Asa Hutchinson: Why I’m Doing This

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. It is July twenty six two thousand twenty three.

I’m Charlie Sykes, and I’m back after a couple more days off, which gives you a little bit of perspective on on today’s podcast, by the way. We’re gonna be joined by, governor, Acea Hutchenson, who is one of the very, very few Republican candidates who’s been willing take on Donald Trump directly. Now I’m not misleading anyone here that I think that Ace Hutchinson is going to be the nominee. He’s not one of the things that I hope to do with this podcast is to expose people to some of those voices that are still within the Republican party and willing to take on Donald Trump. Does not mean that he is no longer a conservative Republican.

Lisa Hutchinson is very much a conservative Republican. And and we do talk about that. On today’s podcast. But I wanna thank, Sunny Bunch and Mona Charen for sitting in. And if you have not been listening to Will Saletan fantastic series, on Lindsey Graham, I strongly urge you to do this.

As we’re doing the podcast this week, of course, we are still on indictment watch waiting for the next indictments to drop from Jack Smith involving not just January six, but Donald Trump’s entire conspiracy to overturn the election. And then, of course, There is the indictment, out of, Georgia, which is perhaps also imminent over the next couple of weeks. And this morning, there were a couple of developments, Rudy Giuliani. Now admitting I’m gonna use the word admitting that he lied about George election workers. You know, his facts are trying to spin this saying, no nor he didn’t admit anything.

He has just conceding it for the purpose of this litigation, which is just so much eye wash. Rudy Giuliani forced to concede that in fact, yes, he was completely full of it. So we are waiting on those two developments. And maybe that’s one of the reasons because we’re in this weird mid summer hiatus waiting for the next big story to drop, that it does feel like we are in this endless silly season loop. And I wrote about that in my newsletter morning shots.

I mean, for years, you know, in the middle of the summer, there would be these periodic silly seasons where the media would become obsessed with frivolous stories, outlandish stories, bizarre stories. You have lots of stories about shark attacks and things like that. But I was thinking about this over the weekend, a long weekend where I wasn’t doing this, which is that the season of unseriousness has now become year round. Right? I mean, because we don’t live in serious times.

And I wrote about this. It is interesting when you step back and you look, okay, what is actually the dialogue? What is the debate? What is America talking about? And I think historians, will look back on this and think, okay, so given all of these major world changing crises we are facing, what were Americans obsessing about in late July twenty twenty three.

Well, the right is melting down over the Barbie movie, which I will confess. I have not yet seen, but I will. They had no discernible impact at all on the box office. Apparently, Ben Shapiro, who at one time actually thought of himself or wanted people to think of him as the philosopher, young conservative out there. Apparently, spent like more than forty minutes railing on Barbie and then filmed himself, taped himself throwing Barbies into a drive, whatever.

And then, of course, we apparently have had a, and I’m glad to recuse myself from having to spend a lot of time on this, debate over whether slavery actually taught valuable life skills, Ron DeSantis, is the fanciest dive that we have seen since, the Scott Walker campaign. That’s actually getting worse. And This, of course, was from the Florida Education standards. And then, Greg Gutfield from Fox News said, hold my beer. You know, people in the Holocaust has also had to, you know, make themselves useful.

So whatever, New York Post actually ran a whole cover story about dog bites in the White House. I’m not making this up. Kevin McCarthy is floating a performative impeachment of Joe Biden that would accomplish absolutely nothing but would suck up all kinds of attention and perhaps succeed in normalizing and trivializing the impeachments of Donald Trump. I’m gonna ask a Ace said about that. Over the weekend, Elon Musk murdered Twitter.

I I have to admit I really did, enjoy the piece by, Oliver Darcy over at CNN, where he wrote about the murder. He writes Twitter, the text based social media platform, the played an outsized role in society by serving as a digital town square was killed by its unhinged owner, Elon Musk, on Sunday. It was seventeen years old. A zombie Twitter known only as X, reluctantly endures. This is where you think, okay, they’re living through the simulation.

This can’t be real. A work and disfigured platform, Darcy writes, x marches on like a white walker, an ugly shell of its former self under the command of a loathsome leader, really good game of Thrones reference there, whereas Twitter was once a fountain of authoritative information. X is a platform where trolls can pay a small fee to have their ugly content boosted ahead of reputable sources I guess I’m I’m never gonna look back on Twitter as, you know, this was the Garden Healthy Days of Twitter. But in any case, yes, the the decision by Elon Musk to, transform Twitter into x for reasons that I think it’s safe to say that absolutely no one understands at all. Nobody understands that.

And meanwhile, Republicans are really working very hard not to notice that their front running candidate for president in the United States is losing what is left of his mind as he’s waiting for the next indictments. I mean, you know, every single day multiple all caps screens. Meanwhile, apparently, there was a funnel cloud over the capital, which was a for alert. And, the seas may be setting new temperature records, but we’re talking about the Barbie movie. And I wrote something over the weekend in case you missed a public service announcement kind of followed up on something that I talked with, Will Saletan about last week.

This is a good moment to just remind yourself that you are not the ones that took the crazy pills. It is just the news cycle. And I’m still blown away by this that it was a week ago today that a federal judge confirmed that a jury had ruled that the former president of the United States was a rapist. I think if this federal judge declaring there was ample, arguably overwhelming evidence that Trump is a rapist by the words most common definitions, and even some federal and state criminal statutes out. K.

This is not locker room talk. This is an actual sexual assault committed by one of the most powerful men in America, and yet this ruling by a federal judge, judge Kaplan. Was not nearly the top news story of the day. And you look around in the news today, and it’s like it didn’t even happen. It’s just another data point in our deeply deranged political moment.

And despite all of that Donald Trump remains the clear front runner for the twenty twenty four Republican nomination, so Again, happy Wednesday. I’d also urge people to go back and, and read our coverage of what’s been happening with the Rhonda Sanders campaign. I mean, it feels like it’s a little bit overkill to, point out that Rhonda Sanders campaign is going nowhere JBL had a great piece earlier week that DeSantis reset is really a death rattle. And in fact, things are getting worse. Ron DeSantis had to fire staffer who had retweeted a video with Nazi imagery.

And what makes this interesting is this is a guy named Nate. I think it’s Hokman. He’d retweeted the video over the weekend. They’ve now deleted it, but you can find it. This is a guy who, has written for, you know, national review the New York Times at one point published him because he was considered to be this up and coming thinker on the right.

And, you know, so he’s been fired by the DeSantis campaign. After doing all of this. And as I wrote in my newsletter, you know, if only they had been warned about this, wait because Tim Miller In the Bulwark, called this shot four months ago. And I linked to this Ron DeSantis finds his voice a nat Con. This is national conservative.

A Netcom culture warrior who praised a prominent white Jonathan Last, and he did a complete takedown. Of this guy who was hired as the comms guy for the DeSantis campaign, this Nate Hockman. And, you know, how he had participated in Twitter spaces with white Jonathan Last, including people like Nick Fuentes, who’s an actual neo Nazi, the dispatch had written about this, and then Tim went back and listened to some of the tapes. None of this should have come as a surprise. I mean, what Tim wrote back in March was Nate Holkerman’s hiring sends a signal of what the Florida governor wanted to send us once for his campaign.

And, yeah, it did. And and DeSanda’s got it good and hard. So that’s where we are at on this Wednesday. As, we await for the indictment that is more likely than not ironically to strengthen Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party, which does not mean that it is a bad idea. It does not mean that it is a mistake.

It’s just a recognition of reality that this is going to be an extraordinary week despite the triviality of our debate. So we did wanna talk to One of the last remaining holdouts, a Republican candidate for president who still seems to believe that Republican voters want to go back to pre trump conservatism and are actually concerned about things like public policy. So listen to our discussion. Governor ASa Hutchenson is Republican presidential candidate former two term governor of Arkansas from January twenty fifth eighteen to January twenty twenty three. Also, a former member of Congress, he held two positions in Bush forty three’s first term administrator of the DEA and then under Secret Podcast border security at the Department of Homeland Security.

So a long and storied career, first of all, Welcome to the podcast governor.

Well, thank you. It is, great to be with you today.

Well, learn to start with the basic existential question. Why are you doing this? Why are you running for president in a Republican primary that clearly wants a different kind of Republican than the kind of Republican that you have been the last forty years or more. Why are you doing this?

We’ll see about, what they voters want But the reason I’m running, of course, is that I think Biden’s policy takes our country in the wrong direction. We need to have a pro growth energy policy. We need to controlled federal spending moved toward a balanced budget. The border is a great concern to me. And so all of those issues indicate to me we need a new direction.

And now you look within the Republican Charlie Sykes, we need a course correction. And I have been engaged in building the Republican Party in Arkansas for decades. We’ve built it. We’ve come the majority party and I I wanna make sure that we continue to be a party that invites people in, that we expand our base. We don’t shrink it.

That we stick with conservative values and not just become, the party of discontent. And, that’s, my message. I think there’s a vast majority of Republicans that agree with that. We need to have leadership in the White House and not chaos. And, that’s demonstrated in my leadership over the last eight years as governor.

But also through my career, where I’ve had to deal with numerous crisis, and I’ve handled those. I’ve kept us on track. That’s kinda leadership that we need in Washington.

Okay. So you use the term course correction, which is somewhat mild considering that this right now appears to be Donald Trump’s party. It has been dominated by Donald Trump for the last seven years. And polls would suggest that a majority of Republican primary voters are okay with Donald Trump is their nominee even though he is about to be indicted once again. So in terms of running for president, Are you running in a party that you still recognize?

Donald Trump has changed the party. And, he’s changed it into a losing party. We’ve lost the last election. We’ve lost the last presidential election. And, that is at his feet.

And it’s because it’s become about him. It’s about ego. It is not about ideas. It’s not about our conservative principles. And so he has changed it, and I’m passionate about needing to change it into a different direction from Donald Trump.

We will lose again under his leadership. So I wanna make that perfectly clear. And public service to me is about service. It’s about not about yourself, but it’s about the country, it’s about others. And what we can accomplish.

And I know that a second Trump administration would be about revenge. It would be about him. And I want it to be about our country. I wanna be about bringing out the best of America, and that’s my theme. That’s what leadership is about.

And we’ve always had times of division in our country, but we don’t need leaders that capitalize on division. We need leaders that heal division and try to reduce that. That takes a change in direction for our party.

So let’s talk about this very peculiar moment we’re in right now. This is not a normal political campaign. This is not a normal political season. The former president may be indicted in the twenty four, forty eight hours. Those indictments may have come down before people actually hear our conversation.

So let’s talk about the indictment his role in trying to overturn the election. You have suggested that he should withdraw from the campaign. So give me some sense of of the impact of these indictments. So far, it appears that with every indictment, he strengthens his hold on the Republican Party that his numbers actually go up the more crimes he’s charged with.

Well, that’s been the, pattern and his started with the indictment out of the state of New York, Alvin Braggs case, which most legal scholars said, didn’t make sense. Was a stretch. And so that gave the sense to the American public that our justice system is not working well. And then you have Jack Smith’s indictment for the classified information. That is much more serious and now it’s set for trial May twenty first.

In fact, it is very serious because it deals with our nation’s secrets. And former president Trump, who used it those secrets for entertainment value. And so that is set for trial in May. And so let’s just think about this for a second. This is the most unpredictable political season in my lifetime because no one can predict the outcome.

And whenever you look at Trump that’s running high now, but we’re asking the voters to have to vote in Super Tuesday in New Hampshire, in Iowa, when these cases are pending and they don’t know whether they’re gonna be voting for somebody who will be ultimately convicted of serious felonies or whether he’s gonna be acquitted. We don’t know the outcome of that, and it puts the voters in a terrible position. And that’s why I’ve said he should step aside for the good of the country because no voters should have to be put in the position. It’s gonna be an issue. We’re gonna talk about the fact that these cases are pending and it puts the party, it puts the country in a very difficult position.

But that’s where I think things will change. People start realizing we can’t win with this chaos with his uncertainty, and they’ll move in a different direction.

Okay. So this argument about whether or not he could win or not. They just wanna clarify that even if the polls would suggest that in fact he could win, would you support Donald Trump in November if he is the Republican nominee?

Support somebody who is convicted of serious felonies. I’m not gonna support Donald Trump under those circumstances because we knew one is just flat wrong.

Mhmm.

That’s not what our country is about, not what the Republican party is about. And secondly, it would lead us to sheer disaster in November. And so, I wanna be on the debate stage, and we’ve met the polling criteria But they have a pledge that’s required, and I’ll pledge to support the nominee of the party because I’m confident it will not be Donald Trump. And that’s not, what I expect. That’s not somebody that deserves a nomination.

Okay. But if it is Donald Trump, I’m I just wanna clarify this because I I think, Chris Charlie Sykes said, look, I’m I’m gonna sign the pledge because I wanna be on the debate, but I’m gonna take it about as seriously as Donald Trump took his pledge. In other words, like, no. I’m not ever gonna vote for Donald Trump. What is your position?

So you’ve made it clear that if he is convicted of a felony, you’re not gonna vote for him, which just think about how five minutes ago, that wouldn’t have been a controversy statement. But if he is not convicted, I just wanna kinda pin you down on this. Would you vote for Donald Trump in November if he has not yet been convicted.

Well, I wanna do it this way because I wanna be on the debate. Mhmm. And so the debate says you’re gonna or the nominee of the party. I will sign that pledge because I’m confident that Donald Trump will not be the nominee of the party. Okay.

Now you’re pushing me a little bit further but that would disqualify me for future debate. Okay.

So I

wanna take this a step at a time. I’m not pledging. I’m gonna support Donald Trump because I do not believe he will be the nominee. That’s an important point to get me on the debate stage.

I thought it was really one of the more extraordinary moments of this ordinary political year, I believe, was when you asked the Republican National Committee to clarify this pledge saying now, would there be an out or someone who is convicted of a felony, like, for example, violating the espionage act. And my understanding is the Republican national committee said, no, absolutely not. You you You have to you have to plan to support somebody even if they have been convicted, which gives you an indication of where the RNC is on all of this.

Was disappointing. They have set some artificial barriers to get on the debate stage to begin with. They’re trying to narrow it very quickly and I view that’s the responsibility of the caucus goers in Iowa and the New Hampshire voters to narrow the field. Mhmm. Give the candidate a chance to make their case, and the debate is an important part of it.

Everybody’s waiting to make a decision till they see the debate. So we want the candidates on there that helps the voters. And to me, that’s the whole role of the party is not to narrow the field artificially but to give the voters a chance to decide, it’s gonna narrow. It could narrow quickly after, the Iowa caucuses, but we need to give the voters a chance.

So you issued a statement last week that Trump likes to say that he’s a victim in the January sixth investigation, but you you questioned that Donald Trump is not the real victim here when we’re talking about January six. Is he?

No. He’s not the victim. In fact, the victims are our democracy. The victim would be the, police officers who were injured and the deaths that were caused at the attack on the capitol. And, I’ve said from the very beginning that Donald Trump bears responsibility.

He summoned the people there. He misled them. That resulted in an attack on the capital as to whether they can get a criminal conviction is another matter. I don’t have the level of evidence that Jack Smith has. Mhmm.

But

clearly, in my view, he’s morally responsible and certainly not a victim. And that’s what he’s going to be talking about, over the next six months, is, woe is me, woe is me, and he brought on himself, and it does not demonstrate leadership and the kind of president that we need or commander in chief.

Okay. So we all saw what happened on January six. I’m not gonna relitigate it here. You watched what was happening. It has been documented extensively.

Can you explain because you’re out there on the hustings? Why are so many Republican voters and leaders? Reluctant to number one hold Donald Trump accountable for it and and number two to recognize the gravity of what happened. Why has there been such a tendency do you think to minimize this? What do you hear when you go out?

And you talk to Republican voters about January six because it does feel as if we have alternative realities that when you talk to many of these folks, it does seem that they have a completely different view of what we know happened on at the Capitol on January six two thousand twenty one.

How do you

explain that?

Well, because they have trusted Donald Trump in he has said, and he has misled them. And that has created a false narrative about January six. Now the vast majority of Republicans understand completely that was attack on our democracy. It was unacceptable. The fact that not enough leaders are speaking up about that reflects right now the hold that Donald Trump has on the party and the fear that candidates have about him coming against them, nobody wants that.

But this is a time for leaders to step up and speak for our democracy, to speak for America, and to be clear that Donald Trump’s conduct is unacceptable, unacceptable in our democracy, unacceptable in the in the Republican Party. And so right now, we have not enough voices. I mean, I’m out there, and I’ll continue to be out there speaking the truth.

Mhmm.

And the few others are out there, but we need more that counter the victimization that Donald Trump is, spousing, the misleading facts about January six that he has putting out.

Mhmm. So you have been venturing into hostile territory. You actually went to the turning point USA action conference recently And this is a Supermaga Supertrumpy organization headed by Charlie Sykes. So first of all, what were you thinking when you said, okay, willing to go there. I’m going to accept their invitation.

Where did you go?

Well, I went there because, it’s an important audience. It’s young people. That are coming up and wanna be engaged in the political system, and I don’t want them just to hear from Donald Trump. I want them to see other leaders in the party and particularly ones like myself that’s got a breadth of background and service, but also in building the Republican Party. And so that’s why I went there, and it’s very important to note that there was booing there, but it was clear to me and to others that the thousands of young people were listening and wanted to hear what I had to say.

It was the adults that they led into the room that were all about Trump that started the booing, it wasn’t the students. And so, I kept going because I knew the students were listening and had a great time with them after my speech as well. But that’s why I went there.

You

mean, I personally give you credit for going into the lion’s den. I mean, so you also, went to family leadership summit in Iowa with Tucker Carlson, and you had to know what that was going to be like. Right? But

—

Yeah.

—

you went. And right off the bat, He goes after you about your veto of a ban on gender affirming care for transgender youth in Arkansas back in twenty twenty one. This has now become one of the hot button issues in Republican politics right now. So talk to me a little bit about this because, I mean, right now, this seems to be the issue. I mean, you have Ron DeSantis who is, his campaign is putting out ads essentially implying that he would be the most anti transgender candidate ever, that he would challenge their existence to live.

And here you are, you’re running for the Republican nomination. And you actually vetoed as the governor of Arkansas of vetoed a ban on gender affirming care. So first of all, tell me why you issued the veto and how you feel about this issue.

Well, first of all, had I been able to pick a different moderator? I would have picked a different moderator than, Tucker Carl but that wasn’t my choice. And this was an important audience. These are evangelical leaders in Iowa, and I wanted to make sure I could make my case and defend my position. And, of course, it’s difficult with, a moderator that is more interested in expressing his views than learning someone else’s, but Why did I veto it?

Because, I support parents, and there’s always a line to be drawn. I don’t believe there should be transgender surgery for minors. And we don’t have that in Arkansas, and and I would sign a law very quickly that prohibited that. That’s a permanent change. But if you’re looking at temporary treatments that parents decide with their doctors are necessary, I stand with parents.

And so I vetoed that bill. I was overridden, but the courts have held that as unconstitutional, which affirms what I did was the right thing. And so I believe in making my case. I’ll go to the view, which is not always the most friendly audience they were to me. Mhmm.

And, I believe in going where people are listening, and I can make my case defend my positions.

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So I do wanna focus on on the top lines of this campaign, but other things in the news cycle, I think that I wanna give you a chance to address Ron DeSantis has been going through some things. I think it’s safe to say that this campaign has not been going well, but it’s very specifically you dealt with issues of educational standards for for many, many years. And you have these new guidelines that have been issued by the Florida Board of Education. These are the new rules for teaching Bulwark History. And it it it includes the line.

Instructions includes how slaves develop skills, which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit. So your your thoughts, fellow Kennedy will hurt is pushed back strongly on that. I think Chris Christie has as well. Do you think that slaves develop skills that could be applied for their personal benefit?

The whole language acts like there’s some benefit to slavery, and that is impossible. It is wrong. They should never be conveyed in a textbook or in a lesson. So it’s just flat out wrong. It’s like taking us back to the fifties or the Jim Crow days, and that’s the wrong direction for America.

It is critically important that our young people understand what happened in the civil rights movement, what happened in the oppression of African Americans all across the country during the days of Jim Crow. In Arkansas, we had the Elaine race, mass her.

Mhmm.

And in Tulsa, you had the bombing of the African American community. These are things that cannot be ignored and it’s not any different than the holocaust. The holocaust is not fun exercise. Some people are gonna feel poorly about learning of those tragedies, and we’ve got to teach them. That’s how you stay away from that kind of attitude, violence in the future.

And so I don’t like changing our instruction. It has to be taught particularly when you’re looking at what happened during the days of our civil rights struggle. And in the days of slavery.

So let’s go back to the the whole issue of why you are running. You are a conservative Republican, in the in the anti trump world, there are folks who believe that you have to align yourself with liberal democrats or even become a Democrat. I’ve been listening very carefully lead to you. I think it’s very, very clear that you remain a conservative Republican. So briefly, can you find what your ideology is when you say that you want to adhere to conservative principles what do you mean?

And then I’m gonna follow that up. I ask you where you disagree with Donald Trump, but let’s start off with a definition of what you think conservatism should be, what it should mean to be a conservative republican.

Well, a conservative someone who believes in individual responsibility, equal opportunity, and a limited role of government. That’s fundamentally a, conservative position. In addition, you know, conservative has a view of America that is one of strength and that strength helps keep peace in the world. And those, principles go back to Abraham Lincoln, but they also echoed back to Ron Reagan, which I served as United States Attorney, the youngest one in the nation under Ron Reagan. And, he espoused them.

That’s what drew me to the Republican Party, and those conservative principles are true today. I apply those when I was governor, I lowered taxes from seven percent down to four point nine percent. Mhmm. Individual income tax rate. When it came to shrinking the size of government, We had three thousand fewer state employees when I left the governorship than when I started.

So we reduced the size of state government, and we continue to invest in education and raising teacher pay. Those are all conservative principles. I had a fundamental view that we ought to grow the private sector of our economy more than the public sector. That’s a conservative principle. We did that in Arkansas We need to do that as a nation.

Those are the values and principles that are conservative that I carry forward into the future.

So if we were having this conversation in twenty fifteen, what you just articulated would have been the position of almost every conservative Republican in America. Does that party exist anymore? And I don’t wanna be unfair by saying you’re a Reagan Republican or a Bush Republican. You can describe yourself however you like. I guess the question is does that party exist?

Do you honestly think that we can ever go back to that kind of pre trump conservatism or has the party in the base just moved on?

Well, the debate today is do we use the power that the left has always used

—

Mhmm.

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which is the using the power of government to enforce your social mores. And the left has always done that and using the levers of government to accomplish their agenda. Republicans, there’s some that push that. Ron DeSantis has pushed that to say, we don’t like what Disney said, therefore, we’re going to use power of government to punish them. To me, that’s not conservative.

And that’s a fundamental debate today. Some people disagree with that. They say the left’s got away with it, so we’re gonna do the same thing when we get in government, and we’re gonna use the power of government to enforce, our values. And there’s always some gray areas there, but that’s a debate that’s important. And so that’s part of what this campaign is about.

Part of what twenty twenty four is about, what direction are we gonna go as a country? And, I wanna make it clear that I’m gonna reverse Biden’s policies when he’s pushed The social agenda from the left, I’m gonna reverse that. But we’re gonna take a neutral position and let local school boards and parents be involved. And decide, and our value should be shaped by our individuals in our country, by our houses of worship. And is that a popular message today, we will see, but it’s the right message that’s conservative.

So I think that that’s a fair description of what people like Rhonda Sand are pushing here. In fact, you know, Jonathan Last is a very interesting piece, over at New York magazine, saying that there is, in fact, this new sort of master theory among where some Republicans that radical leftist had conducted this long march through the institution seizing control of American culture education and business. And the Republicans now need to retaliate by using the same tools, use the full power of government in order to punish their enemies and to reward their friends and to dislodge their power And clearly, Donald Trump is embracing this as well, saying I am your retribution. I don’t think that there’s any question about that. So let’s talk a little bit about you’ve described yourself as a pre Trump conservative Republican.

What is your fundamental ideological difference with Donald Trump? Leaving aside the criminality, the lying, the misconduct, and all of that stuff, on what issues do you disagree with Donald

Well, first, Donald Trump and his team did some good things while he was in office, but I disagree with him on spending. He he did not control federal spending. He challenged the Democrats to spend more rather than less. And he added trillions of dollars to our national debt. So he did not do well in that regard.

Secondly, I disagree with him on how he handled the pandemic. I think he made mistakes during that mistakes of leadership. And also, I disagree with him in areas of foreign policy. He’s an isolationist. He wants to pull back America’s strength and role in the world.

He Will Saletan actively, disband NATO and the alliance that has served our European allies and the United States well. And so there’s a number of policy disagreements, and it’s illustrated by his lack of support for Ukraine and wanting to in the war by giving Russia what they want. And then secondly, how they pulled out of Afghanistan. He started even though the pullout was under president Biden that was disastrous, the negotiation with the Taliban started under president Trump. And that was a mistake.

And this just illustrates, his his view of the world that America ought to shrink in its leadership versus maintain a leadership role.

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I believe they call that a mic drop.

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So now back to the course race issue. You want to be on that debate stage. You need a certain number of donors. You need to, hit a certain threshold told a polling, you’ve acknowledged that you’re short of the number of donors. You need forty thousand.

Correct?

That’s right. I need forty thousand. We’re not there yet. And we’re pulling out all the stops to get there. It’s asa twenty twenty four dot com.

It’s how everybody can go to that website and help us out. Dollar counts as a donation. So, the candidates are using a lot of different means to get there, and we’re working hard to do it as well.

So I guess the question is in this, large Republican field, there are three of you who have been willing to challenge Donald Trump go at him both ideologically and in terms of his character, there’s will heard. There’s Chris Christie, and then there is you asa Hutchinson. Is there room in this party? For the three of you. Let’s leave aside whether or not you represent a viable faction within the party.

I would certainly hope that the three

of you at least would but is there room for in your mind? Aren’t you cannibalizing one another?

Well, sure. I was the third one in the race. And I was the first one really to speak out against Donald Trump as a candidate. And since then, we’ve had, nine more join us. And so sure that dilutes the message, the strength.

And, you know, Chris Christie’s, someone that’s got a powerful voice out there, and he’s I’m sure divide it up to a certain extent, the, non trump vote. But that’ll sort out over time. Those who want different leadership are gonna have to decide who’s the best one to carry that message into the fall campaign that could bring in independence and suburban voters. I’ll make the case, and I’m the right one to do that. Mhmm.

Others will, and we’ll see, what the voters say.

So there’s a knobhead piece, which I’m sure you’ve seen in the Wall Street Journal by mid romney, urging, particularly, it’s aimed at the donor class. Doners do not fund a Trump plurality and harkening back to twenty sixteen. Where Republican candidates wouldn’t drop out soon enough. And he writes, despite Donald Trump’s apparent inevitability, a baker’s dozen Republicans are hoping to become the party twenty twenty four nominee for president, that is possible for any of them if the field nominates to a two person race before Trump has the nomination sewn up for that to happen, though. Republican mega donors and influencers large and small are going to have to do something they did not do in twenty steam get candidates they support to agree to withdraw if and when their paths of the nomination are effectively closed.

That decision day should be no later than say February twenty sixth. The Monday following the contest in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. Do you agree with that?

Well, he has some good points there, and I agree that we have to shrink the number at some point in this campaign, but he picked the date of February twenty eighth. And the problem with that is, it’s before super Tuesday. You know, I’m from Arkansas. And so it’s before Arkansas votes. It’s before the southern states vote.

It’s before California votes. And those are key voters and opportunities for someone who’s from the south to be able to garner support. And so his points well taken And I think everybody will be self evaluating as we move into next year, but don’t

set an artificial

time frame that precedes the super Tuesday and the vast majority of states is gonna get to vote on that day.

So if you are not able to make the debate stage, would that be the moment where you would make the go no go decision?

It depends and not necessarily because even though you might not make the first debate stage, you’ve got a second debate opportunity. And so they’re gonna change the criteria for it, but you have an opportunity to make that criteria. So you gotta measure whether you can and be successful with the tools that you have. Let me emphasize again. I intend to be on that first debate, and we’re working hard to get there.

So you’re a former member of Congress, you have watched your former colleagues and you’ve seen what their priorities are. Give me your sense of Kevin McCarthy’s leadership particularly, his decision to begin floating the idea of spending several months now on an impeachment of Joe Biden. And and this comes just as it appears that Republicans are on the path to force another government shutdown this fall. Let’s start with the government shutdown. What would you recommend to your colleagues in Congress to do with spending?

Well, I thought speaker McCarthy did a very good job negotiating

with president Biden on the last dead extension, which did set some priorities for reducing spending over time. Obviously, conservatives say it’s not enough, but he pulled that together and I thought he did a masterful job of it. You know, he’s got a difficult environment there in the house with, the freedom caucus, with those that are pro trump, that are demanding, you know, an impeachment of the president. So he has to navigate that. He’s gotta have some room to do it.

But when it comes to an impeachment case, there’s obviously concerns that I have about the whistleblower’s and, the allegations that have been made that include questions about president Biden. He’s gotta do a better job of answering that. Was he in the room? He is still not clear. Was this just Hunter Biden blowing and going and bragging or was the president involved?

Those are legitimate as to how you get those answers, one of the present needs to be more forthcoming, but there needs to be some ground truth there. Obviously, I don’t think impeachment is ripe. It’s not good for our country, but let’s see where those facts go and they haven’t been developed yet.

Yeah. I mean, just to remind people. I mean, you go way back with the Clinton’s when you were a federal prosecutor back in the nineteen eighties, you actually sent Bill Clinton’s brother to jail. And when you were in Congress in the late nineteen nineties, you were very involved in the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Do you think that was a mistake back then looking back on it?

No. Because you had serious allegations of obstruction of justice, which is a case that I presented, and lying under oath. So those are very substantive, criminal actions that had to be dealt with. And so, no, I don’t think it was wrong. But the constitution worked.

And just like I don’t think it was wrong for us to pursue the impeachment, I accept the verdict to the Senate when they acquitted him. And in the same way, though, as we look at allegations that have the administration ought to be impeached, we’ve got to reserve impeachment for serious wrongdoing and misconduct and things that cross the line into corruption and not simply policy disagreements. And that’s where, we’ve got to really draw the line and make sure we frost. Otherwise, it diminishes our constitution.

And I think that that seems to be the moment that we’re at right now. Tell me whether you disagree with me. The Republicans seem to be pursuing sort of a two track policy regarding impeachment pushing for the spongement of trump’s to impeachments and then an impeachment of Biden, which would basically have the effect of normalizing and trivializing impeach Right? I mean, if every president is impeached, then it becomes no big deal.

I agree completely with you. It diminishes it as a serious institutional tool and outcome, and it diminishes the institution of Congress that they’re simply playing politics constantly and they’re always going to impeach the opposing party if they’re in power. So here again, there’s talk about Secret Podcast whether he should be impeached or not. Mhmm. He’s accomplishes the policy of the administration.

That’s what elections are And I disagree with how they’ve handled border security, but I don’t believe it rises to the level of the kind of conduct in our founding father’s invasion that would justify impeachment.

Governor Ace, Hutchenson. Thank you so much for joining me on the Bulwark podcast. And that website is again?

Asap twenty twenty four dot com.

Thank you so much for your time this morning.

Great to be with you.

And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow. We will do this all over again. The Bullbrook contest is produced by Katie Cooper, an engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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