Sunday School 1/8/23: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, I promised a punditry recap for your Extra Credit. In the interest of our collective sanity, I'm only going to cover one classroom - This Week with George Stephanopoulos. 

The panel included regulars Donna Brazile and Chis Christie; Susan Page (USA Today); and author Maggie Haberman.

A. McCarthy's bid for Speaker.

Christie said Kevin McCarthy's victory, in a town where "winning is better than losing," he showed his toughness; he held onto 200 votes over the long slog, but now, he has to govern.

...the challenge is going to be, how do you lead a group like that to getting to 218 on a number of issues that you care about and a number of issues you want to play defense on? And that's going to be interesting to watch over the next two years.

Page noted that Nancy Pelosi won with fewer than 218 votes, too, but she did it behind closed doors - and without the concessions. 

I think the new speaker's problem is, he didn't resolve the divide in the Republican Party, he empowered the insurgents so that Scott Perry... is almost as powerful as Kevin McCarthy in this next Congress.

Brazil, noting Perry referenced Frederick Douglass, had a Douglass line, too: 'it's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.' And, she maintains, McCarthy's caucus is broken.

It's broken because it has a split personality. The Freedom Caucus, unlike the Progressive Caucus that Nancy Pelosi could bring to the table, the Freedom Caucus held out because they want committee slots, they want to run the Rules Committee, which is a very powerful committee, they want to make sure that they're on... the Budget Committee. They are going to create havoc, not just for Kevin McCarthy, but for the United States of America.

Haberman was asked about her friend Donald Trump helping McCarthy across the finish line. She's not sure he had "a lot" of influence, but he definitely had some. She said Trump made his early "public push" for McCarthy not because wanted to, but "because he gave some mealy-mouth comment to an NBC reporter," but it didn't do much to shift the dial. In the end, though,  

he did make calls to people like Matt Gaetz and he did have some influence there. That's a problem for Kevin McCarthy... it’s not just Scott Perry and the House Freedom Caucus, it’s this Matt Gaetz group. And Matt Gaetz he kept his folks together. And he is now in a pretty strong position with McCarthy.

B. Can they govern?

On the looming battle over the debt limit, Christie thinks negotiation will be necessary, no matter what President Biden thinks.  

He lost the House. He's got to negotiate. And so, to say that the Republicans would be the obstructionists, well, now you have divided government and you have to -- both sides are going to have to give. Chuck Schumer is going to have to give. Joe Biden is going to have to give. And Kevin McCarthy’s going to have to give ultimately. So, if we have a fiscal disaster because of some of these things, it's going to be us judging who's been willing to negotiate and who hasn't. 

I think Biden said is he's not willing to negotiate on Social Security and Medicare, which is not the same as "refusing to negotiate" on anything; we'll have to see what happens. 

Brazile thinks it may be hard to get a majority of the House to come together on critical legislation. 

I do believe that Kevin McCarthy is going to have a very difficult job maintaining the unity of the Republican caucus – I don’t even know why I can put “unity” and “Republican” in the same breath. I mean Hakeem Jeffries is going to have a unified caucus. I don't believe that Kevin McCarthy will be able to get the votes he need on the debt ceiling, on the functioning of government, which is to keep it funded, and on any major crisis that might come before us. 

Page addressed the question of whether House & Senate Rs will be aligned. She said they don't often align "in either party," which I think we've seen to be true. She also said there might be a better question to ask than whether McCarthy can keep his caucus together. 

Could there be a coalition of the more moderate Republicans and the more moderate Democrats to get things through in the House? That's not something we saw happen in the speaker's fight. I think that is possible that we could see it...

Stephanopoulos seemed doubtful, since it didn't happen during the Speaker voting, but I think that was a different situation. That was the Rs having a family feud; it wasn't anything as universally important as financing the government.

C. What about 2024?

Trump's in, of course, and Haberman thinks Biden's in, too: "I think anybody who is questioning that Biden is actually running right now is kidding themselves." She says Trump "definitely still has influence; he's definitely still important, but he's not president anymore, and he's not what he was." That was made clear when representatives didn't want to take his call last week.

She said she's "certainly never seen anything like this," where some declares their candidacy and "then basically does nothing."

...he is still commanding a decent chunk of the Republican primary electorate. So, you can't say that he's done. But he is certainly not being handed anything. And as we saw over the past week, he just doesn't have the same fear factor with his party that he had once upon a time. I don't know if it's going anywhere or not.

And, she said we won't really know until we find out if any of the investigations will yield charges. 

Christie doesn't think any of this impacts people who might be considering running. He expects a "slow-moving race," and that Trump's early announcement gave everyone else time to wait and see what happens. He also doesn't expect a crowded field.

I don't think it's going to be more than seven or eight people, max. And so all that's going to take time to develop. I wouldn't expect a field to fully develop until the end of June. Because the RNC has said the first debates are going to be in July, in Milwaukee. And I don't think anybody is going to feel any compulsion to get in... 

He thinks folks will wait it out, and he said "to go in early, huge political strategic mistake." 

Feel free to chime in: who are your picks to challenge Trump and Biden? Will folks like Elise Stefanik - and Kevin McCarthy - continue to support Trump if any of the 'witch hunts' result in charges? Is Kamala Harris automatically the front-runner if Biden decides not to run?  

See you around campus.

Sunday School 7/24/22: Extra Credit

For your Sunday School, we heard from Rep. Adam Kinzinger and from Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator; they talked with Jon Karl in ABC's This Week classroom. 

Today, we listen in with Karl and outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD), who I've often referred to as my favorite Republican. Here's Karl's first question; I thought it was kind of odd.

We hear that Donald Trump is upset that he doesn't see Republicans out on television responding to the hearings, defending him. Why – why is that Republican leaders have been essentially silent as these hearings have unfolded?

Um, maybe it's because they're finally coming to realize that there is no defending him, Jon?

Hogan said it was disappointing - referring to the silence, not the lack of defending Trump - even though this is "how they really felt right after it happened." And, Hogan said, while Trump was watching TV and doing nothing, he "was actually taking action." 

We had security team meetings. We called everybody together. It was, you know, mass chaos. We had the leaders of Congress begging for help. We were sending in the State Police riot team, which were one of the first to arrive after the Metropolitan Police, Maryland National Guard, the first to arrive after DC. We couldn't get approval from the secretary of defense. It was crazy.

He said the outtakes from Trump's messages were really the only thing that surprised him.

...it showed the real thinking... with those outtakes you could see the anger. You could see exactly what he was thinking. And that was the most moving part of the hearing for me.

Karl turned to the Maryland primary, in which Dan Cox, the gubernatorial candidate Hogan called a "QAnon whack job" was the winner; he asked Hogan what happened.

Well, it was, kind of, unprecedented collusion between the Democratic Governors Association and Donald Trump. And both of them were promoting a conspiracy theory believing kind of nut job. And DGA, I think, spent about $3 million. The guy only spent $100,000 on his campaign. So, it was a win for the Democrats. It's a big loss for the Republican Party. And we have no chance of saving that governor's seat. We actually had a chance if they hadn't gotten together and done that.

Karl played one of the DGA ads 'promoting' Cox, which ended saying he wasn't conservative enough for Maryland. He called it a "cynical effort, no question," and said that even so, "Republican voters...responded to it."

Hogan said that's not quite correct. 

So, first of all, only 20 percent of the people in Maryland are Republican, and 20 percent of them showed up to the polls. So about 2 percent of the people in Maryland voted for this guy. It's not going to be the same in November, I can tell you that. So, it's not a big win. It's really a loss. 

And, obviously, Hogan won't be supporting Cox.

I would not support the guy. I wouldn't let him in the governor's office, let alone vote for him for the governor's office.

Karl reflected on an April conversation, when Hogan said the upcoming Republican primaries "are going to determine what the Republican Party looks like." Karl pointed out that "we're through a lot of them" and hinted it wasn't looking good. Hogan's answer was straightforward.

-- in November of '20, right after the election, I spoke at the Reagan Institute here in DC, and I was the first person to say that this is going to be a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party and it was going to be a long, tough fight, but that it was -- "Time for Choosing" was the name of the speech that I gave. And we're not there yet. I mean, it's -- we're only a year into the battle.

We have two more -- more than, you know, two years until the next election. But it's not going to be easy. We're going to win some; we're going to lose some. But I think the final chapter, you know, on some of this, will be in November, when we lose some races. You know... Trump already cost us the White House, the Senate, the House. Now he's costing us governor seats and Senate seats.

And will Trump run in 2024, Karl asked? Hogan said he "can't really put himself into the mind of Donald Trump" but guessed it's 50/50 that Trump runs. 

His -- his ego probably, you know, can't take another loss. After all, he lost to Joe Biden, which is hard to do. But he likes to be the center of attention.

Hogan said the RGA has discussed the potential of an early Trump '24 announcement.

...I think most people are very concerned about the damage it does to the party if he announces now. And, you know, it may help in very red states or very red districts, but in competitive places and purple battlefields, it's going to cost us seats if he were to do that.

And, what about Hogan and his plans for '24, and how were they effected by Cox's victory?

Well, it makes me more determined than ever to continue the battle to win the -- you know, win over the Republican Party, and take us back to a bigger tent, more Reaganesque party. Our -- we've got our work cut out for us. But I'm certainly not giving up.

In my opinion, the more intelligent people there are fighting for the soul of the Republican Party, the better.

A final note: here's what Chris Christie had to say about the 187 minutes of inaction by Trump during the panel discussion.

 Look, and as I’ve been saying since January of '21, this is going to happen slowly and incrementally. And you’re not going to see it until after it’s already happened and it’s already over. And the reason for that is the same thing that happened in 2016, right? In 2016 it wasn't politically correct to say you were voting for Donald Trump. So, he performed much lower in the polls than he wound up doing.

Now, in Republican primary polling, it's not politically correct to say you’re against Donald Trump or you’re for someone else. I think his numbers are artificially high. And I think this is happening slowly but surely in the party. And, look, what happened this week and the replay of that 187 minutes of what he was doing, I think, will have long-term, not 2022 impact, but 2024 impact.

One can only hope.

See you around campus. 

In Case You Missed It (v93)

Quite the week the last one was. Here's a recap, in case you missed anything.

I devoted your Sunday School lesson to talks with Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Pat Toomey (R-PA); they're both involved in the bipartisan talks to come up with legislative changes that could reduce the likelihood of yet another mass shooting occurring. 

Murphy talked with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Union; here's one of the more interesting moments from their discussion.

And what about Tapper's suggestion, that they just take all the laws passed in red-state Florida after the Parkland shooting, and use that as the template? It's a great question. for sure, and Murphy had a good answer, too. Then-Gov. Rick Scott passed the law

because it was the right thing to do, but also because Republican saw it as good politics. And we have to make the case for Republicans that, right now, this is good politics, that, if they want to get reelected, then they cannot stand in the way of the commonsense changes that we're talking about right now.

And, it made sense, Murphy said. It had mental health, school safety, and "some modest but impactful changes in gun laws." That's what he thinks the Senate can pass. And, while he's "more confident than ever" they can get it done this time, he's also "more anxious about failure this time around." 

Toomey talked with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. Here's a bit of that.

And what about President Biden? Toomey wasn't kind, saying Biden "might have been" a president able to reach across the aisle, but "he's chosen not to take that approach since day one. He has sided with the far left of his party and really not reached out to Republicans."

He gave a speech on this topic where he advocated policies that he knows for sure have no chance of passing the Senate, probably couldn't even get 50 votes, and hold the Democrats, much less get the 60 we would need. 

So, once again, the president is not being very helpful.

I find it so interesting- that the Rs are mad at Biden for suggesting they do something that most Americans have favored - for years - and he's the unhelpful one? I think somehow the Rs have forgotten that, for better or worse, Biden is the president of the country, not merely the president of the whiny, do-nothing Senate Republicans. 

For your Extra Credit, I focused on conversations on the January 6th Committee hearing that aired last Thursday. Brennan talked with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Every Committee Investigating Trump). Regular readers know that I'm not always a fan of his, but at least for this part of their conversation, he was spot on.

Brennan asked if the Committee didn't "run the risk of losing the public's attention" if they fail to "deliver a bombshell" on Thursday. Schiff explained, for Brennan and for the people in the back, that the goal is to "present the narrative of what happened in this country, how close we came to losing our democracy, what led to that violent attack on the 6th."

The roundtable on This Week with George Stephanopoulos also tackled the issue. Here's Chris Christie's response to George's statement that he'd "find it hard to imagine at the end of the hearings that former president Trump is not going to be in a worse position than he is today."

..."the battle right now... is between the truth and lies." Trump has been lying "both affirmatively in terms of whether the election was stolen or not," and by his silence on his own actions on January 6th.

Donald Trump talks about everything. He's willing to talk (about) almost anything... you've never heard him talk about what he was doing on January 6th while this was going on. 

Moving on to my weekly Wondering on Wednesday, I noted it was both the day that the House took testimony from mass shooting survivors, gun reform advocates, and others. And, it was the day that an armed, self-described mentally ill person was arrested near Justice Brett Kavanaugh's house. 

In response, the Senate's Grim Reaper, Mitch McConnell (R-Someplace Dark and Cold in Kentucky) declared that the House must pass the Supreme Court Security Bill, because the justices need protection now!

He went on to describe, without irony, his frustration at their 'multi-week' delay in passing the bill. Pretty rich from the guy who has the desk where everything that passed the House goes to die, but anyway, this post is about wondering, here I go.  

The guy was arrested, his weapons confiscated, and no one was hurt. And so, I find myself wondering why we need more laws, when we can just enforce the laws we have? 

If that's the answer whenever we talk about trying to make changes to gun laws to protect innocent children, concert-goers, grocery shoppers, prayer groups, church attendees, movie watchers, doctors and nurses and other health care professionals, and more, why isn't that the answer for SCOTUS justices?  

For your TGIF, shared some thoughts on the hearing that aired Thursday night, and some thoughts on the babble from the right. 

Now, for some specifics: On TNN, Sean Hannity said "the one person who looks good is Donald Trump." Meanwhile, this morning there's a boatload of tweeting about the "FACT" that Nancy Pelosi and the FBI were behind the insurrection.

• If it was Pelosi and the FBI, why in the world did Trump tell the insurrectionists that they were very special and he loved them?

• If it was Pelosi and the FBI, would Trump be complaining about how the media didn't fairly report the size of the crowd?

• If it was Pelosi and the FBI, would any of the alleged Republicans be asking Trump for pardons?

• If it was Pelosi and the FBI, would Steve Bannon have said all hell is going to break loose on January 6th? How would he know?

Those are just a few of the questions I had trying to understand how the Dems were responsible for the Republican insurrection. As you might imagine, I declared it was a bad week for the real insurrectionists - and we all know who they are.

This week, I'll have more of the Yes, We Can Do Something series - I haven't forgotten about that, I promise.

And, of course, we'll have our regular weekly features, too. I hope you'll stick around.

Sunday School 6/5/22: Extra Credit

I'm switching gears from your Sunday School lesson on people trying to do something about gun murders, to people trying to do something about the January 6th insurrection... let's dive into this week's Extra Credit.

Jake Tapper had former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA) in the State of the Union classroom. He worked as an advisor to the House January 6th Committee for several months, leaving at the end of April to focus on helping Ukraine.

Before we get into his interview, the Committee is unhappy with Riggleman's appearances on CNN, as Politico noted last Friday. After one interview last week, the Committee's staff director sent an email regarding an "unauthorized" interview. Per the article, the email said Riggleman's appearance was "in direct contravention to his employment agreement."  And, of course, Riggleman "sharply disagreed" with that portrayal.

So, in the interest of not piling on to the Committee's dismay, I'll limit my excerpts to Riggleman's exuberance and personal opinions, and omit anything that could be remotely sensitive.

He said that the hearings are "going to be very concise," and "very exciting," and

...I think people are going to be absolutely surprised how much was known... And I think that's what's going to be exciting to see the committee. There's some very talented investigators behind the doors, and even with our teams and things like that and what they found, but, again, the investigators going through the thousands of interviews that they have and all the data and the videos.

I think -- I do think they're going to be very successful in those six -- I think in those six hearings.

And, he has hopes for the rest of us.

... the American people have to look at this from the beginning, take their notes, and understand that the committee has to build a case in a very solid, facts-based way. There's not going to be a lot of partisan whining or screaming. The investigators behind the door are nonpartisan individuals. They're going to present this case in a very cogent way. But the American people need to -- they need to take notes.

Tapper pressed on whether there's some kind of orange-haired smoking gun here. The only part I can comfortably repeat is that Riggleman said there were multiple groups looking at more data than he'd ever seen before - "it's absolutely incredible" - and that the Committee has to put it all together and that's what makes it exciting, and the "talent behind the door" made all of this possible, or something.

He agrees with Rep. Liz Cheney (R- stands for Real Republican) that the GOP has become a personality cult, not a party, and said he doesn't consider himself a Republican anymore. What he saw during his time with the Committee

has even pushed me further away, that the party has moved away from conservative principles to this cult of personality that Liz Cheney is talking about. She's absolutely correct. And when you see it behind the door... it's absolutely stunning, that cult of personality, but also the belief systems, that I don't think any real conservative could follow at any point. It's absolutely insane what people have sort of put their arms around. 

I can't agree more with that assessment, even without peeking behind the door. 

Down the hall, Margaret Brennan spoke with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Face the Nation. Schiff, you'll recall, was involved in both Trump impeachments, and is a member of the January 6th Committee. 

On the DOJ not charging Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino, Schiff said it is "very puzzling why these two witnesses would be treated differently than the two" the DOJ decided to prosecute (Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro). 

These witnesses have very relevant testimony to offer in terms of what went into the violence of January 6th, the propagation of the big lie, and the idea that witnesses could simply fail to show up. And when the statute requires the Justice Department to present those cases to the grand jury, they don't, is deeply troubling. We hope to get more insight from the Justice Department, but it's a, I think, a grave disappointment and could impede our work if other witnesses think they can likewise refuse to show up with impunity.

He also said there's plenty of stuff they could have testified about that wouldn't come close to executive privilege - things about the campaign, relevant documents and the like.

None of which is protected by privilege. And the idea that you can simply refuse to show up, rather than show up and say, as to this question I'm going to assert a privilege, that just invites others to be in contempt of Congress or be in contempt of judges around the country in other courtrooms. And I think it's a very dangerous precedent to set.

Schiff said he wouldn't comment on any specific witnesses or testimony, but did say

...one of the themes that we will be fleshing out is the fact that in advance of the 6th, that there was an understanding of the propensity for violence that day, of the participation of white nationalist groups, of the effect that the continued propagation of his big lie to rile up the country and rile up the president's base was likely to lead to violence. 

Sunday School 5/15/22

Unsurprisingly, the Sunday School classrooms were full of discussion on the mass shooting in Buffalo, NY. 

I'll start with my Governor Kathy Hochul, a Buffalo native, who gave several interviews. Here's a recap of her conversation with Dana Bash in the State of the Union classroom.

Bash described the state of the union as "heartbroken and horrified," not just because of the lives lost, but because the shooter apparently had published a lengthy, hate-filled, racist manifesto before embarking on his mission. 

Hochul talked about that a bit. 

... what is so bone-chilling about it, is that there is the ability for people to write and subscribe to such philosophies filled with hate, the white supremacists acts of terrorism that have been fermented on social media. And to know that what this one individual did has been shared with the rest of the world, as well as the livestreaming of this military-style execution that occurred... in the streets of my hometown, and that is what is so fundamentally disturbing about this, that this is not just a long time ago, members of the KKK would sit in a hall and plot what they're going to do in their community. This spreads like a virus.

She wants social media platform execs to "examine their policies and to be able to look me in the eye" and say they're doing everything possible to prevent the spread of this stuff, and that they're able to take it down immediately. (Twitch, the Amazon-owned gaming platform on which the shooting was streamed, said the video was removed in less than two minutes, but it was available on other platforms where it had been shared hours later.) 

Bash asked how this hate, things like the Great Replacement Theory, which was included in the published screed, is not just spreading online, "it's being pushed by some prominent right-wing voices, and it's been done so for years," can be stopped. The gov said the folks who spread this "need to be called out," and party officials need to

stand up at this moment and call it out and just shame it and to make sure that these people crawl back into their holes and stay there. This cannot be part of our mainstream dialogue here in the United States of America. So, leaders have a responsibility to call it out.

She also talked about her responsibility to protect people when it comes to guns. The laws here are "some of the toughest" in America, 

but the guns are coming in from other states, or the enhanced magazine, which is exactly what happened here, the high-capacity magazine that led to the slaughter of people in my hometown.

There are also illegal guns, purchased legally in other states and brought to NY.

... they end up in someone's trunk. They bring them up I-81. They head into New York State, head over to the Bronx, head over to Brooklyn, head over to the city, or they go to places like New York, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester. So, that's how it's spreading. Other states do not have the same laws that we have, and people are just crossing those borders.

Hochul's not the first to mention that problem. NYC Mayor Eric Adams mentioned the so-called Iron Pipeline in one of his recent classroom visits. It's an issue impacting cities in multiple states. Sadly, knowing these trafficking routes exist, and doing something about them, are vastly different things.

Down the hall, George Stephanopoulos led his panel in a discussion on the shooting and the hate that drove it in the This Week classroom. Sitting around the table were ABC regulars Donna Brazile and Chris Christie, along with Julie Pace (AP) and Molly Ball (Time Magazine). 

Brazile noted that FBI Director Chis Wray "warned us almost two years ago" that domestic terrorism by white supremacists was a big concern, but that we're not doing much about it. 

 We've got to talk about white supremacy. We've got to talk about the radicalization of -- of kids in this country. We cannot do a "both-sides" argument on this one here because, if we don't begin to address what is happening, it's going to continue to happen. El Paso, what we saw in Charlottesville, what we saw down in Charleston. We have to address it. We have to be vigilant. And we have to root out this type of extremism in our society. 

Christie said this wasn't on his radar when he was a US Attorney (from 2002 - 2008), but it was - "a little bit" - near the end of his second term (in 2018) as New Jersey's governor, where he said law enforcement folks 

started to see more people willing to act out violently, seemingly without any type of heads-up, because they're acting alone. And that's what makes it so difficult for law enforcement. Because, even with good intelligence work, it's really hard if someone is a crazy person who is not doing things overtly, publicly. It becomes harder.

He said it'll be interesting to learn why "we didn't see some of the stuff he was writing and...  posting, and why he wasn't flagged." And he said Wray pointed out the need for all levels of law enforcement to work together, "in a way that flags some of the stuff that's happening on social media and keeps a watch on some of these folks who are going to act out violently." 

Pace responded to George's question about the apparent amount of planning in advance of this, pointing out that it "seemed to happen in spaces where other people were, you know, these online communities right now are really robust" and where, as Christie said, often out of sight of law enforcement. And, she added,

I think it's going to be really interesting to see where the debate goes in terms of what the responsibility of the tech companies will be here but also other people that just exist online in these communities, what is their responsibility? We all get so used to flagging things when we see them in person, but this is sort of the next space, I think, where people need to be more alert. 

Ball, who's a political correspondent, talked about the conversations she has with "everyday voters" and how many bring up how "mad" and "divided" we are.

And this is something that, I think, politicians see it as sort of just cheap, political rhetoric, everybody says, oh, well let’s come together. But people are really taking this seriously, this sense of division and hatred and just all of the strife that we feel. And I think particularly, you know, coming out of COVID, reemerging, trying to come back together as a society, there's so much we need to be doing just to try to knit people together and feel like a country again, feel like a community together...

Christie seemed to suggest we probably won't hear a lot of kumbaya over the coming months, noting that "midterms are particularly divisive." The typical midterm voters are the "true believers" on both sides, which means the pols are talking to folks who aren't as likely to be looking for unity or healing the divide. Rather, we'll likely see candidates doing more hardcore progressive or hardcore conservative communication over the next few months, but said

I definitely sense from being out there and talking to voters, that as we turn the clock from '22 to '24, I think there's going to be a new desire among voters to say, I want to hear from people who have the ability and the record to be able to bring people together rather than divide us. I think there is a desire for that in the country.

Brazile mentioned one of my least favorite things about politicians - "they speak in sound bites. They don't speak in the everyday ordinary language..." 

They're not speaking to open the hearts and minds of a young man, 18 years old -- what drove this child to write a 110-page manifesto where he talks about his hatred of Jews, he talks about starting a war, Jews against non-Jews, and then he starts talking about black people? I'm, like, have you met one? Have you talked to anybody unlike anything you’ve ever seen? No, I don't want politicians to control this conversation.

She thinks the conversation belongs in the hands of teachers, business leaders, and the like, and said "the media has to understand that they cannot be complicit in this conversation. "

We need to have a conversation that doesn't go about the next election. It's just like on abortion. People call me, what do you think about Democrats and abortion? I said, before I was a Democrat, I was a human being, and why not talk about that and not just the next election? No, we need more than politicians to have this conversation. 

Christie's next comments have me wondering what the heck he's smoking. He said he really believes there'll be

a different desire come '24 in terms of hearing something different from people who want to pursue high office because of the violence that we're seeing, because of the division that you are talking about. People are feeling it. They're feeling it at their dinner table. They're feeling it with their own children. They're feeling it at cocktail parties, at sporting events. They don't want to see it. 

Um, does 2020 ring a bell, Governor? The Big Lie? Or 2021, and the insurrection? We've got the former president still spouting the former, and we've got Republicans still denying the latter. Current Republican officeholders, and wanna-be Republican officeholders traipse off to Mar-a-Lago to kiss whatever he demands them to kiss, looking for endorsement, or at least not opposition. And, he's a threat to what Christie's suggesting. Pace seems to agree, saying

-- it's great to think about the prospect of a 2024 campaign that is focused around unity in this country, but, I think, the reality is that we will have some very powerful forces, potentially the former president who doesn't really speak that language and has enormous support from within the Republican Party. So, I think there's a long way to go before we get to that place where we might really have that national conversation that is more focused on unity.  

She's spot 0n with that thinking. After all, we just had a campaign in which the winner, Joe Biden, ran on trying to unite us, and ran into the other party's fully-dug-in position of stopping his administration.  

There's a long way to go, for sure. See you around campus

Sunday School 4/17/22: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, we learned about Senate struggles to agree on COVID aid, tales from the House Minority Leader, and we listened to two dads talking about kids and legacies.

For your Extra Credit, we're talking crime - something Democrats are running from, and Republicans are running on in this year's elections.

George Stephanopoulos hosted This Week; he spoke with New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell. 

George asked if we need better tracking of folks like Frank James, the suspect in the recent gas-and-shooting attack in the subway, who had hated-filled videos and "suggestions of violence" posted online. Adams believes we do, and that social media companies have a role to play.

There's a corporate responsibility when we are watching hate brew online. We can identify using artificial intelligence and other methods to identify those who are talking about violence. And you know my concerns around even what's called drill music. Not all drill music, but those that talks about inflicting violence on rival gangs. That is driving some of the shootings we're seeing in the parts of the Bronx.

Sewell said they've been working to "convince people that subways are safe," saying that patrols have been enhanced since January when she and Adams took the reins.

We've done over 280,000 additional inspections by uniform personnel in the subway system. Couple that with our subway safety task force. As it stands now, crime in the subway is actually below pre-Covid numbers.

She said more officers are being surged into the subway, recognizing that "people need to see a visible presence of police..." There's stuff we don't see, too, she said. 

Speaking to the continued increase in major crime since his election, Adams noted that it's a national problem, not just a problem in NYC. 

It's not a red state, blue state. In fact, red states are experiencing a higher murder rate than blue states. Tulsa is three times the murder rate of Los Angeles. Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, those are the highest murder rates in our entire country.

He mentioned the 'defund the police' narrative that was heard before President Biden got elected, but turned that into a message for Republicans.

Let me tell you what the de-funders of police are... those who did not vote on the Build Back Better bill. Money was in that bill for police officers. We have 2,400 ATF agents in our country. Only 80 are in New York. We need to double that amount. We need to go after the ghost guns. We need to put a head to ATF in place. Put in place a real gun-tracing program. 

Sewell said police need to rebuild trust and work with the public to do that. It's something she and her officers do, every day, she said,

because we need them. And I think we keep saying that public safety is a shared responsibility. This recent case illustrates just that. And everyone came together. So, we need to build strength in our communities with the police.

George played a clip of former NYPD Commish William Bratton talking about reforms, and asked Adams if Bratton was right.

The scales right now are tipped very heavily in favor of the reforms of the progressive left. Well intended, some needed, but a bit too far. And what we have as a result is this growing fear of crime, this growing actual amount of crime, as evidenced in almost every major American city.

The mayor - a former NYPD captain - said yes. He admitted "major mistakes" had been made in the past, and he agreed with Sewell that they need to rebuild trust with the community. They can't do that 

by allowing those who are dangerous and that have... a repeated history of violence to continue to be on our streets. We have to un-bottleneck the courts. Too many people during Covid, when courts closed down, have not served their time or have not been in the courtroom. And then we have to be honest about some of the things we're doing generationally that has created the crime problem that we are facing right now. And that is why we believe in intervention and prevention to solve this issue that we're facing.

Sewell added that they can't "lose sight" of crime victims, either.

We believe the system has to be fair and balanced, but when we lose sight of the victims of crime, we are not doing what public safety is intended to do.

In the panel discussion, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile admitted the Rs will run on crime. It's a problem across the country, she said, because "we have a problem with gun violence... people are just shooting, shooting, shooting... It's not a Democratic problem. It's an American problem."

And, she said, it's going to take a "...'whole of government' approach" and private sector involvement,

because we’ve got to deal with the fact we have a lot of teenagers, a lot of folks who are just disconnected from society and we have to bring them back in. And if we don't bring them back in, crime is only going to increase.

Speaking of NYC specifically, where she had relatives in uniform, she said the crime budget is $11B, higher than the Ukrainian budget.

So, let's be clear that we can increase the number of policemen. We can increase the budget for police. But you’ve got to bring in Social Service workers, you’ve got to bring in the Youth and Child Department. This is a huge issue...

Former Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) appreciated Adams agreeing with Bratton that it was "progressive policies that have caused this wave in crime" (an over-simplification of what Bratton said and what Adams agreed with), but he thinks Adams, who ran on fighting crime, is "sticking to his word" and he thinks New Yorkers will "give him the benefit of the doubt" for that. 

Biden, on the other hand, doesn't get a pass. He was against 'defunding the police,' but

he was also standing with a lot of these reforms that have made - that have turned out to be a mistake. And it's not only reforms, it's the attitude of local prosecutors that have been elected, in places like Manhattan, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago who are refusing to prosecute some of these crimes.

The result of all of this is that "crime is going up. And Democrats are going to pay the price for it because it's their policies that changed us from a low crime country to a higher crime country."

George gave the last word to Maria Salinas, an ABC News contributor.

All right. But is it really -- does it have to do with policy or does it have to do -- especially the increase in the last couple of years, increase in crime, does it have to do more in the fact that people -- were in pandemic, people were locked up?

Doesn't mean that people locked up commit crimes once they come out, but all that frustration, losing your job, having the prices of everything being higher, doesn't that affect people? And you combine that with the access to weapons does not -- doesn't that increase a crime?

I've got thoughts on what Salinas said, but that'll have to wait for another day.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 1/30/22

I wandered into ABC's This Week classroom yesterday. Here are some highlights. The segment that got the most press, from what I could see, was the George Stephanopoulos interview with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Very Concerned) and what she didn't say. But let's start with what she did say. 

Collins appreciates adding diversity to the Supreme Court, but says the "clumsy at best" process around Biden's promised nomination of a Black woman "adds to the further perception that the court is a political institution like Congress when it is not supposed to be." And, she disagreed with George that this was the same thing President Reagan did during the 1980 campaign.

Actually, this isn't exactly the same. I've looked at what was done in both cases. And what President Biden did was as a candidate, make this pledge. And that helped politicize the entire nomination process. What President Reagan said is, as one of his Supreme Court justices, he would like to appoint a woman.

I'm very concerned with the senator's research skills - because Reagan did not say he "would like to appoint a woman." He went much further than that.

I am announcing today that one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by the most qualified woman I can possibly find, one who meets the high standards I will demand for all court vacancies. 

Not only that, but thanks to some great research and documentation, we now know Reagan did it for exactly the same reason Biden did: to secure votes from a specific demographic in order to garner his party's nomination. 

Now, to the attention-grabbing part. George asked Collins about president Trump's hint that he'd pardon January 6th insurrectionists if he gets elected in '24, and whether she could  "imagine any circumstances where (she) could support his election." Collins said Trump shouldn't have said that; she thinks we "should let the judicial process proceed." And when George pushed her on not ruling out supporting Trump, here's what she said.

Well, certainly it's not likely given the many other qualified candidates that we have that have expressed interest in running. So, it's very unlikely.

It's also very unlikely she'll commit to anything, if she can't even commit to this. 

The panel this week included political animals Donna Brazile, Donna Shalala, and Chris Christie, and Reihan Salam, president of the conservative Manhattan Institute.

Here's Brazile on SCOTUS, after noting that 108 of the 115 Supremes have been white males, some of whom "were extraordinary..."

But the fact is, 55 years after Thurgood Marshall was put on the court, 31 years after Clarence Thomas, 13 years after Sonia Sotomayor, this is a moment when the country can finally say equal justice under the law applies to everybody. It's an extraordinary move by the president. I welcome this appointment. And I'm going to fight with everything I have, to make sure that this extraordinary woman gets confirmed.

Here's Christie after noting that "elections have consequences."

...it wouldn't have been the way I would have approached it, by pre-announcing something like that, but Joe Biden won the election. He gets to make the choice. And every one of the 100 senators has a right then to scrutinize this person's background, experience, and decide whether or not they deserve lifetime tenure.

And Shalala, on both the prospect of a Black woman joining the Court and on polling showing most American just want the most qualified person. (I don't believe that for a NY minute, I've gotta tell you, but I digress). 

Well, it brings someone with a different experience, a black woman's experience. It makes the court look like America. It makes it look fairer. And I'm not surprised the majority of Americans think he ought to just pick the -- the qualified candidate. That's, in fact, an advancement, that we ought to pick the qualified candidate. But a black woman on the court, it will make a difference.

And, here's Salam, after noting he thought Biden's promise "was a mistake," because it limited his options 

... I think that one thing to keep in mind is that the Democratic coalition is awfully diverse along many different dimensions. Donna Shalala mentioned that there's such a thing as a black women's experience. When you look at the four leading contenders, as far as news reports go, these are people with dramatically different experiences and actually some subtle differences in ideological sensibilities as well... So I think that recognizing the distinctions among black women and recognizing that there are many other kinds of diversity one could bring to the bench is a good and valuable thing. And Democrats ought to keep it in mind.

Perhaps the most remarkable comment of this discussion was about the politics of the whole thing, and it came not from a panelist, but from the host. Christie set it up.

...But on the politics of this, George, for the midterms, when you have inflation where it is, when you have crime where it is, the things that affect people's everyday lives, they don't see the Supreme Court affecting their everyday lives in the same way that inflation, crime, and foreign policy crises do. So, I think it may have some small effect, but nowhere near a determinative one.

Here's the comment from Stephanopoulos.

It has rarely been a big - a big voting issue in either presidential or midterm elections...

Um, really, George? I'm Susan Collins-level very concerned with your failed memory of the 2016 and 2020 elections. The Supreme Court was one of the keys to Trump's victory in the former, and he also used it in the latter. Sheesh - everyone knows that.

I was going to end the post there, but instead I'll close with thoughts about Rs not wanting to stick a fork in a Trump 2024 run. Here's Salam's take on it.

Well, I think that it makes sense for people to want to preserve freedom of action. You do not know how the environment might change. There are a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives who said at the very beginning of the 2015-2016 campaign cycle that they wouldn't support Donald Trump. But then things changed. And we could condemn them. We could praise them for that. But the reality is that, you know, politics, the environment moves very, very quickly.

And, here's Brazile.

I can't imagine President Trump saying he will pardon the very same people who injured 140 policemen. I can't imagine President Trump saying at a rally that he would pardon people who said, kill Mike Pence, assassinate Nancy Pelosi. There's -- there's -- there's no place in our politics for that type of rhetoric and that type of action and leadership. So I hope the Republicans reject Donald Trump so that they can move past this movement and we can try to figure out how to bring the country together. 

From where I sit, 'bringing the country together' remains a Herculean, or even Sisyphean task, but one can always hope. I encourage you to join me in not holding your breath on this one.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 11/22/20: Extra Credit

Last week, I said that many GOP officials were "weaselly scaredy cats" for not standing up to the president's assault on our election systems and processes. 

In yesterday's Sunday School, I quoted Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who said that we're "beginning to look like a banana republic" and that

I just don't think that there are a lot of profiles in courage, frankly... I mean - we all know how vindictive the president can be, how powerful his Twitter account is, and how he can really pressure Republicans and go after them. Very few of us are willing to stand up.

In yesterday's This Week classroom, former NJ Gov. Chris Christie took his stand, more firmly than he had immediately after the election. Here's his exchange with George Stephanopoulos, who opened the door for Christie.

And Chris, let me begin with you. I remember well, in the hours after president Trump's speech on -- early Wednesday morning, the day after the election, you said it's incumbent on him to come forward with the evidence. There have now been 34 court cases the president has lost. We saw Pennsylvania last night. We saw Pat Toomey, the senator from Pennsylvania, say it's time for the president to enable this transition; it's time for the president to concede. The president's response was to attack Pat Toomey on Twitter. Is it finally time for this to end?

Christie was clear in his response -- and it's what every Republican should be saying. 

Yes, and -- and here's the reason why. The president has had an opportunity to access the courts. And I said to you, you know, George, starting at 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning, if you've got the evidence of fraud, present it. And what's happened here is, quite frankly, the content that the president's legal team has been a national embarrassment, Sidney Powell accusing Governor Brian Kemp of a crime on television, yet being unwilling to go on TV and defend and lay out the evidence that she supposedly has.

This is outrageous conduct by any lawyer. And notice, George, they won't do it inside the courtroom. They allege fraud outside the courtroom, but when they go inside the courtroom, they don't plead fraud and they don't argue fraud. This is what I was concerned about at 2:30 in the morning on Wednesday night. Listen, I've been a supporter of the president's. I voted for him twice. But elections have consequences, and we cannot continue to act as if something happened here that didn't happen.

You have an obligation to present the evidence. The evidence has not been presented. And you must conclude, as Tucker Carlson even concluded the other night, that if you're unwilling to come forward and present the evidence, it must mean the evidence doesn't exist. That's what I was concerned about starting on election night, and I remain concerned today.

I think it's wrong. I think what you've heard lots of Republicans starting to say this; I said it on election night; and I hope more say it going forward. Because the country is what has to matter the most. As much as I'm a strong Republican and I love my party, it's the country that has to come first.

Heck, author John Bolton took a stand. I am no fan of his, but even he managed to find a dollop of conviction, now that his book's out and he's no longer under Trump's thumb. Bolton spoke with Jake Tapper in the CNN SOTU classroom. 

In response to Tapper's question on whether this is "essentially a nonviolent attempted coup," here's what Bolton had to say.

I think that gives Trump too much credit. I think he's just playing for time, in hopes that something will emerge that allows him either to have a good reason why he's lost or, in his mind, maybe still to win. But I think that simply emphasizes the need for senior Republican leaders to join those who have begun to come out and say Trump's behavior is inexcusable.

Look, the Republican Party is not going to be saved by hiding in a spider hole. We need all of our leaders to come out and say the election is over. We're not talking about an abstract right to use -- for Trump to use his legal remedies. We have passed that. We're three weeks after the election. He doesn't have any evidence. He doesn't have any legal theories. 

Look, for those who are worried about Trump's reaction, there's strength in numbers. The more who come out and say, he doesn't represent us, he is not following a Republican game plan here, the safer they will be.

He also said of Republicans,

Well, I don't think we are a bunch of cowards, but I do think it's a character test, which is why people have to speak up. The longer Trump rambles through our electoral system causing damage without Republican opposition, the more the Democrats are going to say that it is a Republican Party characteristic, and that you can't trust them with the instruments of government. I think, if we have -- people don't have to say what Trump's doing is outrageous. Just say it's wrong. I will be satisfied with that.

I think it's very important for everybody to understand that, at noon on the 20th of January, Donald Trump is no longer president. The dynamic changes enormously. I'm not saying he's going to disappear. That's, unfortunately, not going to happen...

But it's not the same as his -- him being able, as he did on Friday, to haul people into the Oval and put pressure on them. That's all going to be gone. You can -- you can say what you think without worrying about a Trump Twitter rant that will just be a bunch of damp squibs by that point. And that's what people need to understand. Far better to start that process now than to wait for him to cause more damage.

Yes -- it would be far better to not allow him to cause more damage - it's easy to agree with him on that, as much as I find agreeing with him disagreeable.  

For your Extra Credit, I ask you to take a stand, too. Write, call or email your elected officials, regardless of party, and tell them what you think about this. Send a letter to your local paper, TV station, radio station - wherever you can find a platform to make your voice heard. Social media is just as good as any of the traditional media outlets. 

Don't let the president do any more damage.  

See you around campus. Wear your mask, and please, honor whatever regulations are in place where you are. 

Sunday School 11/8/20: Extra Credit

It feels like it's been a while since I spent any time with the gang from This Week with George Stephanopoulos, so that's where we're going to for your Extra Credit today.

I sat in on the reporter updates and the roundtable discussion at the beginning of the show; here are some highlights.

ABC's Rachel Scott on the difference between a Biden administration and the one he's replacing:

This is a seismic shift in American politics and the makeup of this next administration will look dramatically different from the current one. Biden has already pledged to have the most diverse cabinet in American history...

Some of the 'day one' priorities include rejoining the World Health Organization, repealing Trump's Muslim ban, and reinstating DACA - as well as rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, which he'd previously announced. If needed, she said, Biden will use Executive Orders - that depends on the outcome of the Georgia Senate runoffs, which'll take place a couple of weeks before the inauguration.

Jon Karl, the network's lead White House reporter, said that

Virtually everybody in the president's inner circle, his true closest advisors, including his family members, are fully aware that this is over. There have been conversations, conversations I'm told that include the First Lady, about how to convince him to make something of a grateful exit... and how if he doesn't leave in the right way, he could jeopardize all of that.

And if he does make a 'concession' speech, it's more apt to be a Festivus kind of thing - an airing of grievances "about how they tried to deprive him of his presidency."  Gee - I can't wait! And speaking of waiting, the Trumpeters are refusing to release funding to the Transition Team, because they - the Trumpeters - are a bunch of babies. No surprise there. 

Karl also said we'll see firings - Mark Esper was terminated today, and he was just one of a few we might expect. He also thinks we'll see pardons, although he didn't name names. 

Moving on to the roundtable:

• Rahm Emmanuel on Biden's election: I think Americans were exhausted by the constant pitting against us and they want Washington a little distant from their lives, go back to your work... we're going to get out lives in order, which is why so many people were focused on the pandemic and the economy and a sense of being able to get back to some kind of normalcy.

• Chris Christie, on the election being a referendum on Trump: ...you heard me speaking since the summer that he couldn't win a referendum; not in the middle of a pandemic, not in the middle of an economic recession that was caused by the pandemic and in the midst of real racial issues in our country. You can't win a referendum in that respect. But it was not a rejection of Republican policies across the country.

• Yvette Simpson on the message: ...I do believe in places where we were true to our mission we won. For instance, the progressives who were in swing seats all won. But the moderates who were in swing seats didn't. And I think part of that is we didn't make our message clear enough... go with talking about serving real people. You can do that in moderate districts and it doesn't have to feel extreme.

• Matthew Dowd, on what people were thinking: I'm tired of the chaos. I want calm. I really don't want to hear from the president every single day about every single thing. I think - a year and a half ago, somebody asked me what the slogan should be for a candidate running against Donald Trump and I said, Make America Boring Again.

• Christie, on how Rs are still sticking with Trump: I'm hoping that more Republicans more in the direction of saying, not that we don't support the president, he's been a friend of mine for 20 years, but friendship doesn't mean you're bling. Friendship means that you will listen to somebody, give them their opportunity, and if they don't come forward with the, with the proof, then it's time to move on.

• Dowd, on how the parties did on Election Day: I think ...that the two political parties had a - both had a successful night and a huge amount of warning signs on Tuesday night. Turnout was amazing. There was huge support of each political party... but there's a ton of warning signs for each party and I think they need to look at themselves and introspect on themselves... I think the two political parties need to look at their own tribe first and say, "what is it that we're not doing? Because we're not appealing to huge parts of the country that caused the division within the country."

• Heidi Heitkamp, on problem-solving:  There is a place that you can go in solving these problems that speaks to all sides and does not radicalize important issues in this country. We saw that, with the pandemic, which was incredible, how masks got radicalized and politicized. We need to stop doing that and we need to come together, and both sides have to address the concerns that the other side has on solutions for this country. You know, the unity that we have is really unity about what the problems are.w It's bringing together solutions that can bring everybody together so that we can walk together and solve America's problems. 

Why do I want to drop another huge "damn straight, Skippy" tonight? Heitkamp, a former Senator, nailed it. So did Matthew Dowd.  

So did Christie. And even Rahm Emmanuel at least tacked it, which is almost like nailing it. 

Great discussion, and more food for thought. 

Masks on, distance maintained... you know the drill. Do that, and I'll continue to see you around campus.

Sunday School 2/23/20

I decided to spend all my classroom time with the crew at ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Not because they had any of the 2020 Dems, but because they had an interesting panel and lots to talk about.

Here's who sat in today: Chris Christie, the Republican former governor of New Jersey; Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic former Mayor of Chicago/former Obama Chief of Staff; Democrat Yvette Simpson, CEO of Democracy for America, the progressive political action committee based in Burlington, VT; and Republican strategist Sara Fagen, the former political affairs director in the George W. Bush administration.

On the question on whether  Bernie Sanders (That Guy from Vermont, or TGFV) is unstoppable, Emanuel said no, but the moderates need to "coalesce around one person" - otherwise it's going to be like the Rs in 2016: a divided field that leaves room for one person to get enough delegates. He also said that everyone else in the race now is still able to have a "thread of logic" on why they should not drop out.

Simpson said TGFV continues to struggle with older people, and she thinks a lot of them are still in Biden's camp, even though Mayor Pete is picking up ground there. And, she thinks, South Carolina will be interesting, as he's "closing in on" Biden there. She thinks he'll be the one with the most delegates come convention time, but "the biggest challenge is the establishment continuing to fight him" instead of coalescing around him as the front-runner.

Fagan pointed to a difference between '16 and now, that Trump "ultimately espoused tenets of the Republican Party." He was a Republican, she said, while TGFV "is not a Democrat."

He only runs as a Democrat because it's the path of least resistance to getting the nomination.

Simpson noted that "Bloomberg is a Republican" and Warren used to be one. But TGFV "has a record of voting with" the Dems, something like 95% of the time. And, "he's a democratic socialist, I think we have to continue to say that..." Emanuel cut her off in mid-sentence, saying "No, we don't have to continue to say that."

Simpson fought back, saying "it's the truth" and dropped names of other democratic socialists such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. TGFV, she said, "believes in democracy, but believes that the economy should be looked at from a different perspective."

Chris Christie chimed in at that point, agreeing with moderate Dems who say Trump will glom onto the 'socialist' tag and push it into 'communist' territory pretty quickly. Trump's already saying it; "he's going to continue to say it. And by the way, it's true." He pointed to TGFV's "socialist agenda" as proof, and wondered it if was maybe too late for the moderates to stop attacking each other and start attacking him. 

Emanuel thinks the other candidates should attack him on his gun record, or debate moderators should, and that they certainly would have in a Republican race.

The "broader point," Fagen said, is the lack of vetting for TGFV. "Now, he's the front-runner, and it is coming to him. And we're starting to see the drip, drip of comments about communist leaders around the world and socialist leaders around the world..." We'll have to see how he stands up to having the spotlight on him, she said.

Emanuel reminded everyone that both presidents Clinton and Obama put together a "coalition for congressional majorities," but that TGFV "doesn't care about that metropolitan majority welcoming independent swing voters from the suburbs" into the party. He suggested the test of this is "not one of the congressional Democrats who flipped red to blue" in '18 have endorsed him.

Simpson doesn't think having him at the top of the ticket will cause the Dems to lose the House. She pointed to the "amazing historic election in 2018" stemming from hatred of Trump, sure, but "also by the fact that "the new American majority is representing us, and they want to run" for the House and Senate.

She also credits TGFV with building a "multiracial coalition, multigenerational coalition" which Dems need for the future of the party. And, she said, "And I've told - I think I've told Rahm this, we told the entire Democratic establishment, whoever the nominee is, if it's (TGFV), people need to get their folks to show up."

Emanuel pressed the issue, using Illinois as an example, where there are three suburban representatives in Congress, and said "ask them if, if that's the choice, they want to have a democratic socialist at the top of the ticket." And not only that, he said, but there's redistricting to be done, around the country, too -- which is also at risk.

Stephanopoulos noted that the Dems have proportional primaries, which might help TGFV get a plurality, but not the majority needed to secure the nomination before the convention. Fagen agreed, barring someone like Warren getting out of the race.  But, she said, there's no real reason to get out early, because "the more delegates you have, the bigger say you have in the nomination contest, and the more delegates you have, the more likely you are to be somebody in a Cabinet. She suggested she and Christie would "enjoy watching" this particular challenge.

Christie noted there are basically two perfect situations for the Rs: TGFV winning the nomination outright, or him not doing that.

If they ever throw this to Biden or someone else on the second ballot, this will be a destroyed Democratic Party, and the only thing better than running against a Sanders-dominated party for Republicans is to have somebody else there with a completely divided Democratic Party.

So, what can the Dems do to prepare for something like that? Emanuel said if he was chair of the DNC, he'd "get a big parliamentarian that understands all the rules for the convention, because you're going to need it." He said that Trump and Putin are "picking their opponent" and that's not who Dems want, again pointing to the down-ballot issue.

Fagen said "it's more complicated than that" because the first vote they'll take is a vote on the rules. "So, are they going to change the rules? Will there be enough TGFV delegates to change the rules? I mean, this could - this could not even get out of the gate."

After some discussion on South Carolina and Super Tuesday involving Biden, Bloomberg and TGFV, things got a little heated.  Here's Simpson.

But I want to - what I want to say, George, is listen to what you're hearing. This is someone who is getting votes from the base of the Democrat Party. Bernie Sanders is who I'm talking about. And the establishment is trying to figure out how to not give him the nomination. This is not what parties are supposed to do. If he gets the votes from your delegates, he should be the nominee. 

Stephanopoulos asked if that wasn't exactly what he did against Clinton in 2016.  Christie jumped in with agreement, saying

Yes, sure did. Sure did. That's exactly what he did. Hillary Clinton had the most votes and TGFV went in there, into the convention - and caused mayhem.... Had his people booing people at the convention. And he was a sore loser last time. Now he's saying to everybody, 'well, I'm ahead, so everybody come together behind me.' Guess what, if he had done that four years ago, there would be a lot more people willing to do it. No one's willing to do that now. 

Emanuel and Fagen chimed in often during Christie's history lesson, agree with what he was saying. Simpson disagreed, saying that was different, and

We're talking about not letting - we're talking about not letting superdelegates - we're talking about not letting superdelegates override the will of the people. Bernie Sanders - Bernie Sanders has the will of the people because he's getting those votes. We're becoming more Democratic and not less Democratic. 

Christie and Emanuel disagreed strongly, with the latter saying

You are right about one thing, and that is that he is amassing delegates and getting more delegates than anybody else. What we're saying, just that this is fraught with political risk that has never been tried since 1992. And that we have to be smart about it, open-minded.... And the fact is, you're going to need a parliamentarian, and a person that understands the rules backwards and forwards, and the strength to see it through because we're going to go, at this point -

And at that point, Simpson chimed in, saying what everyone else had been trying to tell her.

It's going to be a mess.

Oh yeah, it might very well be!

See you around campus.