Left & Right October 23, 2019

Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue again sits in the left chair and we open with a question from the producer about whether President Trump has improperly profited from his business enterprises as president. I cite the now-dropped plan to use Trump's Doral facility for a G-7 meeting, a resort that has been losing money of late. I question whether Trump meant to let it be used free to taxpayers as he said. Mark cites a Washington Post story of 2500 instances where Trump has profited from government using his facilities worldwide, and that his sons are making plans for future resorts in Asia post-presidency. Mark raises a recent statement by former Ambassador William Taylor, who claims in an opening statement before his secret testimony to Adam Schiff's committee that there was a quid pro quo between Trump and the Ukrainian president. Not having read the 15-page Taylor statement, I question him about details. Mark said I" took my eye off the ball" and I asked what ball? I said the ball his eye seems to be on is getting rid of Trump and I see this Taylor statement as another in a series of "We got him now!" efforts to bring Trump down ever since his inauguration. Mark sums that up as old conspiracy theories. I see Trump's experience dealing with corrupt politicians in NYC as good background enabling him to deal with strongmen in the world. Mark suggested that I think "Cozying up to all the dictators in the world is good foreign policy." I respond that any US leader has to deal with scumbags and sometimes "cozy up" to them to get things done. It's the nature of the job. My stated position is that I agree with what Trump is doing domestically and in foreign policy. Compared to what the Democrat candidates want to do, I'm still with Trump in spite of his sometimes obnoxious behavior. I suggest that Mark looks at most recent political events in the context of getting rid of Trump. He says he isn't. He says there are clear reasons to impeach him: non-cooperation with the House impeachment efforts, emoluments, Ukrainian things, etc. Mark said I look at conspiracy theory web sites and get obscure information that supports my political views. I say I look at lots of web sites, including the ones he looks at but he only visits the ones that support his world views and not sites that offer contradictory information. With five minutes left, we take the second question from the producer: "Which candidates gave the strongest and weakest performances in the most recent Democrat debate?" Having only seen parts of it, I suggest that Buttageig gave a strong performance and Biden gave a weak one, that he's never seemed a very bright guy and now seems to be more and more confused about what he's saying, and maybe he's in the early stages of dementia. Mark saw little of it too, but he thinks Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttegeig did well. He doesn't think Biden has dementia. "I think Biden's always been Biden," and he thinks the primary process pushes Democrats to the left and Republicans to the right. I close with the 2200 dead babies found by an abortionist from South Bend clinics that Mayor Pete didn't mention for over a month. That the abortionist was an admirer of Adolph Hitler. Mark hadn't heard about it and I said that was because his web sites avoid those issues. He asked why I think they'd avoid the Nazi angle. I suggested that it was because Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had views on eugenics similar to Hitler's and media would avoid mentioning abortion in that context.