- [Narrator] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith

is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,

a Texas Government
Affairs consultancy,

and by Claire and Carl Stuart.

- I'm Evan Smith,
he's the publisher of

The Federalist, a
conservative online magazine,

and the host of its
popular podcast,

the Federalist Radio Hour.

He's Ben Domenech,
this is Overheard.

[Montage Opener]

Let's be honest, is
this about the ability

to learn, or is this
about the experience

of not having been
taught properly?

How have you avoided
what has befallen

other nations in Africa...

You could say that
he made his own bed,

but you caused him
to sleep in it.

You know, you saw a problem, and

over time, took it on...

Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.

Are you going to
run for president?

I think I just got an
F from you actually.

[Upbeat Music]

Ben Domenech, welcome.

- Good to be with you.

- Thank you for being here.
- Happy to be here.

- We spend a lot
of time, in the era

of Donald Trump, asking
the broad question,

"Is Donald Trump good
for the media business?"

Let me be specific and
ask you, if Donald Trump

is good for the
conservative media business?

- You know, he's a
challenge for the

conservative media business.

- Why is that?

Maybe cause he's
not a conservative?

- That has something
to do with it.

- Right.

(laughter)

- The reality is that,
over the course of the past

half century or so,
the conservative media

business and its flagship,
National Review Magazine

founded by William F.
Buckley, had a particular view

of conservatism that
they advocated for.

A view which actually won.

They were originally
founded as a magazine

that criticized
Eisenhower, that was

very critical at various
points of Richard Nixon,

but then saw their
fulfillment in Ronald Reagan.

- Ronald Reagan was
the apex, right?

- Everything that they
really wanted to see

in a candidate,
someone who rejected

the Kissingerian, Nixonian
view of the world,

who believed that the cold
war was something to be won.

In the wake of that, you
had this zombie Reaganism,

according to a lot of different
conservative thinkers,

which is basically
seeing the world

in the same 1980s frame
that allowed for fusionism

of social conservatism
and fiscal conservatism,

hawkish foreign policy
to dictate the direction

for the Republican Party.

A fusionism that really
maintained itself

all the way through the
George W. Bush years

with Islamic terrorism
and that force

as the substitute for the
cold war and the Soviets.

That fusionism though,
was really decaying,

and it was something that
Donald Trump exploited,

to great degree,
because it turned out

at the end of the
day that the cohort,

the coalition of the right

was not this Buckleyesque,
Reaganesque free trade,

importance of
maintaining global power,

of supporting our various allies

in all sorts of different ways.

That that was something
that actually was not

the animating focus
of so many people who

made up the Republican base.

Donald Trump exploited
that to great degree

and in part because
the Republican Party
deluded themselves

into thinking that
the war, the conflict

within their ranks was between

moderates, establishment,
Chamber of Commerce Republicans,

and conservative
Constitutionalists ideologues-

- Right, movement types.

- Ted Cruz and the like.

Ted Cruz ran for
President believing

that conservatives were angry,

and what he'd actually discover

and what Donald
Trump already knew

was that everyone was angry.

- Yeah, I'm tempted to
trot out the old adage

that you can't beat
somebody with nobody.

Trump showed up and
the conservative
movement in the main

did not really field
an adequate candidate

or any candidate to carry
the anti-Trump banner,

but you do point out Cruz.

The fact is, you can't get
more movement-y than Ted Cruz.

It's not that the
conservative wing

of the Republican Party or
the movement conservatives

didn't show up for the game.

They just got beat, right?

- Ideas don't run for
President, people do.

People have flaws
that can be exploited.

- Let's spend a
little bit of time.

I don't want you to go
all Al Franken on me,

but let's talk
about Cruz' flaws.

- Well, I think Ted Cruz
is a brilliant individual.

He's an extremely smart person.

But I also think that he is
someone who does not necessarily

have the gift for
the common touch,

the ability to connect-

(laughter)

- You don't say, you
don't think at Princeton

or Harvard, he learned
how to be a common person?

- There's an anecdote
about Richard Nixon

pulling over on the
side of the road,

running up to a police officer
who's lying on the ground

after a car wreck that he
had been sort of affected by

and Nixon runs up to
him, puts out his hand,

shakes his hand and says,
"Well do you enjoy your job?"

Richard Nixon was
someone afflicted by-

- Empathy deficit.

- Exactly, an inability to
connect with common people.

I actually think that Ted
is a guy who's very smart,

and I think that he will
probably become someone,

a figure along the lines of
Jesse Helms in the Senate.

Ultimately, someone who-

- You mean that as a compliment?

- Well, I mean that
in terms of someone

who will have an out-sized
impact on the body.

- So I wanna understand Trump
not as a contrast to Cruz

or anybody else, but
Trump in his own way.

What is he about really?

Did we see in the
campaign the real Trump?

Did we see a reality show
version of the real guy,

essentially a hyped up
entertainment celebrity

masquerading as a real person?

I've wondered over the
last since whatever it is,

June of 2015 when he
descended that escalator

and talked about
Mexican rapists.

From that day
forward, I've wondered

who's the real Trump?

What is the real Trump?

Do you have a sense?

- The real Trump is a man
who is a traitor to his class

because he has a
chip on his shoulder

because he felt that
he was never accepted

by the New York elite.

There's an alternate history

that you could actually
consider within this realm.

The easy way to look at it
is actually to look at the

attempt by Donald Trump
to buy an NFL franchise.

He tried very hard to do that.

He was rejected by the owners,

they have the
ability to do that.

His response to that was
to buy a USFL franchise

and then sue the NFL
to try to force them

to essentially let him in.

He won that case but
because everyone on the jury

thought that he was
a very rich man,

they awarded him one dollar
plus interest in payment.

There is an alternate
universe in Earth Two

or what have you, Evan,
where Donald Trump

gets that franchise, is
accepted by the broader

immediate landscape
and New York elite,

and never runs for President

because he has something
else to take away his time.

I view Trump as someone who

is a very canny exploiter
of cultural trends.

That is what I
believe he has done

throughout his entire career.

I think that he did that in
this most recent election.

He picked certain things as
cultural signifiers to people.

He embraced them.

I think more important
than anything else,

what he actually did was he
changed something significant

about the way that politicians
relate to the media.

If you go back a
couple of years ago,

I remember this interview

that Marco Rubio
gave to BuzzFeed.

He went into the
BuzzFeed offices,

obviously this is
Marco Rubio post-2012,

setting up his, oh
I'm the new hip thing.

- Nascent.

- I have opinions about
rap, talk to me about that,

that sort of thing.

I can connect with the children.

- I'm the young candidate.

Yesterday's gone, tomorrow
is going, (crosstalk).

- Exactly, he goes into
the BuzzFeed offices

and within a few
questions of the beginning

of the interview, they
start asking him questions

about Christianity and
creationism and evolution

and all these other things.

Rubio being the
polite guy that he is,

is sort of trying to
be nice about things.

They're trying to
get him to say things

that basically dis
his supporters.

I remember sending that
around to a group of friends

and having a comment
from someone that said,

you know, I wish that his
response to this would have been

yes, I believe in a god
who created the world,

was born of a virgin,
and died for my sins.

Do you have a problem with that?

That's the kind of thing
that I think conservatives

wanted to see, they want
to see the rejection

of the premise of the question,

that just sort of says,

I should feel bad
about believing

what traditional Christians
believe about these things.

- Who prevented the
conservative movement

from fielding such a candidate
in the last election?

I seem to remember a guy
named Rubio, actually,

might have been
him, but there were

a bunch of other
people in there.

Again, you go down the
list of the 17 who ran.

Let's stipulate Trump is not
a traditional conservative,

or maybe even a Republican.

- Yes.

- But of the other 16,
there are a bunch in there

who seem like they could
have been that person.

- There's a connective thread
that runs through the past

several elections that I think
we didn't fully appreciate.

Pat Buchanan runs
for President in '92,

he runs for President in '96.

You have the surprising success
of Mike Huckabee in 2008.

You have the surprising success
of Rick Santorum in 2012.

What they had all in common
was a populist economic message

that broke with Republican
orthodoxy on trade,

on a number of other
issues related to that,

on unions, but what distracted
us about them, of course,

is that they were
all Bible-believing

Christians, Catholics,
evangelicals.

So the questions they
got asked on the trail

typically turned very quickly
to abortion, birth control,

all these other sort
of cultural issues.

But I think what we did
was we underestimated

the power and the appeal
of their protectionist,

pro-union, anti-free
trade message

within this Republican
(crosstalk).

- That was really the
gas in the engine.

- Exactly.

- It turns out.

- What Trump did was basically
he embraced that message

because it's not really
all that different from-

- Did he do that consciously?

I mean honestly, I'm
hearing you say this

and I'm thinking
that's pretty smart.

It's pretty canny
and pretty savvy

in a way that he's not been
given adequate credit for.

- I will just say, that
is probably the thing

he's been the most
consistent on.

If you go back and you read
what he was saying in the 1980s,

he was still saying
that same thing.

- And of course, who else
is carrying that flag

and running down the
field, Steve Bannon.

- Yes.

- So Steve Bannon comes aboard

and Steve Bannon is
affirming with his presence

and his words and deeds, the
same economic nationalism

message that Trump is himself

out there carrying the flag for.

It's a match made in heaven.

- Yeah, I mean, look, I do
not agree with this message.

I'm as absolutist on free trade

as I think you'd find anybody,

but I am also of the opinion
that the case for free trade

has been something that
Republican politicians

have failed to make with
their own base for decades.

It's one that I think
really caught up

with them in this election.

The truth is, if
you look at Bannon

and if you look at
this connective tissue,

there are a lot of things

he has in common
with Pat Buchanan.

It turned out that
that thread of populist

pro-union, anti-free
trade sort of things

really had a lot of power.

I remember being in
Cleveland and expecting

that there would be
all sorts of protests.

I was at the convention in 2008

and got tear gassed
along with some of

the anti-globalist protestors

that were outside
of that convention.

I expected something
along those lines.

- But it turns out that the
protests against globalism

were in the hall.

- Exactly, that's the thing.

What was so notable was
the unions weren't there.

There was no real
powerful (crosstalk).

- Let me ask you about
this idea of globalism.

Globalism is often viewed as
a code word for anti-Semitism.

So when Breitbart writes
about economic nationalism-

- It puts those little globes.

- They put little
globes around the name.

You know, they write
about Gary Cohn

and they write about other
people in the administration

in a way that causes
people, fairly or unfairly,

to think that it's a short
walk from economic nationalism

to globalism to anti-Semitism.

Is that a fair knock?

- I don't think
it's a fair knock

but I also understand
why people would see it.

I certainly don't
know the people

who are writing those
pieces well enough

to tell whether they actually
hold those views or not.

The fact is, that the
revolt against globalism

is not unique to America.

It's something that
we see in Brexit.

It's something that we
see in Spain right now

in the Catalonian
sort of difficulties.

It's something that we've
seen in the backlash

against the kind of EU project

that has led to a significant
degree of stability.

It's a little impolitic
but the fact is that the EU

is about allowing
Germany to run Europe

without actually fighting
a war (crosstalk).

- But Ben, is it
realistic though to expect

that in a world that's
increasingly global

and increasingly
inter-connected,

where borders are coming
down not going up,

that we're now going to retreat
like an old Italian town

behind high walls with
people atop and boiling oil

that they're going to pour
on the invading hordes.

We're turning into San
Gimignano (crosstalk).

I mean, we're really are.

It sounds like what we're doing

is going back to a time long ago

when the world was
a different place

and we were a different
piece of that puzzle.

That's the pushback
often against this view.

- The most powerful
motivation I think

in American life is nostalgia.

The truth is that
nostalgia fools you.

You forget the
fact that you know,

even if you had this sort
of false sense of stability,

when you were a child
in the 50s or 60s

and there was this trust
in great institutions

and corporations, et cetera.

You forget the fact
that your parents

had to save money for a
year to buy a refrigerator.

We live in a time
now where you cannot

unring that globalist bell.

- Or honestly, it's fake,

I refer to this as a
restoration hardware problem.

We're all nostalgic for a time
that never existed, right.

- This is true, but think-

- But that fake nostalgia
actually is nonetheless fueling

these decisions that
we make politically.

- But think about the experience

of someone in America today.

We have more working-age
males in America

who are out of the workforce

then at any time since the
end of the Great Depression.

Okay, these are people who have

more than anything else, gotten
onto the disability system

as a substitute
for unemployment.

They are subsisting on
essentially $1200 a month,

which gives you the
ability to self-medicate

with either alcohol or
opioids or something else.

You sit on a couch
and you watch TV,

and this golden-haired
man comes on.

He tells you it's not your
fault that your life sucks.

It's not your fault that
you're sitting there

and you're viewing
all these celebrities

whose lives you can
never aspire to.

It's the fault of immigrants,

it's the fault of politicians,

it's the fault of bad trade
deals and wars based on lies.

He says, that's
okay, I can fix it.

I alone can fix it,
okay, and you listen.

- I want to walk over
from economic nationalism

to white nationalism,
because to the degree

that economic nationalism
has been a narrative thread

of the last nine months,
so in a more recent sense

has white nationalism been.

Do you think that the country
has suddenly become racist,

or that elements of the
country have become racist,

you know, as the knock,

or that it was always
there sub rosa,

and that Donald Trump
through his actions and words

has given license for
those who believe things

that were not said out loud,
to now say them out loud

and so we're more aware of it?

- I think as, first
off let me just say,

I'm Puerto Rican and
I've written in public

for quite some time,
and if you are Hispanic

or you have any
Hispanic tendencies,

then you are very familiar
with the racists on the right.

So I knew about Richard Spencer
and all these other folks

10 years ago, because that was
when they were writing about

me and my family and the
Hispanic employees that I have

in ways that were
nasty and awful.

I think we just frankly pay a
lot more attention to it now.

I think they were always there.

It's just that before
we never connected it

to a broader movement
that was having an impact

on the way that we lived,

or certainly who was
in the White House.

I think that instead,
now people are saying,

well this is of the same,
or this is the same piece.

The danger of course
there, is the fact is

that Donald Trump has more than

60 million people
who voted for him.

Those people are not
white supremacists.

They are not all
white supremacists,

they are not all
white nationalists.

They did not vote for
him for that reason.

White college-educated women

did not vote for
him for that reason.

The fact is that he won votes
from more black Americans

and more Hispanic Americans
than Mitt Romney did,

but he didn't do that

because of the appeal
of white nationalism.

I think the fact is that these
people were always there,

but now we're connecting them

with a broader trend
in American society,

which is very dangerous,
and which I think

deserves the kind of
criticism that it's getting.

But then it's leading us to
make the false conclusion

that those people are connected

with the rest of
the President's base

in a way that I
think unfortunately,

smears a lot of Americans.

- It's a subset, but
it's a subset over here.

It's not co-mingled
with (crosstalk).

- It's an extremist subset.

I mean, I connected
him to Pat Buchanan

and certainly there's a
subset of anti-Semites

who supported Pat Buchanan.

- You remember the
old Molly Ivins line

about the Buchanan
speech in '92,

it was better in the original
German, remember that?

- I do remember that line.

I do remember that line,
but I would also urge you

to go back and watch
that speech again.

Because I would suggest to
you that what he is actually

sort of saying is
something that played out

over the next two decades.

- It was the lead up, the
run up to the culture war

which was then the
run up to this.

- Yes, and what both he
and Huckabee to a degree,

but Santorum certainly, argued
through their whole careers

was we are on the slippery slope

that is going to lead us to
a point where America rejects

Christianity and the
founding and our history

and views them all
as being affected by

an original sin of
racism and bigotry

and all of these other things.

That's going to lead people
to try to destroy the past,

knock down monuments, and
rip up the Constitution.

Basically, that's the subset
of what they've been arguing.

- And like hey.

- And they feel vindicated now.

They feel vindicated.

- On the subject of race,

a question very
much of the moment,

is Colin Kaepernick
is a son of a bitch?

- (laughs) No, I think he
has a very nice family.

- Well, you know, Mrs.
Kaepernick objected enormously

to the President's
characterization.

- I will just say-

- Because everyone's on
Twitter, she tweeted it.

- I actually like
Colin Kaepernick.

I paid a lot of attention
to him coming out

because I actually
wanted my own home team,

the Washington
R-Words, to draft him.

But I think that the truth
is, when I look at Kaepernick,

I see a guy who I think has
made an error of judgment.

The reason is that I think
that his expression of protest

sends a message that he
doesn't intend it to send.

I think that he wants to
protest because of what he sees

as a problem of police
action and violence

and danger to black Americans.

- Are you sympathetic to that?

- I am sympathetic.

- You're a criminal justice guy.

This is of particular
interest, yeah.

- I think the truth is
that the cops we have,

I think try to do a good job

but many of them are not trained

to the degree they need to be.

They certainly do not
practice with their weapons

to the degree they need to be,

and are way too quick to pull
I think on a lot of people,

that otherwise might
survive if they behaved

with more of an approach to

trying to de-escalate
a situation.

I also think frankly, we
have far too many laws.

There's too much
opportunity for a cop

to come in conflict
with someone today.

I think particularly
of the situation

in Baltimore with Freddie Gray.

I happen to carry a knife
typically in my pocket.

- Well it's good because
here in Texas now,

as of September 1st, you
can open-carry knives.

Just take it out, just
put it on the table.

- It's in my bag unfortunately

because I didn't expect
to have this out but

I was very upset to
learn that frankly,

that the type of
knife that I carry

was very close to the
same type of knife

that Freddie Gray carried.

He should not have even been
arrested for carrying that.

It was actually legal
for him to carry.

But because it was carried-

- So you're sympathetic
in a general sense

to the Kaepernick
argument that (crosstalk).

- The problem is, and
I think particularly

you can look at Martin
Luther King's speech on this.

MLK's speech did not
criticize America

for its founding or
for its principles.

What it said is,
America is great.

I would like to be
included in that

and I have not
been to this point.

I think that is a
much more convincing,

and if you look back at
most civil rights leaders,

the ones who've been
most successful,

have been the ones who don't
say America is a bad place,

it's terrible, that you need
to feel guilty about it,

et cetera, and there's
nothing that can be done

to really assuage that.

Instead they say, we want
to be fully included in it.

I think that's something
that Kaepernick

could have done in a
lot of different ways.

Instead, it reads to so
many different NFL fans

who don't pay attention
to what he says

or what he does off the field.

They just look at it and say,

why does this guy
hate my country?

- Well there is of course
this additional question

of conservatives being in
favor of small government

and leaving business alone.

The President deciding
that because of the offense

he's taken at Colin Kaepernick,

saying on Twitter and elsewhere,

I think that the NFL
owners should fire players

who take a knee, and
who dishonor our flag,

and I think that this
person should be fired.

In the same way that
a couple weeks ago,

we had an ESPN
on-air personality

who made comments that were
disparaging of the President,

in response to
comments that he made

disparaging of her
race, she believed.

The Press Secretary
for the White House,

Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
came out and said,

we believe that ESPN
should fire this person.

Is there a conflict, you're a
small government conservative.

Do you want the President
and the White House

dictating to private
businesses who they can employ?

- Of course not.

- The First Amendment gives
you the right to be wrong

or to be a jackass, doesn't it.

- Of course it does.

I will just say I'm not
a big fan of Jemele Hill,

not because of what she
said about the President

in her view being a
white supremacist,

but simply that her hour
is down 20% in the ratings.

That's I think the
bigger problem for ESPN.

- In the end, it's
all about the ratings.

To that point, let
me take a short walk

over to the President's
own ratings.

There's a Washington
Post/ABC News poll

out this very day
that has the President

at 39% approval, which is
the lowest point in 71 years

for a President at this
point in his presidency.

And yet.

- And yet.

- And yet, there's
absolutely no sign

that the base that elected him
is deserting him in droves.

There's no sign that
the members of Congress,

particularly of his party,

are in any way
empowered to thwart him.

In fact, if anything,
they seem to be cowering.

He's making deals
with Chuck and Nancy.

- Yes, well he likes Chuck.

They're from the boroughs.
- America's fun couple.

- He gave Chuck money for years.

- Right, they're from the
crappy boroughs, in fact, right.

It's even better, and as someone

who is from a crappy
borough, I can say that.

I'm a self-hating
crappy borough native.

(laughter)

No, no, but the point
is, I mean really,

what's remarkable is the
polls are as bad as they are,

and everyone's mad at
him and up in his grill,

and he's just blithely
doing his thing.

- You know, the
funny thing is, Evan,

and I don't know that this
was actually his rating

in the Washington Post/ABC poll,

but his rating in a
number of other polls

on election day was 39%, in
terms of his own approval.

- So maybe that's the
low end of his base.

- So here's the
thing that I think

is very interesting
about this moment.

Imagine if the Russia
investigation had not

created a toxic environment
for Donald Trump from day one.

Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan,
they come into the White House

and they had told him,

they know according
to multiple reports,

they said, you will have
a repeal bill by Easter,

you will have a
tax bill by August,

and you will have
an infrastructure
bill by Christmas.

That's what they said to him.

Donald Trump has no
experience in politics,

this is new to him

he says okay, fine.
- He believes it,

He's like, great.
- He believes it.

And then August rolls around,

he's got nothing,
okay, and he says,

I trusted you, I gave you,
I said I would sign anything

you pass, and you
haven't passed it.

So now, here's what's
going to happen.

I'm going to start dealing
with the other side.

He has the ability to reach
to Chuck Schumer in particular

and say, I will give you
this in exchange for this.

I know there will be
enough feckless Republicans

who just come along with me
because I am their party,

and they still have
this illusion that
I'm the leader of it.

(laughter)

To go along with it.

Here's the very interesting
thing that he could do.

I wrote a piece back in May

saying that Trump
needed to pivot

to working with the Democrats

in order to forestall
an impeachment
election, effectively.

Here's the type-

- Let me stop you.

Impeachment election in the
sense that if you don't work

with Democrats, you're
going to get nothing done.

- Yes.

- 2018's going to come around,

Democrats take back the House,

and the pre-condition
to impeachment

is the Democrats
taking back the House.

So you hold off the possibility
by virtue of accomplishments

that the Democrats take it back.

- Imagine that tomorrow
Donald Trump proposes

to the folks on Capitol Hill,

I will pass, I will sign
a minimum wage increase

in exchange for work
requirements for
every welfare policy.

How do Republicans
vote against that?

- [Together] How do
Democrats vote against that?

- I'm thinking how do
Democrats vote against that.

- That's the thing,
what you end up with is,

Donald Trump, he's
basically with Democrats

on the minimum wage.

He said all sorts of things

about raising the minimum
wage over his career.

He is the only Republican
you could effectively have

in that job that would
say, sure, 15 bucks.

- This gets back, we're
just about out of time,

this gets back to this idea
that he's somehow figured out

that the
Buchanan/Santorum/Huckabee
version

of economic nationalism was
the right course to pursue.

This gives Trump
a ton of credit.

If Trump is smart enough
to figure this out,

then maybe he's smart
enough to get re-elected

or hold off being removed.

- He uses the country's
tribalism to his benefit

over and over and over again.

- It's amazing.

- Because he has the
capability to sort of

look at these things
and not behave

like the polite politician,

instead to just wrap his
arms around these things.

- Well, we're done.

We're going to wrap our arms
around the end of our show.

Ben Domenech, so much
fun to talk to you

and learn so much,
thank you very much.

- Great to be here.

- Ben Domenech, thank you.

(applause)

We'd love to have you
join us in the studio.

Visit our website at
klru.org/overheard

to find invitations
to interviews,

Q and As with our
audience and guests,

and an archive of past episodes.

- I will concede that
I'm an emphatic supporter

of significant reform to
our educational system.

I think it's actually
the biggest problem

that we've had in
the United States

for the past decade and a half,

and perhaps even beyond that.

We have not devoted the kind,

I actually think that one
of the biggest travesties

of the Bush administration
was No Child Left Behind.

I think it did not work the
way they intended it to work.

- [Narrator] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith

is provided in part
by Hillco Partners,

a Texas Government
Affairs consultancy,

and by Claire and Carl Stuart.