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Bart Gellman: The Impeachment of Joe Biden

November 3, 2022
Notes
Transcript

If Republicans win the House, MAGA voters will expect Republicans to impeach Biden, and Trump will demand it. The rationale won’t even matter — and other administration officials are likely to be impeached as well. Bart Gellman joins Charlie Sykes today.

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This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:08

    Welcome to the Bullework Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. You might remember Bart Gelman writing the worst possible timeline about the twenty twenty election, and it turned out to be absolutely on target. Well, he has a new piece. Describing what to expect from a Republican controlled House of Representatives.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:28

    And Bart Gelman, Staff Frederic at the Atlantic joins me on the podcast. Welcome back, Bart. Thank you. You are a winner of three Pulitzer prizes. So my first question obviously is where do you keep them?
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:40

    I mean, you keep them in your office. You know what I mean? Really? I mean, as someone who is never gonna win a Pulitzer prize, I I just have to Vicariously lived through this. Do you
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:50

    have one on the wall? I do have one on the wall and and one little acrylic statuette. But it seems a little much to display.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:59

    Oh, I don’t think so. I think they would be legitimate to actually, you know, have it, you know, pressed into a medallion and just wear it everywhere. But anyway, that would just be me. You’re also the author of several books, Dark Mirror Edward Snowden, the American Surbalance Society, and Engler the Cheney vice president. So before we dive into your latest piece about the looming Biden impeachment, just give me your thoughts watching as somebody who has written and studied the Cheney Family, or should we Dick Cheney?
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:28

    Your thoughts watching Liz Cheney out on the campaign trail endorsing Democrats, including a free liberal democrat running for senate in Ohio, Tim Ryan. I mean, this is not something that anybody would have predicted a few years ago that Liz Cheney would actually be endorsing Democrats in a general election.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:49

    You know, I I think she grew up with a father, and I think she shares with her father a deep down belief in what she’s saying. Thing I I thought about Dick Cheney as though he was willing to lie, and he played politics like anybody else by and large, if he said it, he believed it. He was a he was a true believer and actually kind of a zealot for his beliefs. And one of the core beliefs that Liz shares with her father is in the basic rule of law and the constitution. I knew there are a lot of Chinese critics who would disagree with that,
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:28

    but
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:29

    I believe that to be true when I wrote angler and I believe it to be true of Liz Chaney now, and she clearly has sacrificed self interest for principal
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:40

    It was interesting watching Dick Cheney cut and add in the final week of of her campaign. Everybody knew she was going to lose that election. She was willing to give up proceed in in congress. I mean, she lost overwhelmingly, and there is the former vice president of the United States, wants a bipartisan Republican cutting an ad that just held nothing back, just went right at Donald Trump. So, I mean, when we talk a lot about Liz Cheney, but Dick Cheney is right there with her right now.
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:07

    I mean, again, what a strange moment, what a strange and tangled road he’d been on? To have Dick Cheney cutting an ad, attacking the sitting, you know, a former Republican president of the United States. That that’s also quite remarkable for
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:22

    him, isn’t it? Obviously It is. And here I have to say, it took them both long enough. Yeah. I
  • Speaker 1
    0:03:29

    I
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:30

    I know that Dick Cheney. Yeah. And I presume Liz were both seeding at Trump’s multiple crimes against the rule of law and outrageous policies. If you can even call what are you at policies. For years before they said anything.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:51

    They knew which team they were on. They were Republicans. They weren’t gonna do anything to hurt the republican party. And they finally reached their limit when it came to trying to overthrow an election. But just as a citizen, I would have wished that they spoke out sooner.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:07

    No. Obviously, the pressure to stay in the tribe is so intense. So you you you knew that something had to have really blown for the Chinese to break the way they have. Okay. So let’s talk about this piece that you have.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:18

    You and I were actually on a on a cable show over the weekend and engaged in erratic agreement on on your on your thesis. You your latest piece is is, of course, based on the prediction that Republicans will win the House in week’s election, which seems increasingly likely. And you write that sometime next year, the pressure from the Maga based will build a triggering event, will burst all restraints, eventually Republicans will leave themselves little choice, and they will vote to impeach Joe Biden. Let me ask you this question. I Because, of course, I completely agree with this.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:51

    Does anyone actually disagree? Is anyone pushed back at news and no. No. No. There’s no way that Kevin McCarthy would go along with impeaching Joe Biden, that would just be too far.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:01

    Does anybody make that case?
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:03

    Well, I I will say, I I don’t think the Republican caucus is there yet. I don’t think that a majority of Republicans in the conference are looking ahead to January and saying first thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna impeach Joe Biden. There are definitely some who do. Doesn’t, in fact, led by Margaret Taylor Green, who in fact introduced an impeachment resolution against Joe Biden on the very first full day of his presidency. And over the coming months after that, she started to get co sponsors for additional impeachment resolutions and also against various members of the cabinet.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:44

    But I believe that the fact that the market base is demanding impeachment and they are. There’s good polling data on this from UMAS Amherst that shows that two thirds a little more than two thirds of all Republicans believe that Biden should be impeached, and he speaks to me. Importantly, a majority believe that he will be impeached. They have that expectation. And disappointing MEGA expectations has been shown to be very dangerous for Republicans that I I think over time, it’s going to become as much a litmus test to impeach Biden as it is to endorse the big lie.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:26

    What’s interesting is, of course, is this insight because you could, you know, as as a journalist, go around to the leaders of the Republican caucus, and get them on the record, and they’re saying, well, no, we’re not really thinking about that. That’s not what we wanna do. And probably, they think in their own minds that there would be some way, some off ramp so that they wouldn’t take this path. But I think your insight here is the dynamics of Republican politics, which is bottom up driven. As well as top down.
  • Speaker 1
    0:06:54

    Donald Trump sitting in Mar a Lago will demand this. The base will demand this. There’s nothing in the dynamics of the Republic party to lead anyone to believe that that the leadership of of the house would resist any of that. I mean, that’s that’s part of the problem. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:09

    I mean, so Marjorie Taylor Green may be in the minority at the moment. But when you look at what the base expects and will demand, and what the Orange God King will demand, I think it’s absolutely inevitable that they’re going to do this and, you know, for one pretext or another. Well, it’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:28

    interesting that you mentioned Trump because we hadn’t talked about it yet, and he’s gonna be perhaps the crucial player here. Trump has control of the Republican caucus of the House more than any other individual. And he has interestingly not yet called for impeachment of Joe Biden as far as I can tell. But I think that he is certain to do so. Especially as he comes under more and more pressure with his own legal troubles.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:58

    He is, just by personality, someone who always wants to lash out. At the other side, he is obsessed with revenge for his own impeachment — Mhmm. — which humiliated him. He is unable sort of psychologically or psychologically to tolerate the idea that that he was impeached and his enemy won’t be. And once he calls for it, especially if there’s a triggering event such as an indictment of Donald Trump, I think that the caucus is gonna be swept along by that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:32

    Well,
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:32

    also, I I think that at some level he understands that the impeachment of Joe Biden also devalues impeachment. I mean, you and I are both old enough to remember pre bill Clinton when, you know, only one American president had actually been impeached. And this was the historic black mark. You know, you never wanted to be a president who was impeached. If we ever get to a point where every president is impeached by the other party in control of the house, then it becomes same old, same old, doesn’t it?
  • Speaker 1
    0:09:00

    It becomes routine. You’ve watered it down. You’ve flooded the zone with impeachments that didn’t kind of like, well, yeah, well, of course. And I think that some level Donald Trump understands that. That, you know, that being a twice impeached former president, you know, is a disgrace until everybody is twice impeached former
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:22

    president. Right. Exactly. It’s it’s this false equivalence that is so central to the Republican party right now. And It’s interesting.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:32

    There have actually been a lot more movements toward impeachment in American history than most people know. There have been twelve presidents that faced impeachment resolutions, including every single president since Jimmy Carter, except amazingly for Barack Obama. But most of those were unserious. They had no chance. They didn’t go anywhere.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:59

    And it is now becoming as historic impeachment has told me, routine. Well, you
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:05

    know, as as you point out in the article, you know, the poll numbers, you know, showing this overwhelming support for impeachment among correspond to the belief among Republicans, the Biden, is illegitimate. You write. This is no coincidence. Impeachment is corollary of election denial, the invincible certainty that Biden cheated in twenty twenty and that Donald Trump won. If you truly believe that and have not joined the militia, impeachment is the least of the remedies you will accept.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:34

    And I think that’s also a key point that if you believe that the election was stolen and you have an illegitimate president, you’re going to be willing to accept pretty much everything that would be done to investigate to bring this guy down.
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:49

    Right? I mean, what a catastrophe it would be in this country if someone actually did cheat their way to the presidency. Yeah. I mean, if the guy who won was out in the cold and the guy who lost was in the Oval Office, I I mean, that would be just a calamity. And you would consider just about any remedy to fix that.
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:09

    And impeachment won’t seem radical at all to those folks.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:13

    Right. And I think as a mental exercise, I think that folks should try to imagine, you know, what if you believed that this had happened to your guy? What would you be prepared to do? So, yeah, impeachment is is pretty much same old symbol. So Kevin Madden, who’s a former GOP flack, told you the impeachment buzz will be at the backdrop of every conversation about a Republican agenda because the Republican agenda is basically right, is going to be retribution.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:40

    I mean, whatever form that it takes. So let’s talk about this. Talk to me about Kevin McCarthy on this issue because he’s equivocated on it at least in public. Right. He’s equivocated and
  • Speaker 2
    0:11:51

    almost deflected a little bit. Like, you know, if evidence emerges of serious crime of an impeachable offense, then we’ll consider that, but we’re not gonna use impeachment. As a political statement, we’re gonna do serious investigations. He and Skolise and Stéphonic have come together with a strategy that that stops short of impeachment because they believe it could very well be an overreach and redown to buy this benefit. And so they’re going to try to say, Look over here right wing caucus.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:26

    Look over here at Freedom caucus. We’re doing investigations of Hunter Biden and we’re doing investigations of the border and we’re doing investigations of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. You don’t have to worry about impeachment. We’re on the case here. And then you have incoming committee chairs like Comer and Jim Jordan, who will take over oversight and judiciary respectively.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:48

    And they are with the program so far. But I think Jim Jordan is the linchpin of the impeachment debate. Right now he is hedging. But when it starts to pick up steam, Jim Jordan is never gonna be the guy who says, Well, that’s going too far for me. I I’m not that far against Joe Biden.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:10

    I I mean, he will not allow himself to be outflanked. By Marjorie Taylor Green once impeachment becomes a serious subject. And keep in mind, he will wanna make sure that the principal action is located at its own committee judiciary, which in fact does traditionally handle impeachment proceedings. So I think once Jim Jordan goes from on the fence to off the fence, that’s when you’ll know impeachment is around the corner.
  • Speaker 1
    0:13:37

    Well, and also, I think it’s also important to understand, you know, the Republicans perpetual outrage machine, you know, part of what we’re seeing now is the is the result of the Republican Party being this and bubbling cauldron of outrage, and you keep having to feed that that beast. So you have a lot of Republicans in the base who are sort of primed to sniff out any sense of compromise or any hint of weakness. Right? I mean, you constantly you you can certainly imagine Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, raising millions of dollars attacking any Republican that expressed even mild skepticism about impeachment once this gets rolling, you know, especially because expectations will be so high you know, if in fact, there is the Republicans sweep into congress, then people are gonna demand everything. Yet, We’ve seen this before.
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:30

    There’s always the desire to not overreach, but the temptations become overwhelming at a certain point. I think that’s what you’re describing here is that is that they may, you know, you may have Kevin McCarthy and Elyse DeFonik sitting around and Steve Schley sitting around thinking that they can hold back the tide, but there’s really nothing in Kevin McCarthy’s background that would lead you believe that he would
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:53

    support backbone. Well,
  • Speaker 1
    0:14:55

    exactly. That’s what I was getting. Or or back. So let’s talk about this, you know, that you don’t think there’s any reason to believe that McCarthy can resist be the impulse to impeach once it gathers strength because he’s he’s not exactly a strong figure. Is he look,
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:08

    he watched his two predecessors destroyed by the right wing of the party by the the tea party and and the freedom caucus respectively. And he has made his entire MO, his entire campaign plan to become speaker. Has been to never get cross wise with the sort of emotional right wing of the party. And when they come for him on impeachment, he will step out of the way. He’s just not a guy who’s gonna fight
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:39

    them. So you also have an interesting note in your piece about what Trump will want. Doug Hay, who’s a McCarthy ally, and a former staff member told you that the answer is is pretty obvious that Donald Trump is going to want to impeach everybody. So we might not just see an impeachment of Biden. I mean, are they gonna go through an impeachment polusa?
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:59

    Are we gonna have, you know, Kamala Harris is gonna be impeached for the border? They’re gonna go after Merrick Garland if he indights Donald Trump. They’re gonna go after the head of homeland security. I mean, how many impeachments might we be looking at? They’re gonna depends to some extent on triggering events.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:14

    And it and it
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:15

    doesn’t even matter very much what the alleged charge is going to be Ted Cruz kind of let the cat out of the bag on that one in his own podcast earlier this year. He said that Joe Biden is likely to be impeached, quote, whether it’s justified or not, because he said, quote, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? If it happened to buy digital payback — Yeah. — retribution. But, yes, it’s gonna start with Kevin, I think.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:44

    I think it’s probably going to be a hundred Marques, secretary of homeland security on grounds that he has allegedly refused to enforce the law at the border. Because that’s the most powerful emotional issue — Mhmm. — right now for the Republican base. But if there is progression in the justice department case against Trump, if there’s an indictment certainly, then I think the pressure will be overwhelming to impeach Garland. Mhmm.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:15

    There was a resolution introduced in Biden’s first year by Lauren Beaubert with some co sponsors. Which wanted to impeach Kamala Harris as well, and the reciprocal logic here is interesting. The ground for impeaching the vice president was that she had failed to invoke the twenty fifth amendment to remove the president. Yes. So Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:40

    Nobody’s really safe. There were there was a there was a resolution against Anthony Blinking as well, and I can’t even remember what the grounds of that one were. You
  • Speaker 1
    0:17:47

    you know, I I did see that. The the the they held a press conference about impeaching Anthony Lincoln, and I I assumed it had something to do with Afghanistan, but I had I had no idea So, I mean, we ought to make it clear here that you’re certainly not predicting that any of these folks will be actually removed from office because impeachment by the House is one thing beginning sixty seven votes in the Senate even with a Republican sweep seems extremely unlikely. Agree? I agree. Even if Republicans take the Senate, they’re
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:14

    not gonna remove any of these guys. A
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    0:19:16

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    0:19:17

    out. So let’s talk about some of these these investigations. So Kevin McCarthy is hoping to throw the red meat to the base by having, you know, endless Benghazi style hearings. And obviously from day one, we’re going to be hearing a lot about Hunter Biden. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:32

    You you talk to a lot of Republican and subject or emblem of scandal most often mentioned was Hunter Biden. So how would they connect Hunter Biden’s misadventures of which there are many? To Biden himself. How does this play out? That’s the exact right question.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:50

    Hunter Biden, we know was a drug abuser. The evidence on the laptop
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:56

    and elsewhere in profiles about Biden suggests that He was engaging with sex workers. He was thinly qualified for some of the boards that he sat on, and it seemed as though it was clear that foreign companies wanted access to Hunter in hopes of getting access to the vice president at the time, but what you don’t have is any proof that Hunter actually did involve his father or that his father actually did do anything to intervene on behalf of Hunter’s businesses. And there is nothing in the Hunter Biden laptop that makes those connections directly. There’s some reference to the big money saying there should be money for the big guy. There’s reference to somebody saying that Hunter should introduce them
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:48

    to Joe Biden, but there’s no evidence that those things actually happen. And yet, the Republicans may not need to connect all those dots because there is this miasma of sleazing all around Hunter. Biden. Right? So you just throw up enough and there’s enough that people will go, man, this is this is awful, which, of course, is ironic given, you know, what the Trump family was like and what they were engaged in.
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:12

    There is a certain irony given the dealings of Jared Kushner and Donald Junior and Eric and honka and all of those folks. Democrats never went wall to wall with hearings about the Trump kids, but there’s not going to be. You know, they talk about it’s all about payback, but clearly that there’s gonna be no hesitancy to go after the Biden’s son. There won’t
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:31

    be any hesitancy on that. And, I mean, I’m not a big
  • Speaker 1
    0:21:34

    proponent
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:35

    of what aboutism. But when you talk about Hunter, you should omit the Trump family. There is clearly, on the public record, numerous examples of the president himself using corrupt influence to make money, lots of money, whether it’s emoluments, or the way he used his hotel with foreign guests and and on and on So the actual idea of corruption to make money by use of public power is not what is bothering the Republicans. It’s the opportunity that’s new to survive. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:11

    I think that’s pretty clear. So, you know, other possible grounds impeachment that you read about Biden’s immigration policies, border enforcement botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Federal government’s temporary ban on evictions, maybe even the use of the strategic oil reserve, which I’m not sure that that rises. And you write in your article. None of these rises to impeachable conduct by historical standards, but the GOP will find some new cause for outrage.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:39

    Some leading Republicans say the details won’t even matter. And really, that’s the heart of it. Right? That it doesn’t matter what the the evidence is. It’s just you’ll find some pretext and and they’ll be all in on that.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:54

    And then it becomes the litmus test. And I think this is one of the most important points you make because I agree with you that if this actually comes to a vote, any Republican member of the House that votes against it will face the same fate of Republican members that voted to impeach Donald Trump. I mean, almost all of them have been excommunicated, defeated, forced out of office, the same fate would be waiting for any Republican that dared vote against avoid an impeachment. So it would be close to a party line vote, wouldn’t it? I have to
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:24

    think so. I I think momentum will build into a way that it’s very hard to resist. The same reasons why you had more than two thirds of the entire caucus vote to upend the election, and they did that immediately after the riots on January sixth. They will, pure and simple, be afraid not to vote for impeachment. I mean, if look, impeachment is is of of Joe Biden will be another way to say, we hate you.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:52

    We think you’re an ill legitimate president. We’re completely opposed to you and what’s the strongest step we can take short of actual taking up arms and that that’s to try to remove you from office.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:03

    Sure. And and and and they think this is a a political winner in that it weakens Joe Biden whether obviously, it’s not going to succeed in removing him from office. But I thought it was interesting also that you point out in the piece that this has all been game down for months. House Republicans, conservative think tanks have been meeting and talking about this. So the Heritage Foundation took part in a planning retreat and the plan is for a quick impeachment debates involving, you know, the homeland security secretary.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:31

    So, I mean, they are already gearing up. And again, part of the the conservative infrastructure is also being mobilized behind impeachment efforts. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:42

    So you have the outside groups that are well funded and busy ginning up an agenda. For the new Republican takeover. And, yeah, Harridge wants to start with my office. I think he’s the he’s the best target.
  • Speaker 1
    0:24:59

    Because, of course, that’s thematic going to the border issue, which continues to be, you know, very, very strong emotional issue for the right. Okay. So let’s just shift gears just for a moment because I’m I’m interested in getting your thoughts about, you know, something else that’s been going on. This week and how consequential it will be. It’s only been a few days since Elon Musk took over Twitter, which we’ve talked about on this.
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:26

    Podcast before. But he’s moved very, very quickly to indicate that he’s gonna put a personal stamp on it in the first seventy two hours he pushed out, you know, a baseless conspiracy theory about the attack on Nancy Pelosi, his husband. So he’s the troll in chief. He’s the truth or in chief. We don’t know how, you know, whether there will be any guardrails left or how he’s gonna handle content moderation.
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:52

    So give me your thoughts. About this because, you know, we’re going into this period with tremendous pressure being aimed at quote unquote, big tech, not to push back against disinformation, hate speech, etcetera. How does that change the dynamic that we’re talking about? Well,
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:10

    Twitter is not the most important or the most influential of the social media platforms. It it’s much smaller and Facebook and YouTube and Instagram and so on. But it is the social media platform of the political and entertainment elites. And so it has a a leading role in our public dialogue and it’s been an important platform. And it’s the only one of them that I could actually tolerate myself.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:39

    So I’m I’m moderately active on Twitter. And I find a lot of value in it. Musk seems hell bent on demolishing it. He’s got idiosyncratic ideas about what would make it better. And when it ought to be.
  • Speaker 2
    0:26:53

    He doesn’t seem to have any concept of content moderation and how hard that is. If he wanted to try to go completely hands off, he would find out as even GAAP and parlor have found out that you have to do some moderation because otherwise your platform does become a complete you know, healthscape of trolls and misinformation and Nazis and pornography. So must can’t help but do some moderation. Yeah. Charlie Warzel was
  • Speaker 1
    0:27:20

    on the podcast the other day talking about this. It is really interesting. How little thought he’s put into this? Yeah. I mean, he he could very easily make decisions in the in in the next couple of
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:32

    weeks that to store the platform. And he has even for him a not insignificant amount of money bound up in this platform. The numbers stunned me. The debt service on the loans that he took to buy Twitter amount to a billion dollars a year. Twitter’s entire gross income, last I checked was around seven hundred million.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:58

    So not enough for the debt service. And that’s gross income, that’s not net. Busch has actually thrown that, whereas the things he’s done so far and and proposed so far seem likely to drive away many of his most important power users who are the ones that other people come to Twitter to talk to. So Stephen King, for example — Mhmm. — tweeted out that there’s no way he’s gonna pay money to be a verified user.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:28

    On Twitter that the verification is a benefit to Twitter, not to him. And that’s correct. Some of that — Yeah. — I can’t remember who I read just yesterday on Twitter talking about the difference between copyright and trademark. That copyright is something you do for the rights holder.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:44

    And trademark is something you do for the general society. That’s what lets you know that when you buy a Coca Cola, it’s a real Coca Cola. However, that’s what lets you know when you by medicine that it’s the real medicine and not some fake. And that’s that’s what verification of users is like on Twitter. It enables me when I read someone to know it’s really them.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:06

    Mhmm. Donald Trump’s handle was real Donald Trump and and was verified. If Musk makes that something you have to pay for and that anyone can pay for, then he’s destroying that trademark. He’s destroying that social utility. This
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:21

    is really interesting. I know it’s it’s sort of easy to, you know, to dunk on the blue check marks, and I’m a blue check marks, so I have a conflict of interest, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t get anything out of it as far as I can tell. So a couple of days ago, it floated.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:33

    It was twenty dollars a month and everybody don’t don’t like to hell with that. And eventually he announced that it was going to be eight dollars and you get all these benefits for it. But it’s not clear that the blue check mark will even be a verification anymore. It sounds like just for eight bucks a month you get it. And all it says is that you’ve decided that you’re given gonna give Elon musk the world’s richest man ninety six bucks a year of your money.
  • Speaker 1
    0:29:58

    Right? I mean, so he’s completely devalued. It’s no longer verification. Right? It’s just it’s just raw revenue.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:06

    Am I missing something there? Because sound like there’s any verification. It doesn’t mean anything anymore except that you’re enough of a sucker to give him money.
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:13

    Look, you need authentication for the benefit of other Twitter users so that when political junkies read something that purports to be from Charlie Sykes, They know it’s this Charlie Sykes of the bulwark and not a a plover in Tulsa. Who’s also named Charlie Sykes or not a a bot from China that pretends to be Charlie Sykes. I mean, there’s there’s value in interacting with people you admire or people who have credentials to say things, people who have earned reputations. And if you can’t tell who you’re talking to it, if you can’t tell who you’re reading, on Twitter than a lot of the value is gone. So
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:56

    we’ve been talking a lot about Donald Trump, about the base, about the dynamics of of Maga, and, you know, Trump and and and other conservatives thought that they could create their own websites, whether it’s parlor or gab or or truth social. Now that Musk is in charge of Twitter, what do you think? Does Donald Trump come back? Does Donald Trump bring his own people go back? Or do they stay in their
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:22

    own, you know,
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:23

    much much smaller
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:24

    unsuccessful silos? Well, as always, with that on Trump, you simply have to try to calculate where the self interest is. Right. And Trump had something on the order of a hundred million less than that followers on Twitter. He hasn’t nearly replicated that on truth social, not by an order of magnitude.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:44

    And on truth social he is not talking to the mainstream elites that he actually really does wanna talk to whether he — Yeah. — whether
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:52

    he admits it or not. And and he’s and he he gets that. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:55

    Yeah. So, I mean, that that would argue for him coming back On the other hand, he’s got a lot of money at stake in True Social. And he must know that if he comes back to Twitter, even if he stays on through social, then it’s gonna demolish through social. That there’s no more raise on debt. For truth social if if the maga in chief is back on Twitter.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:18

    So I can’t calculate that. For you, but he’s gonna have a dilemma. Okay. So because I I think this is
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:25

    relevant to what we were talking about before, though. So he he has a lot of money tied up in True Social. But is it his money? No. He doesn’t have
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:32

    his money yet. He seldom has his money tied up. But so he has other people’s money, but he has upside. Okay. They’re still hoping to take it public using one of those shell companies that has a lot of money at stake that he he he can make a lot of money if he could bring that transaction off and if the Securities and Exchange Commission
  • Speaker 1
    0:32:55

    doesn’t
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:56

    find that they committed fraud along the way, which which is under investigation. There there’s some sketchiness. I I guess then because I’m thinking
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:03

    this through, you know, the one through line with Donald Trump is that he is not loyal to anyone else except to himself, that he sees a benefit to himself, he is willing to fuck over his investors, his partners, his businesses. He has walked away from other businesses. He has left people holding the bag for other debt. And if he sees an advantage for himself in going back and getting his hundred million followers back again have a hard time imagining him not doing it. I mean, obviously, he’s gonna look at what is the financial upside.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:35

    But in terms of loyalty or fiduciary responsibility, he
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:40

    doesn’t care. But You know, how things don’t exist for him?
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:43

    They they don’t exist for him. So
  • Speaker 2
    0:33:46

    I mean, it wouldn’t it literally wouldn’t occur to him.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:48

    Yeah. And I’m sure that he his nostalgic for the days in which he could drive the news cycle by his tweets. And I’m just making the prediction that he’s gonna come back here. He’ll try to find some way to pretend that he’s straddling the two while he leaves Devin Nunes to pick up the the leavings of of what what what remains of of truth social. Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:12

    Great career move for devoting this. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:17

    whatever it’s worth Trump has actually taken a public position already and said that he would not come back to Twitter even if he were allowed to because he’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:25

    not through his social doubt. I know he says that. That, you know, there there are, you know, circumstances change. And I think that Donald Trump has no problem in changing his mind if it is in his own personal interest and will advance his personal agenda and who knows what Elon Musk will will do. The Elon Musk story, I think, is is is fascinating again because reminds us of the non transferability of certain talents that you can build a rocket, but have no idea how to run a social media company.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:55

    And that you could be a, you know, billionaire genius in one area of your life and be a virtual illiterate moving over. And I I just think that it’s pretty obvious that Elon Musk has no idea what he stepped into here. And I guess the question is, you know, how badly does it turn out and how how long before he loses interest. And, you know, I can’t tell any more about Elon Musk’s what goes on inside his mind, then I can’t about Donald Trump’s mind. Well, the
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:22

    one thing is he wants to be on the cutting edge of something big and bold. And when he finds out that he has no choice but to engage in content moderation. And he finds out — Mhmm. — how difficult and full of dilemmas that is I think he’s going to get bored of it. Howard Bauchner: I
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:43

    think you’re absolutely right. Bart Gilliland, staff writer Ed, the Atlantic winner of Three Pulitzer prizes, has a fantastic fantastic piece in the Atlantic. I think, Bernadette accurately describing what a Republican congress is going to do, endless investigations, and maybe serial impeachment. So definitely worth your time, Bart. Thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:02

    Thanks for having
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:03

    me. The Bowler
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:04

    podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today’s bold work podcast, and we’ll be back tomorrow. I’ll do this all over again. You’re worried about the economy.
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:23

    Inflation is high. Your page doesn’t cover as much as it used to, and we live under the threat of a looming recession. And sure, you’re doing okay, but you could be doing better. The afford anything
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:32

    podcast explains the economy and the market detailing how to make wise choices on the way you spend and invest. Afford anything talks
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    0:36:39

    about how to avoid common pit calls, how to refine your mental models, and how to think about how to think. Make smarter choices and build a better life. Avoid anything wherever you listen.
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