Live Post-Debate Reaction (with Tom Nichols and Ben Smith)

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Bulwark live event. I’m JBL here with my best friend ever. Tim Miller of the Bulwark and joined by two other very good friends, Tom Nichols of the Atlantic and Ben Smith from Semaphore. Totally, by surprise.

Honored to be here.

It’s a you guys looked like the step brothers. You know, the the do we just become best friends?

It’s a Hang on.

Alright. I’ll just start it off. That was way more depressing than I was prepared for, and I don’t know if I can fucking do this for another fifteen months. I’ll just lay it out there. The prospect of sitting through another twelve That’s

why Ben is here. We’re thinking about replacing you. I just thought I’m gonna say we can’t do

this for the next hour.

I Good god. Alright. So I’ll you know what? Tom, this was the Viveke debate. Yes.

Is that is that fair to say Elon Musk? Lord Musk just tweeted that he’s very intrigued by by that Vive ache. Vivint seem to be in the middle of everything. Tell me what you what you thought.

I think this is the debate where, the Jocks and the artist drama club kids and the nerds and the zoomers and the dweebies. Nobody agreed that Vivic’s the most annoying person in high school. Because they all clearly hated him. But but he he’s just I mean, the one and and I said this, you know, tweeted this out. He he made everyone else look normal, even DeSantis because he he has that kind of hyper caffeinated the the big kind of the big over overly big smile.

The, the Peter Navarro hands, right? You know, what the hand’s going? So you know, I mean, Ron DeSantis had to be sitting there and saying, thank god for this guy, because DeSantis did not manage to look normal. For most of the evening. But yeah, I mean, in that sense, the, the, the, if, if the only thing you remember is who kind of really sort of was like nails on a blackboard, then, yeah, it was the, it was the vivid debate.

I I don’t

I don’t Neil’s home blackboard for who, though.

Yeah. I have a contrary imputed address.

Maybe. Right. If

Tom Nichols was really annoyed by Vive vague, I think we can just go ahead and anoint Vive vague the winner. Of that of that debate because Tom Nichols is not exactly in tune with the median primary voter. And so Yeah. Yeah. On the merits, like climate change being a hoax, Donald’s trump being the greatest president of all time.

No part. And it’s like, you know, bring back insane asylum. You know, on the policy merits Vivick wasn’t exactly

you know, tickling my pickle. But as far as where, like, the party is now, I

mean, we’ll, I we’ll see how everything turns out. I noticed Charlie Kirk also endorsed Vivint coming out of this. I think Vivic was in Magacolor, and these other guys were, like, in Bulwark and white. And and and I and they had that hand raised question on Ukraine. Which I think could be the key image.

Like, should we stop funding Ukraine? Vivak is the only one raising his hand. That’s a seventy one percent issue. A seventy one percent Republican issue. I mean, it’s morally bankrupt.

It’s totally wrong, but but the he so he’s alone. That very familiar to something that I experienced in twenty sixteen. One guy alone saying crazy stuff, but all the people in the not in the audience audience play, but don’t

go crazy.

And a lot of

gonna raise my hand like Vivic and just say my annoyance was not based on the stuff he said, which was annoying. I just find his whole kind of me and his whole sort of presence just, you know, like chewing tinfoil. The stuff he said was a kind of added bonus of being nuts, but I totally agree with you that that half the stuff he said, like, make some the possible dark horse and a prohibitive VP favorite at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. There was like a kind of millennial high school debater energy there that that p maybe perhaps we find annoying. But, like, a debate about Vivecramaswamy that we followed by us talking about Vivecramaswamy is, like, god’s gift to Vivek. I mean, but I do think what Tim said like that beginning of the debate when the moderators are asking about how you’re gonna handle the debt.

And these Republicans are so comfortable reciting these kind of time worn lines about debt reduction in the government.

All government. And was that there’s this There’s this There’s

this pre trumped Republican party and this post republican party, and a lot of that debate was what was conducted in the past.

So that was weird. Wasn’t it the extent in which we spent the first thirty minutes of the debate talking about small government and cutting government programs, and that was like the zombie Reagan portion of the debate, which I mean, a lot of this debate felt like earth too. Right? The the the world in which Donald Trump doesn’t exist. We did get eleven minutes, a whole eleven minutes on Trump.

But other than that, we went the first fifty minutes with Trump only being mentioned twice and even then only sort of in passing once by Pence, one by once by Nikki, And, like, the lessons of trumpism, which are, like, you know, I will not touch your social security. I will not touch your disability benefits. Those those things or, you know, it’s like nobody else on stage outside of Vivec really understood them.

And Vivec was the stand. I mean, the reason Vivec dominated the debate was because he was stand in for Trump.

Right. Well, and here’s here’s what I picked up on this. Right? So one of the things if you think back to twenty sixteen and Tom, while we’re doing this, can you turn your volume up a little bit on your mic? Because you’re a little soft for us.

Trump trump’s thing was in twenty sixteen, everything is going to hell, American carnage, and all of this can be solved so easily. The only reason it hasn’t been solved is because the people in Washington are idiots. That is exactly what Vivek is doing. Right? I mean, Tim Scott and Mike Pence are doing their, you know, greatest America, greatest country in god’s green earth, etcetera.

And Vivek is saying, no. Everything is terrible, and it’s easy to fix Ukraine, and it’s easy to fix the border, and it’s easy to fix the problems that all these people are idiots. I was just like, I don’t know, man. Like, that sounds like something that Republicans like hearing.

Can I just be out of character on this for one second?

Just be earnest. It was nice. When Mike Pence was up there saying America is great, you know, and the problem is our leaders and our people are great and a lot of things are going for us and Vivic, you’re wrong about this. We’re not in a civil war times. Like, you know, we can,

you know, pull ourselves. Like, there that I It was a little bit heartwarming. I Tim, like, Ernest Tim, it was, like, yeah, they I’m happy that Mike Pence is on the stage to say that and to say that he did the I think. I have no idea why he’s running or what he hopes to get out of it, but, like, having that person up there made this debate for me a little more delicious and interesting.

Like, if he was not there, it would have been totally depressing.

I had a Mike Pence moment like that at the Iowa State Fair last week where A Democrat was, you know, earnestly yelling at him about something, and he took the question, answered back. And then he said, you know, I’m gonna run I I’m running for president to get the votes of Democrats and Republicans and trust me. I’m gonna get them all. And it was like, that’s so nice.

Can you guys hear me now?

Is that better? Yeah. It’s much better. Much better. Tom, tell me what you think about about Ronde.

Well Did, did R. D. What what were you guys there?

I mean, first of all, you know, as a former staff guy, I will say one thing that always strikes me about all of these guys with, you know, with a few exceptions, they’re over prepped I mean, Ben, every answer was he was re and, you know, I I I said it’s like you take those little star trucks stick him in the back of his head, push the button and he goes. Tim Scott, all of them, you know, the just in terms of the heartwarming conservative moments, Hutchenson, Pence’s speech, which I thought was very nice. And Doug Bergam, who’s like the tenth amendment actually matters. You can’t actually legislate these things nationally. And I was like, wow.

No one gives a shit about that, but it was a cool thing to say because I suddenly felt like, wow, this is how I felt. Is this how I felt in nineteen eighty two? You know? You know, wow. I kinda had that feeling in forty years.

But I think, the

You like that. You like that. We’re going from OPEC to sign OPEC line, Tom. That was really,

you know, I’m I’m I’m if I somebody said to me, you have to pick one of these eight guys and just put them in the White House right now and say, maybe Doug Bergam because he seems like a normal human being. But, with with Ron DeSantis, he’s, you know, as always, he didn’t he seems uncomfortable. He didn’t seem to relate to anybody else on stage. I mean, he doesn’t have so much more about Christie, but Christie’s always in the moment, right? He’s there.

He’s got that. Hey. How are you? You know, not for nothing, but the lines over there, you know, that kinda that kind of ambiance to him. DeSantis I I think it’s just showing why people just can’t connect to the guy even though he had some big applause lines because he hits those marks And maybe that’ll that’ll be enough to carry him through to being a really strong second place, you know, finish.

Yeah.

Just real quick. I I’ll let you go. I thought the Sanders debate was too worth Ted Cruz, this debate from last time. Total hit the marks. He’s totally in a fine position, but like, what did he do to help him Ted Cruz finished a distant second.

Sorry to interrupt. Yeah.

I mean, I think it depends on your theory of the case. The first debate, he did fine. I think people probably liked it when he told the moderators to shut up and try to stop trying to corner him with gimmicky questions. Yep. And I think their theory of the case is that when the smoke eventually cleared, peep clears real voters, particularly when I walk around and say, no.

These people are gonna be president. Right. Vivec, whatever. Like, all that’s going away. He’ll still be there.

And he’s and if he can just keep putting one foot in front of the other, which is barely, barely doing at this point, that there’s a moment when he’s head to head with Trump and the people consolidate behind him. I think that’s his theory. He’s I don’t I mean, I don’t think he did himself any harm. Yeah.

That’s it was Ted Cruz’s theory also, so that aligns my my point. Yeah.

He was trying to grab the the new ging lane to see if he could kind of catch a South Carolina moment, right? I’m going to trash the media. No matter what this question was about, I’m going to trash the media and see if that catches fire. And I I don’t think it did.

At one really bad moment, which I’m not sure if you guys noticed because I only saw it afterward. But when they asked about the, The hand raise? That raise hands if you support if if you think Trump should, what even was it? It was a Trump hand raise

It was it was Will you vote for trump, if he can,

if he’s convicted. And, you know, six hit your five hands shoot up.

Yeah. Stay down.

Shoo hands, stay down, and they little pause, and then DeSantis kinda like and and that’s I don’t know. That that struck me as a really bad piece of video that we’ll probably see some more of in in you never know in this moment, particularly in this kind of splintered Twitter environment, like, what the consensus will be post debate. I do think that be it also.

Like, what are the Alex Brucekiwits people? Like, what are your friend, Benny Johnson? Like, what are they tweeting? Like, it’s hard to now when I’m going home, I go listen to Candice’s own podcast again to make sure that my assumptions are right.

But what did anybody do

to help

themselves? At all in terms of the overall debate. You know, John, Jonathan, you were saying, well, we went fifteen minutes. You know, part of what this debate was, people Certainly people like me, I think, tuned in, but I think a lot of people tuned in to say, who’s gonna who’s gonna beat up on whom? And when do they talk about Trump?

This party, the Republican Party is a post policy party. Nobody cares about policy. Nobody cares about deficits. Nobody cares I thought Nikki Haley had a super strong moment on abortion for one shining moment of, you know, kind of I think she’s where the American public is, and that’s great for a general election, but probably not here. And then, you know, other candidates had a great opportunity to just not say anything.

But again, what how does this move anything where Trump is concerned? And I guess Here’s my wishcasting for a moment. I was kind of I was tuning in to say, is there one guy who says, look, maybe it was supposed to be Christie or Hutch and Center or somebody? Was there somebody who was gonna say, look, I know I can’t win this. I know none of us are gonna win this, but I’m gonna I came to this debate to tell the tell the Republican party a moral truth here.

Now Christy got you close to it with you. Oh, I know you’re boo. You have like the he was like the will herd stand in. Right? You know, booing doesn’t change anything.

But they all just chickened out and said, no, I’m running as if as if it’s really possible that I’m gonna dislodge Donald Trump at some point. And I think

have to mention out my friend, Christy.

Sorry? Uh-huh.

I do have to mention out my friend, Chris, Christie, that he was suppose the I thought that the theory of his presidency was that he was gonna show or his campaign was gonna be just gonna to these debates and just dominate and own Donald Trump and own. I I think Vivic got the best better of him in their one exchange, which doesn’t give me a lot of hope if you ever did get next to Trump on stage. And and I thought that his Trump attacks were fine and right, but kind of weak. Like, to me, Nikki was like the person that seemed like an adult that that have a couple criticisms of Trump. She didn’t make the moral case that you’re talking about, Thomas.

You know, this is we’re grading on a huge curve here. But, like, if you’re looking for, like, who wins the Normie Lane, maybe Nikki helps herself. Now, what does this get you? Nothing, like a bronze medal or something? I do think she was better than Scott and better than Christie.

And if you, you know, add all their numbers up, that’s like fifteen. Maybe you can see a little something from her.

But why? Surprised we haven’t talked about her yet. I agree. Like, she I was, yeah, I I was watching the debate with, like, a Republican woman who, who was, like, whoa. I really love her.

Like, just like the way she there was she was talking. She was speaking. She was also just speaking normal English in a way that most of them weren’t when she, like, she was to, you know, I thought I thought her abortion rif. Again, like, I don’t I don’t know how I I’m not sure how much of the Republican primary electorate is there. I think probably a lot of Trump supporters though, are there, or or where she is an abortion?

Because that’s probably where Trump is.

I thought Tim Scott was kind of I I thought Tim Scott’s thing was to me. Evoncular and calm and sort of every the guy everybody likes. And he really came across this kind of and I was surprised because I wasn’t expecting it. And I think it kind kind of came across this sort grading and even a little nervous in places.

He looked nervous. Yeah. If I was Larry Ellison, and I’d spent sixty million

I would

have been kinda thinking about the yachts I could have bought with that sixty mil.

Yeah. You can’t even buy a yacht with that anymore. Don’t worry about it.

So do I’m sorry.

Is there is there a semaphore rich guy vertical now? I don’t know. I don’t exactly know all your verticals. Yeah. That’s like a billionaire.

Coming soon. How to spend it. When you’re young.

Do do we think Nikki gets a second look from the donor types who are panicking about the Santa’s — Yes. — and now look at Scott and go, hey, hold on. Wait a minute. Why we She gets

a real

She is.

She has not had a single breath of oxygen this whole campaign, and she’s a very, very talented politician who You never know. Right? Like, she is somebody who can seize an opportunity, can run with it. And she’s obviously gonna get a real look now, I think.

Can I make a child? This point really quick. Tom, this is Debbie, then can go. Ron is on Fox right now. He just has a weird face.

And I just don’t he just has a weird face. Oh. Ron, tiny d. These Santis. I’m sorry, Ben.

I know that you’re a straight journalist. So just shake your head of me.

Yeah. In many senses of that.

Yeah. You have all senses. The weird face when I was in Iowa, I’d take pictures of them, and it’s impossible to get a good picture of them. And I, you know, I I just I I do think that’s a problem for him. I thought he hit his marks, but, like, you can’t get past the fact that he makes weird faces.

Perhaps more important than Tim’s sort of like ableism or whatever this is, is that Fox News has just switched to Ron to say what’s happening behind us on on TV is that Fox News just has Ron to San Hassan, and he’s gonna talk for a while. And I mean, I do think in some ways, you know, Rupert Murdoch really does exercise a lot of control over that network personally. And I think a lot of what you were seeing was what does Rupert Murdoch personally care about. A lot of the old time ECPieto owned Republican stuff is the old priorities of the Murdoch family. I think they seem to still like Ron DeSantis.

Right now Sean Hannity is just gonna, like, give Ron DeSantis a bunch of airtime, and that’s that’s just a programming choice by Fox.

Well, Tim, about your point about Ron DeSantis. I deleted a tweet some time ago saying, you know, it was nasty because he did we get that weird kind of unhinged snake job laugh going. And I said, you know, it’s not fair. People take bad pictures. We all get caught poorly, but you’re right, ever since.

There’s no good pictures. I mean, it’s just they’re all like that. And and on the Nikki Haley point, I Will Saletan little crow here. So I’m the guy that when she announced, I said, why is Nikki Haley running? This is an absolutely pointless campaign you know, not I wasn’t for or against.

I just said that in, you know, the reality of the Republican Party, but I think you’re right. I think that tonight, people might look and say, well, okay, you know, this this was the one of the like you say, you know, it’s the Normi Lane. I also think from what you guys were saying about Murdoch, I I thought Fox had its finger on the scale tonight. I mean, I just felt like

Absolutely. I was just gonna ask you guys about that.

No. I’m I’m inclined to kind of like any of these people as, you know, an apostate Republican but it definitely felt like they were saving Ron DeSantis from himself.

Governor DeSantis, tell us why this country song is so deeply important to people. Chris Christie, your bond rating went down twenty years ago. Answer for that.

Right out of the butt, the fuck.

Those are the first two questions. Those are literally the first two questions.

Those are the first two questions.

Doctor Santos, can you tell us something about military service? Oh, well, you know, funny issues.

No. I was deployed with the Navy seals, which basically makes me a navy seal, which he did like twice.

Meanwhile, Governor Christie, can you please explain why the cigarettes — UFOs.

—

and controls you and won’t let you talk about the UFOs?

It was the extent to which Fox is worse than I thought or remember. I mean, I I don’t watch any cable news. I don’t think I’ve watched fox coverage of anything for, like, two years. Holy shit. It was bad.

Like, really, really The three

minute intro was weird. I I’m in your take over, like, the three minute tour was a different was different than it used to. I, like, you’re just putting everything else aside. Like, it was very strange. And it was, like, the debate started.

They’re all on stage, and then they play like a ninety minute sizzle reel on why Joe Biden is terrible. And then they play the rich man from Richmond song for another minute. The debate starts at three minutes of propaganda.

I like the rich man from Richmond thing because that was an attempt to move them into the present. Into Trump space, right, into, like, like, something that felt like Donald Trump’s party, and they basically ignored it and went back into into kind of Reagan world or whatever. But,

They went they went to cutting spending.

But I don’t know, but I think I think that

to cutting spending.

I think if you’re if you’re the RNC, certainly, you’re pleased that Fox kept the wheel. I mean, these things can go really off the rails. They did not. I think Brett Bear did a fairly solid job. I mean, the the extent to which these things can be way worse than this.

I think you’re underestimating. You just talked about the Normandy Lane. You’d I mean, I

wanna know how to

watch television in three years in your basement, Jonathan Last is just television.

Where where where could it where could the wheels have come off? I mean, I suppose they could have all had a fist fight, but

That occasionally drew them out on substantive disagreements on meaningful questions. That’s literally the only thing you can possibly do in these debates, and they usually don’t. So I don’t know. That was fine.

I mean, think back four years though to the Democratic versions of these where all they they’d spend, like, forty minutes litigating the tiniest details of health care policy proposals. And then we’re like, well, you know, well, hold on. Your proposal says you’re only gonna bring in coverage for an extra seven million be and you get to the Republican world and it is as Tom said, it’s post policy.

Yeah. The abortion exchange was the one actually and that was pretty. Was it the was the only exchange. It was like interesting in that there was there was some substantive disagreement and it kind of went back and forth and you know, that was like the only traditional policy debate exchange. And and fact that did really try to draw them out on that.

And And

and also I had a you guys were talking earlier about warming your heart with, you know, Pence talking about a government worthy of us. Pence and Haley talking about Ukraine. Where I was like, oh, yeah. I remember I remember when Republicans who used to talk this way and Democrats didn’t. But I think one of the things that came out of that and and this is, you know, we keep coming back to to Ramaswamy, but it it shows you how much the Republicans have become a counter cultural party.

A counter cultural movement that whatever the majority of Americans, whatever most people think is common sense and basically decent and sort of normal that they that there’s a whole strain of the republican government just against it because that must be where, you know, the elites are or where, you know, the coast

that’s the war.

I mean, that’s the Republican party that opposed this, you know, US entry into the second World War. That’s the deep, deep American tradition in that part. I

ain’t gonna wear your slave masks. I’m gonna take your vaccine with your microchips from Bill Gates. No way, sir.

And I have to disagree with you. I don’t think that’s the same kind of I mean, it’s not what’s going on with Ukraine is not the strain of isolationism that, you know, goes back to nineteen thirty eight or nineteen thirty nine. It’s almost like because so many people in America think this way because most people in America do report it. It’s like the cool thing is that you have to be against it. In a way that is almost I mean, when you listen to Republicans talking about Ukraine, they sound like the the hard left of the mid But

it’s reactionary in a literal section.

It’s reactionary. It’s not Pungra. We’re Americans and America’s better than other places. And we just stay at home and we mind our business. It’s that’s not what it’s about.

That’s these are these are tax on Zelensky and the kind of weird, you know, sorrows came up. I mean, all this weirdness is really a counter cultural movement that that I I’m just gonna put that marker down and say, this is not, you know, Bob Taff to point out. No.

Maybe it’s Charles Lindberg.

Alright. On that, this is a little longer than I thought me and Bill and Mona are gonna be doing a a long thing on this for Bulwark Plus members tomorrow night, in which we will say totally different things. Maybe

Being Ben or doing on MSNBC right now.

So people just guys go have fun. Go tune into MS Tom, thanks for coming up, buddy. I appreciate it, Ben. It was great to see you. Great to

see you, Jonathan.

Go have fun. Bye guys.