Tuesday on the RealClearPolitics radio show — weeknights at 6:00 p.m. on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124 and then on Apple, Spotify, and here on our website — Andrew Walworth, Tom Bevan, and Carl Cannon discuss competing views about the future of the Democratic Party, what CBS’s Stephen Colbert had to say to Trump over the cancelation of “The Late Show,” and the Trump administration’s retaliation against the Wall Street Journal over their report on his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And then, RealClearInvestigations reporter Aaron Mate talks to Carl Cannon about his recent article dissecting Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s new report on Russiagate. And finally, RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann discusses his latest piece on the newly installed Director of the Office of Personnel and Management, Scott Kupor. *** First, Hunter Biden’s blockbuster interview made big waves this week with his family’s side of the story of the 2024 election. How bad is this relitigation for the legacy of the Biden administration and the future of the party? “Hunter comes off as bitter, unhinged, arrogant, entitled,” Tom Bevan said. “This is a guy who is not in jail because his dad gave him a blanket pardon… It’s great news for Trump, but I don’t think it will reflect well on Hunter or his family for history.” “Apparently, he isn’t even telling the truth to himself,” Carl Cannon added about Hunter. “You wonder how a person could be so obnoxious as to get kicked out of a swingers club. If you watched this interview, now you know.” *** After that, around minute 4, a competing vision of the future of the Democratic Party was on display in Rahm Emanuel’s appearance on the Megyn Kelly show yesterday. Is he too far right to run for the Democratic presidential nomination? “He might be,” Bevan said. “The barrier for entry for the presidential race is very low now. We saw what happened with Pete Buttigieg. Rahm clearly has more stature than Buttigieg ever had. In his mind, there’s probably no downside; even if he doesn’t win, it will lead to something else.” *** In the next segment, starting at minute 10:30, CBS has canceled “The Late Show.” Host Stephen Colbert blamed the large legal settlement with President Trump and took shots at Trump saying, “for the next 10 months, the gloves are off.” “You mean he hasn’t been critical of Trump for the past 10 years?” Bevan said. “You can argue about why Stephen Colbert got canceled-whether it was his political views or he just wasn’t funny, they were losing money, all of these things. But what you can’t argue is that this is somehow a threat to democracy.” “I think if they were canceling him, they would just get rid of him and put a new person in the chair, which is what they do with late-night shows all the time. But they’re canceling the entire franchise,” Andrew Walworth added. *** After that, at minute 16:30, President Trump has kicked the Wall Street Journal out of the White House pool for an upcoming trip, as he is suing over their publication of a letter he reportedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein. “He said flatly in his court filings that this thing doesn’t exist, and that they acted maliciously. And he sued them for, I think, like $ 10 billion,” Cannon said about the letter. “If Trump is not telling the truth about that, if there is this document and it says what the Wall Street Journal said it says, that’s a problem for him.” “Either the Wall Street Journal is going to be harmed, or I think the president’s reputation is going to be harmed.” “It is interesting that the Wall Street Journal didn’t produce this document for people in their original reporting,” Bevan added. “But when the White House goes after news organizations-they may even deserve it. It just-it does come across as petty. It turns them into martyrs and often turns out to be counterproductive.” *** And then, at minute 20:40, Carl Cannon talks to RealClearInvestigations reporter Aaron Mate about his recent article dissecting Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s new report on Russiagate. Mate’s report: “Russiagate’s Architects Suppressed Doubts To Peddle False Claims” “Trump calls it a hoax, and I think that’s an accurate statement now-absolutely,” he said. “Nobody defends the notion anymore that there was some sort of high-level conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Russia, which was the basis for the FBI’s investigation and the Mueller probe.” “What we’re reporting now is new documents showing that, yeah, in September 2016, as the Russian interference allegations were heating up, the FBI and the NSA broke from their counterparts in CIA and said: We have low confidence that Russia hacked the DNC and then released that material through online personas as well as WikiLeaks.” “That’s the allegation that’s at the heart of Russian interference claims. And what we’re saying is-we’re only learning now, more than eight years later-that the FBI and the NSA had low confidence in that assertion,” he said. *** Finally, at minute 35:40, Andrew Walworth talks to RCP White House correspondent Phil Wegmann about his recent article on the newly installed Director of the Office of Personnel and Management, Scott Kupor, and the legacy and impact of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. Wegmann just wrote: “Scott Kupor: Trump’s Kinder, Gentler Human Resources Director” “It’s a little bit of moderation from an administration that has been defined by these hyperbolic promises,” Wegmann said about Kupor. “He comes from this long line of business executives with zero government experience-not unlike President Trump-who arrive on the scene and say, ‘Look, we just need to do what is most efficient. We need to cut costs.’ And that makes sense in the private sector. It probably makes sense in government, too-but you don’t always have that type of executive power.” “Does this close the chapter on DOGE?” Walworth asked. “Kupor was telling us that DOGE was a good catalyst-that it sort of reoriented the administration to thinking toward cost savings,” he said. “But generally, I think DOGE sort of died the day the Republican Congress advanced this multi-trillion-dollar spending package.” *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics weeknight radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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