Will Saletan: Don’t Panic

Happy Monday, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes joined as I am every Monday by my colleague, Will Salatin. Do you have a good weekend, Will?

I did, Charlie. I with the exception of the transition to what is it standard time that we went into?

Oh, no. I have devoted decades of complaining about daylight savings time and going back and forth. This is one of those things where you don’t wanna trigger me on this.

Okay.

It’s just the worst thing at

But just to be clear, all the complaints are about standard time. Right? Not about daylight savings time, which is good.

Just the switching back and forth, which I’m sure made some sense in nineteen thirty two or whenever they did it, you know, that they convinced themselves that it made some sort of economic sense, which it does not But let’s move on. Let’s start off with a question from literature. Are you a science fiction fan, Will? Don’t know.

Used to be more than I am now. But I like it when it’s good.

Okay. Do you remember the hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?

Oh, yeah. One of

my favorite books. Do you remember what was the words that were printed on the book, the hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Don’t panic. Okay. That seems to be the theme for today.

Do not panic because I gotta say there was an awful lot of pearl clutching bed wetting, how many analogies do we wanna run together over the weekend? Let’s start with these two major stories because I think they’re linked. Number one, of course, is the New York Times survey, that New York Times, Sienna Paul, that shows that if you had the election today, that Donald Trump would win the electoral college handily that he’s leading in whole bunch of swing states. I mean, this is just jam packed with bad news for for Joe Biden. At the same time, we had this extraordinary story in in the Washington Post about what a Trump two point o presidency would look like.

I probably don’t need to tell you, Will, but it’s worse than almost anyone can imagine. I mean, they’re talking about already invoking the insurrection act to bring the military into suppressed protests on inauguration dates.

Oh, yeah.

They’ve made a list of the people that they would want to prosecute. They have names. And apparently, the one crime that links them all together is they criticize Donald Trump. But, you know, despite the fact that this morning as you and I are speaking, in New York, Donald Trump is gonna take the stand to test what could go wrong there. Take the stand to testify under oath in that civil trial that could destroy his business.

And so Here’s a guy who faces ninety one felony counts, is about to be put out of business because he is a chronic fraudster. Here’s somebody who will be standing trial for trying to overthrow the election, defrauding the government, violating the espionage act, who’s facing charges of racketeering who has been found liable for sexual assault by a federal judge. And I’m sorry. I’m leaving so many things out here. But he is he is the leading candidate, not just for the Republican nomination, but for president.

I bring this up. Because I’m looking for the pony in all

of this.

And so we do this every

week, but but I’m really kinda looking for the pony

because I’m looking at survey here. And I’m I’m sorry for, you know, people who are triggered by this sort of thing. Election held today, Trump would win Nevada. By ten points. Looks like eleven to me.

Georgia, he would win by six points. Arizona, he would win by five points. Trump would win Michigan. By five points, he would win Pennsylvania. By four points My home state of Wisconsin Biden leads by two points was sort of something of an outlier.

So we’ll, let’s do some ranked punditry here. I sort of envisioned that you stayed up all night crunching the numbers here. You know, if you had a whiteboard, you know?

Well, since I have to look for the pony, I have, you know, you have to look through the numbers for that. Oh, by the way, wanna bring this out. This is a my little pony, which was sent to me by one of our favorite bulwark members, Holly Berkeley Fletcher. Thank you, Holly. I’m just showing it to yes.

Holly sent this. Wow. And so I’m gonna try to collect all of them. I think there are six. Is that right?

Okay. That may be a bridge too far.

Yeah. Just Okay. But I only have two ponies for you here. I mean, maybe we can come up with some more. Look, I think this is a grim poll.

So I’m I’m reaching The first thing Charlie Sykes what you said at the beginning if the election were held today. Fortunately, it’s not. It’s not being held today. There’s a year What’s gonna happen in that year? One thing that could happen is that the objective reality that the economy is better than people think it is, even at the household level.

And I understand your point that you’ve made before, don’t tell people they’re not feeling what they’re feeling.

They are feeling but lived experience is a thing.

It

is true that household indicators are better than people express their subjective feelings. So over time, One would hope that the objective situation would influence people’s subjective views. That’s one. Okay? A second thing that’s going on there is, I mean, there will be a lot of advertising between now and then.

I mean, Joe Biden has been absent. Right? Just absent. He gives speeches, nobody watches, He talks for two minutes for thirty seconds. He’s a tired guy.

Right? He did the last campaign from his basement. He’s tried to do a lot of the same thing now. So let’s see what Joe Biden has to see. Let’s see Charlie Sykes other surrogates have to say on behalf of Joe Biden.

Because again, there’s a lot of good stuff to say. The other thing, Charlie, is the New York Times published the Grim story on Sunday. Right? And then what do they do today? They come out with the part where they say, However, if Trump is convicted about six percent, I think they said in these swing states would switch over and vote for by

the right.

And that’s enough to swing those states. Now I don’t know if that’s true. That’s a pony. I’m gonna hang my head on.

Let me just read this here. The the headline today is Trump indictment have not sunk his campaign, but a conviction might, if the former president is convicted and sentenced as many of his allies expect him to be in the January sixth related trial held next year in Washington, DC, around six percent of voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, say they would switch their votes to mister Biden, that would be enough potentially to decide the election.

Right.

Okay. Genuine pony.

Do you buy it?

No question about it. Maybe. Okay. Let me step back for the non pointy party. We need to look at the pie.

Donald Trump, we know who Donald Trump is. We have lived through Donald Trump. We know what he intends to do. He keeps telling us what he intends to do. He is one of the most deplorable figures in the history of American politics.

He is actually on trial for ninety one felony Charlie Sykes know, almost on a daily basis, he comes up with some absolute piece of complete bat shit crazy lunacy. And yet he is competitive in the race for president today. Okay. I’m not making it predictive. He’s like, what does it say about America?

That he’s even plausibly being considered. What does it say about how truly shitty the campaigns of, you know, Ron DeSantis and other Republicans are that one Republican can figure out how did derail a guy who’s basically been found guilty of rape, fraud who’s, you know, absconded with documents, who was complicit in a coup, you would think that they would find a way to run against him. So There is that moment where you step back and you go, okay. Are we crazy or has the whole country lost its mind? So I I do think that’s a a legitimate concern.

The second is the real danger here. I mean, we need to get out of denial. Donald Trump can be elected president Joe Biden can lose this election. This is possible. And the danger of a Trump presidency, it becomes more apparent every day.

It’s like just when you think that you can’t learn anything more. So let me just read you from this Washington Postpiece, which I know you read. In private, Trump has told advisors and friends in recent months that he wants the justice department to investigate one time officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including His former chief of staff, John Kelly, former attorney general, Bill Barr, as well as attorney Ty Cobb and former joint chief staff chairman mark a Millley, according to people who have talked to him. Okay. So he’s come up with a list of people he wants to prosecute.

The only thing they’ve done is to criticize him. Now it goes on to basically describe that not only does he wanna weaponize the justice system. They’ve actually drawn up specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents, and he and his associates are drafting plans to potentially invoke the insurrection act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstration.

Charlie, this has been going on when Donald Trump announced for president in November, a year ago. A year ago. He said that he would send the military into American cities. That insurrection, I that’s been out there. No one No one has paid any attention to it.

Now maybe they don’t care, and I think that’s the real alarm in these polls, right, that people don’t actually care, or maybe it hasn’t registered, and Democrats can somehow make it register over the next year.

Well, I’m afraid, and I don’t mean this to be as snarky as it’s gonna come off, but, you know, it’s like nineteen ninety two called Will, and they want their it’s the economy’s stupid line back because I’m not sure that the economy is going to change things. There’s something different about our politics something genuinely strange. And I’m not sure that anybody fully understand, but can I find some Ponies here for you? Go ahead. Because I I think they there’s gonna be a lot of ads is, frankly, is not gonna be doing it here.

And I wrote this in in morning shots. And I am, by the way, you know, I am not a unscrew the polls kinda guy. I’m not a kinda guy that that will dismiss the polls easily because I do think that the polls are consistent in

saying Joe

Biden is in trouble. And, I mean, you really have to be in trouble to be losing to Donald Trump. I mean, I I just want people to take a deep breath about how bad things have to be, not just that you’re underwater, you know, in terms of approval rating, but you might lose to Donald Trump. But I do have some questions about this poll. Do you really think that Biden only leaves Trump by one point among young voters?

I am a little skeptical here. Okay? Young voters may have their own issues, but I’m not sure that Donald Trump is tied among young voters So what happens if younger voters come back home to Joe Biden? Those numbers change. Okay.

Do you really think that Hispanic voters are flocking to Donald j Trump and that they put him within single digits in the polls Little skeptical about that too. What happens again if those numbers revert to the norm? If hispanics realize, hey, This guy has actually been running against us and hates us. Maybe we shouldn’t vote for him. Do you really think back to this New York time full?

Do you really think that Donald Trump is gonna draw nearly a quarter of the Bulwark vote that Donald Trump is really gonna be getting twenty two percent of the black vote What happens if that drops back into single digits as it will? What does that do to the numbers? So, I mean, part of this is just like these numbers are horrible. There’s no question about it, and I’m not trying to be a denialist about it. But I’m also saying that if you’re Biden’s people, you say, Okay.

We can get those voters back. We’re never gonna get the MAGA voters. We may have lost this other group of voters here, but there’s just no way that Donald getting twenty two percent of the Bulwark. But what do you think? Am I being too optimistic here?

I mean, what? Kind of. Yeah.

I mean, Charlie, it’s a fine line between skepticism and denial. Right? Right? I think you’re right. You haven’t been an unskew the poll’s guide.

True. No. But I worry Look, I have to hang up with Democrats and progressives my whole life. And I’ve heard this a lot. Charlie, I remember somebody saying in nineteen eighty four when Reagan was about to crush Mandale.

You know, the polls can be wrong. The polls can be wrong. So this has been going on on the left for a long time. Okay.

I know. Yeah. I believe

in taking this stuff seriously because If it ain’t exactly, like, twenty two percent of the Bulwark vote and forty two percent of the Hispanic vote, this is at least a signal that if higher than it ought to be. It’s a warning. Right. There’s a warning. And these polls are a way to puncture one’s preconceptions, right, about Oh, we’ve got this in the bag.

Because Charlie, I hear poor people on the left say all the time. Look, Donald Trump is a racist. Right? So how could any self respecting Latino. How could any self respecting Bulwark American vote for him?

And yet some do more than you would think this is a warning. You saw what the reaction was over

the last twenty four hours, which I thought was rather significant. David Acelrod, who is a Obama era guru, big democratic, player commentator put out tweets suggesting that maybe it’s time for Joe Biden to take his gold watch and and lead. Our colleague Bill Crystal is also saying that it’s time for Joe Biden to announce that he’s not running for reelection. I have to say that I’m I am squishy on this issue. Okay?

Let me explain two things. Number one, because I don’t know what the plan b is. I think the problem is that you have not made the case that anyone else would be stronger on the other hand. This is what I wrote about this morning. We need to be crystal clear about the priorities of twenty twenty four.

Twenty twenty four’s main challenge is not reelecting Joe Biden. It is stopping the return of Donald Trump. Right. And so the question is, is Biden the best person to do this. How do we do this?

This coalition is very, I think, is very fragile It’s very obvious that the anti trump centrist coalition is under a lot of stress and strain, particularly with Israel Hamas. But I do think that we need to keep the focus on the fact that, you know, Biden is, in many ways, an instrument here, to protect liberal constitutional democracy. If it turns out that Joe Biden has so many flaws, is so weak that he is not a reliable bulwark against authoritarianism, Then all of the folks, the fanboys, and the fluffers out there who are telling us that Joe Biden is the bestest president ever, are missing the point because the point isn’t Biden. It’s stopping Trump.

Okay. Alright. So I’m gonna half agree and half not even exactly disagree, but raise a question. Okay. I wanna agree with you about the fundamental question, which is the test.

This is a one job election. Last one was a one job election. Right. Keep one job. That’s it.

Right. So, exactly. That’s the test. And then the question is, who does that best? I am sympathetic to the argument that our friend JBL and others have made that You can’t imagine Biden against an imaginary Democrat.

You

have to imagine him compared to a real Democrat.

Trump against an imaginary No.

No. No. By Biden, in terms of their performance relative to

I see. Okay. Right. I’m sorry. Okay.

So it’s very easy to say. And in fact, I believe this, you know, New York Times, Sienna Poe showed the same thing, but An imaginary Republican does better than Donald Trump. You gotta ask an exact question and the same thing with Biden, right, an imaginary alternative So who is it? Is it Gretchen Whitmer? Is it Jared Polis?

Is it some other person, right? Like, and once you fill in that name, I’m sympathetic to the argument that once you fill in that name, Now you face a whole bunch of negatives that you weren’t thinking about when you just talked about, well, it shouldn’t be Joe Biden. What do you think of that argument?

See, that’s what the part I agree with. We’ve seen know how somebody like Ron DeSantis who is strong on paper, what they actually look like when they’re in the the arena. Think we ought to be skeptical about that. So I don’t think that the Democrats have a plan b yet. On the other hand, I do think this sort of angry protectiveness, like we can never talk about Joe Biden’s age.

Inflation is a complete myth. You people are complete idiots. If you don’t believe that, or let’s not talk about a hundred Biden sleaze or what are the border or crime? Any of those things. You’re betting the future of constitutional democracy on the fact that those things won’t matter.

And here’s the reality check. They do matter. Voters are paying attention to them. So I do think there is that this defensiveness And, again, you can make the case that Joe Biden has had a successful term without saying, and therefore deserves second term or that he’s the best candidate to protect us from Donald Trump. I guess this is where I dissent from the Biden is better than Obama.

Biden is the best president since Harry Truman sort of line here. I’m because I wanna be focused crystal clear on This is not about the affirmation of Bidenism. For me, it’s about stopping trumpism and the illiberal authoritarianism. I mean, I am single mindedly focused on that if Joe Biden’s the guy fine, But if he’s not the guy, then it misses the point completely to go all in on writing fan fiction about him.

Can I just say, I’m really enjoying this conversation because I feel like I’m in a one on one focus group? Now I don’t matter. Okay. I don’t matter. I’m a live.

I’m a live in Maryland. I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden. Right. Right.

Right.

But I’m talking to a conservative who lives in Wisconsin. And leaving aside, like, to win these states, Wisconsin was one of the ones in this, the inequality, obviously. To win these states, people like me are not enough. And that the whole game is can we get, you know, people like you? And and then there’s lots of other people who are, you know, swing constituencies.

Right. I think the argument that’s gonna get a lot of folks like you is the negative argument. And so even if I believe in some of the affirmative arguments, I we gotta make now One of the things that really scares me about the New York Times Sienna poll Charlie Sykes why is it that we say the one job is to defeat Trump? Well, it is to protect American democracy democracy and the rule of law. And yet in this poll, literally, they asked the question, who do you trust more?

Trump or Biden? On protecting democracy. I forget exactly the phrasing of the question. So in one state, in Wisconsin, Biden’s the, like, a winner by, like, nine or ten points. In every other state.

It’s one point or two points. That’s the margin on democracy. Biden against a guy who literally tried to overthrow the government of the United States, literally tried to overturn an election. That is a shocking number, and it makes me worry that let’s say Trump gets convicted in the January sixth case and he appeals it. Right?

And that appeal is going on. Right. Which you will. Right. Right.

And so we’ve now had a jury say that he tried to overthrow the election. What if people don’t care, Charlie? What if there aren’t enough American voters who care about that? And they just say, I think the economy was better under Trump. Yeah.

He tried to overthrow the government, but doesn’t really matter.

Well, I know this is the nightmare scenario. This is why and I think we need to focus on on all of this. I guess, you know, you’re talking about, Wisconsin and the swing voters and won’t get too deep into Wisconsin politics, but, you know, there were some discussion like why is Wisconsin different? And it is because of these swing voters in places like where I live, the WOW counties walking Shawasaki Washington counties. These are people who voted Republican in the past who are just not gonna vote for Donald Trump.

But I will tell you that if you walk in, And you say the first thing is, you know, you need to recognize how absolutely wonderful and awesome Joe Biden is. You need to vote for the Biden Harris ticket. You need to support, his forgiveness of student loans. And you need to embrace the these various policies here Man, by the way, let me now tell you what I think you should do. The conversation’s already over.

But if you walk in and you go, let’s talk about who Donald Trump is, what Donald Trump has done, what Donald Trump is prepared to do, what it would actually be like. Let’s talk about that. And so, yes, am I embracing a certain negativity? Absolutely. Absolutely, here.

Because you can persuade swing voters. They do not want to be part of what Trump represents. Right. But if you expect Republicans to become Democrats. If you expect Mike Pence to endorse Joe Biden, you’re chasing unicorns.

I mean, you may find a pony in the pile, but that’s just fan fiction. So I think and we’ve talked about this before. Job number one is to break them free of voting for Donald Trump. If they vote for Joe Biden, that’s really good because I personally think and I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden because Joe Biden is right now the one way of stopping Donald Trump. I think if you write somebody in or you vote for a third party.

I think you’re wasting your vote. I don’t wanna do that. But it’s a much heavier lift. So a year out, I focus on telling people you need to understand who this guy is, but if never, trumpers basically declare we’re all liberal democrats, they’ve taken themselves out of the conversation with the swing voters who are gonna decide this election.

Right. So you talked about negativity there and, like, feeling guilty about it. Can I put in a plug? No.

I don’t feel guilty at all.

No. Oh, no. No. No. You misinterpreted that because there’s no guilt at all.

I just wanna put in a plug for negativity. Okay.

Okay.

Yeah. Negative is is why this country is still here two hundred and forty years later. Like, our entire constitutional system is set up to negate the worst Right? Yes. We don’t get the best.

We have deadlock. We have, you know, courts getting in the way of legislators getting away the way of executive. And, like, That’s beautiful because it’s all designed to prevent one guy from taking over our country or a guy in his mob. Right? So back to the one job idea.

Right? That’s fine. Anyone out there who is unhappy with Joe Biden for all the reasons you just gave, you know, the inflation, the economy border, etcetera. For them to, you know, at the end, to say, you know, I really don’t like him, but we gotta stop this guy, Trump. And, god, I really hate having to choose between these two.

Look, I’m sorry those were your choices, but for you to make your decision on that basis is patriotic. You’re protecting the United States. Right.

Okay. So you have to find that person who says, okay. I disagree here, here, here, here, here, but I have to do this because the alternative so much worse.

Right.

And with Trump, it is so much worse. So let’s just do a little bit of this because I have to say we’ve had an internal Bulwark disagreement about Chris Christie. I’ve been very, very critical of Chris Christie. I had a big rant about Chris Christie. I will never forgive him for that moment when he went off shine bots back in twenty sixteen and endorsed Donald Trump, but the guy has been a magnificent And I would say courageous beast in taking on Trumpism.

And now where would we speak over the weekend? He’s down in Florida. Florida Republican conference, whatever. Okay. So this was a very Maga heavy event, Acea Hutchinson, who I was slightly surprised is still in the race also spoke.

Got a very negative reception, but let’s play Chris Christie, who basically stands up there, and the crowd hates him. They’re booing them almost boot them off the stage, but listen to this.

Your anger, your anger, Your anger against the truth is reprehensible. Whoa.

Truth to Maga, reprehensible.

And as people and as people watch today, as people watch today, If your arguments are so strong, if your arguments are so great and mine are so bad, then just keep quiet. Let me make my awful arguments, and then you can just reject them out of hand. But the problem is The problem is the problem is you fear the truth. Oh, the problem is you wanna shout down any voice that says anything different than what you wanna hear. And you could continue to do it, and believe me.

Believe me. It doesn’t bother me one bit.

I don’t know whether it bothers him, but I gotta tell you. One thing that people even forget about people in politics and people who are in in the public eye, they’re still people. Really remember they actually are human beings. I mean, there are people. And I understand that Chris Christie has a lot of thick skin and a lot of ego, but it is not fun.

Standing up in a room where everybody hates your guts and they’re yelling at you. That that is not fun. But what I think is amazing is that he’s at the point of being all out of bleeps to give. And he comes this close to say, you are effing deplorable. You are, you know, what are you sniveling cowards of afraid of here.

You know, you’re you’re clinging to your ignorance. You’re reprehensible. That was a magnificent moment. Right. But clearly, the primary electorate doesn’t care.

Well, the people in that room don’t care. And that’s it’s a question of who’s in that room, but Yeah. Yeah. I really like Chris Christy too. And I had the same feeling that you did about him in twenty sixteen.

This guy did more than anyone else to help Donald Trump win the nomination and then the election. So The thing that I like about Christie, and I sounds like you do too, is he’s the realest person in that race. He just talks like a guy. Right? He goes into a room, a politician pander, That’s not pandering what we just took.

Right? That’s the opposite. That was not fan service.

Because, I mean, like, ninety percent of these guys is, like, what button can I push, you know, to get their political erogenous zone aroused? Now, he’s like, screw it. I’m gonna tell you what I think.

And, Charlie, it wasn’t even a nice version of disagreement. I have never heard, and I don’t think I ever will again. A politician walk into a room that he noses against him, get the and say your anger reprehensible

No.

To tell the people in the audience they’re reprehensible. Now I wanna just flag one thing from that clip that might have gone by some folks listening. Okay. There was a phrase that Chris Charlie Sykes said. It was, as people watch today, do you hear that part?

That’s a just a preposition he dropped in there. In other words, Christie went to this thing knowing that the room was against him, the room full of Maga people. Right? But that’s not his audience. Right.

His audiences, anyone outside, who’s either watching the event, which is not that many people, or who will see a video clip, or who will hear us talking about it, or who will read about it. Right? So he’s talking to everyone outside the room about the people inside the room, and he’s saying to the people outside. Oh, I’m with you. I’m with you sane people against these lunatics in the room.

But I still respect him for the courage to go in and do that.

Yeah. No. That’s a very, very good point. Okay. So another really interesting sound bite over the weekend I think we’ve been waiting for a long time for members of the American media to emulate the British media, the Australian media.

I mean, have you ever noticed the difference between, say, a BBC interview and and a an American Bulwark interview. The BBC interview is, first of all, they don’t let you filibuster and they keep asking the same question over and over. I mean, they they keep pressing it. Many Hassan is very much from that tradition. But American interview is too often.

Like, and I understand the limits of time and the limits of the format. I mean, I I’m sympathetic. It’s not as easy as as it looks. But George Stephanopolos had Steve scaliso on yesterday. And he’s asking him about whether the election was stolen.

That and I by the way, I I think this is a relevant question to ask not because it’s backward looking, but because it’s forward looking. Because the real question is, will Republicans ever concede the twenty twenty four election? I mean, I I don’t wanna get ahead of ourselves here, but is Donald Trump ever going to acknowledge that he loses next year? If if he loses next year, And will it become then an absolute litmus test for Republicans in the House of Representatives to project the results of the electoral college. I think it’s more than a fifty fifty chance.

We’ve seen that with the unanimous vote for Mike Johnson, one of the full throated election denialists. So Steve scalise, who, also was kneecapped by the, the Slabring Jackal caucus, is on with George Stephanopoulos, and I was really struck by how many times Stepanopolists asked him the question. Let’s just listen to it, but it’s about two minutes. Let’s listen to this.

Can you say unequivocally that twenty twenty election was not stolen?

What I’ve told you is there are states that didn’t follow their laws. That is what the state constitution, the US constitution requires. You know, I’ve seen in my own state where we had to send our elections commissioner to jail years ago, for fraud and corruption, and we cleaned up our act in our state. Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That’s what the US constitution says.

That’s not what I asked. I said, can you say unequivocally that twenty twenty election was not stolen?

Twice.

Look, Joe Biden’s president. I know you and others wanna talk about twenty twenty. We’re focused on the future. We’ve talked about twenty twenty a lot. We’re talking about how to get our country back on track how to get our economy moving, how to

stand up to the

bad actors around the world. Xi is not slowing down in China. He’s looking at Taiwan. You see what’s going on in Russia. You see what Iran is doing to work with Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

This administration needs to pick up the pace. Of they’re not standing up to the bad actors of around the world, the world they need to. We’re passing bills to address this through the house. The Senate needs to take action, president needs to take action as well. That’s what we

focus on the house. I know that Joe Biden is present. I’m asking a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the twenty twenty election was not stolen?

Third time.

What I’ve told you, and you’ve you’ve seen this, there are states that didn’t follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the US Constitution says. They have

to do. So you were

so you just refused to say unequivocally that the twenty twenty election was not stolen.

So do you wanna keep rehashing twenty twenty?

We’re talking. I just want an answer to the question. No. That’s true.

That’s to this country. Bye. We’ve asked. We’ve talked about this before, but again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn’t follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their books, which the US Constitution says they’re supposed to do?

I know that every single I know that every court had looked at whether election was stolen, said it wasn’t rejected those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now, I’ve asked it. I think the fifth time that you can’t appear to answer Can you say unequivocally?

Six six. I told you there were a handful there were handful of there were handful of stamps that didn’t follow their laws. The rest did.

Oh, my okay. Will. If I smoked, I would light up a cigarette for that one. You know? Cut on

George stephanopoulos six times in

two minutes. And Steve scalise, What? A Weasel and a wimp? Because first of all, I mean, I can never mind. Go ahead.

What do you think, Glenn?

Okay. Just to get the numbers out, Alright. We we spared we spared the audience here. You were you just heard six of them. There are nine.

Stefanopoulos asks this question nine times in five minutes. He goes magnificent. Now just so everybody understands how these interviews work, the anchor has the host has a list of questions that they wanna get Right?

Yeah.

So, right, every time you stop on a question, you’re giving up a couple of minutes that you want on your later question. Right. I gotta praise George Stephanopoulos.

This is great.

He’s willing to chuck every question below that on his list. He’s willing to spend the rest of the interview repeating that question until he gets an answer because it’s important. And let’s remember Stephanopoulos is the guy who, after, was at the first Republican debate, when six of the eight, raised their hands, and said that they would support Trump even if he were convicted. Right? He did the same thing.

Hey, I asked a question about that. Why would you do that? Nikki Haley refused to answer. I forget who else he had on the show. Anyway, He is willing to tank the interview for that one question.

And just to your point, Charlie, about what scalise actually said, and the plausibility of whether the House Republicans would block the election results. Let’s remember the number of elections that Donald Trump has been a candidate in in which he has conceded defeat, is zero. Am I correct?

Zero. Remember? When he lost in Iowa? Yeah. I mean, always he’s never a gracious loser ever.

And we know what he will demand. He will demand that House Republicans do the courageous thing and throw out the election results. Right?

It would have been easy for scalise to say that the election wasn’t stolen, but he won’t even say that. And he’s you can hear him coming up with the rationale. The states didn’t follow their laws. Now this was all certified by courts, but scalise and the Republicans don’t care about courts. It’s and therefore, because they didn’t follow their laws as they were and before COVID, that that’s unconstitutional, scalise is basically saying that the twenty twenty election as it was conducted was unconstitutional.

He’s saying that it was stolen.

Let’s switch to graver matters what’s going on in the Middle East with Israel and Gaza. And I wanna talk about it. It first of all, just in terms of domestic politics because This is a real challenge for Joe Biden. There’s no question about it. I know there was a little bit of denialism about how deep the divisions in the democratic party were vast majority of elected Democrats still supporting Joe Biden, but Biden is I mean, clearly, the the coalition is fractured.

As a result of all of this. Give me a sense of how he’s navigating it. He started off with an absolutely full throated bear hug support, bear hug of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and Israel and what they’re doing. Since then, they have been trying to have a more nuanced approach calling for a humanitarian pause, which has been rejected now by the Israelis’s. So how is he handling this when or is this one of those almost insoluble puzzles for an American president in this kind of conflict?

Well, the basic problem that Biden has is he’s he’s taken a position which is popular in the United States but these facts on the ground have changed over time. As we and you and I said at the very beginning that this was gonna happen. At the beginning, you have fourteen hundred murdered people in Israel, about just a massive terrorist attack. Everybody’s with Israel. And then as the response begins, the military response, the Israel death count stays the same.

The Palestinian death count increases, you know, many times more. So it’s not clear exactly how many, but there are thousands of civilians who have died in Gaza.

Israelis, they’re still dying, by the way. I mean, the in in the conflict, there are Israeli soldiers.

So it didn’t Israeli soldiers the the the attack on Israel happened at the beginning. And there and and just to be clear, right? Yes. There are still rockets being fired into Israel, but there is iron dome. Right?

And there are still hostages

Yes.

There’s some of those hostages maybe been killed. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, I’m just putting out that it’s not like, you know, it’s like, okay. So the bad thing happened, and then that’s stopped.

And now it’s No. What about

the main argument that I would concede on your side, and I hate to call it your side because I’m Jewish and I support Israel. That’s just right. The main argument I would agree with you here is let’s not forget the attack, the the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Right? Let’s not forget.

Let’s and

that’s very easy when you have a twenty four hour new cycle to forget that. So I fully agree with that. But it is still a fact that what’s going on day by day is, you know, bombing and killing in Gaza. And although it is aimed at Hamas, Israel is not targeting civilians. But it’s very hard, particularly when Hamas uses human shields, not to kill civilians.

So as that number keeps going up and as people see the scenes of death and Gaza, Biden’s position becomes more difficult. And that’s part of why you see Biden and Anthony Blen saying, let’s have a humanitarian pause. You see Lincoln going to the West Bank talking about a two state solution. I’m sure people in Israel are like, what the hell? You know, talking about a what can we do for a Palestinian state when we just had an attack from a Palestinian territory on our civilians.

Right? But politically, That’s what what the United States needs to do. And and it is important to show the Palestinians and to show the people in the Arab States than the Arab governments that there is a way other than violence that can lead to some sovereignty for Palestinians.

I’m trying to think of what scenario would be better for Biden at this point because as you point out, he is sort of trapped. K. Now second guessing is a little bit unfair, but it’s also the third oldest profession. So in retrospect, was Biden’s trip to Israel a mistake, a political mistake? Now at the time, I thought it was bold.

It was all in on it, but In retrospect, as you look at it, because, you know, you look around the world and also in in progressive circles, and there is a lot of skepticism toward Israel much more sympathy, growing sympathy for the Palestinians. And yet that image, he was there hugging Benjamin Netanyahu. Mistake?

No. No. No. I’m fully with Biden in that. And remember, he went to Ukraine too.

Yes. Biden has a bigger agenda here. Let’s remember Biden, and Mike Pence gave Biden a lot of grief about this that owe gauzy speeches about democracy. Yeah. Biden actually believes this He believes there’s an international fight.

I agree.

Global fight going on between autocracies and democracies. And so he’s going to Ukraine. He’s going to Israel.

Which is gutsy, which requires actual courage

Right. And there was a massacre of Jews. It was enormous. And so he was exactly right to do that. And now he’s just gotta navigate the evolving circumstances.

And And it’s important to tell the Israelis that we have their backs because if the Israelis don’t believe that, there’s a little bit of danger about what they might do. And I think he wants some leverage with them to limit the civilian casualties. So I don’t have any problem with that.

On a different note. I mean, my main focus, I was gonna say obsession, but, yes, obsession. Is trying to think about what’s going through the minds of the folks that are tearing down the posters of the kids who have been kidnapped. It just strikes me, first of all, as you know, a self destructive, you know, in terms of of the cause, but also the degree of animus. And I think this this is one of the The things are kind of shaking our politics because you kind of realized that these are people that you might have thought of as being roughly on your side in terms of politics and suddenly you realize No.

We have a really radically different moral code, but I have to give credit to Democrats particularly in Michigan. For policing their own. We talk about, you know, they need to police the bad actors on your own side. So, Rashida Tlaib, puts out a video that includes the people chanting, you know, from the river to the sea, which you and I have talked about, you know, the which is basically a genocidal you know, wiping out juice. She’s defending it.

One Michigan Democrat after another has called her out on that. That is not easy to do in our politics today, but it is urgently necessary. What what do you think?

Well, this it’s funny. This is one of those topics where I feel the difference between you and me and between sort of center left and center right, you’re very attentive to people on the left saying crazy things, talking about abolishing the police or talking to supporting Hamas. My reaction is always Oh, it does. It does. It does.

But my gut reaction is let’s not talk about that. Can we please not talk about that

Well, because you’re me from twenty fifteen saying that about people on the right. No. Literally, we’ve now exchanged places. Because in twenty fifteen, we hear the crazy people on the right and gone, just don’t talk about it. They’re not who we are.

They don’t represent. We don’t have to spend any time on them. And look where we are today. Okay. I’m sorry.

Go on. Right.

Okay. I know that’s a very good point. I’m gonna yeah. After we’re done with this, I’m gonna be thinking about that all week. But my reaction is I don’t wanna talk about Rashida to leave, but part of me wants to defend Rashida to leave because we have a lot of Jewish members of Congress.

But we don’t have a lot of Palestinian members of Congress. I think she’s the only one. Is that right? Palestinian American? So she’s going to feel viscerally the pain, the the suffering, the death in Gaza, and she’s gonna talk about that.

I’m sympathetic to her on that. I think it’s good that we have that voice. But You raised something very specific. That video she put out has people chanting from the river to the sea. If you are the only Palestinian American representative in Congress.

You have a responsibility, and I would say the same if there were one jury. I would say this thing, but about all of the Jewish representatives in Congress. You have a responsibility to represent your point of view, your people, your interests, your concerns, in a way that is not alienating. Right? And if you put out in your video as she did from the river to the sea, you’re telling America that the position of the Palestinian American community as expressed by you is the abolition of the state of Israel.

Well Right? Because there’s a sea. There’s a sea and there’s a river Right? And if you go from the seat of the river, there ain’t no Israel in between. There can’t be what under that definition.

And by the way, talking about policing, guess who was on TV this weekend talking about this? They interviewed Bernie Sanders on CNN. Now Bernie’s Jewish.

I know. I was that was amazing.

Yeah. As Bernie said, He said, because he’s not up on this, but he said, well, if from the river to the sea, if it means abolishing Israel, then that’s wrong. And I’m against that. Right? And It’s important for voices like Bernie to say that.

So I’m glad he did.

It is. I mean, one Will Saletan me pick one little knit here, is that Reseda Tlaib does not just represent Palestinian American Xi as a US Congress person who represents a lot of constituents. And so I understand the identity politics card you played there. But she she also represents a lot of people of different backgrounds, and I I don’t think has a has less an obligation to represent other, Americans as well. If you wanna slap back, I mean, just diving in.

About the identity policy? No. I didn’t. Yeah. No.

I I agree with that. And Okay. I don’t know the exact composition of her district, but this would be true whether you’re Jewish, whether you’re Latino, black, Palestinian, whatever whatever your ancestry is, you do have to be certain that you’re representing your district as a whole because if you’re a minority, very seldom is your minority enough to get you reelected. Speaking of what’s going on in Congress,

we’re still getting to know Mike Johnson, the fifth string speaker. I have to say. It seems like the script writers are out doing themselves with this guy. I mean, really, the contrast between the sort of the serious mild mannered demeanor And this guy’s background. He apparently, he’s spent a good deal of time scrubbing his his social media background because I mean, besides, you know, talking about, you know, gays and dinosaurs and whatever it is he spent his his attention on in in the past, He’s gonna face a couple of, very, very tough weeks coming up.

We have a countdown now to the shutdown of the federal government. Be interesting to see if he can avoid that. That that is sort of his job number one. But he was on over the weekend as well talking about it. This whole linking Israel aid to the IRS scam like to get your thoughts on the other side, Will.

Here is speaker Mike Johnson.

That money from this giant fund over sixty seven billion dollars sitting there to build up the IRS, we weighed those priorities and said, you know, what a concept? We’re trying to change how Washington works. And so by taking that money from this giant fund over sixty seven billion dollars that’s sitting there to build up the IRS. We weighed those priorities and said, you know what? It’s more important to protect Israel right now.

Than it is to hire more IRS agents. Apparently, Senator Schumer disagrees with that, but I’ll take that debate to the American people all day long.

Well, Alright. So when when Mike Johnson says we’ll take that debate to the American people all day long, that’s his way of saying, we did this deliberately. We house Republicans attached Israel funding, which everybody wanted to support, to defunding the IRS so that we have a political issued. So if Biden vetoes this or the Senate rejects it, then we’re gonna say that Democrats care more about the IRS than about Israel. Remember, the Republican argument was there shouldn’t be anything with the Israel money.

The Ukraine money shouldn’t be in with the Israel money, but we’re gonna stick the IRS in there So it’s a political dig. And what I really wanted to flag here is Mike Johnson talks about, and he talks in this interview about being a Bible believing Christian and a person of faith. What he’s trying to project is earnestness. I’m not just another politician. I’m a sincerely devout Christian.

Right.

What he’s doing here is playing standard Kevin McCarthy politics, but he’s doing it with that pious face. And it’s it’s deceptive, it’s dishonest, and it’s insulting to faith to pretend that you are somehow not playing normal politics that you’re being a righteous person. In fact, you’re just like everybody else. And I just think it discredits the idea of of the Christian sincerity.

Yeah. I am not just playing politics. I am actually trying to enact leviticus. You know? I mean, I said, I’m not I’m not sure.

I mean, we we also need to mention that the cutting the IRS money does not actually reduce the deficit. In fact, it expands the deficit.

Right.

The CBO, numbers were out there saying, Yeah. You actually increase the national debt by doing what you’re doing. This is not about fiscal conservatism. There were a lot of, incidents over the weekend where Republicans had their feet held to the fire on, like, well, wait. You cite and believe the CBO here, here, here, here, but why do you doubt CBO because they’re like in denial.

Like, I just don’t believe it. It’s like if we stop enforcing laws against tax sheets, if we don’t go after millionaires, who are underpaying their taxes, which we all know goes on. Right? I mean, it’s not a right left thing. You actually reduce revenue.

I mean, that seems relevant. Right?

Right? And can we just flag here? That was George Stephanopolous. Again, the same interview was people should just go watch the interview. Stefanopolous and scalise.

The last five minutes stuff about the election and the twenty twenty election being stolen. The first part is about this. And Stefan Apple is absolutely grilling him about, you know, scalise says, well, we wanted to be fiscally responsible. That’s why we attach to funding the IRS because that’s money that’s going to the IRS. Stephanopoulos says CBO, which you just cited, says that the

act what you’re doing increases the debt. And, again, scalise had no answer. No. He had no answer, but I you know, this is why, I mean, I I rarely wanna have politicians. I don’t wanna say never.

Politicians on the podcast because, you know, for years, I had politicians on the radio. And at a certain point, you realize you just put a quarter in and all you’re getting are the talking points. It’s just the blah blah blah. When Sklease was on, you could just sort of just hear the this sort of, like, the the tap dancing. And he’s like, you know, word salad word salad, word salad that I’m gonna use to, not answer the question.

And the only way to make that valid is to do what George Stephanopoulos did, which is to keep coming back at them because they really absolutely do count on this. I mean, The clock is their friend. I’m sorry to get too much into this interviewing thing.

No. It’s true.

But they

know they they’re looking at this thing, oh, okay. They’re told, you’re on for nine minutes. So that that politician very consciously calculates. Okay. So I’m on for nine minutes.

If I spew, six minutes of bullshit. That means only three minutes where I get, you know, have to answer or impressed on on difficult things. So Stefanopolis is is kinda taking that away. Say, okay. The clock is not your friend.

I’m gonna use all of this time to keep asking you the same question over and over again.

Right. It’s very important also for the not to not care whether you ever get that guest again because the a lot of times, the hosts are nice to the guests. Right? And if you don’t care, you can ask the right question. One other thing I wanted to flag from that interview, so we just named two parts where scalise talks about.

So one was about attaching the IRS defunding to the Israel stuff. And that’s standard politics. Right? And Scalia Stonewalls and lies about that. That’s right.

When they move on to the election and Scalia does the same thing, he won’t say the twenty twenty election was stolen. Remember, this is the number two republican in the house. Right? The he’s the majority leader. Right?

And what he’s telling you there, what he’s signaling is he and his Republican colleagues see no difference between a standard political issue. When people play politics all the time, we’re touching our issue to your. Right? And lying about election results. They just don’t see it.

They don’t acknowledge any difference. The and that makes them, you you know, uniquely ill suited to protect this country. If they’re willing to lie about an election result the same way that they lie about a standard political issue.

That is an excellent point. Will It is great to talk with you. It is great to kick off the week with you. And, of course, we’ll do this again next Monday. Thanks, Charlie.

And I wanna thank everybody for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast, I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again. Bower podcasts is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.