Sunday School 10/2/22: Extra Credit

In your Sunday School, we heard from Rick Scott, one of Florida's two Republican senators. Today, we hear from Marco Rubio, the other one, and from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell. Both made multiple appearances. 

We'll start with Criswell, who talked with Jon Karl in the This Week classroom. She described the situation in Florida using terms like "a lot of devastation," "significant damage," still homes under water," "active rescues," and "a long road to recovery."  She spent a day with Gov. Ron DeSantis, to hear his concerns, and the concerns of folks impacted by Hurricane Ian. And,

I committed to him that we would continue to bring in resources to meet the needs, not just for this response and the stabilization, but as we go into the recovery efforts... it was good to be able to see some of the damage and talk to the people directly while we were together so then he could let me know what kind of resources and assistance he might need.

Karl asked her about the death toll (NBC reported 87 deaths) and wondered if it had to do with the forecast being off, or because of delays in ordering evacuations. Criswell said the storm was "fairly unpredictable" in the days before landfall, adding 

Just 72 hours before landfall, the Fort Myers and Lee County area were not even in the cone of the hurricane. And as it continued to move south, the local officials immediately -- as soon as they knew that they were in that threat zone, made the decisions to evacuate and get people to safety.

There's some disagreement on that, as we learned from yesterday's conversations. She also said that FEMA had "pre-staged... search and rescue resources across the federal family" with state resources to mobilize immediately after the storm passed, and they're still working to account for everyone.

Efforts continue in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona. Criswell noted that 90% of customers now have power, and other agencies are also going in to the island to "make sure that we continue to move forward in supporting all of those people that have been impacted by that, to include individuals that have had a lot of damage to their homes -- a lot of water damage this time as compared to previous hurricanes." 

Rubio was next. He described Hurricane Ian as without comparison in Florida storms, noting Fort Myers Beach "no longer exists" and Sanibel Island is "basically flattened."  Even the buildings still standing

have been damaged by water, probably uninhabitable and have to be razed. So, this is a character-altering event. It will change the character and the nature of these communities. They’ll be rebuilt, but you can’t rebuild something that is slice of old Florida and bring it back. 

Regarding Sanibel, he said the priority now is to identify the people who stayed but will have to leave eventually,

because there's no way to continue their life there. There’s no way to restore the power. There’s no economy there. At some point, they'll have to be moved. And, you know, as I said, that bridge will be rebuilt. That will take a very long time, a couple of years at least. And, obviously, you know, life in Sanibel is going to change in the interim.

He praised the federal response, saying it's been very positive from day one. It's not just FEMA; it's the Army Corps, the Coast Guard, the SBA, and other agencies that will be helping individuals who need assistance. And, speaking of assistance, Karl asked about his history of voting against Superstorm Sandy relief, which Rubio said included pork and other non-disaster related funding. He asked if Rubio would insist on a clean emergency funding bill for his own state. 

Rubio said he's supported other emergency relief bills for folks all over the country, and he's supported them without pay-fors. 

What I won't support is things that are not emergency relief. What we're going to ask for Florida is what we supported for every other state in the country that’s been affected by -- by natural disasters, and that is emergency relief designed to be spent immediately to help the people affected now...

That wasn't the case with the Sandy aid bill, he said; it included things that may weren't directly related to urgent disaster relief. And when Karl asked if he'd take the same stand on aid for Florida if Congress did their thing and added a bunch of unrelated stuff. Rubio said "it won't come to that," because he and Rick Scott won't ask for anything unrelated.

I mean, why would somebody add something from another state that’s not impacted by the storm? So, it shouldn’t come to that and I’m not -- you know, it shouldn’t come to that pork in the road because it’s unnecessary thing. It's our request. 

Remind me, how long has he been in the Senate? Honestly, it'll be fun to watch this play out if push comes to shove. 

Karl's last question was on Ukraine, and whether i's application for NATO membership should be expedited. Rubio's a no on that, and says the bigger issue is what Vladimir Putin will do next.

Putin...could very well attack some NATO distribution point, because that's who he's blaming. He’s blaming NATO, the U.S., our allies for supplying Ukraine with weaponry that’s allowed Ukraine to be so effective. So, I think we need to start thinking through, what’s the response going to be...

The concern is if NATO forces are hurt or killed in such an attack; Rubio said it's a decision for the alliance that could come sooner rather than later.

The senator also spoke with Dana Bash in the CNN State of the Union classroom. Switching from Hurricane Ian to Hurricane Fiona, she asked if thought Puerto Rico should become a state, "so that it can be more resilient in having infrastructure" for disasters. 

He said he has "long believed" that Puerto Ricans should be able to vote on statehood - they "certainly have a right to have that vote." He also  said he thinks Puerto Ricans serve in the military more, on a per capita basis, than "just about any community in the country."  

Turning to Ukraine, Bash said the administration doesn't think there's any imminent threat of Putin using nuclear weapons, and she wondered if he sees things the same way. Rubio said he couldn't comment on what the administration folks are seeing, but

...I'm not saying the risk of him detonating a nuclear device as a demonstration is zero. I think, certainly, the risk is probably higher today than it was a month ago. 

And, did he think the Nord Stream pipeline leaks were sabotage?

I think logic and common sense will tell you that these things don't blow up on their own, especially in strategic and key points. Someone has to know where the vulnerabilities are. And someone has to have the capability to go down there and do it.

He doesn't think we have to look very far to find the likely suspects. 

And the only people in that region who have both the motive and the capability to have done it are Russian or Russian forces. So, I think, for me, it's not an intelligence matter at this point. It's a common sense matter.

And, finally, he thinks the recent deal with Venezuela to get seven Americans home was a bad deal. Rather, he said it encourages bad actors to "trump up some charges and arrest Americans..."

I think seven innocent American hostages in exchange for two convicted drug dealers who happen to be the nephews of Maduro is a huge win for Maduro and, unfortunately, puts Americans all over the world now in danger.

Feel free to chime in on any of this - you'll get extra Extra Credit for that!

See you around campus. 

Sunday School 9/18/22

We're talking immigration this week, starting with your Sunday School and ABC's This Week classroom. Jon Karl was in the host's chair, and talked first with Oscar Leeser, El Paso's mayor. 

Karl asked him to describe what's happening in his city, with 1300 migrants a day arriving there. Leeser said it's more than that - north of 1500, nearly 2000 in recent days and some 80% are Venezuelans. 

Leeser said he's got a good working relationship with the Border Patrol, and that

our goal, and it will continue to be our goal, is never to drop anybody off in the streets of El Paso and make sure that no one’s homeless, no one’s hungry. So, we have our NGOs, which is non-governmental organizations that really have opened up their doors and we’ve gotten hotels. And in the last few days we’ve not had any people released into the streets of El Paso...

Karl asked Leeser to explain what he does when he arranges for migrants to move north, which is different than what Gov. Greg Abbott is doing by dropping them in front of the Vice President's residence. 

Leeser made a great point in his response.

...if you look at -- the people are not coming to El Paso, they're coming to America, and that's something that's really important.

While (in my words, not the mayor's), Abbott shoves people on a bus and sends them to a political target, Leeser and NGOs in El Paso try to get them where they want to go, where they have people they know. In the past, around 95% of asylum seekers and migrants had sponsors - family or friends who have arranged transportation, and who are waiting for the person to arrive. And now?

So, we have about 50% of the people today that do not have a sponsor, they don’t have money. So, we're helping and working to get them to where they want to go. So, that's been really important that we don't send anyone where they don't want to go. We make sure we help them and we put human beings and, you know, and we put them on buses with food and make sure they get to their destination where -- and make sure that we always continue to treat people like human beings.

NYC Eric Adams was up next; I'll have a longer interview with him in your Extra Credit, so I'll keep his remarks here brief. Adams said he's been working with New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, as well as with the Biden administration, 

to talk about how do we coordinate and their goal is to make sure that we get the resources and the coordination that’s needed, as the mayor of El Paso stated. These migrants and asylum seekers are not coming to any particular city. They're coming to America. This is an American crisis that we need to face, the humanitarian crisis that were made by human hands by some of the governors in our southern states.

He said there's no coordination with the childish governors Abbott and now DeSantis. He reached out to Abbott and his team, asking for coordination but that's not what they got.

They took the call and stated that they would coordinate... and they did not coordinate at all because I don’t think it was politically expedient for them to coordinate. It was more to do this basically political gamesmanship that you're seeing now.

And, finally, he's committed to New York City remaining a sanctuary city, echoing Mayor Leeser's thoughts.

Let's be clear here, we've all come from somewhere. Our lineage came from a location and the pursuit of the American dream is what we’ve all fought for... And I will always believe that this is a country where people want to pursue the American dream, and there are ways it can be done correctly.

So, having heard from a sender, and a receiver, it's time to hear from the panel: Marc Short, former chief of staff to VP Mike Pence; former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp; Mariana Sotomayor (WaPo), and Alex Burns (Politico). Here are a few highlights.

• Heitkamp said that the 'stunts' perpetrated by Abbott and DeSantis aren't working. She also said that some of what's happening now was predictable, and there was a "lack of preparation" which she blames on both the current and previous administrations. She also said there's a difference between how we treat Cubans and Venezuelans, even though both are "fleeing the same kind of dictatorial, communist regime. And finally, Biden should sit down with Abbott and DeSantis now and figure something out.

• Short said none of this was happening under the previous administration because it "actually secured the border." He also talked about the "hypocrisy and...in many cases, fake outrage" by folks on the left and in the media. And, he said, migrants in Florida aren't walking there themselves, the Biden administration is flying them in - and it's not just Florida. How's that OK, he asked, but it's wrong for governors to ship them to "one of the wealthiest communities in America..."

• Sotomayor said there doesn't seem to be much of a strategy from the administration or from Capitol Hill. It might be a topic this week, what with the Martha's Vineyard shenanigans, but this close to the midterms, no one's apt to want to talk about it, other than the Rs - but they're not talking about legislative solutions; they've "tried and tried and tried again and there's just no discussion right now about whether to actually engage in any changes."

• Burns said the governors are "playing to gallery on the right in their own parties and in their own states, ahead of re-election votes that both of them are highly, highly likely to prevail in and then, maybe, turn around and run for president." He said that we have a "generational, bipartisan policy failure" on immigration, but Abbott and DeSantis aren't doing anything that serious from a policy perspective.

• Karl noted that "the administration is not putting forward anything" either.

I agree with Jon Karl on that point, the Vice President's comments last week about our "secure" border notwithstanding.

I'll close with perhaps the oddest comment from the classroom, which came from Marc Short, who said

... if we were really concerned about the humanitarian crisis, Jon, then actually what we would be doing is we'd be stopping the crisis at the border, where there's 200,000 migrants every month. And they estimate 50 percent of the young women are either raped or sexually molested making that long journey from Peru and Colombia up there. If we actually had a policy in place that returned migrants to Mexico while they waited for their asylum appeals, as happened in the Trump-Pence administration, you wouldn't have the same humanitarian crisis we have today.

What on earth is he trying to say here? That the women who are raped or sexually assaulted on the way here would be better off if they were kept in Mexico? Or is it that he couldn't care less about what happens to them on the trip, as long as we don't get stuck with them?

Pretty sure we all know the answer to that question.

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. 

Sunday School 7/24/22

The winning classroom for your Sunday School and Extra Credit this week? ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos (well, with Jon Karl).

His first guest was Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator. After talking about President Biden's health and treatment, and White House protocols (yes, they follow CDC guidelines, Jha said), Karl got down to the important stuff: why aren't they hearing from Dr. O'Connor, Biden's physician? Jha explained that they are hearing from O'Connor, and Fauci, and Jha and Biden himself, but Karl's complaint was 

we're not able to ask him questions. We don't -- we see a written statement, we're not actually able to question the president's doctor. 

I'd be willing to bet a dollar that Karl and the rest of the media really want to know what Biden's health is going to be in 2024, not what his health is now. And, I'd bet a second dollar they're wishing that Dr. O'Connor was more like Dr. Ronny Jackson, who recently declared former president Trump "is in the pink of health," and who said previously that if Trump had only eaten healthier, "he might live to be 200 years old."

Next up was Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Not Pulling Any Punches), who talked about the January 6th investigation. Here are some highlights.

Of his House Republican colleagues, he said he's "ceased to be amazed at how much they're willing to accept" and not push back on. He also said the hearings might not be having "a ton of impact" on regular Rs, and that "Trumpism isn't dying even though Trump is becoming irrelevant," but that in the long term 

in like five years I still believe that it's going to be hard to find somebody that will admit they were ever a Trump supporter. And I think that's where this impact comes in, as future history.

Karl mentioned the "quite emphatic" AG Merrick Garland saying that no one is above the law, and asked Kinzinger if he thinks "it is more likely now that we'll actually see something, again, we've never seen in American history, a former president, maybe a president candidate again, under -- being prosecuted by the Justice Department?" 

Kinzinger said it does, and he was clear to say they've got "no special indication" of anything the DOJ is doing, but said "it does feel like" there's been a lot of movement on things on the DOJ side since the Committee hearings started. He said he's "not going to complain," saying

we never want to get in a position as a country, what you see in failed democracies, where every last administration is prosecuted. But there is a massive difference between 'I'm going to prosecute the last administration for political vengeance' and not prosecuting an administration that literally attempted a failed coup. That is a -- that is a precedent I'm way more concerned about, is, if there is evidence that this happened from a judicial perspective, if there's the ability to move forward on prosecuting, and you don't, you have basically set the floor for future behavior of any president. And I don't think a democracy can survive that. So, I certainly hope they’re moving forward. I certainly think there’s evidence of crimes. And I think it goes all the way up to Donald Trump.

Karl's response? 

So, you -- you hope that there will be a prosecution of Trump himself. Even -- I mean, this is -- I mean, you just have to take a step back here. This is a guy who is sounding like he’s going to run again, so he would be being prosecuted by the president that he is potentially running against.

Kinzinger was clear when he answered

Look, I worry about everything that has happened for the last few years. And really, I worry about everything that could happen in the future, and that includes things like, you know, what happens if a president’s running for office and he’s indicted, how does that feel? But, the converse of that is, what happens if we don’t do anything? What happens if we look and say, well, he’s running again, we’re concerned how it’s going to look, so that, like, whole coup attempt thing, let’s just up that behind us and hope it never happens again? Because it will happen again.

And then there's Kevin McCarthy. Karl said "McCarthy clearly didn't believe this stuff" - Trump's Big Lie - and he wondered if things would have been different if McCarthy had stood up and said so. Kinzinger's answer was spot on. Here's how he started out.

But the question is, what are you going to stand for in your life, you know? Are you going to go out being known as the guy that enabled a failed coup, or are you going to be the guy that goes out standing up, right? Goes out saying, I'm going to do what’s right?

He said McCarthy "very likely could have survived this" - but he made the wrong choice. After January 6th, Kinzinger said, Republicans were stuck in a "what do we do? Where do we go from here?" situation. And then, McCarthy went to Florida, and single-handedly resurrected Trump, "like an ambulance driver that took those paddles and brought Donald Trump back to life." At that time, "the fear that went through the Republican ranks" was palpable. 

And he had a message for everyone.

... ladies and gentlemen, and particularly my Republican friends, your leaders by and large have been lying to you. They know stuff that’s very different than what they’re telling you. They know the election wasn’t stolen, but they’re going to send out fundraising requests, they’re going to take your money from you and they’re going to use you to stay in power. You’re being abused. You can be mad at Liz Cheney and I. That’s fine. We’ve been taking this for a while. We’re not the ones lying to you. It’s the people you think are telling you what you want to hear. They’re the liars. And Kevin McCarthy is among them.

Two final points. First, the "door is wide open" for Secret Service folks - Trump's driver and head of detail among them - to come and testify; it's not the Committee's decision that they haven't done so yet. He said anonymous sources - "some of which may actually be the people of interest themselves" who are unwilling to testify under oath don't take away from Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony.

Cassidy Hutchinson will go down in history as a hero, and she never sought to. She’s just a young woman telling the truth with more courage than the vast majority of men in politics today.

He also said there's more information that we haven't heard yet from the Secret Service, and they can "explore more in depth all of that" in their report, future hearings, or both.

And, about Steve Bannon being found guilty?

It’s good. I mean justice, right... come in. you can plead the Fifth if you want in front of our committee, but you can’t ignore a congressional subpoena, or you’ll pay the price. That’s to any future witnesses too.

I figure there are a few people who will do that voluntarily, without waiting for a subpoena. 

See you around campus. 

Sunday School 4/10/22

 I spent time in three classrooms today.; let's start with Dana Perino, who hosted Fox News Sunday, and her conversation with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Where The Grim Reaper Lives). 

He feels the administration is doing better on Ukraine, but feels there's a lack of focus on the goal, which he said is for the Ukrainians "to win, to win, to defeat the Russians, the Russians to withdraw from the country."  And, he thinks they're too focused on being green, causing us to ask others to ramp up oil production. He said "we were energy independent as late as 2019. "

We can be energy independent again. The administration needs to take the shackles off domestic production. We can meet our own needs, and we can export and help the Europeans as they wean themselves away from Russian oil and gas, which I think clearly now they realize is the best and safest path forward. 

No one mentioned the ten-to-twenty thousand barrels of Russian crude oil and other products we've imported each month - for the past 20 years or so - or the last president asking OPEC to produce more oil, which he did in 2019. I wonder why?

McConnell says the administration "just can't seem to get their act together on the economy," but that's only part of why "the American people are so down on the president."

The economy, the precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the domestic energy issue we've already been discussing, crime, problems in public education, this administration has really got its hands full and I think they're headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.

And if the Rs retake the majorities in the House and Senate, all those issues will be part of the agenda, as will increasing military spending; Biden's current request "doesn't even keep up with inflation." And, McConnell said, "We've got a war going on in Ukraine." 

Well not really: the world has a war going on in Ukraine. All of NATO, all the EU, and most of the UN have skin in this game, too. The Rs complain about domestic spending; if we limit that, we should limit what we spend in Ukraine.

Ultimately, if they win, they'll work to make Biden the moderate he ran as. And even though there's bipartisan polling sentiment that we're headed in the wrong direction, McConnell has faith in us. We've hit rough spots before, he said, and we always figure out how to get back on track.

We are the most important country in the world, the freest country in the world, and let's remember that this Easter. We have a lot to be grateful for and thankful that we are in this wonderful, wonderful country.

Over in the CNN State of the Union classroom, Jake Tapper talked with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Here's the key piece of their discussion that Tapper carried over to his talk with Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Courage of her Convictions).

Sullivan said what we call the horrific acts the Russians have committed is "less important than the fact that these acts are cruel and criminal and wrong and evil and need to be responded to decisively." He outlined some of how we're doing that, before saying

And we will continue to take every step we possibly can to help the Ukrainians succeed on the battlefield and to improve their position at the negotiating table and to make the Russians pay also through increasing costs of sanctions for what they are doing to the people of Ukraine. (Emphasis added)

Cheney was not satisfied with that. In her view, we shouldn't even be talking about Zelenskyy and negotiations. 

We ought to be moving much faster, much more quickly recognizing that the Ukrainians now, given what they have been able to do and how long they have been able to fight and what they have been able to inflict upon the Russian forces, they need advanced weaponry. 

She thinks we should consider both offensive and defensive military support, we should be ensuring shipping lanes in the Black Sea remain open, and we should be giving Zelenskyy "whatever he said he needs."

Hanging up her hawk wings and turning to the January 6th Committee,  Cheney told Tapper no decision has been made on a referral of president Trump to the DOJ for criminal charges. It is, however

it's absolutely clear that what President Trump was doing, what a number of people around him were doing, that they knew it was unlawful. They did it anyway. 

She called it a "massive and well-organized and well- planned effort," and pointed to the 'statement of offense', part of the plea deal with a leader of the Proud Boys, saying it "lays out in really chilling detail" about the planning, the violence, the rally, and, she said,

 -- and, don't forget, Donald Trump tweeted out that message: Be there. Be wild."

The 'statement of offense' Cheney referenced is something we all should read. I encourage you to do that.

Denying a "dispute" on the committee, she said it's the "single most collaborative committee" she's been on, and expressed confidence that they'll come to agreement on "all of the issues we're facing." And, the mere fact that Ivanka Trump testified, without claiming executive privilege, made it clear how contemptuous Dan Scavino and Peter Navarro were in not cooperating.

Asked about politicians going to Eastern Europe and pledging to support another country's democracy, she said this about supporting our own.

But, if we don't stand for our Constitution, if we don't stand for democracy, if we don't stand for freedom, if we -- if we forget that our oath to our Constitution is an oath to a document, it's not an oath to an individual, we have got to always remember that, or our democracy is in peril.  

And finally, a quick visit to Jon Karl, hosting This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This week's segment from Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight was about Sarah Palin entering the race to replace the late Rep. Don Young, her getting Trump's endorsement, and her chances of winning.

Noting she's "an important figure historically," he said there are "reasons to be skeptical" about her chances. On the one hand, she's got "high name recognition and popularity" in the GOP.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found 62% of Republicans nationally had a favorable view of Palin, compared to just 23% who had an unfavorable one. But within Alaska, she isn't all that popular. Although Palin was a well-liked governor, her approval rating before she left office was 56%.

Alaskans didn't like that she quit on the job in 2009 before serving out her term. In fact, her favorability rating in a poll last October was only 31%. She's also getting a late start on a race that is chock-full of other candidates, almost 50 of them, in fact.

Silver named several of her key rivals, including one who was in the race before Young's death, a former aide to Young, and an indigenous woman who served in the Trump administration.  And, he said

Palin's polarizing image also won't help her given Alaska's new ranked choice voting system where the top four primary candidates advance and then voters rank order them in the general election. Palin's name recognition may help in the first round, but she could be overtaken later by other candidates,...

I don't know exactly what odds I'd put on Palin. It's safe to say her chances are above zero but below 50 percent. But, overall, I'm not really buying her comeback. 

I'm not buying it either, but we'll have to see what happens in June. 

In the meantime, here are highlights of her endorsing Trump back in 2016. And here's a reminder of how she tried to leverage her endorsement of Trump to raise funds so she could travel around the country in support of other candidates. Or, you know, just blow the money. Fun times - fun times, for sure.

See you around campus.  

Sunday School 3/13/22: Extra Credit

 As promised, I'm doing some paneling for your Extra Credit this week. The gang on This Week - Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-SD); WaPo columnist George Will, Jane Coaston, of the NY Times, and Mary Bruce of ABC News joined Jon Karl to chat about Ukraine and more.

George Will gave the best explanation I've heard for us not establishing a no-fly zone; his explanation is simple.

The second use of nuclear weapons was three days after the first in Nagasaki. There hasn't been one since. It's an amazing human achievement and we really don't want Putin to erase that line.

Jon Karl wondered if there was more we could be doing, and he suggested that taking something off the table without drawing a red line in the sand over something - Putin using chemical or biological weapons for example - doesn't make sense. 

Heitkamp pointed out that we did draw a red line: it's NATO territory - that's our obligation under NATO's Article 5 commitment, but she noted some people think we should be doing more.

So, this idea that there is no -- you know, we're not going to provoke World War III, they believe we're already there and that we're simply capitulating for no good reason when we could be stopping it right here.

Mary Bruce was upset that no one in the administration would tell her specifically what they'd do if Putin used chemical or biological weapons. We've already done layers of sanctions.

So, what is still left, if Putin does take this step? And I do think it is notable, while the president has said over and over again, "There will not be any direct engagement between American forces and the Russians," when asked what would happen if Putin did use chemical weapons, he didn't give a definitive answer...

Coaston echoed Will's thoughts on the no-fly zone: it sounds good, which is why over 70% of Americans support it, but at the same time, we're just out of a 20-year war. 

 ...I think that this is a really complicated issue because, on the one hand, you have the optics concerns here, but if you're this administration, you're thinking, if Russia hits a NATO country, if Russia engages in nuclear proliferation, that -- that's a calculus they have not yet begun to contemplate.

Moving to gas prices (anyone with a microphone must mention this at least once a day), Karl referenced some polling showing we think it's OK to "ban Russian oil even if it means higher prices, but we're going to blame Biden." 

Heitkamp said the party in power always gets blamed, but she also pointed out that Biden folks haven't been pushing back effectively on the red herrings, like 

"It's because you didn't build the Keystone XL Pipeline." And I remind them, one of the first things Donald Trump did was give the permit. And in four years the pipeline didn't get built. Why not? Because it wasn't -- it wasn't economical to build that pipeline in those price points.

She also deflated the inflation argument, pointing out that "it was the Trump administration that overspent and drove up inflation." When Karl pointed to the "shocking increase" since February, Heitkamp said it's because we started at "an artificially low price," and "we're shocked because we got used to $2 gas. And that's the problem." 

The best part was when Coaston chimed in.

I also think it's worth recognizing -- and there was a great Fox News piece from 2008 -- that noted that the president has markedly little control of what gas prices are. There is no big "cheap gas" button in the Oval Office. And if there were, somebody would have pushed it.

There was much laughter about her "great Fox News piece" intro, but it's true: there may have been a Diet Coke button, but there's no cheap gas button. 

Karl and Mary Bruce spent some air time patting Trump patsy Kevin McCarthy (R-Cali-largo) on the back for being critical of the people who support Putin. Here's Bruce, saying "that's a lot" for Kevin McCarthy,

who has gone to some lengths to maintain a relationship with Donald Trump. I think you are seeing not just Kevin McCarthy but also Mitch McConnell come out and make clear where they stand on Vladimir Putin. They haven't gone as far though as to directly call out Trump.

McCarthy won't, for sure. The last time he did that, he immediately tucked tail and crawled to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the club championship trophy or a fake Time Man of the Year cover or something. 

I can't decide whether to leave the last word to George Will, or to Sen. Heitkamp; you can decide which you'll carry with you longer.

First, here's Will:

...Putin, like some of the acolytes in this country, is a weak person's idea of a strong person. Strength, you hear all the time, it’s sort of chest beating, dime-store Mussolini kind of toughness and I don't think it goes much deeper than that.

And, here's Heitkamp:

... right now, brave people within Russia are risking their lives to tell the truth about what's happening in Ukraine, to tell the truth about Putin... trying to get rid of disinformation, and we have useful idiots here in this country and, you know, I’m not going to call the whole Republican Party but they own some of this, right? ...people are risking their lives in Russia today to get... the correct information. And ...the propaganda machine in Russia is using these useful idiots in Congress.

Will's right, and so is Heitkamp. The question is, will anyone listen to them? 

See you around campus.

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 6/21/20

Happy Father's Day, everyone.  Ready to dive in to the classrooms?  

CNN's State of the Union and Jake Tapper's conversation with Preet Bharara, CNN Senior Legal Analyst and former US Attorney from the Southern District of NY.

Bharara was there to talk about the firing of Geoffrey Berman, the most recent US Attorney for the SDNY. First off, he said he doesn't know if Berman will testify before any Congressional committees. Reflecting on his own experience after he was fired by Trump, he said that lots of folks wanted to hear from him, but the standard operating procedure is not to talk about ongoing investigations, even when you're no longer in office. 

And about impeaching Barr? He'll leave that up to Congress, but did say 

...the attorney general of the United States made a public misrepresentation about whether or not Geoff Berman as stepping down from office.  It was clearly not the case. It was clearly a falsehood... and I think that conduct alone shows there's some sort of unfitness for office... I know it's not the biggest thing in the world... but you make a representation that's not true, that's a problem for most people in any profession. It's a particular problem if you're the attorney general of the United States of America.

And Bharara said all of this probably stems from the president wanting Berman gone, and that it wasn't a case of the department losing confidence in Berman, since he was offered other positions within the DOJ.  And, 

Given that fact, and the weirdness of it, and all the other evidence that the president wasn't happy with how things were going in the Southern District, and wanting to make sure that they were stayed and they kept their place, stayed in their lane, that lane being loyalty to the president, I think it's a reasonable conclusion that the decision to get rid of Geoff Berman was not done in good faith.

Hard to disagree with him on that.

Chuck Todd had Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) on Meet the Press.  Schiff said he can't accept the explanation that Trump was "just trying to do a favor for a golfing buddy" by moving him to the US Attorney position in New York City,

given the pattern and practice of the president in seeking to use the justice system to reward friends, punish enemies, protest people he likes, and Bill Barr's willingness to carry that water for the president.

Schiff, like Rep. Jerry Nadler, who talked with Jake Tapper, said he hopes that Berman will testify before Congress. He also said 

It's, you know, I think, the most disastrous mismanagement of the Justice Department in modern memory. And like so much of what we have seen (with) this administration, it doesn't come as a surprise anymore. But yet, it's completely demoralizing to the people in the Department and dangerous to the rule of law. 

Moving on to Bolton, Schiff said he's seen the excerpts of the book, but hasn't read it yet - and "there's a tremendous amount to be disturbed about the substance of" the excerpts.

... we warned during the (impeachment) trial that you could only count on Donald trump to do what's right for him, not what's right for the country. And John Bolton says that is exactly this president's pattern and practice...

Todd reflected back on a pre-impeachment conversation he had with Schiff, about Bolton and not forcing him to testify, and he wondered if Schiff regretted not having fought harder to get Bolton's testimony in the House before voting on the Articles of Impeachment. Schiff said no.

I think, indeed, our decision has been vindicated by the fact that we are still in court now over a year later trying to get (Don) McGahn to testify. Bolton said he would sue us if we subpoenaed him. We would still be trying to get John Bolton's testimony today. 

And, he said, the House "made the case" when they urged the Senate to call Bolton during the trial, that "the senators would one day have to explain why they didn't want to hear from him when they had the opportunity. " 

He also said Bolton lacked the "basic courage and patriotism" and that it was "only greed that made him come forward in this book..."  It's hard to disagree with Schiff, too.

Finally, a quick check-in with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who talked with Jon Karl on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Here, too, the conversation started out with the Geoffrey Berman thing.  

Karl wondered if he thought that Berman would actually testify. Jeffries said he hoped at some point the Judiciary Committee would hear from him,

because I think he has a lot to say about a continuing pattern of chaos, crisis and corruption that we have seen from the Trump administration from the very beginning until this very day.

Karl pointed out that the president "gets to hire, gets to choose, nominate, appoint, in the case of acting US attorneys" - so doesn't he also have the right to fire them?  Jeffries pointed to the "long tradition...of there being no political interference" between the executive and the DOJ,

which is the primary vehicle at the federal level for ensuring that there's equal protection under the law, liberty and justice for all, anchored in the principle that we are a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not a government of a dictator or a monarch or a king.

He added that Nadler has the "full support" of the Speaker on wanting to have a hearing on this type of interference between the White House and Justice. 

Karl then asked whether John Bolton was right in his criticism about how the House handled the impeachment, keeping it so narrowly focused. That's a no.

Not at all. John Bolton is a political opportunist and a profiteer. He had the opportunity to step forward and participate in the House impeachment inquiry and share any information he had about wrongdoing by president Trump and other members of his administration, and he declined. 

And, he said, it was the Senate that committed malpractice in terms of acquitting Trump, and "now it's in the hands of the American people.

Karl's final question: If the Dems retain the House, should Nancy Pelosi step aside so there could be a black Speaker of the House? 

Not at all. Nancy Pelosi has done a phenomenal job as speaker leading our 'for the people' agenda... She has been a legendary speaker working with a historically diverse caucus, leading us forward. And I look forward to her continuing to do so in the next Congress.

See you around campus, in accordance with all applicable CDC guidelines, of course. 

Sunday School 3/15/20

Today, I sat in on three classrooms, looking for discussion on different aspects of the coronavirus threat.

So, I've got Dr. Tony Fauci, our top expert on infectious diseases talking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday (he was in all the classrooms today, I'm hoping from a remote and socially distanced location), SecTreas Steven Mnuchin talking with Jon Karl on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and a couple of governors, Mike DeWine (R-OH) and J.B. Pritzker (D-IL) who chatted with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press.   

We'll start with Mnuchin, fresh off his negotiations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the second coronavirus aid bill. Mnuchin denied we're in a recession, which a lot of people are saying is the current state of things.

I don't think so. But I think the real issue is not the economic situation today. The real issue is what economic tools are we going to use to make sure we get through this. This is a unique situation...We're addressing issues for small and medium-sized businesses. And later in the year, obviously the economic activity will pick up as we confront this virus.

And, he tried to explain to us why the president is so focused on the stock market "because it's just one indication of the economy that gives people confidence."

Karl brought up Trump's Oval Office address, noting that there was pretty strong negative reaction to it, not just from the stock markets; he also noted the false statements that were made, and wondered how it could have happened. Ironically, after his immediately prior comment about Trump focusing on the market because it gives us confidence, he said

Well, let me just first comment on your reaction to the stock market. Because the stock market is going to go up; it's going to go down. We can't focus on, every day, the move.

O-kay.  And then, speaking of the Oval Office address, he said Trump

...wanted to address a very important point, which was he made the move to shut down travel so that he could shut down more cases coming in. He wanted to reassure the American public. I don't think, in an Oval Office address, you're going to address every single issue as you're discussing it...

Karl tried again, asking how does he get things wrong about his own proposals, and Mnuchin said he doesn't think Trump got it wrong "at all." And when Karl said "I mean, cargo's not banned" here's the response.

And we were very clear that people misinterpreted the comments on cargo and we immediately put out a statement to clarify that. So the president said this is similar to China and China cargo is not banned.

It was almost impossible to misinterpret what the president said. Here are those words, as reported on the White House website. Referencing the suspension of travel from Europe for 30 days,

... these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing.  

Mnuchin also spent a lot of time talking about tools: tools they have, and tools they'll ask Congress for if needed.  And on the bill he worked out with Pelosi, that hopefully will get Senate attention this week,

So we were -- we were constantly in touch, updating the bill and making changes. And, yes, our focus is especially small and medium-sized businesses that are really hit hard in specific industries. Again, this is going to be a process with working with Congress. But, again, what I want to focus on is, there is an economic situation, and the American public should know that the president, the vice president, the entire Cabinet is going to be focused on what economic things we need to do.

And now, let's see what Dr. Fauci had to say to Chris Wallace. He's not thrilled with what's happening in the airports where Americans are coming back home from Europe and need screening. The pictures are less than comforting - people packed in like sardines in a can, physically touching people next to them whether they want to or not, for five, six, seven hours or more.

Yes, I mean we'd like to not see crowds like that. I think what people need to understand, if you're an American citizen, if you are a family member, that you can get back. You don't need to rush back. You'll be able to get back. But it's understandable how when people see a travel ban, they immediately want to hunker and get home... 

He's not sure what can be done about it, other than letting people know that Americans and their family members don't have to rush back from Europe and they can take some time and avoid the crowd.

On his comments before Congress, including the part about the mortality rate being 10 times the 0.1% mortality with the flu,

Well, the -- I would say three things, Chris. One it's brand new so we don't have any prior experience about what it's going to do, what it's dynamics are going to be. Number two, it spreads very easily. There's no doubt about that... And number three, it's very serious in the sense of morbidity and mortality particularly among -- and very heavily weighted towards - individuals who are more susceptible, the elderly and those with underlying conditions.  

Wallace pushed on the contagiousness and lethality being worse than the flu.

Well, yes. I mean, it just is. And we've got to face that fact. We've got to be realistic. I mean, we've got to realize -- and I said that at the hearing, that things are going to get worse before they get better but the kinds of things we're doing now will hopefully mitigate that... 

Wallace questioned the duration of the thing, since both the president and Fauci mentioned eight weeks a couple of days ago, and asked if Fauci was suggesting that "if we do everything right we could be on the other side of the curve" in that amount of time.

-- first of all, we have to say that people don't misunderstand. We are not sure what the duration is going to be, number one. Number two, if you look at what happened in China... it started off China, you know, two or three months ago, they started coming down within a two-month period. So if you're talking about reflecting what went on there, it's going to be about that time that we hopefully in the next couple of months are going to see the direction it's going to go. Hopefully, what we're doing, in a very aggressive way of containment and mitigation, we'll be able to not only flatten it in the sense of not as many cases, but also diminish the duration. 

Fauci said he doesn't really know what the president is talking about when he points to the Obama administration (one of five or six administrations other than this one in which Fauci has served), and rules and regulations that hampered testing.

You know, Chris, to be honest with you, I'm not sure what regulations or what it was that they're talking about. I really mean that. I mean, I'm trying to figure out what it is that these things were in place that were able to or inhibiting. But one thing that I do know now is that the ability to get a test had some regulatory and other restrictions on it that the FDA now has just gotten rid of. 

And as to our healthcare system being overwhelmed, given we have less than a million hospital beds and only 45,000 ICU beds, we have only 160,000 ventilators. Fauci said the models are only as good as the assumptions used to run them, but

If we have a worst-case scenario, we've got to admit it, we could be overwhelmed. Are we going to have a worst-case scenario? I don't think so. I hope not. What are we doing to not have that worst-case scenario? That's when you get into the things that we're doing...preventing infections from going in with some rather stringent travel restrictions... containment and mitigation from within. So, at a worst-case scenario, anywhere in the world, no matter what country you are, you won't be prepared. So our job is to not let that worst-case scenario happen. 

And finally, we turn to Meet the Press and the governors, starting with Pritzker of Illinois, home of the nightmare that was (or could still be) O'Hare Airport.

We knew when the president gave the orders that European travel back to the United States was going to be cut off, that there would be an influx of people, Americans and others, that would come before the final cutoff. So what should've happened? They should've increased the Customs and Border Patrol numbers. And they should've increased the number of CDC personnel on the ground doing those checks. They did neither of those.

And he expects it will be worse today, with even more flights coming in and CBP seeming to be "completely unprepared."  As to any "reassurance" from the administration on getting more folks on the ground?

Well, here's what I got. I got a call at about 11:00 last night after that tweet from a White House staffer who yelled at me about the tweet. That is what I got. Now, we've been talking to Customs and Border Patrol officials directly on the ground at O'Hare. I've been working with the mayor and our senators to make sure that we're getting the federal government to pay attention to this problem because we can't have it happen all day today.

DeWine, who's recognized as one of the governors who is pretty strictly following the guidance from Fauci and the other experts, was asked if he's going to close restaurants and bars in Ohio.

We're certainly looking at that. You know, we started off last week closing the schools. We reduced the number of people gathered together to 100. You know, we've restricted access to our nursing homes, to our prisons. So we're taking tough steps... all the people I've been consulting...they say, "Look. Every day counts so much. And you cannot wait. You've got to move very, very quickly." And look, these are tough decisions. We're inconveniencing people. It's making people's lives change. But we've got to save lives. Everything we're doing is to save lives.

DeWine noted the experts have said "we're always way, way behind in what we know" and that while infection rates in his state have just about doubled several days in a row, testing is ramping up and the rates are going to go up as testing comes online. And,

what I'm telling the people of Ohio, look, none of this should be a surprise. We know there's a bunch of people out there who are carrying this virus around. And that's part of the message, particularly to young people who maybe aren't so worried about it, the 20-somethings. Look, you may not get really, really sick. You may get lucky. But you may take that to your grandmother, who's 80. And we know people in their eighties, the mortality rates at least 15-20%.

Pritzker was asked the same question, specifically with regard to the massive St. Patrick's celebration in Chicago. 

With regard to St. Patrick's Day, we shut down the parade. We didn't color the river green, as we usually do. And I have advised that we need to keep our crowds smaller. And yesterday we say that -- you know, we put a limit of 250 people in gatherings. We cancelled all the gatherings larger than that. And then yesterday what we saw was many young people who think they're impervious to this went out and celebrated... People aren't understanding that, even if you're healthy, even if you're young, that you may be a carrier. And you're going to hand it over to somebody else. COVID-19 is spreading because even healthy people can be walking around, giving it to other people. So we need to go on lockdown.

But, he said, there are issues with keeping open and with shutting down, outside of the pandemic itself. The decisions, he said.

They're also about people's livelihoods. So we're actually looking hard at that decision making today. We obviously saw what happened in Europe. Nowhere in the United States really has there been a lockdown on bars and restaurants, but it's something that we're seriously looking at.

Both states have primaries on Tuesday, and that they previously had said they plan on going forward. Todd wondered if they were hesitating now. DeWine said.

We're going to go ahead. But we're telling people, again, to be careful. The good thing in Ohio is we have basically four weeks of voting. People can vote today. We're urging them to go vote today. They can vote Monday. They've got 13 hours on Tuesday. So that just naturally spreads it out. We're asking them to be very, very careful.

Pritzker said they've taking similar steps.

We have actually lengthened our hours of early voting. We have mail balloting. We've had record mail balloting this year. So we're going to go ahead with it. But we've been extra careful at all of our polling places...we're making sure that it's safe for people to come and vote. 

Todd left this discussion noting "I have a feeling it may be the last primaries we have for a little while." And that's a whole nother can of worms to think about.

See you around campus.

Sunday School 5/5/19

There was a triple dose of Mike Pompeo this morning, and I'm not sure I can take it. Although, truth be told, I'm not sure I can take a triple dose of any single guest - it's not just him.

The conversations were very much the same in each classroom, so I broke them up a bit, touching on separate topics for each.

First up, his conversation with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday where they talked about Venezuela and Russian election meddling, among other topics.

On Juan Guaido, the democratically elected leader who's not in charge:

...we've made very clear that not only the United States but 50-plus nations support Juan Guaido and his national assembly in their efforts to beat back the - the horrific conditions... I watched women carrying babies across the border... They were having to make decisions about whether they could feed their baby on the second day or the third day, their sick children didn't have medicine, all of which was sitting in Columbia and Maduro has denied them.

On why Maduro is still in power, and it that will come to an end:

These thing sometimes take time...we know it's going to happen... The United States wants all other countries out of this nation and allow the Venezuelan people to restore their own democracy. We're confident that we're going to achieve that and I couldn't tell you what day, but it will happen.  

On why Trump did not get tough with Putin on election meddling:

I don't get your point. I'm confused - I'm confused. The administration that has been tougher on Russia than any of its predecessors  and yet you continue to be fixated on something that Robert Mueller wrote down. I'm - I struggle with that... Your viewers should not be misled. This administration has taken seriously the threat of election interference and we'll continue to do so.

Let's see how he addressed some other hot topics on the other shows.