Thursday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth discuss why only one building has been rebuilt in the year since the Pacific Palisades fire in Los Angeles, and whether Congress has any shot at coming to a compromise on subsidies for health care premiums. After that, Rachel Hoff from the Ronald Reagan Institute joins the show to discuss the results of their new poll on Americans’ attitudes on foreign policy, China, Ukraine, NATO, Taiwan, and the military use of AI. Finally, a conversation about Turning Point USA deciding to engage with Candace Owens about her theories about the death of Charlie Kirk, along with a new poll showing that only about one-quarter of respondents correctly identified that Kirk’s accused killer expressed left-wing motivations. 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 opened with reports that exactly one home has been rebuilt, nearly a year after around 7,000 buildings burned in the massive Los Angeles wildfires. National media isn’t paying attention, even as California’s governor is off running for president and the election to replace him starts getting coverage. What can the government, at any level, do to speed up the rebuilding process, and what’s causing this delay? “It’s not all the city’s fault. You need plans, money, and insurance companies have to pay out. But this was an opportunity for Gov. Newsom to throw his weight around and nudge the process along,” Carl Cannon said. “Instead, Democrats are busy fighting Donald Trump on everything. And when you’re fighting Trump on everything, you don’t ask him for help. The federal government could be helpful.” “This is another situation where Trump could absolutely barnstorm and troll the Democrats. He should send in the National Guard and the Army Corps of Engineers and start rebuilding himself,” Bevan suggested. “What is Eric Swalwell going to do? Go out there and yell, ‘Get out of here, Trump, stop rebuilding homes, you fascist!’? *** After that, around minute 13:40 , the group discusses a new poll from KFF that says about half of people covered by Obamacare say increased premiums would impact their vote next year. With subsidies set to expire, how do these voter attitudes impact the chances of a bipartisan compromise by next month? “Democrats have an advantage on health care… But a GAO report came out showing these Obamacare tax subsidies are teeming with fraud, which complicates things a little bit,” Bevan said. “Republicans could mitigate things if they can really drive that home. I think voters want their subsidies, of course, but they don’t want fraud.” “It’d be nice to poll the fraudsters,” Cannon joked. “It might be the worst of both worlds for Republicans. This report makes it very difficult for a fiscally prudent Republican to vote to just throw these billions of dollars at a program that’s rife with fraud. On the other hand, if the legacy media isn’t writing about it, these swing voters and Democrats don’t even know about it.” *** In the next segment, at timestamp 19, Ronald Reagan Institute policy director Rachel Hoff joins the show to discuss the results of their new poll on Americans’ attitudes on foreign policy, which RCP’s Jonathan Draeger wrote about this week: “Hegseth Plan To Refocus Army Near Home Popular, Appetite for Intervention Persists”. “I don’t know if I’d use the word intervention … We also don’t use words like isolationist,” Hoff explained. “The words that resonate are leadership, engagement, and military strength. And that, I think, is the biggest takeaway this year: A record-high number of Americans – now up to two-thirds – want America to lead on the global stage, and they want it to do so from a position of military strength.” “The data show a huge gap between what we hear online and what MAGA voters actually believe,” she also said. “Two-thirds of Americans overall want the U.S. to lead internationally. Among MAGA Republicans, it’s nearly 80%.” “We added a new question this year: Is it important that the U.S. military defend Taiwan? Three in four Americans say yes,” she noted. *** At minute 37, the group discusses Turning Point USA deciding to engage with conspiracy theories spreading online about the murder of Charlie Kirk, after months of silence. Is anything productive going to come from this dialogue? “Charlie’s colleagues have invited Candace Owens to go through her accusations and claims, virtually or in person, and she’s accepted,” Bevan explained. “She claims she’s just asking questions, that she just wants reasonable answers, and the folks at Turning Point had basically ignored it. So yes, this is going to be must-see TV on Dec. 15. I know I will be watching.” “She’s barking mad,” Carl Cannon said about Owens. “Is insanity a defense to libel? I’m not being facetious. She spins these tales – she may actually believe them. If so, the legal implications get complicated. President Trump has talked about changing the libel laws and making it easier to sue.” “It’s the George Costanza defense: It’s not a lie if you believe it,” Tom Bevan joked. “Remember: She’s already being sued by the Macrons over her obsession with proving that Brigitte Macron is actually a man. I believe I heard her defense in that case is that she sincerely believes it. But she has a huge platform, millions of viewers.” *** Finally, 44 minutes into the show, a new report from the Media Research Center found that only 24% of respondents correctly described Tyler Robinson, the man accused of murdering Charlie Kirk, as left-wing. “So the media’s effort to muddy the waters on the political motivations of Tyler Robinson worked. Three-quarters of people either had the wrong answer or didn’t know,” Bevan said. “It’s a political assassination by someone who objected to Kirk’s Christianity and conservatism. So it’s not a trick question: He’s not right-wing,” Cannon agreed. *** Don’t miss a single episode of the RealClearPolitics radio show – subscribe at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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