Rich Lowry | 08-24-24

it's more money with leading Economist Steve Moore now here's your host Steve Moore welcome back folks this is the more money show on WBC talk radio I am your host Economist Steve Moore I always say we have the best I'm not I'm not the greatest uh radio talk show host but I have some of the greatest uh guests who come on our show and one of them who's been a regular is Rich Lowry who is of course been the long-term editor of National Review one of the most important magazines in the country and it has obviously a conservative point of view and so rich and I have been friends for probably 25 or 30 years Rich thanks for joining thanks for having me Steve okay I want to get right guest on I was waiting to hear who who these billion guests were that is you my friend so uh rich is just a fantastic political mind among other things um so how worried should uh Trump voters be right now after the convention I think a little little worried I mean clearly Democrats have increased their chances the bottom had begun to fall out for for Joe Biden towards the end prior to his defense stration there debate Fallout but then I just saw Fallout from Democrats and friendly media savaging him for a couple weeks and you you were right you were always consistently saying he was going to end up going and sure enough he did and she's kind of uh at at best a replacement level Democrat but that that's enough to bring Democrats home and to make it a really close race again so that certainly Trump's margin for error is is much much less than it was a month ago and so uh what was your overall takeaway from the convention I have to confess confess I didn't really watch much of it I watched the first half of KL Harris speech and then I got a little bored with it but um do you think that convention was a success a draw how do you see it I I think it was probably a success it was a very annoying convention among other things I mean it ran so late you know you had a lot of the Prime Time Speers speakers coming on at 11:30 Eastern stand time but you know they they made the the case for her and and her her speech you know there's nothing the average person would would um have seen in that speech that would have alarmed or disturbed them or made them nervous and and she she was a confident enough performer so it's been a great month I mean besides I I think that the choice of Tim Waltz was not optimal but probably defensible not a disaster and the economic plan was was horrible but otherwise it's it's hard to imagine a better four weeks but that the standard hasn't been very high right if the media is going to praise everything you do and the whole Democratic establishment is going to fall in line it's gonna be pretty and and all you have to do is talk from teleprompter it's gonna be pretty easy to succeed and she has so far so uh I I look at this fairly in a in a fairly simple way and you can kind of expand on it or tell me if you're wrong but you know this is an oversimplification but you know the Trump and the Republicans want to talk about the economy right they want to talk about the kitchen table issues and Democrats want to talk about uh sort of identity politics and they want to talk about abortion yeah AB abortion is that the best issue they have going for them all the polling uh shows that it's led to this bizarre you you wrote about this um hostage taking of the aide of of Freedom freed I don't say abortions of freedom because there's the interest of another person is is is involved but but nothing else they support has anything to do with freedom in fact it's the opposite so they traditionally they sell their agenda in terms of security which at least makes more sense but um uh I I think what Republicans need to do is not just talk about the economy and the issues that's important but Trump needs to make the character case against her not you know the sense of personal life or anything that like that but that she's too weak uh she's to too dishonest she's too phony to be president of the United States it all needs to come back to that and they have a massive amount of material to work with I was going back and looking at the 2004 presidential campaign Bush versus Carrie and and Bush basically won that campaign based on 13 words Carrie said about you know voting for the 87 billion before he voted against it but it's because they didn't make it just about the policy about the GFF it it they made him into a flip flop flopping Washington Insider who's too weak on on defense to be president and that's that they have much more material to work with with kamla but it all needs to come back to that kind of case against her yeah there was very good piece by our mutual friend Jim Pearson I think that was in the Wall Street Journal or I forget where I read it but Jim's a smart guy and he was saying that um he was likening this a little bit to the ducus campaign I don't know if you're old enough to remember that one rich I think you might be a little younger than I am but I do and you know they basic people I for I had forgotten this rich but he says that coming out of the democratic convention yeah 17 had a s was amazing and uh and what they were able to do was show him as being kind of incompetent and uh and uh a liberal and and and that was of course uh who was that that ran that campaign for Bush uh oh the guy from South Carolina Lee Atwater Lee Atwater right you can't you can't talk about FL flag you know Pledge of Allegiance you talk can't talk about Willie Brown can't talk about the Boston Harbor but all that he did presidential races yeah you really need to disqualify the other person is just that their their platform is bad that's part of the disqualification but it needs to be deeper than that obviously Democrats are trying to do that to Trump and he needs to do it in turn he just needs to do it in a in discipline and focused way so I add one thing to what you said which is that um she is she and Tim Walls truly know nothing about business they know nothing about the free enterprise system they are in fact incred incredibly hostile to business you look at their tax plan their regulations they they hate business in fact I I mean I I don't know if I'd go quite that far but they view businesses especially businesses that make money as almost the enemy yeah and I don't think that's where the American people are do you no no no they're not and it's it's surprising given how she's trying to Rebrand towards the center away from where she was in 1920 how she's annunciated new positions that that are far to the left and has has picked a governor who who believes basically and governed on the basis of everything she said in 19 and2 so I think As Trump said at some point if he if you didn't it's certainly true still that uh this is the most left-wing ticket that we've ever encountered the the only competition I think would be FDR and and Henry Wallace in 1940 but even they W woke you know they were far to the left on economics but they weren't woke on social issues yeah well uh Rich so it's a it's B what would what advice would you give to Donald J Trump at this point um if you were one of his key political advisers in terms of how to how to deal with camel Harris yeah well one I mean he's already doing this he needs to find ways to get his his message out that that uh are end run around the traditional media you know these podcasters most of whom I haven't heard heard of before but have huge audiences and then I would think there there it maybe the rallies have outlived their usefulness a little bit because the media is so upset now it doesn't matter if if 90 minutes is on message if 2 minutes isn't that's all you hear about exact tend to do more focused events like a border visits about the Border doesn't matter really what you say if you sit down with the fames of fentanyl victims for a round table and Trump's great in that Forum he he doesn't have to read from a teleprompter but it's aent about that you know do that with uh um guys who who work fracking you know just do that over and over again and and again BR bring the issues back to um hit the issues but bring it back to how she's a pH and can't be trusted which is true true good advice uh so one I'm talking to Rich uh Lowry who is the uh editor at National Review and one of the smartest political Minds I know so um the Trump campaign I think also needs to talk about their record and what you know I mean if you compare just side by side on the economy you know yes you I mean this I'm sounding frustrated because I am there's a great piece other day about how look Democrats have controlled Washington for 12 of the last 16 years and they're blaming all the problems on Donald Trump yeah exactly so do you want to go back to a past that was three years ago or four years ago when inflation was low and the the economy was growing and wages were real wages were growing or do you want to stick with the failed present that's that's the question and again I think that's an imminently makeable case it's true it's right there all the material is there Rich Lowry uh thank you very much for taking some time out of your weekend to join us on uh the more money show uh we'll be right back folks is the more money show on WABC