>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in the hours after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Video from numerous sources shows how it went down.

Pretti was using his phone to record the events.

A federal agent shoved a woman to the ground.

Pretti tried to help her up, and that led to a group of federal agents surrounding him.

One pulled his legal firearm from his holster.

Seconds later, with Pretti surrounded and subdued, an agent shot him in the back four times.

A second agent fired six shots into his motionless body.

He was dead.

The Trump administration moved almost immediately to describe Pretti as someone who was trying to massacre Ice agents on the street, a domestic terrorist, a threat who had to be taken down by agents who were just trying to do their jobs.

Here's how L.A.

times columnist Matt Lewis responded to the series of events.

Lewis is a longtime conservative who broke with his party when his party chose Trump.

And watching the Trump administration try to convince Americans not to believe their own eyes.

He said, quote, it does seem like something different is at play here.

And part of it is how blatant the lies are.

End quote.

I had met on Connections back when, around the time when he wrote his book Too Dumb to Fail How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump.

Now he's writing for a number of sources, including his own Substack.

He's podcasting with colleagues like Charlie Sykes, and I wanted to ask Matt about a number of questions I have.

Matt has said that if the January 6th event didn't move people away from Trump, he's not sure the ice killings will either.

If that's true, what does it say about identity politics, which the political right has so long abhorred?

What does Matt see in the possible presidential field on both sides?

Can someone like Spencer Cox ever win in the national Republican Party again?

We've got a lot to talk about.

Matt Lewis, L.A.

times columnist and author.

Welcome back to Connections.

Good to have you.

>> Hey, Evan, good to be here.

>> So when you told Charlie Sykes that what's different in this past month is how blatant the lies have become, I want to hear more about what you're seeing there.

>> Well, yeah.

Look, I think just recently, right when you had Kristi Noem calling I a victim a domestic terrorist saying that, you know, I'm paraphrasing here, but that he effectively came there with a lot of ammunition because the implication was that he was some sort of mass shooter or something.

and that he was resisting arrest and that he had pointed guns.

I mean, that was the implication.

And then everyone in America gets to watch this video and see for themselves the truth.

And so the contrast is there.

It's obvious it doesn't take two weeks for the video to be released.

and it's very Orwellian.

And so it's difficult to to watch the video and hear what Noem had to say and not come away thinking that she's lying.

>> Well, the president does have, in my read of it, a pretty good sense or instinct for how to navigate culture war issues.

He's got a pretty good sense of what plays politically.

It's why he's done so well.

And, you know, with Bovino getting sidelined and now it sounds like internally they're not happy with how Secretary Noem put out these statements right away.

I don't know if the president is going to, you know, sort of stand against this particular shooting in any way.

But I do wonder if you see him kind of reading the cracks, perhaps in the foundation in any way.

>> Oh, yeah, definitely.

I think just in the last 24 hours, we've seen Donald Trump begin to taco, you know, Trump always chickens out.

He did this with with Greenland.

He did this with tariffs.

And now he appears to be doing it with Minneapolis.

I don't think he's had a change of heart.

I do think it's a change of strategy.

And look though, I think the problem is Donald Trump is is probably the only person in the Trump administration who has the luxury of moderating or changing strategies or tactics.

Everyone else is trained and rewarded for being tough all the time, for showing machismo, all the time, for showing cruelty all the time.

And if anyone else in the Republican Party demonstrates compassion, then it's seen as weakness.

And so I think that the way that Kristi Noem behaved, and she may not be the most eloquent or skilled when it comes to the BS that the modern Republican Party requires of you.

I think JD Vance is probably more skilled at doing that job, but Noem was effectively doing what she's been trained to do and what she's been rewarded to do, and what the culture of MAGA insists you do.

Trump is the one who then is allowed to backpedal and sound more common sensical.

And so I think that's what we're witnessing today.

but again, I think Noem her behavior, her rhetoric is really a product of an incentive structure that Donald Trump created.

>> Now, that's that is a really interesting way to think about it, because in that way, in the framing you have there, it's not useful to think of an individual in the administration's comments.

It's useful to think about how everyone must in the same way that, for example, when Karoline Leavitt comes out and says, oh, the president didn't misspeak when he said Iceland instead of Greenland, he just knows Greenland is icy.

It's the same kind of thing.

Some are better than others at selling it.

But you're saying they all know they have to do it?

>> Absolutely.

Look, I, I think that there's a sense Donald Trump is really a moderate at heart, and he's not ideological.

He he actually has a really good gut instinct for politics.

There's some truth to that, don't get me wrong.

But I also think that what we're witnessing is the fact that Donald Trump is the only one who has the luxury of getting to backpedal after he has seen enough.

Right?

And I think the everyone else who says crazy, ridiculous things, everyone else in his orbit, who appears to be defending the indefensible, they're doing their job.

They're doing what Trump expects and they're doing what has gotten them this far.

This is how Kristi Noem got to be in the position she's in by saying mean, horrible, cruel things.

And now maybe she's gone too far, but it's not because she went too far.

It's because this time she got caught, right?

Because this time someone got killed.

Because this time it's on video.

Because this time Republicans, like Republican members of Congress, are now worried about the polling and the fact that there's a midterm election coming up in a few months.

And the fact that even on the issue of immigration, which was Donald Trump's strong, you know, issue, his strong suit in terms of policy, he's now underwater.

They're they're worried that that's going to hurt them.

So, yes, Noem really is doing I don't know if you remember that old in the 1980s there was like a PSA commercial about drugs, you know, and the, the line was the dad says, how did you learn to do.

Where did you get these drugs?

Where did you learn?

By watching you.

Yeah, exactly.

That's what I should say to Trump.

>> I remember Matt Lewis is my guest here.

L.A.

times columnist and author.

Substack or podcaster.

We'll link to Matt's work in our show notes.

If you want to jump on and follow it.

And listeners, as we talk to Matt throughout the hour on these various subjects, if you want to weigh in with comments questions, you can do that.

You can call the program toll free.

844295 talk.

It's toll free.

8442958255263 WXXI.

If you're in Rochester 2639994, email the program Connections at wxxi.org.

Already, Pat sends me a note saying Evan, I love this guy.

Glad you have him back on, but I am curious to know if he still thinks he's a conservative and if his own politics have changed.

So all right, Matt Lewis, Pat wants to know if your politics have changed in the last decade.

>> Well, this is a really long.

I'll try to keep it brief, but honestly, I could do a book on this.

Another book?

Maybe you should.

So I, I, I've kind of quit saying I'm a conservative.

and I say I'm conservative.

And I do believe that's true.

I still I look, I think that Donald Trump by, by virtue of, of he actually has, has eroded a lot of the norms.

And in fact, right now let's take gun the issue of guns and fealty to the Second Amendment.

Donald Trump isn't doing that.

He's not being consistently loyal to the premise of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms.

And and so I do think that there's now a sense of like, why?

Let's say I'm in let's say I joined the conservative movement because I'm a staunch pro-lifer.

But when I joined, I'm like, look, part of the deal is I got to support the Second Amendment.

Well, now you're like, well, Donald Trump doesn't really support the Second Amendment.

Why like, why was I always, you know, going out of my way?

So I think Trump has created a permission structure for people who were conservatives, who sort of bought into the entire package, the all the policies and the coalition permission structure to start.

You know, maybe liberating us to start asking, like, do I really believe in that?

Should should we have some gun control?

So there is some of that at play.

Generally speaking, I would say that I'm still conservative, but here's the big the big caveat, the thing that I really want to conserve is liberal democracy and freedom.

And yes, I still would love to do entitlement reform, but I'll worry about that after I make sure that we get to stay a free country, that we keep having free and fair elections.

I want to conserve that.

that's really the the pressing issue right now, the priority that I want to conserve and that that's what defines conservatism as much as anything right now.

>> Well, I can't ask you to psychoanalyze your former fellow Republicans, but I want to try to understand how you see some of their actions.

I'm thinking of someone.

So take like Erick Erickson as an example.

He is critical at times of Trump and the administration, at times pretty forcefully so.

But Erickson says what Democrats offer is so much worse and so much more dangerous overall.

And I wonder what you make of that position at this point.

>> I think it's sincere.

>> I do I.

>> Do tell.

>> You, yeah.

>> I can tell you I am I am really stunned by how many people that I know and like, who share this attitude that, I mean, Donald Trump could try to overturn an election, he could incite a riot on, you know, on Capitol Hill.

He could do all sorts of horrific things.

but they still think the left is is quantitatively and qualitatively worse.

To which I say, well, I'm sure there are radicals and extremists and horrible people out there somewhere on the left.

But right now, Donald Trump is not on the far right.

He represents the mainstream of the Republican Party.

Meanwhile, mainstream Democrats seem to be normies like they're like old fashioned Republicans.

They're very straight laced, very vanilla.

and so to me, I believe that they are sincere, but I think it's I think it's a weird mental blockage that they have where they can equate these two things.

I don't think that there is that, that it's a fair, analogy.

>> Well, and and then I want to ask you what it must take then to see this administration.

I think the right word is lie consistently about the ice killings and then still decide that you're good with that.

And I wonder if you think that just shows you that despite all of the criticism of identity politics coming from the right, a lot of the people on the right are sort of ensconced in this identity politics that nothing could move them off.

It.

>> Yes, a lot of them are.

I mean, Partizanship is a hell of a drug.

and some of the people I don't want to attribute this to, Eric, I don't know.

I, I know Eric personally.

I like him, but there certainly are people who are professional Republicans, professional conservatives, and they can't actually get all they they're maybe they feel free or liberated to occasionally criticize their own team.

And I respect that, and I admire that.

And that does take courage.

But this is where their bread is buttered.

And so some of them just can't completely disconnect from the Republican Party.

They can't go rogue because that's really how they make their living.

but yeah, I think that at this point, we're now a decade into this.

We've seen so many crazy things.

We've seen Donald Trump say great things about Russia.

we've seen Donald Trump, you know, abandon Ukraine.

And just humiliate us.

Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, we've seen Justin in Minneapolis, where we have people who are saying, like, not only did ice shoot this guy ten times who was unarmed, who was not attacking them, but then the administration officials lied about it, called him a domestic terrorist.

But yet that's not a deal breaker for you.

Like, to me, these things like inciting.

You're trying to overturn a free and fair election and then inciting a riot or an insurrection, if you want to call it that.

To me, those are kind of deal breakers.

Like, I wouldn't be like, yeah, but I'm still going to vote for Trump because he's good on X, Y, and Z. I was taught, especially during the Bill Clinton era, that character matters and that it's probably the most important thing we look for in leaders.

And so to me, if you don't have that, I couldn't support you in good conscience, doesn't mean I'm going to support the other team necessarily.

But I couldn't vote or support vote for or support you.

>> So look into your crystal ball a little bit here, and I want to know what you think the NRA is going to do.

Because we saw the NRA offer, I thought a little bit of a tepid, but still a rebuke of Kash Patel.

Kristi Noem even Scott Bessent gets on the Sunday shows and is like, hey man, you can't show.

I'm sorry the guy's dead in Minneapolis, but you can't show up carrying a gun at a protest.

I mean, everything that they would have caricatured as the political left saying about concealed carry, about two way rights.

We're now hearing from the top officials in the in the Trump administration, and the NRA comes out and says we should not be demonizing people who are exercising their two rights.

Let's see a full investigation first.

So do you think that they're going to be consistent?

I mean, if the NRA is consistent, they will defend Pretti and they will not tolerate I wouldn't think the top officials in the Trump administration implying that your two A rights go away.

If there's anything contentious happening outside, what do you think is going to happen there.

>> Well first let me say you're absolutely right.

I mean it was Kyle Rittenhouse that became a hero on the right for, you know, having a effectively what looks like to be like an assault weapon not concealed, but but on full display.

Same thing.

And I think it was in Michigan during the the Covid shutdown protests in a way that's more intimidating, almost like a veiled threat of of just showing these are our weapons.

We're here protesting.

some people might argue concealed is more dangerous.

I think that this sort of showing those weapons is a sign of of intimidation.

But regardless of where you come down on that, you're absolutely right.

I think the NRA, I commend them.

I'm actually surprised that they put out this statement which was consistent with their stated beliefs and their and their mission statement.

I, I am out of touch at this point with the conservative movement in the NRA, where I don't feel comfortable sort of making predictions of what I think they're going to do, what I certainly think, what they ought to do, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because it is in their best interest, is to be consistent.

So, you know, again, it's the right thing to do morally as to tell the truth and be consistent.

But if the National Rifle Association, if their top priority is truly protecting the Second Amendment, then it's really important for them to protect it.

from when Republicans are on the wrong side of the issue.

And so it's the same thing when, like, you remember back when the ACLU would, like, defend the Ku Klux Klan, you know what I mean?

It's maybe it's not a perfect analogy here, but you have to defend people, even if you don't like them, even if they're not on your team, when they're right on your issue.

Otherwise, you kind of lose the high ground when it comes to consistency.

>> Well, and just again, so listeners understand more about my guest Matt Lewis and L.A.

times columnist, author, writer, political commentator, Substack or podcaster.

I mean, really, Matt does it all, and Matt's someone who, in my view, on the national level, for everyone who has watched what's happened in American politics in the last decade and said, like, well, where are the consistent conservatives or where are the people who are going to call out their own party?

Matt has done it from the start and has not stopped doing it.

And there's a, you know, there's a small, strong group, but Matt is among the leading voices doing that.

And I wanted to really explore what it means to him to be ten years into this because, you know, I think you recently wrote that.

Yeah, it's not impossible that ten years ago, if Marco Rubio had been president, that your career would have been different.

you know, you have been this rising star in conservative media and, and commentary, and you had to make a choice.

And now you still have people accusing you and Charlie Sykes and Tim Miller and Sarah Longwell of being traitors who are just chasing a buck.

And I want you to address the people who think that this is just a transactional approach, that you're not actually conservative, that you're doing what you need to do to to, you know, have a voice in the media landscape and have a career.

>> Yeah.

Look, I mean, I you know, I'm my dad was a prison guard for 30 years.

I'm from a very rural.

I live I live in West Virginia right now.

but I'm from a very rural part of western Maryland, and one of my first memories is my dad taking me to the polls when he voted for Ronald Reagan, I worked at I was a blogger at Human Events Online.

I worked at Townhall.com, I worked for Tucker Carlson for six years at the Daily Caller, and I was always a conservative.

But like I, I was one of those people who listened to Ronald Reagan when he gave those speeches talking about America being a shining city on a hill and how we should be, you know, a beacon of hope.

and go back and watch some of the speeches.

Reagan was very pro-immigrant.

And then I was inspired.

You know, I wasn't a huge George W Bush fan, but just certainly the concept of compassionate conservatism was something, I think, that I was able to embrace.

And I was very inspired by Marco Rubio.

and I, I started covering in 2010 when he started running for the U.S.

Senate against Charlie Crist.

And, you know, Rubio had was very inspiring.

Then talking about human flourishing and, and freedom.

And of course, he championed immigration reform, which would would have included securing the border, but then also having a pathway to citizenship.

And I was a big boost.

I, I actually warned his staff they're going to come after you.

This is very dangerous.

But I will support it because it's the right thing to do for the country.

And I agree with the policy.

So that's where I was.

And I do believe that if Marco Rubio had won in 2016, as a lot of us thought, he very well should and possibly might have, that I would have probably been elevated to be one of the leading conservative columnists or maybe even TV commentators.

because I had been pushing Rubio.

championing him all that time.

And usually sort of happens when when someone wins and certainly like Donald Trump when he won, there were people that were elevated from like places like Breitbart and other other outlets and so yes I it's not the end of the world.

I'm still here talking to you today, so life's pretty good.

But one imagines that if I had jumped on the Trump train and become a supporter of Donald Trump, that it may have been more lucrative for me in the long run, but I just couldn't do it.

>> Yeah, I hear that.

And it's interesting to hear you talk about Rubio, because he certainly could be the next president.

Is he too associated with this administration for you now, or do you still see the same person in there?

>> Yeah.

I mean, look I, I would love if I want the best for this country and I would love it if some if if Marco Rubio.

How do I put this, you know, if a Republican succeeds Donald Trump?

you know, we're not going to Mitt Romney or John McCain.

Ronald Reagan's not walking through that door, you know so you're going to get someone like a J.D.

Vance or a Tucker Carlson or a Candace Owens.

And I do think Marco Rubio would probably be if it's going to be a Republican maybe the least worst.

option.

I don't think I could really support him because, you know, Donald, by supporting Donald Trump and by getting on the Trump train, to me, that's a that's problematic.

That means Rubio has been co-opted and supported.

Some things that I think are just again, it's a deal breaker.

But, you know, if we're gaming it out, it probably isn't the worst possibility if we imagine some of the other options that could be awaiting us.

>> Well, let's talk about well, just briefly here.

Do you think Ronald Reagan could get nominated by the Republican Party today?

>> Nowhere.

Certainly not.

Certainly not espousing anywhere near the positions that he took as a candidate.

>> The Republican Party would reject Reagan today.

well, then here's another voice that I think you'll probably say will get rejected.

But I want to listen to a piece of sound that we have Utah Governor Spencer Cox recently did some events with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Of course, Cox is a Republican.

Shapiro is a Democrat.

They're both very popular in their own states, and they're respected nationally and on stage.

They praised one another.

They said they thought each would make a good president someday.

And my sense, perhaps naive, is that Americans are hungry for that kind of respect in bringing the temperature down.

And I want to listen to what Cox said that day about division in this country.

Now, keep in mind, at one point in the sound clip, he's using hand gestures to make a point.

He starts by showing how close together we are and then what brings us further apart.

Let's listen to what Spencer Cox said.

>> If you interview 1000 Republicans and ask them what they believe on 20 of the most controversial issues, then you interview 1000 Democrats and on what they believe on the most controversial issues, and you kind of plot those out and look at the median Republican and the median Democrat.

We're this far apart on on most issues.

If you do the opposite, though, if you ask 1000 Republicans what they think Democrats believe, and you ask 1000 Democrats what they think Republicans believe, and then you plot that out where this far apart, when you put yourself in a cocoon surrounded by people who only agree with you and then talk about other people that you don't really know, then then you'll.

That that gap gets, gets even wider.

Right?

So so we have to find ways to be in a room together to look each other in the eye, to have a conversation.

Because when we do that, what we find out is we actually aren't as far apart as we thought we were.

And yes, we probably we're not going to agree on on banning social media under 16.

But turns out I actually agree that we should have a literacy initiative in Utah.

Like what you're doing in Pennsylvania.

And so we've actually talked about this.

We're going to work on this together.

We're going to send kids from from Utah to Pennsylvania.

The American Exchange Project.

It's amazing.

We've been doing this work for a while, sending sending kids on a two week experience.

from from country towns to a big city somewhere else in the country and vice versa.

To have these experiences with people who are different than them so that they can realize that what we have in common is so much greater than what separates us.

And I don't have to hate you, and I don't have to be scared of you.

We can actually work together.

>> That was last month at the Washington National Cathedral.

In the event with Governor Spencer Cox of Utah, governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

Matt, was I naive to get warm and fuzzy watching a Republican and Democrat governor stand on stage together and praise one another and have that kind of discussion?

>> I mean, look, I think we we need that we are desperate for things like that.

And I just, I applaud Governor Cox.

I wish we lived in a country where he was a the president or a top tier presidential candidate.

My suspicion is that the only way you get someone like Cox is sort of the way that Jimmy Carter was able to come in after Richard Nixon, after Watergate, and Jimmy Carter comes in talking about, you know, I'm never going to lie to you.

I'm.

We need a president as good and decent as the American people, that kind of thing.

The problem is that, you know, Jimmy Carter was the opposite party of Richard Nixon.

And so if you know, if Donald Trump is not completely rejected, then you're going to get people like JD Vance Marco Rubio maybe running if Trump is completely rejected.

In other words, if, if, if Trump ends as such a miserable failure that people back away from him, sort of like Nixon after Watergate then they're going to go for a Democrat.

So I don't see in the short term how Spencer Cox would would be in the mix, as sad as that is, because trust me, I would love, I would love to support him.

But, look, he did endorse Donald Trump in 2024. and so I think that that probably if, if Trump and Trumpism were completely to be discredited people would say, yeah, well, you you endorsed him.

So, you know, it's it's a shame.

But I would I would love it if he were were an option for us in the future.

>> I would love to in a private room just to say you saw January 6th, and then you endorsed, like what?

What do you really working at?

I don't I don't know how much Spencer Cox would say about it, but I would love to get his private thoughts on it.

At the same point, I am curious to know you get to pick anybody, Matt Lewis, to be the next president.

Forget the dynamics, forget who could get nominated.

Just I'm giving you the power.

Who's the next president?

>> Oh man.

I'm not prepared for that.

I mean, in the old days, I would have said Marco Rubio.

how about someone like Arthur Brooks?

>> Arthur Brooks, the the Happiness writer?

>> Well, before he was the happiness writer.

>> The American Enterprise.

>> Institute.

The president of the American Enterprise Institute.

so he's he's the first person I think of, but you know it's it's Slim Pickens.

I mean, there was a time when I would have been a Ben Sasse fan.

but.

>> Yeah.

>> Boy.

And by the way, Ben Stassen, we're all, you know, rooting for my.

I know he's in bad health right now.

but Ben Sasse is, like, the kind of person as well, that I think were it not for Donald Trump when he was a U.S.

senator.

Sasse could have been this sort of bright light and possibly the future of the Republican Party, someone that might have gotten nominated to be president.

It's just unfortunate that he ended up, you know, overlapping in this Trump era.

>> Yeah.

Just a note on former Senator Sasse, he has a diagnosis of terminal cancer at the age of 53.

He has been engaging in a lot of gallows humor about it and social media posts.

In fact, very admirably.

but there's a lot of people rooting for him personally.

And of course, I would be among them.

Never want to see anybody go through that.

My father, my father, a Reagan conservative, a lifelong small C conservative, you know, read Ben Sasse book and and declared him a future president.

And my father, I think is surprised.

that Ben Sasse and senator then Senator Sasse wasn't more forceful, as you have been against Trump.

Were you surprised at that with Sasse?

>> a little bit.

But I think that unfortunately, I, I have the luxury of being a an irascible political columnist and commentator.

And so even though I, I do and have criticized elected officials that I really looked up to for not pushing back as forcibly as I want them to.

It's also, you know, there but for the grace of God go I in the sense of I it's the man in the arena, right.

It's easy for me to be a critic, but I'm not an elected official, and I, I just imagine I'm going to keep criticizing them.

I'm going to keep holding them accountable.

But also with the sort of introspection and hopefully humility of understanding that people who are elected officials who have to serve in public office may have some pressures that that I do not have.

>> But if I gave you Spencer Cox as president, next president, you'd be good with it.

>> Man.

I think I would just go to the beach right now and relax.

That would be.

That would be great.

>> I gave you Larry Hogan.

>> I'll take it.

I'll take it.

>> You'll take Will Hurd.

You'll take.

I'm trying to go down the list here of the Matt Lewis acceptable conservative Adam Kinzinger.

You'd take.

>> Sure.

Absolutely.

>> Okay.

But not.

>> In the truth to ism.

You're you're giving me some good people.

Will Hurd is someone that disappointed me a little bit.

Like, I think he voted against impeachment or something like that.

let us down a little bit, but overall seems to be a very competent, decent person.

very knowledgeable.

I think in a different era would have been a rising star in the Republican Party, sort of like Ben Sasse, sort of like, well, Marco Rubio is a rising star now in the Republican Party.

but you know, you could keep going down the list and I'll keep saying I'll take them because most people would be better than what we've got right now, to be honest with you.

I'm not a big Trump fan, as you might imagine.

>> So we've got a pile of email from listeners we're going to get to after our break.

One other thing.

I just want to hit with Matt.

Matt mentioned he's you're living in West Virginia now?

My first job out of college was working at as a television news reporter in Charleston.

Huntington.

I lived smack in the middle of them on route 64.

It was on in a town called harken.

Spelled hurricane, but pronounced harken.

West Virginia and I spent a couple of years reporting there.

In fact, the governor of West Virginia at the time, Bob wise, was the Democrat succeeded by Joe Manchin.

Shelley Moore Capito was just getting into politics, following her dad.

And, you know, West Virginia was the state that Democrats could win.

They had a Democratic governor.

Joe Manchin was elected.

And now it's like a 45 plus point Trump state, Republican state.

So you're living in a state.

There's a lot of states like this that used to be purple, and they're not purple anymore.

what does that say about where our politics is and how difficult it's going to be to see any change in this country with so few states that feel like they're in play?

Matt.

>> Well, I think the real question is, is this the map that we've gotten used to in the last decade or so?

is that here to stay, or will there be like a political reordering again?

Right.

So it used to be that West Virginia was a reliably Democratic state.

I think you were there during a time of transition where maybe it was purple, but it for for decades and decades and decades, it had been a Democratic state.

and now it's a hardcore Republican state.

And I think the question is, is that going to be happen in other and happening in other parts of the country, for example, the state of Texas?

some people say it's naive to think that Texas could be trending blue, or at least becoming purple a competitive state, because it's been kind of fool's gold, you know, every 2 or 4 years, Democrats think they can win Texas, and they never do.

But things do change.

I remember it used to be Pennsylvania was once fool's gold for Republicans.

They always thought they could win it.

They never could.

And then in 2016, Trump actually did win Pennsylvania.

And so I don't see this map as being static.

there is a fear that as you know, Democrats I think David Plouffe the former Obama campaign manager, had a big, much ballyhooed piece in The New York Times where he was kind of warning Democrats about when things like redistricting happen and they do the census that these blue states are losing population and the red states are gaining population.

And that's going to affect not only congressional representation, but also the Electoral College.

And he was sort of sounding the alarm, warning Democrats, hey you know, be aware.

and he may be right, but but he's not really factoring in the possibility that this is a dynamic map and that some of the states that we think are Republican states may be trending Democrat.

And I think it really depends on the nominee.

I mean, if Democrats, if they were to pick somebody a mark Cuban or the Rock all bets are off the map could be dramatically different than if they picked.

>> Oh my.

>> Goodness, I don't know.

AOC, for example.

>> So we got an email on this subject.

We'll get on the other side.

But Matt has given us a view that in 2028, we could conceivably have the rock against Candace Owens.

And you know, I don't know.

I don't know, man, I don't know.

We've got to get our only break.

I've got phone calls and emails from Matt Lewis on the other side.

He's an L.A.

times columnist and author, and we'll come right back with him with your feedback next.

I'm Evan Dawson Wednesday on the next Connections.

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>> Bobjohnsonautogroup.com this is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Jack in Greece.

First up on the phone.

Hey Jack, go ahead.

>> Oh, thanks.

Evan.

I'd like to ask your guest, Matt.

you know, the touched on a lot of things I agree with, like, this cult that we have today, what I would call a cult with Donald Trump and people and and the January 6th and cozying up to Putin, admiring all these dictators and autocrats.

but if we look at maybe switch gears a little bit and look at our, our look at foreign policy, look at where our allies are going, we see, I would have never thought we would see the Canadians and the Europeans saying, you know, we got to look for better deals, maybe with China.

We had China.

I is I've heard China labeled a near-peer.

They are a real threat long term.

The way they've grown and strengthened over my lifetime is dramatic.

And with the with our allies openly talking about they don't.

They had the first Trump administration.

Look what it did.

well, we got Biden in and things are going to go to become normal again.

But now he's back and I take them seriously as saying that's it.

They can't rely on the United States.

and that to me is is just heartbreaking.

I just don't see this turning around.

And I don't know when I can't predict the future, but it's going to take a catastrophe, I think, to to turn them around.

These people are so devoted.

I agree with you on Rubio.

We seem like a a reasonable guy.

But look, look at what he's done with Trump.

Anyway, that's my comment, Jack.

>> Thank you.

Matt, you want to respond?

Go ahead.

>> Yeah.

Look, I think that the U.S.

led world order is in deep trouble.

And so basically, if you are a European country, if you're an ally, if you're Canada, whatever, if you're an ally of the U.S., you could have looked at what happened in 2016 as sort of a weird anomaly.

You know, Donald Trump wins, but he doesn't win the popular vote.

And then he gets defeated.

He's a one term president.

America learned their lesson so we can trust America again.

But then when America reelects Donald Trump four years later with and he does win this time, the popular vote, I think if you're an ally, you have to say, like, we really can't rely on the U.S., we really can't count on them.

Because even if Donald Trump goes and he's replaced by somebody better, the American public could elect someone else bad.

in four years.

And so let's let's have our own nuclear weapons.

Actually, maybe maybe we, you know, we can't really rely on the U.S.

nuclear umbrella.

We have to protect ourselves.

And, maybe let's cut a deal with China.

You know, they're they're not that bad.

they never they haven't threatened to invade us.

The U.S.

actually threatened to invade us.

China hasn't done that.

And there's far enough away that we're not too worried about them for now, at least.

and so I think it's not irrational.

It was actually a logical calculation.

If you are a former ally of the United States to say we just can't depend on them anymore.

>> Oh, Jack, thanks for the phone call.

John in Rochester writes to ask.

can you ask your guest how dangerous is JD Vance as president?

>> Well I think he's very dangerous because he's smart.

and, I mean, Donald Trump has this cunning, a great political instinct.

Trump is more charismatic and likable.

I know your audience may not like that, but Trump has a a humor and likability to him that Vance doesn't have.

Vance is not charismatic.

Vance comes across, I think is smarmy and all of that.

but Vance also seems to be more deeply committed to like, a right wing ideology than Trump.

Trump isn't that ideological.

I would say he's.

Trump is influenced by Stephen Miller who's a bad influence?

Russell Vought who is a bad influence.

But Trump really only cares about a few things.

Immigration, tariffs.

and making money.

and you know, sort of corruption.

Whereas I think JD Vance has bought into more of these weird alt right.

ideologies that you really only get in the sort of dark, dark side of Twitter.

And so you know, Vance is less dangerous in the sense that I think he's less charismatic, but more dangerous in the sense that I think he's more ideological.

>> John, thank you.

A couple comments from YouTube.

one here says just wants to affirm what Matt, your guest, Matt Lewis, is saying about reflecting on different positions.

He says I'm conservative on some issues and liberal on others and says, you know, very few people are one thing all the way down.

Gary on YouTube says, President Obama stated in a 2012 ABC news interview that his mainstream economic policies were similar to those of a moderate Republican in the 1980s, so maybe he is an Obama Republican.

I've never heard the phrase Obama Republican.

I don't know, I don't know if we're going back there, but everything in hindsight looks a little different.

You know, when when you looked at the way Democrats look at George W Bush's changed the way Democrats look at Mitt Romney and John McCain has changed.

So you know, given given.

>> Bill Clinton the way Republicans, you know, at the time, Bill Clinton, I was very anti Bill Clinton.

And I think, you know, when you look at Monica Lewinsky and things like that, the character issue I think does matter, sadly, I think Bill Clinton's character issue, possibly from a cultural standpoint, leads us to a Donald Trump.

But in terms of, you know, Bill Clinton's presidency now seems pretty good in many ways.

You know, we're going to end big government as we know it.

the era of big government is over all that stuff.

I mean, there were some good things that happened.

And honestly, you know, the late 90s were were pretty good rockin time.

in retrospect.

>> a number of listeners pointing to a clip of President Trump in just the last hour here.

And so, of course, I can't listen.

He's standing in front of Air Force One and a quick media scrum, and he's being asked about Alex, Pretti and one of the comments that Trump made was, it's just a very unfortunate incident.

But with that being said, you can't have guns, you can't walk in with guns.

You just can't.

You can't walk in with guns there.

You can't do that.

It's the first time President Trump himself has affirmed the position that Kristi Noem Scott Bessent, Bovino Kash Patel, they have been really hammering this idea.

Is that, well, Alex Pretti had a gun.

So, like, you know, what do you expect?

But the president himself saying it, Matt, again, if it's going to move the NRA, if it's going to move gun owners, if it's going to move people who are to a rights enthusiasts, you would think this would be the moment.

I cannot think of anything that a Democratic president could say about guns.

That would be maybe more offensive, as unless they came out and said, I want to confiscate all your guns.

That's what they used to say that Obama was going to do.

Can you imagine Obama saying what Trump just said about guns?

Matt.

>> If Obama said that people right now, you know, people would be hoarding ammunition and guns.

Fox news would be wall to wall, nonstop.

in a way, though, I think this illustrates Donald Trump's political superpower.

what he said actually is what a moderate would say, you know it's inconsistent.

It's hypocritical.

It's certainly flies in the face of, of the Second Amendment and conservative orthodoxy.

But I can imagine a lot of Americans out there who aren't happy with what's happening in the streets in Minneapolis, both in terms of the protests and I.S.I.S.

behavior and didn't like the rush to judgment that we heard from Kristi Noem.

I can understand a lot of Americans out there who aren't thinking about the Second Amendment or the Constitution saying, yeah, you know, Trump's kind of right there.

You know, I wouldn't you know, you're allowed to bring a gun to a bar, but it's not really a good idea.

if I were going to a protest, you know, in a way, Donald Trump is allowed to be unorthodox.

that again, it's not only Obama.

I don't think George W Bush could have gotten away with this.

I don't think Mitt Romney could have said this, but Trump somehow has given this permission structure to to be unorthodox in this sense.

Yeah.

and he's perceived this is the weird thing, too.

I see Donald Trump as an extremist.

Right.

Because he's extremely outside the mainstream.

He breaks our norms all the time.

A lot of Americans who voted for him, certainly in 2016, see him as a moderate.

And I think this is an example of why they think that.

>> It's interesting.

back to the phone calls.

This is Andrew in Mendon.

Hey, Andrew.

Go ahead.

>> Hey, how are you guys doing?

It's nice to hear your voice, Matt.

>> Yeah.

Go ahead.

>> Donald Trump is a Queens Democrat, and he acts like a Republican.

He's he's if you if you look at Cuomo when he wanted to get elected, they he would sound like a Republican.

And so I think Donald Trump learned his republicanism from the New York Times and the Cuomo's.

What do you think of that, Matt.

>> Interesting idea.

Andrew.

Go ahead.

Matt.

>> I don't know about the Cuomo's, but I do think the tabloid culture of New York more the post, the Daily News, that kind of thing.

And I have to say Jonah Goldberg, who's also a never-Trump conservative former National Review writer has a theory that I think makes a lot of sense, which is that, you know, Fox News is based in New York, and there were a lot of these sort of bridge and tunnel populists, people like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, who were not really mainstream conservatives.

They weren't the types who were part of the conservative movement.

But because Fox News was based in New York and because Fox News employed a lot of prominent New York Rudy Giuliani type populists, that was a great benefit to Donald Trump.

You know, Fox News was based in Kansas City.

Trump might not have gone that far.

Or if Fox News was based in Texas, Fox News, if they had employed that.

Folks like that, those sort of traditional conservatives, but because they had the Bill O'Reilly's and the Sean Hannity's, the people who kind of grew up in the Giuliani, New York Outer Borough, bridge and tunnel populism, that Trump had this huge network of people who spoke his same language and liked him in a way that he may not have resonated with other conservatives.

>> Andrew, thank you for the phone call.

Charles writes to say, I hear an awful lot of deal breakers for conservatism from your guest.

I'd sure love to know what deal breakers would cause this guy not to support leftists.

And then Charles quotes Churchill.

He says each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.

Okay, Matt Lewis, he wants to know what would be the deal breakers that would cause you not to support leftists.

>> Well I would have to say I've never voted for a Democrat for president in my life, so I didn't vote for Hillary or Biden or Kamala Harris.

I did say in 2024 that I live in West Virginia.

So my vote didn't matter for president, and I didn't want to be complicit with whatever Kamala Harris might have done that I also didn't agree with.

But I did say in 2024, and it's the only time I've said it, that if I lived in a swing state and I was, my vote was the deciding vote, I would have cast it for Harris over Trump.

not because I endorse her policies, but because I think it was P.J.

O'Rourke in 2016 said, you know, Hillary Clinton is a normal, bad politician, and Donald Trump is an abnormal.

You know, politician.

and so, I think that Kamala Harris would have been a conventional liberal politician.

She would have done things that I didn't like, but would have been within the normal bounds of framework of liberal democracy.

Whereas what Trump's doing in fact, I just interviewed Jonathan Rauch from The Atlantic yesterday.

He has 18 qualities that Trump has exhibited that he says are compatible with fascism.

And several of these qualities were not present, or at least not fully present in the first term.

And they have arisen now more on display and the second term.

So you know, number one, my priority is conserving liberal democracy.

But you know, I, I don't endorse progressivism.

and I have championed Donald Trump when he's done on the rare occasion he's done some things that I think were good.

and early on, for example you know, the diversity, equity stuff, which I like.

Those words are great.

I like diversity, I like equity, but the woke stuff, you know, the sense that there was almost like a. Reverse discrimination, that that kind of fly in the face of Dr.

King's vision of a colorblind society.

I thought, you know, some of that stuff is good.

We do need to maybe tamp down on some of the woke stuff that's gone too far.

So I do consider myself still to be a conservative person, but we have, you know, if we lose our freedoms, if we have a semi dictatorship or an authoritarian regime, then, you know, the fact that my taxes are the tax rates higher than I would like it to be seem to be kind of a quaint concern.

>> All right.

Last one, this is from Greg.

We're down to our last minute and a half.

He says, okay, who should Democrats not nominate in 2028?

What would be a mistake for the Democrats to do?

Greg wants to know what you think, Matt.

>> I think they should be careful about conventional politicians.

you know, it's I'll tell you who they should not nominate.

Kamala Harris.

she she doesn't have it.

She's lost.

She comes across as a conventional politician.

And then, look, we have run amok.

We Democrats have run two women against Donald Trump, and they're zero for two.

is is it possible that there are people in America who are sexist, who are not willing to vote for a woman?

I don't know, but if I were recommending, if I were telling Democrats, giving them advice who they should nominate, someone who doesn't come across as a conventional politician.

and definitely not Kamala Harris.

>> And probably not AOC, then you would say.

>> I would like AOC better than Kamala Harris because she's not a conventional politician.

She's an outsider.

so given the choice, I definitely go AOC, even though she's more left wing, more progressive than than Harris.

>> And who has the better chance of winning Shapiro or Newsom?

>> Oh, that's a close call.

I like Shapiro better in terms of his political philosophy.

but Newsom has really impressed me with his ability to throw elbows and sort of troll Donald Trump online.

That is a talent that is a toughness that Newsom has.

And by the way, he's got great hair.

So I think that that counts for something as well.

>> In the modern era, maybe.

Hey, Matt Lewis, L.A.

times columnist and author again, a prolific output from Matt Substack podcast, and we'll link to that in our show notes so people can check it out.

It is a pleasure having you and your generous with your time.

Thank you Matt.

>> Thank you.

>> Great conversation with Matt Lewis, their listeners.

Thanks.

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