Will Saletan: In Defense of Kristen Welker

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is Monday morning, and it is good to see your bright and shining face. Today. Will, we’re actually doing this on video, at least for, you know, internally.

So it’s good to see you. I don’t wanna talk about the packer game, though. Oh, the packers. Charlie, I have

a question about the packer. So for those of us who are not cheese heads, I literally saw in celebration of a touchdown, one packer’s van in, like, the mascot gear, pouring a bucket of velveeta and then a bag of tortilla chips over the head of another fan coordinated the two of them. This is a voluntary act. Is this the kind of ritual I’m not aware of?

No. No. Okay. No. This is a ritual that I am not aware of.

It see it seems on the extreme side even for cheesehead because the cheesehead does not literally mean that she said means you should wear a foam cheese hat. Right. It doesn’t mean you pour Velvita on yourself. Okay. And particularly when you lose this way.

Okay. So we have a lot to talk about on Monday morning. We have, the former president of the United States going on meet the press. And once again, confessing to all of his crimes. This comes after the Friday release of that motion from Jack Smith, which I read the whole motion.

It is a banger. This is the one asking for the gag order. Un Donald Trump, Jack Smith’s finally had enough. If you subscribed to my newsletter, morning shots, I’ve excerpted it. At some length because even though it’s it’s a narrowly crafted motion for a very, very specific kind of of gag order.

It has all of I mean, it brings a lot of the receipts. It it lays out the pattern and practice of of intimidation, bullying, lying from from Donald Trump, and the way in which they have used and continue to use Donald Trump’s social media bleats. If there was any doubt that Jack Smith was watching and listening very, very carefully, to what Donald Trump was saying about judges, prosecutors, the jury pool, potential witnesses. It is all laid out there with screenshots of these truth social statements. So I don’t know about you.

Well, I just thought it was interesting. The kind of granular detail of what Donald Trump has done with the history of his past attempt to insult, intimidate, and, and obstruct. It is a banger of emotion.

So I am not particularly surprised by or alarmed by Trump, insulting judges, insulting the frost he’s doing he does this all the time. And, of course, he claims it’s free speech, and he can probably get away with it. I would like to see distinctions drawn between that sort of general Trump bombast. And directed statements that might affect witness testimony. So

That’s right.

For example, in Trump’s meet the press interview, which we’ll talk about. He he denies that he told anyone to delete the tapes, the surveillance tapes of the boxes and so forth. Mhmm. So that could be seen to some extent as him trying to coordinate stories with people who are testifying, and that would be about witness intimidation. To me, that’s a different ballpark.

This also sends a signal that every time Trump makes a statement at a rally, or goes on meet the press or anybody else. Jack Smith is taking notes. I mean, he’s watching all of this. Okay. So we’re gonna get to this meet the press interview in in just a moment.

But You know, we’d have to do a little bit of catching up because it’s Monday morning. Right? And because we need to satisfy the Purian interests of our audience, at least once this week, we have to talk about the Lauren Bobert groping incident. See, we thought it was the vaping incident. Turns out that no.

It wasn’t about the vaping. It’s about to be I so this is an actual headline in the New York Coast. Lauren Bobert groped beetlejuice date in heavy petting session, before getting tossed out. This is real life. Okay.

So is this headline? Lauren Bobert’s new man, the one she was groping. And who is groping in return, owns gay friendly bar, which hosts drag shows. I mean, this is chef’s kiss perfect will, learned Bobbert out there. And, I mean, it’s just so humiliating.

The whole thing is just so so humiliating. And yet, so so unbrand. Do you know what I mean? You following me here? Part of

what’s perfect about this story is The new scandal is that the guy she went to the musical with hosted gay friendly bar so it’s the gays and the Drag. That are the scandal. Meanwhile, quite heterosexual, she and her date are fondling each other in the most gross way, right, out in front of everyone at a musical.

Very aggressively heterosexual though. Right?

Right. Right. So the fact that it’s heterosexual is supposed to somehow be I mean, I don’t know. Just just to underscore, you know, the perversion is not your orientation. It is your behavior in public.

The other, question we had answered over the weekend was were there some things that were too sleazy for Maga? I asked this question about Ken Pxton, the attorney general of Texas who was overwhelmingly, impeached by the Republican dominated Texas House of Representatives, which raised the question. I mean, are there lines? I mean, this guy had sleeves just jumping off him in terms corruption and everything in the whistleblower. Well, over the weekend, he was acquitted by the Republican dominated Senate.

So Apparently, he wasn’t too sleazy for manga and completely predictably, you know, waiting on all of this? Who? Donald j Trump. Congratulations to the great people of Texas and the state’s center for rejecting political persecution all in caps. And respecting the integrity of our elections.

We should choose our elected officials by voting, not by weaponizing government. That is for banana republic and third world countries Now attorney general Ken Patson can get back to work. He is one of the best all in caps exclamation point. But speaking of all the best people, again, one of my my kind of my favorite stories of the day, did you see this one? Trump lawyer, Jenna Ellis, turns on Donald Trump, the malignant narcissist.

This is Jenna Ellis, who is, you know, part of the releasing the crack in and all of this. I simply cannot support him for elected office again, Ellis said. Why I have chosen to distance is because of that frankly malignant narcissistic tendency to simply say that he has never done anything wrong. And then she goes on, but she’s just amazed that there’s this kind of cult around him. Let me see if we can find this you know, that that doesn’t seem to think that the constitution is is important.

Jenna Ellis, I I was asked about this on morning, Joe, and I kinda did the my head exploding, that she is shocked, shocked to find out that Donald Trump is who Donald Trump is, but, again, we’ll They all know this. They all say this in private. Right? It’s just that Jenna Ellis, I don’t know what makes her different. Maybe that she’s under criminal indictment, which focuses the mind, that you now might actually go to jail for this guy, and it’s like, yeah, this is a bad idea.

So I’m shocked that it’s Jen Ellis because Jen Ellis is she’s not just an ordinary Republican. She’s one of the totally crackers people who, you know, peddle all the election lies. And, I mean, she’s She’s on the extreme. So if she’s renouncing this, it’s not quite Sydney Powell, but it’s along that spectrum.

Very much.

Of course, it’s ridiculous because Trump has been doing this all along. Nothing has changed. Right. Nothing has changed. So it does raise the question in your mind.

What happened to Jen Ellis that caused her

to acknowledge? Indited. Indited and then suddenly faced with all the legal bills Donald Trump is not going to be paying for her. This seems to have, gotten her attention finally. It was like, there was that little that little vestige of conscience there.

So can we pause on paxton

for a minute unless we wanna come back

to him? Yeah.

So the paxton story, so again, you have your cheese head stuff. This is my Texas stuff. This is interesting to me for a bunch of reasons. It it’s not. The fact that Trump is celebrating the acquittal is is just on par.

And I think people need to understand who are not Republicans. This is not a Republican versus Democratic thing. This is about within the Republican Party. So Right. The Texas State House voted to impeach this guy by the March it was a hundred and twenty one to twenty three.

That means a majority of Republicans in the state house voted to impeach the guy. Okay. So it wasn’t partisan like that was the Trump impeachments. Yeah. The committee that then recommended the articles of impeachment, also unanimous vote unanimous vote.

So Republicans and then it is a select bunch of Republican state senators who acquitted him. And as you acknowledge, Charlie, the evidence is overwhelming, and it’s just a multiplicity.

And he still faces all of these federal and state charges, right? I don’t know about state charges, but he pay he still pays criminal Charlie Sykes.

Right. And we should mention here that eight of paxton’s own aids, Republicans testified to his corruption, all of these incidents. Right? So within the Republican Party, there are people who tried to tell the truth about this guy and who presented the evidence. And then there is a sort of Magawing that just refused to listen.

And can I quote from you to from the, Dallas Morning News? Oh, yes. A conservative newspaper, a very conservative newspaper, but in the sort of Reagan Ron DeSantis mold, talking about the paxton acquittal. This sentence, We have come to a place of great danger where the plain evidence of corruption can no longer overcome the majority party’s determination to protect its self interest and its agents. And that is a pretty neat crystallization of what has happened.

Only they had been warned. Right? Really? It’s almost like there’s a pattern here. Yeah.

Well, I don’t know. It’s like they’re picking up on this now.

Right. So the pathology here is complete imperviousness to evidence, the evidence of corruption for the sake of partisan loyalty. I think it is important for those of us who are not Republicans, people like me. Instead of vilifying the entire Republican Party, to be mindful of distinctions within the party, even if the majority of the party has gone nuts. And the reason why I want people like me to do that is This is what has happened in their party, the portrayal of all Democrats, as communists, Marxist, insane, so dangerous that we Republicans have to stand behind Donald Trump or Ken Paxon or anyone no matter what they do.

That pathology, the other party is so evil that I must defend whatever evil My guy has done is what is ruining this country right now.

Right. It’s a spiral effect.

Right. So let’s not do that. Let’s not repeat that.

Okay. So last week, I think you and I spent, some time talking about the the Biden is old aspect. And, of course, people love that. Know, that I mean, we gotta get a huge we got so much love on on I’m I’m getting extra late, you guys. Yeah.

I actually comment on that on the Guardian about the nature of that problem, but we’ll leave that to the side, here. So let’s talk about Donald Trump’s cognitive, health, which was, really on display over the weekend. And He gave this, speech to a a faith group in Washington, DC. Is that right? Right.

Can we play the clip with the music? Because I have questions about the music. And I know everybody else is focusing on that he appeared to think that he beat Obama or that we were gonna get into World War two or all this I have a question about this.

And we have a man who is totally corrupt and the worst president in the history of our country, who is caught actively impair in no condition to lead and is now in charge of dealing with Russia. About nuclear war. Just think of it.

We would be in World War two, but

very quickly If we’re going to be relying on this man and far more devastating than any war, there will never be war. It’ll be that happens. It will never be a war like this. It will obliterate everything. There is everybody.

It will obliterate every country.

What k. Well, leaving aside the whole World War two thing. What is with the music? And I’ve been told several times now, Charlie Sykes is the QAnon theme song. So that’s a signal, but I mean, it’s just bizarre.

It’s like, somebody compared it to, you know, grandpa’s doing story hour. The music comes on, and and grandpa wants to do story hour. But this grandpa’s story hour is obliteration and annihilation and all of this stuff. It’s kind of a got a trumpian twist, but when I first heard this, I thought Somebody has put a music background to all this, but no. This was playing during his speech.

Right. So Trump’s been doing this for months. He doesn’t do it in every rally, but he did he started doing it, I think, in Waco a few months ago. Anyway, he plays this music and By the way, on this occasion, they start the music, and he pauses and waits for the music to set it. He loves the feel of this music.

We said music. You and I should

get We just, like, the

theme from doctor Zevago behind us. What next time we do Ukraine, Will, I want the theme from doctor Zevago behind us, you know?

If you or I chose this music, the staff of the bulwark would drag us out and put us away in an institution because this music is obviously ludicrous. It’s melodramatic strings. I don’t know how to describe it. I don’t know. It’s part of his melodramma, and he slows down and he does the spiel.

And what it conveys is number one, his fantastic sense of self importance. Right? Yes. He’s living in a dramatic moment and he’s a heroic figure. And that fits the q m.

Story, of course. Right? But the other thing is his detachment from sensible advice, like, he’s this is not something anyone who runs campaign would tell you to do. Right? But he’s determined

Yeah.

To play this because he’s at he’s at the center of his own drama. And he’s at the center of his own reality, Charlie. And I think this music is a great cue that Trump is sliding into is accentuating. This world he lives in, which is not in which he is a dramatic figure saving the United States.

Yeah. So I I have a suggestion for the rest of his rallies and everything. If he wants, you know, will be more appropriate when he gets up there and he gets that look in his mind and he starts talking about the judges and everything. How about how about this one? How about This would be the new.

Maybe this would be our theme that we talk about. Okay. Now, we’re gonna talk about Donald Trump. And and we play our Donald Trump team music. Would that work?

No. No? Do you think do you think do you think that’s me jumping the shark there? Hey, folks. This is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast.

We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day, we remind you folks. You are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to the Bulwark dot com and take a look around. Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact.

To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bulwark plus membership free for the next thirty days to claim this offer, go to the Bulwark dot com slash Charlie. That’s the bulwark dot com forward slash Charlie Sykes gonna get through this together. I promise. Okay. So let’s talk about Donald Trump’s meet the press interview.

Where do you come down on this whole question of platforming Donald Trump? I have, I’m gonna say euphemistically mixed views about this because what happens is that, you know, all of the lies get broadcast and the fact checks get put online, which seems like an have for our times. So first of all, what do you think of the the decision to give him that kind of, platform?

Okay. I am pro. I’m in favor of it. And a lot of people on social media are have objected to this. Yeah.

They think that Kristin Walker, platform Trump did not fact check him adequately. And so they gave him, you know, an hour of dispute with garbage. I disagree with that. I don’t think when Trump speaks, the way he spoke in this interview, and and we’ll speak at length if you interrogate him persuades more people to support him. He’s already got a lot of people.

And Right now, Trump is about even with Biden in polls. Latest CBS poll has Trump up one on Biden. Okay. The problem is already here. Be alarmed.

Problem is here. Why is Trump up? He’s up because people are unhappy with the economy. Never mind whether they should be. I know there’s dispute about that.

They are. And When Trump speaks, particularly when he responds to questions about basic facts that he won’t accept, that are obvious to everyone. I think that hurts him much more than it helps him. And that’s what happened in this interview. People who said that Kristen Walker did not fact check Trump and that they put all the fact checks on the website clearly did not watch the whole interview.

It’s an eighty minute interview. It’s a seventy eight minute interview. She’s constantly constantly coming back at him with facts, with evidence, with Republicans rebutting him. And he just bats it all away. And what you see is a man who is impervious to evidence and impervious to evidence that the American public didn’t want him to be president again.

To me, it underscores the danger of Trump.

Half of me agrees with you, Half of me thinks that two thousand sixteen called and the ones that’s talking points back. Well, you know, the rationalization of the CNN, you know, NBC Fox News folks was Let’s just air his rally’s lie because once people see how crazy he is, they’ll turn against him. Right.

This is not a rally. This is not a rally.

Here’s the problem is that His craziness has been on display, his cruelty, his craziness, his corruption, has been on display for seven years, And right now, we have a CBS poll showing that he is beating Joe Biden by one point. I am just not sure that the media has figure out how do you cover someone who is this fundamentally dishonest, this fundamentally corrupt who has tried to overthrow the government. He’s clearly an abnormal figure. And yet, it it’s as if the muscle memory of the media is. Let’s try to treat him like any other candidate, and let’s be honest about it.

There is this thinking on the part of people in the media that getting Donald Trump to come on air and lie is a good get because this is how you get attention in the attention economy, and this is how you get ratings. And this is the game that Donald Trump wants them to play.

Okay. So I disagree and here are my reasons. I agree with you about rallies. The twenty sixteen mistake was showing rallies. Right?

The guy’s just lying a lot of people were hearing these lies for the first time. Right? They weren’t immunized at that point. And there wasn’t a there wasn’t an effective rebuttal during it. Then we have, like, the model of the CNN town hall from a couple of months ago.

Right?

Right.

That is Trump being interviewed. And Caitlin Collins is trying to fact check him, but there’s crowd of people there who are cheering him on. So it’s still kind of a rally effect. This, what Kristen Welker did is none of that. Right?

He doesn’t have the rally. He doesn’t have the crowd. It’s just her and him, and she’s constantly interjecting facts, constantly rebutting him. So I think it’s a very different environment from those. He doesn’t have the affirmation.

Let’s go through some of this. Here’s Donald Trump essentially, not essentially, at one point, he confesses that, the election denialism was his choice. It was all about him and, brags about his instincts. How he follows his instincts because his instincts have got him where he is today.

You called some of your outside lawyers. You said they had crazy theories. Why were you listening to them? Were you listening them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear?

You know who I listened to myself. I saw what happened. I watched that and I thought the election was over at ten o’clock in the evening.

You were listening to your instincts.

My instincts are a big part of it. That’s been the thing that’s gotten me to where I am.

Yeah. Indited four times impeached twice, credibly accused of sexual assault federal judges that you committed rape Yeah. Your instincts have gotten you exactly where you are today. But here you have Donald Trump essentially saying, yeah, my whole defense about relying on counsel. No.

No. No. That was all me. I made those decision. That was I was raising my hand and say, No.

It wasn’t the lawyers. It was me. I imagine there were defense lawyers putting their heads in buckets of water. Over the weekend.

Right. And that’s part of why I like this interview. Yeah. So one of the things you get when you, quote, platform Donald Trump in the form of an interrogation is you would get if you put Donald Trump on the stand, which is very useful, in this case, as you point out, Charlie Sykes acknowledgement that setting aside advice of counsel Trump made the decisions. He was the boss.

And you could see Kristen Welker trying to get him to say that, and he did say it. So that’s legally significant. The other thing he says in that clip is that the election was over at ten o’clock. He says, I knew at ten o’clock the election was over. Now this is interesting for a couple of reasons.

Everything that happened after ten o’clock a lot of other Republicans claim is reason to believe that there was Yeah. A basis to to believe the election was fraudulent. Right? He’s saying he didn’t pay attention to any of that. He decided at ten o’clock when partial returns were.

So it’s no nothing subtle about this guy. He sees that he’s ahead. So all that evidence is out the window. But the other thing, Charlie, is he was told, and there will be evidence presented as there was to the January sixth committee. About the so called red Mirage.

His own people told him, here’s how the election will go

Which we talked about endlessly. Right beforehand. Right. Yeah. This is this is not expose fact, though, Everyone knew there would be the red Mirage.

Everyone knew this. We talked about this for weeks that the early votes would be Republican, would be pro trump, and then there would be a wave of blue votes. And again, they try to pretend that, you know, put this into the into the memory hole that that nobody knew this. Nobody understood how this was gonna happen. Everybody knew this was going to happen.

Right. And there will be an an argument here legally and politically that Trump therefore was lying. He was told about the red mirage, and then he just goes out and says, based on the red mirage, I declared the election over. But there is another scenario when I am if I were a juror, it would I would come to this conclusion. Trump doesn’t lie the way other people lie.

Trump simply deflects all contrary information, all unwelcome information To me, this is much more pathological than lying. Right? And it’s certainly a much bigger problem than Joe Biden’s age. Joe Biden is a normal person who is aging. Donald Trump is a psychopath who has always been a psychopath.

He may be a little bit more of one than he was before, but only because he’s less filtered. And me, that is the fundamental question of this election. Do you want the old guy, the old normal guy, or do you want the psychopath? Every interview that is done with Trump is

Oh, jeez. I just I’m sorry. You know, this is gonna be a very long year. I mean, if the if this is the choice, you know, And this is our optimist. This is our staff optimist.

We’re going, hey, it’s senility versus psychopathy, you know. I agree with you, by the way. I’m gonna go with the senility. Okay. I’m not saying Eastina.

I’m just saying that this is what you get when you have the battle of the octogenarians. Right. Okay. Speaking of other revealing moments, let’s play the clip where Kristen Walker is asking him about January sixth. What he was doing on January sixth?

I’m not gonna play the extended cuts where he’s lying about this or lying. I mean, that’s part of the problem. It’s like when he’s talking about the courts and everything, it’s just there’s an expression that I don’t really understand about. There’s the the gish gallop or something like that where you just put out so much bullshit so fast. Nobody can catch up with you.

But let’s play his discussion of what he did and did not do on January sixth.

Tell me how you watch this all unfold. Were you in the dining room watching TV?

I’m gonna tell you. I’ll tell people later at an appropriate time. Just so you understand it. However, how did you And

I think the capital was under attack

let me just add

in the moment that the cover Did

you see the statements I made in the Oval Office and just outside of the Oval Office?

I’m absolutely go home in that day.

Our police are great. We love our police. We love everybody. Go home.

That was this was a beautiful afternoon more than Three hours after the accident.

But they would put out before that.

I wanna know who you By

the way,

on that day.

Nancy Pelosi I wanna know. Why would I tell you that? Listen, Nathan loves was in charge of security. She turned down ten thousand soldiers If she didn’t turn down the soldiers, you wouldn’t have had January seventh.

Did you call military or law enforcement?

What?

Did you call military or enforcement at the moment the captain was under attack.

I’m not gonna tell you anything.

I’m not gonna tell you anything. This guy is gonna plead the fifth amendment at some point, isn’t he on all this stuff? Well, he has in the past. Right. Well?

Right. Okay. This is another reason why I’m a fan of this interview.

Okay.

So she gets to this topic, the hundred and eighty seven minutes that he sat there and watched the Capitol under attack. Right?

Yeah.

And he has no answers. And he says, I won’t tell you. Folks, just step back for a minute. Any normal human being, any normal president. The United States capital was under attack.

People were coming in and telling him he’s literally watching it on TV, would be able to answer this question about what he did. He would at least make up something. Trump is like, I’m not gonna answer. He’s like pleading the fifth. I’m not gonna tell you what I was doing.

What would I tell you?

That’s an

amazing, an amazing statement of his pathology.

Well, no. No. Think about this. This actually really is. This is really good.

When you think about Here you have the guy who’s the president of the United States during a national crisis. What did you do, mister president, during the national crisis? I’m not gonna tell you. Why would I tell you that sort of thing? It’s super secret, double secret.

What I was doing, I had a plan. Well, I, you know, most presidents want to tell you this is what I did during the crisis. I made this phone call. I did this. Right?

Right. Kind of a tell.

Right. Little bit of Again, I commend Walker for being well prepared for this. She asks very specific questions. Did you call military or law enforcement? I won’t answer.

I think if he had an answer, he would have given it. Like, I did call, but he didn’t. He didn’t. And so the interview blazed that out. It’ll be interesting if he does get to trial.

And that has to testify about this. I don’t think he’ll testify. I agree

with you. He will never testify.

But Charlie, to the extent that he doesn’t if I, it’s good that we can get reporters to get him to at least face the question on camera.

And I was very interested in getting your take on all of this on an actual public policy question where he’s asked about abortion. Now he’s in the past Trump has distanced himself from some elements of the pro life movement by suggesting that maybe they’ve gone too far. But this was, I think, the most definitive statement that he’d made so far. So let’s play the clip where he talks about whether he would sign a fifteen week ban in his comments on his allies who have passed six week bans, including in the state of Florida.

If a federal ban landed on your death, if you were reelected, would you sign it at fifteen? Are you

talking about a complete ban?

A ban at fifteen weeks?

Well, people people are starting to think of fifteen weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.

Would you sign that?

I

would I would sit down with both sides and I negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in fifty two years. I’m not gonna say I would are easy. I mean, the sanctus is willing to sign a five week and six week ban.

Did you support that?

I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.

Whoa, will. Terrible thing, terrible mistake. Half the pro life movement wakes up today. Realizing he’s just thrown them under the bus. I saw some people on social media saying this is a big test now for the pro life movement.

How will they react? I’m sorry, spoiler alert. They’re just gonna roll over on this, but but give me your thoughts on all of this. As I have some contrarian thoughts coming up, just so you know, Okay.

So you and I come from opposite positions on abortion. I am not a pro lifer, but my understanding of pro lifers is that they are sincerely concerned about unborn life, and this is a values issue to them. This is an it’s not like money. Okay? It’s not like, well, you can have a little of this and So Trump literally says there, fifteen weeks seems to be a number people are talking about.

I mean, that’s the way he think he thinks this issue is like some economic negotiation. Right? And he doesn’t understand the seriousness of the people who believe that it’s murder. And he volunteers that line about DeSantis.

He wants to run against the pro life movement using the six week versus the fifteen week ban, which is interest

Right. And this is the first time I’ve seen him do that. Mhmm. But it’s not just DeSantis who’s on the other side of that question. Mike Pence is on the other side of that question.

Mike Pence is you know, saying abortion is an issue that we Reagan conservatives are very serious about. And even if it’s politically costly, we’re gonna do the right thing and try to bring America along with us. Donald Trump is saying, you walk out on that branch, and I’m gonna saw you off. And that’s exactly what he’s doing to DeSantis and to Pence and to the pro life movement.

So it’s gonna be very interesting to see what the response from the hardcore pro life movement to people who do see this as a moral absolute. Let me give you my slightly contrarian take on all this. And but, of course, we also need to understand where Donald Trump comes from. That he is a man without any fixed principle whatsoever, who had before he ran for president, not given really five seconds worth of thought to this. Do you remember Early on, I think it was, right here in my hometown of Milwaukee.

He was being interviewed by, I think, it was Chris Matthews, who asked him, you know, well, under your abortion ban, you put women in jail? And he said, well, yeah, I would. Because he hadn’t ever thought about it before. He was thinking, what do pro lifers think? And I’m gonna say what I think they think.

And, of course, then he he had to walk back. No. We’re not gonna put women in jail or at least that’s not his position. So he comes from this position of having no real principal at stake. He’s panned into the pro life movement, but he does not share their moral understanding of what abortion is.

But having said all that, he settled on the fifteen week issue because and you and I have discussed this in the past, In terms of the polling and the politics, that is kind of a sweet spot, or it’s a much sweeter spot than the six week, ma’am. If you ask most Americans, and you have written about these polls more than I have, if you ask people, well, what do you think of, you know, abortions in the first fifteen weeks, most Americans say that they should be allowed. After fifteen weeks, most Americans are much more skeptical about Right? I mean, people do think in trimesters. There’s a nuanced approach.

And so he’s coming down in a much more politically palatable position than say Ron DeSantis. Right. And so this is going to be a fight about who is the most extreme on abortion. He is gonna try to portray Democrats as being for abortion up until the moment of birth and after birth, which is a lot of that is Bulwark. But He’s trying to say that we’re not extreme because we are gonna allow abortions for the first trimester or so, and then our bands will only kick in later.

So This is not a politically stupid move unless the pro life movement were to revolt against him and there’s zero chance that will happen. So give me your thoughts.

Yeah. Okay. So this is, in the big picture, a fight that is going on in the Republican Party that Mike Pence articulated a week or so ago, about populist versus conservatives, by which Brentz means Reagan conservatives. Right. And the three issues that Pence cites to say that he’s different from Trump, Ukraine, America’s role in the world, Social Security and Medicare entitlements, reforming entitlements, Trump saying I won’t touch it, and Pence says that’s the Biden position.

And abortion, Penn says, I’m pro life. I’m gonna try to save as many babies as possible. And Trump’s like, you know, I’m not, and I’m gonna run against. So Trump is positioning himself to the left on all of those issues, and he’s right politically. He’s making the smart call.

There’s isolationism in the Republican Party to such an extent that the Ukraine position is about even right now. But on abortion, Trump is definitely taking a more politically palatable position than Pence is Ron DeSantis. And Charlie Sykes this fifteen week question, You can draw a line at fifteen weeks. You can draw a line at twenty. You can that’s where they were before or twenty four.

As you go along in pregnancy, obviously, more and more people say, we should restrict abortion at that point. Six weeks versus fifteen weeks is an enormous enormous difference. Okay. That’s where the abortions happen. There’s so many women who don’t even know at five weeks, six weeks that they’re pregnant.

Right?

Right.

A six week ban is effectively, in a lot of ways, a ban on all abortions. A fifteen week ban allows lots of women to get abortions. And Trump is choosing the politically safe position, and I don’t know if it’ll work for him in the primary, but if the pro life movement doesn’t care, it definitely will work for him in the primary.

I do think that he’s now thinking about the general election. Because that’s not something you would say in a Republican primary right now. You would not say how terrible that is unless he is feeling that This is something that he can use, you know, in a general election. But, obviously, it’s also I think it’s gonna be worth watching what the reaction of the pro life movement is because he didn’t just say I prefer a fifteen week ban to a six week ban. Right?

He didn’t just say I am inclined to go with that as a compromise. He said the six week ban was a terrible thing. Right. Now you have a lot of people that spend a lot of political capital and feel very, very deeply about all this you may disagree with them. These are trump supporters.

These are part of the Trump base. These are the people who believe that they’re willing to swallow anything because He was the guy that got Roe versus Wade overturned. And he is saying that what you did was terrible. Whoa. Complicated.

Now speaking of you, Queen, let’s, let’s switch gears to that. Because if I’m following the the back and forth on these budget negotiations, carefully, which I’m not actually because but it it it appears that they’ve come up the Republicans have come up with a deal to get something passed. This is part of this Kabuki dance. They know it’s not going to go anywhere with the Senate, but the Main Street Republicans The moderate Republicans, if apparently, signed on to a budget deal, which includes no funds for Ukraine. Our good friend Adam Kinzinger had a scathing tweet about this that these guys have caved in.

They are not moderates. Political action committees, business contributors, take note of all of this. Volodymyr Zelensky is coming to this country. The in the Senate, All one hundred senators have been invited to meet with him. Apparently, and again, these are early reports.

Kevin McCarthy does not plan even a one on one meeting with him So here’s another massive divide in the Republican Party over Ukraine, and we know which side, Donald Trump comes down. Where do you think this goes?

This issue is kind of amazing to me. I don’t remember if it was in that speech about populism versus conservatism, but quite recently within the last couple of weeks. Mike Pence has been saying. We don’t need to be against funding Ukraine. We Republicans because there’s already a party of appeasement.

Now, Charlie, you and I know if you look at the votes in Congress on this, the party of appeasement Day is the Republican Party. If you look at the the percentage of house Democrats or senate Democrats who have voted that. So Yeah. Republicans are the party of impeachment in Ukraine this attempt to exclude funding for Ukraine from the budget deal is part of that. And the contrast that we’re gonna see when Zelensky arrives is this guy who Tucker Carlson is described as what some scumbag in a track suit.

Right? Somebody who’s actually under fire and leading a country in wartime versus Kevin McCarthy, a man who doesn’t have the courage to confront you know, Marjorie Taylor Green. Right? So we’re gonna see a contrast between the courage of Zelensky and the cowardice of the man who won’t meet with

that’s good, Will. You ought to write something about that. That is kind of inspired. So let’s go back to the topic that, so many of our listeners hate to have us talk about which is these new polls would show. That Donald Trump is running even with Biden or perhaps ahead of him.

And the reason I say ahead of him, there’s that one CBS poll showing him at fifty to forty nine within the within the margin of error. Right? But we know that with the electoral college being the way it is, if you’re a Democrat, you need to be ahead by, what do you what would you say? Four points, five points to be able to win the presidency. So even is is basically advantage, Trump?

Trump lost the popular vote in twenty sixteen by two percent

Mhmm.

And beat Hillary. Mhmm. So you take that as a benchmark, you know, at least three percent.

I look at that number and say, okay, given all of the negatives for Donald Trump, that

does show some weakness on the part

of by and then Joe Biden is having a pretty bad month right now. He’s having a challenging month. You have the UAW strike. You have, you know, continued concerns over inflation. You have the indictment of Hunter Biden.

You have the impeachment inquiry. You have this, kind of media drumbeat narrative about the age, which has really come up. You have people like David Ignatius in the Washington Post saying he should step aside. I mean, there does seem to be a very compressed moment. Where it’s Biden Ron DeSantis.

So how much trouble is Joe Biden in right now? Would you say?

You’re asking the pony guy. So I’m gonna tell you I

am asking the pony.

This will pass this will pass. I mean,

it’s Monday morning. That’s why I wanna ask the pony guy. People don’t wanna hear what I wanna say. They wanna hear what you wanna say on this.

The thing that’s gonna get worse is that Biden will continue to age for the next year and a half. Right? Yeah. It’s that that and that That’s a safe bet. That’s gonna be a problem.

But I think a lot of other things are gonna go in a positive direction. Again, Everyone, just discount what I’m saying because I’m always wrong in an in an optimistic direction. But the economic numbers have been moving in a in a better direction in terms of wage growth beginning, just beginning to outpace price growth. So perceptions of the economy may begin to improve. But the other thing is people are not seeing the pathology of Donald Trump enough.

First of all, they’re not seeing the loose Cheney ad or whatever it’s gonna be that’s at the end where some same Republicans are out there exhorting their own suburban supporters not to vote for this guy, which I think can make a difference at the end. But one of the reasons why I am in favor of these interviews of Trump these interrogations of Trump is to underscore, to highlight the insanity of the man, not just the insanity, but you and I have discussed this Charlie Sykes Trump has been found liable by a jury to have committed a sexual assault, to have digitally penetrated a woman to it. Which, by

the way, is how many amazing? Mean, could we just, like, know how remarkable that is? Right.

And the testimony from Eugene Carroll was that she told him, no. She pushed him away. Alright. She signaled very clearly she didn’t want him. He doesn’t listen.

And he doesn’t listen in such a way that he prays on you. He attacks you. He did it to at least that woman. We have testimony of that. He’s done it to other women.

That’s why he talked about grab them by the right. And he did it to our country. And he continues to not accept negative feedback. No. We don’t want you.

No. We didn’t elect you. And he uses force. He uses coercion. To try to get his way.

That is the story of this upcoming election, in my opinion. That is the most important thing facing us. Any interview, any airing that centralizes that that shows people that. I believe will cause enough Americans to overcome their distaste with Joe Biden’s age or whatever it is. To make sure that Donald Trump doesn’t become president again.

Well, as you know, I agree with you about what twenty twenty four is about. I hope you are right about all of this. What I’m seeing though is a reminder of something that we’ve, you know, seen over the last eight years is the is the incredible power of what aboutism. And right now, you cannot have a discussion with any American voter without having Biden’s age come up. But when you point out that Donald Trump is the most corrupt man ever to become president.

The Republicans have now put into their holster, the Biden crime family. They have come up with a what about as an answer for almost everything. Now, no, it’s bullshit. Okay? There’s no equivalency.

I certainly understand this. But in terms of the way it plays out politically, in terms of the way the human mind rationalizes embracing something as sleazy and evil as Donald Trump, people need to have a reason, a justification for doing something. And I won’t say that it’s politically, you know, smart But there is that reptilian instinct. Make sure you accuse the other person of what I have been accused of. And even if you were to say, and I think the serious allegation you could make.

I mean, among them, there’s so many. I mean, the danger of trump two point o, the fact that he is promising retribution that he is promising to weaponize the federal government. The average Republican voter now is gonna say, well, what do you mean? Isn’t that what Biden has done? And you and I know that’s not true.

But cutting through this incredible cloud of bullshit, this has been the challenge of our time. This has been the challenge going back to twenty fifteen. How do you cut through this? And again, the whataboutism, whatever you can come up with they will be able and and this this worries me. And so this is this is the challenge that there’s a certain asymmetric warfare And going back to my question, I wonder I’m concerned whether the media has learned its lesson from twenty sixteen.

I also wonder whether the Democrats understand exactly what they are up against and how the rules of politics that existed in the before times will exist next year. So, again, I agree with you about the stakes. I certainly hope you are correct in the case, but we’ve seen enough over the last eight years to be alarmed. And you look at these poll numbers. And the fact is that In a rational universe will, there’s no way that Donald Trump would be a plausible candidate for reelection, even Republicans You know, who have been, you know, wishcasting and telling themselves, well, don’t worry.

He can’t win the nomination. Okay. Well, don’t worry. He can’t win the general election. You know, they’re basically appealing to a certain rationality out there that clearly doesn’t exist at the moment.

Right. First of all, I wanna just add something about the Hunter Biden story. Hunter Biden has just been indicted, right, on some gun charges filing false forms for the first gun. What is the Republican response to Hunter Biden being indictment? Remember their previous position was the Justice Department is biased.

The complaint from every Republican who has commented is Oh, yeah. They indicted Hunter, but only on the stuff that doesn’t affect Joe Biden. In other words, they’ve been presented with the facts that Hunter Biden is a sleaze. That’s my position. Okay?

But Joe Biden is not, and they’re upset that the legal process didn’t serve their political end. So they talk about weaponization. Of the law. But they’re the ones who want the law to be weaponized to get their political target. And if it’s not Joe Biden, they’re not happy about it.

But to your larger point about rationality, no, I’m not an optimist about the American public. And I think one of the dangers of our country is we tell ourselves

that you to be the optimist.

We tell ourselves a story as if that we’re an exceptional people. Right? And that we have these values that other people don’t have. All of these polls are showing us Charlie. That’s not true.

There are way too many Americans who will vote for an authoritarian who don’t care about facts, who don’t care about a guy refusing to accept the peaceful transfer of power. So there isn’t some indictment that’s gonna solve the problem for us. There isn’t some impeachment. There isn’t it’s us. It’s us.

We’re gonna have to get out and get our fellow enough of our fellow Americans. And I say, fifty five percent. Whatever you need to do to get fifty five percent of everybody behind Joe Biden. And that includes no Cornell West, no third party stuff, Everybody get behind and make Donald Trump lose this election and make the Republican party begin to rethink whether Trump ism is a winning political strategy.

I think that, it’s a two step strategy. Number one, I think we have to persuade long time Republican voters or Republicans who have, you know, been on the fence that party loyalty only goes so far. The the the binary choice only goes so far, your your tribal loyalties only goes so far, and you do not have to vote for Donald Trump. That’s number one, to peel off those votes. I think it is a taller mountain to right now make the case, and you must vote for Joe Biden I think that the people who argue, you must vote for Joe Biden right now, lose a lot of those folks.

I think what you need to do is say, is this who you are? Is this who you wanna be? Is this is this who you stand for, do you want to be complicit in all of this? And I understand that it would be better politically for them to, you know, move over But right now, I I do think that there’s a value into saying I’m sorry. I’m just not gonna vote for the guy.

I’m not gonna cast my votes in a state like Wisconsin, If you have twenty thousand Republicans, people who have voted for Republican for governor, for Senate, for congressman, for state representative, decide, yeah, I’m a I will vote republican, but I’m not gonna vote for Donald Trump. That could swing the state. That could, determine the election. So I’m more interested right now in saying you do not have to support this guy. For a lot of conservatives, I think people need to understand even in the any Trump movement that the sale of you must vote for Joe Biden is a tougher sell No, maybe in the fall of twenty twenty four, we’re going to have to make that case.

But right now, step number one, don’t go along with this shit.

I think actually both of us, if we just put our two proposals together, we have we have a good answer, which is my advice for the left and your advice for the right. Right? My advice is if you’re on the left, don’t splinter your vote and go off and vote for Cornell West or somebody else.

Oh, absolutely.

Standby and Joe Biden, even if you’re unhappy with him about the UAW or whatever it is. Right? Because we need to stop Trump. And your advice is much better for folks on the right because everybody who follows your advice, Charlie, is one less vote for Trump, and that will help swing some of those states.

Yeah. What are you gonna keep your eye on, for the rest of this week? What are you looking at this week?

Well, I’ve been trying to write about Nikki Haley and abortion for a couple of of weeks. So I’m gonna I’m gonna get back to that a little bit. Nikahili is articulating some very sensible ideas about abortion that we shouldn’t judge others that you can be pro life and not punish other people. It makes a lot of sense to me, and there these are all arguments why you should be pro choice. So that’s that is the case that I’m making.

It’ll be interesting to see that as I going back to the debate on abortion, whether or not the argument will be that well, so Donald Trump turns out to be pro choice for the first fifteen weeks. Be interested to know whether they’re willing to use that rhetorical tool because that’s gonna get messy. Will Saletan, it has been great talking with you today and great seen you to actually, you know, see you on screen, which, you know, it is kind of a treat sitting here in my office actually seeing another human being. It’s, kind of,

I’m gonna have to upgrade my tie collection. I’m looking at you. You look good.

Okay. So see, I just finished doing a thing, you know, and I didn’t wanna change, you know. And so

Never change Charlie. Never change.

Never change. Alright. Thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we’ll do this all over again.

The Bullberg podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.