Monday 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 the results of the Democratic primary for New York City Mayor last night, the latest attempt to impeach President Trump, the future of VOA, and the history of presidents who swear. *** First, the gang looks at 33-year-old Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani appearing to win the Democratic primary for New York City Mayor on a platform of “rejecting Donald Trump’s fascism, to stop mass ICE agents from deporting our neighbors, and govern our city as a model for the Democratic Party.” “He’s promised all these things, but he hasn’t explained one single way he’s going to pay for any of it, other than taxing the rich — which, of course, we know will drive more New Yorkers out of the city,” Tom Bevan commented. “He seems to have a real populist appeal. The MAGA movement is populist on the right; this is populism on the left,” Carl Cannon said. “This guy is half Andrew Cuomo’s age. And I looked it up and wrote in my column today: when AOC beat Joe Crowley, she was 28-exactly half his age. This is a generational thing as much as it is ideological.” *** And then, at minute 9, the House voted down Rep. Al Green’s latest attempt to impeach President Donald Trump, but 79 Democrats did vote with Green that air strikes in Iran were an illegal act of war. “This was a deliberate effort to push the Democratic Party left,” Cannon said. “You’ve got to figure they’re looking over their shoulder, thinking: Is somebody like AOC going to primary me in my district if I don’t do this?” “Of course, it’s good for Trump. Look, it’s happened twice already, and he’s only gotten stronger,” Bevan commented. “If they impeach him a couple more times, he could probably get a third term,” Cannon added. *** In the next segment, at minute 13:30, CNN published a leaked intelligence report that U.S. air strikes only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months, and its core components remain intact. The White House vigorously disputed that, saying it was a preliminary report. “I wonder about the motivations of the leakers here,” he said. “You’ve got to be skeptical in both directions… This is the kind of thing that, in a less dysfunctional democracy, we would wait and see what we actually found, right?” Tom Bevan made sure to mention: “The same reporter who wrote that 51-intelligence-officer story for Politico, Natasha Bertrand, is the same one who wrote this story.” “What gave the story juice was the White House response,” Andrew Walworth said. “Why we’re talking about it, in part, is because the White House jumped on this, and jumped on CNN so strongly that it became part of the story.” *** After that, starting at minute 20, Trump advisor Kari Lake told a House committee today why the administration wants to finish dismantling Voice of America, alleging the agency employed foreign spies, violated immigration laws, and wasted taxpayer money. “Her testimony was called ‘Spies, Lies, and Mismanagement,'” Walworth reported. “She really didn’t give a plan as to what she would do going forward, but she did say, and repeated it a couple of times, that she thinks the whole place should be shut down.” *** Next, at timestamp 23:45, Carl Cannon welcomes National Journal White House correspondent George Condon to talk about his new article on the history of presidents using bad language. President Trump broke new executive rhetorical ground this week, publicly directing an ‘F-bomb’ at Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu from the White House lawn. “This topic is just out of the blue — very blue,” Condon told Cannon. “Ulysses S. Grant said in his memoir, edited by Mark Twain, that he never swore: ‘When a boy, I seemed to have an aversion to it, and when I became a man, I saw the folly of it. I have always noticed, too, that swearing helps to rouse a man’s anger, and when a man flies into a passion, his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him.’ It’s dated, but if you’re a military officer and you’re keeping your cool while your opponent is losing it, you’re going to prevail.” Condon also added, about President Nixon: “All of us remember all those ‘expletives deleted’ from the Nixon tapes, right? We always thought he was using the most vulgar terms. As it turns out, almost all of them were just hell or damn.” *** Finally, at minute 35, Andrew Walworth and presidential historian Tevi Troy talk about the life and contributions of author, broadcaster, and pundit Ben Wattenberg, who proudly embraced the term neoconservative” and passed away 10 years ago this month. *** 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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