All the Phonies Hit the Floor (with Joe Perticone)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friend Tim Miller and sitting in for my other best friend, Sarah Longwell, is Joe Pritticone. Pritticone. That’s how we would pronounce it.

Ticione. With Jersey. Pretty to go on there. Just have to be Bert to go on there. You’re not even getting me a half smile while you’re Joe.

Yeah. Joe Particone, who writes our Press Pass newsletter in covers his Congress in the Hill for us. I’m sorry. I thought that bit was going to Bulwark. It did not.

Well, technically, the the ES is silent. It’s Americanized. Right.

But I’m saying in the old country. Oh, yeah. The gag. Right?

You That’s the gag, Joe. Okay. That’s alright.

Well, maybe we should just reset this whole thing. Anyway, Joe Bernacone, who writes a fantastic newsletter for us called press pass. It’s here, you should go to the bulwark dot com and sign up and get his newsletter. It’s free most of the time. Half the time.

Great reporting, good scoops. It’s awesome. Go get Joe’s newsletter at the bulwark dot com. Get all the other stuff to, get Charlie’s newsletter, sign up for Charlie’s podcast, Mona Charen beg Beg to Differ, mash the subscribe button. I know some people hate it when I say that, but do it anyway.

And then give us the thumbs up and give us the five star reviews. I have to say, I saw a review on iTunes this past week. Which talked about how this was the person’s favorite show and they loved it and it was great and they gave us three stars and it made me very angry.

I I like that. A tough grader. A tough grader. I’m a tough grader on Goodreads. I start now that I’m an author.

I don’t know if you knew that. I start I’ve started to get embarrassed and so I give people token five stars.

Excuse me, Tim.

Yeah.

You are a New York Times best seller.

Thank you. All So I give people token Firestars because they’ll see my they’ll see my Goodreads account and know that I I really only thought they were a three. So my I was a tough Goodreads grader up until recently. I I have one more piece of homework for people. Mhmm.

It’s not really Bulwark. This is more of like a gift. It’s like a treat for the teacher like when you have to go outside.

I love presents.

You know, because it’s a nice day and class outside. If you’re if you’re just getting this on podcast, you might want to subscribe to the YouTube feed. This would be a good week for it. Joe Pertacone, not hard on the eyes. We had Amanda last week, you know, we’re going back to the uglies.

Okay, next week. Sarah’s back, JBL me, So this this is this is your time. Say that. I can’t say that?

Okay. Gentlemen, Joe, you have yet to say anything. Would you like to

No. I’m very happy to be joining to hang out with you guys on this podcast.

How would you rank the next level as far as the bulwark podcast that you consume. Where where would you put where would you put this one?

It’s it’s in the top five.

The top five.

Think we only have seven. Across the movie aisle, hardest hit. Mhmm. Okay. So let’s start out with how awesome I am.

You know, we sell a t shirt in our store, Joe. I don’t know if you’ve seen it before. I hope you have bought the merch, says JBL is always right. I would like to just spike a football and take a victory lap because yesterday at twelve o five, I published a newsletter, my newsletter, the triad, you can get it ding ding ding at the Bulwark dot com. In which I said, get yourself ready for Trump’s defense about these tapes in which he is caught bragging about the classified documents which he has, which he knows he’s not supposed to have, which he knows aren’t declassified, and which he knows he could have declassified what failed to do.

Right? Is the the ultimate smoking gun of all smoking guns. And I said, all you people out there hyperventilating about how this time, Rosco p coltrane finally caught the those Duke boys. Are wrong because we’ve seen this movie before. This is the access Hollywood tape.

The access Hollywood tape, we had the guy admitting to sexual assault, admitting that he knew the salt was wrong. And he even just came out and said, yeah, that was all just locker room talk. And ten hours later, literally ten hours later, Trump was on a plane and with a reporter from Semaphore, and he says, yeah, on those tapes, that was just bravado. That wasn’t really I didn’t you know, I was just waving papers around. We’re we’re just talking.

You know, this is how how people at my level do it, bravado. Tim? Thoughts.

It’s your second Dukes of Hazard reference in as many weeks which is I I don’t know if that’s hit I took a good audience we’re going for. But Yeah. It was I didn’t even catch it the first time, and I had to do some googling

after the

last episode. Anyway, kudos to you for having that right. Though that was it wasn’t the hardest degree of difficulty in the history and the annals of JBL is always right. Because it was so predictable. The Trump thing that he always had going for him in this instance with regards to the tapes is that he’s a liar.

And everyone knows he’s a liar. He’s a known liar. He’s a known exaggerator. Everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. And so you knew that avenge when backed into a corner, he would just be able to fall back on the fact that he’s saying, oh, you know, that wasn’t really true.

Right? And it’s just like, you know, where he was on the Forbes richest people list, you know, and when the when you know the tax man issue, you know, it came to any time that you know, he actually had to pay the taxes, you know, you just say, well, I was I was exaggerating. I was puffing up the value of all those properties.

Like he is about the height of Trump Tower.

Yeah. Right? Where he

would lie about how tall the building

That everything is whole life. Yeah. So in this case, was he lying? Were they really, Iran? War plans?

From Mark Millley? I mean, maybe not. I I probably, they probably were, but who but honestly, this is like a this is the most of all the defenses that he has put forth. Right? The SO’s defense, the presidential records defense, the ID classified them when my mind defense.

Like, of all of the ones he’s put forth though, only one that might have a chance of actually holding up in front of a jury unless there’s a witness to say that no. I like I looked down and I saw Tayron and I I don’t know what war plans look like. Are there, like, little missiles on the page?

Like Something big red stamp on it that said top secret.

Yeah. And I you know, I saw where it exploded. But you know barring that the I was exaggerating and I was really just waving around, you know, the Trump Tower, Moscow, you know, architecture plans that never came into fruition. That is his most legitimate. Defense I think and, you know, legally, but it’s also it also politically reinforces you know, why, well, the the, you know, swing voters aren’t really so keen on somebody that is a degenerate liar.

They’re keen enough. He’s like neck and neck with Biden and National, you know, the hypothetical general election polls. Joe, you know Congress. Do you know the people though? Because what do you have thoughts on whether or not the people are gonna look at this and be like, I don’t know, man.

Peace out. Or if they’re gonna just say, oh, yep. Yep. Yep. Sounds good.

Got it. Yep. Just bravado. That’s the way Trump is.

I mean, he’s saying that, but like, you also have to consider that they have collected documents from him, that they’ve gone and obtained. And so if this document is real and he’s like, obviously referring to it, a jury that’s going to be heavily scrutinized and picked so that like hopefully, there’s not a bunch of trumpers on the actual jury, then, you know, there could be Juri’s

down Florida, Joe. I hate to break it

to you.

But, no, but I mean, like, they’re gonna make a case that’s very detailed. And so when he just says, oh, I was just bragging. Well, they can be like, well, you’re referencing a thing that we now have, that’s really hard to explain away, and it really requires someone to be, like, in the camp of always believing him, which I don’t think that most people are.

That’s the legal perspective. Like how about give me give me the gen pop. The general populist perspective. Are Republican voters just gonna keep floating along with this because we’ve gotten a bunch of post indictment polling now, and Trump bumped up a little bit more.

And I really

know, man.

I really This is me. Small amount of people are gonna be always trumpers no matter what. And yes. But I think that, like, this makes him better for the primary, but it doesn’t make him better for the general. Every single thing that’s happened really, since January sixth, is worse for him than the independence that he lost in droves in twenty twenty, there’s a way it could reverse.

It could be worse for Biden too, and that’s where he wins. But, you know, I I can’t imagine people people don’t like to vote again for someone that they chose not to vote for the first time around. This isn’t, you know, Europe.

So this is actually a nice pivot because I would like to talk about the race. And on Tuesday, my Kevin had a little whoopsie. So Mike Kevin went on to

oopsie doopsie?

Little oopsie doopsie. You know, Mike Kevin also just likes to say things. And the speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy was on CNBC.

With a nice haircut.

I don’t know

if you noticed that, high and tight. He was looking he was looking Arpentcy NVC, I thought. The the words weren’t that great, but, you know

Like, you know, he’s a muppet.

I don’t I don’t

I’m sorry. I can’t get past the muppet features. So he said that sure. Like, you know, Trump could be a strong candidate against Joe Biden in the general election, but, you know, he didn’t know if Trump was the strongest, and Maga World lost their ever loving minds. The the phone lines and the text chain lit up It was about three hours, I think, before McCarthy sat down with Matthew Boyle of Bright Bart to try to walk it back.

More more. Matt Boyle three hours. Yeah. We’ll get there. Matt Boyle was busy.

I have some good some good sourcing on this. He was busy. He was hurting out that story on the racist Rhonda Santa supporter which we can get to at the end. Mhmm. My friend Pedro.

So he Matt Boyle kept Kevin waiting for, like, most of the day, the speaker of the house who wanted to grovel.

Right, Mark,

Kevin, the

speaker of the house waiting most so that before he was willing to help launder the speaker’s reputation in Maga world, that’s amazing. But here’s here’s what what McCarthy said as his his cleanup. He said, Donald Trump is stronger now than he was in twenty sixteen. And I would like to pause it to both of you, you can react to this, that that is undeniably true. That the Donald Trump of twenty twenty three right now

goes into twenty four. Twain table that?

You wanna table that?

Just for just for a second. I I because I just wanna bathe a little bit more and Kevin’s defenestration to use our friends at Puck’s favorite word. Like what he had to deal to deal against you. All Kevin said on CNBC. Was, is he the strongest to win the election?

I don’t know the answer. He said, yeah, he can win the election. I don’t know if he’s the strongest of all our candidates. A very, like, anodyne comment about it’s early, you know, he’s the he’s the Did he didn’t

know what he was doing. He probably didn’t just talk.

I don’t think he did. He’s probably just talking. He’s on CNBC early in the day. You know, he does coffee. The the the response to this you know, here’s here’s POLITica.

The texts, people advisors to Trump are calling McCarthy a moron on text to McCarthy. They’re asking Brian Jack who helped organize the coup and now works from McCarthy to play mediator. McCarthy called Trump to apologize personally, he had to call and apologize to mister Trump, tell him it’ll give him the the starburst just how he likes them. Then he got to then he got to boil despite all that. Despite Kevin begging for forgiveness in private.

Like a

dog. Like a dog, like now it hasn’t it hasn’t helped. Okay? Trump is still so up is now still so upset that he wants McCarthy to endorse him. He doesn’t understand why McCarthy hasn’t endorsed him yet.

Given all the work Trump did to help McCarthy in the speakership which I’m gonna get Joe’s take on. And and then you know McCarthy then in in addition to apologizing to Trump, then sent out some fundraising emails and texts to do more CIA saying Trump is the strongest all counts. Strongest opponent to buy them. She feels like he’s putting some on the scale a little bit. I don’t know how Tim Scott and all those guys feel about that.

And and then Trump Despite the fact that he did everything wanted Trump still mad because he doesn’t like the Kevin McCarthy fundraising on his name. I mean, this guy was just totally bitched out by Donald Trump yesterday for the sin of being like, hey, might get as strong as you might not. I got that’s all he did and and and the alpha nature of Trump it just shows just you know the the uneven bars that we’re on in this primary. Right? Like, now Kevin has now gone way overboard in puffing up Trump in a way that put his put his thumb on the scale in a way that hurts.

Ron DeSantis, Scott, etcetera. And none of them, he doesn’t have to call any of them to apologize. Has he? Has Kevin called any of them to apologize, Joe?

No. I mean, I I love now though how like a gaffe now is just like saying a widely accepted, like, normal thing. And he’s like, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. But I I don’t know if I buy the whole Trump is still mad.

I think that they the Trump world love this. They love it when they can demonstrate that I own the speaker of the house, because all of the rank and file members, the ones who have endorsed Trump, who haven’t endorsed him, who sitting on the fence and seeing Ron DeSantis get momentum, they all take notice when Kevin gets in line. And, like, everything about it so perfect, like that he goes to map oil for the press release, you know, that he does all of this and bags. And then

Growing up Ralph Wigham is how I described Matt Boyle. It’s a grown up Ralph Ralph Wigham. Yeah. That’s who they went to.

And he screws it up further by fundraising off of Trump’s name, which is a big no no. He was like, I have to do everything I can, and then he screws that up again. And so it’s just it’s kinda funny, but it’s also It really demonstrates the power that Trump still has. So, yes, he’s way stronger than twenty sixteen.

Well, Kevin have to endure like, do you think he’s gonna have to come out and endorse Trump?

He has to endorse him at some point anyway. Right? I mean, there there was never any question Kevin would have had to endorse Trump. But he from Trump’s perspective, I wanna try this out for you guys. I actually think you don’t want Kevin endorsing now.

You wanna hold that in your pocket for the next moment when you really need to change the conversation. There’s a piece today out about Trump’s return to Twitter, and then he’s basically holding that off because that’s another way to distract people. I feel like this guy probably has an entire desk full of like, you know, in case of emergency break glass, crazy things he can do to trim the waters and make people start talking about something else. And being able to push the button and make my Kevin endorse him is one of those. Right?

He gets indicted for a third time, and the an hour later, the speaker of the house comes out and says, despite this, I endorse Donald Trump because well, now the story is halfway about the house and Trump’s hold of the Republican Party and only halfway about the indictment. Right? I mean, this is why why waste that bullet now?

And Kevin endorsing him too could also come at some point during the primaries as a momentum boost because when Kevin gets on board, that will, again, signal to all of the rank and followers that it’s time to ditch Ron and get onboard.

So the other thing about all this is that Trump is is waiving around what here’s speaking of bravado from the first topic, like, waiving around that he could and Kevin’s speakership. But Kevin has to endorse him. Right? Because he controls that many like, is that even true?

Yeah. If Trump wanted, he could probably If he told Republicans to force a vacate the chair vote, they’d have it done the first week they’re back in session. I don’t know if it would be enough to actually remove him, but, like, if he it’s like, that’s that’s that’s a threat that he could totally follow through on. And immediately, dozens of Republicans would get on board, and so that’s something he’s got holding over his head too.

I would say the other thing that’s unremarked in this is the extent to which Trump gave McCarthy cover on the debt ceiling.

Yes. I hadn’t really thought about this actually until this morning. That like Trump did did, you know, he could have gone all in and tried to kill that deal. Right. Yeah.

And he sort of let Kevin have the rope.

Yeah. And and that was again, it’s just more, I think, proof that Kevin owes him. Would you agree here?

Or he’s owned by

him? No. Or he’s owned by him. Right? Yeah.

I don’t even sure what the difference is at this point. But let let’s go back to then Trump is stronger now than he was in twenty sixteen. In twenty sixteen

Which was Kevin’s cleanup statement.

His cleanup statement, which again, undeniably true. Right? He said two true things. The first true thing is, I’m not sure if he’s the strongest candidate, probably true. Second true thing, he’s way stronger than he was in twenty sixteen.

I think in twenty sixteen, most people expected Trump to lose by between eight and eleven points. At this point in the race, you know, Trump was still way behind everybody. Right? Right now, he’s over fifty percent in in general election match ups. He’s typically within four points or as much as a head by three points.

So within striking distance, Trump is absolutely a coin flip to become president of the United States. In a way which was totally not true in June of twenty fifteen. Yes?

I think it would depend on on what kind of situation you’re looking at. Is he’s I think he’s a lot stronger within the GOP. Than he was in twenty sixteen. There’s no question about that. In terms of the electorate, no, I just don’t think people were aware of how strong he was in twenty sixteen.

He was really strong in twenty sixteen, because he was just this, you know, not Hillary Clinton loudmouth who everyone was like, I like the way he talks. And now he has so many years of baggage and it’s not gonna stop. And that doesn’t matter in the Republican Party, but it matters with independence.

Yeah. Don’t know if I agree with that. I guess Joe Joe is making an objective comment about, you know, the likelihood of winning the president see and, you know, knowing everything. If we are if we are omniscient beings, you know, knowing everything June twenty eighth, twenty fifteen versus June twenty eighth, of twenty twenty three, was he more likely to win then than now? Probably then.

We didn’t realize it, but probably then, I I agree with Joe. But, like, strength in a political sense, you know, is is a lot a lot about perception. Right? Not not about prediction. And I think the perception is that he, you know, was back then that he had no chance to win.

That was the widespread view. That was a wrong view. It turned out, but it was the widespread view and I think that limited strength. I think that had people you know had people had a a crystal ball and then I’ll look into the future and knew he was gonna win he would have had a lot more endorsements in June of twenty fifteen to be Right? Now, you know, I think that there is a perception rightly or wrongly within the Republican Party.

The Biden’s weak. The Biden is is beatable. That you don’t know what’s gonna happen with you know Biden his health and and I think within the Republican party you don’t know what’s gonna happen. The other shoe might drop on Hunter Biden, who knows? Just could come in any day now.

So I think that the all of those reasons you know make Trump stronger. He is a stronger core base of support you know, among not just voters but among elites, you know, and he’s has more endorsements now than he would have had in in twenty fifteen. And objective as we all agree is objectively stronger within the party than he was than he was in twenty fifteen. So yeah, I I I think that that is I I think it’s pretty much right what Kevin is saying. And I don’t I’m not saying that means he’s gonna win this time, and he won in twenty sixteen but I I think that like it’s a political matter He’s stronger than he was in twenty fifth fifteen.

And part of this is that twenty sixteen allowed Republicans to shift their mental model for power. Right? Because of going into twenty sixteen, they thought that to to win the presidency, you had to win the most votes. Right? I mean, this is this is the way it’s been with the exception of like two or three times throughout all of American history.

In twenty sixteen, that happens. They realized, hold on. Hold on. This doesn’t have to be a black swan. We can do this every time.

We can lose by seven or eight or god knows. Maybe even ten million votes and still pull the inside straight to the presidency. And so it shifted their mental model for power towards minority rule as their actual strategy. Like, this is this is how, you know, they don’t about how do we get to fifty plus one? That is absolutely not in the Republican calculus.

And once you do that, it opens up an entire universe possibilities for you strategically. And I don’t know. I’m I’m very interested actually. I just listened to Bill Crystal’s conversation with Doug Sosnick, which is really outstanding and everybody should go go listen to. And the extent

to which you would have

It was

a Clinton political person.

Yeah. Clinton guy, incredibly smart. He’s like my EF Hutton when he talks. I listen. And when the Democrats are still they conceptualize their coalition as we’ve gotta get to majority status.

We’ve gotta get to fifty one, fifty two. We really would like to be at fifty three percent. We need to maximize our vote share. And the Republican view of the world is we don’t give a shit about vote share. Like, we we we are going we need base turnout and we can win this thing with forty six percent.

It’s an incredibly interesting, dangerous, but interesting political dynamic to have in the country where the two parties have totally different approaches to vote getting in theories of how to maintain power nationally.

Yeah. He also has his army. Which, again, he had a twenty fifteen, but there wasn’t a perception that he could turn them on people. Right. Right?

And I think this is another brand of political power. Right? Like, In twenty fifteen, there were some people that were worried about Trump running third party, you know, but a lot of people were like, yeah, like, when he got physical op, this might be a Herman Cain thing. You know, and everybody’s fighting the last war. Right?

This might be a Michelle Bachman thing. He just is gonna go to the top of the polls and then fizzle out, then everybody will get on board for, you know, Vanilla Old Mitt Romney. Right? Everybody will get on board for Jeff or Marco, whoever ends up winning. People now realize that that is maybe not true.

Right? And and his raw vote total goes up for twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. Watch out. I’m sounding, like, least Defonic. I do not think that that means that he actually won the election.

No. Weather County. That is rough. At the bellwether, gentlemen. To the bellwether counties.

Maybe they’re not bellwethers anymore. Something to think about. I don’t know. It’s one idea. One idea maybe is that there was a secret vote stealing.

Another idea is that maybe the old Bellwether counties have changed. Read Charlie Sex’s morning newsletter if you didn’t understand the jokes there about at least Defonic. But, you know, he has now that element which also, yeah, I think gives him a political strength that that he didn’t carry into into twenty sixteen.

Get an inside look at Hollywood with Michael Rosenbaum. Actress Kristen Ritter.

Your parents you travel by yourself.

It was a different time.

They just put you on a train. As a fifteen year old girl, you went to New York.

I went

on a bus, and

I did get picked up at Port Authority. They thought I was a runaway. What they do? They detain you and, like, get people on the phone, and then they finally let you go to your modeling job.

How many times did it happen?

Once or twice.

It just seems like it wouldn’t happen.

It happens.

Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Wherever you listen?

Can we talk about the state of the race? Because this is another piece of Trump power, the polling. Boy, howdy. If I was part of the team DeSantis Stan, Brigade, on Twitter, I would be having a flipping meltdown, and starting to wonder about whether or not you have time to switch horses. Because the DeSantis numbers are brutal.

We had a morning consult poll earlier this week, I think, but showed him down ten points nationally. In Iowa, Trump is at forty four DeSantis at twenty two. New Hampshire, Trump at forty six, DeSantis at fifteen, South Carolina. Trump, fifty two, DeSantis twenty. Like, I don’t know, man.

Ron DeSantis did his big announcement. He had a the the best rollout that he kinda hope for in terms of exposure. Fox is still basically on his side. Well, maybe not the best. Well, I mean, in terms of the number of him.

Like so, yeah, Twitter thing went bad. But everything after that was, you know, he got what he wanted. And — Sure. Sure. — you know, so I I did a crooked media podcast yesterday, and we were looking at political ads And I said, look, I am sorry, but I do not believe that somebody with a voice like Rhonda Santos’s voice can be elected president.

And I know this sounds terrible. But, like, Donald Trump has a good voice. Mitt Romney had a good voice. Brock Obama, amazing voice. Brock Obama had he not gone into politics or the law, could have made an entire living in Hollywood as the guy doing trailers.

Right? Because he’s he’s his voice. The quality of his voice is so good.

Debbie had a good voice.

Debbie had a good voice.

Well, it makes it interesting that he chose an audio only format. For his campaign launch. But anyway, I digress.

That’s one of the things that I went crazy for. And and to Santos’s voice, it just sounds like the type of the type of person who, if they were sitting next to you on a bus, you’d wanna punch. Is that wrong? I I don’t know how to, like It

just It totally totally right. Another thing he does is he goes, and another thing mid mid stump, and he does it multiple times. He goes, oh, and one more thing. And it’s like, why are you, like, yelling at me? And when I’m here to maybe, like, be your supporter.

And Whoever’s advising him on his stumps is terrible too because he’s he’s I was at the road to majority conference, and this is like an evangelical conference. And he’s talking about like ESG and like doing all the acronyms. And I’m like, these are church people, like, with the exception of Ashley Babot’s mom in the back, like, these are church people. Like, they don’t know what you’re talking about. They don’t care.

Like, why are you bringing this up? And he’s just like winding it to the crowd. And it was, you know, muted, like Josh Holly rabbled the crowd, way better Ron DeSantis did a couple hours prior.

He’s got the youth pastor thing going for him all the

way now.

Like he’s leaning into that. Yeah. The and he and he and you probably selling his better stubs actually because didn’t didn’t they give him a short time limit at the conference team. He

went over.

Oh, he went over? Yeah. He went over so long. Like, he needs a teleprompter

in the back expired, and he kept going, and he we kept doing that. And another thing.

He wasn’t gonna play by their woke rules. No. He never maxed down Tim.

Yeah. He needs a type five. He needs a type five and he’s got five minutes of good stuff and he should just just stick with that. But anyway enough of that Ron DeSantis advice. I’m with the poll number here’s here’s the book, kind of, and somebody’s been through this a few times.

Now these early states, you know people only say, oh the national polls don’t matter the national polls don’t matter look to the states. National National’s kind of matter when you’re up by forty. But

—

Yeah.

—

the the states, you just ran through all the numbers of of Island in New Hampshire, South Carolina, but let’s just let’s just pretend that Ron DeSantis makes a comeback in Iowa. I do think that’s very possible. It’s a different animal. It’s kind of hard to pull the caucus. Because the types of people to go are different and a lot of them aren’t aren’t responding to the woke pollsters.

But New Hampshire right now Trump at forty six desantis at fifteen. Christy at seven.

So New Hampshire has a

percent of the electorate. That is very Bulwark y. Okay? That’s very Tim Mallory. So I worked for John huntsman in twenty twelve.

We got sixteen percent good enough for third. Caseik in sixteen was the John Unsman of that race. He got fifteen percent. And then, Jeb, I forgot what we got. We got maybe seven or eight or something.

So throw that on top. So you’re getting to maybe twenty three percent. Some of those folks have left the party and aren’t gonna vote anymore in the Republican party and are just too grossed out by everybody. So you know, let’s call it somewhere between fifteen and twenty two. Is very fertile ground for a Christie.

And the thing that’s gonna have a hard time with those voters, maybe a couple of them, especially with how far right he’s gone on the cultural stuff. So if you got Trump at forty six and you’ve got Christie at We’ll give him the low end. We give him fifteen, you know, we’ll give him the John kasich number. That’s sixty one. Now I’m not a math major, but not a lot of room left.

Not a lot of room left. And so if you even if you win Iowa, you go into New Hampshire and just get slaughtered by thirty points, which I keep at twenty points like which he’s just staring down the barrel of. And I like what is his path out of that? Like like I I just it’s very hard to see what his path out of it is besides Trump just really helping out and like something happening with Trump that collapses him And that is why, you know, back to your point JBL about whether, like like the panic time is happening. And that’s why all these candidates are in they’re trying to figure out is there somebody else that can bridge together all the disparate votes And I just don’t I just don’t know who that might be.

I think that they’re really, you know, and he’s got this Christie problem in New Hampshire. I think he’s got the same problem with Vivek in Iowa. Got stuff coming down the Pike in July in August, I won’t spoil but I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to MAG Secret Podcast. Vive ache is very popular and there are a lot of Trump you know, when people when Sarah, you know, talks about her focus groups. And I’ve always said the key voter in this primary which I’m stealing from Sarah is is people that like Trump but my beard didn’t move on.

You know, they were into DeSantis for a while then they weren’t sure then they went back to Trump because they, you know, they wanted to stand by their man, but maybe they’re gettable again. You know that’s the that’s the broad middle of the primary, not the always trampers the like trampers but maybe move on. Didache is gonna get a big boost from Trump friendly conservative media folks who drive those people off of DeSantis into, you know, into someone else’s lane. So like the math is just the math is getting very hard. I I don’t wanna I’m not burying anybody.

These things are very influx you know stuff can happen. We haven’t even had a debate yet. Maybe Trump won’t go to a debate but boy those early state polls are are much more alarming than the nationals.

Joe, would you please explain to Tim why Rick Scott is the Newbridge candidate? Because

Rick Scott Boom.

Seems to be making noises like he wants to run. Hate commies.

No. Rick’s comm outs have been pretty adamant that he’s running for Senate. I think that he’s maybe doing the Glen Youngen thing where he’s keeping in his back pocket for end of the year. If there’s, like, a real gap, then he can jump in, or he’s posturing to challenge McConnell. I don’t really know what Rick Scott’s doing.

Here reminds me a bit of, like, Rowana does this in the house where he kind of puts his hand in every little pie and then never actually does anything. And so, I don’t really know what Rick Scott’s up to. I don’t think he’s looking to jump in at all. But if he does, maybe it’s

Are you electrified by his charisma? Like, when you’re just walking down the hallway, can you stand up? The hair’s

on back next stand up.

Yeah. I can’t get since Rick coming from a while away. Like, man, this guy has it.

Scott will talk to any reporter for unlimited amounts of time. He loves talking. Like, he won’t run to the Senate subway. So he he loves media, even talks to me. And so I think he would be very media focused if he did jump in, but I don’t know.

But sometimes do you get nervous when you’re talking to him? No.

I don’t get nervous talking to any of them. Except John Tester.

But I

don’t know. Just Rick, you just Being around somebody like Rick Scott who just like exudes star power. No. It’s

like being with Elvis.

Well, for you.

Joe is a stone fake don’t play poker with Joe Perticone.

I’m too.

This guy doesn’t doesn’t fall for any jokes, Tim. It’s not like having Sarah on this show. Joe makes us work for it.

Yeah. I like that. I don’t the Rick Scott thing is there. So I I guess I will say though, I think it’s megalomania. Right?

And I think that he does think that the party could turn their lonely eyes to him. No. Joe, you just think he likes the attention?

He thinks this. Like, he’s like, there’s a handful of these in the Senate and some more in the house where So it’s kind of like a running joke that you can tell somebody believes that they can be president. When you look at them, if they stand up and they button their jacket. When Rick Scott stands up, he buttons his jacket, and he gets that look like I’m going to be president. Even if they never even jump in the race or never even try, A good example would be someone like Mark Walker, former congressman from North Sarah Longwell, that man believed he was the living end and could be the next president if he wanted, but he’ll never run.

I think Rick Scott’s of the same caliber, where he’s led a very successful life where very few people have told him know, and so he thinks he can do anything. And that’s the vibe he gives off. Will he jump in? I don’t know. But if he if he wanted to, oh, he’d win in his mind.

What is the polling level at which the panic around the Santos becomes real real. Like, right now, I think it’s bubbling under the surface. But what number does he does he touch that makes people think Shit. We really gotta go to plan b here. Is there a number?

Are they so pot committed that they can’t get off?

I don’t think it’s a natural number. I think it’s these early states. And and I I will look at Vivec which I which I have to get right now. It’s Vivec. Mhmm.

It’s Vivec. Not Vivec. I’m Vivek. Vivek.

V. Just call them v, v for victory.

VR, Ramaswamy. If Vivek past them in Iowa, Christie passes him in New Hampshire, or Tim Scott passes in South Sarah Longwell, like they start to mensurate their diapers down there in Tallahassee, I think. I mean, I I just think that is really the sign that, like, it’s not working. Because that’s where he’s spending his time, you know, you can argue that the national numbers pop up and down or whatever. But As long as he’s a clear second in all of those, I I feel like people think that they’re stuck with them.

And they might be right by the way. I I I just have the nuts like you know unless something else happens because if you the interesting the other interesting poll number I saw this week was a head to head I forget who did it. One of the pollsters did a head to head of DeSantis and Trump Scott. This is national now. I forgot what the term number was, but DeSantis was at thirty three.

Scott was at twenty three. So that shows the like there is still there is a percentage of people that you need to be mad enough for them. Right?

Right.

You know, so it’s sort of like you know one of those you know games where you like put put you know when you’re whack a mole, you put one in on one end and it comes out the other end. Right? Like the more that you appeal to the types of voters that would want a Christie or a Scott, the more than you’re gonna lose some of the you know like Trump but maybe you might be open to voting you for you people. And and if Scott if Tim Scott is running ten percent below to Santos in a national head to head, then maybe there isn’t anybody else. Right?

Like, who else would it be?

That’s what I kind of believe, is that DeSantis is the strongest probably the strongest candidate against Trump and also probably can’t beat him. That is just as as you say, Trump and this is Sarah, if you’re listening, when someone has the nuts, this is this is not boy talk. It’s poker talk.

Joker talk.

It just means that they have a hand which can’t be beat. They have the top hand. So I don’t I don’t know, man. It’s all not good. Alright.

Tim, you had wanted to give Joe some BP here.

Yeah. I wanna put Joe in the hot seat. You ready?

Yep. I

just have some burning questions about the hill. I don’t get to go to the hill. You know, I I’m here in my little studio on Twitter. You’re you’re out there with not the people, but the Capitol Health people. And so you get some insights you know walking around that you don’t get from Twitter dot com.

Okay. This is these are gonna be all over the map just you know, goes long as short as you need. Number one, what what’s your sense for that there is this there’s this feeling that there is a lot of closet normals in the House Republican caucus, closet normals, that if if Donald Trump just disappeared off the face of the planet that some of them might put on their normal capes again, What what percentage of the house caucus would you say falls into the closet normal category?

Ten people.

Oh, ten. What’s now?

I I I would say I would say it’s the the some of the national security focus chairman of the committees and like that So

hold on, no. Just I wanna define our terms here. So are are there any public normals? Are you including the ten with the public normals? So I guess I’d say Don Bacon, I guess, is a public normal.

Right? So he doesn’t count the cause at normals because he’s publicly normal. Don’t love everything that he says, but he’s mostly normal publicly. Are there other public normals in the House caucus conference anymore? Validayo maybe, but

Valadeo. Some of these newer freshmen — Well, alert.

—

I think the word is still out on whether they’re norm Lawller was in charge of the gas stove bill, which was

—

Okay. — good for him politically. To do like, oh, I’m standing up to Kathy Ho Cool. That still shows that it’s kinda dumb. I think that, you know, like, there a lot of these freshman Laurie Chavez de Reamer in Oregon is kinda normal.

It’s just words kind of out still on a lot of these freshmen. But in terms of, you know, been around for a while, a new new house, Valadeo, I think the rest most

Miss Henry?

No. He’s probably the most normal of the highest influence people.

So let me put the question a different way. I I think that there was a period of time twenty seventeen. Where a lot of the staff on the hill, a lot of the Republican members, like, actively didn’t like Trump and shout on them all the time off their Right? And this is like a story is all the time. There have been books written about this, Jay Mart wrote the best one.

But you know, like I senses an outsider though in your opinion that’s not true anymore. Right? Like most of the people are pretty on board and like you’re not getting a lot of whispers like, oh hey, Bulwark guy, I need to vent. Like boy, these these guys are crazy. Like they’ve our mind.

Like like a lot of those people have logged themselves off of the hell work in or now in lobbying shops and whatnot. What’s your take?

I would agree with that. I would also say that, you know, if you were to do polling of just the staffers, it would probably look the exact same, but with desantis leading in Trump in DeSantis’s position.

Right.

That’s kinda what it would look like. A lot of Republican staff love DeSantis. They want DeSantis. You know, yeah, I see it on Twitter. There’s like so much love for DeSantis even though, like, he’s not doing well.

And then, like, there’s the attacks on how dare they say this about DeSantis, that kind of vibe. And you know, I would just say that, like, it’s that’s still in the same camp. Like, there’s nobody, like, nobody’s nobody’s a Christie fan on the hill. If there is, I don’t know who they are.

Let me let me float a theory for why this would be. Four years ago, five years ago, A lot of elected Republicans and their staffs thought that the Trump thing was a mistake, that it was just this was an aberration. It just sorta half and once he’s gone, we’ll go back to normal. And now they’ve all realized that this shit is forever. And one of my favorite maxims is if there’s no solution, then there’s no problem.

And there is no solution to the Trump thing. And so there’s just no problem. Like, why why bother complaining about gravity? Right? Gravity just is there.

Gravity doesn’t care if you bitch about it. And so, you know, stop venting and just this is the world you live in, and you either make your peace with it or you leave. Right? And I think most of them have made their peace with it.

Yeah. And a lot of these Republican members, like, they’re just very interested in doing their own thing and, like, racking up their wins. A good example is like someone like Chuck fleischmann from Tennessee. He is not particularly loony, but he’s a trumper and he’s, you know, he’s far right, but he’s not crazy, but he’s doing his job. And part of his job is being as mad as he can, but he’s not in the category of, like, a Bauber, for example.

This is an important insight that I think people don’t get because the only people that not forget casuals that even like political like even people that listen to this podcast that are in the top one percent of political, you know, interest you know, observers. They really only know the leadership, you know, the handful of people that go on the Sunday shows to don’t put, you know, the kind of normal people. And then the Beaubird MTG Gates

right crowd.

Like that’s all they know. And so they’re aware that there are a hundred other members out there, but you don’t have like a mental graph of them. And I think that there’s some people particularly in the Wishcasting API world that think that anonymous one hundred, the chuck fly ones are really just kind of like Paul Ryan, but they’re just not saying that they’re just quiet. Right? Like, you know, they’re just quiet about Yeah.

There’s even their head.

A real mess of values.

Yeah. The anonymous, you know, the anonymous meme person is Chuck fights. Right? It is fully mega. They would feel comfortable putting on the red hat.

Maybe they don’t do what Bobber does and do the performative shit, but like that’s the center of the caucus right now. Right?

Yeah. And and if you look at it like issue by issue, immigration, I would say most of them are pretty trumpy outside of the drone strikes angle.

Yeah.

Right. But if you look at like if you look at sport for Ukraine, any member of Congress named Mike is super supportive of Ukraine. Yeah. Sure. Mike Turner, Mike Rogers, Mike McCall, like, all these relevant chairman are very supportive of Ukraine, and they don’t say it loudly, but that’s telegraphed broadly to people in the know.

And so, as long as you don’t step on Trump’s toes, you’re able to actually accomplish these things. And that’s why there’s always like a, you know, a big fuss over like Ukraine funding, but there really isn’t, because most people are on board with it, and they just, I think, very delicately go forward with it.

Right. Right. So that’s why in defense of our AI friends are wishcasting, there still are enough folks left. Right? Like there are a handful of those people in the championship roles.

Right? Like they’re cycling out mostly. Right? Like the new people that are coming in are trumpier than them. It’s like a gradual effort.

Right? But there are You do forget about that. I I kind of sometimes forget that Mike Rogers is in Congress even though he’s a chairman. Like he only shows up to do the foreign policy stuff.

Tim, you don’t understand though? You you know who’s Super Pro Ukraine at the house level?

Oh, that’s

just fine. The Democrats.

So if what

you really care is, like, the serious foreign policy stuff and you don’t like the manga stuff, Why would you hang on to? Like, well, we’ve got the three mics. The three mics are still good on those

We need the three mics. Because we need the three mics because if it was Matt Gates and you know, Chip Roy and and Right?

I’m just saying that our AEI friends, when you, you know, look at this into the series issues, like, why not just be with the d’s? Right?

I wanna ask Joe about the diesel. I wanna ask Joe about the deal. The the squad has been really quiet. I feel like. What is what is going on with that?

Like, I I Aianna Presley like almost has been acting kind of like Abigail Spanberger lately. You don’t hear as much from Corey Bush. Who’s the other one from the West Coast? I can’t even think of her name. That shows you how little

— Jaya problem. —

problem she’s been. Jaya Paul. Thank you. What’s the deal with that?

So that that’s what I was thinking in regard to what we were just talking about is that, you know, think about someone like AOC. She’s not the bomb thrower that she was when she first got Congress. She’s getting along, and I think that the Democrats in the house are way more unified than the Republicans. Like, their version of the squad or the progressive caucus is not as interested in disruption as the Freedom caucuses. And so they Why do you think that is?

I don’t think there’s that big of a gap between the furthest left in the center of the Democrats, I think there are a lot more in the center. The blue dogs aren’t as big anymore, and there’s now the new Dems, which is basically just the blue dogs. There are a lot of members who are members of the new Dems coalition, who are also members of the progressive caucus. There’s no members of the problem solvers who are also Freedom caucus. Members, for example.

And so, I think that they understand that, like, their priorities Like, you see like Omar or AOC will descend on, like, some foreign policy related things. Like, that’s where they’re pretty divided. But the divisions aren’t even anywhere near as stark as they are in the Republican conference.

So another thing Biden didn’t get enough credit for I’m I’m trying to tickle in JBL’s pickle here but I make them feel like they’re being heard that they’re getting some stuff. It has worked I like whatever it is. I don’t I don’t claim to have a special insight onto this spot while I want your take but like whatever it is it has worked because they’re like they’re they’ve chilled out a lot.

Almost like they act like a governing party.

They understand, like, progressive wins, like, when Democrats make a deal, there’s going to be progressive wins in there. When, like, when Kevin McCarthy made the deal with Biden, there were a lot of conservative wins in there, but the goal of the Freedom caucus isn’t accomplishing conservative policy, it’s attention and disruption, that’s what it’s always been, that is not the case for the far left, as they want to do far left things. They don’t wanna just disrupt and own the floor. Does that make sense?

And again, there’s a difference between a party which is concerned with building a majority and a party which is pursuing power through minority rule. This is one more vector of how that dynamic plays out. Alright, guys. I have

a victory lot to do. Good job. I have a thirty second victory lot. Okay. Go ahead.

You’ve never heard of Pedro Gonzalez That’s good for you. A few people have never heard of him. He is a he’s a MAGA choice right for American greatness, but he had to turn to the light ish. He had to turn to not maybe not the light. He had to turn to the dusk from the darkness and he he left the American greatness crowd and he butted up at the DeSantis camp You remember that story, The Daily Beast Rolling Stone, did I forget who?

Sorry for not cutting you correctly about how DeSantis was recruiting all of these MAGa influencers on Twitter for his very very online campaign. Pedro is one of those. And he’s been an ardent DeSantis Rapid responder. On social media and being being very rude to the Donald Trump people. And Pedro has been shocked that Donald Trump might lie.

The Donald Trump might misrepresent himself. And he’s been expressing that those shocks feelings a lot on social media. And I made fun of him for this, you know, that that he’s that the scales fell from his eyes a couple months ago. And he proceeded to, you know, call me an androgynous femboy, you know, who has as weak physiognomy. How do you say that word?

The word about how that they say about the Jews of a certain physic physiognomy? I’m not I’m not don’t No. Let me say that. We’re not in the k k k. So I don’t know how to pronounce that word.

Anyway, he tweeted about my physiology, and it was he didn’t like it. My chin even like he sent a series of tweets. It’s okay whatever, you know. That’s fine. I wear their scorn with pride and couple months later, interesting little development.

A friend, Matt Boyle, big day from Matt Boyle at Bright Bart had leaked to him from some Trump fans some private texts that Pedro had sent and you’ll be very shocked that Pedro it does not like Jews at all and is very explicit about how much he doesn’t like Jews as a people, not just specific Jews. He think as a group that they’re bad.

Is it their rootless cosmopolitan nature that bothers you? Yeah.

Something like that. Had very harsh words about Ben shapiro’s Jewish and Candice’s Owens as you know whatness. And these texts were were not were not really didn’t seem joking. He says they’re a joke. They weren’t really fun.

I didn’t really understand what the joke was in a lot of cases. But they just Maybe they’re just bravado. And and Bright Bart hilariously, you know, to understand the Kremlinology of what’s happening on the right. Bright Bart in order to defend Trump and take out DeSantis found their morals. Right?

Bart wants to cancel somebody. Bright Bar is, you know, you’ve gone too far. You’ve crossed Bright Barts redline. A lot of things you can say, you know, you can talk talk about sending black women back to Africa even though they were born in America. That’s fine with Bright Barts, but you can’t talk about Jews as long as you’re a DeSantis supporter.

So the banner headline on Bright Bar yesterday was about this random Santa’s influencers racist texts. And so tough day for you, Pedro. I don’t know how your physiognomy is looking, but Ron DeSantis

thrown him over thrown him overboard? That’s what I’m looking for.

Not that I’ve seen. I don’t know. Joe, do you have any do you have anything to add?

I’m interested in who emerges as the Ron DeSantis outlet. Like, in this constant knifing back and forth between, like, influencers because there’s gonna be millions more of these, and who’s gonna be the one to publish leaked conversations or things of that nature of Trump supporters where it’s like, I think this is the beginning of a very petty conservative media war, and I wanna know who’s gonna be who’s gonna be the opposite of Bright Barton.

I love it. I think it’s great. I just think that they should all leak each other’s texts and you know I think that I’m really looking forward to it. All the edge Lord should should do everything they can to trash each other. And reveal what they’re saying in private.

I think that’s great stuff.

If somebody leaks my texts, lot of watch porn in it. A lot of — That’s what I would — lot of air. A lot of hot watch talk. A lot of me and buddies going back and forth about the new Omega Aquatera. And whether or not we’d like the blue dial design.

Lot of a lot of request from Shannon on what to pick up at Home Depot. You know?

And Olive Garden, if we have time, Alright, guys. Good show, long show. Everybody, hit the thumbs up, hit subscribe. Please. Please leave us five stars when you talk about how great the show is.

And go over to the bulwark dot com and sign up for Joe Pertacone’s newsletter. You get it mostly free, and the stuff that isn’t free is really good. You should pay for it. Thank you, Joe. Do that right away.

Everybody, we will see you on the Sunday show. This

week, we’re very taped. We can say it’s it’s sports. It’s worth but here’s here’s the thing. It’s fun. It’s it’s sports and it’s politics.

And if even if you don’t like sports ball, don’t be scared off because it’s very politics y. And we get into

Sarah definitely not listening

to this one. Sarah’s not. He she should because we get into like why sports media has has divided into into political tribes as well. We discussed the fall of our culture. We discussed, you know, being being millennial ads, watching basketball.

There’s a lot there’s a lot you’ll enjoy it. That’s good.

Awesome. We will see you on Sunday, guys. Bye.

The Bulwark Secret Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties.

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