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This week’s show starts with a discussion of the ‘national security’ tariffs President Trump announced he planned to impose on steel and aluminum. Mike and Jay are in agreement that the tariffs are a terrible idea and not at all related to national security. Jay points out that this is an issue where President Trump is getting more support from Democrats from his fellow Republicans, who were generally upset and dismayed at the announcement.
The president further disturbed many in his own party this week by suggesting he was in favor of tougher gun laws than most Congressional Republican are likely to support. Mike makes the point that we’ve seen the president make similar statements on other issues – immigration most notably – and then fall back into GOP orthodoxy in the end. The Guys also look at a variety of other gun policy related developments that took place over the last week.
Next is a discussion of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s bellicose speech about the U.S. threat to global security and new weapons systems Russia has developed to thwart U.S. missile defenses. This comes shortly after NSA and U.S. Cyber Command chief Mike Rogers told the Senate Intelligence Committee that we’re not doing enough to prevent Russian cyberattacks on our election systems.
Finally, it’s a look at what seems to be a West Wing in disarray, following the departure of Hope Hicks as communications director. Mike and Jay agree that the extremely high level of turnover – especially in the communications area – is yet another indication that Donald Trump is an impulsive person who hates being managed and bridles at the necessity of message discipline.
What Jay’s Reading
The Only Good Thing About Donald Trump Is All His Policies. Joseph Epstein. (WSJ. Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall and there’s no non-paywall version of this article. But you really should check out Epstein’s wonderful writing, which you can do without having to deal with a paywall at The Weekly Standard.)
What Mike’s Reading
The Fractured Republic. Yuval Levin
Republic, Lost: Version 2.0. Lawrence Lessig
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Hey guys! Connor tslk ing to you from the evil alluminum suppliers of Canada haha. On the topic of gun and this whole movement coming out of Florida I wanted to ask you guys about a very contraversial opinion. What do you think about how other countries like mine that sell civillian owned guns but treat it as a privilage not a right. I know Amercians think guns as a right is part of what makes America, America. Im not evn necessarily suggesting any changes to gun laws, but an over 200 year old constitution seems like it may be out of date concidering how deadly weapons became over time. Taking guns away only as a right and making it a privilage would really make the conversation around appropriate gun laws easier to have so that every response isnt “BUT ITS MY RIGHT!!!”
Hi Connor. Well, I sure do wish it were seen that way in the United States, because based on all the data I’ve seen it would mean we’d have fare fewer gun-related injuries and deaths without any real threat of rising crime rates or a tyrannical government taking over. But while the 2nd Amendment guarantees a fundamental right to bear arms (at least as a majority on the current Supreme Court interprets it) even more important is a deeply ingrained gun culture in the United States. That’s not changing any time soon, which is why the U.S. won’t have the sort of gun laws that are utterly unremarkable to Canadians and Europeans any time soon. -Mike
Its unfortunate and disheartenning to see the U.S. in this state. The highly ingrained gun culture doesnt need to go anywhere and nor do anyones guns. I think it would be enormously inspiring to see the U.S. to make a huge drastic change to the outdated constitution which in turn has littlr to no affect on actusl gun laws but just the conversation around them