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Welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast today is Thursday, December 3rd, 2020.

I am John Puthhorts, the editor of commentary inviting you as always to go to commentarymagazine.com.

You get a few free reads, we ask you to subscribe so much good stuff there.

I told you yesterday about PJR works piece on the on Shamilot, his portrait of the presidency in life of JFK.

We have a really wonderful piece by Jim Megz called we're living in a new space age that takes up the successful space ex launches.

A great piece by Terry Teachout on Cole Porter, Yuval Levin on the hyper rhetorical presidency and Mayor Sullivan-Hick on what the lessons were from the Nuremberg trials, which sort of began 75 years ago.

This month and that I've told you guys also about our various articles here on the podcast with me, the authors of those articles, senior writer Christine Rosen, high Christine,

associate editor Noah Rossman, high Noah, and executive editor Abe Greenwald, high Abe.

Hi John. So Noah Rossman, there is this, I think we are 33 days from the runoff special elections in Georgia, the two Senate seats.

And there is much weeping and wailing and the gnashing of the teeth on the Republican side about whether or not the continuing efforts by the president and his lackeys to make some kind of a last stand on an election that he lost continues.

Yes, and there is a fair bit of consternation. I think it's more built way, mayopia than anything, but there's a fair amount of consternation among national Republican figures about the ongoing civil war that is erupted in Georgia and the extent to which that could have down ballot implications.

And we've got this runoff coming where they are runoff election to runoff elections in January, which will determine control of the Senate.

And the people who are the most outspoken Trump allies in this nonsensical fight over whether or not the election was stolen. I mean, it's over most of these states have certified these results anyway.

It's fighting a lost war, but anyway, they're committed to it. People like Sydney Powell and Lynn Wood who are outright saying, don't vote for these people. Don't vote for Republicans. They sabotaged you. They sabotaged the election. They've stabbed you in the back.

Then you have more established, vegetarian Republicans, of course, but even people like Don Jr. who are saying, you've got to vote for these Republicans or else my father's legacy is on the ballot here and that could be the end of everything. And so they're taking a much more cautious approach to it.

The president, however, seems to be straddling the fence on the issue. He certainly seems more inclined to he's going to head down there and he's going to endorse these candidates. But there's a fair bit of trepidation about what he might say.

In while he's saying, you know, perfunctory endorsement, but also, you know, this whole state was was sabotaged and my election was stolen by all these people who who I don't support. The governor Brian camp doesn't like Brian camp never is like Brian camp, especially.

I think the feeling is pretty much mutual secretary of state, who seems to be a pretty erasible fellow and doesn't have many allies, but is also not high on the list of people that Donald Trump loves these days. So he could go to war with the GOP.

And while I do contrary to people like Sean trendy who wrote a very interesting analysis around this thing, I do think that the race for control of the Senate being the overarching issue here that state will is more likely to revert to factory settings as it were a more Republican leaning state and Republicans turn out in generally better numbers during runoff elections off your elections anyway.

So I do think Republicans have an advantage in this state, but it's certainly when you can't count on and the consternation here is growing and the implications are really significant.

The president's legacy is on the ballot and if he's inclined to resurrect his political career in 2024, you know, he's going to leave office now with if these Senate seats are one for Republicans, he leaves office now with a plausible claim to say, you know, the GOP needs me as much as you need me and everybody needs me.

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