Power Politics - Episode 1

welcome to power Politics the mishbach podcast exploring the flashpoints of American and global current affairs and how they impact the Jewish Community I'm Benjamin rose with editor-at-large and I'm Maury litwack a two-decade veteran of political campaigns in Capitol Hill join US Weekly as we delve into these critical topics and more on power politics on today's episode we'll talk about the lies my congressman told me the bizarre story of George Santos we'll also hear from Stu lozer a veteran of democratic politics and the longest serving Chief spokesperson for the City of New York and will Kevin McCarthy get the votes he needs to become the house speaker you are listening to power politics unpacking the power plays shaping our world a mishbacha production so the lies my congressman told me the bizarre story of George Santos we're going to start today's program with that who is George Santos George Santos is a republican who flipped a seat from Blue to Red from New York's Third District which serves parts of Long Island and queens he lied about his college experience he lied about his work experience he lied about his religion he intimated he was Jewish when he's really Catholic and he calls it all the poor choice of words and says that everyone embellishes the resume so what did I do wrong Maury the question that I have is did anyone vet this guy before he ran it's funny I think there are a couple reporters who looked into it pretty extensively but it just wasn't paid attention to it's also funny when you talk about embellishing resume I was thinking to my own resumes years and years has been a while since I did a resume but when I say I was competent in Excel was I really confident at Excel that's one thing Benjamin but this is just a panoply of lies and just stretching the truth beyond that we've seen I think in a very long time in Yemen is there any chance this guy can survive or uh is he finished well it's funny by the way because I was looking through some of the historical analysis and some of the historical examples of this and you know very well that politicians and candidates have a history of embellishing so for example the state senator Julia Salazar in New York she had a very public uh example of this where she was claiming she was from one place and turned out she was from another place there's been candidates in New Jersey and Texas and other places that have got in trouble for embellishing their resume president Lyndon Baines Johnson LBJ really let's say plused up his military experience which was not significant but was turned into something much more significant and was well documented so there is a history of this but to this extent I don't know Benjamin I think this is really almost unprecedented with both right and left saying we don't know who this individual is he did an interview on Fox News and uh Tulsi gabbard was really pinning him to the wall she was basically uh trying to uh get him to admit that he really ruined himself and one of the things he said is well Joe Biden did the same thing and she stopped him right in his tracks she wouldn't let him get away with that Biden did have some issues with his resume and also with alleged plagiarism as well but he's president of the United States so on that basis why can't this guy stay in congress yeah I I think this is just look at our community saying that you're Jewish and then saying you're Jew dash-ish there's terms for this Jumping the Shark it's ridiculous so I think that this is a nice tactic to sort of say everyone does this but this is really unprecedented in terms of just the list of untruths that are piling up here I don't know if I've never seen anything sort of this extensive so I think he's going to have a hard time with the electorate and a hard time in general from a credibility perspective if this is how he's starting and I know the Republican Jewish Coalition also came out with the press release they expressed their disappointment over him as far as our community is concerned so that's an important voice to uh weigh in one of the theories Advanced for why he's still uh there and why he hasn't been bounced is uh that Kevin McCarthy needs his vote Kevin McCarthy is running for house speaker that vote is coming up on the first day of the new session the new 118th Congress which starts on Tuesday and McCarthy is lacking according to uh most people about five votes in order to be elected house speaker and he's counting on Santos to be uh one of them is that a factor I don't know I tend to not believe that this close margin for McCarthy is as serious as it is I tend to believe this is something that is uh more Beltway spin more a talking point an interesting thing you don't really have situations like this uh historically speaking there aren't a ton of examples like this there are some which I know you know Benjamin but I tend to think he's going to get elected speaker and a lot of this is just noise so I have a hard time believing that that's the case when it comes to either a candidate like Santos or in general so I think this is probably going to blow over he's going to be elected speaker I just don't see it I would agree that uh he should be elected speaker he should have been more of issuing but the Republicans didn't get the majority that they thought they would in the midterms but there's no serious opposition if there was another good name out there that could challenge McCarthy then I'd say you know something thing we have a contest but we don't it's no contest he's been priming himself for this for years now and uh his time has come yeah I do think though that Benjamin it is important for the listener to understand that there are razor thin margins there are examples where this can be extremely close there are examples where a Democrat peels off and becomes Republican Republican peels often becomes a Democrat so there are those situations but you see this happening more in the Senate than you do in the house where the margins are just much closer I think what's motivating this is that it is very close between the Republican majority and the the Democratic majority which is allowing a situation which you see mainly in States and other places where there's very thin margins between the two uh major parties that a few elected officials can say well I'm not going to vote or I'm I want X Y or Z whatever it is so you're seeing that but typically once sort of someone's elective speaker I don't know if you're going to see more of this or people sort of it's going to change once he's in that driver's seat of being speaker it's an extremely powerful position he has the power to appoint the committee chairs he has the power to set the floor rules and he's in charge of all those things he helps decide what goes on the floor if not holy he decides that so this is going to be in the rear view mirror could be as soon as this podcast airs I mean I think this is something that is important to talk about but I would be very surprised if this goes on much longer and one thing we know for sure is Nancy Pelosi won't be the house speaker so yeah we saw some good bipartisan Behavior though because we saw John Boehner come back and honor uh speaker Pelosi so we we have hopes that politics can be bipartisan once you remove the power from it and they're no longer Boehner speaker or Pelosi speaker everybody's friends hopefully that's a good sign and uh speaking about uh historically the most contentious speaker election in House history happened in 1855 when slavery in a rising anti-immigrant mood sounds familiar poisoned deteriorating political climate more than 22 candidates vied for the post that year and it took two months and 133 ballots for Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts to win the race for house Speaker by a final vote of 103-100 my thanks to the house historian for this historical Tibetan here's hoping that this Congress will make a much quicker and less contentious election see you know the listeners have to be friends like Benjamin with the house historian if you're not friends of the House of story you don't know the house historian these are the key contacts you need if you're a veteran journalist like binyama Rose thank you Maury talking about Congress is always interesting but really most people are interested at this point in the presidential election in 2024 who's going to run who's going to win it's a little bit too early to tell but we already know that Donald Trump has thrown his hat in the ring for 2024 but we're still waiting to hear on Joe Biden we don't know what's going to happen yet and we have a special guest today that has some insights that he's going to share about uh Biden and whether he is going to run again and if not whom I'd end up running inside of him it's my privilege to introduce my friend and a long time colleague Stu lozer who's run research departments on Merrell gubernatorial house senate and presidential campaigns he's done it all he served as communications director for Senator Chuck Schumer who's now the majority leader he was a chief spokesperson the longest Chief spokesperson for the City of New York for majority of Mike Bloomberg's time as mayor of New York City the last 10 years he has run a communication firm serving Tech and high net worth clients in New York and DC I consider him one of the smartest political uh individuals I know both in the communication space in the Democratic politics and in overall uh thinking he's a great person for us to ask some of these questions that are on the minds of a lot of listeners but before we do so people love to hear why the story of why why did you go into this Stu why are you involved in politics what drove you to be a a spokesperson the person who sits at the podium first and foremost answers those questions deals with the New York Times And The Washington Post and all the other places what drove you to do this Stu what's your story you know when you look at other people's lives you see your brain puts the pieces together like frames of a movie and it all makes sense and you say that person really has it going on and you know that in your life it was all random I work my way up to a really good job in the gore campaign Al Gore Joe Lieberman ran for president in 2000 you know in campaigns you either win or lose there's not a third case except in that case arguably if not for 500 votes that were miscast or people thought they were voting for the other person in Florida we would have won oh well didn't get the job in the white house because we didn't win the presidential came to New York said I'd get out of politics call the one person I knew in New York politics and two days later had a job on a mayoral campaign running Mark Greene uh Democrat who was running got the nomination lost against Mike Bloomberg again series of like every couple years thought I'd get out was recruited to shock Schumer's office Senator Chuck Schumer's office to help him run for his first re-election to Senate uh then Mike Bloomberg hired me to help his re-election then I went to City Hall as it happens I spent another 10 years in politics and have a really interesting and great progression from starting as an intern at Bill Clinton's Americorps national service program to uh being the chief spokesperson for the largest city in the country but it was all random and if at any point I had really applied lied myself and gotten a good job out of politics it wouldn't happen so que sera there you go the story for those who are listening you want to go into Politics the haphazard nature of it although I think that someone like you who's been doing it for a while had somewhat of a plan so we appreciate you telling a story can you get right into it for us Stu you look at National politics you've run and been involved in a presidential campaign and obviously in major campaigns as well can you give us some insight into the president is the president running for re-election yes no what does it mean just give our listeners some insight into this uh from your perspective sure at the time of this recording it's Wednesday morning last night the president arrived for a week's vacation in the U.S Virgin Islands with Mrs Biden uh he has said that he is going to run but he is going to talk about it with his wife and his family over the holidays everyone I've spoken to spoken to senior people in the White House in the last couple of weeks I've spoken to a lot of the smartest and most skeptical reporters who cover this White House who got their starts in New York politics covering Mayors covering Chuck Schumer covering Mike Bloomberg so I we know each other well we've spoken to them in the last few weeks they say he's running they say he absolutely is running and he feels that there isn't anyone else in the country who could run I have to take them at their word because they do this all the time I find it extraordinary by Joe Biden's definition he has been the most successful president of almost any of our lifetime he obviously has his detractors but from reshaping uh American manufacturing bringing chips back manufacturing back to the United States down through all through climate change through massive works for Democrats he has been the most successful certainly Democratic president and most successful arguably most successful president of our life he has the opportunity to be like Jerry Seinfeld go out on top while people are still cheering he came in was a transition guys served for four years he says he's still running where people around him say he's still running the people who cover him say he's still running but the factor that we have unknown is what conversations he has with Dr Biden his wife and others this week maybe he will come back and say he's not gonna so the accomplishment said you cited Stu is that enough to win him enough votes from uh Independents and Republicans to win him a second term or are these not the issues that people care about so much every campaign is about the future and campaigns are tough you don't get enough credit when you're running for the work that you've done particularly if you believe like as I do that Joe Biden has been an incredibly effective president everyone who's running for office tells you they're incredibly effective the whole system is set up in a way that allows for double talk because we have two houses of Congress which is of course the right system under the Constitution and the best evolution of democracy in the world arguably I know people's favorite parliamentary system like Israel but you know he could argue that our system is also fantastic but it allows members of Congress to say I passed the bill that did XYZ but what they really mean is I passed it in the house and didn't even go to the Senate I passed it in the State Assembly it didn't even go to the other house of the legislative later social politics is built on this non-delivery you get to take credit for things you didn't even do that didn't even happen you get to say it happened because you got it as far as you could go and then it didn't happen you don't get enough credit for the work you do and people are always asking what's next and what's more is it enough to win him election it depends who we run against okay so that's my next question who is he afraid of is he afraid of Donald Trump is he afraid of Ron DeSantis you know I don't know if he's afraid of Ron DeSantis he should be afraid of Ron DeSantis because Rhonda Santos is an extraordinarily effective smart and thorough politician I'm not saying this is as a fan I'm saying this as an admirer of his skill Donald Trump's superpower the thing that made him so good is to get us all talking about Donald Trump almost all the time to take away all the oxygen from someone else and if we hadn't been in this weird situation in which we had a global pandemic and political Communications was sort of off-kilter for a year not clear that Joe Biden would have beat him Rhonda santis can do that Rhonda sentence is doing a fantastic job of being out ahead on social issues that his base cares about being out ahead on things like going after vaccine manufacturers he is running to Donald Trump's right and he could win and he's an extraordinarily skilled politician he's extraordinarily thoroughly careful and smart and he absolutely could give Joe Biden a run for his money if this is a redo of Donald Trump four years later more tired more than a little crazier uh versus Joe Biden I think Joe Biden should be very confident with other people I don't know as a senior campaign manager in the past and strategist if Ron DeSantis came to you and said Stu when should I step in when should I announce my run what would you tell him I'm not here to give advice to run DeSantis I would argue the problem with an altitude too early and becoming too big usually is that you can't sustain the momentum you can't sustain the focus arguably Kamala Harris vice president Harris when she read for president two years ago announced early announced big became a front-runner and that allowed people to attack her and get attention and and sort of take her down and really look at well what did she do as a San Francisco district attorney what does she do as Attorney General of the State of California is that in sync generally speaking a longer time that you're the front runner means more time for you to be pulled down to earth so that's a conventional wisdom is Ron DeSantis the thing I don't know does Robinson just fall victim to Conventional wisdom I don't know I think I would tell him run sooner rather than later eventually the Republican campaign is going to be about you anyway get out early before Mike Pence gets his footings maybe before he announces before two or three others announced before Harry Hogan the governor of Maryland someone that I've worked with pretty effectively on on a lot of issues important to the Orthodox Community before they get out and take their oxygen and take their Limelight so I had to tell them to get out sooner how about Biden's uh misstatements and missteps how is that going to affect his re-election campaign that's a good question I think that the people who care about it the most and amplify it the most are people who are never going to vote for him a lot of people in our community people who prefer to get their news from conservative news outlets they're not getable voters the path 270 Electoral College was about to winning any election is the people who are with you no matter what and a small segment of people who you can swing you're gonna for the last 10 years 15 years there's been sort of been a theory among campaign people that that's not how you win elections that it's simply about getting more of your people to love you but the reality of certainly the last election cycle is that there are people who move back and forth the last couple of election Cycles that's why Trump lost because he lost people that's why the Democrats won this year because they won over people the people who by and large swing back and forth by and large recognize that no one person is perfect Joe Biden is good and honest and authentic and imperfect just as they are imperfect uh and the misstatements don't land the same way among people who are actually considering whether or not to support him he has to do with people who who are inclined to hate him regardless list importantly like I would say like everything I said about Rhonda santis being extraordinarily effective extraordinarily Savvy and extraordinarily good strategist appeals to some of these people maybe he is to their right maybe at first bless they say suing they fact seeing the manufacturers or investigating vaccine manufacturers that's a little far feel from where I am but like maybe Joe Biden evokes some concerns Rhonda Sanchez has some concerns there is the 10 to 15 of the voters who swing back and forth who matter who wouldn't necessarily reject Joe Biden because of what you say but might be able to like someone else I have only one question for you um in terms of this so Stu you're not Jew dash-ish you're Jewish I'm gonna keep making a joke as long as I can you're a member of the from Community also you know sometimes the presidential politics becomes like a spectator sport in our community is there a role for people uh to play in the presidential campaign if they want to volunteer in their local communities I think it's hard for those of us who live in New York New Jersey because it just isn't there but maybe we're missing something maybe it will be more competitive in the primaries how do you think about that for the community or for a lot of the listeners here how could they be thinking about the presidential campaign this early quick question thanks for asking this upcoming presidential campaign at least on the Democratic side is going to be different than any since the mid 70s because Iowa is no longer an early state so the issues of of a fairly conservative but also with pools of extremely liberal Midwestern white agricultural oriented people has been reduced New Hampshire remains our early primary State not a state with a large Jewish Community Nevada has been elevated as an early primary State extraordinarily fast-growing large and in many ways diverse Jewish community that significantly votes Republican but many of them may still be registered Democrats or may be able to register Democrats in time for the presidential primaries two years from now I'm sorry one year from now that's one point um Michigan another state with a huge Jewish Community where there's been good organizing you know so far is going to be an early Democratic primary state so campaigns are fought on ideas but won by numbers campaigns are about words but the numbers that I don't know as I said before not the last presidential campaign but the second to last presidential campaign I worked on which was Al Gore's campaign like it came down to numbers math and votes uh that were cast in Palm Beach County Florida that's what the presidential race came down to there are places where Jews at a presidential level can matter a lot every out of town community that is not in New York uh New Jersey Florida has a real ability to move a presidential election in a state Pennsylvania we saw recently um within the core New York you know New Jersey Florida areas you know Jews matter a great deal on non-presidential Races because we have the ability to disproportionately perform we have the ability to come out and vote more than others do we have the ability to adapt to early voting and other uh developments that make it easier to vote but this is a presidential year since 1976 since Jimmy Carter ran in 1976 when the Iowa caucuses and sort of put IRL on the map the first two states have been Iowa and New Hampshire for both parties states that have almost no Jewish population certainly no from Jewish population and now for the first time at least one of the parties has Nevada Michigan as early primary States places where we actually can organize and make a real difference where a few hundred votes could decide the trajectory of a presidential race we've been speaking with Stu lozer who has run research departments on mayoral gubernatorial house senate and presidential campaigns Stu we thank you for joining us today and for sharing your insights and your experience with us very valuable thank you stu thank you for having me Maury Mayo my one takeaway from uh Stu's interview we are all part of this Echo chamber let's face it probably 80 to 90 percent of let's say Orthodox Jews in America are probably conservative and vote Republican and like Stu said we tend to look at Biden's fumbles and his stumbles and exaggerate them and Stu pointed out I think some important information about some of the accomplishments that Biden's made in terms of returning chip manufacturing to the U.S in terms of climate change these are issues that matter to millions of Voters in America and that to me was a very refreshing Viewpoint to hear I think the takeaway for me is when he breaks down the ability for the communities to influence presidential elections in places like Michigan and Nevada and other areas and he talks about Pennsylvania I think we have such a short-term memory not just for and he mentioned it also for the local politics in New York New Jersey I think we have a short-term memory of the strength of our voice and just hearing him break it down almost as a science I really think that for me that's just a powerful takeaway to remember that because I just I think people think it's all happenstance or it just sort of happens or the deck is stacked for the candidate you like against the candidate you don't like I don't know I think again and again when you hear people who are in this and understand it uh there's an art in science to this that people can be part of getting out to vote is important and making an impact is super important for our community especially uh in areas where we're under siege right now we've been speaking mostly about the living politicians and people like President Biden Donald Trump Ron DeSantis who's going to uh run actually in 2024 but we're ending 2022 and we lost a lot of big names this year one of them who I know that you had a relationship with was Senator Warren hatch maybe you can tell me about uh hatch and his relationship with you and what we lost in the the gentleman of that stature well I wrote in mishbacha recently about how as a from a person who was interested in politics it's almost impossible to find a position because it's such a Breakneck speed and there is almost a requirement and expectation you work seven days a week except if you work for Mormon elected officials and I was able to find a Mormon elected official on the house and I was part of the I believe I I think I know that I was the only firm staff member at the time a first one to ever work for Mormon members of Congress and so I worked for Utah congressman and so we used to have a delegation of the then three congressmen and one Senator two senators one of which was Orrin Hatch he treated everybody basically the same so wherever you were I was a lowly staff member climbing the ranks and he treated me the same as he would treat a member of the senator or a member of Congress I remember I was sitting at the side of the room and he told me I got to sit with everybody else so he was just a really kind person and if he found out you were Jewish he used to show that he had a mezuzah that he had around his neck that Simon gave him so he would show that to you and was just so proud of that and his connection to the community he viewed himself as someone you know you really could get his attention if he thought that he could help not just Americans but if he thought he could help the faith-based Americans and if he found out even more he could help the Jewish community and do that as well I mean he just really was such a champion in our community on religious liberty issues obviously he was extremely pro-israel just a great human being a great individual and really uh one of a kind worth mentioning is that Orrin Hatch was a senator from Utah for 42 years that's a lot of uh winning election battles so uh Not only was he a good person but uh he also knew how to win he knew how to play uh good Politics the person who left us this year that struck me the most is uh the former prime minister of Japan uh shin zawab who was assassinated and why did that strike me so much because uh firstly he was trying to come back he was trying to make a comeback like a lot of people like Netanyahu has but Japan is not a country known for gun violence and to me it was the most shocking thing that in Japan a political candidate especially someone who had once served in the nation's highest office and was popular could get gunned down in at a campaign appearance like he did that really stunned me and I think the other person worth mentioning who we lost this year was Mikhail Gorbachev Gorbachev of course was a Secretary General of the Communist party and he was the one who presided over breaking up the Communist Party many of us remember the terms like lasnost and perestroika so Mikhail Gorbachev was the one who basically led the Soviet Union out of the uh communist era and presided over its breakup one might argue now that under Vladimir Putin they've taken several steps backward and that's certainly a valid point but there's certainly no disputing the impact that Gorbachev made on the Soviet Union and Europe and in the entire world decades decades I mean you talk about these three all decades as you mentioned just Decades of involvement and influence in their respective countries most politicians have a tremendous amount of influence and every week on this program we're going to mention a person of influence or an influencer who we should keep our eyes on and my pick this week has been Yamin Netanyahu Netanyahu successfully sworn a new government and he also made a big comeback because people gave him up for lost there were many many commentators myself included from time to time who said you know maybe it's time for him to take a step back he's been in the job for too long and we need someone else from the Lee could to uh take over into lead Netanyahu abide at his time and he finally after five elections won a significant majority and he's aligned with the other political parties a lot of people outside of Israel might not be too happy with but definitely reflects the will and the views of the Israeli people and I give him a lot of credit for that for hanging in there and we're going to be hearing a lot more from him obviously because he's a major player in world affairs he always has been he's very respected among world leaders whether they like his political views and how he expresses himself or not so we have to keep our eyes on him and the new government in Israel as it unfolds I think for me I can't help but mention president lensky of Ukraine and the reason why is because of this fact which is the number of foreign elected officials who've addressed a joint session of Congress is not as large as people may think and those that have addressed two it gets even smaller and this fact which I read about um I think I saw this in Politico the only people who've exceeded zielinski are prime minister Winston Churchill and Bibi Netanyahu who've addressed a joint session of Congress even more times than zelenski so great uh connectivity to your point Benjamin on the person of the week visit it he's so influential Netanyahu on global Affairs that he I gotta mention him when it comes to zelenski as well but it's a big deal to address a joint session of Congress and zelenski's done it twice now and in addition to that he did it in the uniform of someone who's been fighting for his country and he asked for more money and you know like it or not you know where you stand on more foreign aid or not foreign aid or things like that Etc just as a person of the week driving politics and driving um world affairs to do that show up meet with the president our president call you Mr President it's a big win for him this week and I think we've got to just mention him because of that uh both in terms of how it drives the conversation what he's trying to do on global Affairs but also whenever people are mentioning you in the same company as like Churchill and uh and Netanyahu you know that's a big deal so that's my person of the week he's certainly an impressive character for sure I mean for someone who basically people writing off and everyone said oh Vladimir Putin is going to finish him off in the first week or two of the war they've been basically proven wrong that's what happens when people try to make predictions but we're going to try to make a couple here also yes we are yes we are I like that segue I like that we might be wrong but we're gonna make them we might be wrong but we're going to make them and we're going to be bold about it too I I think that China is either going to go to war with Taiwan sometime this year or uh level some sort of blockade in Taiwan I think that they feel they have to make a move while Joe Biden still president and before a republican could potentially take over in 2024 China has a lot of reasons to want to take over Taiwan besides the fact that they think it's theirs in addition Taiwan has somewhere close to two-thirds of the microchip capacity into semiconductor capacity in the world and China has never been successful to develop their own industry in any great scale if they take over Taiwan they basically uh control that very very crucial segment of the world economy and I think also with their sense that Biden is weak uh you know we're talking about zelenski before zelenski appeared before Congress and he left with one Patriot missile battery we know that of course the U.S has given several billion dollars in Aid to uh the Ukraine but if that's all they can get from a personal visit if I was Xi Jinping I would be uh sitting back and saying you know something I'm going to make my move sometime this year that's my Fearless forecast my Fearless forecast is about a dark horse presidential candidate I've been saying this privately and I'll say it publicly I think when you listen to our interview today and Stu lozer talked about the fact that people um you know you have those who jump into the water and then you have those who sort of uh wait a little bit and see how uh warm the water is I think that yes a DeSantis is a front runner right now arguably even more of a front-runner than the former president but I think another candidate is going to pop in there and I think that there's an appetite for that because I could see a trump DeSantis fight uh for some extended period of time and so my Dark Horse presidential candidate is uh the governor of South Dakota Christy gnome who I encourage people to pay attention to because I think she is building excitement on the right and the conservative base and I believe also that she is pulling Pages out of Trump's playbook out of the Santa's Playbook if you watch her on cable news you see her on social media uh she is someone who is building a track record that I think could put her in a serious uh standing as a dark horse presidential candidate so when I'm going Fearless I'm going big Benjamin and I'm saying uh I think you come back to me in a couple months six months we'll be talking about her in the same way we talk about a DeSantis or a trump that's why I'm going with my Fearless forecast as long as war with China doesn't supersede that but uh we'll see like you said we'll check back in a few months and uh we'll see how right or wrong we work you are listening to power politics unpacking the Power Players shaping our world podcast enjoyed this episode leave us a rating and share with your friends have a topic you'd like us to discuss or a guest to suggest we'd love to hear from you drop us a line on Twitter at the mishbacha OR at mishbahad.com forward slash powerpolitics this episode was produced by Jag and Detroit podcasts with sound design by Cedar media Studios see you next week