Tim Miller: A Season of Grifters and Crackpots

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. It’s June sixteen two thousand twenty three on Charlie Sykes because it’s Friday. He’s Tim Miller. Tim and Charlie Sykes together again. How you doing, Tim?

What’s up, Charlie? You’re in North Sarah Longwell?

I am in Nashville, North Carolina. This place is freaky beautiful. I have to say.

So it isn’t Friday. It’s Thursday afternoon actually. We’re doing this and so I’m just fresh. You’re usually catching me in the morning every once in a while. I might have had a couple drinks the night before, you know.

So you’re getting a plus Tim today. I just I’ve gone clear eyed. I’m riding high on the nuggets’ victory. The parade, I was just watching the clips from the parade, they were partying. I’ve been, you know, reading up on Rhonda Stantas’s DOJ plan.

So I haven’t been partying, but I’m I’m getting you know, the the high, the, you know

You could have gone. So you’re in New Orleans. I’m in Nashville, North Carolina. So life is good.

I couldn’t be better. You know,

as soon as I’m done with this, I’m going out in the mountains, walking around, beautiful, it’s lush. Have to say this. They’ll send a bill to the Nashville, North Carolina chamber of commerce. Ashville now has an ideas festival, kind of model on the Aspen ideas festival, and they’re doing a really nice job. It’s only year that they’re doing, but a very, very, very cool event.

So you and I were just chatting before we got started here. It’s only been a week since Donald Trump’s indictment. And the last time you and I spoke, we didn’t even know the details in the indictment. Now, I mean, everybody else has chewed over it, but I have to say that that was quite an experience. I mean, for people like, oh, come on.

This is ancient history. People, it’s been one week. So can we talk about that just for a few minutes? The Donald Trump at his Perp walk is arraignment. There is multiple indictment, we’re kind of

finding out who the hell Jack Smith is and damn. He’s been tough. Damn. He’s been tough moved his family to the Netherlands. It’s like there at the Hague and in like he I don’t know.

He he looks like he could be an MMA fighter. I don’t know. He’s got alpha energy, and Donald Trump won’t so we hadn’t seen the indictment when we were talking with Bill last week. The acts the text of it, the full text. We hadn’t seen the images of Trump You see the two sketches?

Oh, yeah.

It was like the Reuters sketch artist that made Donald Trump look kind of like Leo Dicaprio, and then there’s the other sketch artist that made him look like Ursula. I don’t know.

I think the Ursula was probably a little bit more true to life there. Yeah.

I wanna hire that guy. That person’s doing a better job. But You

have a small child now. So you’re gonna be making, like, little mermaid references?

No. It’s terrible. So from

now on mobile, I’ll be talking to Tim, and there’ll be all these little drop for Disney plus.

It’s terrible. I’m feeling like such a dad. I was making on Twitter today, I made a so I married an axe murderer reference which is a great comedy. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it Mike Myers. But it was like from nineteen ninety five or something.

And I’m like, I’m getting old. I’m like that guy. You know, I’m the guy making math truck.

I’m starting to sound like Charlie

Shoney playing

the sound of music.

It’s happening. So anyway

So you probably have your favorite songs from Frozen?

Uh-huh. Yeah. I do. What? I mean, I I stick classics.

But I’m frozen. I don’t have any deep cuts but You know, the Trump thing, the most interesting response I think. And you had your, you know, legal expert pod yesterday. So I’ll avoid stepping on that, but — Mhmm.

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it’s not just the Ben witnesses of the world. Right? It is not just like the never Trump folks. And you covered this in the newsletter. It’s Lening, it’s Barr, it’s Bar, it’s people that are kind of non political that have, you know, deep expertise in prosecutorial matters of this nature to a person, the strength of the indictment and just how airtight it was in addition to Jack Smith did have a couple of rhetorical flourishes that maybe maybe were a little bit of showmanship.

But but the factual points stuff. Yeah. That was good stuff. There’s factual points though. I like so irrefutable that not even Donald Trump is refuting Right?

I mean, I I did. And now my party this week for the teens, I tried to do a, you know, just kind of a here are the things that Trump and his people are saying to push back on it. And all of their arguments are kind of like squirrel. Look over there or I feel like I should have been able to do this or I technically could have done it had I done it at a different none of his defenses are, I didn’t do this.

For Hillary, Hillary.

Right. And so that is not somebody that is I gave the whole story if people want to suffer through it on the next level one time, I’ve been jailed for minor in possession of alcohol. But let me tell you that this extent of my expertise of being on the defendant side, and I was drinking the alcohol And and it does limit your types of defenses when you did the things that you’re doing, and you can’t even put forth technical argument that what Jack Smith is saying is wrong. And so I think they’re just on the facts of the matter. He’s in he’s in deep doo doo.

Even the New York Post had that head today.

Well, this is what’s interesting about it is, first of all, I mean, Jack Smith did a great job of the speaking indictment. This was one of my big questions. You know, would he lay out the evidence? Would he tell the story in a way that wasn’t like what Alvin Bragg did in New York. And by the way, I don’t trying to, you know, beat up on Alvin Bragg, but there’s two ways of doing these indictments.

You just list the charges and everything.

Or you tell the story, and what a story. Because you think back on Friday,

we knew the indictment was coming down, and then we had that CNN story that broke this incredible thing that there was a tape of Donald Trump sitting in Bedminster Rettling papers basically going, hey, here’s I’m I’m doing the crime. Here’s the crime. Because it’s like, you know, I could show you this battle plan, this plan to invade a foreign country But, you know, it would be wrong because it’s confidential. And when I was president, I could’ve declassified it. But now that I’m not president, I I mean, it’s like, are you kidding me?

You have a tape where he is discussing the fact that he broke the law and revealing that he broke the law with a document about war plans. It’s like, come on. Come on, really. Is this real life? And it turns out that’s actually in the indictment.

It’s there. And we’re only seven days out from that. To your point about nobody is denying that he did these things. And what I’m seeing

—

Yeah.

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is that there was a little bit of you know, people reading through the indictment. And even among some of the Republicans who were inclined to immediately come to his defense, as soon as they saw the details, it was a little bit like

Little bit of cringe. You watch people like the Lindsay Graham of the world, the Marco Rubio, a little bit of flop sweat going on there. You can kinda tell like, oh, man, shit. We gotta do this again.

And you are having this little incremental move.

You even have, like, guys, like, Andy McCarthy, you

know, a national review, been kind of, you know, a a manga shill, let’s be honest about it. But, you know, he’s got some legal cred. Essentially, he’s saying, you know, this is pretty bad. And Trump bully has no defense.

Well, angry baseball head did that as well. Oh. Yeah. Ken Buck at Colorado congressman from Colorado. It’s far right.

Congressman. Gets a less pressed in Bulwark, but, you know, he’s from the plains. Gilbert’s from the western slope part of the state, so it’s a rural part of Colorado. And even he you know, came out. So again, and this goes kind of part of into the discussion that we’re having last week about like, did these one off people matter so much if the preponderance of, you know, if you have Fox having the banner up there that’s like, Wanna be dictator tries to jail Trump.

You know, if the big megaphone folks aren’t jumping on board, do they mad? I don’t know, but it is a step in the right direction. It’s notable that it wasn’t just the usual suspects. It wasn’t just mitt. You know, it was some of these other more conservative folks that spoke out.

And the Marco one is interesting. To me.

He must have been broken.

And he’s a broken man. I mean, his tweet his tweet about how actually Chris Christie didn’t end my campaign was like one of the saddest tweets ever. I mean, it’s like if you have called me and he’s like, I’m thinking about tweeting that when I did please clap, it was a joke. And people should stop getting on my back about that.

I would

be like, plus. That is true. But like, you know, just let it go. Okay. Just let it go.

Alright. It wasn’t even true in Marcus Chris did take it out. But the interesting thing about Marco’s defense, which I think cuts both ways, is the wishful, the worst the p tape version of this indictment, like the thing that we wanted you know, that might have actually been the, you know, dam breaker is like, he had this stuff and oh, by the way, he’s showing it to MB Yeah. I mean, like Jack’s been that basically everything you could have possibly dreamed in this. And Diamond, except for that.

And that is what Marco Hanks has had on. Right? It’s like

At least he’s not a sponsor. At least he didn’t

Yeah. At least he’s not actively selling the secrets. Two hostile foreign powers. Okay.

He’s not ethel Rosen. Okay.

And that’s and that’s like, that’s what they’re reduced to.

Marco deciding that not only is he sad and broken, but that he wants to expose himself as sad and broken, that was an interesting point. So, you know, I know we keep coming back to this and again and again and again, and I and I apologize in advance with this, but you do wonder whether or not if the Republican candidates took the collective action of saying, like, you know what? This is really, really bad and we’re all gonna say it all at once. Mhmm. Would it make a difference?

I understand We know that the base wants to hear what it what it wants to hear. Mhmm. But, you know, would it make a difference? I mean, honestly, I mean, if everybody you know, essentially said, yeah, this is really bad. This is there’s no defense for this.

I think the answer to that is yes, it make a difference. Would it make a difference now is kind of one of those known unknowns, Rami that we’d love to see it or never gonna?

Yeah. Yeah.

Because there’s something to be said for. Wrote about this earlier this week, so we don’t need to rehash off you. We can read it if they want, but I wrote about how the Coke Bulwark, how their ad, you know, was really terrible. Going after Trump. But the point I’m trying to make is that the thing that we learned in the ArVAT research — Republican voters against Trump.

—

voters against Trump. Yeah. Thank you for the twenty twenty campaign. Part of and with Sarah and others and then going back to twenty sixteen when I was with an Andy Trump pack. The main lesson that you learned from survey research is that Republican voters do not want to be told what to do by DC elites that they do not like.

Right? And that they feel like don’t represent them. And so in a weird way, right, Like, if Paul Ryan or whoever, not speaking on Paul, but anyone in that vein came out and spoke out against Trump it helped him in a weird way, more than it hurt out. Right? You know, because it was like, screw that guy.

I’m gonna defend my man. And so you know, if there was this coordinated effort of McCthy and Mitch, and all the people that kind of smell like Old Guard Republicans all came out. You do wonder at this point if that would only make things worse. Right? Like cause the backlash to be greater.

Now I I think that there is evidence to believe that there were points in which that would have mattered for sure. Like I think, at January sixth, I I give you just looked at his numbers. Right? Like like, he was teetering. Right?

He he was teetering at a couple different points where they didn’t take the chance to do that. At this point, man, you know, it’s just you’d start to dig deeper and deeper and deeper, right? And it’s hard to see if you can dig out.

So another one of the interesting tells about all of this is how fast candidates have moved to talking about pardoning Donald Trump. I mean, it’s just like let’s, like, move past the trial, the evidence, and conviction of Donald Trump. And so it sort of started a little bit small, like, you know, like, Vivek, Ramaswamy saying, you know, I I will pardon him. I’m going to run on this. I have a pledge everybody’s going to pardon him.

And then you had, you know, Nicki who will, of course, check every single box at the Waffle House. On all of this. And I see that your good friend Rich Lowry from National Review has a piece up now saying, definitely, it would be good for the country if we pardoned Donald Trump. This seems to me to also be a tell that they’re, like, moving past the whole thing, and it’s, like, can we talk about this now? So what do you make of this?

Now big pushback from, you know, some folks. I I think Ace Hudson’s pushback said no. Chris Charlie Sykes said, he’d have to actually admit guilt. So I’m in the clear on that.

Pence Waffled a little, I thought.

Yeah. Pence didn’t go for it. So what do you make of the can we just move on and pardon him thing?

I wanna put Nikki Haley and Rich in one box and there are other people like this that think that this is a get out of jail free card and then a literal sense with Trump. But for them, they’re a get out of jail free card with the base. Mhmm. Right? That they can be like, we’re not coming after your guy.

We like it. You know, I think that he’s being targeted, but you know, maybe we can all move on and sing kumbaya and I think they’re just still maintaining this hope that the Trump cult crowd will come around.

He’s guilty, but we’re just not gonna do anything.

Yeah. Yeah. And we get it. We’re not on your team. We’re not gonna punish.

It’s all good. Like, let’s all unite behind our guy, Nikki Iran or whoever it is.

Yeah.

That’s the strategy they’re doing. I think that’s an utterly failed strategy, but I I think that’s in their head. The Vivec thing is funnier. Vivec didn’t just start by saying he’s gonna pardon. Vivec went down to the courthouse, stood outside there and was like, I am gonna sue Joe Biden on behalf of my dominant, Donald Trump, and I’m gonna learn to see if Joe Biden was the one who plotted this attack.

And what Vivec is doing is more interesting because he’s not part of the old guard that wants a kumbaya moment. He’s like trying to just fly up Donald Trump’s flank and just be like, hey, I am reading that this is what the base wants. And I’m either gonna get a win win for me. Either Donald’s gonna be so proud of me and give me a pat on the head for going down there and I’m gonna get to be the new Steve Mnuchin in the next administration when he wins or if he actually goes to jail like I’ll have been the guy who was the most votes ciferous in standing my aside and maybe the cultist will come to me. Now I think that’s probably a silly calculation as well but I think it shows that that at least feels in a weird way.

Like, at least feels like there’s a chance, like, that he’s in touch with what the voters want, where the Nikki Haley thing just feels kinda like you just wanna, yes, they bless your heart, Nikki. Like, it’s just not happening for you. Just just I can see it happening.

Like, now it’s a Trump Vivek twenty twenty four.

Oh, maybe.

You know what we have to look forward to, Tim?

What’s that?

We have weeks and weeks and weeks of being able to speculate groundless on who Donald Trump’s gonna name as his running mate, which I think is a really interesting question, but let’s not Okay.

We’ll save it.

Let’s just save something to look forward to. Okay. You know a lot about the Florida politics. What do you make of this Miami mayor who’s jumped in the race? Was it Suarez?

Chorus. He’s a republican. He’s been kind of trumpy. Yeah. It’s a weird one.

What the hell? Yeah. It’s he’s a Republican ish. I mean, he’s a Republican now. So he this so are you ready for this little factoid drug?

In the twenty eighteen governor’s race between Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis, who do you think Francisco Suarez has voted for? There might have been here, Suarez. Andrew Gillum. But that

was so long ago.

Yeah, he’s a twenty eighteen Andrew Gillum voter who then runs for mayor as a Republican, and kind of goes Ron DeSantis over COVID a little bit, like, you know, wanting to have, you know, be more on the restrictive side on COVID. But gets her way out over the skis on crypto, sees what happens in the midterms where where Miami has this big move to the right. Miami becomes kind of this avatar for the Tech Bro. Oh, I’m leaving California and I’m going to Miami and I can be in a free state. And, you know, right, so if it comes as Avatar as the anti San Francisco for a certain cadre of people and he’s just riding this now.

Waive, this mayor that has very very little responsibility, actually, because in the weird way, Florida set up Miami Dade County actually has much more power than so the county executive of Miami Dade County has more power than the mayor of Miami, the city. But But he’s riding this wave of of, you know, all these Peter Teal moved to Miami. All these guys kinda like him. And he’s also under investigation for some bribery stuff. As he gets into the police and yeah.

And yeah. And I yeah. And I think that he, basically, is is just like this right place, right time guy, who’s like I’m tripling down on this. Right? Like these mag of types love me, the contrarian Joe rogan, Peter, Teal World loves me.

I’m gonna throw my hat in, you know, a Trump wins you know, I’m not gonna attack Trump. I’m just gonna it’s kind of a different view of the Tim Scott.

I’ll be Hudd’s secretary

is different. Yeah. And maybe I can sell some books. You know, I get my name out there more. I can get on the speaking.

Well, maybe

I can just get apart.

I can just get apart. Right. So it’s like it is a just a total it’s a combination of two really common inflection points of the Trump era. There is one, the the realignment of our politics. You know, I wrote about the Red Dog Democrats.

These moderate Republicans who have moved over. You know? And then the the Republicans picked up, you know, the working class white people in the diners. Yeah. But the other group that they’ve picked up is these tech bros, like the online contrarian tech bros who don’t like PC culture.

And so he’s just riding that wave, so he’s riding the realignment wave just like Elon Musk. At the same time, he seems like he’s a total grifter. Who’s a guy complete phony, which is also this has been the the salad days for total grifters. I mean, has there ever been a party where you can just, like, immediately move to the top ranks. I mean, if you’re some mayor and, you know, if you’re a random per back venture in in the Democratic party, you know, there’s a lot of people ahead in line, right?

As evidenced by the gerontocracy running the party in the congress, Katie Porter, and if Katie Porter had our shift, this isn’t the case in the Republican Party. Know, you can just ride that GIF wave, you know, right to well, yeah, to actually be able to win. But you know, look at Blake Masters. And like these people, never would have been senate nominees ever. I wasn’t gonna bring it up

today, but this is my prediction for for Trump joining me. It’s gonna have to be Elizabeth Holmes. It’s a great fit. Okay. So how much of this is, you know, the Miami Mary getting in?

Is an f u to Ron DeSantis? Is is kind of a west sloppy kiss to Trump like, I’m I’m gonna split the Florida vote for you.

I really just can’t understand the answer to I think that something is at play here and I know we maybe we’re gonna discuss a little bit about RfK Junior too. And there’s a little I think that there might be a little bit of trouble making at play here. I mean, you’re in South Florida Roger Stone’s down there, you know. So that’s good. Yeah.

There’s always little things in the midst. So I think that’s very possible. I’ve not seen any direct evidence of that. To me, this just looks on its face like I said like this is a grifter who loves the limelight. Who was like a moderate who thought that the path was gonna be as a moderate Republican Carlos Carbello type.

And then all of a sudden, like, the the ground shifts under his feet and he’s like, hell yeah, I’ll put on the MAGa hat. I’ll hang out with Elon Musk, you know. I’ll I’ll ride, you know, this wave and and I think that really explains it more than trouble making that sense. Okay. I’m definitely open to, you know, waking up in two weeks to a Miami Herald article about how Roger Stone has been having, you know, c Singer’s meetings with with the mayor where he’s been discussing with me.

You know? Sorry. Nothing wrong with that. Not of

it, you know, what to each their own. Hey. Speaking of Florida Griffin, one of my favorite stories of the week has to be the the post arraignment appearance by Donald Trump when he goes to this restaurant and says, Oh, the food’s on me. I’m picking up the tab when he leaves. It doesn’t pay for anything.

It’s just such a quintessential Trump moment. It is just it’s all boiled down there. And many Hassan had a pretty good tweet about it. He said, you know, we laugh about stuff like this, but this isn’t just another indication that we kind of grade Donald Trump on the curve? Because is there any other candidate that would be able to pull that shit off?

It would follow them forever. It’d be his bridge gate.

It would be forever Yeah.

And it goes to like this core thing that nobody was ever able to get him on. I went back and I rewatched a twenty sixteen interview I was doing when I was doing Trump hack back then the other day. Someone sent it to me. I hadn’t seen it in a while and and one of the arguments I was making was I was like this guy has a history of acting like he’s a man of the people but screwing over regular people. You know?

And like that was his whole thing and I thought we really had something there that that might resonate it just has for whatever reason, it just has been a total dud, you know? And he can do this shit and get away with it the way other people can.

Yeah, yeah, screwing little guys who do the work and then you don’t pay them. Or how about that little old lady who was kicked out of her house so they could build a casino in Atlantic City and everything? I thought that was, you know, his position on on eminent demand. You had a domain.

Yeah. Nobody cares. Hey, folks. This is Charlie Sykes, host of

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Let’s talk about RfK junior because speaking of this being the perfect season for the grifter of the nut job, the extremist. I mean, he is did you tweet out this poll showing that he has much higher approval ratings among Republicans with Democrats. He’s wet underwater with with Democrats. Republicans loving him, Fox News loves him, all of the right conspiracy theorists love him. And What the hell?

Yeah, here’s the poll. I just want to pull it up. I’m quinnipiac national poll, favorability ratings, so forty percent of Republicans who have a favorable opinion of RfK during your eighteen percent unfavor among Democrats twenty five percent favorable, thirty nine percent unfavor. You know, almost a complete inversion there. And and he’s running the Democratic primary.

Right? Again, this goes back to those two same issues I was talking about before. One is the grifting. In this case, I think it may be worse than drifting. We, you know, we have foul play.

I’ll get to that. And the other is just this realignment. Right? Because RFK bully hasn’t changed his views on, like, he does believe climate change is a problem. Right?

And I’m sure he is the borders of you and you haven’t seen him talk about unions as much anymore lately. But working class economic issues. But on the core questions that most voters are determining their party ID on right now, democracy issues, you know, recently the COVID and the, you know, public health issues because seriously around that, the, you know, Ukraine war. Right? Like all of all of like the main pot issues right now.

He is sided with the cookie, mega right, and the other end of the horseshoe, the very small number of, you know, Glen Greenwald left it. Like, across the board on every single one of those things. And he has become a hero among the Steve Secret Podcast of the world because it’s like, we have a Kennedy who will come on this podcast and say that the DOJ is targeting Trump and say that the vaccines are don’t work and will say that you know, the US is at you know, Ukraine was asking for it. Right? Like he’ll say all of the stuff that the MAGa guys want on these hot button issues right now.

And because he’s a Kennedy, you know, I mean, the the MAGophobes revere the Kennedys. Right? And the the whole thing about JFK Junior coming back from, you know, really being alive is one of the main qanon. Conspiracies. Right?

So — Jeez.

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there’s this synergy between that kind of Green Old RFP left and the MAGA right in a way that those are the big animating questions for people in politics right now. So the question I’ve always had is who are the people that like him in the democratic? Like why is he getting eighteen, nineteen, twenty percent of the democratic primary? I’m just dying to see a breakdown of his support because I think it’s two groups. I think it’s one that just are upset about Joe Biden’s age and that’s it.

And they’re just they they just put down anybody’s name because they’re like, he’s too old on with somebody else. And then I said two groups, so I meant three. Two, there’s just some vestigial Kennedy types you know, and then three, I think there is a small number of like anti vax weirdo Democrats still. Because anti vax people used to be the Berkeley left Right? So, you know, so I think that those three combined kind of are getting them up into the teens and Bannon has sniffed this out.

He sniffed out that he could use his celebrity, he could use the fact that he has that small foothold within a certain element of the democratic base, and they, as best as I can tell, encouraged him to run, are contributing funding, are, you know, the main engine behind his getting to the race, like RF Kate he even said in interviews, like I can’t believe. I don’t even know what’s happening. I couldn’t you know, I I don’t think he can even believe this maelstrom that he got caught up in, but you see these pictures of him with stone and Bannon and Alex Jones. And this is an intentional rat fuck that is taking advantage of, you know, that small fissure on the kind of the farthest left side of the Democratic Party.

So since we’re talking about sort of toxic griffs and and Ren Rat fucking here, the no labels folks

I’m wondering where you’re going with that.

I’m going toward no labels.

Okay.

Look, I understand the thirty thousand foot appeal of, hey, can we just have a third way? Can we just have something that is just not to say? I mean, I get that. You get that. I understand why people tell pollsters, you know, would you vote for a third party and everything?

And yet these folks I mean, I’m having a hard time decoding what’s going on there. I saw a a tweet from Adam Kinzinger who said, by the way, remember these no labels folks during the January the select committee. They lashed out at us. They attacked us for, you know, partisan subpoenas. And now they’re I mean, last week they were out with this sort of bizarre map the claims that they can win, which no one takes seriously.

Was it this week that they suggested that, you know, if Rhonda Sanders is on the ballot, we might stand down.

Which is exactly backwards.

It might not offer anybody, like but apparently, they’re staffing up. What’s going on here?

Rick Wilson has a good thread about this. I I mean, increasingly, We’ve talked about this once before, I mean, it was on other podcasts, but I consider too much people’s better angels, Charlie. I know that you say that about me all the time. I’m just, you know, I’m a truster. But I assume that they’re idiots, not malign.

Really, it

was my first. You just assume naivete and yeah. Yeah. Not mad. Yeah.

I thought it was an Akam’s razor. Thing. It was rich, out of touch, New York people who are in a tiny bubble of other rich people that don’t like Joe Biden and and, like, you know, they thought that there’s something here and there isn’t. I’ve talked a couple of those naive people. You know, I’ve had a couple of rich folks that, you know, people put them in touch with and they’re like, I’m thinking about running third party and then I kinda run them through what that would look like.

And Yeah. Then they’re like, oh, I shouldn’t do this actually because that’s not smart in this case. Right? And so that’s what I thought. The evidence increasingly, the disadvantage thing you know, makes me start to believe that there’s malice here.

Because any objective view of a third party, I know that this goes against conventional wisdom. But any objective view I don’t think a third party person would have a chance at a presidential race regardless unless it’s, like, the perfect candidate, the rock, somebody that doesn’t exist. But but you could draw a map that at least has me listening with DeSantis in. Because DeSantis changes the game. It’s an ideological fight.

You know, you try to get people in the ideological middle. You know, with Trump, it’s not that. Like, Trump is seen as such a threat and Biden by the Magavotors is seen as an illegitimate geometric threat. There is no path to getting a lot of independent voters in that primary. And the independent number in twenty twenty was tiny.

Despite the fact that people are like, I hate both my choices, they’re like, the number of people that actually voted independent was tiny, it wasn’t because there wasn’t a good campaign run, it was because the people that hate Trump Don’t wanna risk him winning. And the people that think Biden is a dementia riddled grifter don’t wanna risk him winning. Right? And so DeSantis would actually kind of change the thing to at least make seem genuine. It would still be stupid, to be honest, Charlie Sykes at least it would seem like it’s a genuine thing if they’re gonna run it both ways, but for them to say that makes me think that and Rick, I think smartly pointed out that there’s some overlap between DeSantis and no labels donors, that this is an actual effort to help Trump.

If he, you know, and Biden end up getting there because there is just no the only type of voter that would be open to going third party in a Trump Biden Electric. Are are people really Charlie? This is why we can speak to this with expertise. I have these people in my life. I don’t wanna name anybody in this podcast, but I can think about family and friends that are like, lifelong Republicans, lifelong Conservatives, sucked it up for Joe Biden in twenty twenty because they hated Trump and thought he was so dangerous.

And if they were in a third party and they didn’t have somebody like me in their life to explain to them how stupid this was, they might get sucked into they would hold their nose for Biden, but they might get sucked into the third party thing. That that is the type of voter. That’s the only type of voter they would attract. And that’s three percent of the electorate and it could be a make or breaks percent of the electorate.

It is just weird. So I’m seeing here that they’re posting job openings for communications director and deputy chief of staff. Probably not gonna apply. Is that what you’re telling me?

I’m not. Okay. I’m not.

Okay. So do you have your phone with you?

I do. Yeah. Okay. I’ve been focused on the podcast, so I haven’t been scrolling Twitter, but I I can pull it up.

Understand. I’m urging you to look at your phone because I just texted you to do something. This is happening at

your time. Central times. Sorry. I put it on airplane mode. It turns out this is great radio.

Yeah.

Charlie Sykes is this is why you’re an old pro w what was it w m t j w t m j? Okay. Is that oh, wait. Is this live? No.

No. No. No. I just this is I see this photo. Okay.

He sent me a photo of Ken Cuccinelli.

Oh, Okay. That was my question. I’m flying here to Ashley yesterday and I’m in the have a layover in Atlanta.

Yeah.

And I’m sitting there and I’m I’m listening to music, listening to tunes, And then I hear this guy behind me arguing with somebody about Ron DeSantis and why he’s supporting Ron DeSantis.

Yeah.

And so I do what any reasonable person who respects the privacy of others would do. Right? I turned off the music. I took off the headphones and listened to this guy behind me. And And I hadn’t turned around yet because he was very clear that he knew a lot of stuff and he was talking about, you know, he was he was talking about the Mar a lago stuff and using the word crime scene and blah blah blah, and then they were talking about Chris Christie, they were talking about other stuff.

And I’m thinking, okay, this guy is please donor or his bundle or something because he’s, you know, interesting. So I turn around and I look at him and I

go, shit.

That’s Ken Cuccinelli, you know, blabbing in the middle of the airport.

Not a lot of great opsec. For the the Rhonda Santa Superback. Isn’t he like the chairman or the deputy chairman or he has some sort of — Yes.

—

ceremonial role for the Superback?

So I I, of course, did not wanna be rude and, you know, go up and introduce myself for anything. So I just, sir, officially, took the picture. But I wasn’t totally sure it was Ken Cuccinelli, which is why I just texted you this picture and and, you know,

to see, like, Tim, that’s the guy. Right? Unfortunately, I can confirm it because you as a reader of my book, can remember that I had some quality personal time with Ken Cuchinelli where he was making fun of gay people because and was unaware that I was a homosexual. So it was a really really pleasant afternoon I got to spend with Ken Cajanilla.

I mean, the last thing that Ken Cajan only thought was that he’s sitting in this airport having this this this valuable conversation about raising money for Ron DeSantis and and about how basically effed up Trump was with the

in Mar a Lago and

the criminal trial. And he’s sitting ten feet away from me.

Can I I don’t think he’ll be accidentally sitting ten feet away from someone listening to this podcast? But in case he is, we talk about how Ken Coutinelli kind of I’m taking the host chair for a second. He Coutch, like, is the embodiment of what could be a really big problem Ron DeSantis? That somebody like coaches attracted to his campaign. And that is, have you seen the New Hampshire poll that was out today?

No. No. No. No. Please tell.

Do tell. Do tell. Yeah.

There’s a New Hampshire poll that’s out today, and I do want a caveat that it’s from American greatness. So, you know, maybe not the best polling outfit. Oh, Tam. I think this but it’s still important. They spoke to five hundred voters, so it’s not nothing.

And here’s the numbers. And here’s why I think it’s important because it literally matches. The twenty sixteen number basically. Trump forty four DeSantis twelve. Charlie Sykes seven, your boy, a plus six from the last poll.

Scott, seven plus six from the last poll. Haley five.

Don’t worry.

The problem that DeSantis has is he is staring down the barrel. He has the same Ted Cruz team from twenty sixteen. It’s Jeff Rowe, it’s Ken Cucinelli, it’s these far right Trucon idea logs, Heath thinkers. Okay. And and that could be a good match for Iowa?

Bob vanderplants, but you go into New Hampshire where the voters are not evangelicals there. It’s the second state. Right? Right? So you have these kind of working class mega types Right?

And you have the Boston suburb types that Chris Christine Tim Scott are doing with and Portsmouth Smith. Right? And then you know, you have some traditional conservatives as well. And those are basically the three categories to make up the primary. And the DeSantis group is not that big if DeSantis can’t get If he gets down the ideological train with these weirdos like Ken Koinelli, how do you come back?

He’s staring right down the barrel of the Ted Cruz redux. What happened? Ted Cruz, Wins, Iowa, goes to New Hampshire and gets slaughtered. Gets absolutely slaughtered. Let me let me pull this up.

He finishes below

Oh, I remember.

I just I have the exact number up though. He fin but it’s important to know. He got so he gets twelve. Just what to say up to this point again? The low caseic.

You can’t recover from that. Cancucianelli is the avatar of this for me,

that they’re doing the same thing all over again. The big question that we ought to ponder is, is Ron DeSantis Scott Walker or Ted Cruz?

He’s looking like Ted Cruz. Yeah. It’s looking like Ted Cruz. Wow. So can I tell you about my other favorite story?

Please.

Think I’m gonna get blowback for sending you this picture?

I don’t know. Is this stuff? No. I think that’s great. Sounds like you chased him into the bathroom.

I did not.

I have a word for you, Ken. Child separation. Jeez. So every time Ron Johnson comes up, you know, of course, I

I cringe my senior senator from Wisconsin. And he was on NewsMax, and then they’re asking him about these and this is like this other universe out there where in the right ecosystem. There are these smoking gun tapes and whistleblower out there who is going to destroy the Biden crime family because he

has these seventeen audio tapes of Joe Biden talking about taking bribes. And Chuck Grassley has been hyping this. You’ve been, you know, hyped from,

you know, House oversight committee, James Comer, and you know, all of this stuff, and they actually put out

a press release saying that the FBI had information. The Biden took a bribe while

he was serving as Vice President. And Fox News mentioned the claim in more than two hundred chunks of airtime.

So it must be rock solid, two hundred mentions.

Well, exactly. So so Ron Johnson is is on those Max and they ask, well, what about this tape? This is like a big deal. And Johnson essentially admits, yeah, we’re not actually sure that it exists. We don’t even know that it exists.

And the confidential source

appears again to have disappeared or died or whatever

the the hell. So I guess to find it’s just kind of amazing, and so there they are kind of just holding the bag, you know. Grassley, for example, appeared on Fox earlier this month to discuss the claim that, you know, he’d elevate this, you know, document, you know, hadn’t been provided by the FBI and Rastly was asked, well, what does the document say? Nearly a month after he signed this letter, saying that it describes an alleged criminal scheme involving Joe Biden. Grastly said he was not going to characterize it.

And now, basically, it’s like, where are the tapes? Are there any tapes? In the news back interview on Thursday, senator, this is a Philip bump. Senator Ron Johnson was asked about the purported tapes. We don’t know.

Johnson replied senator Grassley’s never said they exist. Wait. Instead, he continued. Grassley had simply said the source said, he’d heard they existed. Oh, wait.

Okay. On Tuesday, representative Matt Gates, not a member of the oversight committee, discussed the issue with a former Trump adviser, Steve Bannon, wanna be very clear about something Gates says, even what’s on a ten twenty three, this is the FBI report, even what’s on that is an allegation, What needs to happen is to track down the bank records and to look for these seventeen audio recordings that he said he knew about months ago, but Apparently, look, nobody knows where these tapes are. It’s

just I and so Fox News, apparently unchastened

by the dominion losses.

Very unchastened. I mean, they called Joe Biden a dictator this week. Yeah.

Wanna be dictator. So

Wanna be dictator. Excuse me.

I would say that representative Comer is he’s cruising to be deplorable of the year if there was such a thing. Yeah. If we’re not grading on occur,

I enjoyed the anecdote, but I thought I was ending with question. I am — No.

—

Fox News. No question. I am more of a comment than a question. Here, did you see this one? It’s latest Fox News.

I feel like me and Pertico need to go do a deep dive on this. Philip pumps doing a great job, but we might need to, you know, add a little more color to it. Here it is. Exclusive, president Joe Biden was allegedly paid five million by an executive of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma where his son Hunter sat on the board, a confidential human source told the FBI.

Big it for truth.

Big it for truth. And I saw that. But it’s Fox. You know, it wasn’t Gateway funded. Was it News Max?

So I was like, I I guess I’ll click on that one. You know, try to see what they’re talking about. That would be pretty bad if Joe Biden was paid five million by an executive of Burns Things. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And so I clicked on it. The exclusive comes from a single anonymous source who delivered this to the FBI. So all we know is somebody went into the fbi and told them this, and their contention is that Joe Biden the Biden family, excuse me, control a maze of bank accounts. That are so intricate that it would take ten years to unravel. And that is why the five million doesn’t show up on Biden’s financial filings, which are extensive.

It’s just like Joe Biden is is a dementia riddled criminal mastermind with like Russian dolls nest full of different bank accounts to hide the amount of money he’s getting, like, I guess, I don’t know, mate like I didn’t think that the blind computer repairman story was true so crazier things have happened, I guess, but the evidence here for them to put stuff forward is so circumspect and so ludicrous in certain cases and fanciful, you know, and yet you have the Saudi Arabia payoff like happening right out in the open. You know? And it’s like no no report no reporting happening on that. And the whole the whole thing is

This is what the term cognitive dissonance mean.

I believe so.

You know? The craftiest manipulator in the history of finance is also this demented guy. And the people who believe it believe it without blinking an eye, they have no problem whatsoever that he’s basically sitting the biggest, of course, I guess, what George Soros sitting behind and pulling the the strings. See, but unfortunately, and I think we ought to have a little fess up here.

Okay. You

know, when you have these conversations with folks. I mean, say, you know, they have no evidence. This is ridiculous. You know, they’re making it up with why you take this seriously. They will come back to the the hunter Biden laptop.

Look, I don’t not give a shit about Hunter Biden, but this was a fail when that Hunter Biden laptop

was a fail.

It was implausible. There were questions about it, but it became This thing where everybody in the media, everybody decided that there were the Hunter Biden laptop, was nothing that it was fake, that it was planted by the Russians, and it turns out as weird as the story was that maybe it was true, largely true. And so people could always say,

that’s what you said about

a hundred buttons lap up. And yeah. Okay. This is why you need to get it right all the time. If you want to maintain your credibility, you can’t ignore the stories otherwise, it creates this sort of, you know, doom loop of I’m not believing anything you guys say.

What about this? You know?

I guess. But we’re human and the story that they put fourth was that a blind computer repairman had HunterBines drives. It looks pretty odd.

I know. Rudy Giuliani got

it. Yeah. And that and that the blind, the computer repair guy called up Rudy. I mean, the whole story was very unlikely.

So what’s the lesson here? Weird shit is happening.

Weird shit does happen sometimes.

Because something is weird shit doesn’t mean it’s true.

And I agree. And that’s what I said. That’s why I clicked on the story. I was like, I wanna see what Fox has there. Maybe I’ve been maybe the wolves been pulled over my eyes about Joe and he is a criminal mastermind, and we’ll find that out in a few years.

I don’t suspect so. I think that he has a bit of a grifty son who’s making some money probably doesn’t deserve. But like that’s a tale as all this time when it comes to politics. I did on the laptop just one point in case everyone has these people in their lives who come up to them and say, well, you were wrong about the laptop. The media was talking about the laptop.

That’s true. The absurd story did turn out to be true. But what was on the laptop only served to embarrass and defame hunter himself. Right? And there are all these embarrassing pictures of Hunter?

There are a lot of texts between Hunter and his dad where his dad sounds like a very loving father. You know, who’s concerned about his son with addiction problems. There’s the one big guy email that they keep mentioning. Right? And it’s like, okay, you know, okay.

I’m open to the possibility. That Joe Biden was taking ten percent off the top of Hunter’s script, and they were calling him the big guy in a code name. But I’m gonna need one additional piece of evidence besides the one email.

I think you need to That

says, I think that there’s gonna be ten for the big guy. That’s all. I need one additional piece of evidence, and then maybe we’re wrong about this. But that is literally the only thing on the laptop that makes Joe Biden look in the least bit bad. And a lot of the things in the laptop, you know, make him look like a dad who’s struggling in a pretty tough situation with with his son.

So, you know, dad is my other follow-up. It’s like, you can’t just say, oh, hundred Biden laptop. You were wrong, and have that mean Joe Biden is corrupt.

But the problem is is that, clearly, there’s a certain asymmetry in the amount of evidence that you need to make an allegation because you have Jack Smith lays out all of this detailed information with tape

—

Seriously.

—

with records, with video surveillance with the sworn testament It’s

—

Many sources.

—

the sworn testimony of his own lawyer, and it’s like, you got nothing there. I don’t know. I see nothing, you know. You show somebody an email that has the term, you know, big guy. Is it there.

That’s it. This is this is all you need.

There it

is. No. No. So you have a happy Father’s Day. I hope you have some good plans.

First Father’s Day in New Orleans.

I have no real plans. Actually, I don’t know. These days are I’m not big on those sorts of things, I think that we’ll probably just hang out, go to the park, enjoy the weather, work on my tan, maybe I’ll work on an article about Roger Johnson’s Secret Source. Treat ourselves to a nice dinner. How about you?

Do you have father’s day plans?

No. Not not really. At this point, know, Father’s Day’s never been as big as Mother’s Day. You notice that?

And that’s whatever. I I think that everybody should get the recognition that they require. You know? And the problem is for Father’s Day father’s Day My at least as I observe with my straight friends. You know, Father’s Day is really more of a day where the dads get to like.

Extend their normal golf day at four hours while the mother has to parent to six hours, you know, they get to extend the happy hour on their golf outing. But I’m not a golfer.

Neither reminder.

And and we co parent regardless because, you know, they’re just both of us. So it’s nice. I love having people wish me a happy father’s day when me and Twos are on the street that warms my hearts. If you happen to bump into me in the garden district this weekend, you can you know, I’d love to hear that. But besides that, you know, that’s just it.

That’s life. Alright. My life is good.

You have a great weekend. I’m gonna enjoy the few precious hours I have here in Nashville, North Sarah Longwell. You enjoy New Orleans, and we’ll talk next week, Tim.

Alright. You too, Charlie. Say hi to Ken Cucinelli when you see him on the flight back. For me. Tell him I said what’s up?

Your gay former strategist says, hey, Ken, long time no see.

It could happen. Thank you all for listening to this weekend’s Secret Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back on Monday, and we’ll do this all over again. Bulwark contest is produced by Katie Cooper, an engineered and edited by Jason Brown.