James Carville is saying, nothing has changed between the time that he helped get Clinton elected and now. The American public has not made this vast change in the way they view the political world. He said, it comes down to this, the economy stupid.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: I love this story that you found, and it is where Carville is interviewed and he’s saying, nothing has changed between the time that I helped get Clinton elected and now. The American public has not made this vast, vast change in the way they view the political world. He said, it comes down to this, the economy stupid. That’s where he lands in all this. He said, he almost went as far as saying, he didn’t say this, but he says all this other noise. The old senile president who bumbles and stumbles and can’t complete a sentence on some days, doesn’t know where he is. That we’ve forgotten about, that wouldn’t have even been a problem. Okay. It wouldn’t have even been a problem if we would’ve talked about the issue or the cackler in charge, the Harris cackler, the Mad Cackler. We could have even gotten past that. You see, we could have even got past that personality problem that this woman has. We could have gotten past that all if we would’ve talked about what the American public cared about. And now what’s interesting is the number of times you appeared and you said it’s simple, while all this noise was going on, it’s simple. People think eggs are too expensive. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And look, on your point there, they would’ve overlooked Biden, they would’ve overlooked Harris. They did overlook Trump being, by definition, a convicted felon. They looked over January 6th. All of that meant nothing because these are the people in power. My life is not good and I need somebody else because I’ve given them four years. My situation hasn’t improved. Let’s go back to the new old. So they did that. So yes, the public is willing to overlook lot of things. Doesn’t matter Democrat, Republican, they overlook so much when their personal situations are bad enough and that is what we have seen.
Mike Papantonio: Well, I think it’s interesting though. I think it’s interesting. This is something that you and I were talking about many times in these shows, while all this noise is going on. While we had, think about it, the failures that the Democrats. First of all, it started with virtue signaling. Let me back up. Let’s back this thing up and say, what was the arena? What did it look like? It was this arena where you had Democrats, to me, the worst kind of virtue signaling. You had Obama out telling African Americans that they’re not black unless they vote for Biden. It didn’t work. You had Hillary out telling women that you’re not a strong woman if you vote for Trump, you see. You had J-Lo and a whole gaggle of people out saying to the Hispanic community, you’re not Hispanic. You’re not a caring Hispanic if you vote for Trump. All of that failed, all of the, what I call the virtue signaling. It all failed. This political identity, the political identity politics, it failed. It was a miserable failure. And so all of that was noise and I think that’s what Carville’s saying. That was noise and you ignored the thing right in front of you. People thought eggs were too expensive.
Farron Cousins: And when Carville helped Clinton win in 92, in 96 again, they had a board in their office, Carville and Begala, the big giant board only had one thing written on it and it was, it’s the economy, stupid.
Mike Papantonio: Right.
Farron Cousins: Nothing else goes on that board. Every day they walk in and they see that. That is their message to the American public and it worked because it was true and it’s been true in almost every election since then.
Mike Papantonio: It absolutely has been.
Farron Cousins: But the Democrats did not focus on that. Instead, what they told us time and time again, and MSNBC was horrible with it, they told us, look how good the economy is. Look at these numbers on the chart. The chart goes up. Okay, well, what is the chart?
Mike Papantonio: They’re still doing it, Farron. They’re still doing it.
Farron Cousins: The chart is employment, which yes, employment was better. And the chart was the stock market, which most Americans have no money in at all. So it didn’t affect them. But the thing with the job, and I’ve mentioned this whenever I talk about jobs numbers, I’ve gone through the horrible boring process of actually reading jobs reports.
Mike Papantonio: Thank you for that.
Farron Cousins: And if anybody were to actually take the time to do it when you see, okay, we did gain 300,000 jobs. Flip through the report and look where those jobs are. They’re seasonal jobs. They’re temporary jobs. They’re minimum wage jobs. They’re jobs that do not support a family, but here is no distinction when they report the big number between a job at a Wendy’s and a job on Wall Street. Those are the same.
Mike Papantonio: So all year, certainly last year when you were doing these stories and you were saying, Mike, all this is noise. All this green America is noise, DEI is noise, political identity is noise. All that’s noise. If we don’t pay attention to this simple thing, which is it’s the economy, stupid. You didn’t use those words, but you kept talking about it and now Carville lands exactly where you were.
Farron Cousins: And look, all those other issues, they are important.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. But they won’t change elections though. They don’t move elections.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. It’s only important to people if their situation is perfect.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, well put.
Farron Cousins: If I’m in a situation to where I can walk into CVS and get my prescription drugs and the cost doesn’t bother me. I can go to the grocery store, I don’t even see the number on the checkout when I tap my card. When I’m in that situation, I can care more about the environment. I can be more concerned about these other issues because I don’t have the personal things that are dragging me down and the public didn’t have that opportunity this time.
Mike Papantonio: Did they get caught up in the lie that we had a great economy? Because if they got caught up in the lie, I heard Schumer this week, Schumer’s saying, no, the economy’s great. And you know what? Biden is fine. Biden never had any problems in four years. He’s a great guy. Did you see this?
Farron Cousins: I did.
Mike Papantonio: And you’re going, okay, do you think if you tell a lie enough times, people just go, well, God, I think that’s true? It’s not true. We can all see this guy that Schumer was, two points here, Schumer’s saying Biden was fine. Well, he’s stumbling. He’s mumbling. He’s lost. Remember the scene where he’s lost in the Amazon where he’s turning around, he doesn’t know where the hell he is. And Schumer continues the lie, just like the economy, continue the lie and maybe it’s going to make a difference. I don’t think it does, because at the end of the day, people go to the grocery store and they say, good God, eggs are expensive. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. You can’t keep telling people that the economy is great when they look at their paycheck every two weeks and say, no, this won’t get me through to the next one. Stop telling those people that everything is okay. You know what? Get out of Washington, DC, drive through the South and that is something that I’ve actually pointed out to a lot of commentators on the left.
Mike Papantonio: I’ve heard you say it many times.
Farron Cousins: Is maybe leave your nice blue bubble where everything looks great and you get to live under a Democrat. Come drive through Alabama. Alabama that has poverty that the United Nations says is akin to third world countries.
Mike Papantonio: So the bubble is real.
Farron Cousins: Yes, it is absolutely real.
Mike Papantonio: The bubble is real and the morons that stay in the bubble and don’t do something as simple as maybe visit the flyover states that they’re a product of that. And then when Schumer says Biden was fine, he wasn’t senile, he wasn’t really stumbling around. He didn’t fall down the stairs of Air Force One, he didn’t fall down in front of the entire military. You see, when they say that, or when they say the economy’s great, I really think in the bubble, they believe it’s sellable and I think that’s been your point a lot of times.
Farron Cousins: And to that point, and nothing against TYT, I like them, but I did TYT on election night, and it was after Georgia and Florida had been called for Trump and a bunch of other states that.
Mike Papantonio: By the way, we own part of TYT. Full disclosure on that.
Farron Cousins: But they were talking about North Carolina and Virginia and all these states going for Trump. They’re like, wow. And I said, what is shocking about this? These really are red states. Democrats are not spending any time connecting with people and by connecting, I don’t mean you show up and you do a rally. I mean, you go and you look and you see these conditions. I said there was nothing shocking that Georgia stayed basically a red state. It was a fluke that it was ever a blue state one time. But you guys don’t see it. We, you and I see it every day and because we’re not in a bubble. I’m in a bubble totally opposite of my political views here, so, I see the other side of it and I see the struggle.
Mike Papantonio: But you don’t stay in the bubble. You see, even though you’re hugely a Democrat and you support Democrats, you come out of that and say, Pap, let’s talk about maybe you’re not wrong on something. Let’s talk about it a little bit and I think you have to. But I think when Carville sat back and said, did our whole thing with virtue signaling work, identity politics, DEI, open borders, green deal, did it work? Hell no, it didn’t work. And it would’ve worked if that’s all that people were thinking about. It would’ve worked.
Farron Cousins: You know why he has that message? Where’s Carville live? He lives in Louisiana.
Mike Papantonio: Exactly.
Farron Cousins: He sees it too, firsthand.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, exactly. He’s not in the DC bubble, although he’s lived most of his life in the DC bubble.
