Paul Boardman on DeCoupling from China
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Welcome to Broken Potholes with your hosts Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. We have another fantastic lineup of guests for you today. First on the program, someone Chuck and I are pretty eager to talk to because I think you all know where we stand on China. We've got Paul Boardman, chairman of Decouple China Pack. You can follow them, decouplechina.org. Paul, welcome to the program. Thank you for joining us.

Chuck, it's a real pleasure talking about a very difficult subject. We need to move beyond the fear that China puts on us into action and to a point of actually we need to

uh... engage in even some humor uh... to uh... lighten the load of the fear that china when i think of china the ccp i think of all of the evil global empire villains that we've ever seen on any movie ever and combined into one in real life and i think you know that i ran for congress in the west los angeles district i was a g_o_p_ nominee twice

And if I have a few movie references, I hope you don't mind. No, actually, our audience loves that. So Sam and I appreciate movie references. It makes it more entertaining for Jamie and Kip to edit these videos. It makes it more interesting to edit the videos. And one of the things that's going on, Paul, Chuck, is I think one of the reasons that a lot of movies these days, frankly, just suck is because you're not allowed to have real villains.

Well, no. And it's hard with Hollywood being financed so much by China, but that's a topic for another day. China's big film this year was them defeating us in World War III, right? Yeah, exactly. So, Paul, tell our audience...

Why we should be concerned about China? And if you were in Congress, what are the measures you would take that you think are appropriate? And at the same time, I think what happens is just a lot of hyperbole. For example, I was talking to a friend this morning just saying NPR is completely subsidized by the government. I said, no, it's actually 2%.

And they were shocked by that. So a lot of times we get these statements and they're just these these broad strokes saying this is what it is. But what are things if you're in Congress we could specifically do to start somehow recognizing their threat to our way of life, to the world's way of life, and at the same time not overreacting to it?

Well, short of declaring war, which triggers a lot of specific statutes, and they have basically declared war on us, it appears that Congress is systematically taking...

the lessons out of that declare war playbook and starting to implement those acts individually. And you just saw today a pretty good one, I thought, by a senator from Sullivan introducing the Stand with Taiwan Act, which imposes crippling economic

economic sanctions if China militarily invades Taiwan. So it is true that whether you're Chuck Schumer or Todd Young from Indiana, you are in line with pushing back on China. That is absolutely happening. And that's really good news. You know, we can solve the CCP problem

i call it the global control madness we need people to sign our pledge donate boycott china made products and by u_s_a_ uh... at the couple china dot org i do believe the ccp is like a very very bad habit and i don't believe you if they will will stand with china and let freedom fall i do believe that america will no longer thank china uh... p_c_p_s demonic

degenerate, immoral, sordid, foul-worked slavery regime. And that's my belief, is not the American way and what the world wants. So here we are today. We can go through a list. You know, jihadists, they blow things up. The Russians, they play a chess game. It is really, we do understand what the Russians are doing, what Putin's doing. Almost all of us have a sense of what's going on there.

But China's MO is different. If I had to try to get across a point today, we need to understand their MO. The problem is when we understand their MO, it is so frightening that we don't want to react to it.

And I say, I just want to give you a quick movie reference. Thank you. Thank you. One of my favorites is Armageddon. I love this. I love this line. I just love it when Owen Wilson and Billy Bob Thornton are talking about the asteroid and

Owen Willen asks him, he says, you know, what's it going to be like up there? And Billy Bob Thornton says, 200 degrees in the sunlight, 200 degrees in the shade, canyons of razor-sharp rocks, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that. Owen says, okay, so the scariest environment possible. Yeah, that's all he has to say is the scariest environment possible. And...

So do we want to talk about the fact that Chinese cage people, they carve them up in their body parts and sell them? They want to create a marketplace in that. They're looking at that as a trillion-dollar marketplace. Okay, great. You know, you...

You don't do what they say. They kill your mom or your child. I mean, this is how they roll. This is how the CCP and the PLA roll. It is the scariest environment possible. And, you know, Trevor Noah, the comedian, has finally gotten into this, which is good because, you know, we look back at World War II and all the things that our parents and grandparents said about it. They had to lighten the load somehow because it was so heinous.

So you have to, we've got to get comedy involved here. We just have to get to a point in America where, hey, it's the scariest environment possible. We're freedom lovers. We're not going there. We're going to fight it every single day. And it is happening that way. So Congress is at a point where almost everything they talk about is a pushback on China. And so you have to talk about it in the PAC. My PAC is doing the small part, started 18 months ago.

It started 18 months ago, doing a small part, and we'll have a pledge to go to all the candidates out there, state, local, and federal, to decouple China 100%, and just give them an opportunity to do that. And that's the focus of the PAC. And there are a few other things we'd like to do out there raising money to do it, and a lot of it has to do with forensics and finding out who owns what, state by state, Chinese by Chinese.

you know, what they really own. And also you have to deal with how are you going to deal with the 380,000 Chinese students in American colleges. And it seems logical that the 2017 decree by China to essentially make them all spies because there was no due process. And they do have to report when asked. And they have to divulge every bit of information that they've ever learned in the United States. All their contacts, everything. Paul, would you ban...

Chinese nationals from attending U.S. universities? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It has to happen. It will happen eventually. You know, I think the one mistake, you know, I consider myself a free market conservative. And I've always had the philosophy, the same applied to China, the same applied to Cuba, that

That if you open up their economies, people are going to get a taste for freedom, get a taste for a higher standard of living, and they would see that, you know... That's where the Chinese were smart, right? Right. And so I feel like those of us who did it, it was a failed experiment on our part, which saddens me. You want to open up their economies, open up the opportunities for their citizens. And it's the same in Cuba. And I don't...

There'll be a debate for another day, but I don't think you can even justify what we did and that it had any long-term benefit other than I got cheaper products at Walmart.

and things of that nature. Am I wrong on that? Some businesses have benefited. We've never had a trade surplus with China since Nixon, ever. It's just not happened. But it has our trillions of dollars worth of, I would say, taxpayer investment into opening China has benefited...

some companies in selling into China or making cheaper products. So they have the cash. So you're really looking at 329,990,000 people who do not want to do business with China

And about 10,000 that do. And that 10,000 is shrinking daily. There's a lot of pressure on them. So how much – I mean how quickly can a lot of – Paul, this is Sam. How quickly can a lot of these companies start decoupling from China and get their businesses out of there? Because you can go back just obviously right before the start of the pandemic but even through it.

A lot of them are doing everything they can to expand like crazy in China. And from what we can tell, that is essentially another part of China's spying operation. It's industrial espionage. They're copying all the products that get made there very cheaply and turning them out. These companies are committing suicide, but they don't seem to understand that.

It's shocking. It's real. It's been going on a long time. And there are other countries that these businesses... Well, okay, let's give an example. It's not... You might make a flathead screw in America. It costs you, you know, I don't know, $5 a screw. In China, it's a penny. I mean, the profit margin difference isn't close. It's dramatic. Yeah.

Slave labor will do that.

No doubt. And subsidies by their government? Absolutely. So you think about manufacturing, it usually comes down to the tools. I have to make a part. Well, a tool to do a small run is $10,000. Well, they don't have those costs in China. So we have to have a scale to manufacture something here in the private sector. Over there, they have all those tools to make the parts paid for by the government.

so forth. So, you know, if you just cut off the trade, then it clears signals to all the companies. They just can't invest there. The part of the problem is this slow approach to weeding away from China. If they can just

put their money elsewhere. They can create new economies elsewhere. They can create economies of scale. These are large companies. They could go into Canada or they could go into a state. I mean, look how fast with the chip wars we see Intel and

Samsung and TSMC all rushing to the United States to build plants. Samsung, $17 billion plant going up in Texas. TSMC, $12 billion plant in Arizona. Intel is the one tied to our DOD, and they're doing a $20 billion plant. Just announced today in Columbus, Ohio,

You know, it's extraordinary that when there's a strong need, and in today's marketplace, the investors can garner a guaranteed return. So they're just waiting for the guaranteed return. Change the rule, they can operate and get their guaranteed return, put their money where it needs to go. If you keep this China thing open, they'll say, oh, it's legal, I can do that. So you just cut it off. And there's so many, you think about the millennials, the 70 million people

the 70 million Gen Xers, and then the $30 trillion in the baby boomer hand. And he says, okay, I need to get these people together. And you're looking at incredible people in the millennial and Gen X group who have the next generation of technology. Let them participate in this economic war. Yeah, absolutely. Paul, we have about a minute before we go to break. We're going to bring you back for our next segment. Thank you for joining us.

As all these companies are looking at this, should we not be focusing them instead on – I mean really have a campaign where we say, listen, we need you out of China. And if you want foreign operations, if you want those cheaper operations, the place we really need you is south of our border where you can help build up those economies, which actually might be allies of ours in the future.

Absolutely, and the incentive should be there. The U.S. Innovation and Competition Act passed the Senate. It's a $250 billion bill to bolster scientific innovation and compete with China specifically. It's hung up in the House. I mean, there are billions of dollars to do just what you're talking about. And I talk to these companies every day. They're just waiting for this money to go through. Paul, I'm going to have to cut you off real quick. We're going to break. Broken Potholes will be coming right back.

You're rocking in the free world with broken potholes. We'd like this world to be a lot more free. And one of the big barriers to that freedom right now is China. And we have a guest. Chuck and I are very excited to have on the program today, Paul Boardman, chairman of Decouple China PAC. You can follow them, decouplechina.org.

Paul, when we went to break, we were talking a little bit about some of the commercial aspects of what's going on with China. But you've talked about how China is waging essentially asymmetrical warfare against the West and what that looks like. Can you tell us –

I don't think people understand how pervasive and invasive this is. Tell us a little bit about that, if you can. Well, we spoke in the earlier segment, and thank you, Sam, about China implementing the scariest thing possible in the scariest environment possible, and they are. They've been planning this for decades. So you look at the elements of warfare.

It goes from economic and financial, business. I've heard often that this war with China will be fought. It's a white-collar war. That's interesting because that's on the ground. But if our businesses do not protect themselves, as we've seen, their intellectual property has been stolen regularly. That is a brilliant term. Yeah, I love that.

So, and illegal, they will send people to our country and try to initiate some type of

Legal action, though. A person will ride a bicycle, get hit by a car, and then, you know, just sue them. It's unbelievable the level they go to. You know, they're religious. My point is, if there's something bad that happens in the United States of America, just look to the CCP first. And if you look around the world, you'll see how they do this in other countries. It's quite astounding.

So and then there's SB9. If I can hold you up one second, because we actually are dealing with this quite a bit in Arizona. What you're talking about and around this country is that the Mexican drug cartels now are supplied with their fentanyl, the pills, the chemicals that they use to create all their drugs by China.

And they're trafficking in fear. They want you to know that it's them, but they don't want to get caught, right? So instead of shooting you with a gun and, you know, somebody hears the gun, they might just EMP you with a mobile EMP and fry your brain a little. I mean, that's how they think. I'm just giving you an example of how they think. So you have to be careful. We really need to be careful at all levels. You need somebody at every county level who's looking out to see what

what kind of strange activity might be happening in their community. For example, I just read an article that there's a strange disease going through the country, killing all of our rabbits. I mean, where did that come from? This is the kind of thing they do. They're trafficking in fear and influence, drug warfare, industrial, diplomatic. On the military side, sure, they'll use biological, chemical weapons.

uh... space uh... biggest did a deal with russia uh... to weaponize based on our space forces is pushing back against that terrorist convention anything that you can possibly think of they'll do it and they'll do do it simultaneously they're not invincible but they have a lot of problems over there obviously only to believe their

Their economy is going down. But, for example, they have no clean water at all. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Well, I think whatever numbers – I used to do a lot of work in China in the 90s. I think whatever numbers you get in China that they give, cut it in half.

You know, they use their GDP, but a lot of that is the public investment in real estate and roads and so forth. And it's it's sort of a joke. And we were talking earlier before you came on. You know, they have a basically zero covid policy. They're just not beating it. I mean, they're at the point now this week they've ordered the termination of 2000 hamsters in pet stores.

Because they said there was a pet store in Hong Kong where they had 11 hamsters that all tested COVID, and one of the employees got COVID. So they've offered, you know, they said terminate the hamsters. And, you know, and then they have a woman that's in one of the cities of the Olympics, and she got COVID, and they say she got it from a letter that was mailed to her from Canada. Yeah.

So there's just, you know, they just continue. And I got this this morning from the Hong Kong newspaper podcast. So they're just simply, I mean, you know, their excuses are about as valid as...

Democrats saying they never used a filibuster. I mean, it's pretty bad. The best quote I've ever heard about China is it's a 30-foot country. It looks really impressive until you get within 30 feet of everything, and then you realize it doesn't fit. Well, if it wasn't for the fact in a lot of ways, I mean, I think 10 years ago we could say a lot. There was a lot of paper tiger to them, but I think they have put the investment into their military.

which is frightening. And they are literally going out and playing Goodfellas and just buying these third world countries by saying, well, build a port. There was a country two weeks ago that missed their payments on the port and they just took it. They've been doing that over and over. Yeah, I mean, people are unaware of this.

They have to be aware of this. Oh, I think I'll immigrate to China. Not. Who wants to go there? I can't imagine it. Freedom. If China has its way, anywhere you immigrate is going to be China. I mean, that's really what they're trying to do. Well, that's what they want. They just want to turn it into zombies. Maybe a partial lobotomy is what they're up to. This is how they roll. We have to...

understand americans have to understand they have to become in congress does i can tell you that the in congress there together i like what kyle bass that uh... the other day it it is uh... fiduciary irresponsible to invest in china

he said that i believe it i mean that's just a great quote and general panaro uh got into it he has a new book out he was on the news a couple days ago and he was very strong uh in strident of course he's joining general keane and uh there's general spalding who retired from the military he has a good book out so it's all coming together and i question just as is it fast enough um

You know, are we are we responding quickly? Is there enough of a sense of an urgency that we're actually at war? I mean, I don't think most people understand that we are at war. But it's a white collar war. He just said it. I mean, I really don't. I don't feel. Now, that's the interesting thing, Paul. And I'll ask you this question. Do you have kids? Do you have kids? I do. Two boys. How old are they? Nineteen and seventeen. So I have a 19 year old. I'm unwilling to send my son to go fight and save Taiwan.

Right. Are you? Right. Are you there? I'm not there.

And so I don't think it's that kind of war. And that's why I like hearing that you're saying it's a white collar. And I've always felt it's not a military exercise we're going to have. They're going to do the things we're doing, and they're going to play mobster with third world countries and cut off opportunities we have there. They're going to try to encroach upon Central American countries with loans and money and buy them off. And, yeah, the Taiwan situation is interesting. I don't believe China wants to go to war. I think, you know.

They're spreadsheet people. They're going to look and say, that doesn't have a good return.

Right? That's what they want. I agree. And I like your, you said the mobster, their approach, the way you said that. And we're, interestingly enough, I think we're doing the right thing with Taiwan, with arming them. Right. We continue to go through the South China Sea and we have great relations with Quad. So a lot of really good things are happening. Japan is obviously pushing back. And so it looks, I mean, that, you know, if we keep, keep,

Keep increasing that. We should be good. Boy, really, China does not want trade cut off with the U.S., and they do not want us to kick out their students from our schools. They want the credibility of our institutions. What they want is hundreds of Ivy League

Chinese people out there so that the world listens to them and just does what they want. And their entire economy is built on the trade deficit with us in Europe. Paul, we just got 30 seconds before you go to break. Tell people again how they can follow you, how they can keep in touch and stay up with Decouple China.

I really appreciate it. DecoupleChina.org. And we'll put up a pledge soon. And, you know, boycott China-made products, buy USA, and donate to Decouple China PACs so we can get that pledge out and hold our legislators accountable in the 2022 election. Perfect. Paul Boardman, Decouple China, thank you so much. Broken Potholes, coming right back.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes with your host Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. On the line with us, our second guest today, and thank you for joining us, Harris Alec, reporter for The Washington Times covering Congress. Before joining the paper, he worked at Breitbart News, was the lead political reporter covering President Joe Biden in the 2020 campaign. He's deeply familiar with this White House, and it has been a pretty rough week for this White House, hasn't it, Harris?

Absolutely. Well, this week we saw the president go out and do a almost two-hour press conference, which I think left people more befuddled and confused about where the administration stood than before.

before, but more importantly, the administration faced two really, really strong defeats on Capitol Hill within the Senate. It pushed to rewrite the nation's voting laws, and then also it pushed to jettison the filibuster, or at least remake the filibuster, to get those voting laws passed. This was a

essentially a uh... uh... self-effacing defeat because democrats really didn't have to push this at all but they opted to even though they face significantly more about uh... the voting bill that we will uh... you know break through the filibuster no matter what happened that's just uh... justice the fact that i think from uh... the simple uh... reality the democrats only have fifty fifty senate and

They have an eight-seat majority in the House, and they're governing it if they had 60 seats. And similarly, for the filibuster to remake it or create a carve-out for this voting rights bill, they needed to have all 50 Democrats on board. Senator Siena from the great state of Arizona and Senator Joe Manchin from the great state of West Virginia were always going to be holdouts on remaking the filibuster. They were always going to be

potentially opponents of it. And the White House just kind of ignored this. I mean, President Biden went to the Hill himself two weeks ago and he attempted to convince them on this, but this was something they were never going to do. And fundamentally, I mean, the White House here could have focused on other priorities. They could have started the year off

Manchin is talking about revising the Trump era tax cuts. There's some talk about doing something on inflation. But the White House kind of went for this big above board gesture that really only appeals to the Democratic Party's core base. And it just fell flat on its face. It didn't live up to the realities of governing in a narrowly controlled Congress. Harris, this is Chuck Warren. I have a question about Biden going to the Hill two weeks ago.

In the is it 30 plus years he served in the U.S. Senate, right? It was that long. Am I wrong on that or is it a little bit less than that? I think it's about 30, 30 plus years, maybe like 36 or 38. So in those 30 plus years, did he ever serve in leadership where he was able to be a whip or majority leader to count votes?

No, he did not. His highest positions were obviously chairman of foreign relations and chairman of judiciary. And I said it's very, very obvious here. Look, he's

He's served in that body for 30-something years, and time and time again, he can't seem to get all of his ducks in a row. I was talking to former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott about this last weekend. He said that if you're a president, you never go to the Hill unless you're 100% sure that you've got the votes there, because the last thing you want is...

his senators to rebuke you because, you know, you don't run for the Senate unless you want to have some influence, unless you want to be able to play the parlor games in Washington, D.C. And, you know, Biden,

At one point, I assume, understood that, and why you would give the Senate all this influence, all this power, and all this ability to control the narrative is leaving a lot of people flummoxed, and that's exactly what he's doing. He's not counting the votes. He's pursuing positions and pursuing bills that just have no popular political support. Well, Harris, it's just strange that a man that served 30-plus years, never held leadership, never had count votes, never had to lobby or twist arms,

at his age, thinks that he has this charm and this persuasive skills to go up there and change these minds. It's unfathomable what he's done. Well, a lot of people are certainly saying that. And I think, you know, more broadly, there's something here that has to be considered. You know, as you said, Biden served in the Senate for so long. You know, he knows what that institution is like. He knows that one of the last places that you want to be is between a

one member of the senate and you know the potential for them to get some media attention the potential for them to be able to stare down a president and say you know do you think you have an agenda well in reality i'm going to be the one who's going to set the agenda i'm going to be the one who's going to influence your policies and manchin and fianna understand that you know to their benefit

They understand that their time in the spotlight is only probably going to last until the end of this year if Republicans retake the Senate. But they're using all of their influence to guide the administration's agenda to set the political discourse in this country. And, you know, it's just unfathomable that Biden doesn't realize that, considering that he –

himself probably once used all of the privileges of the United States Senate to do the exact same thing. Correct. Harris, we have only about 40 seconds before we go to break. We'll bring you back for the next segment if you've got the time. We really appreciate it. Sure. You know, one thing I don't understand, and I don't know Joe Manchin, but I do know Kirsten Sinema a little bit. The approach of trying to badger and batter these two down seems completely doomed to failure from the start, given their personalities.

And I wonder if the White House knows that. We'll talk about it a little more after the break. Broken potholes coming right back. The political field is all about reputation. So don't let someone squash yours online. Secure your name and political future with a yourname.vote web address from GoDaddy.com. Your political career depends on it.

Welcome back to Broken Potholes. This is your favorite host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone here with you today. We're with Harris Alec of The Washington Times. Harris, we were talking a little bit between the break about Democrats. There's a sense among some of them, unless they pass this broad sweeping federal election law, that they won't win an election again. I think one of the funniest things in America after every election is whoever wins, the papers come out and say, this is the demise of this other party.

And I don't you find that just ridiculous every cycle that whoever loses all hell is breaking loose. They're going to lose will never win again. I mean, it's so cyclical in this country. And then what happens is the one side that gets in that thinks all of a sudden we have this super majority and we're going to win forever. They commit all these cardinal sins to turn them away. The Democrats have been a perfect example with this, what they've done on crime, inflation, voting rights. It's it's remarkable, don't you think?

Absolutely. Well, I think there's an old saying in politics that, you know, you win an election and you spend two years essentially eviscerating the support of all the people who voted for you in the first place. And, you know, Democrats did that in 94. They did that in 2008. So, you know, it's something to really consider because they always have a tendency to go well out of the mainstream. And then, you know, there's kind of a course correction and,

Usually the other party does really, really well in the first two years of a midterm of a new president. With this voting bill, though, I think it's important to remember, look, there's a lot of apocalyptic language that's being used by Democrats to justify, you know, striking down some of the laws that you've seen go into effect in Arizona and in Georgia. And I think this has been a particularly tough sell to someone like Joe Manchin, someone like Kristen Sano, because they represent, you know, purple to white.

in the case of West Virginia, a very, very conservative state. You know, they're not worried about the state legislatures drawing an electoral district or writing electoral laws that are going to vote them out because they already know they're going to face tough re-elections. I mean, you know, the NMO is going to have a tough re-election battle no matter what in 2024. That's going to be a prime swing state. It's going to be a prime swing state the Republicans will be going after. Manchin represents a state that voted for President Donald Trump in 2020 by the second highest margin of any other state except for Wyoming.

So when they go home and when they look at these election laws, you know, they view it as, well, I'm not necessarily really worried about losing. I'm worried about offending my conservative-leaning constituency. So they didn't really see this voting rights bill as, oh, my God, if we don't pass this, we're going to get drawn out. It's more of like, well...

Are my voters going to see this as a power grab? What are my voters going to see like this? And, you know, they're not worried about that. They're messaging to a conservative rural constituency. Well, it's also both their personalities, which people seem to forget about. So Manchin just, I mean, he's going to do what he says he's going to do. I keep telling this when reporters call me about Kristen Sinema. This is a woman who went to BYU as a bisexual woman. How?

had the highest scholarship you can get at BYU, and graduated from here. She's not a woman that can be pushed around. Why they think she bends when she goes and who she is and goes to a religious conservative university and thrives...

It doesn't change who she is. It's just it's remarkable to me. They don't realize about her in mansions. The only Democrat in the country who could win his seat. So the only reason they have 50 votes and aren't the Senate minority is because Joe Manchin is a Democrat in a state where no other Democrats getting elected statewide. No, no.

Absolutely. And I mean, I think, you know, this is kind of proof that, you know, Democrats are, you know, have a lot of issues when it comes to governing. They've got two moderate senators who, you know, again, represent, you know, constituencies that are so different from where the majority of the Democratic Party is. And, you know, they think that if you bully and if you shout and if you try to intimidate, you can, you know, win these people over. And I think, you know, to their detriment, I think they've assumed that, man,

Manchin and CMMA are going to be mainline Democrats who are going to be able to push over if the president gives them a call. If the president votes, the fact that you've got to stand by your party, you can't disappoint a new president of your party when he comes in. You can't necessarily blow his agenda to bits.

uh... and mentioned to them obviously don't feel that way you know they feel like they're effective which would be like you know they are are representing a uh... in very very different view and i think democrat the kind of struggle to realize that well hey you know if we have all the grand ambition they should be a person should be pragmatic and work on things that we can do you know management repeatedly that you know he he said that i think to maybe his political detriment he said that you know he wants to rework the trump era tax cuts uh...

because he thought they were too geared towards the wealthy. Siena, you know, came out earlier this last year when they were debating Build Back Better, and she said she was in favor of raising some taxes, not necessarily income or business taxes, but, you know, doing a wealth tax and stuff like that. So that's something that the Democrats could probably do along the party line next month.

easily if there's consensus on this, and they could push it as, well, this is fighting inflation, this is giving us more money for other stuff, but they're not doing that. They're going for the big picture items, and they think that, well, we can just push everyone along, and obviously Manchin and Tanner are saying, well, no, we represent...

I'm afraid for 20 million senators, 20 million individuals between us. I'm afraid that that Manchin and Sinema might listen to this podcast and take the advice I'm about it. Democrats in general take the advice I'm about to give them because then they would do all sorts of things I don't want. And Chuck, I'm sure you don't want either. But shouldn't the White House and the leadership in both houses sit down with Manchin and Sinema and say, hey, just give us a list of the stuff you want and we'll go do all of that. Yeah.

You know, I think that's already happened from my understanding of the conversations that have been had. You know, Senator Manchin gave Majority Leader Schumer a list of what he would have taken in Build Back Better. He gave that same list to the White House. And, you know, they rejected it because they thought, well, you know, we're going to go bigger and we're going to go bolder. The problem fundamentally is that, you know, the White House and Democrats, again, have this kind of collective mentality that, you know,

uh... you you can let your side down mentioned in the obviously don't so if you don't think you don't have you know individuals that better that in a funny way they're they're really kind of the last and embodiment of the democratic side of what the time used to be which used to be you know a chamber made up of individuals representing you know their constituencies pushing both back to their state pushing what they thought was best you know sometimes working across party line sometimes carrying down your own party

uh... and that's me that i i i think democrats just plummet by right now could be a big thing all you know how how can't be an amount of what was going to buy one token mansion not what was needed uh... by one thing to again their benefit the federal acting have come out and now they've got a little in favor of the from democrats if you don't say well that's not good enough for us we want more and then you know they throw around this rhetoric well management the animal and saying you know what is that they want we don't know where they stand

At least in my opinion, you know, I haven't covered Senator Siena all that much in depth, but at least when it comes to Senator Manchin, he's been pretty, you know, forthright. Even this week, he said, you know, let's do something on inflation, let's do something on taxes, let's do something on Ukraine and geopolitical situation, and we'll come back and we'll deal with Build Back Better. And Biden and the White House say, well, let's do Build Back Better as soon as the budget's done. You know, they're not necessarily listening to who they need to listen. They're living in a world where

agrees with them or everyone should agree with them at least and you know it's not realistic and it's kind of I think it's kind of ironic because by

Biden campaigned as this guy in 2020 who's been able to make Congress work, who's going to be realistic, who's going to restore bipartisanship. And he's not really governing like that at all. And again, as I said earlier in the show, you know, there are issues that, you know, they can get Manchin on taxes. There are issues they can get Siena on. But they're just not pursuing those because those issues aren't what the Democratic Party's base wants. And for the majority of the party, what the base wants is all that matters.

Well, and thank you for the segue into Biden, because I have a question about this. And I think what the White House lives in is a Twitter orbit. I mean, they follow whatever angry white college educated individual with time on a laptop or iPhone all day is just tweeting out. I mean, those are just such angry, bitter people. It's quite remarkable. But you cover Biden in 2020. And there's always this narrative that

Joe will reconcile all our hates. He will make us warm. We'll all have a group hug. After watching him in 2020, take his current year out as president. As you watched him in 2020, what did people misunderstand about Joe Biden that you saw on the campaign trail?

or in his basement? Well, I think, you know, and I'll address your initial statement there, you know, the White House absolutely cares whatever the Twitter sphere is doing. And it's really, again, ironic because Biden wouldn't have won the Democratic nomination if he listened to whatever Twitter was doing. Correct. Because of the fact that he was not loved by, you know, the white college-educated liberals on Twitter. All those guys were in favor of Bernie, Warren, you know, whoever else. They hated him.

He won because he tapped into something within the Democratic Party, at least, that, you know, was going against whatever the Twitter sphere wanted. Now that he's in office, though, the situation is absolutely reversed. I mean, you know, his chief of staff, Ron Crane, spends more time, I think, on Twitter than he does on the White House email service. I don't know if that's true, but it only seems like it. Seems like it, yeah. So one thing that I will say about Biden that became very, very apparent,

during the protests with George Floyd after the tragic death of George Floyd and police custody in 2020, you know, it became apparent right then and there that for all of his talk about standing up to, you know, the core base of the Democratic Party that he talked about in the primaries, for all of his talk about, you know, not necessarily embracing proposals like Medicare for all. When it came to that issue, when Biden was the nominee, you know, he

He essentially did whatever the core party base wanted him to. He didn't necessarily call out a ton of the riots until, well, until they were after. He stood by the party on that issue. He stood by the activists.

And I think, you know, I think potentially that was to his detriment overall, because I think a lot of voters, you know, maybe heading after the pandemic were seriously considering him. And then they saw his response to the rioting and the protests. They were like, well, can we really vote for this guy? And I think that's why the election was as close as it was, apart from, you know, a lot of the shoddy protests.

you know, laws that were created just during the midst of the pandemic. But I think more broadly, you know, that was to me when it kind of became crystal clear that, you know, for all of this talk, Biden was not necessarily going to be someone who's actually going to stare down this activist base in the party, you know, this wokeism that was essentially destroying the Democratic Party, making it unpalatable to a lot of voters.

That was when that realization became crystal clear to me. I think as we've seen now with his embrace of specific issues in Congress and his willingness to ignore issues that actually have bipartisan support, I think we're seeing that this is very much a president who, if not as beholden to the core activist values

left in the Democratic Party is at least understanding that, you know, this is these are his people. I mean, to an extent, he's not Bernie Sanders, but he's not Joe Manchin either. Well, I think I think Bernie Sanders actually believes what he says. I mean, you know, how can a country have faith in a president who can't stare down Joy Reid on MSNBC and we expect him to handle Russia and Ukraine?

I mean, I just think he goes along to get along to stay where he's at. I mean, he's a perfect example of a wormy politician in a lot of ways. And I hate to say that about a president. And I think Joe Biden is probably a good guy in a lot of ways. But he has he apparently has no backbone to stand up for what he believes is. I don't think at the end of the day.

his political ideology is what he's governing with right now, but staying in power is his number one priority. It's, it's, it's. Well, and I actually wonder if this failure to live up to being a unifier hurts Democrats going forward, because how do you have anyone who carries that message? We just have short memories in this country. I mean, good grief. Six months from now, it'll be something else. I don't know. I don't know. Sam? I would, I would personally say that I think the, the issue,

fundamentally with Biden is that, you know, I think I think had he won in 1988, he probably would have been a, you know, a decent president at that point in time, because, you know, he was still very, very much moderate. And if you, you know, if the Biden of the 80s and the early 94, you know, in the early 90s, the guy who worked with Democrats and Republicans on the crime bill who worked, you know, who understood the issues that matter to average voters, I think it's

I think if that Biden was in the White House right now, he'd be a lot more successful. I think that Biden would, you know, look at the 50-50 makeup of the Senate and say, well, I can't get what Bernie wants, but I can sure as hell get what, you know, Stan Amant mansion will let me have, and I'll take the win on that and I'll move forward. And, you know, I'll, you know, I won't let the good be the enemy of the perfect or the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think that, I think that president would be a lot more successful. I think, however, that, you know,

as you said, Biden understands that the Democratic Party is moving left. I think he understands that he has an environment where the media is going to give him cover for the things that he chooses to do. And I think he understands that, you know, even though the reality on Capitol Hill is that you've got two moderate Democrats who essentially control the agenda, the reality within the Democratic Party is that is not absolutely the case at all. The party's moving to the left. And

I think he understands just given how difficult the 2022 elections are going to be that he needs the party-based motivation. I think that's why he's pushing a lot of these law topics. We've only got about 20 seconds left. If I can get you real quick to tell people how to follow you, this has been a fantastic conversation. We'd love to have you back on again.

Sure, it's been a pleasure, guys. Would love to be on any time. Your audience can follow me on Twitter at RealHarrisAlec, and they can also look at my articles on The Washington Times website. Fantastic. Harris Alec from The Washington Times, thank you so much for joining us today. Broken Potholes will be back on the radio next week, but be sure to tune in if you're listening on our podcast, and if you're not, download our podcast. We do one extra segment. Broken Potholes, back next week. ♪

Welcome back to Broken Potholes. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. On the line with us now, a returning guest and one we really enjoyed our conversation with last time, Jeff Mordock of The Washington Times. He is The Washington Times White House reporter.

Boy, you've had a week and a half here. It's been eventful. It hasn't been boring, which is what I like about it. What surprised you about the press conference? Either A, he went two hours and couldn't do well at it, or all the misinterpretation, or how much cleanup the White House has had to do. Or C, Yamiche Alcindor's take on it was totally different than everyone else on the planet. Yeah.

To me, the most stunning part was the sheer amount of cleanup that was required. I mean, think about it. We had to have Jen Psaki issue a statement immediately after the press conference concluded. The next morning, she has to issue another statement. She has to go on Fox News. She has to go on CNN. Emily Horne, the spokesperson for the National Security Council, had to issue a statement of clarification immediately.

And that's just for the Ukraine gap. We're not even getting into the illegitimacy of the election. I don't want to say miscommunication, because I know he clearly was trying to make a point. But that grew ha-ha. So, I mean, that's just one gap out of three in that press conference that they donated an inordinate amount of time to having to clean up.

But, Jeff, I imagine you have friends, reporters who are on the left, which probably most reporters are, you know, covering the White House. What is what what are they saying just privately? Are they concerned about this or they're just all in because he's pushing an agenda they like? I mean, where are they with this guy?

I think they think they're holding him accountable, and I don't want to speak. But the problem they've got with a lot of these reporters, and I don't want to say everybody, I don't want to point it out, but I know some very good conservative reporters who are hard on Trump, and I know some very good personally leftist reporters who have asked Biden some tough questions. But I know one reporter, and I won't identify the person,

had mentioned that they were going to bring their fastball to the Biden press conference and then went in there and asked a softball question. And the reason it was a softball question is they were coming at the question from the perspective that Biden is right on. And I think in their mind, they thought they were holding him accountable, but because their viewpoint aligns with the president's,

They don't realize that that's not a tough question. That press conference, watching it and talking about the Ukraine thing, if Trump had held that press conference, the outrage from coast to coast and around the world would be enormous. I have never once heard a president of a major power volunteer another country to be invaded or at least partially invaded. And that was stunning.

Well, what's stunning is, and there's something I want to get into real quick before I answer your question. Back to the cleanup, this just happened. This was a little late joining you guys. He had a, President Biden had an event at the White House today to talk about Intel investing in a chip factory in Ohio. At the end of the press conference,

Reporters started shouting questions, and President Biden said to us, I don't want to take your questions because you're going to ask me about Russia, and I want to talk about chips. That just happened moments ago. Tough but fair. Tough but fair, apparently. Wow. And can you – what would be the meltdown if Trump or Bush or Romney or any other Republican had done something like that?

I think the meltdown would have been outrageous. He's hiding from the press. He doesn't want to take tough questions. I mean, I don't know how this differs from when President Trump walked off the Leslie Stahl interview because he only wanted questions on certain topics. And Biden telling the press, I only want questions on computer chips, it's the same thing.

But this just happened. We haven't had time to see a lot of outrage. But I don't expect to see a lot of outrage over this. I think everybody's going to shrug. He did take one question, which was about computer chips, and then he stormed off where people shouted questions at him about Russia, including whether or not he plans to meet with Putin. Has there anything about this administration surprised you?

The lack of press access. I thought there would be more of an effort to try to engage, work with the press, spin the press to try to get the press to try and get favorable stories. And it's just outright disdain for the press, even the friendly press. We were all stunned that he went two hours and was willing to...

to take questions from reporters that his team had not previously selected. And you can tell because when he has the name, I mean, he doesn't know who these people are. It's clearly the name is given to him by his press staff. But the fact that he decided to just start pointing surprises, the fact that he went two hours, which was a record of the longest press conference in U.S. history, that was surprising. And I think that's part of the reset process.

this administration's trying to have after a year that pretty much ended on a pretty bad losing streak. I think the Coyotes are like, wow, that's a bad losing streak. Good analogy. Very, very good analogy here for Phoenix hockey fans.

Painfully good, Chuck. Painfully good. If we have to start comparing him to the Diamondbacks, we're all running for cover. Jeff, what are some legislative successes that you think the Biden administration could have if they played more small ball, using sports analogy, versus everything has got to be a grand slam here?

Well, I think I can point to two that they've already had. I think the bipartisan infrastructure deal, because they were willing to work with Republicans, they were willing to meet with them, they were willing to scale things back. That is going to be a success. That is a legislative success for the Biden administration, and it's why he always talks about it. Also, he did the same thing with his COVID relief package.

he scaled back at he was going to work with republicans and if you look at the only two things he really has to pal it's the covert relief package in the infrastructure bill and both of them are bipartisan issues

where he was willing to meet Republicans halfway. When things fall apart for him, it's because he's pursuing the far-left agenda, the bidding of the progressives, that the American people and the Republicans don't want. And that is why these bills are failing. And I think a lot of senators, Democrat senators, are happy in a midterm year to let Sinema and Manchin take the heat for this, and they don't have to go on record.

Correct. Yeah, absolutely. What do you feel? How frosty is the relationship for those two Democrat senators with their caucus? How frosty is it or is it more? It is extremely frosty. I mean, you saw the reports that that Joe Manchin even talked about going as an independent so he wouldn't have to. So he could take some of the heat off of the Democratic Party. I think it is extremely frosty.

They are viewed as holding up the president's agenda. I imagine, I mean, I'm sure they're both going to be primary. And it's, yeah, it's not. But, you know, as I said, they are taking the heat off of a lot of Democrats. And I think there are some people who are appreciative of that. Well, and interestingly, if you go to Kyrsten Sinema's website today, the headline has changed. It now says Arizona's Independent Voice.

I didn't realize that.

For her, we like in Arizona to be seen as mavericks. We're Westerners. We're cowboys. We do things our way. Right. And, you know, if I was her, I would definitely drop my D and become an independent. And she'd win. Yeah, absolutely. She'd win. She'd win re-election.

I agree. I think she would. And I think you're right. I think that would have a lot of appeal to the Arizona voter if she did that. I don't know if she will. I don't expect Manchin to switch. He's talked about it. I think if he were to switch, it would have happened by now. Yeah. I would guess that also. I agree. I agree. Yep. What else should we be looking for here in the next 30 days?

One of the things you should be looking for is more public appearances. I think that's going to be very interesting to see how that goes, where he goes. Right now, he's only really been going to swing states. As part of the reset, they are trying to get him out to talk to the public more. That, I think, we could end up with situations like we had this week where

he makes comments off the carpet and they're they have to mobilize in a mop-up duty so that you know where he goes what he does how they view what they do you engage with the american public the other thing is i think we're going to see less of him going to the hill to preach for his guilt i think it's just a relying more on his uh... legislative team and less on him which i think it's really interesting because it shows here's a guy who ran has i'm a dealmaker

I know the Senate. I was in the Senate for 37 years. I know how to get things done. And I think that reputation is now completely in tatters. How's his legislative team? I mean, how are their relationships with the leadership on the Hill on both sides? Because I think you're absolutely right. It needs to be them, not him. But it doesn't seem like they've had a tremendous amount of success working the Hill either.

No, they haven't. And if you look at Manchin's comments after he came out on Fox News and said he's not going to support Build Back Better, he very much suggested that he did not like the tactics used by the president's legislative team. And I can't imagine he's the only one. You know, he wouldn't get into specifics, as you know, but he certainly implied that they were certainly using heavy-handed, if not unfair, tactics.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being on with us today. Really appreciate having you. I want to end one thing I saw last night and picked up because I think this is important. And I wonder how much people in Washington know or care about this stuff. But the president of Ukraine tweeting out last night, we want to remind the great powers there are no minor incursions or small nations, just as there are no minor casualties or little grief from the loss of loved ones.

I say this is the president of a great power. Why? How is it that the White House Congress? How we how do we not understand where this man is coming from? That is a very good question. Why we don't understand where he's coming from. I think.

That's a very good question. I think it's a function of this administration doesn't know how to respond to Putin. I don't think they know what to do with him. I think they don't know whether they believe he's bluffing or not. And I think that confusion and the chaos in the foreign policy area that we've seen

I mean, the Afghanistan bungle, I think, indicates they're really not sure what they want to do. And if you think about it, Biden did not run on any foreign policy issues at all. He was clearly a domestic policy cleaning up COVID president.

And I think now he's in the foreign policy arena, and it's kind of surprising given his career in the Senate that he is so overmatched. But, you know, I mean, look at the foreign policy team he put into place. I mean, you were talking about John McKean earlier, what he said about Blinken when Blinken was up for a nomination in the Obama administration. Right, right.

Yeah, unbelievable. I mean, I think a lot of this was predictable. Every time we have a new president, people around the world, bad actors around the world want to test that president and test their resolve. And if there was one test that Donald Trump passed, it was that one. Right. Well, if you want. Right. And if you want what I view as a very telling example of the foreign policy bungles and to your point about countries wanting to test a new president.

Look at the countries Biden has not nominated a U.S. ambassador to. You know, they blame a lot of the ambassadors on Republican obstruction, but these are people he hasn't even picked somebody to send to the Senate. There's no ambassador nominee for South Korea. There is no ambassador nominee for United Arab Emirates. There is no ambassador nominee for Ukraine. That is stunning.

And it shows this administration that they're not taking it seriously. And also, while we're at a 29 percent of the people that he has nominated for ambassadorships are large Democratic fundraisers.

Is there been a story written on that? Or can we expect it from you? Good. Are you going to write another one on it? Yes. I have covered that. I've written a couple stories about that. Okay, well, I'm going to pull that up. Yeah, me too. That stuns me. And then Guy Taylor, who was our foreign desk reporter, he wrote one as well. I wrote one about the nominees, and he wrote one about the lack of ambassadors. So you can look for both of them on the Washington Times website. Okay.

That's the problem with this. I don't think they take foreign policy seriously. You saw that in Afghanistan. And you've got to wonder, we couldn't get people out of Afghanistan. What's going to happen when we start trying to get people out of Ukraine? We're not going to get them out. It's going to be a nightmare. Jeff Mordock, Washington Times, White House reporter. Jeff, how do people follow your work?

You can follow me on Twitter at JeffMordock, and you can always go to The Washington Times website. Fantastic. My friend. Thank you so much once again for joining us. We always love having you and look forward to our next chat. I can't wait. Thanks, Chuck. Thanks, Sam. Really appreciate it. Thanks, our friend. Talk to you later. Take care. Bye. Well, I mean, as Harris Alex said, Biden was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

If there's one area that he actually should have some knowledge of and understanding and preparation for it would be this. I don't even know what to say about this guy anymore. It's remarkable. And I don't think he's running the White House. No, I don't think he's competent at this point. I hate to use the term Manchurian candidate. Right.

But let's call him the MSNBC candidate because I do not believe he's running the White House. I do not believe you see his political philosophy in front and center in front of people. I think he's very concerned about keeping what he's got and he gives them all the credit. And he makes a mistake because he won a bunch of people over in 2020 who just were tired of the mayhem they felt, the mayhem they felt, which was real or not real.

A lot of it's not real because they got involved. But it was emotionally. It was emotional. And he's he's making it worse. A lot worse. And that's why I wonder how this plays long term for Democrats, because his argument to get elected. The reason he was elected was he said, hey, we're going to be the governing ones. We're going to be the ones that bring back competence and compassion and unity here.

And of all the things he has been, competent, compassionate, and unifying are not anywhere on the table. No, not at all. Well, a fantastic show. Kip, fantastic job lining this up today. Yes, indeed. Had to scramble. She had to scramble because I want to talk before we close here. We had a guest from AP who is going to cover the Puerto Rico bankruptcy filing and the judge's ruling. Her name's Debbie.

Danico Cotto, AP News, and she was covering the Caribbean, and she wrote an article, which I think everybody should read, called Judge Signs Plan Resolves Puerto Rico Bankruptcy Battle. Kip was in touch with her. She wanted to do it. Next thing you know, she transferred Kip to AP Corporate PR, and Kip immediately knew what that meant, and AP Corporate PR did not want her to be on our show. So...

You know, I got to tell you. Bush League. Bush League move, AP. Yeah, AP, that is a really Bush League move because, you know, how many places around this country right now where you can go on podcasts, on radio shows like ours, and the hosts are only interested in talking to people with their own viewpoint? Yeah, it's ridiculous. And we have been very open, I think, to having people from across the political spectrum and a lot of people who aren't necessarily political on here. And we want more of those folks. We want to have open-minded people.

open-ended discussions. Well, apparently Associated Press does not want to participate. Yeah, I guess that's no longer their motto. Thank you so very much. Fantastic job. Everybody have a fantastic week and weekend, and we'll be with you next week. Thanks a million.

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