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Notes -
Probably the wrong crowd for this, but I'll ask anyways...
Does anyone know of any long-form podcast interviews with Kamala from a tough or adversarial interviewer? I've listened to three different interviews with her (from Pod Save America, I've Had It, and Sharon McMahon) and they are all of the form "ask softball question, let her say her talking points." None actually interrogate her to try to see if she understands the potential problems with her policy ideas, or to make her defend against the most common criticisms of her policy ideas, or get her to pass any kind of intellectual turing test. Part of the reason I went down this rabbit hole is because I'm curious if Kamala is actually smart or not. But it is difficult to tell if someone is smart if they are never pushed to defend their viewpoints. I'm also curious if she can actually understand the right-wing critique of her immigration positions, or actually lives in such a bubble she has never actually engaged with the critique.
Does it matter?
Trump flops on all the hard questions in a way that asks whether or not there is anything deeper in there than making the liberals cry. Of course there is, and of course he understands but he and every supporter of his don't actually care about that.
Getting dragged into the harder questions is a sign of weakness.
Trump gets at the issues in a much deeper way than all the policy wonks cynically consumed by statistics and specifics. What do you do about the Ukraine War? It's not hard, you get on the phone with Putin, you stop the war with a phone call, this is literally how that works. You don't need answers to "hard questions," you need the vision to lead and inspire.
Sorry, what happens on this phone call?
A deal is made.
Trump had four years to make a deal with Putin already on Ukraine that would solve the conflict for good (after all, it started in 2014). The most notable attempt, the 2018 summit, achieved exactly jack and shit.
Russia also didn't do "jack shit" for 8 years.
The deal could be something as simple as if you want us to stop sending military aid to Ukraine, all you have to do is withdraw to the pre February 22 borders.
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