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Political Gabfest

Political Gabfest - Don't Be a Tough Guy. Don't Be a Fool! I Will Call You Later

Political Gabfest

Slate Podcasts

News, Politics, Government

4.48.5K Ratings

🗓️ 18 October 2019

⏱️ 75 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

David Plotz, Emily Bazelon and John Dickerson discuss the US abandonment of the Kurds, the Democratic presidential debates, and guest Daniel Markovits’s new book The Meritocracy Trap.

For this week’s Slate Plus bonus segment, David and Emily discuss the season finale of Succession. 

Slate Plus members get bonus segments and ad-free podcast feeds.

You can tweet suggestions, links, and questions to @SlateGabfest. Tweet us your cocktail chatter using #cocktailchatter or post it to our Facebook page. (Messages may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

The email address for the Political Gabfest is gabfest@slate.com. (Email may be quoted by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)

Podcast production by Jocelyn Frank.

Research and show notes by Bridgette Dunlap.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to the Slate Political GabFest for October 17th, 2019.

0:11.9

The Don't Be a Tough Guy, Don't Be a Fool.

0:14.2

I will call you later edition.

0:16.1

I am David Plotz of Atlas Obscura in Washington, D.C.

0:24.4

John Dickerson of CBS's 60 Minutes is chuckling Dickersonally in Manhattan. Hello, John Dickerson.

0:29.2

Hello, David. John has his first 60 Minutes piece coming up this weekend. So

0:34.7

Gavs has listeners, make sure you check out 60 minutes on Sunday.

0:44.7

So you can see John. Thank you for that plug. Tune in. Tune in plug. And joining us, of course,

0:50.0

is Emily Vasselan of the New York Times Magazine and Yale University Law School from New Haven. Hello, Emily.

1:01.0

Hey, so glad to be here with you both. On today's Gab Fest, President Trump's shocking abandonment of America's Kurdish allies in Syria and the incredible series of catastrophic events that have unfolded from that, then who, if

1:07.8

anyone, won the fourth Democratic debate, then we will discuss a fascinating new

1:12.4

book about whether meritocracy is destroying the United States. Plus, of course, we will have

1:17.4

cocktail chatter. One more note, GabFesters, when we first released last week's episode, I referenced

1:23.7

a tweet in which Ivanka Trump was quoted, allegedly quoted, criticizing Hunter Biden for

1:29.4

getting a position through nepotism. That quote, it turns out, was fabricated. I was wrong to read it.

1:35.9

We removed it from our episode that same night. And many of you probably heard the nice, clean,

1:40.5

corrected version. But for those of you who didn't, I am sorry, please note that

1:44.1

that quote was fabricated and shouldn't have been there to begin with. President Trump,

1:50.4

who betrays as easily and as regularly as most people eat snacks, has outdone himself in the

1:55.1

Middle East. The president gave a free path to Turkish President Erdogan, then withdrew U.S.

2:00.3

forces stationed with Kurds in northern Syria,

2:02.9

allowing Turkey and some of its allies in Syria to invade the north to rouse Kurds, emboldening Russia,

...

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