Tuesday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Tom Bevan, Andrew Walworth, and Carl Cannon speak with White House reporter Phil Wegmann about his questions to the president and vice president yesterday. They also discuss White House chief of staff Susie Wiles revealing a breast cancer diagnosis and a new piece in the WSJ accusing the American press of siding with Iran against the U.S. After that, the group discusses whether Cuba is next on Trump’s list after Venezuela and Iran, and a new poll that says Americans don’t think a college degree is worth it by more than a 2-to-1 margin. You can listen to the show live, weekdays 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 RealClearPolitics White House correspondent Phil Wegmann’s exchange yesterday in the Oval Office with the president and vice president about Iran, and his new piece reporting what they said. “I think Vance was a bit prickly – but no, reporters are not trying to drive a wedge between the president and the vice president. I’m interested in Vance as the heir apparent of the Republican Party. What does he actually believe?” Wegmann said about his question to Vice President Vance about squaring his support for this war with his past comments about Iraq. “He explained away some of his adherence to anti-interventionism by saying the difference between the Bush and Obama years and now is that previously we had dumb presidents. Now we have Donald Trump, who we trust.” “I love how he tried to play a little dumb when you asked that,” Tom Bevan added. “Dude? You’ve been like the anti-intervention guy for a long time. But to his credit, that was a pretty good response.” “To his credit? OK, so their thing is that Trump is smarter than George W. Bush,” Carl Cannon said. “We’ve had dumb presidents before? Did he mean Franklin Roosevelt?” “Vance has been a voice of skepticism, and he isn’t breaking with the president in public. That’s job number one for any vice president,” Wegmann added. “I think in the back of his mind, Vance has to know that a central tenet to his political brand is now gone. He rolled on the question of no new wars.” *** At minute 13, the group discusses White House chief of staff Susie Wiles announcing that she has early-stage, treatable breast cancer. “I think Trump violated HIPAA there, by the way,” Tom Bevan joked. “Susie Wiles is the definition of a force of nature,” Wegmann said. “In comparison to the first Trump administration, it’s just night and day different. It’s a much more professional organization, and I think that is because of Susie Wiles. It starts at the top, and it filters all the way down to the most junior press aide.” *** At minute 18, the group discusses Mark Penn and Andrew Stein’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal accusing the press of featuring Iranian propaganda as news. “I think we should stipulate it’s a very difficult war to cover. It’s an air war. We’re not in these airplanes. It’s hard to know what’s going on on the ground,” Carl Cannon said. “CNN had a reporter purportedly telling us what the Iranian people are thinking. This reporter was in Beirut talking to one person on the telephone.” “The coverage has been focused on the more negative aspects of the war. We have a piece on the site this morning from Al Jazeera of all places, talking about the success of the military operations and how they’ve largely achieved their objectives in degrading Iran’s military to the point where it’s no longer able to really do much of anything,” Tom Bevan said. “And those kinds of stories in the American media are, I would say, few and far between.” *** At minute 26, the panel discusses FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr threatening to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the Iran war. He said: Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortion, also known as the fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not. “I think Brendan Carr is a menace to his own side,” Carl Cannon said. “I’d like to have him on the show, but I think he’s lost his way.” “I think it’s a debate that we should have, because I think journalism is broken and there is hardly any accountability in that profession,” Bevan said. *** Plus, at minute 31, the panel asks whether Cuba is next on President Trump’s list to have the “honor” of U.S.-backed regime change. “I mean, I was joking that we should annex it,” Bevan said. “But Trump should liberate Cuba. Yes, he should. And that would, by the way, be a big part of his legacy because plenty of U.S. presidents have wanted that.” “I think that once again, this is Donald Trump setting out the goal while leaving the means ambiguous. We saw this with Venezuela and with Iran to a limited degree,” Wegmann said. “But I think if you are in the regime there, you’re not going to call Donald Trump’s bluff.” *** Finally, at minute 38, the group discusses a new poll from I&I/TIPP which showed 59% of Americans agreeing that a four-year college degree is not worth the cost. “This is a big change from 2013, when Gallup found that 70% said college was worth the price,” Andrew Walworth reported. “I would have thought it was maybe even a little higher. I don’t know if we’ve completely reached the tipping point,” Bevan commented. “But we have seen serious deterioration in this whole high-school-to-Harvard mentality that we’ve had in this country for the last 50 or 60 years.” *** 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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