Wednesday 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 — Tom Bevan, Phil Wegmann, and Emily Jashinsky discuss what’s going on in the world of politics today. In the first segment, former President Biden spoke to the BBC this week in his first major interview since quitting the presidential race. “The former president is tanned, rested, and on the precipice of a comeback,” RCP White House reporter Phil Wegmann joked. UnHerd Washington correspondent Emily Jashinsky suggested: “This could become a reverse-Reagan situation. People look back at the Reagan administration and see him as the senile and enfeebled caricature he became after his presidency. I wonder if this is the start of memory-holing how bad Joe Biden was, an exit ramp for the media to memory-hole the bad coverage.” Also, a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll suggests California voters think Gov. Gavin Newsom is already spending too much time gearing up to run for president in 2028 and not enough time running the state. The same poll found Californians are really starting to sour on former President Biden. “Remember Nancy Pelosi saying she wanted to put him on Mount Rushmore? They were saying he’s the best. That was the spin during the campaign when he was still running for reelection and after he left,” Tom Bevan added. “That clearly did not resonate with voters — and again, this poll is in California.” *** In the next segment, starting at minute 12, President Trump announced the first batch of judicial nominees for his second term in a flurry of Truth Social posts last night, some of whom are facing resistance from conservative legal circles. Sen. Thom Tillis of the Judiciary Committee has come out against Ed Martin, Trump’s choice to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, saying someone who participated in “Stop the Steal” is a bridge too far. “MAGA now has significant frustrations with some judges picked by the Federalist Society, all the way up to the Supreme Court. Now we have to make the distinction between the conservative judicial circles and the MAGA judicial circle,” Jashinsky said. “It certainly does pit the MAGA folks against the institutional power of the Republican establishment, which is a little bit weaker but still there,” Tom Bevan commented. *** After that, starting at timestamp 21:30, President Trump hasn’t stopped bringing up annexing Canada as the 51st state, even during Prime Minister Mark Carney’s White House visit yesterday. Carney seemed prepared to reject the idea politely, but the president won’t let it go! “I think we’re starting to see other world leaders learn how to deal with Trump, it only took ten years!” said Jashinsky. Along the same line, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that American intelligence agencies have been directed to gather more info about Greenland. Is Trump actually serious about this one? “Here we are 100 days into the administration, and we’re still talking about Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada,” Tom Bevan commented. *** Next, starting at minute 27, events like the Met Gala and the Pulitzer Prize used to make a big cultural splash, but barely made a ripple this year. Are “the elites” just talking to themselves in the current year? *** Finally, at minute 35 Tom Bevan talks to RCP senior elections analyst Sean Trende about the Georgia Senate race and the broader political landscape. Will Georgia Republicans find someone who can beat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff with Gov. Brian Kemp declining the opportunity? “Kemp was one of the last gasps of the old Republican coalition in Georgia,” Trende said. “He did very well among rural whites, but also could hold his own among suburban whites. Some of the other Republicans who have been named — not so much.” “The positive big-picture spin for Republicans is Kemp did this because he wants to run for president in 2028, but I don’t know if there is really a wave of Kemp-mania at the federal level,” Trende added. “The negative view is he didn’t run because he didn’t want to get airbombed by Trump and Trump supporters, and then go to D.C. and have to vote for stuff he doesn’t really like.” “If that’s the case, there’s probably a similar thought process going on with people like Brad Raffensberger and Kelvin King, and that’s how you end up with Marjorie Taylor Greene as your nominee.” *** 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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