I DVR them all — or 5 of them, anyway — and usually sit down with a plan to — more or less — watch them all. But this morning, I'm dreading the drawn out post-mortem on Jeb Bush and the predictable predictions of Hillary and Trump's path to the nomination and fussing over whether there's any way Rubio can make it and how whether it's connected to anything that really could happen it's still so meaningful that Bernie's doing so well.
UPDATE 1: Chuck Todd ended "Meet the Press" with the exclamation that all primaries should happen on Saturdays. He loved the close proximity of the Sunday show to the primary. But the word I jotted in my notes to search for in
the transcript was "jail." It was a snippet of Hillary Clinton's victory speech last night: "Wall Street can never be allowed to threaten main street again. No bank can be too big to fail, no executive too powerful to jail." I wondered: So, then, is no
politician too powerful to jail? I'm thinking about her legal troubles. On the show, the snippet was put before Bernie Sanders.
TODD: It's pretty clear she has ratcheted up her rhetoric on Wall Street because of your candidacy. Do you see that as a victory of sorts? That you've got her trying to parrot your message?
Bernie joked about "copyright issues," and Meade and I got to talking about how Bernie Sanders doesn't even want to win. He just needs to inject his ideas into her head.
UPDATE 2: The word I jotted down for
"Face the Nation" was "scary." Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief for USA Today, said they'd done a poll asking for people's "dominant reaction" to various candidates:
And the dominant reaction of Americans to Hillary Clinton's nomination was, "scary," and... the dominant reaction to Donald Trump's nomination was "scary." So just imagine a general election....
Meade and I got to talking about how America likes scary shows — horror movies and such. We get want we want.
UPDATE 3: The first show I watched was
"Fox News Sunday," so I wrote down the most things here. A lot of the same people were on all the shows and I got a little tired of them saying the same things. I thought it was interesting how — even as the questions changed — I kept getting the same talking points. Anyway, Donald Trump was on first, and Chris Wallace asked him if, as he becomes the frontrunner, he needs to "tone it down" and "act more presidential." Trump began with a softer tone: "Well, probably I do." But then he added a boast with what we here at Meadhouse experienced as a hilarious qualification. He said: "I mean, I can act as presidential as anybody that's ever been president other than the great Abraham Lincoln. I thought he was hard to beat."
And then there was this excellent exchange:
WALLACE: To use a business term, are you involved in a hostile takeover of the Republican Party?
TRUMP: No. I’m not at all. I get along with the Republicans. There's nothing hostile about it. I was a Republican establishment figure. And then the day I decided to run, I became an outsider -- and more so than I even thought. People that were totally establishment that loved me, you know, I was a big contributor. I gave $350,000 just before to the Republican Governors Association. That was a major --
WALLACE: But what's your view of the GOP establishment now, sir?
TRUMP: I think it's a mess. I think it's a mess. I think they'd better get their act together because they're going to keep losing elections. With the kind of thinking that we have, with the Karl Roves and Steven Hayes and these characters that can't get themselves arrested, if you want to keep people like that, if you want to keep listening to people like that, you're never going to win. You're never going win. They're from a different age. They're from a different world.
That was
great. Later, there was a panel, and Karl Rove was on it. Chris Wallace opened the discussion with: "Karl, I just want to make sure you know that Donald Trump sends his best this morning." Now, that's funny. Rove, for the record, responded: "I give him my best back."
Marco Rubio was also on the show. He was trying (I think) to give us an idea of how, if he gets the nomination, the image of diversity might work in the general election. He called attention to the picture on the stage last night, with him alongside Nikki Haley and Tim Scott:
I was endorsed by the daughter of Indian-American immigrants who’s the governor of South Carolina, along standing, alongside an African-American Republican U.S. senator, both of whom were there to support a Cuban-American U.S. senator. It's pretty amazing that the Republican Party is indeed the party of diversity. It is the only party where you have so many people, so many different backgrounds on a national stage. I’m very proud of that. We're going to continue to showcase it. That's who we are.
UPDATE 4: I didn't get to my recording of "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," so there's just one more,
"State of the Nation" with Jake Tapper. First, I noticed this silent sideswipe at John Kasich. Tapper asked Trump if, after the South Carolina win, he's "unstoppable." Trump went with the softer, conciliatory, presidential tone (which I'm reading as meaning that he does think he won't be stopped):
TRUMP: Well, certainly, you can be stopped. I mean, I'm dealing with very talented people. They're politicians. They're senators. And I guess -- do we have any governors left? I don't know. Let's see. I don't think so. But we have a lot of talented people. And we will see what happens. But, certainly, nobody is unstoppable.
So... he just couldn't even think of Governor Kasich!
Trump used the "outsider" theme we also saw in the "Fox News" interview. (I put it in boldface, above.) Tapper had asked him if he thinks some Republicans still don't take him seriously. His answer:
TRUMP: Well, I'm an outsider, and -- which I'm proud to be. But don't forget, I was a member of the establishment totally. I was a big campaign contributor. I gave lots of money to everybody. I mean, I would give money to everybody. And I was a very big donor to the Republicans. I used to be a donor to everybody, frankly, because, as a businessman, that was a good thing to do. But, yes, the day I decided to run, which was June 16, I became an outsider. And all of the establishment sort of said, well, wait a minute, what happened to him? He's not supposed to be doing that. That's not in the cards. And I don't want money. I'm self-funding my campaign, so I don't need donor money and lobbyist money and special interest money. And that bothers them, because the special interests want to control their candidates, and I can't be controlled.
I also liked the interview with Bernie Sanders, when Tapper asked him about something his brother, Larry Sanders, said: that Bill Clinton was a "dreadful president, in general, for poor people." Sanders distanced himself:
Look, I read that interview. My brother lives in England. He is not part of our campaign. I disagree with what he said. He speaks for himself, not for me or my campaign.
He sounded — as he usually does — angry, so Tapper seemed to feel the call to help him out with a prompt: "Fair enough. I disagree with my brother on a lot of things, too, although I love him dearly as I'm sure you do yours." Sanders got the clue and said: "Me, too. I love my brother." Then he started another sentence with "He's" and then seemed to think better of it and just said "yes" and stopped. We were laughing at Meadhouse.
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