Each Friday, The Hoover Institution's Lanhee Chen joins Armstrong & Getty to talk about the week's biggest stories. This week, the crew examines Biden's lack of face-time with the leaders of the GOP, polarized politics, the failure to reform immigration policy, the changing power dynamic in Congress and why court packing is a problem.
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I have a number of thoughts swimming in my slow moving mind, trying to coalesce them into a theme. Four major polls have come out in the last twenty four hours, all with pretty high approval ratings for Joe Biden, the highest being at fifty nine. He's somewhere in the low to mid fifties. It would seem if you average out these polls his uh, how do you like him personally ratings or even higher than that, similar to the way Barack Obama was. Barack Obama would would would poll really well even if people didn't like some of his policies. You know, if a policy would would do poorly in a poll, his personal rating would still be pretty high. People just liked him. Um uh, certainly a majority um. And then Kevin McCarthy came out yesterday he's the leader of the House for the Republicans, the minority party, and said he has not talked with Joe Biden since Joe Biden got inaugurated. Mitch McConnell said something similar a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if that's changed. So you got the the Republican leaders of the House and the Senate have not talked with the president in three months since he's been And I thought that was weird at the time until I heard it pointed out from a number of people that you know, maybe they haven't. They kept it a secret. That's its own interesting story in that they both sides would get killed by their base. The lefties would hate it if they found out Biden was talking with McConnell or McCarthy, and the and the hardcore right would hate it if McCarthy and McConnell were talking to Joe Biden. How far? How dare you even dignify his position? I'm not sure I can buy that. I mean, that's just maybe a child would think that. But that's the weird government works. Well, maybe we should talk to somebody super smart about that, whether or not that why that is is that where we are now where you can't even be seen talking with the president as the leader of the House of the Senate on the other point, in the other party, is that so damaging? Is that what's going on? Let's talk to Lani chat David and Diane Stephy, fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and the director of Domestic Policy studies at Stanford University and a regular contributor at Seeing an Opinion. Lonnie, how are you. I'm doing well. Thank you for having me well. Congratulations on being super smart is declared by Jack Well. I got a buddy who listens in Salt Lake City all the time, and he was raving about you from last week. He really enjoys your segment and yeah, because you're super smart, appreciate that. I appreciate that. And uh, you know, every once in a while, every every every every once in a while, I sort of take that as a compliment every once in a while, sort of thinking, I don't know, are people really trying to say that, are really trying to say that? Is it a compliment or a backhanded compliment? Oh? Come on, now, this is a straight up compliment. So what do you think of Jack's analysis of why the president hasn't spoken to the two ranking Republicans in the legislature. Well, no, look, I think a lot of that makes sense. We are in a time and a place when our politics are very polarized, and people who expect political purity, and if you are seen sort of consorting with the enemy or consorting with the other side, it can be held against you. Now, I also think it's the case that there probably are conversations going on at the staff level on a on a regular basis, you know, even though the actual political principles haven't spoken. I do think that there are things going on. I mean, there have to be for the machinery of government to keep going. But the image of one leader from one party talking to a leader from another party in a very public way, or even by the way, if it was a private conversation and got leaked, I can understand how in this political environment you would see both sides not necessarily wanting to have that as a as a as a as something that could come out in public. Have you read any of the John Bayner book. I've been reading it, and I don't usually read those kind of things because I find them boring most time. This one's pretty damned interesting. You know. I have not read it. I've only read the excerpts of it, including the the you know, little aside he has about Ted Cruz. But I haven't. You know, John Bayner is such a colorful guy. I am sure there are so many entertaining stories in that book. Perhaps at some point I will, but it just it was on my mind because he talks about working with Barack Obama and there he was Speaker of the House for the Republicans, and how much he had to work with Barack Obama. And I don't know, I just I don't I don't know if we can do that now, if if anybody, anybody works with anybody. Um. Uh. Baynard does mention early in his book about how good he thinks Nancy Pelosi is at her job and and and how smart Mitch McConnell is and all that. But man, if people aren't talking to each other, God, I don't know how we get anything done. Well, It's just it's absurd. I mean, I just I can't even contemplate people who think like that. Yeah, I mean, it just goes to if you go over the years and you see how many but let's just take Republicans for example, how many Republicans have gotten into trouble for uh, you know, working with Democrats or the perception being that there are rhinos, you know, Republicans in name only because they have a conversation with the other side. Um, you know that that point of view is is relatively common, I would say, um, you know, and I've seen it all the time. The difficult part of that, of course, is that really to get anything done, you kind of have to have those conversations. And there are a whole host of issues that I don't think are particularly ideological. Unfortunately, they do get turned into sort of ideological part of the issues by by one side or another. I would say, for example, with infrastructure, what's happened now is because the Biden administration is put forward a plan that's essentially bastardized the definition of infrastructure, it's it's made it more political, right. I mean, if we were just talking about roads and bridges and airports, I think that's a nine ten issue of Americans regardless of party, say yeah, let's do what we can to improve our roads and improve our bridges and do all that stuff. But the minute you start including things like hey, you know, you you can't necessarily choose whether to join a union, or hey, we want to have a massive expansion of of medicaid, or hey we want to you know, put all these other things into the bill, then it starts to get the issue gets more polarized, and you can understand why. Then it's harder for the two sides to get together. So I think some of that dynamic, unfortunately, is endemic to our politics today. Each of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University on the line. So I guess we talked about this a fair amount, but I'd love to hear your take on this. Given the unbelievable logistical and humanitarian crisis on the border right now, why is there not a huge cry on both sides to get together and fix the immigration system? Oh my goodness. Immigration is quite possibly the most polarized issue out there. I mean, we have seen over the years so many efforts, you know, amongst people to try and get together and figure out, hey, can we do this little piece or can we solve that piece of it, and repeatedly over and over and over again, it just hasn't happened. Uh. And there are things that have become so polarized. I mean, I'll give you, guys, one example. The concept of border security. Okay, this should be there should be very little debate in my mind about the fact that we need to have a secure southern border. We need to do what we can to put in, whether it's physical barriers, technological barriers, funding the US Border Patrol, making sure that we're doing everything we need to do to have a secure southern border that has somehow become a really, really controversial issue. And I cannot see the life of me understand why. You know, and in the same way as hey, look, we I think we want to have an immigration system that allows people who are able to contribute to the United States, to our economy, to our to the fabric of our country. We want to welcome people in and have a rational immigration system. That's you know something that I think again, if you pulled the Americans, I would say the broad majority want both. But somehow we cannot get together and get things done. It's incredibly frustrating. Yeah. Well, back to the Baynard book briefly. Um, there are a number of interesting segments in there, including where he tells about a representative from Alaska putting a knife to his throat he claims in the House floor, but whether or not that happened or not. But at one point Baynard talks about Michelle Bachman coming to him. She was a representative from Minnesota who ran for president for a cup of coffee, and she wants to get on some committee and she's brand new. He says, no, I'm not gonna put you on there, and she says, okay, well, I guess I'm gonna have to go to you know, to Russia, Limball and Sean Hannity and go on all those shows and say that you won't let me be on there. And Baynard says in his book, she thought she had all the power and I'm the speaker of the house. Turns out she was right, is basically what Bayner says. And and he hadn't realized that things had changed that way obviously. If that's the dynamic on both sides, well, how how are you ever going to get anywhere well? Right? And and that's the thing I mean about social media and about just the way we consume media. Now, everybody consumed the media that they agree with, right, And if you have a presence on those media outlet, you're incredibly powerful in some ways, much more powerful than whatever formal title of positions someone else has. And I think Bayner probably realized that as he went on, you know, I think others, uh, you know, realized that as they go on that formal position, formal place in the Congress. It's not like it was in the nineteen sixties and the seventies and and even the eighties when the Speaker of the House had a tremendous amount of power. Now it's more like wrangling cats, and and any one of those cats can decide to go off, and you know, give an interview on Fox News. They can blow you up at any given time. So it's a tough dynamic out there. To be sure, we want to he Chan of Hoover Institutions, Stanford. You know, I haven't run a little late, but I've got to ask you this, the the the court packing discussion that's going on right now. You actually had a couple of just America's most despicable legislators my words, not yours, trotting out the idea of packing the Supreme Court. We're talking earlier on he about the idea of you just go ahead and state these crazy ideas, and you you ask for a vote, You put him in front of a committee, knowing that they will fail miserably, but knowing now it's part of the national discussion. Is there anything conservatives can do um to counter that. I mean, because the temptation is to say that will never pass, it will never get through, and not pay attention to it. I think we need to be yelling about it. I don't. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, look, this is a serious problem. The the implication of what the folks who want to pack the court are doing is that because they can't have their way, because they can't have the ideological composition of the court they want, they want to change the fundamental nature of the institution. And you know, it's a tough argument to carry, but I do think you're right. Conservatives have to articulate why the rule of law is important, why the current composition of the court is important, and why it is that this is this is about elections mattering, right, I mean, they can complain all they want about President Trump having put you know, several Supreme Court justices in the court. The reality of elections have consequence is now Biden is going to have his opportunity. This is how American politics work. This is not a you know, you you you cry over spilled milk, and you turn around and go home and you decide you're going to rage against the system. That's essentially what we have for those who want to change the composition of the court. So I think it is important for those who believe, hey, look you know, packing the court not the right idea. To say that very loudly and to make it very clear why that's the problem. Lan Chen David and Diane Stephy, Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at Stanford University. Lani, great to talk to you. Thanks, have a great weekend. Thank you too. I'm looking at some of the polls from Gallup. You know, he was talking about how how people feel about it, and he thinks most people would be an agreement on strengthening security at the border. I'm looking at this from Gallup. Please tell me whether you strongly favored favor opposers strongly opposed each of the following proposals. Hiring significantly more border patrol agents and this is from last two I guess it's two years ago, out nineteen. I like that question because it's it's very practical, as opposed to fuzzy ideological hiring significantly more board border patrol agents, not just more, but significantly more. Strongly favor forty one percent favor here a's seventy two percent favor or strongly favor that you wouldn't get that from watching the news, would you know absolutely not build bridges, not walls. Yeah, we're gonna bring We're gonna build walls, and then we're gonna hire guys to guard them. He said, Amica, you think with a seventy percent issue you can get something done. But I think people are misled by Twitter. Politicians are, and people are. People are misled by Twitter and cable news and talk radio and everything else into uh not knowing what America really thinks about things.