Friday on the RealClearPolitics podcast, Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth discussed Democratic lawmakers telling members of the military to disobey orders they feel are unlawful and President Trump responding by accusing them of sedition, the growing role of billionaire money in politics, and how deeply inflation is impacting the middle class. After that, N.J. Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer joins the podcast to discuss Zohran Mamdani and efforts in Congress to come to a deal on health insurance subsidies before the government runs out of funding again in January. Finally, the group discusses another heinous example of seemingly preventable street crime and shares their picks for the weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of unbelievable 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 the president accusing Democratic lawmakers of “sedition” after they published a video telling members of the military and intelligence community to refuse to obey unlawful orders. Here’s the full video of Newsmax host Carl Higbie’s response they referenced. “Elissa Slotkin should know better — she seems to be the ringleader,” Cannon said. “This is very serious. I’m not sure those attacks on boats off Venezuela are legal. You can raise that, but this was a campaign-style video encouraging all 2.3 million people in the armed forces to disobey their commanding officers and interpret the Constitution themselves… They didn’t say what orders they were talking about. This was a prescription for anarchy.” “Of course, Trump took the bait and that became the story, which always happens, but his initial reaction of being beyond offended by this was right,” Bevan said. “That video was about ginning up the deep state and democratic partisans within the government to do what happened in the first Trump term.” *** After that, around minute 18, the conversation shifts to the big picture role of money in American politics and how inflation is impacting people, through the lens of two stories published this morning. “This is what our politics is about — whoever can help the middle class with this inflation,” Tom Bevan said about the Wall Street Journal report that “The Middle Class Is Buckling Under Almost Five Years of Persistent Inflation.”. “In the aggregate, over the five years since COVID, the cost of college, healthcare, insurance for your house and your car — all of these things that make up a family’s budget have gone up astronomically.” “In Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruled that even rich people have a right to have their say. They do, and I get that. But out of that grew this system like a Frankenstein monster, where you can spend a million dollars in local races and just overwhelm the local Democratic Party or the local Republican Party,” Carl Cannon commented on The Washington Post story about “How Billionaires Took Over American Politics.” “It’s pretty shocking — one in every 13 campaign dollars now comes from just the 100 richest people in America,” Walworth added. “But if all they’re doing is canceling one another out, are they really affecting politics that much?” *** Next, 31 minutes into the show, New Jersey Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer joins the panel to discuss his opposition to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, the debate over healthcare subsidies that became the focus of the recent government shutdown, and what Congress can do to prevent that impasse from repeating in January. “Was it not clear enough?” Gottheimer said about his statement that Mamdani should be in the Socialist Party instead of the Democratic Party. “Come one, come all. If you hate socialism, move to Jersey.” “I’m a proud capitalist who believes in doing everything we can to get costs down — childcare, healthcare, food, you name it,” Gottheimer said. “What the Democratic Socialists of America have been pushing is stuff like closing prisons and defunding the police.” “As you know, as part of the agreement to end the shutdown, there’s going to be a vote in December guaranteed to the Democrats on whatever bill they want,” he said about the fight over health insurance subsidies. “What I don’t want is a performative vote over there that’s just a partisan vote.” “Let’s actually propose something that can get done,” Gottheimer said. “Something that can get 60 votes in the Senate, that can come over to the House and solve the problem, versus just playing games. I know that’s a lot of this place, but many of us don’t think that’s the way this should operate.” “There’s been a lot of backchanneling that we’ve been doing with some of my Republican colleagues to the White House,” he said. “I kept asking, like, let’s just get in a room with the president. He’s the great self-proclaimed dealmaker. I give him credit for, admittedly, helping move Middle East peace along pretty far. If we got all the hostages home, we certainly can solve this.” “So I just said, like, Let’s all get in a room. And they’ve not taken us up on that yet,” Gottheimer said. “I’m hoping that the president’s willing to sit down with us.” *** Finally, around minute 41 the group discusses another heinous example of seemingly preventable street crime and shares their picks for the weekly “You Cannot Be Serious?!” roundup of unbelievable 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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