GOV310 – In The News: A look at national politics through the eyes of Texas, August 1st, 2019

[0:00:00 Speaker 0] in the news.

[0:00:07 Speaker 1] Hello there. I’m Professor Shaw,

[0:00:09 Speaker 0] and I’m first McDaniel. Welcome to in the news for introduction to American government.

[0:00:12 Speaker 1] All right, so we’re kind of midway through the course right now. Week number three on the in the news segments, a couple of logistical items I just wanted to mention after consulting Professor McDaniel and our project director. Ah, first the in the news is dropping. This week is dropping a little later. We’re taping on Thursday. We wanted to get the Democratic debates in the can have those to respond to. Ah, but the assignment due date remains the same. It’s the one that’s indicated on the syllabus. It’s also on canvas. And that due date is Monday five. Central daylight time, not five oclock. Wherever you happen to be drinking a mojito on the beach somewhere in Tahiti, five central daylight time projecting my aspirations onto you also want to mention again to reiterate The second exam is on Wednesday, August 7th. Okay, so everybody make sure that if you haven’t got that marking your calendars, that certainly needs to be marked in your calendars. All right. Beyond that, things were progressing pretty well. Uh, You know, we’ve had a couple of emails kind of here, and they’re asking for elaboration on some of the comments on the in the news or on the modules. Um, you know, basically Chris McDaniel. I’ve been pretty consistent on this, which is, you know, first of all, read the syllabus, read the instructions, go back and review some of the videos that we put up explaining in detail what we want but just is a kind of nickels version of what we want. Make sure you’re connecting in the in the news segments that you’re connecting your responses to the material that we’re covering in the modules and in the web text. Ah, well, you know, a big part of what we’re doing here is to try to lay a baseline of knowledge, to expose you to broader theoretical understanding of American politics so that you can apply them toe what’s going on today. You know, as we said, it’s not a current events class, but hopefully we’re helping to give you some context with which to make sense of what’s going on the world. So when you see things, you know, you understand sort of institutional relationships When you see something that Trump administration is doing, you understand that, Oh, that’s a kind of a broader con conflict between the executive branch and the legislative branch or a court case comes down. You know, that’s a state matter on the federal government can only intervene if there’s a Constitution. Those sorts of applications are very important, and they move you beyond, you know, water cooler conversation and to hopefully, a better position to appreciate what’s going on. American politics. Okay, so with that, I got three topics we want to cover today, Um, a couple, you know, more sort of public policy items that I think will do first, that that’s a good Professor McDaniel cause Put the burden on him early on, and then we’ll talk about the Democratic debates. So there’s one Tuesday night one Wednesday night, but let’s start one piece of economic information and one piece of come public policy will start since Professor McDaniel, one of his many areas of expertise is public health. Um and so I came across this item and I wanted Teoh. Actually, I want to hear what first Dallas to say about it last week. Late last week, there was a couple of items that floated saying the Trump administration had decided they were going to try to pave the way to allow importation of prescription drugs, especially from Canada. On that, I wanted to pick your brain first. McDaniel I mean, what’s what’s the background here? I mean, is this significant? What? You know what kind of the issues involved and what do you think about it?

[0:03:40 Speaker 0] So the price of prescription drugs has really been a major issue within the U. S. More recently, California one a suit against pharmaceutical companies because they had actually actively worked to keep generic drugs off the market S. So I think it was like a $300 million win. But the ideas they had kept certain drugs, certain generic versions of their drugs off the market for six months to two years, which allow them to keep getting money. And we know the generics could cost less. We also know that the US will we pay for prescription drugs is much more than we. Then what’s paid another and other countries sometimes is even attend a one. And one of the major concerns about the about the U. S health care system is cost. And the idea here is that, OK, we pay mawr but are beginning better quality. And in fact, we’re paying mawr and getting either worse or the same qualities others. And so in some cases are paying 10 times mawr for health care costs and other than other nations but getting basically the same care. And so what we’re really concerned about here is efficiency. And there is this concern that the pharmaceutical companies have been kind of taking advantage of the way things have been going on have been have been happening and being able to make a great deal of money. There’s a lot of concern about the cost of insulin. Remember a few years back with epi pens where they think the price rose. I want to say, like, 100% you had the other where someone was Martin’s school. Really, uh, who basically raised the price. Something almost like 1000%. And so what you have here, or is this concern that pharmaceutical companies, one are making too big of a prophet and kind of holding on to things, and further they’re contributing to certain problems. If you think about the opioid epidemic, and so it’s a way of trying to curtail the power of pharmaceutical companies by importing some of these drugs. Now, one of the major concerns with this is that if we import drugs from other nations, that will the quality standards be the same? And so right now they’re focusing on importing from Canada. And so it’s not really clear how this how all this will work out. Part of it could be just a issue of posturing by putting pressure on the ah pharmaceutical companies lower the prices in the U. S. But this is very common for people to base to go to other countries, toe, get there to get their medications. And in fact, there has been really kind of a niche in terms of travel for medical travel, where people have found they can travel to another country on a have a surgery there on the because of travel stay and I think will be the same as would be in the U. S. And maybe even less so. This is a major concern about the U. S. Health care system and what and again when we talk about the health care system. There really three things we’re concerned about. Eso cost at access, cost and quality. And there’s a concern about a change in any one of those will change the others. And right now, one of biggest things is prohibiting access is cost. And there is the fear that if you increase access, you’ll raise costs or if you increase access without reason, cultural quality. But the idea of finding a balance between these three and I think that you know, the Trump administration. This is something that President Trump talked about on the campaign trail. And so it’s it’s important, remember that this is something that was a part of his plank in terms of trying to get out in part of its platform, trying to get us out. And now he’s acting on this, and it’s gonna be interesting to see how the pharmaceutical companies react to this really strong pushback against what they’re doing in terms, in terms of in terms of costing are in terms of pricing their various the Braves remedies.

[0:07:28 Speaker 1] I’m a couple of things just ah, you know, for our viewers, for our audience, um, most of this policy we talked about the Trump administration that the key element the key position within the administration with respect to prescription drugs is health and human services. And that’s Ah, Secretaries A’s Our A Z a r. I’m not quite sure on the pronunciation, but there’s also the federal, the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA, As Professor McDaniel said, You know, Big Pharma, we always hear about Big Pharma. These pharmaceutical companies that make you can trillions of dollars trillion has gotta be a word, right? CA trillions of dollars have opposed allowing cheap imports on some of these drugs from other countries because they cut into their profit margin. Presumably, I mean, the more you create market forces, the you know less, they’re able to dominate a market and set a price level that allows them to buy yachts and private planes and that sort of thing. Um, you know, the farmer uses the arguments. Professor McDaniel mentioned the quality issue, right? You know that the FDA, American drugs and the FDA as the kind of guardian of safety of the market, you know, make sure that only top quality pharmaceuticals air available to American consumers. We start allowing people to directly import from other countries that they don’t have quite the same amount of control. Well, it looks like Theis, FDA and farming have kind of signed off on a plan to deal with some of those issues, at least with respect to Canadian drugs coming in. I see this. You know, Professor McDaniel, that some electoral politics, a lot of public policy. I do a little public policy, but mostly electoral politics. So I can’t help but thinking of it in the way that Professor McDonnell suggested the last part of his answer and that is that this is health care is a critical issue in 2020. It was a critical issue in 2018 I think was one of the main reasons that Democrats wiped the floor with the Republicans in that election. Um, and Donald Trump is looking to not just satisfy his Kim is constituents into fulfill campaign promises. But to develop some sort of legacy on the health care issue toe allow him and the Republicans to be competitive in 2020 right? Because so far, the only legacy is they said they were going to repeal and replace Obama care, which they didn’t do. In fact, there’s some indication that country has pushed even further. You know that Obama care is now considered to mild. Ah, a remedy for the health care system is certainly on the left. That’s the sentiment, right? So clearly, you know, Donald Trump needs to do something to neutralizer, to give a better credibility on that issue, to prepare him for, you know, the reelect bid. Okay, So

[0:10:06 Speaker 0] one thing I didn’t want to add is that pharmaceutical companies are kind of seen as the big evil creatures in this in terms of their seeking of profits. But one thing we have to remember is that they spend a lot of money on research and that they may have again 100 different projects, trying to find something that works, maybe only to work. Eso a communicates the reason why they charge so much as to recoup the money lost from the other projects and but also the money to put into future projects. And so part of it is paying off losses from probably didn’t take a didn’t take shape and then having the money to invest in a new project. So it’s it’s one of those things where you don’t want to necessarily where again they need to make a problem. You want them to make a profit. But you also want them to make enough where they can invest, pay off past things but also invest in the future. But how much do you want them to make? And I think that is one of big, big problems with how much actually ah, a property they make in order to go in the future research but also is important. But get additional this. The US actually funds a lot of the research as well. The government funds a lot of this research so again they’re not on their own in taking part of these projects.

[0:11:19 Speaker 1] Yeah, and I think that’s it’s reasonable. What we want to do in a class like this is to try to point out, you know, that it’s not quite as simple as good guys and bad guys and the bad reputation that big farm has. And you know, I wish we were paid off by Big Pharma to defend them, but it’s a it’s a little overblown. For the reasons of Professor McDaniels, I would also just say I’ve done some polling work where we’ve asked questions about what percentage of people are. Just ask people that got a percentage. What percentage of people have purchased prescription drugs online, And I don’t know. If you know you guys is young people, you probably haven’t had much occasion to do this, but But we’re getting figures. You know. Between 30 and 40% of American City purchase drugs online in some appreciable portion of that, you know, let’s say, 1/3 of the American electorate that purchase drugs online. Some freshman portion is purchased through a foreign online site or foreign website. You know, the legal status of that is a little dubious. So if you’re out there wondering about, well, can’t I get drugs from Canada? Well, sure, the same way you can download a movie from Russia, you know if you want, but it’s legal. Status is a little murky at this point, So with that, let’s go to our second top. So that’s, you know, kind of pure public policy. Let’s hit economic policy here now. We haven’t got to this stage in the in the modules yet where we’re talking about economic policy, but to kind of give you a little bit of a preview. Um, I came across an article again late last week that the Federal Reserve Board is cutting interest rates. I’m gonna set aside what the Federal Reserve Board is that something that you encounter in the modules. We describe it quite a bit, but suffice it to say that it’s a national federal institution that essentially sets interest rates for member banks. And because those were some of the biggest banks in United States, the interest rates set by the Fed trickle down to us to consumers to people want to buy a home just to average consumers and what they did last week, for the first time in a decade, the Federal Reserve cut the interest rate. They cut it to about 2 2.5% points. It sort of varies depending upon the member institutions. So why would the you know, what does it mean to cut interest rates? What are they trying to do? Well, we’ve gotten a bunch of pretty good economic news In July, Um, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 224,000 new jobs added in July, which is, and it’s usually a bump up in summer, right that summer jobs, you know, they don’t tend to be terribly long lasting, but, you know, the educated workforce comes out there. More jobs, 224,000 new jobs. That’s pretty robust. Growth, Uh, adjusted growth figures for the second quarter were a little off, but over the course of the year, it looks like about 3% point of GDP. Gross domestic product is 3% point increase. That’s pretty robust growth. It’s not, you know, China growth in the early two thousands. But that’s a pretty strong economy. It’s a pretty hot economy. So this is an interesting move. Typically, why would you lower interest rates? You would lower interest rates to generate MAWR business. That is, to make it easier to borrow money. Right. Lower interest rates make it easier to borrow money so you can invest in a new business in development. In hiring, you could buy homes. In other words, lowering interest rates is a mechanism that the Federal Reserve Board uses to two generator to stimulate economic growth. Um, it’s a little odd that they would do it here because It looks like the economy is kind of going pretty strong right now. And in fact the Fed has been, you know, either kind of neutral on lowering interest rates or they even talked about raising interest rates because of the threat of inflation over the past year. So but here they’re actually cutting interest rates, and it’s suggest that they want to sustain the growth that’s going on right now that they’re a little dubious that it’s going to continue there. A lot of people I know some economists, one of the government department who’s constantly predicting the collapse of the American economy and freaking me out about my retirement. But there are some smart people who think that the economy might be running a little low on steam. And so, despite the good job numbers, despite the economic growth, we’re talking about jump starting the economy. One reason might be that some estimates have put second quarter GDP, so not the the annual GDP figure. But second quarter GDP closer to 1% on that would indicate an economic slowdown, and that might be something the feds looking at. So any thoughts on this or

[0:15:59 Speaker 0] yes, I mean One of the concerns is with the ongoing trade wars where President Trump the Trump administration is trying. Teoh is there, so it’s seen as a way to basically account for any type of economic losses that may come about also again, the economy is being doing well for a pretty long time. And you actually, you know, you expect economy to take a dip. It’s sick, it’s cyclical. And so again, it’s gonna do well, then so do poor do well and has been doing well for a pretty good amount of time. But everybody’s waiting for another shoe to fall, and so it’s kind of we expected. We expect the bad to come. Okay, we’re really enjoying the good. We expect the bad to come. Ah, and its people are expecting to come a little bit sooner and because of the concerns about really the trade war that is going on, that it may come pretty soon, and it may be fairly harsh. There been some of argument This has really been a way to, uh, kind of some get anywhere, maybe somewhat cynical. See, this is a way of banning off the Trump administration since that the trade war that’s being caused, but the Trump administration will not hit people as hard because they are. They’ve softened the landing right now. But again, you’ve seen this also in terms of bailouts going to farmers because of because of the trade war. Eso again, this might be that the Fed is independent while the president nominate individuals. Uh, it is independent of the presidency, but it might be reacting to again what it sees coming down the line and trying to adjust for those things.

[0:17:39 Speaker 1] All right, so just to distinguish. And this is something we’ll talk about again very extensively when we hit to economic policy in the in the modular discussions and lectures. But the Fed is responsible for something we call monetary policy, interest rates and things like that. It is independent of the executive. All of the executive appoints members to the Fed, including the chair. Um, we’ve also talked, and we won’t get into this. But when you talk about government spending, you know the government spending federal government spending tax money on infrastructure raising or lowering taxes. All right, that’s fiscal policy. So lava are focused historically has been on fiscal policy which the federal government has much more control over. But the Fed is kind of putting a separate category or been there in charge of monetary policy, and that is these interest rates and reserve requirements and things like that. They’ll make more sensory when we cover that part class. So thes air Both tools fiscal and monetary policy are tools that the government has to try to influence the economy. There a lot of questions about how much control or how much say monetary or fiscal policy has over economic performance and economic growth. That’s that’s a time honored debate in American politics. We just want to make you aware of it. All right, so now we’re gonna go to our third topic electoral politics and in particular, the Democratic presidential nominating process. So let me kind of set the table a little bit. You know, electoral politics is something that is near and dear to my heart. Ah, we’re heading into a presidential election year 2020 but we’re still more than a year out from the next general election. The Democratic Party is trying to identify its nominee, the person who will take on Donald Trump in the 2020 election America. This is sort of obvious, I guess when you think about it. But let’s let’s put all of this on the table. America is a very unusual system. We actually have to election seasons. The first season is where the major parties, the Democrats, the Republicans identify their candidates were going to run for office. The second is the general election in which those candidates face off and you’ll make their case in front of voters to be elected. Usually in a two party contest. There are libertarians and Green Party candidates. But because of the electoral system we have in the United States, the dominant parties air heavily advantaged. And that’s certainly the case. This time, the presidential nominating process is even more particular right. When we talk about senators or governors, it’s, Ah, a single election. So in Texas, you know, the Democrats are trying to identify. Can he turn against John Cornyn, the incumbent Republican for Senate? There’s a bunch of Democrats. Royce West has come out. MJ, Hager. There’s three or four, but there could be one election in March, you know, and the winner will advance and face Cornyn all Right now, the presidential process is different. You don’t have one contest. You have a Siris of contest with different rules held in different states at different times over the course of the winter and spring. Now why do we do this? It’s a long story. It’s a crazy system. Most countries, when when President Gang was. Certainly when I was in graduate school, the thinking was in America. America’s election system is very, very unique. No one was going to kind of do what the United States did this or two tiered election system where the parties had their contest and then the nation had its contest. Other countries have moved closer to the United States model Social, Democratic, socialist, Christian, Democratic right wing parties. In Europe. Many have moved to a primary system. They’ve allowed their voters to identify candidates. In that sense, campaigns across the planet have kind of gotten more Americanized. You know that they’re actually primaries in other countries, but nobody has moved to anything like the American system. When it comes to nominate a presidential candidate, nobody’s decided. Let’s have regionalized different institutional contexts, different rules spread out across some long period time. Okay, So why are we talking about this in August Of when the first contest will be the Iowa caucuses in February of 2020? Because we can’t wait. What’s happened is right now you’ve got 25 24 25 Democratic candidates. The one dropped out only to be replaced. So I still think we’re a 25 which is the most we’ve ever had of. I think the previous record was 1972 on the Democratic side. In 2016 we had 17 Republicans. So, um, and what we’re what CNN and MSNBC and Fox can’t wait for is it’s the middle of the summer unless you’re watching the bachelorette. Kudos to you if you dio, uh, there’s nothing else on TV, right? So they they love this because content and the Democratic Party has allowed, you know, the award debates to first NBC and MSNBC was the first Democratic debate. This last one was awarded to CNN. They said they’re not going allow Fox Toe have any. So Fox has been allowing the candidates to do town hall forums, one off town hall farms, which I got to say is pretty brilliant on Fox’s Park. The Democrats are shutting them out. But 25 candidates, each of who would love an opportunity to tap into, ah, large cable audience like Fox, delivers. Right. So you will see these guys, these women on Fox at some point or another. But CNN ran the second debate. Now there’s so many candidates with 25 of CNN basically told them, he said. We can’t have 25 candidates. We’ll do. Two nights will allow you to have 10 candidates each night, and they set a criterion. The criteria which you have to have raised a certain amount of money. You have to have a certain or certain poll standing, and they’re trying to emphasize breath of support. So you have to, you know, raised X number of dollars across X number of states, depth of support. So, you know, do you have 2% in the polls? And they’re going to keep increasing the requirements to exclude candidates as they move forward to right now, they tend to be fairly includes himself. 10 candidates Tuesday night, 10 candidates Wednesday night they randomly assigned them to Tuesday or Wednesday night. So on Tuesday you had just randomly Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for the first time. This is in Detroit were on the stage together on Thursday along with eight other candidates. On Thursday night. You had Camilla Harris from California and Joe Biden from the vice president were kind of the big dogs on the Thursday debate, and then a lot of other candidates hopefully watched a little bit. If not, we’re gonna give you some high powered analysis here. So winners, losers What were your thoughts?

[0:24:18 Speaker 0] Uh, well, I guess from my standpoint, I’m more concerned because I’m a policy person. I’m more concerned about the questions being asked. So d And so in this regard, I would like to say the losers, probably the American people, because the questions being asked were about How do you evaluate the other candidates? Not what your policy ideas. How do you value with the officers? So in many ways, it turned and kind of, ah into an episode of real housewives like, you know, I hate you because it is there. I hated because it became personalized. It became more about who are you as opposed to What do you think? So that was my major frustration. However again, you could clearly see that on the first night where everybody was trying to say, You know, Warren and Sanders or just too crazy, you know, they’re just bonkers, but they’re able to hold their own. And then again, you saw it last night where you see the continued, um, again criticism of of Vice President Biden, but also because Kamala Harris is raising the post. You thought you see people directing critiques of her specifically regarding marijuana policy. So to me, it’s, ah lot of his rehashing kind of old thinking again. It’s important because past actions are indicative of future actions. But it also gives us really no idea about policy gives about personalities and not about policy. And this is one of things we’re seeing in American elections, where they’re being driven mawr more by personalities. The reason why you see the rise of someone like President Donald Trump or even President Barack Obama. You President George W. Bush is the Guinness focus on personalities, much less focus on policy. Ah, and again, if you look at how the media treats a lot of things regarding politics, it’s about the game of the personalities, not about the actual policy. And so the actual policy ideas weren’t there. You have to do some more searching for that and be truthful. Part of this may be because they’re not that distinct in terms of policy ideas, and that’s why they’re focussing on personalities. But the problem is without, without discussing the policy ideas and so that there are some similarities you don’t really understand. Okay, what will they do when they get in office? You have an idea who would like to take a road trip with who you wouldn’t, But you have no idea what they would actually do when they govern. So that’s kind of problems. The problems I see with it. But I do think, you know, it’s clear that, um, Senator Sanders and War Rabel kind of hold their own. Is the moderates kind of look the other crazy? I believe Vice President Biden did well considering it, and I do believe Senator Harris took some hits because now she was seen as the rising star. And so people started gunning for her. Whereas before they were going after Vice President Biden.

[0:27:06 Speaker 1] Yeah, well, let me give you ah, for a little bit of context here I went white board on us. Dry erase board, you know? All right, so if we get it on this So, uh, this is taken from the last five polls, national polls, that asked Democrat people said they’re gonna put the Democratic caucus of Democratic primary. Who do you support or who would you like to see? Win. So it’s not always the same question, and I would encourage you guys. You guys are consuming poll information to be attentive to the specifics on how the poll questions were asked. But there, this is generally known as a trial ballot question. Right? If the election were held today, for whom would you vote? Who would you vote for, who you support? And here’s the average. So you guys see that Joe Biden, former president Biden is a 32.0% Bernie Sanders 16.4% Elizabeth Warren at 14.8 and Camilla Harris at 11.0. All right, now, um, I would actually suggest that there are tears to the democratic contest right now, Biden is clearly in the top tier. In fact, he is the top tier at this point. If you wonder why everybody is going after Biden. It’s because by the 32% no one else has broken. 20. David Axelrod, one of Barack Obama’s made advisers, had a great line last night, he said, You know, it is only in cowboy movies. Do people fire backwards and these guys air firing forwards at Biden? Right? Um, then you’ve got Sanders warning Harris, and there’s a little bit of separation, I suppose here, particularly between Sanders and Warren Harris. But it’s not that great. I would put thes cat these candidates in a second tier of categories, and so this is trying to make sense of what’s going on right now, and it is that it’s way too early. Everybody else is in the next here. No other candidate is averaging double digits Buddhist Church And, uh, Beto and Cory Booker kind of in that, you know, 3456% range. None of them have broken out. Is it possible that one will break out? Absolutely. Would I take one of these candidates or would I take the field if I were a betting man? I don’t know. I probably take one of these candidates, but the field is still quite possible right now, So everything, of course, is still up in the air. One thing that’s interesting is that Sanders and Warren, I think, are clearly competing for the same constituencies. Um, that is to say, sort of educated, white, liberal, Democratic voters. And you see this in their rhetoric? Professor Dan was talking about the kind of policy deficit going on right now. Well, it is true that whatever you think about Warren and Sanders, they have plans. Sanders has kind of more amorphous plans. You know, you guys might remember from a couple of years ago Larry David on Saturday Night Live had these great sketches. He was playing Bernie Sanders. He’s basically completely channeling Bernie Sanders in these performances. And, uh, I think Julia Louise Dreyfus was the guest host and she asked him in the opening cold in the Cold Open skit. Ask him eso Senator Sanders, You see, they’re gonna break up the banks. How you gonna do that? And Larry, David guys, pretty soon, I’m just gonna break him up and she would get But how are you going to do that? And he says I’m gonna break him up so he does have plans. The specifics are a little, you know, kind of in the wind. Warren has kind of sensed this, and Warren has come up with some very specific plans. I think of all the candidates she’s the one is the most detailed. In fact, it’s not only that she’s developed these plans in is articulating them. It’s become her brand. Her brand is as the specific policy wonk, which I think is pretty brilliant. So if you’re asking me what’s going on here, I can’t help but look at Warren

[0:30:58 Speaker 0] and think a lot of this

[0:30:59 Speaker 1] 16% that Sanders is pulling down right now. Bernie supporters are very, very loyal. But, man, I tell you, I would not be surprised to see Warren continue to carve out voters. And I think most they were gonna come from Sanders. I’m kind of bullish on Warren as a candidate in a little bearish on Sanders. The other interesting comparison is this. Biden and Harris comparison, because Biden is winning a lot of blue collar working class Democrats and African American supporters because of his association with Barack Obama. And you know, to be fair, other policy achievements he’s had that have attracted him to the African American community. But Harris, I think, looks at Biden. I’m telling you right now if her consultants are making their money’s worth, they’re looking at Biden and thinking that she ought to be growing out of Biden. That African. I think if African American voters since a weakness and Biden and since that Harris is coming, I think because of her chops as a prosecutor, she was attorney general in the state of California, which allows her to speak to, you know, working class voters who are concerned about crime and these sorts of things. Um, I think her natural constituency is a lot of the people who are supporting Biden right now, so it’s a little bit of an oversimplification, but at any rate, I think that’s kind of where we are from last night in the night before a couple of winners, I thought Warren continues to have a plan, a general strategic plan as well as his policy plans. I like she had a very good night. What happened on Tuesday night was all of the moderates, including people like Bullock from Montana, who’s a moderate, and some others. They came out and basically took aim at Warren and Sanders and said, Hey, you know this. Everybody goes to college for free. Everybody gets free health care. Um, you know, including illegal immigrant documented workers, illegal immigrants That’s not going to sell in the general election. And I thought they actually made a pretty credible case but war and had the line of the night. She said something to the effect. If I’m paraphrasing here, I don’t understand why you’d run for president just to tell us what we can’t do. That’s a great line. That is a great line, I think, was the line of the night. And she did nothing else. That line will get repeated, I think, in commercials. From here on in, Sanders was a little more screechy in his response and kind of got Flum mixed from time to time. So I thought Warren had a good night. I thought the you know, third tier candidates had a pretty good night. Williamson and Yang. OK, so Marianne Williamson, she’s the one who’s the Oprah Spiritually advisor, and she I don’t know how to judge her. I actually think she probably had a pretty good night even though I’m sort of of the opinion, I’m not sure why she’s on the stage. We need to consult the spirits to consult the spirits, she said. There is a dark psychic force surrounding the presidency, and at first I laughed when I heard that and then I thought, actually, that might play pretty well. Um, and so she had a pretty tonight and Yang, who is on entrepreneur whose single issue? It was sort of a guaranteed income, but he’s decided that nobody was going for that. It didn’t sound very good, so he rebranded it as a freedom dividend. I think he’s calling in a freedom dividend, and that seems to actually be helping a little bit. Um, he’s kind of one of these forward looking entrepreneur guys who he if he doesn’t have an agenda for the future. He keeps talking about how he’s the only one with an agenda for the future. So young and Williams said, I actually thought I did pretty well night to. It was really the Harris and Biden show with everybody coming at Biden and Biden started defending. I thought Biden did okay. I give him sort of a sideways grade. I thought Camilla Harris didn’t have a great night. I think, to the extent that people weren’t gunning for Biden, a few of them took aim at Harris, including Tulsi. Gabbard, who’s from Hawaii who basically called Harris on her prosecutorial zeal as attorney general of California, pointed out that part of the mass incarceration problem in California was a function of Harris is term his attorney general. She was very zealous in enforcing drug laws that lots of the Democratic candidate are now calling for decriminalization, especially of pot. And ah. And she pointed out that Harris, as she’d been very zealousness prosecution, had laughed in an interview when asked whether she Harris had smoked marijuana. And that was a devastating. That was a pretty devastating attack, and I’m shocked. Harris didn’t have a better reply. She had to know that was coming. Eso not a terrible night, but but not a great moment for Harris Biden, I think. David Axelrod again, Obama’s advisors, watching on CNN how I thought the best line, he said. The good news is, you know, that was probably the best Biden could do. The bad news is that might be the best Biden could do so. I thought he was sort of sideways all night. I thought Cory Booker had a great night last night. Cory Booker has been very aggressive in attacking Biden in the last couple weeks. Last night in the Wednesday night debate, he basically did. He basically said, I’ve already said what I need to say and then simply took an opportunity. Compare his record some point. Biden sorts. It will your record of minor, very similar. And, Booker said, I’m happy if you want to compare records. I’m a little surprised you want to compare it, which was a great line. Ah, great line. And he had a smile on his face and you take a look. Cory Booker. He was a senator from New Jersey’s former mayor of Newark, played football at Stanford. Actually, kind of came from a pretty middle to upper middle class background, and I always thought, there’s sort of sense he’s a little guilty about that. So he actually lives in not just blue collar but tough neighborhoods. Now has done so for quite a while because he thinks, you know he needs to be connected with the people in order to do what he wants to do. So he’s an interesting candidate. Hey, hasn’t really done much up till now, but as I said, it’s months before you actually have to do anything. And I thought he had a pretty good night last night. So little overly simplistic. I suppose you guys could get this sort of winners and losers stuff from cable TV, I suppose. But he came to us, so we’ll give it to you. Um, the big picture stuff, Professor McDaniel. I want to reiterate. And as you’re thinking about your in the news answers that you want to talk about here is America is just a very unusual campaign system we have. These two tiers of campaigns were spending all this time early on in July. It was July when the debates took place for a Democratic primary contest where the first actual election is, you know, the Iowa caucuses, and that’s not gonna be until February. It’s very odd, however, the debates have become important kind of precursors of the election, and they are consequential because Americans sort through who’s credible, who’s not. Do I want to give money to a candidate who my supporting go volunteer for one of these candidates and media has taken up a rule. The parties used to do this. The parties used to basically tell the candidates, You’re not gonna be the nominee. Don’t bother showing up, but they don’t do that anymore. They’ve left it to us, the voters and the media as kind of the intermediary, right? Is the organizer and purveyor of this stuff. The media plays a big role to So the media and the voters have been put in a position that parties used to serve screening candidates and deciding who should be the nominee. All right, so that’s the big picture stuff. Are we good? Anything else we need

[0:38:34 Speaker 0] toe on here? That’s it from I think that’s

[0:38:37 Speaker 1] pretty good. So I got a little long. Thanks for your patience. Hopefully, we keep you entertained and stay cool. It’s getting hot out there. Yes, it is. All right. Talk to you next week.

[0:38:54 Speaker 2] Government 3 10 and The news podcast is hosted by doctors Darren Shaw and Eric McDonough and is produced by the liberal Arts TS Development Studio and the Department of Government in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin