controlling our violent tendencies. So, if we, if humans are programming this thing, it's this thing becomes super intelligent version of human beings or its own species, it's going to have our problems. And so, to try and teach it to just do good, this, this piece argues that that's, that's not the right approach. The right approach is to make sure that the way, the way it's program, the way it's built, it can't do certain things. And that, Davidia, sort of did a safety demonstration of this and said, it had set up guardrails already that the thing that it couldn't do with open a idea in the huggy face thing. It just couldn't do it. That, that this thing was built with constrictions. And I think that's, I think that's where the administration is trying. It's just

10:42to build a thing that does everything good we wanted to do without anything bad. That's the trick. That's the, that's the great question on which the failure of race depends. But meanwhile, China is not, they're not having this debate. And the president, G, has, you know, that's a country of 1.3 billion people and he has said openly, he wants to win it, he wants to, he wants to have the best AI and he wants it to be incorporated into every facet of life for every Chinese citizen. So they're just going headstrong. So as, so as long as we're, if people say we have to do this because we're in competition with the Chinese, that's saying something opposite than what these guys are saying yesterday, we'll, we'll go a little slower, we'll control it, we'll make sure it doesn't do harm. So you have this, and I guess my question is Caroline, and what, I mean, how does the president reconcile these two problems? We're, we're starting to take it seriously in a way that Tom described that I take his healthy. The Chinese aren't. So where, what is the president do about that? I think he does land a lot more on the, he doesn't have all these same

11:48concerns about it. His bigger concern is the competition with China. And I've heard the situation referred to a lot as kind of this arms race slash kind of new wave of the Cold War. Be careful. Go ahead, I'm sorry, Caroline. Don't let them stop you. I'm not saying that's what it is. Don't say anything. The announcement is no good either. Yeah, you can't even use space. That is the whole point though. Everyone has sort of a different historical analogy for what this is. And it's not, we don't have an equivalent. So we're kind of grasping for, is it, you know, industrial evolution? Is it Cold War? Is it whatever? It's something really the crossbow, Andy. I think Caroline is put her finger on there is no exact parallel. So stop trying to find one. But go ahead, Caroline. Don't let these guys stop you. They're crazy. But I mean, the president has a point that you do have to be concerned about

12:48what are our foreign adversaries doing with the exact same technology. And they don't have the same pressures in a democracy for using things for good. He doesn't have to worry about re-election. President Xi Jinping doesn't. So there are fewer public restraints, especially in places like Russia and China. So you do have to be concerned about that. Where this is different from historical precedent, those that, you know, with building nuclear weapons, they're not going, nuclear weapons are not going to just spontaneously overpower the people building them. AI could. And so there's just kind of this added layer. I think the timing of all of these events yesterday was very interesting because even the AI website that the government debuted is called America.gov, it's not finished yet. A lot of the things that they want to change about it aren't happening until next year. But they're kind of launching it in advance. The president only really started inviting all these

13:51tech CEOs in the past couple of weeks after that essay from Dario Amade and all this public outcry. There's been mass protests against data centers and flock cameras. These are kind of the surface level tensions to the broader AI concern. And I think a lot of this does connect to the midterm elections. And he's trying to create this balance of showing leadership, showing he can put everybody in a room, showing he can talk to people about it, and showing that he's not going to back down from his original statement, which was that full steam ahead on AI. Like we have to be in the lead of it because if we're not, we're going to be hurt from the various threats that we face. Now, whether that is a compelling argument and whether he's balancing that enough, I don't think the midterm elections are going to be the deciding factor one way or the other. But I think a lot of this emphasis even just in the past couple of weeks about it is because of the pressure of the elections. Yeah. I want to switch topics here. We got a little time left

14:55in this segment. And that's to talk about these Senate hearings yesterday with Jack Smith. We talked about them yesterday. They were as they were happening, but one moment happened that sort of transcended everything else. That was when Senator Eric Schmidt from Montana, he asked Smith if he had attended an NBA game in Atlanta between the Hawks and the Golden State Warriors. This was back in 2024 with the idea that Smith had gone to Atlanta to meet up with Fannie Willis. Turns out that Smith had actually gone to a college game in Maryland with the Iowa Hawkeyes. To watch Caitlin Clark play. So Hawke Hawkeye College Park Atlanta just to run the mill staff screw up. But here's Schmidt explaining the mistake afterwards. And then here's Amy Klobuchar, the Senator responding. This was from CNN. Listen to this. Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan? Listen, we had information. He was at a basketball game.

15:56There's only one NBA game that night at 730 tip off, which was the why asked if he was in Atlanta. He answered the question. So that's what these hearings are for. Yes, questions. I'm sorry. He accused Jack Smith of perjury in the moment and said, don't perjure yourself. And then he ended his question by calling him a dirt bag. Those were his exact words. So my point was don't call someone a dirt bag when you don't have your own facts right. So Tom, other than the fact that some poor Senate staffer is looking for work this morning, what's the significance of this if any? There's no significance. I mean, this is a uniquely beltway story. But I have to say, I grew with Amy Klobuchar on this. I mean, you know, you go up there and I happen to be watching at that moment or maybe I was watching the clip, but because someone, you know, oh, this moment happened. And he did accuse him of perjury himself. He said, you already committed perjury.

16:58Yeah. And he repeated that afterwards, actually. He's held on to that. He said, you've perjured himself twice. They put this, they, you know, they had the big easel with the big posters that, you know, blown up stuff. And he said, you know, what would you say if I told you, I had text messages and he's from your team from, yeah. And he's like, you didn't know about this, but I've got him. And it's like, you know, it was a, it was designed to be a gotcha moment, the sort of ultimate display of, you know, grandstanding in these Senate hearings. And he got it wrong. And then he also called him a dirt bag, which is, I don't like said total dirt bag. Where's the phrase? Okay, Carl. God, which, which is not, I don't like the, the language that is getting tossed around the, the Senate these days. There's a lot of vulgarity, a lot of curse words. And I'm guilty of that on this podcast. So I know there's a glass house issue, but this is not the United States Senate.

17:59And, and too often we have people that are getting loose with their language and getting really sort of personal and vial and all of that stuff. And dirt bag falls into that category for me. So, and to, and to do that, I mean, I'd object to it if he did it in any context, but to do it in the context of like, you just getting your facts wrong, that was unfortunate. And, and he should be, he should be shamed by this and apologize for it. He shouldn't be out there saying like, well, this is just, you know, we're just asking questions. Yeah. Carolina. Well, I, yeah, it's a shame that this isn't the, you cannot be serious Friday because this will be excellent for it. We got all of you. Yeah. This was a, it was a deeply embarrassing moment. And even there's a clip of, um, Senator Katie Brit just kind of sitting there watching with her eyes, why then her mouth kind of open. And she used to be a chief of staff. She used to be the person prepping the principle for these hearings. And she was realizing just how horrendous a moment this was. It also overshadowed the entire point of the hearing. Carolina, it's become a meme. Katie,

19:04Katie, um, it has. Yeah. And, and people put the her face on their, uh, ex account and say, and one guy said, this is my wife's face when I would go to my in laws and I have three drinks and start talking with a gay accent stuff like that. Um, people would have fun with it with her. But there, there are more people clipping that and clipping these embarrassing moments than they are clipping what Jackson Smith actually said, which the entire hearing didn't really come out with anything. Even if he had gone to this game, there's still not a lot to say like, oh, you happened to be at the same game in Atlanta with a prosecutor who was trying to go after Trump. Yeah. She wasn't at the game. She, it was this the same city. The thing was, right. Like, it's, it's unclear like what exactly his gotcha moment would have been even if he had his more general facts. Correct. Here's what made me really laugh though. Earlier that morning, Axios had a scoop out about how people were chattering about a potential Vance Schmidt run in 2028 and that Schmidt could be Vance's running mate. And it

20:09had a lot of anonymous sources saying people are noticing they have a close friendship. Vance really likes Schmidt's leadership. It kind of lends itself to the appearance that his staff is shopping around his image. They expected to also be able to shop around more stories based on this blow up hearing. Here's all the amazing things. Schmidt is a conservative fighter and it was all crashed in Burns spectacularly. Yeah. I actually, I, I, I, I, I think it's a significant moment. I think it's very bad for Schmidt. And I think that it sort of revealed that the hearing was a perjury trap, which is not news to anybody. But sort of revealed what the real reveal the whole game. Carl. I agree with that Andy. The other thing I will add to it is that it wasn't just in Tommy. I love you, Tom, but it wasn't just an embarrassing inside the beltway story. This is the hearing where they, these Republicans thought they could finally smoke out Jack Smith and re and

21:09and turn the whole narrative around once and for all that that, that, this guy was the symbol of this politicized justice department, maybe even, maybe, maybe even a, you know, rigged election. Yeah. The whole, the whole thing was symbolic. And they made Jack Smith look sympathetic to anybody fair minded, any person. And maybe some people aren't fair minded. He, he came across as dignified. He came across not as a perjury, but as a truth teller. And, and what, and, and I tell you, for me to say that I felt, and I've said this for years, that this, that he lost the plot completely. And then he got swept up in this and that this was an abuse of power by the special prosecutor and by the justice department to, to go around and see them, these criminal indictments of a person who did actions when he was president. And I, I don't, I don't know Jack Smith person, but I thought he was just wrong to do it. And, and that this was a, a, a, that he had helped precipitate a crisis.

22:12And I'm watching that. And I'm thinking, I'm feeling empathy for him. I'm feeling he conducted himself with dignity. And at this, that, that, that, that these Republicans to be clowned themselves. All right. So, all right. So let's have Tom to respond here. So, so, so, so, so, so, so, Eric Schmidt, like, you know, steps on a rake and somehow Jack Smith is absolved from, exactly. Yeah. In your mind, that's it. That's my story. And I'm sticking to it. Carl, come on. I mean, that's ridiculous. No, I, but I, John, I've been out front on this, all right. Yeah, we know. But Tom, go ahead. But, but no, I just don't buy the, I don't buy the, the idea that Jack Smith was, you know, a sympathetic figure here. I mean, make, because he, Eric Schmidt's got you moment, blew up in his face. Does not mean Jack Smith is a sympathetic figure. And what we also learned was that he had,

23:15well, he had not only spyed on members of Congress. He had spied on communication between news organizations and members of Congress. And then we found out after the fact, after the show yesterday, they did also, he had tracked down checks from 5,000 people who donated to Trump. Could anybody, like just randomly, you know, small donations, yeah. Who wearing up these information on people who had donated to Donald Trump? I mean, talk about an abusive, anything that looks worse after yesterday, not better. All right, we're going to have to leave it there. But I just like, it gave us an opportunity to talk about Caitlin Clark again. She's just, so good anyway. Carolina, thanks for being here. You listen to Real The Politics on Sirius XM. I'm Andrew Walworth. We'll be back with more after this. Real clear politics. Get more at RealClearPolitics.com. And on the Sirius XMF. This is the Megan Kelly Channel on Sirius XM111.

24:18Pennsylvania, the fifth largest state and the biggest swing state in the nation is under attack by national progressive billionaires and millionaires. Why? Because as Pennsylvania goes, so goes the nation. That's what Matt Breet explains in his new book, You Gotta Win Pennsylvania, called Entrepreneurs to Save America. Why entrepreneurs? Well, just look at America's history. Entrepreneurs found in this great nation. These were innovators banding together to launch an unprecedented experiment in liberty and self-government. Now, 250 years later, this same entrepreneurial vision is what will save America. And in You Gotta Win Pennsylvania, Matt explains how Pennsylvania is ground zero in the fight for America. But he doesn't just give the problem, he gives the solution, and that's you. You can be part of what entrepreneurs in Pennsylvania are already doing to win Pennsylvania and save America. Check out You Gotta Win PA.com to learn more

25:25and get a copy of this eye-opening book on how the future of freedom and prosperity in America runs through Pennsylvania. That's You Gotta Win PA.com. Welcome back to Reveal their Politics on Sirius XM. I'm Andrew Wallworth. I've got Carl Cannon and Tom Beben. With me, we talked about these ads that have started to appear earlier this week. They were actually over the weekend featuring President Trump with the tagline paid for by the US government. You saw them during the NFL game. You've seen them on some of the local or the

26:27cable news nets. The question was where the money is coming from. Now we have at least some of the answer. Let's start by listening to one of these ads first in case you've missed them and then we'll talk about who's paying for them. This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, marches and fascists. We will grow off the six political class that hates our country. We will route the fake news media and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all. So Carl, at the end there, there's a font if you're watching on YouTube. It's is paid for by the US government, which means the US taxpayer. Wall Street Journal is reporting yesterday that the money came from the Department of Homeland Security. They say as much as $2 million has been spent on the ads so far. What do you make of

27:31this and what do you make the fact that we now know where the money is coming from? Well, remember, this is it's a campaign ad literally. It comes from its 2024 campaign and two Democratic senators Chris Murphy and Patty Murray wrote a letter to Mark Wayne Millen, Department of Homeland Security because the money's coming from Homeland Security. It was in the big beautiful bill. It's not supposed. It's not envisioned by Congress to be used for political ads. And here's what they wrote. We should not have to remind you that using government funds to create or air political ads, like the ones that have been running over the last few days, is illegal and shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars. I think most people would agree with that. Tom. Totally agree. I mean, it'd be nice if Patty Murray and Chris Murphy had had the same same regard for taxpayer dollars in corruption when it came to like other programs in the US government. So little consistency would be nice, but they're right in in this regard. So give

28:33them credit for that. But this is less than the $200.000. Selectively outraged by corruption. Well, me. I don't like it any time. This is less than the $200 million that Secretary Christian Noem used, however. So if it's only $20 million, you know, it raises the question about the Christian Noem thing, whether it was the fact that he didn't like the money being spent or that he didn't like the money spent on something other than himself. So I missed the morning meeting because I had I had other things that I had to do and and I'll just let you know that Andy and Carl wanted to talk about this story when I wanted to talk about the other news from DHS, which was or foreign DHS, which is a Christian Noem filed for divorce from Byron. I poor guy. Byron big boobs. I'm leaving Byron. You're not going to we don't get to talk about that.

29:35That's the story that I think our listeners are interested in. Not the story that we already talked about yesterday or day before. You should talk about Byron or Sydney, or I stick to our move on because Tom clearly is uncomfortable with this story. We live on. I'm not uncomfortable. I gave my I said what I said my piece the other day. I said my piece today. I agree with the Democratic senators. I don't think Trump should be doing this. I don't. It is clearly a political ad. It is not a PSA and the government has done PSAs in the past. And those are fine. If they're promoting government programs or something like that, that's not what this is. He shouldn't be doing it. All right. Some other Trump news. He's sending $500 checks to one million Americans saying they were overcharged for health insurance obtained through the federal exchange. These checks will be arriving along with the letter from the president. The letter will say this for years. The Biden administration overcharged you to

30:36fund the operation of healthcare.gov. This is according to reporting at USA Today. It goes on to say that money belongs to hardworking Americans. Not the government. And now I'm returning it to you. Tom, this is again, you know, just good politics. I'm not waiting to be able to turn it on. And one other fact, let's add, this is also a political stunt. It was announced at the, by the White House, just on the eve of that midterm convention. And not to be confused with the $5,000 everybody will get if the bribe tried off for the whole country. Well. And this is clear. I mean, and the White House wasn't quite about it. They see this as as a as help to them in the midterm elections. Well, it might be, but Tom, is it, is it, right that he sends this letter along with this, this check? Look, I think Trump is clearly trying to,

31:39you know, make, pull whatever levers he's got at his disposal, including bribes and refunds and whatever. I mean, you know, this is something that has become more a part of our politics. Recently, you know, Trump did these, you know, these, remember these $1,200 stimulus checks back right when, what was it when COVID hit, I think, is that what it was? And then Biden did another, they were Biden bucks. And he sent, right? And he sent a note with his name on there. And people were outraged by that. It's, it's an, I'd prefer we don't have this, but it's something that is now ingrained. So it's not like Trump is breaking, shattering some norm here by doing this. I do think it shows, hmm, a bit of, of, I don't want to say desperation, but at least an acknowledgement that they understand that they are on the wrong side of public opinion on the economy. And Trump can

32:41stand up there and say, we're the hottest economy in the world. But that's not what people are feeling. Hence the, you know, hence the refunds here and the $5,000 if we win, they just signed up, auto enrolled. I don't know what was it like 60 million kids in the, in the Trump, Trump accounts. Yeah, Trump accounts treasury did that the other day. So they're doing everything they can to try and make news and, and send up the message to voters who are, some of them are actually voting right now early voting is underway in some states that they understand that the economy is, that people are hurting and struggling and they're trying to, you know, give them some relief in any way they can. Yeah, that's the question, I guess, Carl. Are these viewed as just gimmicks or are they, are they viewed as, you know, real respond to gimmicks? Yeah, Tom says, yeah, well, remember, at the end of last year, the Trump administration announced that it was ending these,

33:44enhanced subsidies for them for the Obamacare, which were never forced to be part of it. I mean, right. Obamacare was sold to the American people on just a whole slew of lies. Yeah, it's Carlos. I was trying to think of it. He's the L word. I know I didn't want to. Aronius assumptions. Lies, lies, lies, exaggerations. I mean, there were different gradations of the much like the pirate code, but go ahead. Yes, yeah. But, but so, but so Trump was being criticized. You're increasing people's premiums. And so this is his answer to that. That okay, but I don't think it's really the answer. The answer would be, well, we had Tom, you you missed it. Yes, but Tom, you love Obamacare. Are you going to say no? Andy and I talked to Adam Brandon says, Adam, yeah, yesterday, he's right got a new book out. He said he's made

34:45it. He's a former freedom works guy. He's made it his mission in life to address the annual debt deficit. We're running between one and two trillion dollar deficits. It's just mind boggling. And, you know, for for the these these last two presents to just shove billions of billions out the door, not having any idea where it's going. And then and I mean, and Biden's was in the, what was that or well, we named the inflation reduction act? It was a it was a inflation reduction act. Yes, it was actually an honest name would have been inflation steroids act, you know, and and and for this guy to do the same thing, I just think people are going to look back on this time and think, how could a whole country be so fiscally irresponsible? And so this the stimulus checks and whatever you call them, they're just a metaphor because in the and the metaphors, we've been politicians from both parties have been basically driving the electorate for years. And and Trump's sort of doing

35:45it in the open. But what they were doing is they'd pass these budgets and they wouldn't pass enough taxes to pay for the stuff they were spending. Trump's just skipped the he's skipped the hypocrisy and gone straight to out you know, straight corruption. Yeah, I mean, the $500 I mean, it's a you know, $500 million total, which is not nothing, but it's still I mean, it's a drop in the bucket compared to, you know, go to start somewhere. Yeah, that'll get you a couple takes a gas. Right. So the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece this morning. They asked voters through what they were really cared about in terms of affordability, especially. And it was interesting survey. Top three things that people cared about were related to healthcare. They want to pass laws to ban surprise medical bills, require health insurance companies to cover services in medicine prescribed by doctors. And they wanted a cap on prices for prescription drugs. Those were top three. Number four was a cap on credit card rates at 10%. Tom, they want to raise taxes on

36:48the wealthy. They want to stop large institutions from buying houses. So I mean, a lot of this stuff is just sort of, you know, tax the not me kind of stuff. It's kind of stuff you'd expect. But is there any chance that people would look at something like that and go, okay, okay, those are the let's try to attack those issues and get away from sort of the gimmicks that we're talking about. Well, what was interesting about that is it gives you an insight into the sort of horseshoe theory of politics, right? The the two sides of the populist coin. One side is Bernie Sanders from the left, the other side is Donald Trump from the right. And in some ways, you know, Bernie's answer to that is just make it all free, right? We're going to do Medicare for all. We're going to have a single pair system and all your health insurance issues or, you know, costs are going to be covered. And and Trump's argument was, you know, price transparency, less less regulation, those kinds of

37:51things. At the end of the day, I think what, you know, the the driver in all of this is wages, right? When people feel like they're actually putting more money in their pocket and they can, they can afford, you know, their their copay or their prescription drugs or whatever, it's rising wages that that is what people are after. And so I thought that I thought this was an interesting expression of that as people look around them and say, I got to, you know, health care is obviously very expensive, you know, college tuition is expensive, gas is expensive, all these things are expensive. You can have individual policies that try and, you know, subsidize and this and that. Or you could just grow wages in which case people feel better about, you know, their their status in life. Yeah. Carl, I found the whole thing depressing because it just was a laundry list of market interventions to distort the marketplace. And no one said, you know, let's reduce regulation and, you know, free the entrepreneurial spirit. I mean, none of that sort

38:56of green shoots stuff. It's like, I mean, I know nobody thinks like that anymore. I guess on the right or left, but, you know, there was a time when at least some people thought that, you know, if you just got out of the way of the American people and let the market let them participate in the market, that that would be the way we would increase people's lives. This is all market intervention. I agree with you wholeheartedly, you and I are maybe the last two people who in the commentary, who remember Jack Camp, Ronald Reagan. But, but you know, to that to your point and to Tom's point, if you if you step back and don't look at it ideologically, you know, what what Americans want is more free stuff, you know, Medicare for all was an ingenious marketing thing. I don't Bernie Sanders didn't coin it, but he certainly is embraced and popularized it. What does that mean? Medicare is a government program that you pay into. I've paid Medicare taxes. You know, by the time you start taking Medicare at 66 or 67, you've you've

39:58supposedly paid for nearly 50 years into this program. Medicare for all is not that. Medicare for all is socialized medicine or, you know, government and single payer, and you know, and it's what, you know, they have in Great Britain and Canada and Iceland and other places it works well someplace and not as well and others, but it's not there's no idea of this component that you have to pay for that you ever paid for. You just get it. Because according to Bernie Sanders, it's a human right. Well, that's an interesting thing because we've never had a discussion in this country at a political level whether good health care is a human right. I think most people would think it is, but but that but that bids the question. Who funds it? Who finances it? Yeah. Tom, wealth tax, pretty popular taxes on people who are always over a million dollars a year. I mean, just sort of, I don't know. I found it depressing, but what did you make of it? Yeah, look, a lot of this stuff,

41:03we had we had we had two serious shocks in the last generation. The first was the financial crisis of 2008 where people were really average. People were really hurt by that. They lost homes. They lost jobs. They lost your retirement. Yeah, they lost a retirement. I mean, they were really harmed economically by that. And it took them a long time to recover. And then you had COVID and where again, average people, I think were harmed in a variety of ways. And there seems to have been a situation where we've there's been economic inequality that's happened. The sort of halves have gotten more and the have nots have gotten less. And I think that whenever you have a situation like that, again, in part because of government policies and the Fed, Kevin Worsh talks about this like the inflation of assets, right? When you're inflating stocks and real estate, who has all the stocks in real estate? Wealthy people. So they're getting more and more wealthy.

42:03And the people who don't have a bunch of stocks or a bunch of real estate, they get left behind in this in this kind of economy. So and when you get that kind of disparity where you've got, you know, people who are struggling looking up. And then last 10 years have been a real, real struggle where they're, you know, live in paycheck to paycheck and trying to get their kids through college and all the stuff. And then you look up and like the, you know, the Elon Musk, so the world and others are on islands. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, making billions and billions of dollars, it breeds jealousy, it breeds envy, it breeds a desire to for intervention by the government. All right. Help, help, help, help equal things out. All right. We gotta leave it there, guys. We gotta come up and get, Kerry is telling me we've got a bridge. So real estate, real clear politics on serious XM. I mean, Andrew Wallace, I've got Carl and Tom with me. We'll be back with more right after this. Don't go away. This is real clear politics on the Megan Kelly channel.

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45:22Real Clear Politics A Neutral, even handed arbiter of political data. You're listening to the Megan Kelly channel. Unserious XM-111 Welcome back to Ritalia Politics on Serious XM. I'm Andrew Wallworth, I think my Carl Cannon and Tom Bevin with me. I want to talk about some Senate races. There may or may not be a debate in Texas between James Tallerico, the Democrat, and Ken Paxton, the Republican Fox News, has said that they would host a debate in Tallerico said that he would show up. But as of right now at least no response from Ken Paxton, Tom is Paxton going to show or no? I don't know. It's taken him a while to answer. It's interesting. Just during the break, I had gotten an email from Nicole Russell who's a columnist from USA Today who lives in Texas and she said, I'll come on the show and talk about

46:24Ken Paxton. It's not like, okay, great. Maybe we'll talk more about this tomorrow if she can join us. I do think it's interesting. I posted something and said, look, this can mean one of two things. One is that Paxton has his internal polls have him ahead, so he feels like he doesn't need a debate. And the other is that he's scared to debate for whatever reason he doesn't want to be on a stage with Tallerico. I suppose there might be a third option or a fourth option, but those are the two main reasons that you either do or do not debate. You either are in a position of strength or you're in a position of weakness. And to me, looking at all the publicly available polling, James Tallerico leads in every poll, not by a lot, but by a point or two or three, some cases five or six, it strikes me that the Paxton is, if he doesn't debate him, it's going to be because he doesn't want to be on stage with him because he thinks it's going to not work to his advantage, whether that's because of the visual contrast or being articulate or the dexterity or whatever

47:33the case may be, but he's making that, making that political calculation. Yeah. Well, Carl, you know, in Michigan, Mike Rogers declined to debate Abdel-Lsaid. And they ran the program anyway, and there was an empty podium for the whole time. And Roger said that the host was biased. It was actually me held by the local Fox affiliate. But the host is an outside fanboy. But in Texas, this would be Fox National News, and one report is that even Brett Bayer might be the moderator. So that's probably not an excuse that's going to fly. Tallerico said he would welcome Brett Bayer. He said that publicly. So you're right. This thing was an unforced error in Michigan. They probably shouldn't have aired an infomercial at the guy, sort of proven Roger's point, but he shouldn't have accepted it

48:35without knowing what the moderator is. But you're right. Andy Tallerico has taken that off the table. He's basically said he'll debate him with any kind of moderator, any name, Brett Bayer. And if Paxton, you know, there are questions Paxton doesn't want to ask about his scandals and his personal life. And and Calarico will ask them. And so yeah, but apparently, they're fair with me too. If there was ever a chance for, for, you know, Paxton to just absolutely nail Tallerico on all of his, you know, left-wing views that are so outside the mainstream. I mean, this is it. This is the chance to like be standing right there. No media filter nothing and just hammer him on all of these issues, many of which he's walked away from. I mean, like, and that would be something to highlight as well. I don't disagree with that Tom. And the other thing about Paxton is that what we're hearing from Texas Republicans is how frustrated. They say that he's lazy. He's not campaigning hard. He's not campaigning properly. He's not raising money.

49:40He acts like a guy who just thinks that he won the Senate seat when he beat incumbent Senator John Corne in the primary. And if Texas is a Republican state, he's been elected their statewide several times. He's acting like this thing's over. And the Republicans, I've talked to Texas. Don't think it's over. Yeah. Let's talk about New Hampshire quickly because there's been spade of interesting headlines. AP had that headline Democrats want a blue wave. New Hampshire is exhibit A for why that may not happen. USA Today said this could Republicans flip New Hampshire Senate seats. So new has a shot. Carl New Hampshire is pretty blue. There's been no Republican Senator there in 10 years. Hasn't gone for president. And the Republican in the presidential since 2000 what explains this sort of grounds? Well, at least reporting that John Senus got a chance. I don't know the short answer, but there's still a herd mentality in our profession.

50:43Do you remember there was a spade of stories? John O'Shoff is a demo. He's the hot thing for the 2028 presidential nomination that's still going on. Yeah. What did he done? He toned up his body and made some videos attacking Trump. He's not. Nobody knows anything he's done in the Senate. He's not not influential there. He's isn't. But this was just, you know, political writers doing the next big thing. This strikes me as that kind of thing because there is nothing in the polling that shows that that state is close right now. I mean, here's the last four polls inside or advantage. Pappas of eight New York Times CNN. Pappas up five. University of New Hampshire. Pappas of eight. Trafalgar group. Republican pollster. Pappas up six. The realtor politics average has at 6.4 because there was one mincephalodic poll. Early september poll that added a tie. This thing doesn't even look competitive. And then what I said to Andy and Tom was, I mean, you don't want to miss these meetings anymore. He was, if these stories say, if the headline was Minnesota and not New Hampshire,

51:50it makes sense to me because the polls there are close and you have a pretty left-wing democratic nominee, the lieutenant governor against Michelle Topfoyah, who we've had on our show once. She pretty, pretty turns out to be a pretty good candidate. And that thing is within one or two points. That's 1.6. So why, so why isn't that the state they're talking about, Tom? Tom? I miss one lousy meeting. The whole reals go. And by the way, Carl, if toning up your body and attacking Trump makes you a contender for the demomination, you're right in there. I mean, you could be the guy. Well played, buddy. I don't know about this. New Hampshire. Because Pappas, it's not like he's a terrible candidate. You know, he's well known. He's been a Congressman there. It's, it's, yeah. And it is. It's been a blue state. It was, it was close back in 2000. It was, you know, it was purplish, but it's been relatively solidly blue for, for some time. So I don't know what's

52:53going to, you would think in a year like this where Democrats are making gains in red states that, that the, the blue tide, if there was one, would certainly lift the boat in New Hampshire. But that doesn't, yeah. And look, this may be a situation where he ends up winning by 10 points. Who knows? Well, we'll have to wait and see. I was kind of skeptical about that situation anyway. Yeah. So does it be a case? Could it be, could it be, time just one on New Hampshire? Well, it could be just about the money that this is sort of Pappas's signals like, hey, you know, don't forget about me, you know, send me money. Yeah. Yeah. Pappas is feeling this because he wants the DNC not to give you some money. That's what I think that's something to me. They, they, they, well, why they're opposed to him for it. I can't, I can't tell you. Yeah. But, well, I could tell you why, but, but, um, we did have a whole show, the Republican ahead there, right? Which I think set off alarm bells. And there was a situation where, yes, Pappas wanted to, wanted to play that up to make sure that the state was, you know, people weren't caught sleeping at the switch, right? Because

53:54that happens. That, that's happened in, in some races in the past. And he didn't want to be the guy who was, you know, again, asleep at the switch when, when in a, he didn't want Democratic gear. He didn't want to be like the genius who told Hillary not to go to Michigan. Yeah. So, what about Minnesota there? That's where Michelle Tafoy is. She's only down 1.6 compared to Peggy Flanagan, Lieutenant Governor to Mike Waltz. Um, that seems like a more competitive race, time. It does. And, and that to me is, it's, it's candidate quality. I think Michelle Tafoy is running a very good campaign. She's very good. Her message is resonating, which is basically like, not even, you know, I'm a Republican. It's like, we need common sense. We just need common sense back in, in Minnesota. And Peggy Flanagan is, is A, she's super left wing and progressive. And B, she's tied to, to Tim Walsh in the, in the fraud scandal there. And so I think you, you put those things together. And that's why that race is as competitive as it is. Again, in a good

54:56Democratic gear in a state that's pretty blue, you would think that this one will be out of reach, but it's, but it's clearly not. And, um, I don't know if that means that Michelle Tafoy has, has a, has a real chance here, but she's certainly making it competitive, which is not surprising if you, if you talk to her, you're listening to her message. Yeah. She had an op-ed. She said, she said, I'm running to restore accountability, cut costs, keep Minnesota safe and protect women's sports. Um, so pretty good platform and fits the state, it seems. Um, she, and like you say, she's a, she's a pretty compelling candidate. So, uh, anyway, a lot of we talked about it. We should keep in an eye on Minnesota. That's our program for today. If you're listening to the podcast apps or watching on YouTube, be sure to subscribe, like, send us your comments. We do read them. It's great to hear from you. If you're listening on the Megan Kelly channel, stick around. Megan is coming up right after this. I'm in the wall with a Recall Canon and Tom Bevin with me. Tom will never miss another morning editorial meeting. And we'll see you back here tomorrow. Have a great day.

55:56You're listening to the Megan Kelly channel. Sirius XM-11. We're so glad you're here. Do you have diabetes? I'm sure you've seen the television commercials on the new CGM devices from all the top brands and how well they can help you manage your diabetes. Do you have the latest and newest in diabetes technology? The Diabetes Solutions Center carries most of the top brands and the great news is your insurance may cover most of the cost. Call our special CGM hotline today and our friendly representatives will help see if you qualify. You could get a new CGM from the top brands at little or no cost to you. Make living with diabetes easier. You are just one free phone call away to learn if your insurance covers the cost. So make this free call today to the Diabetes Solutions Center and learn for free how to get your new continuous glucose monitor. 800-438-1391-800-438-1381-838-1391-838-1391. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore.

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