Demonic Charisma

Welcome to beg to differ, the bulwark

weekly roundtable discussion featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum. We range from center left to center right I’m Mona Charen, syndicated columnist and policy editor of the Bulwark, and I’m joined by our regulars, Damon Lincher, who writes the sub stack newsletter notes from the middle ground, and Linda Chavez of the Nissan Center. Lawfair’s Ben Whitis is very kindly sitting in today for Will Saletan, and our guest is Eric Adelman, former top official in the state and defense departments, former ambassador to Turkey and Finland and host of our Secret Podcast, Shield of the Republic, which if you are not listening, you must because it is one of the most intelligent, informative podcasts out there. So welcome one and all. We have a lot to get to this week.

We will come to the thirty car pile up that was CNN’s town hall with Trump on Wednesday evening, but first let us turn to events in Russia and Ukraine. So, Eric Edelman, Volodymyr Zelensky announced yesterday that the much anticipated and looked for Spring offensive may have to wait a bit longer because they still need more supplies. Russia held its annual victory day parade and it featured just one solitary tank from the World War two vintage. There has been open sniping between the head of the Wagner Group or Wagner Group. I’m not sure how you pronounce it, and the military leadership in the Kremlin And then one more thing just to set this up.

There are a lot of stories in the American press about how much is riding on this spring offensive by Ukraine, you see a lot of analysis saying, well, Ukraine has to prove that it can win decisively on the battlefield and push back Russian advances in order to maintain western support, and my reaction to that is This is a brutal war of aggression by one of the most rapacious regimes on the planet shouldn’t our position be rather our support is pretty much unconditional?

Mona, of course, I agree with you, and I wouldn’t expect any less from a fellow unreconstructed Reaganite. Look, I think president Zelensky and not just president Zelensky, I think defense minister Reznikov’s interview with Isabel Korshadiun of the Washington Post over the weekend as well have been engaging in what I would call adaptations management about the offensive. And you’re quite right. President Zelensky said they need to wait for all the kit that is arriving from their western supporters. They also, I suspect, are waiting for the ground to firm up because it’s still a fair amount of mud which reduces mobility.

And so he’s trying to and Resnikoff are trying to downplay expectations. I think there were documents apparently, I’m I still have clearances and so I’m not allowed to actually go online and look at the Discord documents because they all remain classified. But from the press accounts, I see that there was some speculation in those documents that the Ukrainians might have a hard time recovering much territory from the Russians. And so I think the Ukrainians are concerned that we shouldn’t allow exuberant expectations of what they might accomplish that might have been set for instance by what happened in Karkiv last fall when they routed a lot of Russian forces in order to make sure that they don’t appear to underperform and therefore jeopardize public support in the US and in Europe. There is some polling data that shows that you’re beginning to see a little bit of Ukraine fatigue after pretty robust support in the American public for Ukraine.

You also see in some of those same polls, by the way, a view expressed that by administration ought to give the Ukrainians everything they need to win now and not turn this into an endless war, which I think makes enormous sense. But I think you also should remember, Avril Hanes, the director of National Intelligence, testified last week, that the Russians are so depleted in personnel and equipment that it’s hard to imagine them doing any offensive operations. For the foreseeable future perhaps up to as long as a year. And I think you’re beginning to see some of the results of that in the successful counter attacks that Ukranians have launched in the last several days in Bakmoot taking back some of the hard won territory that the Russians have, managed to gain in these sort of human sacrifice attacks that they’ve been launching for nine months now in Bakmoot. So I think there are prospects for the Ukrainians to do well, and we can talk about some of the reasons for that.

But I think they’re trying to set expectations.

Ben Wittis, I know you follow these things closely. And the Europeans, when the war first started, made very generous declarations about the support that they were going to provide. And then when you look at the numbers of actual deliveries of weapon systems and other aid, the US is head and shoulders ahead of everybody else and a lot of the stuff hasn’t shown up, do you think the Western Europeans are going wobbly?

I guess I want to start by agreeing with everything that Eric said and just adding one thing to it, which is that I think the expectation management game here includes a certain psychological element of not letting the Russians know when this thing is going to start. And the Ukrainians have — they’ve built up a fair bit of expectations around this, counteroffensive, they’ve definitely gotten the Russian spooked. If you read the Russian military blogosphere, they’re already spending a lot of time writing explanations for why territory is going to be lost. And I think part of this psychological warfare is, you know, maybe we’ll do it today, maybe it’ll be tomorrow, maybe next month, maybe we’ll wait for more supplies to come in. So, I think part of the expectations management here is keeping the Russians off balance about when this thing is really going to happen, and is it going to be as big as they seem to expect it to be?

Look, the Europeans are, and this is the Western Europeans, to be clear, the Eastern Europeans are a completely different animal. You know, it is easier to pledge than to deliver. It’s easier to talk about solidarity than it is to actually make weapon systems available when your own industrial base is somewhat depleted. By the way, that’s an issue for us too. And So I think it’s less that they’re going wobbly than that the commitments are much easier to state.

Involved terms at the Munich Security Conference, than they are in a granular sense to actually deliver on And I don’t detect that there is any particular desire on the part of the Western Europeans to accommodate Vladimir Putin, there’s no interest in seeing even France isn’t looking to trade away Ukrainian territory, But I do think there’s a lot of pining for the environment in which they didn’t have to think about these things.

Yeah. Sure. We all pine for that, but the world is what it is. Damon, you know, you do hear some of the more optimistic takes on the way this war will develop. Some people point out that we’re just now getting to the point where the sanctions against Russia are starting to pinch in the sense that they can’t get computer chips, which means they can’t produce long range missiles and, you know, all kinds of high-tech equipment that they rely on and that’s why they’ve had to resort to going to Iran for weapons and that Putin has always gambled that it was going to be Ukraine and Ukraine’s supporters in the West who would blink first and who would say this is just going on too long.

We have fatigue, whereas it could be the other way around. It could be the Russians that, you know, they start losing even more people because their weapons become less and less effective.

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. We’re dealing and then in a way, this is the subtext of everything that Eric and Ben have said already in your comments too that we’re dealing with a reality that’s on a timeline there are expectations to be managed as everyone has noted. And the fact is what we need to do is make the case for why this is important and explain why it’s going to take as long as it takes.

And to go to something that’s also been said, stay on Biden about getting the weapon systems where they need to be as soon as possible. Because the reality of politics is always that we can sit here and talk about how our, you know, our support has to be unconditional. But politics is a game where everything is conditional, that we need popular support to back these things up. And I guess, because of that, I’m going to go back to something that I’ve been harping on for quite a long time whenever we talk about Ukraine and Russia on the podcast, which is that as much as I’ve loved Biden’s policy as it’s been enacted on the whole, And occasionally, he had been very impressed, you know, when he jetted off to Ukraine in secret and gave a very good speech in Poland afterwards. I do wish that he were doing more to make the case to the American people, to explain, and not just in terms of what can sound, I think to a lot of people like a bit of abstraction about fighting for democracy, but making the case in terms of hard nosed American interests that look, we live in a dangerous world.

We are facing rivals who are very powerful and have interests diametrically opposed ours, namely in Russia, but far more so China, and that of the American people seem to recognize now as do our leaders that China is a huge threat to American interests. And if this doesn’t go the way we need it to in the fight between Ukraine and Russia, we are gonna have a much harder time of it in our burgeoning confrontation with China. And so this matters. It matters that we make it clear that however this gets resolved between Russia and Ukraine, not trying to pregame exactly what the settlement is. But whatever it is, Russia needs to come out of this with a huge black eye and a hell of a lot of damage making the case both to Russia and its future leaders and to China, that if you try this crap by invading your neighbor, that you’re gonna pay a pretty painful high price for it.

And I just wish we could get more of that consistently and articulately in the kind of the grandest of presidential rhetoric from Biden. And not just occasionally, on a trip to Europe, but regularly. That is the thing I I kind of worry about more even than Ukraine’s viability on the battle. Field that has to do with this ticking time bomb we have here in this country with the presidential election in eighteen months. And one of the two parties being rotted out from the inside by termites who really want to under my America’s role in guaranteeing a world order that suits us and our interests and those of our allies and friends.

Linda, to that point, you often hear this fatuous argument from Republicans in the house and elsewhere that Well, this is a distraction because the main issue is China, and the reason that we shouldn’t get involved or we shouldn’t help Ukraine is because we have to focus on keeping Taiwan safe from the predations of the mainland Chinese. Well, of course, the Taiwanese are very keen to see us, protect Ukraine because they understand that the lesson there would be catastrophic if we were to give up on Ukraine. The message that that would send to the Chinese would be a disaster.

Exactly. And my only correction on what Damon said is it’s not termite. That are eating away. It’s maggots. That’s that’s m a g a t, maggots.

Point taken.

Good one, Linda. M a g h.

So I do worry. I’m less worried about whether or not Ukraine is capable of launching a successful counter offensive this spring that I am about what is happening in the United states and the way in which our internal politics influence not just American policy sends a message to Russia, And to other countries, our allies as well, that we’re not serious that we cannot be counted on for the long run. And there is certainly ample precedent for this. I mean, this is what has happened to the United States in previous engagements. We grow weary.

We grow tired. Now it’s not American blood that is being shed, but it is American money that is going to help support the Ukrainian. And so I worry more about that. I worry more about the domestic politics. And I do believe that, you know, I know we’re going to talk later about ex president.

Trump’s performance this week on CNN, but he said some very damaging things with respect to American interests in Ukraine, and of course he also he’s got a crush on Vladimir Putin. And he identifies with him in a way that is very unseemly, but by the way, he’s imitated in that by people in Congress. And certainly by the some members of the right, we mediate. Now, thankfully Tucker Carlson is no longer live every night at eight PM with the largest audience in cable TV. But there are others.

And so, that is my worry. And how it is we shore up support? There are good Republicans who are very firmly on the side of Ukraine and are very firmly committed to continuing to provide aid but there are also some who are trying to eat away at this. And that’s the real danger in my mind.

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Okay. Because we have Eric Adelman, I would love to just get a quick take on the election in Turkey that is coming up this weekend lot riding on this obviously Erdogan has not been a good ally. He’s a strong man leader. He’s a problematic figure on the world stage. We’re not gonna be able to last to spend too much time on this, Eric, but I would like your take on whether this is going to be a free and fair election.

I mean, have things gotten to the point now where that’s in doubt in Turkey?

Moe, it’s a great question. Before we go to Turkey though, I just on Ukraine. First, I wanted to say, I’m in violent agreement with everything that Damon Ben and Linda said. But before we tie off the subject, I think it is worth noting that the Ukrainiansians are even now engaged in we used to call in DOD shaping operations for this offensive. But as you can see them with artillery, and drones hitting, Russian ammunition, depots, fuel tanks, and things that will affect Russian mobility if and when the Ukrainians are able to break through in either the east or in the south.

And, of course, the news Britain is providing the Shadow strike missile, which is not quite as long range as the attackers, but will certainly force Russian logistics back is important than people the old saw that amateurs talk about strategy, but professionals talk about logistics. So I’m guardedly optimistic about what might happen.

Let me just see if I understand this. So when you have these longer range missiles, it means that you extend The enemy’s supply lines and then their supply lines become more vulnerable too because now they have twice as far that they to travel and you can pick them off more easily. Am I sort of in the right ballpark there?

Yeah. Exactly. And it’s harder for them to maneuver their forces around from one place another because it’s difficult to get them sufficiently fueled up in things they need to do. So as I said, I’m cautiously optimistic I’m less optimistic about Turkey. Okay.

The polls are tightening. Erdogan’s been running behind for months Ron DeSantis, in part because of his growing authoritarianism, his mismanagement of the economy, you know, inflation was eighty percent in the fall. It’s forty five percent. Now, COVID was mismanaged, the earthquake, terribly mismanaged. But he’s despite having run behind, he’s closing the gap, and he’s within a handful of points.

And Turkish elections have never been fair in the period since nineteen fifty when we’ve had contested elections in Turkey. The government’s always had outsized influence on the media, picture in in Turkey, and therefore, there’s never been a completely fair election, but they’ve always been free. They have not been fiddled or rigged or stolen. That began to change in twenty seventeen with the presidential referendum when Erdogan created this presidential system where it looks like they did actually, fiddle the vote, and there’s a lot of controversy about this, but, basically, you’ve got eleven provinces where normal operations have been knocked out by the earthquake where there’s potential for manipulation of the vote. There just was a big blow up between the minister of the interior and the supreme electoral council over digitizing the returns and the interior ministry had a program.

They wanted all the votes to be funneled over to them. The Supreme Electric Council said, no. That’s our business. Not clear whether that’s really an indication of independence or just some kind of personality clash, but polling suggests thirty five percent of Turks don’t have confidence in the honesty and probity of their elections now. And so if this is a very close election as the polls suggest, I’m fearful that no matter who wins, there’s gonna be another side thinks this election was stolen from them, and we may see some political violence there has been already, even before the ballots are cast on Sunday.

Sounds depressingly familiar. Alright, thank you for that. I’m gonna turn now to the immigration story. I’m going to lean heavily here on Linda Chavez, who follows these things very closely, but if others on this panel want to weigh in, please raise your hand But Linda, so Title forty two is about to end. And people are saying it’s going to be a humanitarian catastrophe, with people flooding attempting to flood across the border.

And while I don’t usually use those terms because they tend to be sort of right wing scare words? I don’t think they’re misplaced right now. We really do have a situation that potential for real chaos even the Biden administration has said so. My feeling is that Biden has done some really good things lately attempting to get a handle on this. The new rules about having to apply from your home country and having to use an app and having to seek asylum elsewhere first, if you’re from a country other than than Mexico.

All of these things strike me as positive? What is your sense?

Well, first of all, let’s be clear that the lifting of Title forty two has entirely to do with the fact that we are no longer in a pandemic in which a health emergency exists which allowed Title forty two to be invoked in the first place. We’re doing this because it’s tied to the lifting of the emergency that constituted COVID-nineteen. I don’t think the administration had any choice on this. They tried to actually lift it a little bit earlier, there were, court suits, and it got left in place. But because May eleventh, eleven fifty nine, PM on May eleventh, Title forty two will no longer be effective because there is no longer a COVID emergency.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have enforcement mechanisms at the border. And in fact, title eight, which is the primary method by which we remove people who try to come into the United States without authorization, is not only in effect, but it’s pretty onerous. One of the bad things about the use of Title forty two, was we kept seeing these numbers, two point four million people apprehended, turned back, most of them, and many of them turned back under Title forty two. Well, those were not necessarily two point four million individuals. Under title forty two, you’d send somebody back, you know, a male apprehended at the border.

And few hours later, a few days later, if that same person might cross again. Title eight is a very different mechanism. And once you’ve been expelled under title eight, If you try to come back again, you’re committing a felony. You can end up in jail, and your ability to ever come to the United States is affected. And just being turned away under Title eight with expedited removal makes you ineligible to come again into the United States or attempt to come for five years.

This idea that we don’t have a mechanism, we do. And in fact, I think the New York Times had a very interesting graphic, it was called who gets in, a guide to America’s chaotic Board rules. And it sort of gives you the lay of the land into the way in which people come in. And you’re absolutely right, Mona. That the Biden administration gearing up and preparing for what’s likely to happen when Title forty two is no longer able to be used is that the administration number one provided ways for certain people trying to get into the United States to come in to apply through an app on their telephones to apply some of them in their home countries or in regional centers and it gave them a method to do so that allowed them to come and be sponsored by somebody already in the United states so that they not become a burden on communities like the people we’re seeing sleeping on the sidewalks in places like El Paso.

It also under title eight, they can be turned back in an expedited removal, and I would assume that most of them will. Now how many people who have legitimate claims for asylum will be turned away as an open question? I think that’s some of the criticism that we’re hearing from immigration advocates is that people who do have legitimate claims for asylum in the United States may in fact get caught up in this effort to turn back. And I also think you have to remember that states like Texas, governor Abbott, who’s created this special squad. I think it’s called Operation Lone Star.

He’s actually got sheriffs in some counties. Who are actually engaging in their own efforts to arrest migrants who are coming across the border illegally So this idea that, you know, suddenly gonna have a million people on our border, they’re all gonna come in, they’re gonna become this huge burden I don’t think it’s gonna be quite that bad, and I think the administration has gotten zero health. From Congress in trying to do something that would relieve the pressure valve and allow people to come in legally, and so what they’ve done is to take administrative steps to try to provide avenues for certain people Venezuelans, nations, cubans, and nicaraguans, for example, to be able to come in thirty thousand a month and to be given at least temporary residents here, so long as they have somebody, family member, friends, etcetera who can provide assistance to them.

You know, you don’t hear this much, and I, you know, I don’t deny that there is a problem with all the people sort of massing at the border, but If you look at the results of the Biden reforms, just in the last several months, reading now from the economist, Border encounters of Ukrainians trying to cross illegally fell from an average of nine hundred and forty per day before the initiative to only about one dozen per day. Number of unlawful crossings by Venezuelans, Cubans, Hasians and nicaraguans, the four countries that have the special parole system. Fell from eighty four thousand last December to two thousand in February. So — Right. — that is progress.

Look, you say the advocates are very upset. And, boy, I’ll tell you my inbox has been exploding with people saying, you know, attend this or that meeting about this terrible thing that Biden’s about to do to immigrants and so forth And look, there is that part of the Democratic party, but if you look at polling, and I hope this is what the Biden administration is thinking because, frankly, candidly, it seems to me this is one of Biden’s big weaknesses, politically, inflation, his age, and chaos at border or big ones, maybe crime to, but on the other hand, if you look at polling, here’s something that may surprise a lot of people, fifty nine percent of Democrats. Fifty nine percent want more border security. And fifty four percent of Republicans approve of allowing those who were brought here as children to be given green cards.

And, oh, by the way, that is a real crisis that is about to happen because we are going to get a court decision. It’s going to be handed down. It’s going to be negative. And all of those dreamers who have had legal authorization work in the United States are going to be in jeopardy of losing that and you’re talking about a brain drain if that were to happen that would be really catastrophic in some communities and would really hurt Americans. It would hurt our economy to lose these young people who are serving in the military in college college graduates studying to be doctors, even lawyers, etcetera.

Home health aids.

Yeah. Home health aids to suddenly lose you know, nearly a million of those young people. When we already have a labor shortage, and these are not people, by and large, doing low skilled jobs. These are often people doing high skilled jobs, it would be a disaster. So, look, Congress has refused to deal with the Republicans aren’t serious, They are voting on an enforcement only bill that is draconian and that has no chance of passing if they would get serious and help solve this crisis, all of us would be better off.

Right, okay, we will continue to follow this obviously. Let us now turn to the disastrous decision. I’m not gonna hide how I feel about this by CNN. To host a town hall featuring Donald Trump. Now I don’t think it’s fair to say that CNN shouldn’t interview Donald Trump, shouldn’t cover Donald Trump, but whatever boneheaded producer or executive thought that a town hall format was the way to go.

With an audience, somebody said they could have been bust up from the Mar a Lago parking lot. It was a clack of Magaites, and the results were just appalling, so Caitlin Collins labored mightily to try to push back and to fact check-in real time, but it was hopeless, because, you know, as somebody put it, he shoots out lies like an AR fifteen, you know, and you can’t keep up. Ben Whitis, what was your reaction to last night?

Well, I protected myself from my most ferocious reaction by not watching it, and by only getting the accounts of it from friends and people on Twitter, of course not on Twitter anymore, but people still send me tweets. And therefore watching little clips. Look, I think your summary is exactly right. This was the anticipated result of a format like this. It was anticipated by a great many people.

And if, in addition to giving him an hour of airtime in an unfiltered setting, you stalk the town hall in a fashion wholly unrepresentative of the town. You’re basically recreating a Mar a Lago environment in which he’s surrounded by sick offense who love to hear him complain about the many forces in the world who are arrayed against him. And I think this was entirely predictable. It was, in fact, predicted, and the basic problem that it highlights is that the cable news media. And I want to distinguish between that and a lot of written publications, a lot of other broadcast publications, still haven’t figured out what the right way to cover him is, and it’s not that they haven’t had some good models.

But the pull of their ratings and the pull of their consciences or news judgment go in very different directions. And the ratings tend to win.

Damon, CNN’s Oliver Darcy, was very brave. He did a piece where he really called out his own employer. And criticized them for this format, which, you know, I think was a brave and honorable thing to do in a world where honor is all too rare. And, you know, you have to keep pinching yourself and say, is this truly the reality that we’re living in, where you had a former president of the United States, Tyson and Peach, tried to lead an insurrection, etcetera, etcetera, wants to abolish the constitution, who is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination, and who In addition to many other outrages which were applauded and cheered by the audience, recommended that the Republicans in congress let the US default. He said that, you know, I don’t think it would be so bad.

Right?

Yeah. I mean, on that specific topic, he actually, I think, confirmed what Will Saletan was saying last week about the kind of changing dynamics of the debt ceiling fight It’s kind of alarming to realize how many people, actually, among both parties who their attitude about default is come sort of well, you know, really? I don’t know. Is it really worth making a deal when we might just go through with this thing or, like, Biden just appeal to the fourteenth amendment and say, actually, we don’t need to do any of this. I’ll just keep spending money anyway.

So, he was very much speaking from the heart of the Republican Party at the moment, which is alarming in many ways, especially since he is in a lot of ways, the beating heart of that party. I don’t know exactly what to say about that event. I mean, I am not quite with those who are very heavily critical of CNN on this. Obviously, the format was not great. I don’t quite understand why they put an audience there that was so uniformly in his camp that didn’t at all seem necessary, could have done it many other ways.

But the fact is he is the Republican front runner. But for goodness sake, the guy was president for four years. He was ubiquitous in our national consciousness, He is the front runner by anywhere between twenty and forty points, depending on the polling. And so it’s not like you can imagine there are tens of millions of Americans who are flipping the dial. They’re like, who’s this guy?

I think I’ll give him a shot and listen and maybe he’ll persuade me. I mean, everyone sort of has their view of this guy, and a hell of a lot of people saw that last night and ran screaming from the room. Or did what Ben Whitas talked about and kind of like created accord and sedentary around themselves? To not have to even see it. I know, in my own family, there were people who had that attitude.

So, I mean, the idea of CNN putting on an hour long event with the Republican front runner who used to be the president. I don’t think is itself egregious. I do have questions again about why they chose that format. The last thing I will say is seeing him up there again, hearing again the way he just instinctually is a demagogue. This flows through his veins like blood.

He doesn’t have to try. This is the most natural thing in the world to this person. And hearing him up there with his air of dominance and his demonic charisma. I don’t think DeSantis has a chance. I’ve, like, I’ve gone from being thinking that Trump was probably gonna be in the nominee all the way through to thinking, well, maybe DeSantis has a serious shot after last night, I just think, no way.

Governor bobble head up there, facing that guy, toe to toe. He’s gonna crumble into a pile. It’s going to be ugly. And if he can’t do it, none of the other people are going to be able to do it. I think we’re really stuck with this.

Well, I called it an SHIT show in a post that I wrote about last night, and I think this is our fate, unfortunately. Yeah. Sorry.

Yeah. So I would just beg to differ with you on one point, Damon. And that is I do think that there are parallels to the irresponsible moves that many in the media took in twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen with this, because The format is the whole point. That is the point. It presented him with an opportunity to be the conquering hero for Republican primary viewers may be tuning in.

And it gave him a huge boost, I think, toward the nomination and any roadblock that can be put in the way him getting back into the Oval Office which would start with having him not be the nominee, you know, should be seized with both fists by everybody who cares about this country, And as I said at the start, you know, yes, interview him, you know, when you have an opportunity to push back, you know, sure. Cover him. But the idea of giving him an hour of prime time live television with a town hall format where ordinary Americans are supposedly asking questions etcetera. No. Just a total gift to him and at a moment a critical moment perhaps.

So I do think it was more significant than you do, but maybe I’m wrong.

Well, I don’t know.

But there’s a nice range of opinion even at the Bulwark. I know. Sarah Longwell sort of been on my side of this. JV EL, Jonathan Last is definitely on your side. And, you know, who knows?

None of us really know What helps with anything? I guess I just, I can’t help but look at an event like last night and think, I can imagine in America, and I bet you can too, Mona. In which the whole country watched that and ran in disgust away from this guy. But to the extent that that was not the reaction, it was already baked in that those people like him and what he does. And so in that sense, it strikes me as sort of self confirmation of the reality that we had before the event started.

It’s just kind of baked in now.

Could I just say one thing. The number one, I was maybe more appalled at the audience than I was at Donald Trump. Donald Trump gave us what we know. He presented who he is. The audience reaction was truly appalling to me, the way in which they cheered him on when he was calling E.

J. Carol, a whack job, the way in which they laughed and giggled about the idea that, you know, who goes into a dressing room with a woman, for Hanky Panky, that, you know, the way he presented it. And, you know, I think that was appalling. But the point I wanted to make had more to do with some of the things he said that I think could him in real trouble. I mean, he basically talked about the documents case at Mar a Lago, in ways that hopefully Jack Smith and

and

his various investigators who are watching and recording and Those words may come back to haunt ex President Trump. I mean, he basically continued to assert that he had the right to take the documents that his very taking of them, declassified them, and that, you know, that somehow this was a matter of negotiation. He said a lot of things, including on the access Hollywood tape front. You know, instead of the apology that he eventually gave in two thousand and on that tape and, you know, blaming locker room top. He basically was saying, yeah, I’m a star.

Women want it.

Mhmm.

I’m gonna go up and grab them by the genitals because they let me. He said that. And I just think in a general election, maybe for the people in that room, it didn’t have that effect, but I think for a general election, there are whole lot of women who are going to find that so cringe worthy that they just, you know, would never be able to accept it.

And in the e gene Carole case, six men on the jury.

Six men. Yeah. Right. One of whom apparently was very, you know, pro Trump, a friendly to Trump. And hopefully we’ll never know who those people are because their lives, I think, would be very much in danger if we were to find out who they were.

Can I jump in here?

Absolutely. I was coming you next, but go.

At the risk of piling on, if this were merely poor, Caitlin Collins trying to keep up with the fat firehose of falsehood sitting opposite her on CNN, that would be enough of a problem for our domestic politics. But last night had ripples around the world as well, because of his, again, unwillingness to call out Putin’s war crimes, to say that it’s important for Ukraine to emerge victorious out of this, to Damon’s earlier point, and for a lot of allies looking around the world and seeing this is the Republican front runner who still has a chance to be elected president of the United States a year from now, they’re all gonna be making their calculations about how do they adjust to this if that transpires.

Well, absolutely. And there’s just no doubt that he backed Russia, he’s in the Tucker Carlson camp here, backing Russia not Ukraine, and I mean it’s just mind boggling to consider that he might be returned to power, but Linda let me just underline what you said about the audience. I mean, I don’t know. Somehow, people had a decency ectomy in the last eight years under the influence of Trump and all of his enablers, and so ordinary people now are just at least these Republican mega ordinary people are just devoid of just basic manners. And according to other people, simple dignity, it is beyond depressing.

And since we’re on the subject of depressing, anybody is invited to consider the comments of Republicans before the CNN town hall. When we just had the verdict in the eugene Carroll case. You had senator Tommy Tuberville, saying that it made him want to vote for Trump twice, You’re at Marco Rubio, disparaging the jury system. You had Lindsey Graham saying, I think you could convict Donald Trump of kidnapping the Lindburg baby and so forth, but here’s my final question, and I guess this is kind of impossible to know. But I’m gonna direct this impossible question, nevertheless, to you, Eric.

So the Trump people were thrilled with his performance. On CNN, but the Biden people were happy about it too, because they apparently are confident that you know, once this gives them all kinds of fodder for making campaign commercials and that Americans faced with the choice between Trump and Biden will reelect their guy. It makes me uncomfortable that they’re so happy about this. Because I think it’s too arrogant. I think it doesn’t recognize the dangers sufficiently.

I don’t know. What’s your take on that?

No. I agree totally. And while one would hope that people’s reaction was the one that Damon described, which is that people would go running from the room, and president Biden himself tweeted out I think not inappropriately, okay, folks. This is your choice, me or him — Mhmm.

—

that is likely to be the choice. But I still worry that we’re one slip on stairs of Air Force one or a one health crisis or a downturn in the economy away from having a very real chance that Donald Trump will be elected once again, and the polling is not nearly comforting enough to to, you know, warrant, I think, that kind of confidence.

Yes. Alright. Let us turn now to our highlight or low light of the week, and we’ll start with Ben Woodis.

So my highlight of the week was victory day which is a big day in the Russian and post Soviet calendar. It marks on May ninth, the defeat the surrender of Nazi Germany, and Vladimir Putin like the Soviet leadership likes to put on a big militaristic display. This year, on victory day, he managed to produce a single tank World War II era tank, which was symbolic of all sorts of things, I think, including the depletion of Russian forces, But in Washington, we had a lovely victory day celebration. We put our usual series of spotlights and laser ejectors in front of the Russian embassy, where they were having receptions, and we shined lights on the embassy, urging them to defect and suggesting to people that it might not be too late to do something about the state of their souls. And I think we genuinely ruined their victory day party, and there may have been some shouting matches between some diplomats and some of the Ukrainian protesters that I work with.

And the Secret Podcast were their usual excellent selves. And so my highlight of the week is that Victory Day in Washington was a lot cooler than it was in Moscow.

Strength to your hands, Ben Will Saletan Chavez.

Well, I’m gonna change the topic entirely, I am going to point to an article that I thought was very good. It was entitled mission accomplished question mark by Gary Schmidt and Danielle Fletka, And it was about the five decisions that defined the Iraq War and the two coauthors talked about five essential points during the Iraq War where the U. S. Made decisions, had they made different decisions that might have gone differently, The first had to do with the decision that Saddam had to go. The second was the decision basically not to engage in substantive post war planning, which I think many people have pointed to one of the big problems in the United States engagement in Iraq.

Then they talk about the surge. The surge was successful. It in fact did bring Iraq into a position where there might have been the ability to move forward, but of course there was election, Barack Obama was elected, and the last two points the authors make have to do with the Obama administration, the Obama decision to back Iraqi prime minister Nurei Maliki, who of course was very close to the Iranians and what a disaster that was, and finally, Obama’s decision to withdraw in the way he did. So I thought it was a really interesting piece and well worth our listeners taking a look at.

Okay. Thank you. I might also just note that Eric Adelman and Elliot Cohen on Shield of Republic have done at least one or two podcasts. We’re looking back at the Iraq War, so you can look those up as well if you’re interested in the subject. Okay, speaking of Aragadelman, you’re next.

Well, I’ve got a highlight and a low light, Mona, the highlight for me and trailing along after Ben, was actually president Zelensky’s speech on Monday. We in the West celebrate Ve Day on May eighth, Moscow has its commemoration at the end of the great patriotic war on May ninth that has to do with the time difference between when the instrument of surrender was signed by the Nazis in Berlin. But Zelensky gave a speech on Monday, a very eloquent speech in which he, I think, tried to reappropriate, Ukraineian history after the very tendentious screed written by Putin in the summer before the war began, denying Ukrainian nationhood, Zelensky reaffirmed the role of Ukrainians in World War two, the suffering they disproportionately suffered, from the Nazi occupation, and they died in disproportionate numbers fighting against the Nazis to actually pushed them out of the Soviet Union in wartime, and it was really quite a tour de force. My low point was when senator Ron Johnson spoke to Maria Bartaromo on Fox Business News, trying to explain some of the efforts by Republicans in Congress to blacken president Biden’s name by going after his family for alleged corruption And he really said the quiet part out loud, he said, you’re really gonna have to infer what happened because there’s not gonna be any hard proof.

I think that just tells you a little bit about the McCarthy turn of the contemporary Republican Party.

Indeed. Damon Lincoln.

Well, I think before my highlight, I think I should make clear to listeners that I am not an employee of the bulwark despite being on this podcast. And I say that because I’m going to be plugging something fairly big from the Bulwark this week, and I’m doing it purely because it was the best thing I’ve read all week. And that is a very interesting sort of e book by William Salatin, who works at the Bulwark, one of their top writers, and it’s called the corruption of Lindsay Graham, a case study in the Rise of authoritarianism. Now, I used to work in academic book publishing at Penn Press, and we did experiment with ebooks, digital books, shorts as we sometimes called them, meaning like books about, you know, fifteen, twenty thousand words long. And, you know, it’s a dicey proposition.

Hard to sell items at that length kind of too long for an article too short for a proper book. But, you know, experiments go on and the bulwark is experimenting with something here. This is a book that is being put out by the bulwark for free. It is a really impressive piece of work. It has some great kind of illustrations like a book would on the cover.

It’s a lengthy deep dive into a very important subject, which is not so much expose or polemic against senator Lindsey Graham as a kind of uniquely bad case study. In fact, it’s written from the opposite point of view, which is that the Graham case is actually in some ways the most banal of all. The main reason Salatin highlights him is the Graham can’t shut up. He’s constantly talking. He gives interviews all the time.

Q and A’s. He goes on television. And he’s constantly explaining where he stands and why he stands there. And so what we have is a very deep record of this man who went from recognizing very early on that Donald Trump was an extremely dangerous person described the idea of him becoming president as either being poisoned or shot in the head, you know, really, you know, very extreme, but as it turns out, very suitable rhetoric for this. And slowly, over the course of days weeks, months, and years, he became completely embroiled in and implicated in and pretty much everything Trump did.

Down to the present day. And it is true as Salatin argues that one of the most pressing things we need to understand as we try to grasp the reality and fight back against the rise of authoritarianism in the United States of all places. Is how the hell this happened, how it keeps happening, and how it’s likely to continue on into the future. And so as a kind of psychological case study in the collapse of democratic idealism into the most cynical, kind of authoritarianism. This is a really important contribution to our understanding.

So, I recommend it very highly.

Well, thank you so much for that. I’m happy to say that Will Saletan will join us next week, and we can discuss that fantastic short book even further. I recommend that everybody download and read it. You can download a PDF of it if you go to the bulwark dot com. And read it at your leisure.

It is a fantastic read. It really is. There are so many little nuggets all the way through, where you just think that is eminently true, Will Saletan well well put. I endorse your recommendation, Damon. Okay.

So this was a kind of a bad week for the Republic, right, especially after the CNN town hall. But there are good things that still happen. So I Will Saletan examples. One is that finally, at long last, the federal Food and Drug Administration has announced that they appointed an advisory committee to advise them on whether birth control pills should be made over the counter. This has been pending forever but they finally got a unanimous recommendation from their panel and, you know, those in the know say it’s only it will probably be this summer that the FDA finally proves the over the counter use of birth control pills, which should have been done a long time ago.

But finally, it’s happening. So that is a really important stepped especially for poor women who are working and do not have the time or the money to go drag themselves to a doctor for a visit that is completely unnecessary according to all of the medical authorities, countries all over the world describe this over the counter. It’s safe and so that’s a good thing. Second good thing, New York City, schools chancellor, under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams, has announced that all elementary school students from now on will be taught to read using phonics. Again, this has been a slow evolution away from whole language and other sort of fraudulent fads that have dominated education in this country for way too long.

And the reading scores, bespeak, how much of a disaster it has been, half of all elementary students in New York and more than six out of ten black and Hispanic students are not proficient in reading, and this handicaps them for life, and it is the results with phonics are dramatic, and it is finally taking hold. New York is the largest public school system in the country. And so hopefully now with this move, it will finally get the other forty five percent of the country that is still using whole language and other nonphonic programs to get off first base and take care of business here because this is just an obvious reform, it’s far more important that students learn to read competently than that we have fights about race or sex, or any of the other things that currently dominate education discussions. Teach them how to read. Okay.

With that, I want to thank our guest, Eric Adelman, and our fill in, Benjamin Whitis. Thank you both so much for gracing us with your presence. Also want to thank our producer, Katie Cooper and our sound engineer for today, Aaron Keane. And of course thank all of our listeners. And again, you can download the book about Lindsay Graham from forward dot com, and we’ll have Will Saletan on next week.

And we will return next week as every week.

Dissecting politics with exclusive interviews, commentary, and humor, useful idiots with Katie Halper and Aaron Mate.

I really don’t like sharks. And I think we live in a very shark agandistic world. Quote, one thing to keep in mind is sharks who are not out there trying to eat surfers and swim They’d much rather eat fish, but in many cases they mistake us for their actual prey. When they do bite, they usually move on. That’s supposed to us feel better?

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