Tim Miller: Can We Indict Him Just by Thinking about It?

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episode is brought to you by GMC. The new GMC twenty twenty four Sierra heavy duty features the first ever Sierra HD Denali Ultimate, offering an enhanced six point six liter Duramax Turbo Diesel V eight to deliver turbo charge towing capability. Taking premium capability to amazing new places. Available spring of twenty twenty three. Visit gmc dot com to learn

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Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We almost never do this. No, that’s not true. We never have done this.

We’ve never done a face to face live in person podcast I am here in Austin, Texas at the Texas Tribune Festival. With Tim Millen. With Tim Millen. I’m

touching your bony knee right

now. That’s right.

We’re that close

to each other. Okay. What what what’s the what the bony knee thing? I thought you were gonna give me shit for showing up wearing shorts in a t shirt.

Alright, victim.

I think you’re rocking these make Bermuda shorts or something? Yeah.

I got them in Brazil. I ride a little vacation earlier this year from our age redacted birthday. And so I got some Brazil shorts. And, you know, you look great. You’re in an RVT shirts.

Rep repping. I think you looked at this.

So okay. So just to put this into context, you know, I I fly down here from the Midwest on the first day of autumn — Yep. — thinking, hey, it’s fall. I mean, how bad can it be? It was ninety eight fucking degrees when I get out of the airplane.

Five ninety eight degrees, but this is a great event. It’s it’s it’s good talking with you too. So last night, I don’t know whether you caught it. They had the opening event. About Evan Smith, who’s the CEO and and founder of Trip who, by the way, is gonna be doing our panel here today.

Just for people who know, Amanda Carpenter, Tim and I will be doing a panel here at the Tribune Festival. I think it’s described as bullshitting with the Bulwark or something

like that. I think they had a better name, but I think that’s what it should have been called.

Well, that’s pretty much what it’s going to be. Well, Evan sat down with Pete Buttigieg. And I had to say, well, I watched the guy before. He yeah. You know, just bottom line, short take, gifted animal.

I mean, it really is something watching. I’ve never seen him in person, interact, and I I I gotta say to the guys, the guys still got some stuff. He’s

got it. It’s his wheelhouse? He’s got it. He’s good. He’s sharp.

I didn’t get to watch him yesterday. I came I You know, I just I’m in Austin. I’m on a little holiday, so I availed myself to some Mexican Tex Mex dinner instead of going to see mayor Pete. Was that a mistake? No.

I get I get to see him a lot. But, you know, sometimes, you do wonder the democrats and we had this discussion about how they’re just, like, desperately searching, a nationwide search for somebody who has political talent to unite the country and it’s, like, he kind of was just sitting right there in the transportation department. I don’t know. Maybe, obviously, there’s some other political issues he would have. Should he ever run again and challenges, but He’s pretty damn good.

Well, I’ve always thought so, and

I was actually kind of making mental notes because it’s look, you and I spend a lot of time around politicians. Right? Or watching them or talking about them or thinking about them or or, you know, cutting them off of the knees or whatever. It’s rare to find somebody who has the whole package and I was watching him and he was talking about infrastructure and these wonky details, so he was pulling out of some deep pocket where every question they asked him about some remote projects that where he knew it back and forth. And yet he does it in a way that’s not pedantic.

It’s not the okay more Harvard asshole. I know all this stuff. And also, he resisted the temptation to go for the sort of the MSNBC red meat rhetoric on a lot of things. He does something that’s interesting. I I was gonna bounce this off you.

He seems like the only guy who has really thought about how do I talk to the middle in this country? I’m sorry. He’s obviously not the only guy that’s thought about it. But clearly, he’s thought about where we are in politics, why he needs to go on Fox News, And how you actually can change people’s minds, which is vanishingly rare. And

the thing is, as it makes it so strange why it’s so rare, is it’s not that hard. Actually, to talk to I mean, he’s pretty liberal. Mhmm. Okay. And so he’s not, like, particularly center left, squishy, moderate.

But by going on Fox, like, this is just a signaling thing, which is I’m gonna talk to you. I’m gonna talk to Andy. I’m not going on Fox to troll you. Right? When he’s answering the questions, he thinks about, okay, how can I answer this question using normal person words, despite the fact that he’s obviously smart.

Right. To normal person words that normal people use in conversation rather than you know, what Jake Carville calls the faculty lounge bullshit. Right? Like, he talks, like, an old person. This is the the camp thing.

When I went down to Georgia, and I I sort of yeah. I sort of made fun of Brian Kemp about this in the article, but it’s also true, which is he’s signaling to Georgia moderate. So he’s a moderate by just stepping over the tiniest bar of being like, I’m not gonna go along with the coup. Right? Like, by not going along with the coup and by not saying the most crazy rhetoric.

All of a sudden, as I was interviewing voters, like, he’s a mainstream guy. It’s like that, really, actually. Brian Kemp is pretty down the line conservative. Back in twenty ten, you know, back in the yeah. In the normal days, in twenty twelve, if you’re judging Brian Kemp, on a continuum with, like, Mitt Romney and John Huntsman, my old boss who had said Brian Kemp’s the hard line, tea party guy.

Right? Not not a moderate, but he he projects his moderate. Pete has the inverse of this. Right? He just doesn’t step into the lefty stuff that for some reason a lot of other Democrats can’t help to avoid.

But one other just a little preview. Another guy who is good like this about Pete, who knows whether it will will hold up. But Jim Swift and I interviewed Wes Moore, who’s the Democratic nominee for governor of Maryland last week. We’ve got a profile on him coming next week. And he’s really talented too.

And he is also very conscious of just kind of like it’s kind of crazy to say this, like, oh, using Obama rhetoric, kind of put you in the middle now. But he does he has this sort of going back to — It kind of progressive patriots. Yeah. Yeah. Patriotism unity — Yeah.

— we can all be you know, I’m trying to talk to everybody even in red parts of Maryland. He talks about economic growth, and entrepreneurship, and innovation. You know, it’s not just the class war, Elizabeth Warren stuff. So anyway, you can read more about that on Monday, but the fact that that stands out for people like Pete and Wes is notable. I’m like, kind of, tells you where we are that that is a rare thing.

When that was kind of like the standard Democratic rhetoric for a while, not too long ago.

So let let’s talk about all all of the news of the day and and there were some good there were some good news and there were some just normally insane news other words, it was just a regular week. I I I had to tell you I’m a little bit stuck on this whole judge jury story. Okay. The special master from from New York. Who continued and remember he was the guy that Trump chose to be the special master, and he keeps just slapping these guys down.

And yesterday, he tells the Trump’s people, hey, basically, put up or shut up. You know, you’ve been implying, you’ve been insinuating that the FBI agents planted the information. Okay? Yeah. I want you to now tell the court, the federal court whether that this actually happened.

Also, you’ve been implying that some of these records have been declassified. You said this outside of court. Are you gonna say this now to me? And a reminder that social media is different than being in a federal court. So I think this is kind of interesting the way it’s I mean, this has been.

And look, I I don’t wanna be part of another montage of, you know, the walls are closing it around all the sound thing. I mean, we’ve kind of been doing that, but this was a really bad week. For Trump

in the courts.

Pretty nice. I

mean, he’s getting sued by Ted James. He’s he’s in the, like, June. But all the prudes, do you watch his Bruce, they’re pretty strange about I mean, they’re always strange, but he’s, like, making up weird names about our that aren’t really landing. Yeah. DeJean Carol, my friend, Robbie Kaplan, is is representing her, and that suit is is coming back to a head.

Yeah. There’s there’s been a little kind of fake drama around Hannah’s art week at it. Can I just comment about this for a second? I just she’s so great and a YoStar Art Director. But I’ve I haven’t disappointed about one thing.

Not the weird AI art, which I think has been cool. But that Trump having a special master and having the special master slapped him down provides a lot of evocative images for me, but I wish know, man I wish we could go there.

Okay. You have to, like, use the special master master. Yeah. I

don’t even know who maybe I

just Okay. So we’re, like, what, ten minutes into this, and we’re already talking about, you know, ten millers kinks. I mean, I just no. This was not the kind of master that I think that that Donald Trump wanted. But but he’s kind of been that.

But but, you know, okay. So you you have all these lawsuits you have the various things that are going on. I they think the Washington posted there are eight ongoing criminal or civil investigations. And I was thinking Okay. If I sat here, how long would it take me to come up with all eight of them just to keep track?

But the declassification drama continued And so my second favorite story after Judge Deary basically telling Trump’s people to put up or shut up, is Trump kind of flailing around here on all of this, and this is my favorite sound bite of the week. The former president of the United States goes on Sean Hannity, to explain that he can declassify things just with his mind. A

president has the power to declassified. Okay. You have said on truth social a number of times, you did declare it. Okay. Is there a process?

What was your us to deal. It doesn’t have to be a process as I understand it. You know, there’s different people say different things. But as I understand, there doesn’t have to be if you’re the president of the United States, you can declassify just by saying, I’m just stick last night, even by thinking about it because you’re sending it to Mar a Lago or to wherever you’re sending it. And there doesn’t have to be a process.

There can’t be a process, but there doesn’t have to be. You’re the president. You make that decision. So when you send it, It’s declassified. We I declassified everything.

It’s just like magic. You know, that’s some just because you didn’t date him with our money.

I wasn’t dieting in with my mind this week, actually. You know, I’ve been trying so hard to not get hope about the indictment. But every time a new thing comes up just I’m getting weak. I’m getting weaker. A little backstory on how these Hannity interviews go, someone who unfortunately has been in that seat of prep Hannity preps with you.

Right. And some of these other Fox shows, they might be propagandists, but, you know, they all they have their own agendas and you know, Hannity is is a classic North Korea style. Trump again. That’s right. Him and Trump sit together, you know, how do

you I’m going

to ask you this. He advises him. Like, hey. I think you should really say this. Right?

Like spitball stuff. Trust me. I’ve been in the rooms with him when he does this. Now it was Trump, but with Hannity and other candidates. So that is just, I I think, emphasizes how much he’s flailing.

But it’s like they prepped for this, and Hannity still asked him, do you have a process and Trump’s like, Nah. Nah. No process. I just happen with my mind. The other which wasn’t included in this clip, my personal favorite, was a different answer.

Where he suggests that it’s possible that they were searching for Hillary Clinton’s emails tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s a long interview. You you didn’t have to suffer through the whole thing. But, yeah, Trump’s like, well, you know, if FBI had to come down and why who knows? Why they could’ve come down? I didn’t think there was anything in there, but we never found those emails.

Maybe they thought. Yeah. I don’t know why he thought that the emails might have been in Mar a Largo. But see,

this is why. And and again, I I I caution against your rational hope about any of these indictments and everything. But there is that moment where Donald Trump is in front of a judge or in front of a grand jury, and it’s going to be very difficult to be Donald Trump. Because the guy lies and throws bullshit against the wall so much. And here you have a federal judge, and you wanna say that here in court, where it might actually count.

Do you really wanna say this under under oath? This is part of the problem is that at some point he says all of this stuff. If he’s ever put on the record in a court proceeding. He either he can play the fifth amendment. He can repeat it under oath.

Or he can say, no, I was just bullshitting. Right.

And I do think the civil courts because we’ve gone around and around on this, which is like some of the problems I’ve been actually getting embedded in criminal criminally held to account as you need to have juries and is our one person on the jury. Civil courts are different animal. Right? Like, you get sued, you get deposed, we just saw this with our friends at Project Veritas. Right?

They just got taken a civil court this week, a nice little piece of good news. Yeah. Six figures. We saw with Alex Jones. Right?

So civil court is revealing, right, in a way that maybe we don’t get the purplock of our dreams, but that they to get bled out a little bit. Yeah.

And for people who are, you know, thinking that there’s there’s this great nemesis coming and and and and maybe perhaps it it is. You mentioned Alex, young, Alex Jones is having also a terrible week in the court where he’s, again, under oath. He’s he’s on the stand making a complete ass of himself, which he does on a regular basis. He’s being asked about things that he said are done in the past, and they play the tape of him saying it. It’s it’s it’s bad.

And you know, I I think in part of our minds, we’re thinking, okay, well, this is kinda gonna be the end of Alex Jones because he’s so completely discredited, you know, mocking these dead children at Sandy Hook. I see this week the turning point USA, Charlie Kirk, who has really might become central now in in MAGA GOP world, is now featuring Alex Jones at TP USA events. So in in other words, rather than the right basically saying, hey, let’s let’s move on without these fleet, nut jobs, craze, you know, bigots and everything. No. We’re gonna double down on it.

This is

I it’s important to bring up because just how when you say central, Charlie Kirk and TP USA is, it really is, you know, the entire web of the kind of Republican party, this new MAGA establishment. Like, there’s central node in it. Right? They’re taking a place of what a stuff that the parties used to do. Right?

Because those parties have been weekend. We’ve talked about this. It was

a big event up in Green Bay, Wisconsin just this last weekend where all the republican candidates were there. Sponsored by TP USA, which again, and to your point, they have really become the new RNC. Yeah. And

that’s who was sponsoring the DeSantis event. Just remember what DeSantis is traveling around the country. You could campaigning for Mastriano, I think, and I I forget which which there are, like, three or four of the gubernatorial candidates. Including Mastriano, and and they were sponsoring those events. So to have, you know, Alex Jones as a special guest, and if you watch that video, Kirk is teasing, like an exciting guest to the crowd.

Right? You can see Buzz building and and then he says, oh, it’s not gonna be the big guy. Know, it’s not gonna be Donald. Right? And you hear a little disappointment.

He’s like, it’s gonna be somebody that the media hates even more than Donald. And they show Alex Jones, and sometimes they show the video of these things and you watch them and you’re like, I don’t know if that’s really landing with the crowd. That wasn’t the case this time. You can’t see it because people start standing up. There’s a standing of vision.

Yeah. People take away. This is deeply concerning. Right? Like, did that did that.

Types of people — Real moment of understatement and on the podcast. — the types of people that are screaming, cheering, for this lying, pernicious ass pimple, like, are the same people that are there for, you know, your average Republican House Canada try like, then is the core of what of what’s happening?

Well, let you know I I I don’t wanna get to, you know, Mette here, but But once you basically embraced, you know, the Orange God King and said, this is the guy we want to be our leader forever and back in the Oval Office. Then basically all those other standards for everybody else kind of have to be scrapped.

This episode is brought to you by GMC. The new GMC twenty twenty four Sierra heavy duty features the first ever Sierra HD Denali Ultimate, offering an enhanced six point six liter Duramax Turbo Diesel V eight to deliver turbocharged towing capability, taking premium capability to amazing new places. Available spring of twenty twenty three. Visit gmc dot com to learn

more.

So speaking of trolling and and Rhonda Santos, I don’t know whether you caught it, but the governor of Florida shared some deep thoughts about American history. I mean, this guy is a he’s a thinkory. He is not nearly an Internet troll from Tallahassee. He he also has some thoughts about the American revolution. Harvard’s.

Yeah. That’s it. Yes. He’s from Harvard. Let’s play that.

For example,

the sixteen nineteen project is a CRT version of history. It’s supported by the New York Times. They wanna teach our kids that the American revolution was fought to protect slavery, and that’s false. We know why the American revolution was fallout. They wrote pamphlets.

We saw dumb tea into the Boston Harbor. We saw meat in Philadelphia, and we have the records of why THEY REVOLTED AGAINST KING George III. AND SO IT WAS THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION THAT CAUSE PEOPLE TO QUESTION in slavery. No one had questioned it before — No. — we decided as Americans that we earned out by our creator with unalienable rights.

And that we are all created equal. Then that birth, abolition movements. So you can’t teach history that’s you being used to pursue an ideological agenda. You can’t teach that the foundations of our country were somehow evil. Yeah.

Let

let’s leave aside the sixteen nineteen project, which does have some So we say problematic element. I really like the part of how no one questioned slavery before seventeen seventy

six. No. Uh-uh. No. This is You you you wanna take

the the high law off there? No one questioned it. Worldwide. I I think we are the last, actually, to

get rid of slavery. I don’t know if you’re the first. I think it might have been

the inverse to that. I actually know some people they’re they’re no one, but some people who might have questioned slavery. Like, this

way Jesus. But but

apparently, they they become sort of invisible and and bottomless and this is where, like, nobody thought this was wrong. Wait. There’s like a million slaves going. We would like a word. We would like to talk about this.

The slave owners were actually the first ones

to determine the slavery was wrong. I I The orwellian nature of the end of this too, which is like we cannot let our children be taught in ideological history. They have to be taught real history. Such as, the great white American founders were the first ones to question slavery. It’s, you know, it’s like he’s doing exactly the thing that he is accusing the other side of doing and and, like, the most ham fisted way possible.

It also may room makes me reflect back on the common core. Do you remember the common core? Yeah. Absolutely. Had to deal with this as Jeb’s spokesperson.

There was this big complaint, a common core ostensibly among the conservatives was that, you know, we don’t want government setting. Curriculum standards. Right? We don’t want these top down government curriculum standards. Now that concern about government setting curriculum standards has has been been pushed aside because we have a new thing, which is patriotic core.

Patriot core. Patriot core is cool. Okay? It’s like America was wonderful. From the start, it has no flaws.

Our great patriotic leaders were the ones that ended slavery in started the abolition movement, and anyone that questions anything America that ever ever did, they are wrong. That’s our new patriotic core history in Florida. It’s it’s not quite scary, but it’s something. Yeah. You actually have to

work pretty hard to come up with the, you know, that no one had thought this was a problem before. I mean, really, you do and and We just went through

the British the Queen. We were just talking about we learned about all the news. What was Wilbur

Force’s first name? But, I mean, the the great story of the abolitionists in England, what they did one before the American Civil War. So I’m sorry, I’m having this this post traumatic flashback when you’re talking about the common core because that was a very nineteen eighties issue. And so here we’re sitting in a can I just have a digression? Okay.

So we’re sitting here in Austin, Texas where it’s ninety seven degrees. Ninety eight degrees. That’s

nice. That’s It’s gonna ball me.

Okay. Well, yeah. It’s it’s, like, eight o’clock in the morning here. You know? Yeah.

But the first time I was in Austin, Texas was in January during an ice storm. And it must have been January of, like, nineteen ninety seven, a little vague on all this, but George w Bush was governor. And I was here to do some speaking events around around this day, and the the Texas Policy Institute or whatever, which is going to complete Mago now, you know. But at the time, they she arranged a meeting within the governor’s office. Okay.

But I had to walk over from my hotel to the state capital, which we can see from where we’re sitting right now. And everything was covered in ice, absolutely covered in in ice. I mean, because down here in Texas, unlike in Wisconsin, They do not have snow plows. They do not have salt. They don’t know what to do in the middle of an ice storm.

And I it was the longest walk of my life because I’m wearing these sort of, you know, shoes in the slippings, slippings, slippings, things slipping slipping. I get there. And Bush is the only person in the capital. I mean, the place is completely shut down. And so we had scheduled a fifteen minute talk about education policy.

And it turned into an hour and a half because I I had nothing else to do. And so we bullshitted about all kinds of things. But I remember we were talking about at that time, he was pushing education reforms, which we would think of as pretty moderate, pretty noncontroversial. Like,

race of the top style

or Like, there was this extreme sort of fundamentalist right that was shooting at him because of this, you know, government should never tell us what we teach in our schools. We should all require Mcguffie’s reader and everything. And I remember he was sitting there and this feels like a different it was a different century literally. What he’s talking about, you know, these nutjobs, these extremists, you know, and fuck them. I’m still gonna go ahead with what I’m gonna do.

So the common core, I’m I’m having that Austin flattish back here. Yeah. I’m sorry. No. I

just have one other thing in DeSantis. I don’t know if you’re ready. No. I’m not ready to go. Okay.

Great. Did you see the Jared Kushner thing? I’m taking the host share for a second. We’re together, so you’re sort of rotating. Did you see Jared Kushner’s comment about the Santa Barbara Vineyard?

I had my first moment of thinking, I’m pretty bearish on the idea that DeSantis could go head to head with Trump. Yeah. Just we just listen to that video. He has an annoying voice You know, it’s a personality. He says it feels very cruise and walker ish, you know, where he’s gonna try to suck up to Donald and then try to criticize them.

And and it’s, like, weird thing come clever way. And then, like, Donald’s gonna call him, like, fatty mac fat face or something and, you know, everybody be like, you Man, that Orange God, King God. That’s always been my It’s clean up. Yeah. That’s kinda been my vision.

But then that little Weasley Jared was on fox. This week, and he was saying that he thought that around DeSantis, he just needs to tweak these people like humans. Like, they aren’t humans. He’s she’s using them like pawns, and he’s like, I

I I I really wanna hear Donald. The the Donald

pick that thing up. And so I was watching us. It was like first moment when I was, like, I don’t know. Maybe Ron, Santos has these guys flanked. Like, because they feel like they have to criticize him from the humanitarian perspective.

And I I I got a kick out of a just Jared all for six years. We had to listen to Jared through the reporters. Behind the scenes. It was like, Jevonka is upset about this. Right.

But they never but now that he saw in a book, he has to do it in public. And it just sounds so weak and pathetic, and you don’t believe it. And he’s like, you know, he he’s like this animatronic person pretending to have human feelings. You know, so it’s it’s like not like I really believe that Jared actually cares about the humanity. Oh, it’d be funny if he was in there during the child separation.

He’s doing

business with robots.

But it’s interesting that they feel a little bit cornered on this one. The like, that that DeSantis kind of has the nuts that the voters want the cruel and dehumanization. That’s what they want. Trump is not in the picture. Right?

He doesn’t have it’s not he’s gonna use his own money to start flying the Mar a Lago employees, to Mar them in here, I guess, is is not right. Undocumented and then I’m a good employee. So they don’t, like, have a way into the story that Jared is obviously not his id. Don junior would be Trump’s id, so maybe Don junior would have a better take on this. But I don’t know.

It was the first moment that I thought maybe like a hint of weakness with Well,

they’re annoyed. You know they’re annoyed because he’s taken his issue. He can’t say anything about it really publicly. He can’t endorse it because then he looks kind of beta. Right.

Did did you say that? Am I just repeating you from one of the secret podcast? I mean, And he’s obviously not on my side. It’s hard for him, you know, to figure out to get to the right or the left of him. I’m I’m not sure it’s very on brand to, you know, talk about using people as human pawns I thought maybe he would say that, no.

DeSantis is a cock because we should have the death penalty for all illegal immigrants or something like that. But I guess the other vulnerability of DeSantis and I, by the way, agree that this is electrically probably working for him because it’s focusing on the border, etcetera. But the other weak spot is the the flat out fraud. I I don’t think Sonny Bunch has got enough credit for pointing out that in that brochure they gave to the migrants they had a fake flag of Massachusetts that somebody Googled. And then they had all this information telling these people what they were going to do.

And it seems increasingly likely every single day we get another indication that this is is not like close to fraud or near fraud. This is just pure raw fraud. Yeah.

And Miami and then Miami Herald had a good report about a different group that they were going to try to draw to Delaware, I guess. And The Keystone cops, a little a little secret plan. And sort of yeah. He fell apart and they backed off on it. And so I think there could be some legal exposure here for sure.

So, you know, we’ve talked about this in some of the other podcasts, but I I, you know, I’m not certain JBL compared this to Bridgegate. And I do think that’s a kind of an apt comparison that in that era and Bridgegate era Christy thought he was being clever and politically hard hitting, but it didn’t, you know, he’s getting crushed every day. There’s a new leak about about how this was illegal and, you know, his staff is turning on them and, you know, now we’re fooling the documents and that’s a league. And back then, I think that really hurt him because there was this very large cloud around him. And now, I just don’t know if that matters.

Right? Like, if the Miami Herald is doing drip drip on this every day, does that even actually to Santos at all. I’m not sure. So I think that that same environment could surround him, but it’s unclear to me whether it would actually

matter to his base. For? You used a phrase, I think during that podcast, they kind of stuck with me that this was in the era when the media could still hold Republicans accountable. Right? And they’re like, we don’t live in that world anymore.

And again, I’ve I’ve been pretty clear how I feel about Ron DeSantis the cruelty being the point, you know, that it’s all about, you know, the trolling lid. But let me just just step back for a moment. And I think people need to understand why this is playing so strongly with the other side. Yes. There is, you know, the the cruelty, etcetera.

But as somebody said to me last night, you know, it would be interesting if we paid as much attention to what’s happening in El Paso every single day. As what’s happening in Mar a Lago. The point being, there’s a there is a problem with the border. It is not going well. And, you know, every day that we now are talking about this, we’re talking about an issue that Republicans wanna talk about as opposed to abortion.

But we don’t know the law. I probably

built the woman.

Mexico paid for it. That’s it more? But we have a problem. Right? I mean, I guess,

I hear you. But I Santis doesn’t have a problem. DeSantis has a gulf in an in an ocean around the states. And and there’s no you know, DeSantis doesn’t have any more of a migrant crisis problem than Delaware does. This is where that lands

This way that’s so silly. That he’s, you know, going to get people from Texas to fly there. That might

be attention, sir. Because there’s been some attention on Greg Abbott’s deal, which I also think is trolling and kind of pathetic. It’s again, it’s one thing of Greg Abbott, not the Sandoz. The Sandoz’s whole situation is ridiculous. But it’s one thing of Greg Abbott said, okay, we can’t handle this anymore.

Right? And we need help. And so I’m calling Charlie Baker. And I’m calling, you know, the governor of Delaware. And we’re gonna work with you to send some migrants up there.

That’s one thing. But that’s not what he’s doing, you know, because

he’s not trying to I hope

He’s not trying to help. Right. And so I don’t know, you know and then did they add to California? I think this bears mention I’ve wanted been wanting to mention this on a podcast. There is a blue state that actually has a border.

Yeah. My state? California. You know, it’s a progressive landscape. Yeah.

It’s a progressive landscape. You don’t see Gavin Newsom saying we can’t handle the Tijuana entrance, so we’re gonna send these we’re gonna send these people into Arizona. Nothing to

use California as a model of how Well

well, I mean, I guess I’m just saying California as a state has plenty of problems. No doubt, but the California border situation is again, not a we know border situation is ideal. Part of that is a global geo political economic problem. Like, I don’t know what Greg Avid or Gavin Newsom or Joe Biden is supposed to do about the gangs in El Salvador and Guatemala or the communist dictator in Venezuela that is drawing these people here. But what my point is that there is a Democratic governor that is managing a border and doing so without, you know, crying to Fox News about how he needs he needs help from, you know, the mark the the Republican elites.

So I

I was talking to some swing Republican voters about all of this, and it was interesting how often the issue of sanctuary cities comes up. Like, when and and and this is something that that I do think we need to talk about. You know, what because we all talk about the rule of law. We have to have the rule of law. And then on the other hand, but sanctuary cities which basically say we’re going to ignore the law, are and and this is again part of what is going on right now.

You wanna be a sanctuary city. Okay. Here. Sanctuary these people. So, you know, I’m coming to

the immigration squish for this. Are you ready? You’re ready for my Yeah. I’m like the total immigration is my squishiest issue. I’m like to left of Biden on it.

But here’s the thing. This annoyed me this argument, this rule of law argument about the undocumented and the immigrants because — Well, I’m just curious. — this case. So here’s thing. So okay.

It’s not the rule. I I for

all of these years, I finally got for

the question. No. No. No. No.

Hey. Here’s the problem. Okay. There can be plenty of legal remedies and issues to deal with people coming across the border. And part of the rule of law issue is that we we aren’t funding our courts enough to deal with all the Assadis that are coming here.

So we should be funding the board records to be able to deal with these people. There there also, you know, can be punishments short of deportation that that are here for the rule of law. This is what my problem is the people who only say, well, why not we have the rule of law for illegal immigrants are like, well, we need to deport them. Like, the deporting is the right solution. I mean, are we doing death penalty for for Donald Trump and Ivanka?

I mean, right, like, that we can have a range of of legal solutions here that isn’t, you know, putting people on buses back to next Like, the

whole sanctuary thing is we are carving out this part of the United States where we are not going to cooperate or enforce United States

law. I mean, you

understand how there are people go, wait, this just sounds wrong to me. I mean, I guess, I I

why does it sound wrong to me? No. What do they want? I guess what I’m asking is what they want. They want the Oakland mayor to be giving undocumented immigrants living in Oakland to the Department of Homeland Security so they can boss them back to go, like, well, I just don’t don’t understand what they what they want.

From well, they want a lot

of things. I mean, they pretty much probably want the same thing that you would want if Texas declares itself a sanctuary state for Donald Trump in Ivanka and Eric in Donald junior. I mean, you know, when it comes to gun legislation or or when it comes to felony convictions of the former president, if a locality or a state said we are a sanctuary state If Donald comes here, we will make sure that he is not arrested. That that There are no legal consequences. Come on.

We don’t like federal. I’m just saying that if you live in a different state If you live by the sanctuary city thing, you might have to die by the sanctuary city.

I I do not share the concerns about this. Part of the reason is because the federal immigration laws, like, aren’t being enforced by anybody. We don’t have a federal immigration law or federal immigration system. And so this is one city that’s basically saying, okay, undocumented immigrants who are living here who who we don’t really have a solution for. Congress is uninterested in solving the problem.

They can live in our city and not have the fear of deportation. They can work here. They can be here with their families. You know, they’re not all rapists and criminals with watermelon thighs or whatever Donald Trump used say about them, you know, but is that a Steve King thing? When they’re coming across the border, they’re they’re He

he was thinking about it. Yeah. He

was thinking about that. I think it was a

Steve King thing.

Many of them are just people that are trying to work and make a living for their family. And I think that it’s okay for them to live in Oakland and not to be not be worried that the the ice is gonna come banging down their door. That’s me. Can

we talk about something that actually some good news, some indications that perhaps the world is not totally falling apart? Yeah. Where’d you get that? What is that about? Is that Yes.

I’m

living the writer’s life and

telling you right

now. Type in my articles, sitting out on the balcony. Feel it’s good. Well, it’s like we’re in the summer. We have kind of a It’s good to be late summer.

New York

Times best selling season. Well,

you think you have you have,

like, three events today here in Texas in in a book signing. Right? Yeah. And a trivia contest. Oh, yeah.

It’s Do you have

to

come up with a trivia stuff?

As I’ve given me the questions, I’m kind of like Alex troubec or an anchor man really. They just they put the questions in the teleprompter and I read them and throw a couple of jokes out there. I’m excited. I know you work in the room doing a little crowd light crowd work. So

while I was walking around last night, I was chatting with a guy who was one of our podcast listeners — Yeah. — and he said that he’s looking forward to coming to your event tonight. And he said, I’m going to be wearing an LSU sweatshirt because I hope that that sort of biases Tim in my favor. I said, I I can’t speak for him. So I don’t know.

So if you see a a guy with an LSU, just understand that that’s a specific attempt. To curry favor

with the host. To not giving out any I’ve already had some requests for the answers actually from people. And I care about the rule of law. And run a tight ship when it comes to pub trivia. Okay?

So there’s gonna be no cheating. Well, okay. So

there there is some good news. I wanna there’s some bad news as well, but the electoral count act, which we have been railing about for months that if there’s one minimal thing that you could do to prevent the kind of coup that almost happened on generation, it should change that incredibly stupid, antiquated, eighteen whatever law. And finally, the House of Representatives did it. And They got nine Republican votes, nine whole freaking Republican votes. Let’s talk to the back.

We got good news on

get to the good news on the back end. The bad news first. Boy, Crystal, I think, put this best. There were zero Republicans who are up for election this November who voted to reform the electoral count. I missed that.

Zero. Eight So there is the eight impeachers out of the ten who are already on their way out the door via retirement or primary loss. The two who won their primaries did not vote for it. And then one additional retiring house member. So no one who’s up for reelection vote for.

Okay. So that is the bad news. So much for team normal. Yeah. I mean, it’s fucking depressing.

It’s just again, it’s like are are you worried you’re gonna get primed? What is even the fear? Yeah. Just okay. I’m gonna rant about this one second before we get to the good news.

We always do this. Right? Here’s good news. Let me talk about the bad

war. Well okay. I’ll make it worse. Just in case anybody has any doubt about what’s gonna happen with the Republican Congress next year, they will vote to impeach Joe Biden in every Republican that wants to stay a Republican in congress will vote for it. Yeah.

Almost every one, at least. Yeah. But meanwhile, every single one of them that just wanna fix this long so we can just count the votes. I was always skeptical of the story. There are these leaks out of house Republicans that were like, I wanna develop for impeachment.

I think he should have been impeachment, but I can’t do it. Because I’m worried for my physical safety. Yeah. I’m literally I’m worried that the the the deployables are gonna come with pitch forex to my house and burn it down. And I’m worried about my family and my life.

And how we felt like that was kind of it felt like the characters and why we did it. Okay. It felt like an excuse, like a very an excuse that makes you feel good. Right. Right.

Like the junior neuroscience. That I could, oh, I would do the right thing, but that we need good people like me here. There is just no explanation for saying, I wanted them impeached, but I couldn’t do it because we need good people in here, and I’m worried about my safety. To then two years later, when they say, okay, we’re gonna just fix this arcane law to make sure that if this happens again, you know, if he wants to run again, can run fair and square and win fair and square. Okay.

But but just to make sure we can’t cheat it. Next time, and then not vote for that. Yeah. Right. To me, that just reveals that all of those assholes were pretty much on the team coup.

Right? They wanted to pretend like they’re on a team normal and say things like that so they could hang out and collect company, you know, here in Austin at the Omni. But they didn’t actually wanna do anything, even the most minimal possible thing, like, reforming the electoral conduct to to safeguard the elections. Okay. Yeah.

The good side though. I think we have ten senators. Pat Tumi signed on yesterday and indicated that they think that they have ten centers. And so this is, I think, the fourth time, right, on a big thing, chips, guns — Yeah. — infrastructure.

We’ve gotten centers, I wanna just give a Sarah Longwell shout out. You know, it’s you and me and Amanda getting all the love tonight, so we might as well give Sarah Longwell shout out. She was the most optimistic about this. All of us were pretty pessimistic about the notion that that the Senate could actually do bipartisan stuff anymore. I was pretty pessimistic you heard a lot of people on lefty podcasts were like, Joe Biden is evil for even trying to work with Republicans.

How do you pick up the phone when the Republican calls? Like, they’ll never vote for anything. Well, they end up voting for four things. Pretty meaningful things. I think important progress in legislation.

Obviously, this electoral conduct would maybe be the biggest one. And so to get ten senators really did undermine that. Like, the to Biden’s credit, the theory of the case that you could work the senate still and get over the filibuster or get to sixty and decent things passed. It hasn’t happened yet. But

it was is miss McConnell on board with us? I think

so. Okay. Because this is

again, this is bare minimum fixing the electoral count act. I mean, this should not be controversial. This should be as this should be as bland as you possibly can get. And Mitch McConnell, who we’re just reading this new book that’s coming out, you know. I mean, understood that Trump should have been impeached.

He should have been removed from office. He understands exactly what would the speech he gave about the attempts to overturn the election. Are crystal crystal clear. This has been on the ballboard. This should be video.

If you take a name off

of it. Absolutely. And put Mona Gerron’s name on it like you want. Wouldn’t have known the

No. Absolutely. So this should get seventy eight or or eighty votes. But but to your point about the the fact that there are no members of team normal who are actually in anymore. This is the fundamental flaw of this.

You well, you have to stay relevant, you know, argument. This is the one I had with Rich Lowry a couple of months back where his criticism of Liz Cheney was, well, okay. But, you know, it was more important for her to keep a seat at the table because at some point, you need to be at table in order to do the right thing. Therefore, you can never ever ever do the right thing. That will just that’s the problem with it.

It becomes circular. You know, we need to vote this way so that we are here because worse people than us will be here, but then when it comes down to it, a vote like this, what do they do? So here’s the

thing about that, is that not only is that a morally empty posture that Richard Larry has taken, But practically, over the medium term, it’s it’s actually the wrong posture for staying relevant too. And just look at what’s happening in the Republican Cox. Look at what’s happening in the national like, let’s be honest, national review is getting squeezed. Right? The maggas don’t like it.

The remaining sane people leaving the national review. It’s getting squeezed far as being relevant, it’s clearly not. If you’re a Republican member of Congress and the national review criticizes you, do you care. I I think you kind of look at it, like, if the Bulwark criticizes you, I don’t think you care. Right?

Anymore, which was different back when I was working for campaigns. Even if you look at Mitch, I think part of the reason Mitch can be going along with things like this is the writing is sort of on the wall for Mitch. You know, it’s possible you can get to be a majority leader one more time. Right? And if they if they pick up a seat this fall, which is, I think, a coin flip at this point.

But then if Trump gets back in, you know, he’s not gonna be a senate majority leader again. Right? Like, over time, the senate caucus, like, you know, who knows who comes in, the J. V. V.ances, this group isn’t gonna want Mitch to be in leadership.

Mitch is the least popular politician in America. I was right. There was a list of favorability of things. I always use this as a running joke for my far lefty friends. The only person the only thing less popular than Mitch McConnell was to find the police.

It was, like, exacerbated. Mitch has like a twelve percent approval reading. So so this strategy of like kind of acknowledging that you know that the anti democratic stuff is wrong, but not really doing anything about it, but not really cheering it on that Rich Lowrey is arguing, you know, keeps you in the mix, keeps you at the table, is is really just a path to irrelevant. Just a little longer one. You just get to hang on one of your fingernails for a couple more weeks.

Okay. See, here’s

an irony. If you’re Mitch McConnell, you’re looking back and you’re going, okay, I’ve had a pretty good run. And what is he most proud of?

What is he most

proud of? He’s most proud of the court, of the of the federal judiciary. And to the extent that Mago World is willing to, you know, give some props to to McConnell. It’s because he did such a good job with the federal judges. Oh, wait.

Because this federal judiciary thing, might not play out for MAGA the way they had thought it was going to play out. See how we looped out all back together. Okay. So we had to get back to the bad news. You’re not my party about the the vote to codify same sex marriage.

This is the low hanging fruit to basically say, Supreme Court is never gonna overturn this. Let’s make sure that millions of people who are married, you know, have, you know, legal status. Obviously, it’s a personal issue for you. So what’s what’s going on with which should be a slam dunk vote in the Senate on this. It’s even

because, you know, in the media, you’re trying to explain things the quickest way. It’s even a more of a low hanging fruit than you think. Does this build of the respect for Mira’s Act doesn’t actually protect Obergafil because for some arcane legal reasons that kind of can’t. It just reverses doma. Right.

So all this bill actually does is ensure that federal recognition on tax status and various things for existing marriages as protected. Right? That you can’t take it away. You can’t annull. The government is gonna annull my marriage.

Right? But what it doesn’t do is, like, demand that Alabama in the future can’t pass a law that we’re gonna ban gay marriage. And Alabama, if the Supreme Court were to overturn no Burger King. So it’s like literally just protecting purchased. It’s not even a Fed in real life.

Yeah. Yeah. So it’s the lowest thing — Yeah. — through demagibles. So this should be a one hundred to zero Senate Belt you know, there are a couple assholes over there.

Ted Cruz isn’t gonna do it. We’re here in Texas. Gotta shout him out. So ninety eight to two or whatever. But past the house, thirty forty seven Republican votes, not bad, but not not great.

But but but okay. Yeah. But but anyways. So we’ll take it. They’re saying that essentially behind the scenes.

We’re reading tea leaves here. I asked Chris Murphy about this. I’m trying to ask some friends who work in the senate. The Republicans are signaling to Schumer and Baldwin. Okay.

We’ll we’ll vote for this. But let’s like let’s put it in the lame duck. Let’s not politicize this, but having this vote protecting marriage before the election. And after the election, there’s this lame duck period where it’s this existing Congress votes before the new Congress comes in, but it’s after the midterms. And we’ll vote for that.

And, like, my I thought about that, and I had talked to some of my friends. We’re like, okay. Well, that’s maybe the right thing to do just to, you know, better safe than sorry, why play politics with this. And the more I thought about it, I was like, actually fuck this. Fuck these guys.

They just don’t wanna go

on record. Good result

for it now. I kinda think the ten votes would appear. I I really do. It’s you know, this is one of those history votes. A lot of all these retiring folks, you know, your Tumi’s that we’re talking about, your Richard Burrows.

They’re really on the way out the door. Gonna vote against this because of some heavy procedural thing with our annoyed. Did it the vote have it in September, not December. Maybe, maybe, but then let them own that. Let them let them argue and say, oh, the Democrats are politicizing this very obvious protecting gay marriage vote right before the midterms.

I don’t it just seems like a time for hardball. Hopefully, you know, it’ll happen in in the lane deck regardless, but you just never know who knows what happens? Right? The who your election is weird. There’s a there’s it we have these claims that have fraud again.

We saw it happen out of the twenty twenty election. Thelane duck kind of doesn’t really happen. Who isn’t hell knows what could happen? Well, no.

And you could see see in in my home state Wisconsin, you know, what a tricky issue this is. I mean, Ron Johnson’s been, you know, flipping around, like, you know, a crowd out of, you know, on on the Bank of the River and then on on all of this. You know, when the polls are pretty clear, I think, in Wisconsin, seventy two percent — Yeah. — of voters, you know, support the legalized same sex marriage, and that includes fifty eight percent of Republicans. Right.

So, really, this is one where

slam dunk.

Yeah. And if you’re going to politicize, do something that unites your own party and divides the opposition, right, which they need to understand on a variety of other issues as well. This

would seem

to be an easy one. But, I mean, it it is, as you point out, and you’re not my party, there’s something weird about this moment to think of all the progress that had been made, the sense that we’d, you know, you’d come to a different point in history and now now realize that there is this huge push to roll so much of it back. I mean, it feels like we’ve regressed decades in the last twelve months in in terms of some things that we thought were had been resolved. Yeah. Probably not decades, but, yeah,

we’re addressing. And this is I think Ron Johnson’s flopping around, you know, like the triilt. Because for a while, I think he just assumes that there there wasn’t gonna be any controversy in his own tent on this. Right? He could just say that.

He could just vote for the own thing. But but the anti gay anti LGBT rights kind of element within the Republican Party feels resurgent right now. Because they saw that that don’t say gay thing in Florida was a winner. You know, look at what what Youngkin is doing, even the great Glenn Youngkin, you know, the moderate, normal hope Did you see this? What do you see?

You know what they so he they put in some the Virginia education part, whatever it’s called. He sent to school some guidance on on how to deal with the trans issue. And we could do a whole podcast on the trans issue, but there was one thing that really stood out to me. It said that that people can only be called a nickname that is a commonly held nickname of their first name on their school registry. And so it’s like, this is because now we’re starting back to the patriotic core.

So it’s like the state of Virginia wants to dictate what nickname a kid can be called because they’re afraid that some of these kids are asking to be called either non gendered names or, you know, names that are more commonly associated with a different gender, regulating

nicknames. We’re regulating nicknames

because that allows you to troll trans kids at Transparent. That’s the whole point. That’s really the whole point of this. And so I think that there’s just this feeling of them being emboldened. And and to me, Well, I don’t, like, really think that the gay marriage thing would actually be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Because of that, I think it’s prudent. To just say, let’s stamp the shit out right now. Right? Like, well, you can see what’s happening. Let’s protect

Well, I I I agree with you, and I think it is in theory, I don’t think the court is gonna overturn that near term. However, There’s not a majority on the court that supports the reasoning behind Oberga fell. No.

There is

not a majority on the court that recognizes a constitutional right privacy anymore. Yeah. And if you basically say you have five or maybe six justices who do not believe that there is right to privacy in the constitution, then what is the constitutional basis for decisions like, for example, Griswold with with contraception, or what was the case in Texas, they get

Lawrence

Lawrence in Texas, that all of those cases, I think, become more problematic. And by the way, Ron Johnson is going to win that election. I’m sorry. I just despite the trial flipping around Did we say this

last a guy forget if I revealed that I had a friend with an internal poll that showed me. And it’s it’s concerning. This is the — It’s

such a blunt operative. — to

do the gay marriage thing, at least that would give let Mandela be on offense. I’m not totally ready to throw in the towel yet, but it seems like in our little discussion, you you you have the No. I’m just

I’m just frustrated about it. No. Both parties have taken seats that were imminently winnable and decided to to squander it. And it’s just that Again, this is, you know, people ought to be cautioned in politics not to engage in the rational fallacy. No.

With the rational fallacy being assuming that people behave in a rational manner or always in their self interest, Tim. Have a great day here in Austin. You have a busy day. I’m gonna see you later this afternoon. We, you know, bullshitting with the with the boar.

And then Amanda and I are gonna come and hang with you at trivia night too. Awesome. Alright. Sounds good. Yeah.

Very

good to do this in person. The

Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening today’s Bulwark podcast, and we’ll be back tomorrow and do this all over

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