On today’s podcast, Abe Greenwald, Noah Rothman, and John Podhoretz ventilate upon the president-elect’s decision to attack a local union official by name — a classic instance of punching down, a style Trump has used to great effect — and wonder what it portends for a presidency that wishes to project strength above all. We worry about the PEOTUS’s apparent unwillingness to divest himself of his businesses and the political problems it will cause both him and the Republican party, not to mention the potential for policy chaos. And we don’t let Barack Obama off the hook either for his speech full of self-praise for the terrorism problem he has actually exacerbated. Give a listen.

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There are 11 comments.

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  1. Israel P. Inactive
    Israel P.
    @IsraelP

    Punching down? Like Joe the Plumber?

    • #1
  2. Henry Castaigne Member
    Henry Castaigne
    @HenryCastaigne

    Israel P.:Punching down? Like Joe the Plumber?

    To be fair Obama didn’t get into a twitter war with Joe.

    • #2
  3. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Too bad these guys have lost all standing to advise the PEOTUS . It’s a new media environment, these guys just don’t know it yet.Any GOPer following their advice would never be able to achieve the position to be able to ‘punch down’. They would forever be ‘punching up’ and content to do so.

    • #3
  4. Karl Nittinger Inactive
    Karl Nittinger
    @KarlNittinger

    Franco: Too bad these guys have lost all standing to advise the PEOTUS .

    “Trump is a genius at everything he does….and anyone who says otherwise is objectively biased and has no authority to question anything!!!!”

    • #4
  5. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Karl Nittinger:

    Franco: Too bad these guys have lost all standing to advise the PEOTUS .

    “Trump is a genius at everything he does….and anyone who says otherwise is objectively biased and has no authority to question anything!!!!”

    That’s a quote from your fantasy not from me

    BTW, are you punching down, or up? Hypocrite or loser?

    • #5
  6. Basil G Inactive
    Basil G
    @BasilG

    Franco:

    Karl Nittinger:

    Franco: Too bad these guys have lost all standing to advise the PEOTUS .

    “Trump is a genius at everything he does….and anyone who says otherwise is objectively biased and has no authority to question anything!!!!”

    That’s a quote from your fantasy not from me

    BTW, are you punching down, or up? Hypocrite or loser?

    Obama was likewise reduced to Straw Man arguments….

    • #6
  7. Quake Voter Inactive
    Quake Voter
    @QuakeVoter

    Podcast is my pickup.  Takes ten minutes to warm up after coughing out the gunk in the morning.

    Punching down?  Sure, Trump is crass and combative, but he started his political career by throwing punches (below the belt perhaps) at Barack Obama at the height of his power.

    Union officials who go on the MSM political tour are now exempt from political blowback?  Boo hoo.

    Trump spent the primaries punching down at Jim Gilmore?  Come on, that’s risible.  Whatever you think of Trump’s performance at the SC debate (and I don’t think much of it), it was one of the ballsiest me-against-the-stadium performances in American political history.

    In my opinion, it is not progress to move from obsessing about Trump’s tweets to speculating about the timeline of the cable newcasts which actuated those tweets.

    The Gabfest and Trumpcast have all of this covered gentlemen.

     

    • #7
  8. Barry Jones Thatcher
    Barry Jones
    @BarryJones

    JPod – the new AF1 is going to replace the old ones which are near the end of their life span. There are no other 747-200s (the base air frame for the current AF1) still flying. Also the newer jets will be easier to maintain and more economical to operate than their predecessors (30 year old tech – engines in particular).

    • #8
  9. Karl Nittinger Inactive
    Karl Nittinger
    @KarlNittinger

           

    Franco: That’s a quote from your fantasy not from me

    Yeah, it wasn’t intended to be a quote, it was intended to convey an observation (a quite accurate one, as it turns out)…but I’m sure you got that.

    Franco: BTW, are you punching down, or up? Hypocrite or loser?

    I’ll just reiterate my initial comment on that one (talking of accurate observations…)

    • #9
  10. Franco Member
    Franco
    @Franco

    Karl Nittinger

    Franco: That’s a quote from your fantasy not from me

    Yeah, it wasn’t intended to be a quote, it was intended to convey an observation (a quite accurate one, as it turns out)…but I’m sure you got that.

    Franco: BTW, are you punching down, or up? Hypocrite or loser?

    I’ll just reiterate my initial comment on that one (talking of accurate observations…)

    Next time you don’t intend something to be a quote, don’t put quotation marks around it.

    Since you applied your ‘observation’ to me under my comment, I’ll reserve the right to determine its accuracy. It’s not.

    Try making your own comments rather than trying to cast others in your own most puerile strawman constructs. You may learn something.

     

    • #10
  11. John Russell Coolidge
    John Russell
    @JohnRussell

    John Podhoretz’s extended baseball metaphor starting around time stamp 31:15 was apt.

    • #11
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