Latest / The Agora / October 29, 2026 — Liars, Losers, and Lousy Presidents

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October 29, 2026 — Liars, Losers, and Lousy Presidents · The Agora

0:24
Arthur Kline: Good evening.
0:25
Welcome to THE AGORA.
0:27
Tonight — House Democrats' Epstein report on Trump,
0:30
Israel's deadlock after Trump's Netanyahu endorsement,
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and Vivek Ramaswamy's ad starring Amy Acton's estranged mother.
0:39
Plus two lightning rounds.
0:41
I'm Arthur Kline.
0:43
It's Thursday, October 29th, 2026.
0:45
Let's go.
0:51
Arthur Kline: ISSUE ONE — Democrats' Epstein report.
0:54
House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a 53-page staff report on October 26,
0:59
titled "We Have Certain Things in Common, Jeffrey."
1:03
The report discusses accounts involving 11 women and says five directly accused
1:08
Trump of rape or sexual assault in Epstein's company or direct physical presence.
1:14
It calls for an independent special counsel to investigate alleged Trump-Epstein
1:19
ties and possible Justice Department obstruction,
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arguing Attorney General Todd Blanche is conflicted because he previously served as
1:28
Trump's personal attorney.
1:30
The White House rejected the allegations as untrue and characterized the report as
1:36
largely recycling claims already public.
1:38
Sloane, is this the case for an independent special counsel,
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or opposition research with footnotes?
1:46
Sloane Barrett: Neither, Arthur, because the remedy they're demanding doesn't exist.
1:50
Under the Justice Department's own special counsel rules,
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Part 600 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations,
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the attorney general appoints the counsel, writes the mandate,
2:01
and can fire the counsel.
2:03
So the cure for a conflicted Todd Blanche is...
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Todd Blanche choosing the investigator.
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Bold.
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The truly independent model was the independent counsel law in the Ethics in
2:14
Government Act.
2:15
The Supreme Court upheld it in Morrison v.
2:18
Olson over Justice Scalia's lone dissent warning of a prosecutor answerable to no
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one,
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and Congress let it die after Ken Starr's investigation of Bill Clinton.
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Congress has subpoenas, hearings, and impeachment.
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Demanding someone else do Congress's job isn't oversight — it's outsourcing.
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Grant Mercer: Hold on, Sloane— Congress can't indict anybody.
2:39
Subpoenas produce hearings, not prosecutions.
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And even a Blanche-appointed counsel changes the math:
2:45
if Blanche fires the investigator, he does it in public,
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and the firing becomes the story.
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Arthur Kline: Hearings, not handcuffs.
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That's Grant's point.
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Eli, if Congress can't prosecute, what is this report for besides the midterms?
3:01
Eli Navarro: Hearings, not handcuffs, gets it exactly backwards, Arthur.
3:04
Nobody indicted Richard Nixon while he was president,
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and congressional hearings ended his presidency anyway.
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The Senate Watergate Committee, a select panel with zero power to prosecute,
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is where a White House aide revealed the Oval Office taping system,
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and those tapes finished him.
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Nixon didn't leave in handcuffs; he left in a helicopter.
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So the point of this report is the public record: the foundation for subpoenas,
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criminal referrals, and, if it comes to that, impeachment.
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And the White House defense that it's all recycled public claims?
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Channeling my inner Yogi: it's old news nobody's investigated yet.
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If that evidence has sat in public view and Blanche's Justice Department still
3:42
hasn't touched it,
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that's not a rebuttal.
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That's the obstruction allegation, notarized.
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Nora Kessler: Wait, no, Eli— the committee found the tapes, but it didn't get them.
3:51
A special prosecutor's subpoena did, enforced in United States v.
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Nixon, where the Supreme Court ordered them turned over.
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Watergate argues for a prosecutor.
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Sloane Barrett: Nora skipped a chapter, Arthur.
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The first Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox,
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was appointed by the attorney general under a Justice Department regulation,
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exactly the model Democrats want now,
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and Nixon had him fired in the Saturday Night Massacre,
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when the attorney general and his deputy resigned rather than carry out the order.
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His successor, Leon Jaworski, won United States v.
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Nixon only after congressional leaders extracted a promise that he couldn't be
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fired without their agreement,
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while the House Judiciary Committee drafted articles of impeachment.
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So the prosecutor survived because Congress stood behind him with a loaded gavel.
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That's not an argument for outsourcing to Todd Blanche's hire.
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That's an argument for Congress doing the hard part itself.
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Arthur Kline: So Sloane's Watergate model depended on an attorney general's spine, not a statute.
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Grant, does Todd Blanche have one?
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Grant Mercer: Wrong question, Arthur, and conservatives should be the first to say so.
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A system that runs on one man's spine isn't a system.
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It's a prayer.
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Asking whether Trump's former personal lawyer will bravely investigate his former
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client is like asking the defense attorney if he'd mind switching tables.
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I'm going to get yelled at by my own side for this,
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but this president's own first term supplies the precedent.
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Jeff Sessions, his first attorney general,
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recused himself from the Russia investigation, and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein,
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appointed Robert Mueller.
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So the answer to Sloane's objection that Blanche picks the investigator is simple:
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he shouldn't.
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He should recuse.
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And if he won't step aside from his own client's case,
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that refusal answers your question.
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Nora Kessler: No, Grant— recusal is voluntary too.
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You just called a system that runs on one man's spine a prayer,
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then prayed for Blanche to recuse.
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And Sessions's reward for recusing was the president demanding his resignation.
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Grant Mercer: Hold on, Nora— recusal isn't a prayer, it's a rule.
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Part 45 of Title 28, the Justice Department's recusal regulation,
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bars officials from investigating anyone they have a personal relationship with.
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Sessions followed it, got berated, and Mueller finished anyway.
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Arthur Kline: A rule nobody enforces is a suggestion with a citation.
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Nora, does Grant's regulation actually force Blanche off this case?
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Nora Kessler: No, Arthur, it doesn't,
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because nobody sits above the attorney general to enforce it.
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Part 45 does bar officials from investigating someone they have a personal
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relationship with,
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but at the top of the department the official judges his own case,
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after consulting ethics staff whose advice he's free to ignore.
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That's not hypothetical: Matthew Whitaker,
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Trump's acting attorney general during the Mueller investigation,
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was advised by ethics officials to step aside, and he declined.
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That's a pitcher calling his own balls and strikes.
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And Mueller finishing proves less than it seems, since the next attorney general,
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Bill Barr, characterized the report before the public saw it.
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The only enforcer left is the one Sloane named, Congress,
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which is why this report matters as a record, not a remedy.
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Eli Navarro: Come on, Nora— "a record, not a remedy" is a false dichotomy.
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When Congress is the only enforcer, the record IS the remedy.
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Impeachment runs on evidence,
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and evidence always starts as paperwork the White House waves away.
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Arthur Kline: A record nobody acts on is a scrapbook.
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Grant, is Eli right that a staff report can do a prosecutor's job?
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Grant Mercer: No, Arthur, because a record still needs an enforcer,
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and every road here runs back through Todd Blanche.
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When a witness defies a congressional subpoena,
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the criminal contempt statute sends Congress's citation to a United States attorney,
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who works for Blanche.
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And impeachment needs two-thirds of the Senate to convict,
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a bar the Senate has never once reached for a president.
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Eli's theory ends like Chinatown: Jake Gittes, Jack Nicholson's detective,
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assembles the whole record, knows exactly what Noah Cross did,
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and Cross still walks, because the men with badges answer to the wrong people.
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A record without an independent enforcer isn't a remedy.
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It's a beautifully footnoted loss.
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Which is the case for the prosecutor, not against him.
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Nora Kessler: Grant, that's absurd— your own argument sinks your prosecutor.
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Under the special counsel rules, Blanche appoints, scopes,
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and fires that counsel too.
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So your prosecutor is just one more badge answering to the wrong people.
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Grant Mercer: Come on, Nora— Blanche can't fire at will.
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Part 600 permits removal only for cause, like misconduct,
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and he must explain it to both Judiciary Committees.
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Fire my prosecutor, and he hands Congress Exhibit A.
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Arthur Kline: Enough.
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Democrats want a referee, the White House calls it a rerun,
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and the files keep their own counsel.
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Arthur Kline: ISSUE TWO — Israel's election deadlock.
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President Trump endorsed Benjamin Netanyahu on October 18,
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nine days before Israel's October 27 parliamentary election.
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With nearly 86 percent of votes counted on the morning of October 28,
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Netanyahu's bloc was projected at 53 Knesset seats and the opposition bloc led by
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Gadi Eisenkot at 48,
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both short of the 61 needed for a majority.
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Preliminary projections put the Arab parties at 17 seats, a historic high,
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with counting still underway.
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After the vote,
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Trump credited his endorsement with helping Netanyahu and said a tie is "sort of
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considered a win."
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Eli, Trump endorsed Netanyahu, then called a tie "sort of considered a win."
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Did that endorsement move votes, or just the goalposts?
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Eli Navarro: Neither, Arthur, because the question assumes this election was about Donald Trump.
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Netanyahu's bloc fell short of a majority,
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and the President calling a tie "sort of considered a win" is grading his own
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endorsement on a curve he drew himself.
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My own Yogi-ism for it: a tie's a win for you,
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as long as it isn't a win for the other guy.
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But the goalpost fight misses the real story:
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the Arab parties' historic seventeen seats.
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Arab citizens of Israel, voters both American parties treat as scenery,
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are now the arithmetic.
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Eisenkot can't reach sixty-one without dealing with them,
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and Netanyahu can't reach it while they hold that ground.
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Trump didn't move this map.
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The voters Washington never courts did.
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Sloane Barrett: Eli, that's absurd— you just told us this election wasn't about Washington,
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then scolded Washington for never courting Israeli voters.
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They're Israel's citizens, not an American swing district.
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Courting foreign electorates is exactly what Trump's endorsement did.
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Eli Navarro: Wait, no, Sloane— I never said Washington should campaign for Israeli votes.
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I said Washington ignores them when it maps Israeli politics.
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Trump courted one bloc and got a deadlock;
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the Arab voters Washington never counted now hold the balance.
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Nora Kessler: Eli's arithmetic holds, Arthur, but his conclusion doesn't follow:
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holding the balance only matters if someone will accept your votes.
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On paper, Eisenkot's bloc plus the Arab parties clears the sixty-one-seat majority.
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Yet only once has an Arab party actually joined an Israeli governing coalition,
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Mansour Abbas's Ra'am in 2021,
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and that government collapsed before finishing its term.
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So the Arab parties' historic haul is a deep bench,
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and a bench doesn't score unless the coach sends it in.
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Whether Eisenkot's partners will sit in a government that depends on Arab votes is
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the entire question,
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and nobody in Washington can answer it for them.
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The kingmaker here isn't Trump or the Arab parties;
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it's whichever opposition partner first decides those votes are acceptable.
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Sloane Barrett: Come on, Nora— that bench isn't Eisenkot's to send in.
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Those seventeen seats belong to separate Arab parties with their own coaches,
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and in 2021 only Ra'am chose to play.
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The veto runs both directions.
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Nora Kessler: Sloane, that's absurd— a veto running both ways proves my point, not yours.
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And nobody has to join the cabinet:
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Yitzhak Rabin won Knesset approval for the Oslo peace accords on Arab parties' votes
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from outside his coalition.
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Sloane Barrett: Rabin is the cautionary tale, Arthur, not the precedent Nora thinks he is.
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When Yitzhak Rabin, then Israel's prime minister, passed the Oslo accords,
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the interim peace deals with the Palestinians,
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on Arab parties' votes from outside his coalition,
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the right branded the accords illegitimate for lacking a Jewish majority,
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and that charge fueled the backlash that followed.
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Outside votes can carry a bill; they can't carry a mandate.
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And the man that backlash carried into the prime minister's office at the very next
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election was a fellow named Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Three decades later he's still at the table, and LL Cool J called it:
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Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years / I'm rocking my peers,
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puttin' suckers in fear.
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Eisenkot can borrow Rabin's arithmetic.
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He'd just be handing Netanyahu Rabin's opposition campaign along with it.
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Eli Navarro: Hold on, Sloane— Rabin wasn't voted out.
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He was assassinated by a far-right extremist whom that "no Jewish majority" campaign
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helped inflame.
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Treating the smear as political gravity hands it a veto over seventeen Arab seats.
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Sloane Barrett: Wait, no, Eli— I never said Rabin was voted out.
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I said the backlash won the next election: Shimon Peres, Rabin's successor,
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lost to Netanyahu.
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Naming the smear's power isn't endorsing it;
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ignoring it is how Eisenkot repeats Peres's defeat.
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Arthur Kline: History lesson accepted: the smear lost the vote, then won the election.
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Grant, does branding an Arab-backed coalition illegitimate work again?
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Grant Mercer: Only if the opposition flinches first, Arthur,
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and Peres's defeat proves less than Sloane claims.
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Peres lost by a whisker, after a spring of Hamas suicide bombings in Israeli cities;
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security sank him as much as any smear about Jewish majorities.
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And the smear has already lost once: in 2021,
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Mansour Abbas's Ra'am sat inside the government itself, and Israel didn't end.
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The coalition collapsed the way Israeli coalitions always do.
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Netanyahu's camp replaying the Rabin backlash is Hitchcock's Vertigo:
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Jimmy Stewart's detective forcing a new woman into the dead woman's gray suit and
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blond hair,
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demanding the past come back.
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It only works if Eisenkot agrees to wear the costume.
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If he treats Arab votes as votes, the branding is just bad tailoring.
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Eli Navarro: No, but Grant— you've made Eisenkot the only one with a choice.
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Arab parties holding seventeen seats set terms too: equal funding for Arab towns,
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repeal of the Nation-State Law demoting Arabic.
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They're negotiators, not his favor to grant.
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Arthur Kline: Seventeen seats is a veto, not a favor.
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Nora, can Eisenkot meet Eli's price list and still hold a coalition?
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Nora Kessler: Setting terms requires a second bidder, Arthur, and the Arab parties don't have one.
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Netanyahu's far-right partners vetoed Ra'am the last time he tried.
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A free agent with exactly one suitor doesn't get to name his number.
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So Eisenkot can meet half of Eli's list.
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Equal funding for Arab towns is money, and money splits;
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budgets and policing for Arab communities are what Mansour Abbas's Ra'am bargained
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for in 2021.
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Repealing the Nation-State Law is different,
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since a repeal vote hands every hawk in Eisenkot's bloc a reason to walk.
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Nothing steadies a fragile coalition like asking its right flank to vote on Jewish
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identity.
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Budgets now, symbolism later — that's the deal that survives.
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Arthur Kline: A kingmaker with exactly one candidate is just a campaign volunteer.
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Eli, defend the idea that the Arab parties have any leverage at all.
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Eli Navarro: The one-suitor framing misreads the market, Arthur.
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A free agent with one suitor is weak only if the suitor has other options,
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and Eisenkot doesn't.
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His bloc sits short of the sixty-one-seat majority with no path there except through
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those seventeen Arab seats,
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inside the cabinet or out.
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Economists call that a bilateral monopoly: one buyer, one seller,
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and neither walks away without walking into another election.
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And the outside-support model Nora raised is leverage, not weakness:
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support you lend on one budget vote is support you can recall on the next.
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Nothing concentrates a prime minister's mind on funding for Arab towns like a
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confidence vote on Tuesday.
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What everyone at this table has missed is that the veto IS the leverage.
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Sloane Barrett: Eli, seriously— recall that support and the government falls, Israel votes again,
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and Netanyahu gets another shot.
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A veto you can only use by reviving the man you're vetoing isn't leverage.
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It's a ransom note where you're the hostage.
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Arthur Kline: The President calls a tie "sort of a win."
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By that standard, all four of you just triumphed, in four different directions.
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Arthur Kline: ISSUE THREE — Ohio's family-feud ad.
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Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign confirmed on October 20 that it produced the ad featuring
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Amy Acton's estranged mother,
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Donna Arthur,
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and would spend $4 million to promote it on television and streaming platforms.
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In the 60-second ad,
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Arthur calls Acton a liar and urges voters not to elect her governor.
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Court records show Acton's stepfather was charged with raping her in 1978,
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when she was 12, and Acton has said she has not seen her mother since.
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On October 22,
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President Donald Trump called the ad "very powerful" and urged Ramaswamy to keep
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running it.
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Grant,
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Vivek Ramaswamy put Amy Acton's estranged mother on television in the Ohio
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governor's race
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— legitimate character testimony, or a new low in opposition research?
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Grant Mercer: Arthur, that menu is missing the real answer: this isn't opposition research at all.
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Opposition research digs up a candidate's record;
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this digs up a twelve-year-old's worst year and buys television time for it.
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And the story isn't Ramaswamy anymore,
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because the President and the Vice President signed their names to it.
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My party has written itself a scene from The Manchurian Candidate,
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where Angela Lansbury plays a mother who treats her own son as a campaign
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instrument,
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and she was the villain.
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It isn't even working.
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A Republican group's internal poll of 800 likely Ohio voters, October 23 to 26,
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has Acton leading 50 to 42, up from 47 to 45 in that same poll earlier this month.
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Cruelty and incompetence, in one sixty-second package.
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Arthur Kline: Grant says this isn't oppo research;
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it's buying airtime on a twelve-year-old's worst year.
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Defend it as fair game, Sloane, if you can.
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Sloane Barrett: I can't, Arthur,
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and calling this something other than opposition research actually flatters the ad.
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Character testimony is classic opposition research;
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campaigns have always put a witness on camera to call the candidate a liar.
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What's missing is cross-examination.
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The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause guarantees anyone accused in court the
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right to question the witness against them,
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because untested testimony is the oldest weapon there is.
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And Acton can only rebut her estranged mother by reliving 1978 on statewide
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television.
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That's not testimony — it's an ambush with a four-million-dollar media buy.
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André 3000 cut the only song about a mother worth airing,
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an apology to his ex's mom: I'm sorry Ms.
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Jackson (oh),
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I am for real / Never meant to make your daughter cry / I apologize a trillion
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times.
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Ramaswamy owes Acton an apology, not a sequel.
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Nora Kessler: No, Sloane— campaigns don't need a Confrontation Clause,
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because voters cross-examine for free.
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Acton's eight-point lead in that Republican group's poll is the verdict,
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and even Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor,
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called Ramaswamy "a bad guy."
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Eli Navarro: Free?
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Arthur, the cross-examination Nora describes isn't free; Amy Acton pays for it,
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in the only currency a four-million-dollar media buy can't refund:
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reliving what happened to her at twelve on statewide television.
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And an internal poll from a Republican group isn't a verdict.
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Verdicts arrive on Election Day,
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and a jury that hears the prosecution for sixty seconds on every channel and the
20:30
defense only in news clips isn't deliberating on even terms.
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Worse, a verdict on the ad's effectiveness is not a verdict on its decency.
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The President called it "very powerful" and the Vice President told critics to stop
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whining.
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If cruelty is punished only when it underperforms,
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the lesson for every campaign is better cruelty.
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That's not accountability, it's market research.
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Sloane Barrett: Fair, Eli, but— decency isn't a poll result,
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it's a choice Republicans make out loud.
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Justice Brandeis, concurring in Whitney v.
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California, prescribed the remedy for bad speech: more speech.
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So, on the record: that ad is indecent.
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Arthur Kline: More speech.
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Brandeis never priced a four-million-dollar ad buy.
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Grant, must Republicans condemn this out loud, as Sloane insists?
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Grant Mercer: Saying it out loud is the cheapest thing a Republican can do, Arthur,
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and Brandeis's prescription doesn't fit.
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His remedy was more speech instead of government censorship,
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and nobody here is proposing censorship.
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Talk is in plentiful supply: Nikki Haley called Ramaswamy a bad guy,
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the President called the ad very powerful,
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and the four-million-dollar buy keeps airing.
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Sloane's on-the-record condemnation is lovely, and it costs exactly nothing.
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The real test is what Ohio Republicans do with their wallets and their calendars.
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Stop funding the media buy, skip the joint rallies,
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and refuse to share a stage until the ad comes down.
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A party that condemns the ad and then campaigns beside the man who paid for it isn't
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taking a stand.
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It's issuing a press release.
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Nora Kessler: Grant, stop right there— Ohio Republicans can't defund a buy they aren't paying for,
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because Ramaswamy's own campaign is spending the four million dollars.
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The only leverage left belongs to the President and Vice President,
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and they're applauding.
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Eli Navarro: Nora has the money flowing backwards, Arthur.
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Ramaswamy's campaign doesn't print its own cash.
22:26
Every dollar of that four-million-dollar buy came from donors,
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and many of them are Ohio Republicans who can stop writing checks tomorrow.
22:33
Campaigns spend money; donors decide whether there's any left to spend.
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The leverage doesn't stop at checkbooks either:
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county party chairs control volunteers and door-knocking lists,
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and down-ballot Republicans decide whether they share a stage with him.
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Nothing persuades a candidate faster than a fundraiser where nobody shows up.
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Nora's right that the President and Vice President are applauding,
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but that's precisely why Ohio Republicans matter.
22:56
If the only people with leverage are the ones cheering,
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then the silence from everyone below them is a choice, not a constraint.
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Sloane Barrett: Eli, please— Ramaswamy's campaign already committed to that four-million-dollar buy.
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Donors can't un-write a check,
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and an empty fundraiser won't pull a single ad off the air.
23:14
Your leverage shows up after Ohio has watched the damage.
23:19
Grant Mercer: Sloane has the mechanics wrong, Arthur: a committed buy isn't an aired buy.
23:23
Television time is reserved week by week,
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and a campaign can cancel or swap out the spots that haven't aired yet,
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which campaigns do routinely when an ad backfires.
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And donors may not be able to un-write a check,
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but they can decline to write the next one,
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the one that pays for the final week of door-knocking and turnout.
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Here's what the whole table has missed: the audience for this fight isn't just Ohio.
23:46
The President and Vice President just told every campaign in the country this tactic
23:51
is pre-approved.
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If Ohio Republicans shrug because the money's already spent,
23:55
the next campaign will simply spend it earlier.
23:58
Nora Kessler: Grant, hang on— canceling unaired spots is Ramaswamy's call alone,
24:03
and he's seen the backfire.
24:04
That Republican group's poll shows Acton's lead widening,
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and the President is cheering him on.
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He's reading Trump, not the scoreboard.
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Arthur Kline: And now, The Herald — with Simone Hargrove.
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Simone Hargrove: This is The Herald — the week beyond the table.
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On October 27,
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a federal judge halted the administration's planned changes to East Potomac Park and
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its golf course in Washington,
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D.C., for lack of required notice.
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The President says he'll appeal.
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President Trump also announced an end to a Biden-era methane rule for oil and gas
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drilling.
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The administration says it will save billions of dollars and could unlock about two
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hundred ten million barrels of oil. U.S.
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Southern Command struck a boat in the eastern Pacific that the administration says
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was smuggling drugs.
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Five people were killed.
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The Conference Board's consumer confidence index jumped to 91.7 in October,
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from 84.2 in September.
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The release, welcomed by President Trump,
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came a week before the November 3 midterms.
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Rainstorms flooded the Four Corners states.
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Thousands of people have been displaced.
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In New Mexico, damage estimates reach hundreds of millions of dollars,
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including at the Shiprock wastewater treatment plant.
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On October 28, U.S.
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District Judge J.
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Michael Seabright ruled Bill Essayli is not legally serving as top federal
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prosecutor in Los Angeles.
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That complicates the administration's push to keep acting U.S.
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attorneys beyond one hundred twenty days without Senate confirmation.
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From beyond the table — I'm Simone Hargrove.
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The Agora continues.
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Arthur Kline: ISSUE FOUR — LIGHTNING ROUND — the Cheesecake Factory wars.
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On October 24, at a Michigan campaign rally,
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former President Barack Obama compared President Trump's White House renovations to
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Saddam Hussein opening a Cheesecake Factory.
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On October 27,
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the White House posted an AI-generated Cheesecake Factory-style menu featuring "The
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Border Security Special" and "The American Energy Feast."
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Sloane, Obama mocked Trump's White House decor,
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and the administration answered with a fake menu.
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Who's winning the dessert course?
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Sloane Barrett: Neither side is winning dessert, Arthur.
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Obama spent a Michigan rally on interior design days before the midterms,
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and the White House answered with a menu written by a computer.
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Madison gave us the Federalist Papers;
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this White House gives us "The Border Security Special."
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The only winner is the Cheesecake Factory itself,
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which just reported record third-quarter revenue of $1,033.4 million for the quarter
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ended September 29,
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up from $907.2 million a year earlier.
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Both parties are running ads for a restaurant, and neither one is getting paid.
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Grant Mercer: Sloane, back up— that record quarter closed September 29,
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a month before Obama's punchline.
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That's post hoc reasoning with whipped cream.
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The free ad came October 26,
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when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dined at a Washington Cheesecake Factory.
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Arthur Kline: Grant's verdict: the cheesecake sold before the joke was told.
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Nora, prove the punchline moved a single slice.
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Nora Kessler: Grant's calendar cuts both ways, Arthur:
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a quarter that closed September 29 can't prove the joke moved nothing,
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because it never measured the joke.
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His own counter-fact is my evidence — Bessent ate there two days after Obama's line.
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That's your slice.
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Then the White House posted its own menu, which is the Butt Fumble,
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Mark Sanchez running into his own lineman on Thanksgiving 2012 and fumbling:
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a self-inflicted blunder that becomes the whole highlight reel.
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Obama told the joke once.
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The administration keeps retelling it.
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Eli Navarro: Nora, seriously— one Treasury Secretary's lunch is your evidence?
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That's a sample size of one slice.
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And the menu's no Butt Fumble: Sanchez never meant to hit his lineman.
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The White House drafted, approved, and posted theirs on purpose.
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Nora Kessler: Eli's counting the wrong customers, Arthur.
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I never claimed the joke sold cheesecake.
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I claimed it baited the administration,
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and a sample of one is plenty when that one is the Treasury Secretary.
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Intent doesn't rescue the menu either: a blunder you draft, approve,
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and post is still self-inflicted, just with sign-off.
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On October 26,
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the President himself told reporters on his way to a Mississippi rally that Obama's
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comparison showed why he was a "lousy president."
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Nothing keeps a punchline alive like the target retelling it.
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Sloane Barrett: Nora, really—
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you just told us Bessent's lunch was "your slice," and now you never claimed the
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joke sold cheesecake?
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That's not a rebuttal, it's a menu substitution.
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Pick one dish and stand behind it.
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Nora Kessler: Sloane, nonsense— it's one dish.
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Bessent's lunch proved the bait was taken, not that cheesecake sold,
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because the Treasury Secretary is the administration.
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Three bites at one hook: Bessent, the President, the White House menu.
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Eli Navarro: Nora has the fish and the fisherman reversed, Arthur.
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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent didn't nibble at anything on October 26.
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He ate at that Washington Cheesecake Factory and urged what he called the "Martha's
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Vineyard set" to try it,
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turning Obama's joke into a class-war counterpunch.
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A former hedge-fund manager lecturing Martha's Vineyard about snobbery is rich,
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in every sense.
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But three casts of the same line on purpose isn't a fumble.
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It's a strategy: make Obama the elitist, and nobody asks about the renovations.
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Sloane Barrett: Eli, slow down—
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you can't bury the renovations by retelling the renovation joke three times.
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Every fake menu is a free rerun of Obama's punchline.
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That's not changing the subject — that's syndicating it.
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Arthur Kline: Enough.
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Obama tells the joke, the White House runs into its own lineman,
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and the only winner sells cheesecake.
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Arthur Kline: ISSUE FIVE — LIGHTNING ROUND — Trump dumps Bill Maher.
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On October 15, Trump hosted Maher for dinner at the White House, their second,
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with Kid Rock and Stephen A.
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Smith at the table.
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On October 23, Maher described the evening on his HBO show: disagreements, he said,
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with a host who never lost his temper.
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On October 25, Trump answered with a 1,323-word Truth Social post,
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the longest he has written by CNN's count,
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opening with "complete and total loser" and telling him, near the end, "Bill:
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Don't call anymore."
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Nora, two White House dinners,
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then 1,323 words calling Maher a "complete and total loser."
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Heartbreak or strategy?
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Nora Kessler: Heartbreak versus strategy is a false binary, Arthur,
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because a post that long isn't grief.
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It's an edit.
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This is The Last Dance,
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the 2020 Michael Jordan documentary his own company had final approval over,
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where every former teammate came out the villain.
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Trump isn't mourning Maher; he's controlling the recut.
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Maher's review was that the private Trump never lost his temper,
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and nine days before the midterms that's the one review this White House can't
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afford.
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Gracious doesn't turn out a base.
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Thirteen hundred words of temper does.
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Grant Mercer: Nora, back up— that's no recut.
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He wrote he never watched the show much and never will again,
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in a post about the show he'd just watched.
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That isn't an edit.
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That's a man reading his own reviews.
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Nora Kessler: Grant, reading the reviews is the edit when you own the channel your voters watch.
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He disputed the running time, timestamps and all, and the ratings.
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That's not a wounded host.
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That's a director's cut.
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Arthur Kline: A director's cut, timed for the midterms.
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That's Nora's theory.
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Sloane, is there a strategy in that post, or just a temper with a keyboard?
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Sloane Barrett: Nora has a strategy where there's only a receipt, Arthur.
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The dinners were the strategy:
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a Republican president sitting twice with HBO's liberal comedian is how you reach
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the voters who think the party can't take a joke.
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Maher's review was the payoff: he disagreed on plenty, the 2020 election included,
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and said the man never lost his temper.
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Then the man lost it for thirteen hundred words, with HBO thrown in for free,
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and sold the payoff back for two hours of timestamps.
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That's not an edit.
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That's a refund.
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Eli Navarro: Sloane, honestly— a refund?
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Read past the insults.
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He denied turning the briefing room into a swimming pool,
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then wrote he's "thinking about moving the Press" somewhere else.
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That's not a review.
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That's a landlord's notice.
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Grant Mercer: Eli's landlord is a man thinking out loud, Arthur.
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The briefing room sits on Franklin Roosevelt's swimming pool because Nixon moved the
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press once already;
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this President floated moving them in 2017, and the podium stayed put.
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But credit where it's due:
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that one sentence is the only thing in the whole screed that governs anything,
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and it took a comedian to pry it loose.
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Republicans on the ballot next Tuesday didn't need the President spending a Sunday
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reviewing a dinner.
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They needed him reviewing the economy.
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Arthur Kline: Grant, save the stump speech.
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Eli said landlord.
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Answer him.
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Grant Mercer: Landlord is the wrong word, Arthur,
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because a landlord serves notice and this one served a mood.
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"Thinking about" is not a decision,
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and the press corps that outlasted Nixon's remodel will outlast a Sunday post.
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What the post proves is cheaper and worse:
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the President read a review of himself and answered it point by point —
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two hours versus four, the ratings —
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nine days before an election his party is trying to win.
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That isn't a landlord.
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It's a man who can't let a comedian have the last word,
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handing him the whole last week.
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Arthur Kline: Enough.
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Heartbreak, strategy, refund, landlord — four words for one Sunday.
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Now order something, on the record, and live with it.
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Arthur Kline: Final round.
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One prediction apiece: specific, falsifiable, pinned to a date or a number.
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"It could go either way" is a shrug in a necktie, and I'll grade it accordingly. Go.
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Arthur Kline: Nora Kessler.
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Nora Kessler: Here's mine, Arthur: on November 3,
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Amy Acton beats Vivek Ramaswamy for Ohio governor by at least five points.
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Four million dollars buys a lot of airtime,
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but it can't buy Ohio voters' sympathy for an ad that relitigates a
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twelve-year-old's worst year.
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Arthur Kline: Grant Mercer.
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Grant Mercer: Sticking with the briefing room, Arthur.
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By December 31, the White House press corps is still working out of the James S.
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Brady Press Briefing Room, over Roosevelt's pool,
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and no relocation has been ordered.
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A thought on a Sunday isn't a work order, however many words it comes wrapped in.
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Arthur Kline: Sloane Barrett.
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Sloane Barrett: My call returns to the Epstein report, Arthur.
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By December 31,
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Attorney General Todd Blanche appoints no special counsel to investigate Trump's
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ties to Jeffrey Epstein,
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and he doesn't recuse either.
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Congress will be left holding its subpoenas,
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which is exactly where the Constitution put the job.
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Arthur Kline: Eli Navarro.
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Eli Navarro: Taking us back to Israel, Arthur.
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By March 31, 2027, Gadi Eisenkot is sworn in as Israel's prime minister,
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and his government survives its first confidence vote only because Arab parties back
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it,
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inside the cabinet or out.
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Netanyahu will call that sort of a win.
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Arthur Kline: Acton by five, the press stays put, no special counsel, a Prime Minister Eisenkot.
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I'll bring the red pen; somebody bring the cheesecake.
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I'm Arthur Kline.
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THE AGORA IS ADJOURNED.