Point of View July 15, 2024 – Hour 2 : Updates From the Weekend

[00:00:00] The Big Story of Donald Trump's Assassination Attempt reactions to that. I think most of us know where we were when we heard the story, and yet here it is, something that we will probably be talking about for some time. Some of the

[00:00:58] images that developed are iconic images. One ended up being on the front of Time magazine, and I think we're going to probably hear about that for some time. The assassination attempt, as I mentioned just in the first hour, in some respects surfaced all sorts of comments

[00:01:16] of some, of course, have rightly said this is an example of God protecting an individual, the evidence of what we might call divine providence. There are others that have pointed out that actually if it weren't for the fact that former President Donald Trump had turned

[00:01:33] at one point just seconds before the bullet was fired, it would have hit him in the head and probably would have killed him. Instead, it clipped his ear, and so you can see that that last minute head movement was enough to have saved his life. The questions surrounding

[00:01:56] Secret Service are huge, and if you have spent any time listening to individuals, I'll mention say Don, Dan Bongino who worked in the Secret Service or others that have been involved in security, you can see that either we are dealing with a tremendous lapse in security

[00:02:18] and a lack of attention to some important details, or of course you have sort of the conspiracy theories out there now that this was a setup and that there has been an intentional laxity

[00:02:32] which allowed for the removal of Donald Trump. I don't tend to believe that, but I'm just trying to talk about the huge range of ideas that surface every time one of these happen. Let's also mention just briefly, because they don't deserve a lot of attention, all

[00:02:49] the mean comments, you know, the things that show up on Twitter or Facebook pages or just in emails and all the rest, too bad he wasn't a better shot. By the way, we know the shooter

[00:03:01] actually had been in the rifle club, and that wasn't too difficult a shot. I've shot an AR before, not shot it that far, but I've shot it far enough to know how you can, especially

[00:03:15] with a scope, be pretty accurate at that range. We of course know all sorts of issues about where he saw him climb the ladder. We knew at one point that a person of interest was

[00:03:28] in this warehouse, did not know where he was. Why they let him on the stage I do not know. I've seen some videos, you probably have too, of somebody crawling around on the roof and

[00:03:38] they point to him saying there's somebody there. And so all sorts of after-the-fact evaluations will be taking place, but again a lot of mean comments that have surfaced there. And then just again to illustrate a point that I've tried to make on this program so many times,

[00:03:57] maybe it's getting too redundant, maybe it's getting too boring, but it's the need for us to have discernment. I collected just a few examples for those of you watching online of stories that came out or that posted on the internet. AP, Donald Trump whisked off

[00:04:15] stage in Pennsylvania after loud noises ring through the crowd. Now if you think that was a one-off, you would be wrong because I have found that particular headline in a lot of

[00:04:28] places. And by the way, once the AP puts out any kind of thing on the wire service, of course now we're not necessarily using wires as much as internet, then everybody repeats it. And so you can see multiple examples of suggesting that there was some loud noises.

[00:04:46] Of course there was one, you see the broadcast if you go out on the internet of people saying there are all sorts of people cowering right now because Donald Trump fell down. And I mean

[00:04:56] again, just the poor, of course at the moment of an incident sometimes people jump to the wrong conclusions, which is why I think it is always important to wait till we get more information. But here's one, CNN Politics, Secret Service rushes Trump off the stage

[00:05:13] after he falls down at the rally. We now know a lot more than that. And then probably the worst one, when you actually bury the lead as they call it, L-E-D-E, bury the lead, well

[00:05:27] gunman dies in an attack, Denver Post. Okay, so all I need to say is there are times when just because somebody is the first news outlet to report something doesn't mean that they have all the facts accurately, whether it's a school shooting, whether it's an assassination

[00:05:49] attempt, whether it's a story of some action, that I think illustrates again for us to have some level of discernment. And I'd love to get your thoughts because also after this took place Donald Trump also announced his desire to have Robert F. Kennedy immediately receive

[00:06:11] Secret Service protection. I've talked about this on the program, due to some resistance from the Biden administration, perhaps from President Biden himself, because Robert F. Kennedy could have run against him as a Democrat, finally decided to be an independent. We certainly

[00:06:29] have to say that, and this is a direct quote from Donald Trump's office, in light of what is going on in the world today, he says, I believe it is imperative that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. receive Secret Service protection immediately, given the history of the Kennedy family, this

[00:06:44] is the obvious right thing to do. And that was what was posted on Donald Trump's Truth Social. So lots of issues associated with, of course, the assassination attempt. If we set that aside for just a brief moment, when we come back from the break, I want to talk

[00:07:03] about the fact that apart from nearly being assassinated, we actually have unbelievable good news happening everywhere with the President of the United States, a former President of the United States. And I mentioned just real quickly at the top of the hour, fundraising

[00:07:23] has been very significant for the Trump campaign. In Georgia, you have a stay order that has halted the prosecution of Donald Trump by Fannie Willis. You have the Supreme Court decisions which we talked about on the issue of immunity, which really have taken away,

[00:07:42] if you will, two aspects of the special counsel, Jack Smith's indictment against him. And then coming now today, you have Judge Eileen Cannon, who has actually thrown out the case for the retention of boxes of classified insensitive material based upon her opinion, 93-page opinion.

[00:08:10] This was, by the way, something that was also embraced and promoted and promulgated by Justice Clarence Thomas in the opinion on the immunity case. And so, in some respects, apart from, of course, the assassination attempt, this has been a good week, probably be another

[00:08:29] good week at the Republican Convention. We'll see how that unfolds. But we'll come back from the break, talk a little bit more about that. And then what is the political fallout from the Trump assassination attempt? We have a piece by Philip Klein that you can read,

[00:08:44] and we'll talk about that right after these important messages. This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Betje Unger Sargon is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek and is getting lots of attention for her recent book, Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and

[00:09:13] Women. In her book, she explains the plight of people who live and work on the opposite end of our social ladder. She is unusual among the establishment media because she's willing to interview people in the working class and thus tell the story of class differences in

[00:09:26] America. Her book destroys the elitist idea that these hardworking people are angry, radical and illiterate. One of the most significant problems the working class faces is what is called excessive credentialism. More and more jobs require a college degree when it is rarely

[00:09:41] necessary to perform well. Working class people without a degree are thus unable to pursue a career that will give them social mobility and financial security. She calls that the diploma glass ceiling. They deserve a chance at a job but are overlooked when a management

[00:09:56] position opens. To make matters worse, they sometimes find themselves training a college graduate with less aptitude and experience. Their economic hardships are made worse by the sneering mindset of American elites who are often painting them as racist and intolerant.

[00:10:12] Wokeness, she argues, is often an attack on the working class. It merely serves to demoralize people further down the social ladder while making those at the top feel virtuous and superior. It's worth noting that President Trump in 2020 signed an executive

[00:10:25] order to revise the qualifications for government jobs from a college degree to relevant experience. We need more reforms that will switch emphasis from degree-based hiring to merit-based hiring. I'm Kirby Anderson and that's my point of view.

[00:10:43] For a free copy of Kirby's booklet, A Biblical View on Loneliness, go to viewpoints.info slash loneliness. That's viewpoints.info slash loneliness. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth.

[00:11:04] Once again, if you'd like to join the conversation, 1-800-351-1212, we'll get into this issue of the assassination attempt. But I just thought very quickly, since we have this breaking story about Judge Eileen Cannon, who by the way was a Trump supporter, a Trump appointee

[00:11:21] I should say, not necessarily a supporter. You're going to hear that a lot in the news and not even hear the logic behind it. Because once we can say, well, she was put in by Donald

[00:11:31] Trump, no surprise that she would actually then rule in favor of Donald Trump over Jack Smith, which I think is unfair and inappropriate. But that's the way it will be pitched.

[00:11:43] But back to the key point, what did she say in 93 pages? Let me see if I can summarize it much quicker. First, the power to initiate and prosecute criminal cases can only be exercised

[00:11:57] by an officer of the United States. Okay, well there are two ways to become an officer. You are either appointed by the President with Senate confirmation, or you were created by some statute. In other words, there's a bill that creates a special counsel. Neither

[00:12:15] of those happen. You might say, well yeah, we have some special counsels like David Weiss for example, who's special counsel for Hunter Biden, but they're already officers of the United States. So since Jack Smith wasn't appointed by Biden and he isn't Senate confirmed,

[00:12:31] then what he's doing isn't even constitutional. Pretty simple. You can disagree with that. You can simply say, well, this is a good example of a Trump appointee helping Donald Trump. But the issue is, this is something that is broader than that because if you go back to

[00:12:51] the decision that came down just about a week and a half ago by Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurring opinion on immunity, he also makes the same point that Jack Smith was never properly appointed as an officer of the United States. Therefore, he could

[00:13:09] not constitutionally oversee the indictment and prosecution of Trump in the name of the United States and under its authority. So whatever you might think about Donald Trump, there's an old phrase that my political science professor used to quote. I found out later

[00:13:27] it came from Otto von Bismarck, the Lord looks out for fools, drunkards and the United States of America. And the argument for that is, is that sometimes we've had an assassination of a president. And fortunately there was a vice president who was there before an assassination

[00:13:44] of the vice president took place. We've had all sorts of possible gaps in leadership. And yet it seems like always the Lord looks out for the United States of America. So our good friends at National Review, Dan McLaughlin says, I want to paraphrase it.

[00:14:02] The Lord looks out for fools, drunkards, the United States of America and Donald J. Trump. And whether you look at that from an assassination attempt or the fact that almost all of these cases that have been brought against Donald Trump either are indefinitely postponed.

[00:14:21] Some might come out a little bit later, you know, where for example, the Justice Meechan has delayed the sentencing of Donald Trump from mid-July to now mid-September. See what that brings. Of course, I just mentioned the fact that you now have a stay

[00:14:40] against the prosecution in Georgia by Fannie Willis of Donald Trump. You had the Supreme Court taking out two, as he says, bites out of Jack Smith's indictment. And so a lot of the lawfare which was intended to derail or completely jail Donald J. Trump

[00:15:00] has not happened and he just successfully dodged or missed or however you want to say it an assassination attempt. And so we'll see a lot more. But what does that mean for the future?

[00:15:16] Philip Klein in my first article for you says that it's awful, and I agree with him, to talk about politics in the face of a tragic shooting that did result in one death and multiple injuries. And that one death of a man that was obviously a hero

[00:15:34] who forced his wife and his family down and actually died from it. But he says also, sometimes you have to talk about politics even a day or two after an assassination. And he said in some respects the assassination is an inherently political act

[00:15:55] whatever motivated the shooter. So it seems remiss not to discuss how it could affect the election. For the next couple days, by the way, while he talks about the motives of the shooter a lot of people say, well we don't know what the motives of the shooter is.

[00:16:09] I do and you do too. What was the motive of the shooter? To kill Donald Trump. We don't have to worry about political questions or all that. His goal was to kill Donald Trump.

[00:16:22] He failed to do so and he's no longer alive to explain any more about his motives. But we do know a lot more about him and are learning more every single day.

[00:16:31] And we'll continue. But what I think is so interesting is that from a political point of view a lot of people are looking at the pictures and the images that came out of a Donald Trump

[00:16:46] bloodied, defiant and raising his fist in the crowd a minute after getting shot. And in some respects you can wonder what that might mean to the polls. Now Philip Klein reminds us that, and I'm old enough to remember when Gerald Ford

[00:17:02] who was vice president then became president was actually able to survive two different assassination attempts in the same month in 1975. Yes, that actually did happen. Two different people tried to kill him in 1975 but that did not really lead to higher approval

[00:17:24] or even his re-election. He lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976. But the more recent case, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump may have a lot more in common. Ronald Reagan famously received a huge bump in polls from surviving his assassination.

[00:17:43] And a little bit later I'll talk a bit more about some of the kinds of comments that were made by Ronald Reagan and even some of the actions by Donald Trump. But you have to also recognize that for the moment it might seem a little bit difficult

[00:18:01] for individuals who want to criticize Donald Trump to do so. I know for example that the original goal was for Joe Biden to fly here as president to Austin, Texas and deliver a message at Lyndon Baines Johnson's Presidential Library on the anniversary of the Civil Rights Act.

[00:18:26] That I think would have been a way to do some counter-programming to the Republican convention taking place this week. But he has decided not to do so. But of course before this all took place you have people reminding us that on a Monday phone call

[00:18:46] Joe Biden said, so we're done talking about the debate, it's time to put Trump in a bullseye. And at a Friday rally in Detroit he delivered a series of attacks and received, when he got a very good reaction, well that's more like it.

[00:19:04] And of course you have to recognize that the comment about Trump being put in the bullseye was one that you would imagine Republicans and supporters of Donald Trump jumped on because of course many years ago, you can remember if you were politically astute,

[00:19:23] that Sarah Palin when she was the vice presidential candidate had a target map of key races and it showed bullseyes for example in Gabby Giffords' district as an opportunity to have a pickup. As people said what if Mitt Romney or any other Republican official during those days

[00:19:45] had said it's time to put Gabby Giffords in the bullseye, you can imagine the reaction. And so a good example of sometimes when Democrats do it, it's okay, when Republicans do it, it's hair on fire and a good example of that.

[00:20:03] But the political fallout for the assassination attempt will probably last for another day or two. Americans tend to turn the page very quickly and I suspect that even if we are talking about

[00:20:16] the assassination attempt on Friday, it will be to remind people that it actually took place a week ago because there will be so many other events that will come out of the Republican convention,

[00:20:28] come out of some of the back and forth and even some of the reaction to the vice presidential nominee that Donald Trump will announce in about two hours. We do know it's not Marco Rubio, we know it's not Governor Burgum,

[00:20:42] I think we have a pretty good idea who it might be, but we'll just wait until the announcement comes because Donald Trump is always good at surprising just about everyone. Let's take a break. If you'd like to join the conversation 1-800-351-1212.

[00:20:57] Certainly want to continue talking about the political campaign, the need for us to tone down some of the rhetoric that comes from Michael Brown and including a speech given recently by President Joe Biden.

[00:21:09] So we'll get into some of that in the last half hour, but if you'd like to join us, that number is 1-800-351-1212. If you'd like to find some of the articles I'm quoting from, they are all available at the website pointofview.net. We'll be right back.

[00:21:31] 19th century London, two towering historical figures did battle, not with guns and bombs, but words and ideas. London was home to Karl Marx, the father of communism, and legendary Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon. London was in many ways the center of the world, economically, militarily, and intellectually.

[00:21:54] Marx sought to destroy religion, the family, and everything the Bible supports. Spurgeon stood against him, warning of socialism's dangers. Spurgeon understood Christianity is not just religious truth, it is truth for all of life. Where do you find men with that kind of wisdom to stand against darkness today?

[00:22:16] Get the light you need on today's most pressing issues, delivered to your inbox when you sign up for the Viewpoints Commentary at pointofview.net slash signup. Every weekday in less than two minutes, you'll learn how to be a person of light to stand against darkness in our time.

[00:22:34] It's free, so visit pointofview.net slash signup right now. pointofview.net slash signup. Point of View will continue after you are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station.

[00:23:10] And now, here again is Kirby Anderson. Back once again, let me just mention that we don't think about the assassination of a president and thinking about this. As I just mentioned a minute ago, even if you're young, you'll say,

[00:23:25] I don't even remember the attempted assassination on John F. Kennedy. Well, first of all, certainly Ronald Reagan or even going all the way back to a couple of other individuals, certainly not John F. Kennedy. And so in some respects, this may be fresh, especially for younger listeners,

[00:23:42] but we've had four presidents who have been assassinated, and you probably can guess who those are. Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, John F. Kennedy, William McKinley. But there have been other assassination attempts. And of course, Ronald Reagan in my commentary,

[00:24:01] as a matter of fact, the fourth article here, I think you might want to read this, Ronald Reagan's legend and even some of the love that people started having for President Reagan really took place, interestingly enough, after he was shot.

[00:24:16] When the doctors were about ready to operate, he quipped, I hope you're all Republicans. Later he told his wife, honey, Nancy, I forgot to duck. And just kind of the coolness of his actions certainly reinforced kind of an image that they had about this.

[00:24:34] The shooting in some ways accentuated his impression of individual president poised under fire. He was still a new president in 1981. Public approval would only modestly and then fleetingly rise, but the impression really lasted. And so some people said maybe this will be the reaction of Donald Trump

[00:24:59] with streaks of blood down his face, punching the air. And then, of course, the people in the audience chanting USA, USA. But perhaps one of the most significant ones, and I just heard this recently reinforced, I'd heard it once before, but I kind of forgot about that.

[00:25:19] When Theodore Roosevelt, who had served president, was running as a candidate, he was shot in 1912. But interestingly enough, he went and gave his message. He'd been shot in the chest. And if I remember right, they never took the bullet out.

[00:25:37] And then, of course, there's a failed attempt at trying to assassinate Andrew Jackson and some others. And so there are quite a number of not only presidents, four of whom have been assassinated, but others who,

[00:25:56] in the case of Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, or if you want to consider Theodore Roosevelt, now, of course, Donald Trump as candidates. This is something that actually is, again, maybe cemented in people's minds something about the situation we find ourselves in

[00:26:17] and the character of the individual who was under fire. This piece by Noah Rothman goes into that in some detail because he reminds us that Americans on the political right have spent the better part of a decade being lectured to about the side's penchant for political violence.

[00:26:35] And again, violence being disproportionately meted out by their adversaries. And so, again, he says maybe they have some reason to be upset about this dynamic because this is what was true, and I'd forgotten about this in 2016, that sometimes Trump supporters were assaulted, peppered with eggs,

[00:26:55] had their clothes torn off of their backs, talking about this event. I'd forgotten about it in Costa Mesa, California. You had police firing pepper spray and smoke grenades into the crowd that was hurtling rocks and water bottles at them at a Trump event in New Mexico,

[00:27:14] which was in the same year, 2016. In Chicago, you had protesters chanting words, I can't say on the air, as they descended on a pro-Trump rally. And you probably have other local examples about that as well. And so then, it was interesting that one of the people

[00:27:34] that was actually brought on to some of these particular conversations was Representative Scalise, because you might remember he was one of those individuals who was at that congressional ballgame practice in 2017 when these were all Republicans there practicing to play later the congressional ballgame.

[00:27:59] In which you had a deranged individual who actually was obviously a consumer of left-wing media in this case, began to try to finish off and actually massacre all of those individuals. The action of the police prevented that, but again, no one died, but many could have very easily.

[00:28:22] And again, Nolan Rothman reminds us that in some cases that ended up being just a two-day story. And of course, we think of other examples that come to mind. Brett Kavanaugh, there was an individual that was heading to his house

[00:28:37] that wanted to kill him and his family, and a number of others. The argument is that you can see that oftentimes, as he points out, the left seems utterly incapable of seeing the violence directed at the right,

[00:28:52] the American right, as an outgrowth of their ability to observe prudence and propriety. But then, to be fair, he says the right seems to also be incapable sometimes of seeing their own incitements. And it's just, I think, a reminder of the level of politicization,

[00:29:15] a level of political violence, a level of the tension. And you've heard, of course, Dennis Prager say that he used to make the comment that we are in a kind of a civil war without violence. He says, I no longer say that.

[00:29:33] I think we're in a civil war and violence has come, and that is the case. And so, Noah Rothman ends that particular piece by saying, look, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump should be a wake-up call. We're not collectively to blame for the actions of someone so disturbed

[00:29:51] that he would attempt this psychotic act. But none of us are vindicated by it either. The responsible political actors, Democrats and Republicans alike, who deem this vicious act an attack on democracy are correct. It is an assault on all of us.

[00:30:09] But so too are the myriad attacks on Trump supporters. He just gave us examples in 2016, the congressional baseball shooting, the 2020 riots. So were the Trump fans who assaulted protesters. So was, of course, January 6th. And it brings me to one of the other pieces that we have posted,

[00:30:30] and this comes from Michael Brown. It has the title, Please, Please, Please, We Must All Tone Things Down. He says here, as we sit watching the footage of the attempted assassination of President Trump, it is really time for reflection.

[00:30:50] He asks, are we contributing to this atmosphere of hatred and violence? What kind of emotions do we stir up with the words we speak and the memes we post? What are we fomenting to what end? He even said he posted on X on Saturday,

[00:31:07] for anyone sick enough to be happy that someone tried to kill former President Trump, shame on you. May God help you recover your humanity. And he says, I pray that it's not too late.

[00:31:21] And of course he reminds us that we have news of, at this time, he said, two dead, the shooter and the innocent victim in the crowd, along with two innocent victims who were critically injured and others.

[00:31:33] He says, as I write this, of course, words from the left and right are expressing their solidarity with Trump and their absolute repudiation of political violence. But he says we'll also hear those who wished violence against Donald Trump and will express their regret and should express their regret

[00:31:55] for their statements and their poisonous words. And so again, news commentators which have constantly linked Trump to Hitler. You can see some posts that have just come out and covers of magazines and Internet sites that constantly do that. Did we learn nothing, he says, from the attempted murder

[00:32:18] of the Republican Congressman Steve Scalise in 2017? And again, let's give credit where credit is due. Certainly Joe Biden, through a press conference, tried to address some of that. But we come back from the break. I want to also talk about one of the other articles

[00:32:37] because while this Republican convention is taking place, there also is a real need to look at, especially from the Democratic side of the aisle, whether or not Joe Biden will continue to be the standard bearer for the Democratic Party.

[00:32:56] There are some that are suggesting that maybe the day in which Joe Biden steps down would be August 9th. You might say, why August 9th? Well it turns out that on August 9th, 1974, and I was around during that time, that's when Richard Nixon stepped down from the presidency.

[00:33:19] And again, it's quite possible that something like that could happen just before the August Democratic convention. So this week we'll of course be looking at the Republican convention, but I thought just as we wind down for today,

[00:33:34] let's talk a little bit about what's happening on the other side of the political spectrum on the Democratic side and the fact that some of the reality of where Joe Biden is is starting to sink in. We'll talk about that right after this.

[00:33:50] You're listening to Point of View, your listener supported source for truth. For a few more minutes, let me just mention that the Republican convention takes place and already is taking place right now, but they certainly leave for prime time some of the more important speeches.

[00:34:13] And as I've said before, if you aren't really following politics and really don't have that much interest, some of these speeches can help you, if nothing else, understand who maybe future leaders might be. It is, I think as I mentioned before,

[00:34:29] a place where, especially on the Democratic side, where they feature individuals that are going to rise in power. I think of a speech by Barack Obama, Senator Barack Obama in 2004, a speech by Kamala Harris. You later on saw what happened in their particular set of circumstances.

[00:34:49] And I do believe that even though Donald Trump is of course the nominee, the real question is what happens after four years. He will be a lame duck president, even if he is elected. And at that point, he will not be able to run again.

[00:35:03] And whoever he picks as a vice president is going to be important. And it does appear that J.D. Vance is his choice. So as we were alluding to just a minute ago, that is going to be announced officially.

[00:35:16] And it also fits very well with my commentary today about the war on the working class, if you've ever read or heard about his particular book, Hillbilly Elegy. Penn and Dexter did a commentary about it years ago. That's kind of his story.

[00:35:34] And that was kind of the story of James Keyes today who was in the studio. So we'll learn a little bit more. And of course if you don't know much about J.D. Vance, of course you'll hear more about him. You're going to hear some very important speeches.

[00:35:46] And you will be able to see not only some people that might be future candidates for higher office, but also those who might actually serve in the cabinet if indeed Donald Trump is re-elected. If we can though, turn our attention, because most of our attention this week

[00:36:04] will be on the Republican side because of the convention, to this other piece that came from the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. And the title of it from the editors is The Bitter Biden Reality Sinks In. They say Democrats fear defeat in November,

[00:36:22] but the bigger threat is the next four years. I'd also add to that the other threat which we're starting to see is that if you have a weakened person at the top of the ticket, that would be Joe Biden,

[00:36:36] you also can affect some of the U.S. Senate races and there are at least six races where Democrats could be vulnerable, three in particular that I've mentioned on enough. And they try, if nothing else, to remind us of the frailty of Joe Biden.

[00:36:56] And of course you saw some of that with the press conference which I alluded to, but they take you back to the Thursday evening press conference which they say was a microcosm of the self-induced peril. They said the president showed no sign of political retreat or introspection

[00:37:14] and he was just coherent enough to prevent a wholesale flight from his candidacy. And again, once you lower the bar, just putting sentences together is considered an accomplishment. Yet they point out he lost his train of thought numerous times, always bailing out a sentence

[00:37:34] after sentence with his now trademark anyway. He said we counted 10, 10 times when the president said anyway. Because he couldn't finish his train of thought. Now, he says while Mr. Biden may make it through a particular event, Democrats can have no confidence that he won't have another debate-like meltdown

[00:37:58] between now and November. As one Democratic representative put it on CNN, imagine that three months from now we get another performance like there was in the debate right before the election. Do we want to take that risk? And he says, I don't.

[00:38:17] And so here of course is part of the problem. You have of course a press conference that was Thursday with of course President Zelensky of Ukraine and it was asked about will Mr. Biden let Ukraine use various American weapons to strike targets inside Russia?

[00:38:39] I'll let you read it for your own, but it's really striking that after three paragraphs of a convoluted set of statements and words and word salad, you really couldn't figure out what he was trying to say and he certainly never answered the question.

[00:38:59] And so the editors of Wall Street Journal subbed it up this way, it's hard to follow the jumble that didn't begin to answer why Mr. Biden has restrained Ukraine from getting the weapons and employing a strategy that would help Ukraine prevail. Mr. Zelensky doesn't want to attack Moscow

[00:39:18] with U.S. weapons, he wants to attack its supply lines and missile bays in Russia's south. Neither the President nor his policy are going to get any better in the second term. And so then they look ahead and say look, right now Joe Biden needs to sweep

[00:39:36] Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states where he now trails. But it gets worse because he must also beat off the challenges from Donald Trump in states that Republicans have not won in years but are now in play. Those states are New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Mexico, Maine and Virginia.

[00:40:00] And so it's not surprising that everybody from the New York Times to a lot of leading Democrats want Mr. Biden to withdraw from the race. Now they certainly are asking well what's Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi up to? Is Chuck Schumer having second thoughts?

[00:40:17] All the rest, who knows who will and all the rest. But this will be played out as a backdrop to the Republican Convention. And so to be fair then the editors of the Wall Street Journal recognize that while this is a this is going on for Joe Biden,

[00:40:35] there's something else going on for Donald Trump. And that is they say Mr. Trump is also flawed and unpopular and may have hit his voters ceiling in the polls. A younger Republican would be winning in a rout. But these at the moment are the two candidates.

[00:40:55] As we've pointed out before some of these candidates may change. Certainly it seems more likely that Joe Biden will not be the next president. But we are still in this area of uncertainty. Which brings me to my commentary today which is basically quoting from a book

[00:41:13] by Batya Ungar-Sargon. You may not know who she is but she's an opinion editor for Newsweek. But she wrote a book called Second Class, How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women. And really talking about the war on the working class. She deserves high marks

[00:41:31] because she's very unusual because she's willing to go out and interview people in the working class. And even to tell the stories of class differences at a time when a lot of her fellow elites are talking about these hardworking people that are angry, radical, and illiterate.

[00:41:49] And she really talks about some of the concerns that they have about excessive credentialism and a diploma glass ceiling and some of the economic hardships and the rest. And so it's just a reminder that one of the most important groups that used to be part of the core

[00:42:07] of the Democratic Party, the so-called working class. I remember Hillary Clinton talking about the hardworking Americans. They were trying to appeal to the working class. More and more of those have shifted over to Donald Trump. Meanwhile some of the elites that might have at one point

[00:42:27] been supportive of Republicans are now almost in lockstep supporting the Democrats. And so there have been some remarkable shifts. But if you'd like to read my commentary today, The War on the Working Class, that's available on the website as well. You can find out more about the book

[00:42:47] by James Key's Education is Freedom. My viewpoints commentary is available. My action items and many other resources available at the website pointofview.net. I want to thank Megan for help engineering the program. And if you'd like to join the Republican convention tonight, we will talk about it tomorrow

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