Friday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Andrew Walworth, Carl Cannon, and Tom Bevan discuss the president nominating Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, the First Amendment argument about the arrest of Don Lemon, and Hillary Clinton’s latest criticism of Trump’s lack of empathy. After that, “The Rational Nationalist” author Lee Ellis joins the show to talk about making political decisions based on logic over emotion. Plus, the group responds to a clever YouTube comment about RCP’s name, and gives their picks for the weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of entertaining headlines. You can listen to the show live each day at 11:00 a.m. on SiriusXM’s Megyn Kelly Channel 111 and then on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and here on our website. *** The show opens with President Trump nominating Kevin Warsh to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve and a look back at what Warsh said about controlling inflation during an interview with RCP last year. “He’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever met — he exudes competence,” Bevan said about Kevin Warsh. “He has very strong views about the Fed’s mandate and what it should be doing. He’s very critical of all the QE stuff and this bloated balance sheet.” “But Warsh says it’s not just interest rates, it’s federal spending. Warsh is going to have to find a way to talk Donald Trump and Republicans into being more responsible with the budget,” Cannon said. “The root problem here is runaway federal spending, and there’s not much the Fed chair can do about that.” *** After that, around minute 10:30, the group discusses the arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon for joining (or “covering”) a protest against ICE that disrupted a Minnesota church service two weeks ago. “Lemon says he was covering it as a journalist, and the prosecution is going to have to prove he participated in it-not just as a journalist, but as a protester. And that’s a very interesting case!” Cannon said. Tom Bevan asked why they’re giving Lemon the attention he wants: “He’s sort of a disgraced, non-influential guy now. Why bother at all? Why let him make himself out to be a martyr?” “Yeah, Trump made his day,” Cannon agreed. “Why resurrect his career, Mr. President?” *** Next, 21 minutes into the show, “The Rational Nationalist” author Lee Ellis joins the show to make the argument for making political decisions based on logic over emotion. You can read an excerpt here. “When people make political decisions, they largely make them based on group identities or other interests,” he said. “The first part is being self-aware. Simply being aware you’re having these emotional reactions,” he said. “When people approach politics, they think like lawyers (I think that’s a quote from Professor Peter Ditto). They tend to form the opinion, as we mentioned, almost immediately based on group identity, social pressure, ego needs.” “The only thing that we as individuals can do is control our own actions. So I hope that people take this and they look in the mirror and they reflect on how they’re approaching politics.” *** Plus, around minute 29, the group looks at Hillary Clinton’s new piece in The Atlantic Magazine on the “moral rot at the heart” of Trump’s MAGA movement: “This Crisis in Minneapolis Reveals a War on Empathy” “As we do at RealClearPolitics, we paired Hillary Clinton’s piece with a piece from Sasha Stone,” Bevan added: “Oh Hillary, Empathy? Really? Please” “Where was the emotion for all the people who died trying to cross the border? The kids that were sold into sex trafficking or abused or lost, separated from their families?” Bevan also said. “You should be able to have empathy in both directions, but they only have it in one direction.” *** Finally, at minute 39, the group responds to a clever YouTube comment about RCP’s name, and gives their picks for the weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of entertaining headlines. *** 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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