Sunday School 1/12/20

Two of the 2020 Dems were in the classrooms this morning - Tom Steyer, with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union, and Michael Bennet with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, which is where we'll start.

Bennet, a Colorado senator since 2009, has only been in two debates, most recently in July, so it wouldn't be surprising if you didn't remember he was still out there fighting for attention - and votes.  Let's listen in and see what's going on.

First up? Impeachment, and how difficult it's going to be when Bennet and the other senators will have to be in DC to participate as jurors in the president's trial, instead of out campaigning.

Bennet thinks it will be "disruptive" but, noting there's nothing he can do about it, said

I choose not to worry about it. We have, all of us, a constitutional responsibility that we have to fulfill here...I take my oath seriously. And in the meantime, I'm spending every single second I can in New Hampshire, trying to fulfill my commitment to hold an additional 50 town halls here. 

He said he's already spent more time there than the others, and will continue to do that.

Todd asked him (somewhat oddly, I thought) as "a guy that...has spent a lot of time reading Federalist Papers" what power he thinks the Dems have, being the minority party, "to force a fair trial?" Noting the stakes "could not be higher here," Bennet said the Trump is holding both the American people and the Constitution "in contempt," mentioning "the decision to provoke a war, potentially, with Iran, his stonewalling of the House, and now his stonewalling of the Senate," adding

...I think the framers... would demand of the people that are sitting in judgment that they put the Constitution in front of the president, and that they use this as an opportunity to remind the American people why the rule of law is so important and why nobody, including the president, is above the law. 

So, even if Bennet didn't know what the Federalist Papers were, he's exactly where just about every other Democrat is: no one is above the law, period. Todd wondered about public opinion, asking if "two thirds of the public isn't there, does that matter to you?"

I think it's important for public opinion to at least understand that what we're trying to do is hold the president accountable. And we may not have gotten, in the end, a conviction of the president. But maybe what we did was reestablish the standard of ethics that we expect out of a president and the standard of constitutional law that we expect from a president. I think that's important, in and of itself. 

My next question would have been something along the lines of "You sound like that's all you're going to get out of the trial. Is that correct?"

Instead, Todd wondered if  Bennet thought four Republicans would join the Dems in asking for witnesses (John Bolton was mentioned). Bennet said he had no expectations, but that he doesn't think it's impossible. Americans, he said, want witnesses and "they want to see the records from the White House as well."

Next, the conversation turned to Iran. Todd wondered if Trump's actions may have "inadvertently strengthened the Sanders wing of the party over, say, the Biden wing or the moderate wing" - Bennet's lane.

Actually, I'm much more concerned that what he's strengthened is the hardliner wing of the Iranian government. That is what he's done since he became president. I think that's what he's done, again, with the action that he's taken...  

And that calls for "heightened scrutiny" of the president, in a nonpartisan way.

...when you have a president who's as lawless as this one seems to be, on the international stage and the domestic stage, I think it's important for not just Democrats to come together, but Americans to come together and say, 'We're going to put the Constitution ahead of this president.'

Bennet agreed that it's "much harder" to unite the Dems if you were in favor of the Iraq War, and it's harder to fight Trump under those circumstances too - because Trump "takes every single position..."

Todd asked if that means Sanders is more electable than Biden, who was in favor of the war, I guess he said, until he wasn't. After noting people would say "that was not his (Biden's) finest hour," he continued

... from my vantage point, there's a real question in my mind about whether any of the leading candidates can take on Donald Trump, which is why I've stayed in this race, Chuck. 

In New Hampshire, voters  are "more undecided today then they were six weeks ago or six months ago" bu "they know we need to nominate somebody who can beat Donald Trump."  He thinks he's the one, while agreeing there's a point where he (and others) will "have to coalesce around a leader," if there one, by end of February or end of March.

Yeah, I definitely think that's the right timeline. I think we will have to coalesce around somebody. My hope, Chuck, is to come in the top third in New Hampshire.  And I'm slogging it out... trying to see if we can make progress here. But at some point, the most important thing for us is to come together and make sure Donald Trump is a one-term president. 

They left it there, without, I noticed, Todd's customary "be safe out there on the trail' sendoff.  Hmm.


In the CNN classroom,  Jake Tapper opened the conversation with Tom Steyer by quoting Cory Booker, who said that "the debate rules - quote - has systematically paved the way for a billionaire to buy his way onto the stage" and asked if Steyer thought he'd be there if he wasn't spending so much of his own money on his own campaign. Steyer wasn't having it.

Jake, I think the thing that has put me on the stage - and it is the same for every single person who's running for president - is message. I have a very simply message, which is the government is broken, it has been bought by corporations.

He highlighted his ten years of coalition-building to "fight and beat those corporations;" his being "the only person in the race" willing to say climate is the top priority; that he'll tackle "environmental justice" from day one, and that he "can take on Mr. Trump on the economy in a way that nobody can" because of his having built a business from scratch and all that goes with that.

I think this is all about do you have a message that is differential and important and do people trust you to actually carry out what you're saying?

Tapper pointed out that, in South Carolina, Steyer accounts for 91% of all advertising spend, and in Nevada, that number goes up to 97%. Those two states got him the necessary poll numbers to be on the stage. And so, Tapper asked again,

Do you not think that it is your millions and the flood of advertising in those states that is why you did well in the polls and are now on the debate stage?

Steyer pointed to a WaPo article that shows what's actually happening in South Carolina. Here's a snippet from that article.

Steyer's backers argue that his rise is being propelled by more than ads, especially in South Carolina, where he has build a substantial ground operation. Steyer has invested significant resources in South Carolina, making monthly visits to the state and appearing everywhere from barbershops and rural communities to historically black colleges and universities.

He also said he's got 82 organizers on the ground and noted

I have been a grassroots organizer, as you know, for 10 years, and that is exactly what I'm doing in the early primary states. I am going in. I'm listening to people. I spend all my time in the kinds of meetings that I love, which is taking questions and asking questions and listening and learning. And so in fact that's what I think has happened...

Never wanting to be the guy who gives up, Tapper tried again, asking if Steyer was saying "you think your performance in these polls is because of your one-on-one meetings... and not because more than 90% of the television advertising in South Carolina and Nevada is from your campaign - is that what you're saying?"

That is actually isn't what I said, Jake. What I said is we have 82 organizers, by far the most in South Carolina, and I have gone -- and let's face it, I am not a famous person. The other people who I'm running against, all the other people are career politicians, many of whom are extremely famous. What I have seen in South Carolina and every state is very low name recognition, and then we worked to let people hear my message, understand what I stand for and try to see who I am. And in every state when people hear that, the numbers go up consistently and they have gone up consistently since I got into the race in July.

And so, three being the magic number of attempts on that question, we're moving on to what qualifies Steyer "to be commander-in-chief and trusted to send American service members into harm's way?"
Steyer referenced his 30 years as a global businessman,

meeting with governments, talking to heads of huge corporations and understanding actually what drives America's business around the world and our relationships with other countries and what makes that trade and relationship succeed.

And, he added,

So when I think about our experience over the last 20 years and the person who I actually think did the best job in figuring out American foreign policy and military policy was a state senator from Illinois with absolutely no military or international experience named Barack Obama, who said against the advice of everybody who was an insider in Washington, DC that the Iraq war was a mistake.

And going back to the fact that the other folks on the debate stage are former VP, three current senators, and an Afghanistan War veteran, Steyer pointedly said that "conventional wisdom" brought to the stage by those folks might not be what we need. 

... I would say actually when I am looking at the last 20 years, you don't actually inspire me so much, and listening to the earlier part of the show where in fact that very same conventional D.C. wisdom led to misinformation about why we got into Iraq, led to decades of misinformation about what we were doing in Afghanistan.

When you tell me that what we need is more conventional DC thinking about our international policy, our foreign policy and our military policy, I would actually suggest to you that maybe this is more about judgment than experience.

I'm honestly not sure whether the next question was a hardball meant to trap Steyer, or a softball meant to give him a chance to show off his knowledge of US foreign policy. Here's Tapper's question:

Let me ask you. When you are look at the current conflict with Iran, how much of it do you trace back to what happened to Prime Minister Mossadegh?

If you're like me and had no recollection of that name, here's some background from NPR; the article's first sentence should be enough to set the stage.

On Aug. 19, 2013, the CIA publicly admitted for the first time its involvement in the 1953 coup against Iran's elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

Unlike me, though, Steyer  had no time to Google it - nor was he tripped up by the question.

You know it - there is no way to get away from the idea that when the United States does something like depose Prime Minister Mosaddegh which is how, you know, that's how the shah came into power, we basically put him into power, what that does is, it changes people's opinion about the United States and what we stand for.  

And he noted, pointing to "one of the big problems" he has with the execution of General Soleimani,

...America's brand in the world is the most important protection we have. That even when we are not getting along with an Iranian regime or we're not getting along with Vladimir Putin, the point is that the people around the world know that we stand for what is right, and that was true when President Obama was the president...

And when we do something like depose Mosaddegh or we execute General Soleimani, the question we all should ask ourselves is not just the short term question, but long-term, does it make us less safe? Does it change everyone's opinion in the Middle East about what the United States really cares about and who we really are?

So, yes, I think that was a dramatic mistake that has reverberate throughout the region for obviously multiple, multiple decades.

Tapper agreed, noting that "it is something that the Iranians still talk about on the streets today."

Of course they do, Jake. 

Is that a mic drop right there, maybe? I think it might be.

See you around campus -- and watch for some Extra Credit coming your way.