Three Indictments. Zero Accountability.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m J VL here with my best friends. Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark, hit the subscribe button, give us five stars, do all

of the things, and then go over to the bulwark duck com and sign up to get our newsletters. I have got a banger that I am working on today, and you people will want to want to read it. Gonna be quite good. Sarah might even read it next week when she’s, like, sorting up through her email.

Sarah, your lighting is really good today.

Maybe my home studio today.

Do you have box lights?

Do you have do you

really, like, blow it all out?

We have whatever Barry did for me.

Looking good. Yeah.

Hey, Barry.

Barry gives me a setup.

We love Barry.

Okay. A lot of stuff to talk about. We had old putting fingers sitting down with Jake Tapper last night actually using the word pudding because I guess no consultant had told him whatever you do, don’t use the word pudding.

That’s an awkward conversation to have. Somebody’s had to have these conversations with candidates, you know. And like, hey, we should saying that I could I forget what, you know, there’s one thing that Jeb kept saying that was wrong and it’s like, God, but then you have to go up to and be the guy. It’s like, hey, you know this thing you said four times at not true. You hate to be that person.

And so then to add on to it to go up to them and be like, hey, sir, hey boss. You really can’t say the word put in more because there’s a big meme about how you like to eat pudding with your fingers on the Internet. It’s an awkward it’s an awkward combo to have.

You

know, it’s it’s funny you say that because last night, our former president, the twenty twenty four Republican front runner Donald j Trump sat down with Sean Hannity, and he said a bunch of stuff, including that Joe Biden got tens of millions of dollars. This is the thing which is not true. It is not like Tens millions of dollars from whom.

From the Chinese and the Ukrainians and Burisma.

So this isn’t a thing where, like, the problems that he’s rounding up or that, like, actually, Biden only got two millions of dollars, and he’s saying it. This is like saying Joe Biden owns five elephants. And the answer is that Joe Biden doesn’t own any elephants. And so you would think Nobody’s proved he

owns five elephants.

You would think that somebody, as you say, Tim, one of the consultants would sit Jason Miller and come up to him without his chin and say, hey, sir, mister president, you you you can’t say that. Right? But nobody says that and furthermore, Donald Trump pays no price for this. So why did you have to tell Jeb’s, like, don’t say this thing that’s wrong? Because like, you know, you get turns out, you just say whatever you want.

Yeah.

Well, we were playing on

the same playing field as Donald Trump. I was laughing with my husband about this yesterday when play came through and he’s like, I have to tell you something that’s embarrassing. And I was like, what? He’s like, I kinda chuckled at a Jason Miller statement because Jason Miller put some you know, he put out some chinless statement about how how Ron de sanctimonious is reboot. It’s like, you know, we’re and the Macgyver and teenage mutant ninja turtles reboot and, you know, he has a like, and it’s just all these personal attacks.

And this is the imbalance that Trump you know, plays on. Right? Is that he gets to just He called Ron DeSantis son of a bitch at TP USA this weekend. Then, meanwhile, talked about this a little bit on the YouTube with Will Saletan last time that you should check out. DeSantis gets asked about Trump being indicted for the third time.

We’re now three minutes into I should mention that. He’s been He’s about to be indebted for the third time, the former president of the United States. This time for a coup. And and Ron DeSantis has to be like,

Well, you know, he kind of He spent a couple

too many hours sitting around, it seems like in the White House, but really the big problem here is Alvin Bragg, whistle horn. Well, like, that’s, you know, that that

that’s the real problem. So so this is kind of an imbalance,

you know, when when your opponent’s calling you a son of a bitch and and when then when he gets indicted for the third time, you know, over a coup, you can’t even like really criticize him by name.

You know what though? I this is as, you know, as many many people in the Moreawk side of of the world, criticize the Biden administration on Ukraine, they say they’re practicing self deterrence. This is self deterrence

—

Yeah.

—

on the part of other Republicans. You know, like, oh, we can’t.

Why not? Why not?

And the answer is because they’re scared. Anyway, so Sarah, what did you think of the pre taped town hall Will Saletan Hannity in which Fox decided to leave in the Trump allegations of election fraud with phony ballots, I guess that, like, when you’re the whole purpose of pre taping is to cut stuff that could give you more legal exposure out, I think. It was a whole thing. Did you have did you have thoughts?

I guess my biggest thought was that it feels like time is a flat circle, And the fact that you guys just remarked at all about Trump having a different playing field telling the truth, like, yeah, I don’t like, this is this is the guy we’ve been dealing with. It’s like we got, like, a little break from this, but not much of one. And maybe it was just enough for us to, like, forget how compulsively he lies, how much he does it, like, breathing, how much so so much of what he did in the early days where we were really shocked by it was just say things that were flatly false and it took a long time for people to be you have to challenge that. You’re like, of course he doesn’t have anybody on his staff being like, sir, don’t tell those lies. He’s got a staff of people that are like, here’s how we need to, you know, frame things on Biden.

We’re gonna talk about Burissmaul all the time and just say he has millions of dollars and people will believe it because we live in a world where we create our own reality. For voters. And to listen to people cheering, you know, much like the CNN town hall. Trump also had this was packed with a friendly audience. When he would talk about the election being raped, he called it election interference, man.

Does he do this with the I’m gonna take the language they use for me, and I’m going to apply it to the things they’re doing. So he talked about he said they make ballots. They just make up ballots and it’s election interference.

Sarah, did you clock when he talked about how it was like a coup? Against him? Yeah. The guy who committed the coup — Yeah.

—

complaining about how it was like a coup that people came up to as you say.

What’s your line projection is the sincerest form

Former Trumpism.

Yeah. Former

The sincere former Trumpism. Yeah.

So that’s what I saw happening. I will say when I was watching DeSantis, talked to Tapper. And he has that smile, like he’s smiling, you know, he’s like sitting there grinning weirdly and uncomfortably before he gets asked a question. And I was watching Trump with his, like, glower thing that he does, it, like, it works for Trump in a way that, like, DeSantis looks like a cheese ball. He looks uncomfortable.

Trump looks like he’s in control. And Hannity it was funny the way Hannity opened up. He was like, you look well. You look healthy because this is gonna become a, like, stamina contest between two old men. Like, the man woman person oh, my god.

Do you hear MAKING Kelly’s

take on this?

Yeah, I saw this.

Megan Kelly got to meet Donald Trump in person, the guy who you might recall talked about how she was on the rag. During his last campaign in twenty sixteen. Water under the bridge there for Meghan. And, you know And the heat

of the heat of the moment. Yeah.

He just kinda threw out comments about my period, but no big deal. Coo, water under the bridge. What she was interested in, she get to see me in person for the first time in a while because of that little tiff that they had. And she was raving about his stamina of his staff, just feed some Hershey’s bars and McDonald’s and yet still he has more energy than me. He’s healthier than a horse.

She goes on to say that that there must be something I just I wish I could get some of that gene pool that line was a little on the border for me. I didn’t I didn’t love that line. Made me cringe a little bit. But yeah, I mean, this is like they’re all doing it. All signing up for this.

Yeah. Back on the train.

Sarah, you weren’t here. Tim and I talked about this a little bit beforehand. I think that Trump has the perfect answer to all of the indictments. Here’s here’s what he said. He said they’re trying to demean and diminish and frighten people.

But manga’s not gonna be frightened. We’re not gonna be frightened. And that, I think, is the perfect catch all response, which frames every indictment of him simply as they, meaning the people who think they’re better than you, trying to demean you and demand I mean, you know, like, just take all of the legal stuff out of it. Right? Just say they’re they’re doing this as an attack on you because they don’t like you.

And we’re not gonna be frightened.

And we’re gonna fight back.

This is like where Trump is really in tune with the voters because this is what they say in the focus groups. Like every indictment to them is evidence that the deep state fears Trump, that this is what the establishment that they’re coming after him. And Fox News is carrying water for him on this. And so is everybody else on the right, the idea that that’s why they have the anti weaponization committee. Right?

Because they want to say, this is about weaponizing the DOJ, like, the way that Republicans sort of frame this stuff, just as a pure calm psychological standpoint, they understand their voters and they understand ways to set these things up to provide that idea of This is a two tier justice system. Trump is being attacked, and it does create this sense in the voters of like, well, we’ve got to support Trump because they’re trying to get him. They want to get him out of this race, and we can’t let Biden do that. We can’t let Biden take out with his DOJ, his main rival. And you can see how that puts them on side for Trump.

They’re doing the talking points for him.

Yeah. Yeah.

They I I like, Ron DeSantis, when he gives this answer, like, they think that they

are being clever, all of these people. DeSantis, all that he’s the most important one, but all down

the line. They think they’re being clever

by saying, Okay, this is my out. I don’t I can kind of avoid having to engage on the merits on this issue where a lot of MAGavooters are gonna side with Trump. I don’t have to pick a side between you know whether what Trump did was bad or good. I, you know, I can kind of make some generic comments about how it’d be better to not have baggage. And then I will pivot into this message about the Democratic deep state and that will make the voters love me.

But that’s wrong. That that’s that’s them doing Trump’s talking points for him. Like, he has set what his defense is, and what his spin is, And now, you know, in a position where DeSantis and and whoever else thinks they might have an actual chance of winning this primary, HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGED DIRECTLY. THEY, INSTEAD ARE DOING TRUMP’S TALKING POINTS FOR HIM.

SO HE TRUMP COULD NOT SHOW UP AT THAT DEBATE IN ALL I GUESS, which I know we’ll talk about, and have everybody on stage, except Chris Christie, doing his talking points for him on these indictments. I I mean, like, it is a total trap that these guys all just walked into. And, by the way, not just them, I rint about this yesterday, but — But McCarthy, you know, McCarthy and all on the line, you know, doing this whole, like, this conspiracy of, Oh, Mr. Trump’s polling is doing so good. And that’s why sleepy Merrick Garland has decided to get off his ass and come after him, which is like completely false, completely insane.

The speaker of the house is pushing this line, and there’s nobody in the Republican Party besides, I guess, Chris Christie and Ace Hutchinson and and occasionally admit when he gets asked about it, who who are even offering a counter narrative. There’s nobody. There’s nobody on Fox. Like, so so Trump has set this completely bullshit narrative. And all of his opponents are echoing it, all the big conservative media people are echoing it.

Even the Republicans who aren’t in the race and would benefit from having Trump out of the picture or

echoing it? What they really don’t understand, what like Ron DeSantis doesn’t understand clearly is if the framing of this is, these indictments are these people trying to spit on you, then those people are not gonna then turn around and say, yeah. Well, I guess those people who we hate are just We’re gonna have to do Ron DeSantis instead of Donald Trump. Right? That then becomes a betrayal.

That becomes an act of cowardice. Of course, they’re gonna vote Trump just to show them, just to spite them.

Then you become one of those bidders if you betray Trump.

Yes. And so, you know, I look at it and you Again, I Does Ron DeSantis really is he really in this to win? Because I don’t think he is. I don’t think Ron DeSantis is actually running to defeat Trump at this point. You think he is trying to beat Trump?

Yeah, he’s getting bad, he’s getting horrible advice. It’s the

same advice that people have been giving Republicans for eight years now, but it’s,

yes, There was a blind quote from

a strategist a couple months ago that was like, maybe the next indictment will be the straw that brings his camel’s back or something. I think that’s the strategy.

I think that to say it is really believes that that once we get

to Iowa, once it’s real decision time and people look at this, And did you see the old lady video? There’s this old lady at a DeSantis event, and she’s like, I love Trump in my heart. I love Donald Trump in my heart. Ron DeSantis Warren put this out. And he’s such a good man enough people are coming for him and the way that they’ve treated him is so horrible.

But when I listen to your talk, my brain takes over and I’m like, you know, we need somebody that can actually win. And as much as I love Trump, we need we need somebody, you know, who can get this done or, you know, whatever.

And, the scientist thinks that that lady is gonna be like what people do in

the end.

I I I think that they’ve really convinced themselves that they can win that argument and that that’s not just, you know, a fan full of one offs.

I will say, that is DeSantis’s only hope. Like, as a just strategically, you can’t blame them for leaning into that because, like, the strategy at this point has to be you have to win Iowa on an electability argument. And try to create momentum from there and disrupt Trump’s sense of inevitability. That’s it. That’s the only stretch.

I

guess, but I get a little nervous when I see Guy Benson in the in the DeSantis the DeSantis stands out there tweeting, put this in an ad, and like the ad is an old lady going, I love Donald Trump in my heart. But my brain says and it’s just like, okay. Yeah.

Yeah. You wanna know something? So, you know, we in our shop have been talking to a lot of the two times on voters and trying to understand the ones who wanna move on, and that’s how they all sound. And like and let me tell you something else. If you put an ad out, I don’t know if you saw club for growth ad.

Club for growth ad was basically the strategy that we have used. I endorse it. It is a permission structure strategy, they got this guy and then John someone from not Iowa, but from somewhere, saying that he loves Trump. He Use the world loves. I loved Donald Trump.

And the Democrats are crazy, and we have to win, and that’s why I need to vote for Ron DeSantis. If you test that ad, here’s what people do. Before they send millions of dollars on ads, they test them

to see

Here’s what some people do.

Here’s what some people do. That’s right. That’s it. Right. People who wanna make sure that they don’t have a backlash effect, or they’re not doing more harm than good, or that their messaging sucks, a lot of people they test their ads to make sure they’re persuasive with their target audience.

So I know if your target audience is Trump voters. And you give them an ad that doesn’t include some I love Donald Trump, or Donald Trump was a great president, but you don’t give them that compliment sandwich around Trump? They reject it. They hate it. And this is just the state of the party.

Have you tested anything which runs hard at Trump from his right? Which is like, you know, he promised us he’d build a wall and he didn’t. There’s no wall. Ron DeSantis went and found illegal immigrants in Texas and sent them to Martha’s vineyard. Donald Trump never did that.

Couldn’t he have run like a hard like that? You know, we need somebody who wins, not somebody who loses, and then whines about it. Ron DeSantis beat the crap out of the black candidate and then beat the

crap out of that weird tan guy too.

I mean, couldn’t you run like that or no? Is that?

I suspect he will do that eventually. Their strategy is to run at him from the right. The thing is is that they haven’t chosen the wall. They haven’t

On the sideshills.

Is vaccines

—

Vaccines and gays.

—

gays, trans folks, and abortion. Yeah. That’s right. So they’re running at him from the right. That is their strategy.

They just have picked, I think, the most toxic issues for swing voters to do it with,

And maybe even for, like, Republican swing, but, like, in in Republican primaries, like, I’m not sure that you’re gonna win a whole lot of by saying, you know, we’re gonna six week abortion ban? Is that a winning thing in the republican?

Jake Tapper asked an excellent question of him, which is like, hey.

Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Your number one thing that a lot of people see in you is that you’re Trump without the baggage, you’re an electability candidate, but they’re concerned that you’re running so far right now, that you’re not less and less the electability candidate, which is true. And to say, no, no, I won suburban moms in Florida. That’s what I was best at. Okay. Guess what?

Different animals.

It’s not all Florida.

Merby mom so Merby mom and Tampa is special breed. God love you, Becky. I hate to take over the thing before we get into this, that we didn’t we skipped over from the Hannity interview. The performer president’s comments about chairman Xi, Were you getting there, Jevia?

Oh, yeah. Brilliant. Called him brilliant.

Brilliant guy.

He rules one point four billion people with an iron fist.

I

You couldn’t even get if you go to Hollywood, in Century, you couldn’t even get

ugly ones.

What is that? Because to

him, that’s the highest compliment. Is that somebody looks the part. See, he’s a casting director, essentially. And he’s not crazy about this because, again, he understands his voters Right? This is what the that’s why he does the jaw just bing.

The guy who’s supposedly gonna be the toughest on China is the one who is just slurping up on on g.

It’s a

little confusing. Isn’t she? Isn’t the whole argument against against Joe, but

I know that he’s somehow secretly on the take of the Chinese, and he’s been doing their bidding. And then later in the interview, it’s like, Damn, I love the Chinese. Just give me some of that Chairman Xi. I I that is confusing and and and it’s also deeply alarming, like, on the same day the New York Times does a big takeout on Donald Trump’s authoritarian aspirations? He’s then on TV that night going like, Yeah, and here’s my model.

China. Yeah. China is my model.

He rules with an iron fist, and there’s no questions, and everybody’s happy about it. Great. Great. And he’s over fifty percent in the party of freedom. Sarah, one last thing before we get off of this and one of the next thing.

Couple weeks ago, Trump did a rally in South Sarah Longwell went to some small little town, which does not have the word Podunk in its name. And I think the town has a population of four thousand people, and he brought fifty thousand people.

That’s not true.

That’s over a town.

Yeah. You’re yes. This this is probably No.

The fifty thousand estimates. Who said fifty thousand?

Hey, Tim. What if it what if it’s thirty five thousand?

What if it’s fifteen?

What if

it’s thirty five thousand?

The fifty thousand does not come from the Trump campaign. It comes from, like, the local page.

It’s hard to count fifty thousand.

Bill Mitchell, the former Trump Trump superfan who’s not a Santa Super fan who’s like one of his big shticks is undermining all the Trump crowd counts. It’s kinda sad. It’s like, oh — Yeah.

—

they said it was nine thousand, but a picture that makes it look like six thousand five hundred. It’s like, alright, man. Well, to say this had sixteen people.

But No. What’s really sad is when Bill has to get back on the Trump train in a couple months. That’s gonna be sad. But the point is a very large number of people in the state that it’s supposedly gonna be where the great the great hope Tim Scott finally brings it all home. Sarah, like, this is that, like, that juice.

Right? The excitement factor that there is nobody to Ron DeSantis could not bring out fifty thousand people in Tallahas.

So here’s my one counterargument to this. I agree with you, basically. But, like, Joe Biden also couldn’t bring out fifty thousand people. And so, the world they’re imagining is a world of Republican voters that are pragmatic. Right?

Like, that is everybody’s banking on the idea, that actually, these are pragmatic voters, and, like, they’re gonna come around to someone who they think can beat Joe Biden, that they like. And here’s the thing, people do generally like Tim Scott. Like this is one of those things where like if you go around a crowd people, Republicans, and you’re like, What do you think of Tim Scott? They’re like, Oh, I really like Tim Scott. He seems great.

His name comes up a lot and focus groups is like, people just like him. They never come up in terms of wanting to vote for him. And so Tim Scott also, by the way, is one of the only people making He’s making actually a pretty specific pitch. And I gotta I gotta tell you. I kinda like it.

In a different world, this would work on a younger, more naive Sarah Longwell, which is he’s making like a great American story pitch. An optimistic pitch about how we’re a great country. It’s far too like wrapped up now and Trumpism and all this stuff. But if he was running five or six years ago with this message, I think it would be pretty appealing to people. And so I think people do like him.

And I see why donors like him, because they like that up. They like that, right? If you’re a billionaire, you believe in the great American success story, right? You love seeing him tell that story.

Only in America can a moronic, flandering, thrace indicted, buffoon, be elected to president two times. And could I be his vice president?

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Are you currently enjoying the show on the Stitcher app? Then you need to know Stitcher is going away on August twenty ninth. Yep. Going away as in Kaput, gone, dead, Rest in peace Stitcher, and thanks for fifteen years of service to the podcast community. So switch to another podcast app and follow this show there.

Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. This is

a quick yes or no question for

the both of you.

Hypothetical. If we could have somebody come back in a time machine from the future, to tell Republican voters, hey, guys, I have just seen the future and I’m telling you, if you nominate Tim Scott, he will beat Joe Biden. He’ll get, like, fifty three percent of the vote. It’ll be four hundred electoral vote landslide, and you guys will get to govern, like, you

know, unified control government.

But if you nominate Donald Trump, you’ve only got, like, a three in ten chance of winning. What chances do you think there are that the Republican electorate in America would nominate Tim Scott under those conditions? Because I the chances are precisely zero.

I don’t think that there’s anything. Yeah. Because they’d be like, well, you didn’t come from a future where Donald Trump won. So maybe what maybe he would win a fifty five percent. Maybe he’d win with fifty eight.

They just like Donald Trump. Right? They want that, and they don’t they’ll just, like, oh, a winning stuff. That’s just cover. They can do what they want.

I wanna counter Sarah and the counter JBL. The Tim Scott thing, they do like him, but

if you Did you watch the Tucker Tim Scott interview at all? Did you get the chance to watch any

of that? Yeah, I think.

Who the crowd like better?

That interview. And not even close.

Talk to him.

Yes, Tom.

Go as new.

No. It’s true. It’s true.

I can find, but, like, once

he got pressed on some of his more let’s say, traditional Republican stances? A vis à vis somebody who has more of a, let’s say, traditional authoritarian nationalist stance, like they were citing up, whoa, Tucker. The one South Carolina thing that is working Trump’s disfavor, I think this is the first piece of actual news

of a

state party making a decision that did not help Trump? Because there was a lot of discussion for a while that state parties would like to move things proportional and like the handful of state parties that were left that had normie Republicans running them, like would try to, you know, put their thumb on the scale a little bit for DeSantis, and that does not happen at all. South Carolina, they kept the primary later. So, there is a big gap between now, Island, and Hampshire in South Carolina, which is like, I think, hypothetically good. Right.

For somebody to challenge Trump. Like versus a really fast first for, you know, where Trump could kinda bulldoze through with momentum and have the thing be over. So I think this changes things only on the margins, only in a situation where Trump is really losing altitude, which might not happen, but Anyway, I I thought that was a noteworthy thing that happened this week.

Yeah. I mean, what it does is it increases what I think is like, again, the only singular path through, which is that somebody wins Iowa. And so, and let’s say Trump maybe even comes in first in New Hampshire, but it’s mine. It’s really close. And then you basically have like a long time for people to see if they wanna make the pragmatic choice.

Right?

Alright. Tim, sing us a song of Hunt.

We’ve

got a lot got a lot of rants coming. We’re already twenty six minutes in. I’ve got some good material left.

I’m

gonna go get another cup of tea while Tim goes.

Okay. Gotta try to keep short. It’s bad practice to like really spill a lot of tea about an old boss and to be super mean about it. It’s just it’s just not good and it’s not something that I wanna do. And John Hudson is a well intentioned person, and and had he had we won, you know, the presidency in twenty twelve,

the country would be in

a lot better place. Okay. This guy, he’s going around with Joe Manchin doing the no labels thing, and I gotta tell you my worry antenna went up. In a serious way. Am I like worry meter is tingling right now?

Because

I figured that cooler heads we’re going to prevail on this

you know, eventually, and that this was a grift, and they were gonna make some consultant cash out of this, then eventually no. But Send and Joe Mansontsman at a Hampshire has been nervous. Larry Hogan had has been a little nervous.

They like the attention. There was a room there where people were cheering for Manchon and Huntsman, and New Hampshire is a place where there are people that like this kind of no labels y thing. I can tell

you having worked for John Huntman and gone and done the

New Hampshire primary bit where we finished third place. We got, I believe, sixteen or seventeen percent of the vote. So, yeah, not horrible, no real chance to win, but, you know, a decent amount walking around Manchester and Portsmouth, he was popular. Right? Like people would see them be like, Hey, John, attaboy, I’m with you.

You know, like, if you have seventeen percent of support in a state, like, People know who you are.

You know, you’re kind of famous, like people show up like we had full events. Not Trump sized events, but you know, you’d have town halls that have

four hundred five hundred people there. That has an effect on people’s psyche? You started to think, oh, this

could actually happen.

And I was watching that event, and I’m like, watching John Hudson’s body language. I’m like, these guys might start to feel like they’re to something here. Like, you know, they’ve got a full room, people are cheering for them. John Unsman has never been a person that has a great political antenna as evidenced by, you know, our campaign, and then his failed run for governor when he went back to Utah, that he is a guy that like, you know, like,

he came from a rich family. A lot

of things worked out for him in life.

You know, you start to tell yourself that you got some magic here. Right? You don’t realize your dad put the silver dollar behind your ear, and he’s also super talented. A lot of things came easy for him. So I I just I’m a little nervous.

Despite being, you know, not a Trump type Republican, he wasn’t worked for Trump. He did not help our effort to stop Trump in sixteen. He did not in twenty twenty. I just was looking at that mansion huntsman thing to go and these guys might be like working their way up to convincing themselves that they can do this and that the country is going to turn their lonely eyes to them. And that has me, that has me a little spooked.

That’s all I’m going to say.

What do you make of the HoganAN band huntsman? Like, there’s only one Republican on a unity ticket.

You think that they’re both angling for it? You think Hogan you think Hogan put out that video? Because he was like, Huntsman was getting it too much — I

don’t know.

—

on his media tour.

I wonder.

The mansion and this is all crazy. It’s all just speaking to

like this tiny slice of people that are very over indexed, let’s say, in New York, DC in their social circles. So I don’t know. Maybe that was just

kind of a momentum thing, not rivalry thing or they’re trying to

create momentum for this idea. And maybe maybe cooler heads will prevail. And this is like, you know, we gotta give this a good college try. We’re gonna give three months try to build momentum for this and if it comes to thanksgiving, if the polls show Trump forty eight, you know, Biden forty four, mansion Hogan three, then we won’t do it. Maybe, maybe that’s where we’re headed, but man, they’re they’re taking this a little more seriously than I hoped.

The part of this that I find the most mystifying is that Joe Biden has governed as the centrist that everybody in a no label’s kind of place would want.

You’re the only person that thinks JBL, I can’t when you say things like that.

That’s because I look objectively at you know, the things that he passed. And is Yep. Did the Supreme Court get packed? No. In fact, he, you know, he has commission Oh, man.

Can you connect the court to senators? I court. Right?

How could Joe Manchin not think that?

I guess Joe Manchin’s been unhappy that Joe Biden wanted to do some stuff that he didn’t want

to do, but he hasn’t been pressured to do anything. And Joe Manchin has been the vote, everything that’s happened, Joe Manchin supported, except for the student loan thing.

Joe Manchin had wanted it. Right? Joad Manchin signed off on literally everything other than students.

Yeah. But these things were great. We don’t

have DC state. We didn’t kill the filibuster. All the things that the crazy people like me wanted to do you know, DC statehood, and kill the film, all that stuff, Joe Biden absolutely refused to do. And this is instead we’ve gotten a bunch of, like, spending bills, almost all of which were bipartisan and

you know. Too man voted for everything.

His voted for everything that’s fast.

Yeah. But he’s also been so he went on, like, an apology tour about the inflation reduction act. And signing on to that.

Which has worked. Inflation literally started turning around. As Tim pointed out, when you guys were talking to Jamasaki. Right? You know, like a week after they passed the inflation reduction act.

Inflation turned around a

little bit.

Inflation start turning around because they start raising interest

I hear you, Sarah. I hear you, Sarah. But so we’re gonna go with the guy.

The the your pitch is we need a centrist candidate like me who regrets support regret supporting some of the stuff that happened in the jump.

Here’s the thing. I do not think Joe Biden has been a crazy progressive extremist. They could agree. But I also don’t think he’s been like the centrist of our dreams, and that’s maybe because you and I have different definitions of centrism, whatever, he has been fine and he is absolutely within the bounds that the idea that no labels would treat him as an extremist candidate that they needed to run a centrist candidate against. Is absurd.

So, like, you and I agree on that.

Especially with, like, the Trump thing in the New York Times this week. Right? Where he’s talking about centralizing authority and the executive branch and remaking government no more. Like, again, if you’re no labels and you’re looking at Joe Biden’s administration versus Trump’s stated vision for how he wants to remake the the executive like, how does that work? I don’t understand it.

Also, what is the substantive policy differences that

a mansion huntsman ticket would have? Like I guess they want to drill,

JBL, I saw that you were to try out about this. What is it? You was it it really was no ideas?

No. That wasn’t me. That was a that was a piece we had on the website.

Okay. You’re

not right at Triumph.

Great headline.

Then it’s after got wrote that.

Great headline. I’m sure the piece is as good as the headline. The point is, What is their policy platform? They put out, like, a seventy page, like, pile of goop.

And then they were asking a huntsman

and and mansion about and they, like, disagree. It was, like, you know, somebody’s, like, so where are you guys out on carbon tax?

I’m, like,

one one was, like, four and the other one’s, like, against.

And then

it’s, like, oh, okay. Awesome.

It is

as Tim said, it’s the craziest thing. Like, we have the the legislative accomplishment list that Joe Manchin wanted. And then he’s gonna say, but, you know, the bid immigration is so extreme that we have to risk electing Trump so that we can have a third party guy like me. All my it drives me insane. It makes me really angry.

It’s concerning, though. My concern meter is is increasingly high.

My kids are meterside too, and I’ve actually been a little bit, like, on the people are overreacting to no labels bus, because I think, like, Okay, guys, like, settle down. It’s one thing to get twenty percent when people are like imposing their hopes and dreams Oh, that’s the centrist candidate of my dreams. And then, like, the second, you’re like, it’s Joe Manson and John Hunman, and you’re like,

It’s gonna be cinema. Gonna be Kristen Cinema. I’m telling you, she’s the one Quibono. Right? She’s the one who has nothing to lose in everything to gain by being presidential nominee who’s a third party?

I think you can run centrist candidates. I just think you have to run centrist candidates from within a political party.

Or if Bernie Sanders is the nominee. Right? If it’s Trump versus Bernie Sanders, then run your centrist candidate. Right?

This is one of those things though that’s interesting about political parties just today. Which is that they are weak, they’re weak enough, that they can be hijacked, right? Or, like, there’s, like, a chunk that would run down the middle against them, but they’re too strong to, like, not have a political party, right? And so, like, you’re still gonna be stronger as a Democrat, and yet, It’s like the Republican Party was so weak Trump could just completely take it over, but he had to run as a Republican.

Look, if Joe Manchin, if there was an actual constituency for what he wanted to sell, then he would run-in the Democratic primary against Joe Biden. Right? This is and and if Larry Hogan, if there was a constituency, and Larry Hogan would run-in the the Republican Party as as a Republican. Or frankly, in the democratic world, I submit to you, Larry Hogan might get a larger vote share in Iowa and New Hampshire running as a Democrat against Joe Biden than he would as a Republican, again, Donald Trump.

Yeah. I mean, it’d be eight versus three. So it’s not like it it’s like there’d be overwhelming support, but I think yeah. I think he’d be two x. Yeah.

My His number would be two x.

The Democratic party, than that.

Actually, it

could be five x, it could be ten to two.

These people don’t understand they’re just democrats. That’s that’s what I’m saying. Can’t you people just get over the fact that as of right now, it doesn’t mean forever, do you don’t have to get the tattoo?

We’re not doing this one again. I’m going on.

I’ll stop. Brian Kemp said that he will, of course, endorse Donald Trump if he’s the nominee. Is it possible that the only real good republican is Mike Pence? No.

That’s not.

Because we watched Mike Pence with the with Tucker. Right? Like, Mike Pence is the guy actually doing all the things that everybody says they want from a good Republican, and I would like to there’s my it amazes me, Sarah, that we were on opposite sides. Like, I’m like, yes, Mike Pence. And but they should all go and become Democrats.

And

I have two thoughts in this really quick.

One, my poor Mike, I does my parents have a humiliation pink? Like, like, Tucker just, like, ran rough stuff. He and

Heather have some all sorts of dark stuff.

I mean, God love them. Good on them. Somebody has to be saying what what he was saying, but since he doesn’t have the tools

to go head to head with Tucker in these kinds

of things. And so like Tucker is like a rabid dog, you know, attacking him with like nonsense and like making shit up and being like Christians are being persecuted in Ukraine and and and Pence’s

like, that’s not happening.

And Tucker’s like, you’re a liar. You’re, you know, the corporate media, chill. And Pence is like getting smaller and smaller. Like why is he doing this?

He has no chance. Anyway, he should have listened

to Sarah’s focus groups. The Kemp thing This goes back

to the thing that frustrates me to to I’m sorry, so I’m gonna ring back the JBL point that I just said we need to move on from.

And it’s like, you guys are just Democrats now. You guys are just Democrats now and I’m like, give me a Republican to vote for. Give me somebody to vote for. Like this is disqualifying Like Brian Kim? Okay, whatever.

Brian Kim wants to be governor, but he’s already been a two term governor. What does he want exactly? Is he running for an office? What is he saving himself for? Twenty twenty eight presidential campaign, I guess.

But like Donald Trump attempted a coup. He’s been indicted three fucking times, Like, he’s a complete and sane person. If you read his bleats, like they’re they’re like a crazy man, Charlie and Tom Nichols were doing this yesterday, you couldn’t hire this guy to manage your Arby’s? With his rap sheet, you literally couldn’t hire him to manage our Arby’s. And you’re like, yeah, I want him to be the president, after he campaigned against me, after he called me a liar, after people were coming to my house, you know, after I was worried about my safety, because of the way that Donald Trump attacked me.

He’s praising Xi, and I still think he should be the president. Like, that just shows a a lack of judgement so extreme. Like, how am I I What do you want me to do? Yeah, sure. Fine.

I guess I’m Stacey Abrams over him next time. Like, who do you want me to be for? I cow, can you have demonstrated the judgment to be in higher office when you want the guy that can’t manage an ARBES to be the president still? He’s not in the midst of a primary right now? I guess he doesn’t want the MAG of people to attack him again.

He’s scared for his safety, and he’s the governor. He’s got security. That’s a quality ramp.

Do you know why? They all think Trump’s gonna be president again. Like watching the Megyn Kelly they think Trump’s gonna be the nominee, at least. And, like, might as well get it out of the way. And I think you’re right to some degree about the menace that people feel, like, Kemp can do his thing and run, like he ran his race and was able to win.

People like Brian Kemp and they like, how he governs the state, but he was very careful never to insult Donald Trump, right? He didn’t take the fight to Trump. Right. I will say Trump had these guys all pegged. He really did.

Trump saw that all of them were complete beta cucks, and they are. The idea that Trump would be like, I will destroy you, this person’s a fraud, a liar, this person was on her period, and she had blood coming out of everywhere, and they’re all like, you know, when he walks into a room. You just can’t take your eyes off him. Like, megyn Kelly is all thing.

She literally said that,

caused me to, like, vomit on my keyboard. Yeah. I know it’s a real quality. I couldn’t

believe No. But just for listeners who don’t punish themselves with Megyn Kelly clips.

Uh-huh. But that

was a real quote.

So Sununu this is I wrote a piece once. I haven’t written that many. So, you know, it but goodbye to the good Republicans. Because this is what they do. Right?

They are cucked by him. They expect that he’ll be the nominee. And this is where I I may have said this last week

that Kim ran out. Crazy loses. These people are all gonna get down on their knees every single night, praying that Joe Biden beats him. Yeah. It will.

That’s the weird part.

They absolutely will. This is the collective action problem, and it’s been going on for years. This is gonna be the weirdest thing about watching this election again. Especially for commentators like us, I mean clearly we don’t run out of content, but there’s a part of me that just says, yeah, this is what we’re dealing with.

Scroun’t like that. Yeah. The social part of the show isn’t going back to the answering my own rant about Kemp?

Nobody nobody nobody in his world

is like shaming him over this.

Yeah.

Right? Because everybody says, oh, that’s what he’s gotta do. Right. Oh, it’s what he’s gotta do. Like the people in the Republican orbit and the business community and all he deals with, they will all agree with him and liked him and work Kemp Warnock voters, like they’re all like, yeah, he’s got to do this.

And it’s like, No, he doesn’t. No, we don’t. You guys have an off ramp right now. You have many off ramps. Take your fucking off ramp right now.

You don’t have to do this anymore. I I and and yet they all excuse it. And so if you’re being Bryant Kemp and you’re like, man, if I if I

say I won’t vote for Trump, next time I go to the you know, Decab County Republican dinner, like they’re gonna throw tomatoes at me. Or if I say I do vote for Trump, then the worst thing I have to do is like you know, maybe one of my wife’s friends kind of looks at scans at me at a dinner party, but nobody, you know, like, from a social setting like they’ve created a comfort bubble around this. So anyway, if you know a Republican, shame them.

If they didn’t take the off ramp after the attempted coup, then it means that there was literally nothing. That they would take an off ramp for.

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Okay. Fundraising numbers, the debate stage, Doug Bergam’s, Little, give me a dollar. I give you twenty dollars things seems to have worked He told Hugh Hewitt today that he believes they will cross the threshold and get on to that debate stage. Why? I don’t quite know.

Do you have any theories behind that, Sarah? Why Doug Bergam is doing this?

I mean, there’s not a lot.

Like Brewsters millions style.

There’s not a lot to do in North Dakota, and he’s got he’s a billionaire. And these guys have all just said to themselves. Well, billionaire. Why not I could do

It could happen to me.

I can run a pyramid scheme and get on the like, what a business proposition. Right? Like, He’s like, I I I understand how this works I’ll do. And, like, he’s gonna get on the debate stage, and that’ll be great. I am excited for Bergam.

I think I’m gonna decide to, like, be pro Bergam. One things I like about him is how slowly he talks. And so, like, in the frenetic, like, chaos pace of the rest of them, he’s kinda

It’s like a namaste.

He is a thing. Yes. He’s like it’s like a pay you just wait with baited breath. What wonderful droplets of capitalism? Well, you stow on us slowly.

I just have one sentence on this really quick on the Hugh Hewitt thing after listening to Candice Owens for a month, read my Candice Owens profile if you haven’t people.

That’s great.

It’s funny. Candace is like in a like, that’s the real primary. Actual Republican primary voters listen to Candace, you know.

Right.

And on her show, Doug Bergum doesn’t exist. Tim Scott doesn’t exist. Nikki Haley doesn’t exist. Like, none of you believe in exist. Right.

Like the only candidates are ever brought up are Vivec. Ron DeSantis, who she doesn’t like and Trump. That’s the whole primary.

Right? And so it’s kind of funny to me. Like, there’s this whole imaginary primary that’s happening.

Like on the Hugh Hewitt show and on the on the Wall Street Journal Edward and like in Charlie Sykes like meetups that he has in Houston and it’s like, there’s like a rich guy imaginary primary that’s out there that they’re like, oh, you know, we’re looking at all these metrics and it’s like none of that even matters. Like, in the real primary, like these people don’t even exist as as entities.

And that’s important actually not just from the standpoint of those institutions. But from the standpoint of the candidates, like, why does Mike Pence think he can do this? Why does Nikki Haley think she can do this? Because they spent a lot of time at AEI event

in the imaginary primary.

That’s right.

Well, the

and and with the people of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, like, if they spent lots of time with odors, if they actually were listening to them?

We watched the boy happen.

Tim, watch this. I’m gonna break Sarah’s brain. What if Joe Biden replaced Kamala Harris on the ticket? With Mike Pence. There’s your your unity ticket.

What is wrong with you? My god.

A good republican. Okay. Chris Christie will make it onto the debate stage. We think ASSA seems like he may not and Pence. Tim, have you rethought your Chris Christie hatred?

No. We thought.

I well, actually, that’s not true. I have rethought it. I have rethought I

thought about it, and I’ve come to the same the same good question.

Not me. Not me.

I’m excited he’s gonna be on the debate stage. I think it’s good. I do think the problem Maybe

he could be Joe Biden’s running me. Yeah. Unity taken.

Okay. No. I do think sorry. I cut you JBL off before You’re right. I wonder, do you know, actually, in that list of people?

So we know Chris Christie’s gonna make the debate stage.

Right.

Bergam might get that like, but, like, Nikki?

I think Nicki’s in. I think Nicki’s in Scott and — Okay. — ASSA, I think, is Bubble. Pence I mean, is it six percent? Like Pence is in third place.

Now maybe not for long because Vivec is chasing him, and Vivec may may pop over him pretty soon. But but he’s in third place. He’s raised a little bit of money. Not a lot. Very, very tough fundraising numbers for him.

One point one two million maybe, Sebastian can check that for me. Yeah. Like half of it from his town in Indiana, half of them from Indianapolis, and I suppose the other half from AEI.

And And if the average donor you assume the average donor for Pence is high. Like, you would get thirty dollars. Dollars.

He’s probably getting the full, like, general election.

Yeah. I I don’t think he’s even close to the to the number right now to get on the debate stage. Yeah. Which is crazy. The former vice president of the United States is not gonna is not gonna make the debate stage because he’s been so rejected.

So imagine what that would be. If the guy is not only the former vice president, but is also in Poland third place if he yeah. One point two million for his campaign.

Wow. Yeah. Because it’s then third place from name ID. Yeah. The thing about Pence that’s wild is that you’re not measuring him on the metric of all the other candidates.

You’re measuring him on a metric of former Bryce President, a hundred percent name ID. Okay? He, to be at six percent, it is pathetic. People know what they think of, Mike Pence.

A guy who couldn’t be closer to Trump.

He’s losing to Vivec. Yeah. And Bergam’s hot on his heels. I mean, Sayers, man. Vinyasa Doug.

Okay. Guys, it’s been a good show. It’s been a long show. Hit the subscribe button. Go over to the bulwark dot com, sign up for all the free stuff.

Leave us five more stars on the Secret Podcast app. Please, I keep tabs on these? I would like some better reviews. I think you people can do better.

Yeah. Have a little whimsy. Have a little whimsy, you know, in the reviews. What’s wrong

with the little whimsy?

They’re just a little literal and, you know A lot of a lot of timid

stare around.

Not I would say I don’t pop on the reviews very often. Not that I’m obviously Do you know, I’m gonna leave a review

to talk about how much I love you.

You’ve not reviewed our own podcast yet?

Definitely not. Have you reviewed our podcast? Yeah.

Not only have I reviewed our not only have I reviewed our podcast. I take Tyler phone, and I review everybody’s podcast. And then I leave

I then I leave comments that are like, you know,

I really love when you have on that too. So when you’re let’s see in the Tim name, Bob, That’s me reviewing from Tyler’s phone. I get, you know, if

I get a few beers in

me at at a with my buddies, sometimes I’ll go, like,

hey, give

me your phone.

Give me your phone. I’m gonna go to

your iTunes

and Alright, guys. We got a banger of a show coming on Sunday. Am I right about that, Tim?

Sunday. Yeah.

Yeah. Is that the one we taped? You and I?

Yeah. Ben Mackenzie.

Ben Mackenzie from the OC.

Our second guest from the OC of the next level, Pandesha.

I wanna get Mishia what was Mishia Bar Mishia Barton.

What’s Mishia’s news pretty? I don’t know. I I actually I’m gonna ask Ben if Nietzsche has any political opinions

—

Bring her out.

—

to get engaged her on. Ben actually has a lot of substantive political, but he he wrote a whole book on Chris Krypto. And so most of the shows about crypto very you know, just a little The

entire show is basically about the grip about crypto because I never watched the OC. It’s it’s a really, really good show. I would say, if you care at all about the entire CryptoScan world, Ben Mackenzie is one of the two or three best writers on this in America, and his book is great.

What a weird path for him to take.

I know. It’s fascinating. We talked about that. Yeah.

He’s really he’s really good. Anyway, we’ll see you on Sunday, and then we’ll be back here next week on Wednesday. Bye. Peace.

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