St. Joe’s Heel Turn (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey, there. It’s J. V. L. On the secret show with Sarah Longwell today.

We talked to I love that Joe mansion We talked about the Republican debate. We talked about the economy and focus. We talked about so many things. It was a long show. Here it is.

How is it not matching just briefly because I had sort of been, like, reliably informed by, whatever, the rumor mill in Washington, DC, that mansion, because he’s an ego maniac, would never accept being the vice president on the no label stick it. Because and and no labels to sort of announce that they’re, they’re gonna have a Republican at the top of the ticket. And part of that is to fend off criticism that they are actively trying to hurt Joe Biden, even though the Republican that they would have at the top of the ticket, whether it’s Hogan Hansman, Whatever would invariably still split the anti trump vote, and harm Joe Biden and help Donald Trump. But in any event, I had been reliably informed that. He was going to go run as an independent, or something in in West Virginia.

That’s not happening. And not only that, but in the op ed that he wrote and in his announcement, he very he left the door as wide open as one could leave the door, about going to explore

I’m trying to walk across this great land of hours to listen. Just listen so hard. All the listening.

And so is the Liz Cheney, Joe mansion ticket? Coming? I don’t know. But I gotta tell you.

As a no labels or as a another independent.

I have no idea.

Because why couldn’t we have six different? Why couldn’t we have RfK and Cornell West and no labels and mansion? And why something about, this

particular, milkshake of politics that’s bringing all the kooks to the yard? T m, I just just did that one.

So I, I I I gotta say, normally, I’m pro all this stuff. Pro third parties, pro the the idea of having people try make space in the center lanes, trying to drag the other two parties towards the center. The the problem is, like, since twenty sixteen, like, we’re in this weird existential crisis, and this isn’t just us saying it, we had an attempted coup. Joe Manchin was there. He saw it.

Right? This is, like, I don’t know. Like, this is not this is, like, the only moment in my lifetime in which having a third third party ticket is potentially, like, actually dangerous for American democracy. It’s it it’s, like, the absolute worst time for something like this. And I don’t understand anybody who can’t see that.

Yeah.

I mean, The level of narcissism from people who think, like, this is their time, I do not understand. Sorry. I thought I was gonna sneeze.

I’m gonna leave that closet. I have like

a I have like a I have to give a TED Talk next week. And, obviously, what happens is right now I get sick.

So

Maybe that I maybe I’m gonna peek and be right. So what happens to me when I get sick is I I peek at some point and then I lose my voice when I feel better. It’s like I will feel better. But I will lose my voice. And so I’m thinking that that, if that peaks right around mid next week, while I’m trying to give my Ted talk, that sounds about right.

Falcon’s a very white voice like I get? Because that would be the I deal out. Like, you you’ve heard me. When I’m when I get sick sometimes, I’ll come up

and go down a lot of octaves. Yeah. It’s really sexy. Yeah.

I’m just saying that would be excellent. So I tell me I mean, I got a few thoughts about this. I mean, let me let me workshop a little bit for you

tell me. Let me let me help you workshop your newsletter.

That’s why you won’t have to read it. I am. So on the one hand, I do not understand the Democrats, and they’re not all of them, but there are some Democrats. I see this on threads where I’m socially active. That, who are like good riddance.

And I do not understand that. I think you, as much of a pain in the as Joe Manchin is, as much of an egomaniac as he is. The foundations of our federal system are so against the urban party, which is the the Democrats, that in order to wield federal power, you have to have guys like Banchin. They need five more of him Yeah. No matter how much of a pain in the ass he is.

And, losing him is very bad. I think it makes holding the Senate for twenty twenty four. I’m not gonna say impossible, but highly unlikely. Yeah. Because you go from that being a, hey, we’ve got a one in three chance to we’ve got a zero percent chance.

Well, and even worse. I mean, they now like, they would have Republicans would have had to spend a lot of money to defeat Joe Manchin Yep. Because he is dug in there, like, even if it was gonna be tough for him, like, they were gonna have to beat him. Now they can spend that money against Sherrod Brown in Ohio and against Tester, in Montana. And so, like, it’s just a place they don’t have to fight.

It’s a it’s a real it’s really bad for Democrats, for him, to tap out like this. So so that’s just say on this point about where you said threads. Okay. So on Twitter, there’s these people. I really wanna this makes me wanna just throttle someone.

And it’s like, Good. Now we can get somebody more progressive than Joe Manchin. They’re in West Virginia. And I’m just like, this is why. Trump carried

West Virginia by forty points, four zero.

Like, it is the reddest of red. Joe Maitchen is literally the only human who’d any fighting chance, as a Democrat in West Virginia, and he was probably gonna have to run as an independent to even do it. And if you so if you think there’s some more progressive candidate out there who gets you a Democratic Senate seat in West Virginia, buddy. Raw.

Like, somebody somebody on the in in the the Reddit was was saying that there. And their their responder was, You will look at John Tester. John Tester isn’t like him. And I’m like, yes. You know what you know what, Montana is plus fifteen.

West Virginia is plus forty. Again, forty four zero. You know, like, the this that’s

Don’t mention his grandfathered in from a different era.

Yes.

Like, without him, Dunzel. Anyway,

So all of that is my my sympathy for for mansion and for my deep desire for the Democratic party to have room for more mansions. But after that, I look at this and I’m like, so what the fuck does Joe Manchin want from the Democratic Party? So so To the extent that I can understand, mansion’s substantive disagreements with the Democratic Party as it exists right now today, November ten, twenty twenty three, are that, the Democratic party is a bit too free on spending. That and things that we should be spending less money, especially on It’s not clear what we should be spending less money on. I I assume, like, clean energy stuff is where he’s mostly, dislike.

He thinks that the Democratic Party is too into environmentalism, but only certain types of environmentalism, like conservation he’s okay with. He’s he’s not okay with the energy stuff.

Right. Because he’s sitting he lives in a state where

Because he lives in a state where it’s

dominant in street and, like yeah.

And he thinks that the activist part of the Democratic Party is too interested in gun reform. But in terms of governing stuff, he helped spearhead the actual gun

reform legislation, which was

passed by the Democratic Party. Right. And so, like, how much does he actually disagree with the Democratic party

again as it

exists right now in terms of passing laws and and governing. And then on the other hand, like, what is well, just allow me to set it all away

for you. No, please. Please. Please.

What is his disagreement with the Republican Party? You know, like, he was very angry that Democrats toyed with the idea of getting rid of the filibuster. Well, the Republicans, and like a bunch of actual Republican senators, not like Republicans on Twitter, voted to overturn the last election. Does he not have more policy differences with them? You see what I’m saying?

Like, Joe Manchin seems entirely wrapped up in his policy differences. With Democrats on Twitter instead of the actual Democratic party yet as it exists in the person of Joe Biden, who is the leader of the party and the president of these United States of America. And, like, Republicans? Oh, well, you

know, like, what what is that? So I I I

did tried about this on the next level a little bit, but just, like, this is one of the things that no labels has done that’s, like, in having a pernicious effect, but is, like, a very unseen phenomenon. Is that they’re going to people, like, Manchin, and, like, Hogan and, like, huntsman, and a bunch of these people, and they’re being like, you could be president. Like, Don’t we think Joe Biden is terrible? Don’t we and we know Donald Trump is terrible. And, like, this moment cries out for you.

And, like, they’re internalizing that in a way that is creating different levels of ambition. Now There is a world right now where Joe Biden could be enormously useful to the Democratic party because he could go and be like, you know what I’m gonna do? I am gonna help build a new generation bench of center left folks who can win in red states. And like, I’m gonna raise a hundred million dollars and I’m gonna build, a center pack, and we’re gonna just we’re gonna we’re gonna start competing, all across the country of places we haven’t with really moderate Democrats. Joe Joe Biden or I’m sorry.

Joe mentioned could just be, like, a next level help.

So and to be clear, I’m sorry. Because you misspoke. I wanna clarify. You said Joe Biden could do it. This is what Joe Manchin could do.

Oh, did I say Joe Biden the first time too? Joe. Joe, mansion, sick, sick brain. And he could be a hero because that the thing a person does when they believe in their party, when they believe in the country, and when they have, like, a vision for what it what it could be, right, and they go help build it. Or you could be a narcissist who internalizes a bunch of people being like, it should really be you.

And you go, yeah. It should really be me. And then you go on a listening tour, and then you launch a quixotic silly campaign, only to discover it’s not actually only you. You alone cannot fix it. And what you have done is at a very critical moment, created a path for, a president who did a coup to real light to power.

And for a party,

which is almost totally out of step with you. Again, the Republican party, like So we have we’ve under we’ve understood and outlined the policy differences as they exist between Joe Manch and the Democratic Party. I don’t think he’s any closer to the Republican Party, which just wants to, like, do what? Right. I So

the problem is is he is, like, who he’s close to? I understand this. Actually, as somebody who also sort of ionizes these people, he hangs out with Lisa Murkowski. Like, they go, I don’t know, ice fishing in Alaska together. And he hangs out with Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, and there’s, like, a group of them, and I think that the Democrats, or do not like Joe Manchin.

Right? You talk about, like, the school, like, the lunch table po internal politics of, like, you know, then Ritt Rami’s book, He talks about, like, not having anyone to sit with at lunch. Like, this is a thing because we’re so hostile to him. And so I think that Joe Manchin probably experiences that on the just like Kirsten Cinema does. And as a result, I think what’s happened is there’s this, like, tight little group kind of in the middle that is, like, very epoxy on both their houses.

That that rises as much from their personal experiences as it does from their political ones. Is it possible that

the reason people don’t wanna sit with Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin is because we have seen what utter narcissist Kirsten Cinema and Joe Manchin are.

I don’t I don’t So I don’t I don’t I don’t know that. You know, you know, I don’t take that. I I or not to I don’t completely agree with that position, and I I’m holding out hope here that Joe mentioned. Doesn’t act like a total marital system in this situation.

We’ll see. Like, if he does it, then it’s confirmation that, like, oh, that’s why nobody wanted to sit with him.

Because I but if I actually think to that, like, you said this earlier, and I really agree with it that, like, actually, what the Democrats need to do is make a lot of room for people like that. So that they can win in places that are tougher to win?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It’s it’s not great.

Bob. And I I just by the way, what is the I mean, let me ask you. I’m gonna ask you a leading question. If Joe Biden was fifty five years old, what do you think the polling would look like right now? Think he’d be doing okay?

I think he’d be doing Okay. But I do think that polarization has locked us into places, that. Okay is about as good as it gets. Like, I don’t think there’s

The age thing is the thing.

Right. Yeah.

Mhmm. Joe Manchin who’s being told that he is really the the the good alternative to the reason why people don’t like Trump and and trump and Biden. Joe Manchin is seventy six. So, like, one more you know, well, Joe Biden, have you heard how old Joe Biden is, you know, and Joe mentioned himself is seventy six.

I am gonna I this I do not like this argument. I keep hearing people say this argument. The well, you’ve you’ve heard me do it. It’s if you look at Joe Biden, He and Joe Maschen. I just like he and Donald Trump.

They don’t read the same. They don’t look the same. Like, the reason not because people don’t know that Donald Trump is also in his seventies. People know that, but, like, he his level of part and I do think, like, because he’s insane, he appears more spry, but even Joe Manchin, I mean, I’ve seen Joe mansion recently, like, give a talk. And Joe mansion seems he’s swaggering around river.

Joe Biden shuffles. Okay. Like, he just does. And and I I think that, like, people ignore this by tried to blame away the numbers at their own peril. Like, we everybody can see what’s in front of their eyes.

There’s a reason you just can’t dismiss it. And this is why Now, I don’t know if we’ve talked about this as much, but I think if Biden’s gonna do it, looks like, you know, it sounds like he is. He’s gotta kinda lean into, like, old Uncle Joe. Like, he’s he’s gotta he’s gotta take the age thing head on because it’s too big an issue it’s too big a concern for people.

I I agree completely. I I mean, I’ve been I’ve been Westwing fantasying how he should handle this for, like, a year now. And it should be a look, none of us knows what’s promised, tomorrow. Alright. So that’s the Joe Manchin Talk.

What else, what else did you wanna Well,

can you just tell me can you give me the, top lines of the debate takeaway that you got from last night?

The Ron DeSantis is finished. Vikvik Ramaswamy is sort of, finished with his boom lit. He has gone from look at me. I dominate the stage with how annoying I am to everybody just wants me to go away because of how annoying I am. And he has not shown multiple pitches.

Nicki Haley was great. And Chris Christie was basically deferential to her and looked like he was basically her tag team partner, which suggests that he might be willing to get out ahead of New Hampshire. Do you know

that that’s exactly what I wrote for the New York Times?

I did not know that because I didn’t read what you wrote for the New York Times.

How do you

like that?

It’s fine. But you know how New York Times does that thing where they have little little heads for writers and everybody, like, writes a reaction to each person and then scores them for their their, you know, post debate, whatever. I was one of the heads. It was like me and Jamille Bowie and David French and, you know, all their people And then, my little head was in there. Anyway, this is what I said about Chris Christie, which, like, it is when he was on stage, you could just be like, this guy’s running.

He because he was extremely deferential to Nikki, and he was like, without because without Trump there, he doesn’t have any reason for being there. And I do think that what he’s doing is being an echo chamber for the normie side, and then he was gonna get out and endorse her. And I think that that is a good thing to do.

I I agree. I’m I’m in favor of it. We talked a little about your Nikki three two one scenario.

I could be a two two one scenario.

We talked a lot about you last night on the show. You did. We we talked about you for, like, half the show.

What? Great. I gotta go listen to it now.

One one Did you say

something mean? Were you being mean?

I was only I wasn’t really mean. I did say that if St. Larry runs on the no labels ticket that I would become insufferable with his I told you so about him,

you will become insufferable.

I I, like, utterly unsure. And I can say a lot of, like, I would like to not be insufferable. I would like

to make a nap

about yourself, but I know myself. And I know that there is zero chance that I will be able to resist spiking the football literally every single show we do together. No. We talked we talked a lot about you. All good things.

All good things. And, and and what Will Saletan was

and Chris agreed.

Basically, your scenario is the only the only plausible scenario for stopping Trump. It’s not likely, it’s it’s a hail Mary. It’s a long shot, like, a bunch of everything, which is what you say too. This is not, you know, But that that is it. And it requires, like, a bunch of coordination from other people.

It probably requires DeSantis to cooperate. And, like, help strategically when he gets in, when he gets out. It requires the Republican Party itself. Like, colluding with her to help push her. And because she’s such a long shot, the incentives are actually for everybody not to do because they don’t wanna get on the wrong side of Trump for when he when he winds up as the nominee again.

One one thing we also talked about though is So right now on the Ukraine stuff, we have this split in the Republican Party between the Normi Republicans and the of Republicans. And this can sort of be a split because we have two camps, and there’s no leader of the Republican party for pretend. And, you know, and so we can just have this difference of opinion. But the minute Trump is the nominee. The Republican Party has a leader again, and his position is we’re gonna end that war in twenty four hours.

Yeah.

What what are the norm? Like, so what is Nikki so Nikki Hilly has gone around saying? If this is one of the most important conflicts of our time that, forcing AC fire in Ukraine and not supporting Ukraine will only embolden the Chinese in their attempts to take over Taiwan, and that this is a moment when it is absolutely essential for American leadership. And so five minutes after the Republican Party’s official position becomes We’re gonna end the war in Ukraine. What is Nikki Haley gonna do?

And the answer is, of course, we know what she’s gonna do. She’ll endorse Donald Trump. But why? She’s just told everybody. This is, like, her whole, you know, reason for being is, being a neo con.

And the answer is we have a neocon. He’s president right now. And it’s okay to if the Republican president was also gonna be a neocon to to say You know, well, you don’t see they’re they’re both good in Ukraine. So I’ll stick with the guy who wants to overturn elections and do coups. But when, like, her number one issue, she’s aligned with Biden and not the Republican nominee?

Like, what how

does that work? Okay. So I know how this sounds. But, like, one of the ways, psychologically, for myself, that I maintain a certain level of optimism

Mhmm.

Is that I hold.

Alcohol, Jim.

I hold. I do that too. But I hold the opportunity for people to surprise you in a good way. K? So I try and I know.

So it it it and it it Sarah Longwell this goes on, the more that contrast with, like, my cold hard analytic brain. Right? But, like, there is a part of me right now that wonders genuinely. If Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, and some of these guys sit it out on Trump. Now, There’s I mean, he’s out there.

Like, his attacks on her calling her bird brain. He probably grabs Vive ache, you know, he brings to him, like, people like that around him. He doesn’t bring in Nikki Haley. My guess so, like, If you’re her, there’s sort of two paths. There’s the path that says, I over performed or, like, I came in second which means post Trump, I’ve got the opportunity to lead this party.

And this is probably where she goes. And so she says, like, I gotta make nice with Trump. One more time to secure my future because I could still be president. Or she could look at it and say, I have genuine principles. There’s genuine things at stake here.

And, I have to oppose Trump. Like, or, like, I just have to sit it out. Like, I have to go quiet and dark for a while, and, like, I will reemerge, later because she’s not gonna work in the Trump administration this time. Like, he won’t trust her. Right.

So, like, there’s not, like, an immediate thing to do. I think there’s just, like, hold pat may maybe do no harm. But I wouldn’t be I wouldn’t I she could and Pence could I’m I’m open to this. I’m not certain about it. I actually have more confidence in her for some reason than Pence I think it’s just like, I don’t I don’t know, but maybe both of them.

They’re close. So any but don’t you think it’s possible they don’t endorse or that they endorse the centrist?

I think it’s very possible that Pence doesn’t endorse. I assume Christie Christie will not endorse. No. With with Haley, I just because of everything we’ve seen from her, in her long journey with Trump, and her, like, on again off again, on again off it. I just assume that, of course, she’s gonna endorse because she’s utterly soulless.

Great.

Yeah. But I would say, again, Gavin Newsom is not president. Right? If if the president were Gavin Newsom. Then I would say, well, of course, Mike Pence and Chris Christie couldn’t endorse him in an attempt to stop Trump because Newsome is pretty far to the left and really not aligned with them and probably doing a bunch of stuff they don’t like.

The president is Joe Biden. His his signature agenda is infrastructure spending passed with bipartisan votes, a gun reform that’s pretty modest, which is, like, absolutely what Chris Christie would have done as president. I honestly and I I’m not saying this to be productive, but I’ll I’ll do it anyway. How different would the last three years have been legislatively with Chris Christie as president rather than Joe Biden’s president? Would there been some differences of the margins?

Sure. But I’m not convinced that Christie would have done any of this wildly differently. And job

like wouldn’t

have pulled out of Afghanistan. I don’t think any of these may have had okay. So, like, I think there’s that. I think,

Trump would have pulled out of Afghanistan, had he won reelection, but sure. Yeah.

No. I think I think that’s right. I think I’m just I think do think there’s, like, sort of substantive differences if you have one of these sort of old school Republicans running it. But but I but I agree with you generally that, like, as the political realignment, as people see where it is now and also where it’s going. It does seem insane for Nikki Haley.

The problem is they tell themselves a story. Right? There’s a reason Nikki Haley already does this. She does this more than anybody, actually, where she runs against a dead Joe Biden and a live Kamala harris. Right?

She’s the one very much who’s like, Joe Biden, very unlikely to make it through his next term. And it’s like, and so she she she wants to, they the story that that Republicans, normally, Republicans tell themselves, is that the Democratic party is going off the rails and, like, the second Joe Biden isn’t there. Right? It’s it lurches this far left, which Yeah. Is it

one of those?

Joshapiro and Gretchen Whitmer take over. And god, that will be horrible. Those two are such nuts of all radical. All they wanna do is cancel culture and What’s what’s crazy about it?

This did this to me, and sort of why I’m, like, I think Dean Phillips is, like, such a dumbass for doing this right now, is that the opportunity is not to run against Jobai. The opportunity is to allow Joe Biden to be a bridge to a new generation of candidates, to work with him so that he can help raise their profile and they can help provide a vision for the future of the Democratic party that is not tied to Rashida to leave. Right? And Kevin doesn’t look.

More more and more separated. Gavin Newsom is gonna run for president in twenty twenty eight, hell or high water

Right. That

is the only thing he wants to do with his life.

Right.

And if you are, a center left Dem, that’s who you are positioning yourself against. Right? Look, the the I am sorry, and I’m sure that Joe Biden would never say this out loud. But Kamala Harris’s unpopularity is a big part of why he is running. Because, I think he looks at her and realizes that if he doesn’t run, she’s likely to be the nominee and she’s likely to lose.

Right?

Yep. I do think that’s right.

This is, you know, he would he’s not gonna dump her because he’s a loyal guy. It also would it would cost more than it would then it would benefit. But I don’t know. I I don’t understand the argument that all of the energy is on the left. The left of the Democratic Party has a great deal of energy.

That is certainly true. You can point to people who who are doing well. But on the other hand, like, federman has been, you know, been much less lefty than people expected. And he has done very well. Shapiro, Whitmer, Mark Kelly.

You know, Jared Polis, Andy Beshire, like, it’s not like the center left part of the party is dead and dying. Like, it’s it’s very final the

Washington examiner that, the the moderate left was gone as opposed to obviously ascendant. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah.

So I’m just saying in a rational world, Christie Pence, and and Nikki, would not just remain silent, but they would they would just come out and campaign with Biden. In a in a rational world.

I agree.

Right. And and Yeah. In a world where, like, policies mattered instead of feelings. Because again, like, I understand people are, like, very upset about things they see online. But Joe Biden is not responsible for everything.

Joe Biden is not going to pass a law federally that controls whether or not your high school athletics association in your county or state allows trans kids to compete in girl support. I’m sorry. That’s he’s not going to do that. No no president of the United States is going to do that. And, in terms of the actual things these passed, it’s been pretty moderate, pretty popular, not all that dissimilar again from what a Chris Christie would have done.

Yeah. Can I just I’m just gonna take this off to you really quickly to get on my hobby horse about the surrogate game? Right? Just this is this is where the what?

Say that again?

The surrogate game.

Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you said the Sarah Longwell game.

And I

was like, what is that? What is Sarah getting?

So I remember if you saw Hillary Clinton on, the view the other day.

I did not. How she doing?

She was Fantastic. Oh. And you know what? I almost I almost tweeted this and then couldn’t quite, like, figure out what I wanted to say, but, like, watching her, so she was explaining Israel and Hamas and, like What She was both she managed in eight minutes to both run you through the history, explain why this was so complicated, be unequivocal against him, talk about why there is the difference between the humanitarian and pauses, which they now sort of support because you’ve gotta get something into Gaza for the people, but also how, like, you cannot do a ceasefire because Hamas will reload. She talked about how Hamas uses people as human shields, how they spent the last couple of decades building these tunnels under hospitals and schools whatever to make it impossible to set up the very dynamic we’re seeing right now where Israel can’t respond to terrorist attacks without her.

And so, like, she just was so good that I sat there and I was like, the the knee jerk reflects from ten years ago to just dislike Hillary Clinton, which I’ll just admit was, like, in me. Like, the Clittens were just bad and, like, I didn’t think that hard about it. She was so deeply impressed by it. In fact, I’ve seen Obama talking about this a couple times, and he’s he’s much less good. Like, he is he’s just he’s, like, so sort of and he’s trying to get at, like, a true thing and he’s talking about holding two things in your head at the same time or three things.

All that are truths, but, like, she was just excellent. And I’ve seen her a few times and thought

But her emails

No. No. No. But but but here’s the thing. This is my my point is about surrogates.

And like and actually, this kinda goes for Gavin Newsom too. I’ve I I don’t like Gavin Newsom. Well, and just to recap, I’ll say on Clinton, like, her level of talent, like, her genuine command obviously, I supported her in twenty sixteen ultimately, and I did, in the journey of twenty sixteen, go from reluctantly being like, fine, whatever, anything but Trump to, like, She’s good.

She would

have been a fine president. She would

have been I actually think she would have been quite a good president.

I don’t know.

Run the counter factual of, like, if Mitt Romney had won against the second time we’d be in a better position. I just think if Clinton had beat Trump, how much better of a position we’d be in. Like, we’d be in Clinton’s second term, and she’d be defending Ukraine. She she’s a she’s a total rock

on all this. She would

be really good at communicating about it. Like, I don’t know how old she is. She can’t be that much younger than Joe Biden either. Her communication skills are incredible. They’re just succinct, and she’s it’s a huge command of the information.

She’s better than anybody on that Republican stage. Anyway, but there are Josh Shapiro, Abigail Spamberger, Gretchen Whitmer, warnock, Westmore. Like, there are just And even Gavin Newsom, Gavin Newsom, not my cup of tea at all, I’m gonna, like, support whoever is his, opposition on the more moderate side. And, like, go to the wall for them because I think he’s smarty or whatever. He’s also a really talented communicator.

Yeah. That’s very true.

He’s so when he goes out sometimes, He’ll go out and go he’ll go on Hannity. Like, is as the spin room after a debaters, and he’ll argue. Like, he was arguing energy policy on behalf of Joe Biden, He was crushing Hannity. Just crushing him with facts. And I was like, this is the thing that the communications apparatus is missing on the democratic side.

They have got to get so Gavin Newsom is doing it because Gavin Newsom wants to be in front of the camera. So he’s got it but, like, I kinda want all the rest of them to have a little bit like Gretchen Whitmer. We can’t just all speculate about whether or not you’d be a great president. You need to go out and show us

Yeah.

What she got, girl. And Josh Shapiro, I’m glad you built that bridge. Sounds like you’re crushing it in Pennsylvania, but like you need a little bit of a national profile here, bro. And what they’ve gotta do is they’ve gotta make a pact with Joe Biden. They say, hey, Joe Biden.

You’re gonna help us raise our profiles right now. You’re gonna do joint events, and I and then in return, right? They’re gonna be like, let me tell you about how good the economy’s doing. Let me tell you why it’s crushing in Michigan. Let me tell you how Joe Biden brought this bridge or this thing and how I mean, if they can’t get that together and work as a team, because I actually if what they’re gonna do right now is run from Jobai, if they’re gonna say, well, can’t get there on behalf of Joe Biden because he’s so unpopular, then this is how Democrats miss the boat on Republicans know how to play as a team.

They just do, man. And this is, like, even to the point about Trump stuff, like, these people fall in line, even when, like, it is morally reprehensible to do so. And Democrats could stand to have a little bit not of doing anything morally reprehensible, which is like, putting some skin in the game together and be like, we’re gonna rise or fall together. So like, let’s go do this thing. And I, I hope that this is coming, it seems weird not to do it right now, though.

Like, you can start now. You don’t have to just wait until the elections in full swing. Like, let’s get going.

So I I agree completely, but it’s so obvious that I can’t understand why it hasn’t happened. And the only thing I can think of as an explanation is that the White House had assumed that Republican candidates were gonna tear Trump apart so that they wouldn’t have to, and they could wait until the general to then go after it. I think this was a miscalculation. If this was a calculation, I if that was what they’re thinking was, then I’d was a miscalculation because the Democrats were never going to

the the Republicans were never going to actually attack Trump for

and you do have to get after him. There’s a little weirdness of I mean, it the White House can’t really attack Trump on all the criminality stuff

because, like, the cover’s under It’s the DOJ. Right.

Like, they’re so they just now Now I think in a weird way, the Biden administration deserves an enormous amount of credit for not doing this because you could imagine if Donald Trump were the accident. And he had an independent counsel who was prosecuting some b some Democrat. He would be on true social every every every speech he gave would be about how corrupt and terrible blah blah blah blah blah blah. And the Biden Administration is behaving normally. Right?

And in following the rules and norms that we have regarding these things. Which is again another point in their favor, but they don’t seem to get any credit for it. Right. So it’s it’s again, it’s one hand behind their back.

You wanna talk about not getting credit? I so this week’s the tomorrow, the that’s gonna drop is on abortion. And it’s really good. Like, you should go listen to it. It’s not I’m sorry.

That’s it’s not gonna be filled with good news, but it is gonna back up some of the things we were talking about why it’s more a little more complicated if trump’s the nominee on abortion, but also, like, where the opportunities are. So so check that out. But the one that we’re doing for the week after, I ended up switching their order, but I taped with Bill, is we we talked to a bunch of two time Trump voters who were Jewish. And I was like, are these guy are they gonna give Biden some credit? Do you think they did?

Hey, Sarah, you know, there’s there’s actually more of the show.

Oh, there is how much more.

There’s more so much more. All of the more it goes on for hours. If people want to get the rest of the show, you you know what they have to do. Right?

I think that, Go to Bulwark Plus? Do they have

to subscribe? What does that mean

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Yes. They have to pay us money. Oh. Payated me in his money. And go to the Bulwark dot com and subscribe to become a member of Bulwark Plus.

All the good stuffs on the other side. Bye.