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John Avlon: The Bomb Throwers Just Don’t Care

January 4, 2023
Notes
Transcript

McCarthy thought he could appease the kamikaze caucus with cash and playing along with Stop the Steal — surprise, they’d rather ruin everything if they can’t rule. CNN’s John Avlon joins Charlie Sykes on today’s pod.

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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
    0:00:09

    Welcome to the Bullework Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is day two of the Republican congress, and how’s it going so far? So I think it’s a good good idea to put some historical perspective on today and yesterday’s shit show. And so we are joined by John Ablons, senior political analyst and Anchor at CNN, whose most recent book is Lincoln in the Fight for Peace.
  • Speaker 1
    0:00:33

    So first of all, welcome back, John. Thanks, Charlie. It’s gonna be with you. So you have cognitive dissonance as an historian that has meditated on the leadership qualities of the sixteenth president of the United States. Is it is it sort of jarring to think, you know, we’ve gone from Lincoln to Matt Gates and Marjorie Taylor Green in a catfight.
  • Speaker 2
    0:00:56

    Yeah. I mean, Lincoln, to Trump was jarring enough. You know, it
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:00

    was pretty bad. One
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:00

    of the things I did in the book is I I looked at the essential qualities of Lincoln’s character. Because I think, you know, it’s all about character at the end of the day. And, you know, what I delineated was empathy, honesty, humor, and humility. And those are four core qualities which are utterly absent for most of the leaders in the GOP. I think in the wake of of Donald Trump and we’re seeing folks reaping what they’ve sown.
  • Speaker 2
    0:01:24

    I don’t know how many more times people need to learn that Gollum turns on its creator, but here you go. As we are recording this, we
  • Speaker 1
    0:01:31

    don’t know what’s going to happen on day two whether or not Donald Trump’s all caps endorsement of Kevin McCarthy is going to make a difference. But apparently, he’s put out another statement in the last few minutes. Can I just read it in in terms of the qualities that you just delineated. Sure. Trump said, there is so much unnecessary turmoil in the Republican Party in large part due to people like the old broken crow, Mitch McConnell, his wife in quotation marks, his wife, Coco Chow, who is a sellout to China, and their rhino allies who make it difficult for everyone else by constantly capitulating to all caps, hopeless Joe Biden and the Democrats.
  • Speaker 1
    0:02:13

    The one point seven trillion dollar green new deal booster that McConnell and the rhinos handed to the demos last week was a real downer in an embarrassment to Republicans exclamation point. Mhmm. So he doesn’t actually mention Kevin McCarthy there, but I guess and and maybe I’m just sort of not picking here, but it is interesting that he keeps going after Mitch McConnell’s wife, he keeps referring to her as Coco Chow, And despite the fact that that is just egregiously racist and there’s been blowback, he just doesn’t give a shit, does he? He just he just
  • Speaker 2
    0:02:44

    is gonna keep going back to that well. Trump’s superpower is shamelessness and apparently that’s contagious. Yeah. Right? Because that’s that’s the core problem, I I think we’re we’re seeing in George Santos is just a particularly ripe example of the environment that he created.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:01

    But you know, if you take a a half step back, Friday is the anniversary of January sixth. And when you look at the now twenty people who voted against Kevin McCarthy on the third ballot of first day. The core leaders of this crew are to stop the steel folks who are still left in Congress. You know, it’s Andy Big. It’s Paul Gossar.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:20

    It’s Scott Perry. Mhmm. And so this is really a cautionary tale about the the Trumpist wing of the Republican Party in its most hardcore form, which is the election deniers. And they are people who would rather ruin if they cannot rule, and it’s more reflection of a fundamental discomfort with majoritarian democracy. And the irony of course is that Kevin McCarthy thought he could appease those folks.
  • Speaker 2
    0:03:41

    With cash, with trying to scuttle the bipartisan Jan six Commission, whatever it may be. And you can’t. You can’t reason people out of something they weren’t reasoned into. And it does make you wonder whether the fever will break. I mean, John Bainer resigned over this problem in what is now an embryonic form in the wake of the tea party.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:01

    Paul Ryan, cashed in his chips the end of the day because he didn’t wanna deal with the chaos caucus, the crazy caucus, the kamikazic caucus, whatever you wanna call
  • Speaker 3
    0:04:09

    it. But
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:09

    now it’s come to this. Or even Kevin McCarthy after all the appeasement after all the, you know, he still looks like he could very well be denied the prize that he has sacrificed everything for. And then the question is what comes after? And, you know, I don’t mind unlike a lot of folks talking about solutions. But it doesn’t need to be this way.
  • Speaker 2
    0:04:29

    It’s just people need to stop being enthralled to the extremes. Stop giving them so much power and leverage over our politics because it’s diminishing democracy, not just the Republican part. You know,
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:38

    I was all startled this morning to realize that John Bainer abruptly quit seven years ago. God. I mean, I mean, that was that was really a long time. And Kevin McCarthy could have looked at what happened to John Bainner, could have looked at what happened to Paul Ryan said, you know what? It’s just not worth it.
  • Speaker 1
    0:04:52

    This is the worst job in American politics. And instead, he decided, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take the leopards eating people’s faces party. And I’m gonna make it my own because they will never eat my face. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:05

    So I will enable them. I will go along with them. I will sign whatever crazy letters they want me to sign. I will empower March retailer Green. I will vote again certifying the election.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:16

    I will do everything. I will sell off every part of my soul. Mhmm. And yet, here we are where the Republican Party is dominated by crazy caucus. And I can’t really feel that sorry for him because in many ways, you know, Kevin McCarthy became their creature.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:33

    Right? I mean, he became the avatar of capitulation, of appeasement, of enabling, and of self humiliation, and look where it got him.
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:44

    Yeah. And look, this is again, how many times will the Republican Party have to learn this lesson before they actually take it to heart. But it’s it’s Winston Churchill’s definition of appeasement, which is feeding a crocodile in the hopes that it eats you last.
  • Speaker 1
    0:05:59

    Perfect. Yeah. Who’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:05:59

    gonna eat you? I don’t know how many more times the Republican Party or, you know, so called, you know, Republican leaders, which implies leadership by the way, not following. Think that they can somehow triangulate with this crew and and make all sorts of concessions because, you know, on the practical level, one of the things about this is there were a lot of negotiations and concessions given before the voting began, and it wasn’t enough. And guess what? It’ll never be enough.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:26

    And at some point, folks need to learn. And I’ll offer a little hopeful counterpoint, you know, because I think one of the things about journalism today is we need to be focused on accountability, yeah, always on following the facts and, you know, I know you’ve been very generous and kind about my reality checks. But also solutions. And we shouldn’t be afraid to talk about them because we act like somehow this is all inevitable and it’s not. And I’ll give you two examples, one which occurred just yesterday that could provide a path out.
  • Speaker 2
    0:06:54

    Pennsylvania state legislature, bitter election, Republican Party, very polarized dominated by the far right is seen by the nomination of Doug Mastriano. The state legislature narrowly divided because of some quirky resignations and etcetera etcetera. It was I think it was a hundred and one to ninety nine Republican Edge. So What happened like yesterday’s day is they found a centrist Democrat who won with the Democrats and the support of centrist Republicans presumably of the Charlie Dence Drive, and promptly said he’ll become speaker, but he’ll resign from the Democratic Party and be an independent, and act as an independent speaker. That’s not Fantasy Baseball that happened in Harrisburg of all places yesterday.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:35

    They go back just a few weeks to Alaska. You got a relatively small state senate. I don’t recall the exact margins, but let let’s say it’s fifteen. You had sort of a nine to six Republican margin. And the leadership was from the far far right, and you can imagine that in Alaska.
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:50

    And
  • Speaker 1
    0:07:51

    then you
  • Speaker 2
    0:07:51

    had some Markowski types who decided to form a bipartisan governing coalition with the democrats. And exclude the far right. Because, you know, if folks aren’t interested in governing, if they’re not interested in reasoning together to solve problems and defining common ground and finding common solutions. Maybe we should stop letting that tail wag the dog of our politics. And it’ll actually be more reflective of the electorate at large.
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:12

    It’ll be more consistent with the majoritarian rule.
  • Speaker 1
    0:08:14

    Well, and something similar happened in Ohio yesterday too, didn’t it, where the Republicans had nominated a far right election denier to be the speaker of the house, and the Republicans split and eventually voted with the Democrats to elect a more moderate Republican speaker. So again, the exact same thing happened there, kind of broke the duopoly. Yeah. So, yeah, these things actually can happen, although it seems unlikely that it will happen in Washington DC anytime. I
  • Speaker 2
    0:08:41

    know. I I don’t wanna be polyamish about this, but I also wanna say with do love in respect to my, you know, cynicism passes for wisdom in Washington for a reason. Yeah. And it does make people think that nothing could ever be done and this is all just inevitable and we gotta take our lumps and like it and then, you know, live to fight another day at Infinitum. This isn’t normal.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:03

    It’s been a hundred years. We’ve had one floor fight. Since the civil war of this scale. Right? Nineteen twenty three.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:11

    How did that happen? This is nineteen twenty three. So this isn’t a normal negotiating process. This is a total aberration that reveals the utter dysfunction of the Republican Party. And the irony, by the way, you know, as students say history, I did a little bit of looking into this.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:26

    The speaker house in nineteen twenty three was a guy named Fred Gillette. He was a Massachusetts Republican. And he had to deal with a bunch of RIKALSA TRENT REPUBLICANS FROM THE PROGRESSIVE WING OF THE PARTY THEN, INCLUDING FIEREL LaGuardia WHO FAMOUSLY AND I LOVE THIS FACT WAS A REPUBLICAN SOCIALIST. Refuse a fusion ticket. You’re from Wisconsin, so you’ll appreciate those sorts of coalitions and traditions.
  • Speaker 2
    0:09:49

    And it just goes to show that, you know, these parties aren’t permanent. They’re shifting coalitions. And certainly, any city of Lincoln in the world the Republican Party played at its beginning in contrast to the, you know, conservative populist Democrats at the time, which were based in the South, obviously. Is it self clarifying? We should not what’s the Lincoln quote about not being captive to the dogmas of the quiet past?
  • Speaker 2
    0:10:09

    And sufficient to the stormy present. So let’s innovate boldly and try to find a way to defend and restore our democracy. So most people probably are a
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:16

    little bit vague about what happened in nineteen twenty three with Fred Gillette. But I think it’s worth, you know, pointing out how we got here with more a little bit more recent history as well. And you you mentioned, you know, John Vayner and Paul Ryan, reminders that, you know, getting and holding the job has been very, very hard for Republicans. You know, Baylor was known for his deal making and crash and burn in in fifteen. Ryan was a policy wonk and had to quit in eighteen.
  • Speaker 1
    0:10:43

    And you quoted on Twitter. You quoted Bainer from his book. I may have been the speaker, but I didn’t hold the power. The chaos caucus in the house had built up their own power base thanks to fawning, right wing media and outrage driven fundraising cash. And so that was more than seven years ago, And by the way, you kind of inspired me to go back and look at something from Bainer’s book because I’m sorry.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:08

    I’m jumping around here. I thought it was very revealing after the adjournment, yes, today after the three three ballots of the incoming whip was asked, well, what’s your strategy now for Kevin McCarthy? And this strategy was, well, we’re hoping, you know, the tuck Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Ben Shapiro will beat up on these guys. Maybe that’ll move votes, which again is a recognition where the real centers of power are. And this reminded me of Vayner’s book where he talked about Michelle Bachman as an example of, you know, a public figure that conservative media elevated from security to star status.
  • Speaker 1
    0:11:40

    And, you know, she wanted to be on the House Ways and Means Committee. And he says there was no way that she was going to be on Ways and Means the most a prestigious committee in Congress and jump ahead of everybody else in line, not while I was speaker. You know, in the past, a member of Congress in her position wouldn’t be even dared ask for something like the Sam Raeburn would have laughed her out of the room, but then Bachman threatens Bainer and says, if he didn’t give her what she wanted, she would unleash the forces of the right wing media on him. This is his quote over. Well, then I’ll just have to go talk to Sean Hannity and everybody at Fox and Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin.
  • Speaker 1
    0:12:20

    And everybody else on the radio and tell them this is how John Vayner is treating the people who made it possible for the Republicans to take back the house, Bachman told Vayner, So that was the kind of the moment he realized that I wasn’t the one with the powers, you know. And she was right. And so this is how you get to this moment where you have twenty bomb throwers who just don’t care what they’re doing to the institution.
  • Speaker 2
    0:12:45

    That’s exactly right. And a couple of things you highlighted are so critical to remember. First of all, this didn’t happen in a vacuum or out of the blue. This has been building as a problem within the Republican Party for a long time, particularly in the wake of the tea party wave and reaction to the election of president Obama. And the logic and rationale then then Vayner was part of this at the time, was we’re just gonna harness their energy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:08

    So what if there’s some of these folks are a little crazy in streamest and conspiratorial, we’re gonna harness their energy into the majority and then find a way to channel it in a constructive direction. Guess what? Yes what? Those who care about ratings in a right wing media ecosystem don’t care about solving problems. Yeah.
  • Speaker 2
    0:13:25

    Because it’s about keeping people addicted to anger and conflict and agitation, not actually the business of solving problems for the American people, which depends upon constructive and principled compromise and has since the right application, the Constitution. If you want to get all old school about it. And for John Vayner who learned that lesson the hard way, And then his successor, Paul Ryan, they get broadly respected people. You know, his successor, Paul Ryan, that dynamic he just described with Michelle Bachman, Ryan, would you dismissively called the conservative media industrial complex. And it’s the tail wag and the dog and that combined with the polarization of the electorate because of the rigged system of redistricting, which has reduced the number of competitive districts.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:08

    So the general election is an afterthought. So people holding on to power depends. Playing to the base and winning close partisan primaries, which Republicans are trying to close existing open primaries right now, by the way, a story that’s been underreported in terms of its implications for the Republican. And it creates this dynamic that is incredibly destructive to the business of governing. And then, you know, the media, we frankly could do more folks on covering governing rather than the horse race politics of who gets into power because it’s what you do with it.
  • Speaker 2
    0:14:37

    And then in the both of of Bader’s case and he talks about other shutdowns that Ted Cruz inflicted upon him in sort of profane terms on his audio book, But in both cases, sometimes to get anything big done even in especially at a point of crisis, Republicans need to depend on centrist Democrats to get it done. And maybe that’s not such a bad coalition. Maybe that’s what we should be looking towards. You know, we got all all sorts of of disagreements. That’s fine.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:01

    But there is a core group of people. It’s the majority of Americans, and I still believe majority of folks in the House that they have the courage and spine to speak up, that actually believe and act on their belief that there’s more than the United system devices as Americans. We can actually solve big problems if those folks were empowered. But as long as the extremes can hijack and hold everybody hostage, nothing’s gonna happen, and that is bad for democracy because it increases apathy and cynicism. And the only people who are gonna do well Are these sort of folks who are professional polarizers?
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:29

    Because they profit off it. And I think
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:30

    that they understand that. And everything you’re describing though has gotten worse. It is far more difficult to do those kinds of deals than it was, say, seven years ago, when it was virtually impossible. I mean, you know, going back to Baylor again, you know, he was asked about you know, Obama’s hesitation to work with the Republicans at the time, and and Bainer says, how do you find common cause with people who think you are a secret Kenyan Muslim trader? Yeah.
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:53

    And that was before Trump.
  • Speaker 2
    0:15:57

    And I think
  • Speaker 1
    0:15:57

    that part of what Trump has done is e obviously has emboldened and empowered, you know, the entertainment wing, that that, you know, right wing media industrial complex, but also to use the term that you used earlier, to encourage people to embrace their shamelessness. So I think if you had a script writer who is writing about all of this, I think that they might hesitate to write a character like George Santos because it would be too much on the nose, you know, just too unsettled. Mhmm. But in so many ways, I did good your take on this. Sandoz seems like the personification of our age of trumpian politics of the culture of Grif.
  • Speaker 1
    0:16:34

    I mean so just talk to me about this. I mean, the he’s sitting in the back row. Nobody’s talking to him yesterday. But the GOP is generally pretty silent about him. Of course.
  • Speaker 2
    0:16:45

    Well, first of all, it’s it’s because they don’t have the margin where they don’t feel like they can lose anybody. And by the way, he hasn’t been sworn in yet, but his office put out a press release saying he’d been sworn in. So, you know, the the theme just continues. I agree with you. The other day on on CNN this morning, I did a story about Santos and the culture of lying in American politics.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:03

    And this is all downstream from Donald Trump, where shamelessness has become table stakes. And it leads to absurdities of the kind we’re seeing where, you know, I have a real problem with headlines that describe it as resume inflation. You know, we’re a fabulous, which is such a fancy word that makes him sound like a modern day Jay Gatsby. This guy is a serial liar about seemingly every aspect of his life. He defroded the voters in his district, Some reporting was done locally about some of the open questions that still exist with regards to, for example, when he ran two years ago, he had a net worth of, I believe, under five thousand dollars eighteen months later, it was over eleven million.
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:45

    How does that happen? That’s the American regulations. That’s
  • Speaker 3
    0:17:48

    fine. Yeah. And that’s the reporting
  • Speaker 2
    0:17:49

    still to be done. But regardless, I I just remind folks that, first of all, Lying on on your federal financial disclosures is a crime. And conspiracy to fraud the United States, you know, or at least the voters of his district, could also apply. And Dan Goldman, the new congressman from Lower Manhattan in New York, suggested that those could be applied, but it’s really about Republican’s healing themselves. And here’s where I think the work of you all at the bulwark and bias with my wife, Margaret.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:14

    Republicans have to police themselves here. And I know the theme of our times is party over principle. Right? Party over country. And that’s the road to hell in the larger geopolitical struggle between autocracy and democracy.
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:25

    The parties need to police their own extremes. They have ceased to do so. But if you can’t deal with a George Santos, a guy with no power who who lied fundamentally about his office, This is like the character test keeps getting lower. We lower that bar. Where is it gonna be?
  • Speaker 2
    0:18:41

    And I think one of the just bearing things was is that we failed to United as a nation after January sixth. The good news is in twenty twenty two, which is, you know, should be the cycle, the tea party out cycle, independent voters who, you know, I focus on intensely swung towards Democrats, and the election deniers lost in the swing states. They are margins in some cases, but that’s the good news. So you think it would give people a little bit more courage to strengthen their civic spine and do the right thing when you’re dealing with people like Santos because realizing that the environment has been established and the race was not considered competitive, so it didn’t get the attention it should have deserved even in especially by New York media. But the grifter and the latter cons his way into congress.
  • Speaker 2
    0:19:23

    That’s not a good advertisement. And and, you know, do you think there are a bunch of laws that we should dust off and apply them so that we can strengthen and rebuild, frankly, the guardrails around our democracy. We need to do
  • Speaker 3
    0:19:35

    that with a sense of urgency and it should be it needs to be bipartisan. We shouldn’t be so completely dependent on the criminal justice system. And by the way,
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:40

    I still think fabulous is a pretty good word. You put your finger though. On the real danger here. And you wrote, you know, it shows how much we have put the pursuit of power over principles that shamelessness has become table stakes in politics. And this is all downstream from Donald Trump.
  • Speaker 1
    0:19:56

    But the larger cultural damage is that lying has become normalized. Okay. And we are in danger of becoming numb to it. Mhmm. I think that’s the thing is that things that used to, of course, would generate outrage will, of course, would cross the line.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:13

    Now, the zone is so flooded with it. That there does seem to be this sort of despairing shrug. Yeah. So there’s George Santos. He’s voting.
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:22

    Everybody’s counting on him. Maybe the criminal justice system will take him out, but we’re way past the point where the Republican Party will say, well, we are shocked shocked to find out that we have politicians in our ranks who lied to us — Uh-huh. — who make things up. We’re just done with that now. Right?
  • Speaker 1
    0:20:38

    And so what happens when lying in deception and all of this becomes completely normalized and we’re not?
  • Speaker 2
    0:20:46

    Well, look, I think that’s the real danger and we’re living with it in real time. And it’s the problem of people being unable to say clearly for fear and greed fueled political reasons that Donald Trump was a serial liar and his biggest lie was about the election. Because all of a sudden you get into face saving move that’s compounded by the dynamics of political parties that punish dissent where reasoning is considered risky or disqualifying. And look, you know, if you look at the ways that this information is confronted, you know, I interviewed these guys from a Ukrainian counter disinformation news organization called stop fake They were formed in twenty fourteen after the annexation invasion of Crimea. As you know, with reality check, I do a lot on combating disinformation.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:33

    I think it’s one of the core responsibilities we’ve got. As Carlos. And they made two really profound points that have always stuck to me. One, the goal of disinformation is not to convince, but to confuse. So you don’t know who’s telling the truth.
  • Speaker 2
    0:21:47

    And it’s one of the reasons why in the game of moral relativism was, well, all politicians lie. So, you know, how can we possibly know what’s true and why get hung up on the truth? Just because my guy happens to be lying a lot, it doesn’t mean the game of what about is. And the other thing they say is that part of the game that is often played is to pit the far left and far right against the
  • Speaker 3
    0:22:10

    center. And that’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:11

    where
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:11

    you see sort of the horseshoe theory of politics and the surface conspiracy theories. Those two things are are the driving forces between a lot of what is being deployed to erode faith in our democracy and our ability to reason together, which is all the more reason to form a bull work, yeah, there you go, against those forces. And it’s gotta be bipartisan. And it’s gonna come from the center. And it’s the reason that character matters, character counts, go back to the stories of the founding fathers, any fundamental story of American history.
  • Speaker 2
    0:22:36

    Character is the quality that matters more than a president than all others. You could put ideology, politics aside almost characters what counts the most And that’s the lesson of the American story at its best. And so when you discard character, you find excuses to not pursue it. That’s when you get real problems.
  • Speaker 1
    0:22:53

    Well, we have discarded it. It does feel increasingly irrelevant. And I guess the hardest question is how do you put it back together again? Once you have. And and this numbness to disinformation is not just in the political class, but what if the American people, what if it’s not a leadership a problem anymore?
  • Speaker 1
    0:23:09

    What if it’s a followership problem? And that the voters
  • Speaker 3
    0:23:12

    themselves don’t value these things, that they just don’t care. So I would say first of all that the most recent elections provide proof that enough critical voters in the center
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:21

    of the electorate still do. I will be the determined optimist in my cap or esque soul that says that we cannot give up on those qualities and the difficulty is the the excuse history never accepts. So you need to look at the incentive structures that have been created around our politics and our media. As that’s driving a lot of this, the cowardice of members of Congress. To do in many cases what they know is right or say what they know to be true is because they do not face competitive general elections and they therefore do not worry about reaching out to win over the reasonable edge of the opposition.
  • Speaker 2
    0:23:53

    They just worry about playing to the base. And in that context, particularly with the conservative industrial media complex, There is no such thing as too extreme. But that, of course, gets you in a trap where you can’t ultimately condemn lies and all your principles are basically potemkin. So what can we do about it? Well, first of all, change the incentive structures in our politics.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:13

    We need open primaries and redistricting reforms. We’ve got competitive general elections. And that can still be done on a state by state basis when, you know, parties don’t try to overrule the state constitution like they did in Ohio. Social media is a huge problem. Because, of course, it amplifies conspiracy theories and conflict.
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:30

    And I do think that we need desperately need algorithm reform. We need more transparency because the extremism and the conspiracy theories are being amplified disproportionately. And that’s putting these people in positions of relative influence and power up to the presidency. Now
  • Speaker 3
    0:24:47

    don’t know
  • Speaker 2
    0:24:48

    that Donald Trump would have been president four social media, and it’s a multifactorial problem, you know, reality TV, celebrity, etcetera. We need to think about ways to reunite the nation. And I co authored an op ed with my friends John Hyatt and Mickey Edwards and Miami a few years ago called the Unum Test. And we said, look, you gotta think not just to choose a political reform, but also economics and culture, and we need to be elevating policies that will find ways to reunite the nation rather than divide it. Things like national service, not exclusively military.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:16

    We’ll be thinking comprehensively about this rebuilding the middle class. No wonder the middle of our politics have hollowed out. At the same time, the middle class has been hollowed out. So I think we need to think with a sense of generational urgency about a comprehensive strategy to reunite the nation. And no, we can’t simply say these larger forces are driving us to the place where democracy is being degraded and all people will be decadent to self interested and we cannot possibly reason together ever again.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:38

    That would be an abandonment of the American experiment. That’s not acceptable. I would
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:43

    like to end on that positive positive optimistic note because I
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:47

    still desperately
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:47

    want you to be right about this, but instead, I wanna talk about Rudy Giuliani.
  • Speaker 2
    0:25:53

    Yeah. We’ve
  • Speaker 3
    0:25:54

    got to occasionally, I make a list of the people that
  • Speaker 1
    0:25:56

    if if I was redoing a history of what the hell happened to American conservatism, you know, you’d write down certain personalities, you know, tracing them over the years, you know, watch the devolution of all of this. But I don’t know that there is a more spectacularly quasi tragic. Almost Shakespearean aspect. Shakespearean, except that it ends in complete force. I am very anxious to see your new special series about Rudy Giuliani.
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:24

    It’s gonna be airing over two consecutive weekends starting this Sunday with back to back episodes at nine and ten o’clock. Eastern time. You go way back with Rudy Giuliani, and this series is gonna be asking that question, you know, how somebody who was. The nation’s most beloved hero in the aftermath of nine eleven became the architect of these election conspiracies, who’s managed to be at his law license taken from him. So, I mean, just talk to me about You were his chief speech writer in the aftermath of nine eleven.
  • Speaker 1
    0:26:58

    So you were with Rudy at his pinnacle. You knew him back then. I knew him back when,
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:03

    and it was an honor to work for Rudy as mayor even before nine eleven. And and I think there’s a a misunderstanding that somehow he was deeply unpopular in New York before nine eleven. There’s a New York Times poll among other data points, which that I mean, you know, the Republican mayor in a six to one Democrat city and had over fifty percent approval. And his record before nine eleven was extraordinary. I mean, George Will called that, you know, America’s most successful case of conservative governance.
  • Speaker 2
    0:27:29

    Mhmm. In that he in eight years cut murder sixty four percent crime, I think fifty eight percent cut welfare in half turned multi two billion dollar deficit into a multibillion dollar surplus. Cut taxes was pro gay rights, pro choice, pro immigrant, And, you know, I’m an independent and always have been, but I was very proud to work for him with that record. And then on nine eleven, he showed the kind of leadership that the nation needed. And I I hope to the extent tragedies are self inflicted, people who’ve had must have long lives in the public eye, have different chapters.
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:03

    And I hope that the positive lessons of Marie’s leadership are not entirely eclipsed by his fourth act. Which has been tragic and destructive and disgraceful. Because though a lot of those policy lessons actually are pretty urgently needed to be remembered right now.
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:17

    How did he get from there to now? How did his mindset? Is it a psychological collapse? Is it a professional? I mean, was it a flaw that was always there in his character that was exposed over time?
  • Speaker 1
    0:28:30

    Did he change? Well, that
  • Speaker 2
    0:28:32

    I think is the most interesting question. You know, I’m subject to what is known as the Goldwater rule, which is an unofficial rule among journalists where you do not diagnose from a farm. I will say that his character has changed in fundamental ways, and I’ll I’ll give you two examples about principles that he did embody. People forget that he was one of the more distinguished lawyers of his generation as a US attorney, member of the justice department rate administration. And one of the things he said and believed is that the law is a search for the truth.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:02

    And the verb is chosen carefully. Another thing he said to me that I think typified his politics, again, as a urban republican, head of a third way generation of mayors that help save America cities. Great new republic coverage story by Peter Binder, by the way, called the new progressives about that era. He said to me, you know, to be locked into partisan politics doesn’t permit you to think clearly. And I think what we have seen is a utter desecration of judgment of those principles that when he once held where objectively he has pursued the law not in search for the truth but to pursue hyperpartism ends.
  • Speaker 2
    0:29:45

    And he is not thinking clearly because he has become locked into partisan politics. And there is a larger cautionary tale, not just related to the fact that, you know, he’s much older, but about the ecosystems that have been created that people live in. That hyperpartism news has made works, where all of a sudden combined with the addiction to attention, which I think is endemic to x mayors, created this brew where all of a sudden he has he tried to overturn an election. On the basis of absolutely no facts. And
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:20

    it
  • Speaker 2
    0:30:20

    is a tragic way to end his career.
  • Speaker 1
    0:30:22

    This becomes even more puzzling as as you think through this that he was at one time, you know, one of the most distinguished lawyers of his generation, and now he is disbarred having be clowned himself in in court cases. The the Rudy Giuliani who went after the mob and turned the city of New York around, compare him to the Rudy Giuliani who’s got the the hair dye going down his cheek while he’s standing at a press conference, you know, peddling the most bizarre sorts of things. I know that there’s the Goldwater rule, but it seems that even political considerations, financial considerations just don’t add up to get to that point. What was his relationship? And and how does his relationship with Donald Trump figure?
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:06

    Because, I mean, Donald Trump kind of pulled him out of a little bit of obscurity. He regarded him as a superstar. He obviously would mired Lee Giuliani and propped him up for some time. So can you talk to me at all about the the mutual pact they formed with each other and how that played into the story of Rudy’s decline in fall? The story
  • Speaker 3
    0:31:29

    is, I
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:29

    think, stranger than often replicated. First of all, it is not true that Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani have always been close friends. That
  • Speaker 1
    0:31:37

    was not
  • Speaker 2
    0:31:38

    the case when he was mayor. I’d say they were people who certainly knew each other Ruth Trump appeared in one, frankly, horrific video for a thing called the inner circle with Rudy dressed in drag, which I never really understood why that was a good idea. But they weren’t particularly close, although Trump had been kind to Rudy’s son, Andrew, during a divorce. You know, when Trump’s running again, remember that Rudy is definitely, you know, a pugelisty, definitely was motivated by intense dislike of the Clinton’s in part, motivated by a desire for attention. He was pleading a case in the court of public opinion.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:14

    He’d already sort of gone all in on the anti Obama stuff And initially, you know, when when Trump was running, I’m and I had a conversation with him, you know, it was down to Kacik and Cruise and Trump, and he felt that Cruise had had just a fundamentally different vision of the Republican Party that he needed to reach out and win over new voters, not simply play to the basis he saw it. And Keesik, he didn’t think had a shot. Although, historically, Keesik would have been rudy style Republican. So he went with the guy who knew the New Yorker, initially said he was going to vote for but not endorsed. And then became deployed as sort of a pit pole surrogate on television, court of public opinion, flourished in that role and was the ultimate loyalist.
  • Speaker 2
    0:32:54

    And, of course, with Donald Trump, you know, he will deploy people to be pit bulls and dog and defenders all day long because that’s the language she understands even if the language of loyalty is a totally one way street. And Rudy effectively lit his reputation on fire to serve that man’s ambition. And it’s it it is tragic. It is tragic. You know, I know that the Rick Wilson’s book, you know, everything Trump touches,
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:17

    dies. It it’s hard to think of anyone whose reputation was was more thoroughly destroyed the Rudy Giuliani. I mean, obviously, we all wish long life and health to everybody. But if he had passed away, say, in two thousand two or two thousand three, there would be monuments to him all over the country. There’d be airports named after him.
  • Speaker 1
    0:33:35

    There would be schools named after him. There would be parks named after him. There might be national immuno parks named after him. And now he’s likely to be remembered for these last few years, his association. And you kind of wonder what, you know, when he’s sitting by himself, whether he thinks about this, you know, how he went from that, including being the running candidate for president of the United States at one point to being this figure of, you know, loathing and derision.
  • Speaker 1
    0:34:06

    I met my wife, Margaret, who were
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:07

    working on his campaign. You know, I talked to him towards the end of twenty sixteen. We used to do a annual nine eleven dinner with those of us who served in the mayor’s senior staff at the time. And I said, look, the election’s gonna be over soon. And why don’t you think about your own legacy?
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:21

    And the reason being is that I felt that the policies he enacted were important and shouldn’t be eclipsed by sort of his more outrageous, partisan proclivity is late in life. He said to me and I tell the story in the documentary. He said, I don’t give a damn about my legacy. And I I think that’s a dangerous thing. Do you think he means
  • Speaker 3
    0:34:42

    that though? Who doesn’t care about their legacy? There’s a peculiar fatalism with Rudy, which, you know, one of the more interesting aspects of Rudy is that, you know, he’s a
  • Speaker 2
    0:34:52

    a guy who, you know, thought about becoming a pretty and knew himself well enough to know that, you know, he liked women too much for that to be realistic and became a prosecutor instead. And one of the things I think nine eleven taught me taught us is that you don’t have to be perfect to be a hero. He never played perfect because he knew he wasn’t. He was a flawed person. But he was able to stand up and do the right thing at a critical time.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:16

    And I think he sort of feels like some successful politicians do that, you know, that his legacy is up to politicians and he’ll be dead. That’s a little bit at odds with his religious training. But moreover, I think consideration of one’s legacy plays a very useful role in strengthening guardrails in our democracy. It helps people, I think, often, aspire to be their best selves. And not simply be motivated by short term self interests.
  • Speaker 2
    0:35:41

    The absence of that, I think, is one of the things that leads to hurtling disgrace.
  • Speaker 3
    0:35:48

    Will
  • Speaker 1
    0:35:48

    watch this over this weekend, the CNN special series about Rudy Giuliani starting this Sunday with two back to back epic sides at nine and ten o’clock, both eastern time and Pacific time. And I have to admit that I am somewhat obsessed by figures like Rudy Giuliani who at near the end of their lives do not care about their legacy or who have trashed their legacy so dramatically. Would you apply the word tragedy to it? Is there a tragedy of Rajuliani? I would.
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:18

    In the ancient Greek sense, which is that there’s
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:22

    you know, power doesn’t corrupt power reveals — Yeah. — that’s a Bob Keriwism, full credit. But that this is a self inflicted fall, and it’s related to his weaknesses, not his many strengths. And those weaknesses end up coming to define him. But I also think that the larger thing it starkly projects in contrast to a man like Abraham Lincoln, who whom Sherman said, he was the only man whose goodness was equal to his greatness, is that greatness in the absence of goodness can end very badly for everybody.
  • Speaker 2
    0:36:56

    John Avolon’s
  • Speaker 1
    0:36:56

    latest book is Lincoln and the fight for PC as a senior political analyst and anchor at CNN, John, thank you so much for spending time with us today on the podcast. Thank you, Charlie. It’s always a pleasure to
  • Speaker 3
    0:37:06

    talk with you. Keep up the great work. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:12

    Tune back tomorrow and we’ll do this all over again.
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:22

    Former Navy SEAL Sean Ryan shares real stories from real people, from all walks of life on the Sean Ryan show. Wealth strategist, Rob Luna, if you could solve a
  • Speaker 1
    0:37:34

    problem
  • Speaker 2
    0:37:34

    in this world, better than anyone else, you’re gonna make a lot of money. And then that’s really what a business’s ultimate goal is, whether it’s your business or a manufacturing business, it’s about solving a problem, making a bigger impact in people’s lives than anyone else on scale. I mean, I’ve been trying to scale my business, but I can’t find somebody that pinned up these interviews. Yeah. A shot Ryan Show on YouTube or wherever you listen.
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