The two repeated themselves multiple times and often spoke condescendingly to each other; here's what I gleaned from the interview on the hot topics of the day.
Johnson thinks we need to take a Reaganesque/Trumpesque approach with Iran - peace through strength - and he said "We should not be appeasing Iran..."
We need to act to decimate the Iran Central Bank, the assets that they've held there. We need to lean on international banks to seize the assets of Iranian proxies. We need to – to put big-time pressure, maximum pressure, on their oil exports. There's a lot that we could do to Iran to send a message instead of this appeasement strategy.
We need to 'Soleimani' them, like under Trump, when "we used a drone and three missiles" to take out a single bad guy, instead of "using potentially hundreds of munitions to strike close to 100 targets so far." I guess he thinks we're using too much ammo or something.
The House proposed a separate Israeli funding bill because the Senate isn't doing anything; in fact, HR2, "which is our signature bill right out of the beginning, right out of the block" could have solved the border problem if it hadn't "been sitting on Chuck Schumer's desk collecting dust..." And, if you didn't know, Senate bills are DOA in the House, and vice versa.
Johnson hasn't been briefed by his Senate counterparts, and to date he's only heard the same rumors as everyone else. I get the sense that he thinks the bill doesn't matter.
But here's the essential point... We documented 64 specific actions that Joe Biden and his agencies have taken to create this catastrophe. They did it intentionally... The American people are done with this. The border has to be secured. The president has the authority right now. He doesn't need another act of Congress. He could do it right now. But he's unwilling to do it.
At some point, I stopped listening, but I perked up when I heard them mention Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and his impeachment. Johnson previously said he's very much against a one-party impeachment, as we saw in a clip. He said three times, "The founders of this country warned against single-party impeachments.
You guys know why. Because they feared it would bitterly and perhaps irreparably divide our nation.
What they're doing with Mayorkas is not that, and it's not a 'policy disagreement,' either. "It's very different, Kristen, in many ways." Let me mansplain "the many ways."
For one, the House has methodically, slowly, deliberately gone through the impeachment process, impeachment inquiry, impeachment investigation on Mayorkas and – and President Biden himself. We've involved three different committees of jurisdiction: Judiciary, Oversight, Ways and Means. We –we have followed the facts where they have led. Not for political purposes. Not because we take pleasure in this. It's, again, a heavy thing to look at the impeachment of a president or a Cabinet secretary. But these facts require it.
I snickered - I mean, wasn't that the same speech Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi gave? Johnson says his GOP team has done a very careful, methodic, nonpartisan investigation.
And it is exactly the opposite of what the House Democrats did in the previous administration. That is a fact, and we can follow those facts and understand them for what they are.
"And that's the truth," said Edith Ann.
Moving down the hall, George Stephanopoulos was in the chair for his own show; one of his guests was Sen. JD Vance (R-OH YEAH, I'm in the Cult!). Vance is unofficially campaigning to move into Number One Observatory Circle, but he'll have to outlast dozens of others in the Donald J. Trump VP Hunger Games to get the keys.
George opened the interview by playing a video clip of Vance acting very RINO-y back in 2016 when he said he was "a Never Trump guy." George wanted to know why he had changed his mind.
When you compare Trump's term and Biden's term, Vance says there's a clear difference, and
... It's hard not to conclude that I was wrong and so many were wrong about Donald Trump back in 2015. He delivered, George, he did a good job. And I think it's why we ought to give him another run at it.
George countered with some positive Bidenomics data, then turned to what's happened since then: Trump's 2020 loss, January 6th, the indictments, and the verdicts in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault and defamation cases. And he asked if being a Trump supporter means that he's "sanctioning that kind of behavior, sexual assault, and defamation?"
Well, I think it's actually very unfair to the victims of sexual assault, to say that somehow their lives are being worse by electing Donald Trump for president, when what he's trying to do, I think is restore prosperity. So, I think it's insulting to victim -- victims of sexual assault.
Wait, what? What the actual hell?
Trump is trying to restore prosperity, and damn those pesky sexual assault victims for being insulted that so many people are willing to look past not only how Trump talks about sexually assaulting women, but the actual sexual assault he was found guilty of committing. Can't they just be happy he's trying to make them more prosperous?
Honestly, that's preposterous, and insulting to pretty much anyone other than a MAGA Camper. Vance went on to say most of the cases are "not about prosecuting Trump for something that he did, it's about throwing him off the ballot because Democrats feel that they can't beat him at the ballot box. And so, they're trying to defeat them in court."
That's exactly what Trump did in 2020, with five-dozen-some-odd losing court cases, his Kraken legal team, and the presser at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. Vance didn't mention those, but he argued that fighting an alleged criminal in the courts isn't the right way to go - we should fight over policy in the election.
When George pointed out that it was juries making the decisions, Vance noted
George, if you look at all of these cases, the through line, two-fold. Number one, they’re funded by Donald Trump’s political opponents, and the goal here is not to help us actually have a real conversation about how to advance the country forward. Their goal is to defeat Trump at the courts because these people know they can’t defeat him at the ballot box.
There was no second fold in "the through line," and George moved on - or, I should say, moved backward - and asked if Vance would have certified the election had he been VP on January 6th. Vance said it was "such a ridiculous question," which it was. George reiterated he wasn't looking forward, he was looking over his shoulder, which prompted Vance to say
I have to make a point here. You constantly say to people like me, 'why do you talk about January the 6th, why do you talk about the election of 2020,' and then you ask about this multiple times during a six-minute interview.
After listing his concerns with the 2020 election, Vance said there was a "political solution" to the problems, and "litigating which slate of electors were legitimate I think is fundamentally the political solution to the problems that existed in 2020."
And I find it weird, George, that people like you obsess with what I call 'what happened in 2020,' you're so incurious about what actually happened in 2020, which is why so many people mistrust our elections in this country. We’ve got to do better, George.
George pushed the 'you'd do what Trump said' point a few times, while Vance maintained that wasn't why he'd have done it - and he continued to hit on the media's obsession. He thinks what's happened since 2020 - instability, the border, and so on - is more important, and said
We need to litigate the 2024 election about those issues. You guys are obsessed with talking about 2020. I'm happy to answer the questions, but I think it's a disservice to the American people that you're so preoccupied with it.
Next question? What about this advice Vance has for Trump? Roll tape, George!
... if I was giving him one piece of advice, fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people. And when the courts -- because you will get taken to court -- and when the courts stop you, stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did, and say "The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it."
George asked if Vance really wanted to fire "everyone in the government" and if it was really "OK for the president to defy the Supreme Court?" Vance argued everyone didn't need to be fired, just that Trump should replace "the mid-level bureaucrats with people who aren't responsive to the administration's agenda. That's called democracy."
And then there was a pissing match, with George quoting Vance directly, and Vance trying to clarify that what he meant was
...the president has to be able to run the government as he thinks he should. That's the way the Constitution works...
And, the SCOTUS can make an "illegitimate ruling" and if it did, "the president would have to respond to it."
Eventually, Stephanopoulos said, in effect, "Thanks very much for playing," and closed the interview as Vance was still talking.
Honestly, I would have sent all of them to after-school detention.
See you around campus.
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