Will Saletan: Punish the Vermin

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. Happy Monday. I’m Charlie Sykes. First thing we have to do is we have to check-in with my good friend, Will Saletan. How you taking the Tim Scott News.

You okay?

You okay with this? It’s been rough. Been rough. We’re we’re we’re gonna miss him.

Kind of a shock. Yeah. You know, who would have imagined that, Tim Scott’s sunny optimistic message wouldn’t play wouldn’t get a lot of traction in the current Republican primary in the age of trump. I don’t know. Well, at least he got a new girlfriend out of Right.

Do you have any comment on all of this? I mean, it’s good for for Nikki Haley, but what I have, Charlie, is

a confession. So a couple of months ago, three months ago, I was the idiot who in the Bulwark slack suggested that Tim Scott was going to be the Republican nominee for president. And, of course, the reason why I scrub that. The reason why I said this was, Charlie, Among all of the Bulwark people, I have the least experience in the Republican Party. So I naively thought that Tim Scott because he was really good at doing town halls and talking with people and sounding like a real guy

Yeah.

That that was the guy they were gonna choose. So I had a very war understanding.

This is a brutal start to the week. So we’re going to have to have that caveat every time you express an opinion about Republican politics. We’ll say Yeah. This is Will Saletan, who actually believe that Tim Scott was going to be the Republican nominee. Okay?

Yes.

Yes. I okay. I admire your candor that you brought that up. Okay. So That’s not really why I wanted to begin today with the the podcast because there’s so much going on here.

First thing is happy Monday, fellow vermin, Berman. Remember back in two thousand twenty? It was scum, human scum. Donald Trump has said this stuff before. And I know we’ll be accused of the Trump derangement syndrome, but I I think it’s interesting that Trump once again gives a speech where he says, Hey, the real enemies are right next you.

The real enemies are your fellow Americans, and we’re coming for them. They are vermin. So I don’t think you need to really torture the he’s sounding like Adolf Hitler type thing to say. It’s rather extraordinary rhetoric for a man that wants to be the leader of the free world to, on veterans day, say that we are going to hunt out and root out you leftist verma.

Right? Will Saletan me

about because, obviously, he had you in mind and me in mind when he’s talking about the vermin.

So

let’s have a vermin chat here.

Okay. There’s a lot to say about this veteran’s day message. Yeah. So I’m just gonna start with one thing, which is veteran’s day is supposed to be about patriotism. People who serve the United States of America, you know, the country that you and I belong to of which we’re citizens.

Yeah. And Trump’s whole message here, his whole message is that the enemy is not Russia. It’s not China. It’s not Putin. It’s not Xi.

It’s not North Korea. It’s not Iran. It’s Americans. It’s your fellow citizens turn against them. They are the threat.

A horrifying message, particularly on this day.

Well, it is. And yet, in one way, he’s right when he says the greatest threat to American democracy is coming from within. But it’s, like, look in the mirror, man. Okay. Just to reiterate your point here, here’s here’s President Biden’s Veterans Day statement.

Today, we honor the story of our veterans, the story of our nation at its best. On veterans day, let us commit to fulfilling our one sacred obligation as a nation. To prepare to those we send into harms way and care for them and their families when they come home. Nice. Here’s Donald Trump’s statement.

Okay? In honor of our great veterans on Veterans Day, we pledge to you that we will root out the communist, Marxist, fascist, and radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. Lie, steal, and cheat on elections, and will do anything possible whether legally or illegally saw one run on sentence, to destroy America and the American dream. The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and grave than the threat from within, despite the hatred and anger of the radical left lunatics, who want to destroy our country, we will make America great again, apparently by, I don’t know, what, weaponizing the federal government. And so let’s just play a couple of cuts from the president because I I wanna make a point that I made on morning, Joe, this morning about the verbal gas.

Donald Trump has a fetish for proto fascist strongman like Victor Orban from Hungary. Increasingly, he’s bringing up Orban’s name. Listen to this context, though.

You know, we were respected when I was president, we were expected by China. You know, one story or quick story. You don’t mind if I go off teleprompter like a lot, do you? So much more exciting. So much more, but the head of Hungary

It is.

Very tough strong guy. Victor Orban, did anybody ever hear of or probably, you know, considered very power very, powerful within his country and outside of his country, not exactly loved by some of the European nations because he does his thing. He didn’t allow millions of people to invade his country. He allowed nobody to invade zero. He had nobody So he doesn’t have crime and he doesn’t have the problems that they’re having in other countries where millions of people are allowed to go in, but they were interviewing him two weeks ago and they said, what would you advise president Obama?

The whole world seems to be exploding and imploding. And he said it’s very simple. He should immediately resign, and they should replace him with president Trump who kept the world safe. And I’m not just talking United safe.

Okay. So this, by the way, does seem to be a a sort of a reflex now lately with Trump that he keeps forgetting that Biden is the president. I think this is, like, the seventh time in the last several weeks. Somebody’s been counting up, that he refers to president Obama that he thinks that o that Obama still in office. He thinks that he beat president Obama.

So your thoughts? So the Obama part is special because the Obama part, of course, is Trump doing what he accuses Biden of doing. Yeah.

Now there is a difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And that is that when Joe Biden screws up, he catches himself. You know, he’ll he’ll go back and try to get the sentence. Right? Donald Trump doesn’t wanna show anyone that he just screwed up.

So he just rolls right on as though Obama’s the president, right, we’re gonna obviously, this is sort of a selective application of the claims of, aging and senility, which is there’s, like, three years apart between these two guys. Right, between Biden and Trump? Yeah. So, yeah, there’s that part. But there’s also this love of dictators that you hear in the speech.

So there’s Orban. That’s real.

Right.

That’s sincere. He’s praising Orban for his immigration policy, but he’s praised Orban for a lot of other things. Orban is an authoritarian operating hungry.

Yeah. But he is as a regular basis, you know, that that he really admires the fact that Chinese the Chinese leaders are strong like, myo and g, and they and they have the death penalty. And therefore, they have no problems. This, by the way, is something he brings up all the time. How much he wants America to be more like red China in terms of killing criminals.

Okay.

Right. That’s real. Right. And you and you heard him use the phrase very powerful. Describe orban, but he also in this speech.

So he praised Xi. He also praised Kim Jong un and said he was, you know, very smart and What he always prays is that these guys are in charge and they maintain order. Now what they don’t have, of course, is civil liberties, and that’s what he praises president Xi’s drug policy, which is one day trial Right. Immediate execution. Right?

But we’re gonna get rid of that civil liberties stuff. Meanwhile, of course, in that veteran’s day message, Charlie, what was that line? We will root out the communists, Marxist, fascists and radical left thugs, who is Donald Trump praising in this speech? Communistists, Marxist and fascists That’s who he’s praising, but not Americans, foreign, Marxist, communist, and fascists.

That would be ironic if irony wasn’t dead when you think about it.

Right? And of course, you and I know this is his favorite line, communist, Marxist and fascists, but he’s talking about himself. He’s talking about the dictators that he admires. Projection is a thing. See, I think that, you

know, it is very, very tempting to to go down the rabbit hole of all of his gas his stumbles and his blunders and all of that. And and, you know, and I’m I’m not criticizing people who are holding his, you know, clear decomposition up against Joe Biden’s But I also think it’s, like, this is one of those moments where we need to separate the white noise from the substance because when you sweep out the actual gas, he is telling us who he is and what he intends to do. And the admiration for Victor Arbon is sincere. The admiration for the lack of civil liberties in China is very, very real. So You know, he will try to make a joke out of the near fatal, hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

I mean, how sick is that? But is that a gap, or is that just another indication that he he’s excited by violence. And the violence and the brutality, and we we keep talking about this. Is very much, you know, on brand here. Again, the reason I wrote my newsletter this morning saying it’s not the gas.

It’s the plans. Almost on a daily basis, we hear or he tells us exactly what he intends to do as president. And so last week, we got that big Washington Post deep dive, how he’s gonna weaponize the Department of Justice. He’s gonna use the Department of Justice to go after his critics, his opponents. Staffers who criticized him.

Okay? And then he confirms that. Then this weekend, we get the New York Times story that says his immigration plan includes, mass arrests, huge deportations, and camps. Okay. Camps He plans to scour the country for immigrants living here without legal permission and deport them by the millions.

Okay. Following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history to help speed up the mass deportations Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings. Because due process are so cucks. It’s Trump wants to build huge camps to detain people while their cases are processed and they await deportation flights. And Trump, in order to pay for this, you know, he doesn’t need no stinking congressional authorization, he will redirect money from the military budget as he did in his first term to spend more on a border wall than Congress had authorized.

And the point is, he fully intends to do this, and his team is working overtime. They’re making no secret of this plan twenty twenty five. The Heritage Foundation is cooking up to vet, you know, only the craziest most you know, avid, rabid loyalist to be in the government. And it’s like, okay, we can make fun of the clown. But I’m sorry to repeat myself.

A con with a flame thrower still has a flame thrower. And we could focus on the clown car, but we ought to focus on the fact that he’s gotta got a fucking neutron bomb in the trunk. So

Right. And part of what he bragged about this immigration plan, there are actually elements of the Trump immigration plan that I agree with. But the ones I don’t agree with are nuts. They’re just nuts. So the concentration camps?

Yeah. No. He doesn’t say actually concentration. I know. I’m at the we’re trying to end run due process.

Right? That’s one thing. We’re also trying to end run the institution, because this funding mechanism, the whole idea, remember, is he doesn’t wanna have to go through anybody else, like the people’s representative Right? I alone. I alone.

I alone will fix it. So it’s an authoritarian model. Now the constitution explicitly says, as you and I have discussed, that funds have to be appropriated by Congress. The president can’t appropriate funds. He doesn’t care.

We’re gonna go right around that. We’re gonna take money from something else that Congress from the military budget. We’re gonna use it for this immigration plan. Now any other president, Charlie, would go through Congress, would say, here’s my plan. I’m gonna get Congress to pass it.

And this is what we’re gonna do. You would hope so. Yeah. So he’s gonna circumvent that. He’s gonna circumvent to your process.

And now How many million people do we think are in this country without illegally or without authorization? Like, ten, eleven. Maybe ten, eleven. So I’ve heard an estimate of fifteen million. The point is

a lot of box cars filled up.

Sorry. Okay. No box car chose today, but but imagine Imagine how many I don’t wanna say Jack booted thugs, but imagine how many law enforcement or military or national guard. He would have to assign to do this and where they would have to go. Imagine the invasiveness and the prevalence of this force that he would be sending all over the country.

I mean, from the standpoint of a country that believes in freedom, this is pretty crazy. It’s pretty crazy.

Well, okay. But there’s a constituency for this, and there are millions of Americans that this is gonna resonate with. And I say this because I remember having this discussion about mass deportations back in twenty sixteen, where I was making pretty much the exact same point that you just made about what it would take to deport more than ten million people. And the reaction of let’s face it. His base was yeah, we kinda like that.

We kinda like the idea of the wall. Even if we don’t believe Mexico is gonna pay for it, we like the idea of of at least saying that we’re gonna throw out all the illegal immigrants. It gives us that dopamine hit. And so he has really cultivated this We need to be strong. We need to be tough.

We don’t need to be bound by due process or the law. We need to be courageous by which he means. Ignoring the constitutional provisions. And we need to actually fear the people who are living next door to us because it’s one thing to say, you know, you’re taking away the rights of law abiding Americans. It’s quite another thing to say, you elect me, and I’m gonna clear the vermin out of the house.

I am going to exterminate the vermin, and this is the way he’s rhetorically doing it. These are the people who are rotting the country from the inside, and you need someone strong and tough who’s going to do something about it and solve these problems, which is why he admires these authoritarian dictators around the world and bringing this up because We’ve been doing this for so long that it it’s easy to go. Same old. Same old. Yeah.

Tell me something new. Oh, the guy’s such a joke. Well, there’s a reason why he didn’t give a speech praising Democratic leaders in Sweden, why he doesn’t talk about how wonderful the you know, democracy of Great Britain is, which had, by the way, very, very interesting cabinet shuffle today. He doesn’t talk about the French system He doesn’t talk about Greece being the cradle of democracy. No.

It’s always North Korea, hungry, on all of these other countries, where, in fact, those civil liberties are eroded. So I guess this is one of those moments where it’s like, Guys, there’s no secret or subtlety here about what he is saying. And do you know that the number of Republicans who came out today will? And said, okay. I’m sorry.

I want a Republican president, but this shit about Berman no. No. Did you notice that? Do we have some sound? We have sound No.

None. There’s actually none. Nobody.

Right? Okay. So I can see some folks responding to this thinking. Well, Trump, of course, doesn’t like the Europeans. They’re a bunch of liberals.

But remember, this isn’t just about left and right. This is about freedom. Right? None of what Trump is praising here is freedom. He’s trying to erode freedom.

He wants a giant police force to go in and do this immigration crackdown. He wants, you know, in the name of controlling crime, the suspense of the liberties. So Trump isn’t about freedom. Trump is about order. Right?

And what I’m concerned about Charlie Sykes one of the things that we may find out in the process of this Republican presidential primary and possibly the twenty twenty four election. Is how many of the Republicans? How many of the conservatives who claim to believe in freedom really do?

I think we’ve already found that out. Well, I believe the answers are in.

But, I mean, to be fair, these are people who say, I don’t want the government taking my guns. We have a second amendment. These people don’t even like speed cameras. Right? We don’t want a police state.

But what if they do? What if Trump’s bed is that they do? And in fact, they nominate this guy and they elect this guy, essentially saying, we don’t really care about all that stuff in the constitution. We don’t care about all the stuff Ronald Reagan said about freedom. All we want is order and punishing the vermin.

You mean they might actually be hypocrites about this? Really? Hypocracy.

I, for one, am shocked, toast to find this out. Well, you know, part of it is the freedom for us to be able to punish them is our freedom becomes why do I want the gun? Well, I wanna be free, but I also wanna be able to shoot the vermin next door. Right. Or to protect myself from the vermin.

Right. Can I can I come back to the Pelosi thing for a minute? So he brings up the hammer attack.

Right?

Let’s play the audio of this because I don’t want people think that we’re exaggerating. This is the former president of the United States joking about a hammer attack on an eighty plus year old man in his home easily could have been a murder. Let’s just play that.

We had no terror during my administration. The only terror we had was Nancy Pelosi who’s a crazed lunatic. She’s a lunatic. She is a crazed lunatic. What the hell was going on with her husband?

Let’s not ask. Let’s not ask. I’ll withdraw that statement.

By the

way, she’s got a wall around her house. Obviously, in that case, it didn’t work very well there. It didn’t work.

Hilarious. So is he four walls or against walls? I’m I’m I am unclear there. Okay. So

So, among the hypocrisy that we’re just we’re talking about here is crime. Right? Trump’s message is, okay, the hell with civil liberties. We need to crack down. We need law and order because we need to control crime.

But only some crime. Right? And this comes back to your point about us and them. Crime against them is okay, crime against the Pelosi. And in fact, that line where Trump says, what was really going on there?

At the Pelosi. That’s, of course, not very subtle reference to the lie that Paul Pelosi and the attacker had some gay affair going on. Right? This is just a complete fabrication of fantasy, but what he’s essentially saying. What Trump is saying is that Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi basically asked for it.

The crime against them is okay. It’s their fault. Right? And that’s a way of basically conveying that none of this is really about controlling crime. About protecting the general public.

It’s about the vermin. Pelosi and her husband are the vermin. So crime against them is okay, and we can all laugh about it.

One less sound bite before we move on, because I I wanna play this really interesting exchange from our colleague Tim Miller and Carrie Lake, which people haven’t seen, and I’m guessing most people haven’t. You know, he was, working with the the folks from the circus this weekend. It’s pretty amazing. Before we do that though, Jonathan Last is out with a new book about the Trump peers. And he has a lot of stories that reflect how crazy they almost were.

Oh, no. But crazy they were, but the crazy things that almost happen. For those of you that wonder, how separated from reality can Donald Trump actually get? And and there’s an interesting debate. Does he believe this?

Does he not believe this? Does he know he lost? The story of Mo Brooks is awfully interesting, isn’t it? Remember Mo Brooks? Mo Brooks being a is it fair to say super ultra manga congressman, you know, all in for Donald Trump.

We’re really kind of on the on the real kind of the the fringes of this, and he’s running for US Senate and Alabama. They had a falling out. And he’s told this story before, but it’s worth remembering. And again, wanna just underline the fact that that Moobrux is not a normie. Moobrux is not a rhino, a squish, a moderate by any means.

Right? Well, okay. Would you characterize him? I feel like I’m being unfair.

He he was hardcore, hardcore, hard core manga. There there was no question

about it.

So Listen to Jonathan Carl, talking about Mo Brooks.

In March of twenty twenty two, Trump called him with an extraordinary series of demands. Among them?

He asked me to publicly state that Donald Trump should be allowed to move back into the White House reinstated as president.

Twenty twenty

says he refused telling the former president his demand was blatantly unconstitutional. And that then Trump retaliated pulling his endorsement. Brooks went on to lose the Republican primary. Do you think he really believed that he could be reinstated?

I sure hope not because if he truly believed that, then he was Way outside the bounds of reality?

That’s the very diplomatic way of putting it, I think, don’t you?

Totally. So the word there was reinstatement. Right? Trump was demanding. And let’s go back to the timing here.

Carl’s story here is that Trump made this demand of brooks in March of twenty twenty two. Twenty twenty two. He’s been he’s been out of office for more than a year. But let’s go back to earlier in twenty twenty one. Trump was talking from the day he left office about being, quote, reinstated.

Right? And many, many people, including Jenna Ellis, another Trump Lacky who has since, you know, begun to do some reform and repentance. God knows what what’s sincere or not. But the point is in the summer of twenty twenty one, Jenna Ellis, who was, basically, functioning as a lawyer for Trump and and some others, said to Donald Trump, You can’t be reinstated. You can’t there’s no reinstatement in the constitution.

There’s one way to get a president, Joe Biden, out of office that is impeach That’s the constant. There’s nothing else constitutional. Right? So the the reinstatement demand is essentially a demand for a coup. Right?

Yeah. So he’s told this in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty two, he’s still at it and he’s threatening Mo Brooks. That he’s gotta support, quote, reinstating Donald Trump. He’s demanding a coup and if you don’t support it, he’s gonna oust you from the primary.

Well, books lost the primary. But clearly the point is no matter what people say to Donald Trump, he continues to try to undermine the constitution and try to overturn the government.

And that he will latch on to the most extreme insane proposal. I mean, you know, this has happened again and again. You’ll hear that, well, you know, Donald Trump is going to try to get Mike Pence to not count the votes on January sixth. Remember the first time you heard that? I remember the first time I heard that.

I think it was when Paul Gossar in in Arizona was was talking about filing a suit, and it’s like, Paul Gossar, Right. That’s not gonna happen. And of course, we now know that Donald Trump took that very, very seriously and was prepared to take a lot of various steps. You know, you hear, well, maybe Donald Trump thinks he can be restored to the presidency, which is just bat shit, crazy stuff. And the former president of the United States, apparently, was kinda fixated on this.

And it’s fixated to the point where he actually, you know, wanted to make this a litmus test for as loyalist. Suppose the good news in that story, or I don’t know what it is, is that Mo Brooks, who is hardcore Maga, even he wouldn’t go along with that. Even he said, no. Okay. I am with you.

I’m prepared to do all this other shit, but I am not gonna say that. So I suppose don’t know. Is there a pony underneath that? Well, I I

I’m gonna try to come up with what, but before I get to the pony, Let’s go back and remember that the the various points at which Trump lackeys have said to the rest of us he’ll get over it. He’ll stop. There’s this point. There’s this point at which he’ll stop. So the first one was who was it Mick Mulvaney?

Who was it who said what’s the point in humoring him or just unnamed trump officials?

We don’t know who it was. It may it may have been. That was that famous anonymous quote in the Washington Post right after the election. What’s the downside of humoring him?

Right? So every other president concedes defeat, not Donald Trump, but what’s the point of humoring him? We’ll just go until what the electoral college Mike Johnson says to Liz Cheney. You know what? I’m gonna support this crazy Texas lawsuit to try to overturn the election result But Right.

We’re gonna do this next.

It doesn’t work.

Right. This will get him over. The Trump will be done with it. Then we’re going up to January sixth. We’re just gonna have proceeding at January sixth, then he’ll be over it.

Right? No. He tries to overturn the election. He’s still all the way through the time that he’s in office January twentieth trying to overturn And then after, afterwards, he’s out, and he’s still trying to overturn the election. He’s still trying to engineer poll strings to get people like Mo Brooks.

To help him overturn the election. There is no point at which Donald Trump will stop.

Well, and this weekend, he’s quoting Hungary’s orban saying he should be reinstated, which is like, oh, wow. Right. I mean, this is like a cartoon stuff. Okay. But this is really, really a great point.

Because this rationalization, oh, we will just go this far and we won’t go any further. And then they keep doing it or whatever. Wash that’s gonna happen. Over and over and over again in twenty twenty four as Republicans go, okay. So he just gets past the indictments, or if he just gets the nomination, or, okay.

If he becomes president again, you know, then we’ll put those guardrails back up, or maybe he will grow into office this time. Every illusion they’ve ever had about him has been destroyed and yet they cling to the illusions. Right. This requires, I believe, a psychologist, not two political guys like you and me to figure out. You know, it’s it’s like you have these illusions.

You claim to these illusions. You know, you tell yourself a certain story that you go so far and no no further. And every single time they’ll go along. They’ll go beyond that.

No. No. Absolutely. And just to be clear, the next stage of this is Anytime that you or I think, well, it can’t get worse. We need to remember that.

We need to remember this rank because my version of it can’t get worse has been Well, he’s already been president for one term. If he got in, he’d only have one more term, and then he’d have to leave. Why? Why? Why?

That’s just what’s in the constitution. And I think that’s just another reassurance that either people like me tell ourselves or that we’ve been told that we shouldn’t count on. We shouldn’t count on anything with this guy.

I think that’s true. I actually said something on another podcast, and I I’m I’m hesitating to say it again. You know, if he loses this time, you know that he’ll never graciously concede losing. He will never acknowledge his loss.

Oh, yeah.

And he’ll run-in twenty twenty eight. I mean, he’ll be old. But this isn’t gonna stop him. So it’s like this never comes to an end. And so, like, Will, I’m just gonna push back a little bit here.

When I inserted the word, he’s gonna create concentration camps. He said, well, no, not concentration camps. Give it five minutes. He’s gonna say, okay. They’re accusing me of wanting to have concentration camps for illegal immigrants for the vermin.

Damn right. There are concentration camps for the vermin. The window will keep moving. And then you’ll start to see Normies who will go well. No.

The camp seem going too far, but well, Lindsey Graham will explain. What he really means by camps are just temporary settlements, and and then it’ll keep moving and moving moving until it will be a litmus test and If any Republican says, I am against concentration camps for illegal immigrants, they’ll get primary. I’m sorry. I’m so cynical. Speaking of somebody who’s gone all the way, who has never hit a speed bump ever, ever, ever, Carrie Lake, is she still claiming she’s the governor of Arizona?

I’m not sure because that would be awkward for her, but she’s going to be the Republican candidate for US Senate in Arizona in Arizona. It is not an insane idea that she would be Donald Trump’s running mate, except that she’s running for for US Senate. Our colleague, Tim Miller, caught up with her. And Tim is doing this thing with the circus, showtime circus, and he actually sat down with Steve Bannon and Carrie Lake, and they had very, very interesting exchanges. And I think there’s some chemistry between Tim and Carrie.

I’m just I’m just there’s some touching that goes on. Did you catch that part? Yes. Yes. Where Tim’s going, why

are you touching me?

And she goes, well, I’m a mom. I said, well, I don’t know. I just one thing to have an interview. See, I guess this is something we learned about Tim is that when he’s interviewing somebody, he doesn’t want them to be touching him, which okay. I agree with them on that.

This is one of the great things about doing this on Zoom, is there’s no touching will, whether there’s just no

I don’t I don’t

know about Thursday now. Don’t know about Thursday night when we’re in DC,

but I

just don’t think there’s gonna be a lot of time. Anyway, I wanna play this, and I would like I like to credit. I think I think it’s Ron Phillipsowski, posted this on what used to be known as Twitter. But but here’s a short two minutes. Tim Miller, actually having a conversation with Carrie Lake.

Let’s listen.

Whatever you guys say on the circus, I wanna be able to have conservative students not being shamed on our is like

a golden age for conservative student speech. It’s like, it’s the best time ever. If you’re a conservative student, you wanna talk, you have huge platforms. Turning, you obviously I went to watch you speak at turning point USA. All these kids have huge audiences that come to see them, and that’s great.

That’s fine. They’re all speaking. They’re not their speeches and other threat, there weren’t any cops coming to shut down the turning point USA thing video. Here’s the True. You care you say you care about the fentanyl crisis in our kids.

I deep care deeply.

So if you care so deeply about this couldn’t you, couldn’t you actually do something about it if you stops the bullshit about the last election? If you just acknowledged that that Trump had lost and acknowledged that you had lost, you probably you might you’d probably be in good shape to do something. You probably would have won your governor’s rate

had you had

you just talked about things people cared about instead of the election front? So sometimes don’t you ever think to yourself? I wish I could just stop talking about this fake thing that Donald Trump made me makeups that I could actually talk about the stuff that’s important because we agree about fentanyl. I agree. I wish we could deal with that.

I talked about that all the top of the campaign trail. I’m sorry you weren’t with me. I’m sorry you weren’t with me every step of the way. Uh-huh. The people of Arizona understand me.

Correct. Do

they know me? And they care about me and I care about them and I care about them. Getting them better. Free the people who are held politically political prisoners. Yeah.

Absolutely.

I think you are still a little extreme. That’s okay, though. It’s good to see

you. Little stream.

We can keep doing this.

That’s right. I’d love to.

We have some areas of agreement.

Love to.

We agree on the fentanyl thing.

And Then you get

into the other stuff. Oh, sorry. I’m not making you happy. The other stuff is I don’t know why you’re touching me. The other is what you

have to do to

win. This is touching too.

Sorry. I’m I’m a mom.

How I’m

sorry. I’m

a look. I like to touch too, but,

you know, in an

interview setting, it’s a little uncomfortable.

I’m sorry that we don’t agree on everything, but what I am not sorry about is that I think that you I do believe that we can’t agree that we both love America.

We do. Well, I know that I

love America. I do think that you’re okay with Donald Trump trying to end the American experiment last time. So that makes me

wonder how sincere your love But I do appreciate it.

Thank you for your time.

Good. Thank you. And thank

you for your time. Okay.

Masterclass gotta say,

despite the touching, It was very interesting.

What do you think? God bless Tim. I so admire Tim’s ability to think on his feet and to about a con it’s not a confrontational interview. He’s talking to a crazy person. I think is a crazy person, but he Yes.

You’re right. He manages to sort of pull it.

Without saying you’re and crazy person. Why am I talking to this crazy person? Give up the crazy.

Right. But okay. Can we can we pause on that for a second, Charlie?

Yeah.

Give up the the phrase give up the crazy. It’s really good. That really crystalizes

this thing. Is Carrie Lake, and are people like

Carrie Lake in the Republican Party? Are they nuts or are

they just pathologically dishonest? Like, does Carrie Lake actually believe that she won

the governor’s race and that Donald won the presidential race. In which case, why is Tim trying to reason with her? Because you can’t reason with

or is Tim basically betting that she knows? Because it sounds like he’s betting.

Right? That she knows, it’s all bullshit.

I’m gonna go away in her case with the the pathological liar understanding that The crazy is a rational choice in this Republican field. That makes sense?

Okay. It sounded crazy, not being crazy.

Yes. Right. Because playing to the crazy, never admitting you lost, never saying it, It’s a tactic. It’s a choice. And let’s face it.

You know, he could say that it’s kinda worked for Donald Trump to a certain extent. Right? Right. And you’re looking around?

Now I gotta bring out my pony. Okay. Pony. From Holly. Holly Berkeley Fletcher.

Forty minutes in. I had to wait forty minutes for the pony. Okay.

And folks, this pony sucks. But here’s the but the pony is. The pony is that I that I hope Charlie Sykes you’re right. I hope that All of these Republicans, most of them, know that it’s Bulwark. Because if they don’t know it’s bullshit, we’re in a hell of a lot more trouble, right, if they’re really deluded.

I mean, I think that Donald Trump is actually deluded about having won the twenty twenty election. And that’s part of why I’m even more scared to have trump But if they know it’s bullshit, if Carrie Lake knows it’s bullshit, then imagine Carrie Lake getting elected, which could happen. Right? You would certainly, like, prefer to have a shameless liar elected who can be reasoned with, like Tim Miller is trying to do in that interview on other issues, on fentanyl or other things. Than to have someone who’s genuinely nuts.

Wouldn’t you? Really?

I think we need to think this through. I mean, I I have some quick answers to that, but and here we are. In late twenty twenty three, debating, what would you rather have a deeply committed pathological lying fascist or somebody who’s actually insane.

Oh,

those are our choices. Death by arsenic or death by woodchuck? I don’t know. I don’t know. Alright.

So what else did you hear on the Sunday morning shows that you wanna talk about?

There was a lot of stuff about Gaza. A lot of stuff about Israel and Gaza. Benjamin netanyahu did two interviews. One on meet the press, one on CNN. Yeah.

And it was interesting. He made actually a lot of interesting points, many of which were worthwhile. So one of them is that he wants to set up field hospitals. And this is a really big deal that’s gonna be happening in Gaza. The IDF, the Israeli defense forces, have gone into Gaza, and they’ve surrounded they’ve already moved people, begun to move people out of two hospitals in Gaza.

There’s the third hospital, the big one, Elshifa, and the the IDF has surrounded that. And there’s a lot of people in there. But, basically, The Israelis have alleged an American intelligence agrees with them. We don’t have the details yet that there are massive Hamas Bulwark underneath these hospitals

would be consistent with their pattern and practice.

Right. And the United States government in the form of Jake Sullivan, the National security advisor was on TV saying we don’t wanna have fire fights in hospitals. So we don’t want the Israelis to go in there, but it’s really hard to know how you’re gonna get at the Hamas tunnels unless you can get the patients and the staff out of the hospitals. So Netanyahu is trying to get France. He’s trying to get cutter and others to or the UAE, I think it was, to set up other places where these patients and these doctors can go.

And some of them have moved out. A couple of the hospitals, people have begun to move out. If they can do this and the Israelis can go in, then Charlie Sykes gonna get a moment of truth because if we can get under the hospitals, we will get an answer and there will be video. There will be evidence of the Hamas networks. And if this is true, this is horrific.

Right? Because Above ground, we have normal human beings, normal Israeli parents, normal Palestinian parents, trying to protect their children. Ron DeSantis who lie on top of their children to protect them. Meanwhile, underground, we have these Hamas murderers literally lying under children. Under them, under patients, under sick people, under doctors so that they, the Hamas people, the combatants will be protected, and the innocent people will be killed.

It is a complete inversion of everything we believe morally. And this is not about Jews versus Muslims or Arabs versus Israelis. Right? This is about civilized people, whether Arab or Israeli doing, you know, those people versus these pathological murderers, Hamas. Do you

have any doubt that that’s what we’re going to find?

I’m not gonna say it until we find it. The Israelis have produced some evidence. They have some intercepts. They have some audio of palestinian of the Hamas guys talking about this? Will the truth matter?

Will the truth matter and to whom? I mean, we live in an age right now. Where there’s so much disinformation. There’s so much skepticism. There will be so much pushback.

Right.

Will the truth act actually make a difference. I mean, you’re suggesting that when they go down there with the cameras and they map it and we see the tunnels that what? The rest of the world, the Columbia humanities faculty will go, wow. Okay. So maybe it’s not, you know, genocide.

So, Charlie, my answer is, I probably am being a little bit naive here, but I think if I ask myself in what way am I being naive, the answer is What if we never get the answer? What if we never get it? And the reason is, what do the Hamas guys have in those tunnels under the hospitals, assuming this is true? They have a lot of rockets. They have fuel.

They have explosives. Why should they allow the world to see this? If they don’t care about the life above them, which they’ve already demonstrated by putting themselves under the hospital.

Right.

I think they’ll blow it up. I mean, we already have a hospital where there was a tragedy because, you know, islamic jihad rocket blew it.

They will blow it up. Right. And so they’ll blow

it up, and then they will blame Israel for that. Exactly. And in the process trying to destroy the evidence, and they will have destroyed a lot of the evidence. So that’s my nightmare scenario.

Oh, there are so many nightmare scenarios here. Usually, we leave when you found the pony. You don’t get to see

the nightmare scenario. I’m sorry. It’s I I I don’t have a good answer for this, but I will say this. I don’t think they’ll be able to destroy all the evidence. If this is true, I do think that the Israelis or the Americans or somebody will be able to find enough forensic evidence whether it will convince the world.

I don’t know. And and Charlie Sykes if they do. Even if they do. Think of the people in Alshifah hospital who don’t leave. People who can’t, you know, if they get blown up, Yeah.

They’re dead anyway. And that’s a horrific tragedy, regardless

of how

you look at it.

It is horrific. It is such as tragedy on top of tragedies, and it’s more than we can bear. Over the weekend, we had these, massive rallies around the world in Western Europe. Many of them took on a really disturbing pro Hamas feeling. And I have not had a chance to read in-depth what’s happened with the with the cabinet shakeup in Great Britain, with the conservative government, has sacked the home Terry.

They’re moving folks around. The conservative government in Britain seems to be very, very divided. But, the country seems to have been really shocked by, the intensity of the protests on there. What do they call it commemoration Day? And, of course, in New York, we had, those widely disseminated scenes of provamas demonstrators tearing down American flags on veterans day.

The wounds from this conflict I think are very deep, and I think they’re going to be the long lasting.

Yeah. They are. And speaking of long lasting, so one thing I think we do have is Nabanyahoo talking about the future of Gaza. So I think we have the clip from CNN where he talks about what’s gonna happen after this, and maybe we’ll play that and then listen, talk about that.

The US also says that any post war plan for Gaza must include Palestinian led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. You appeared to reject that yesterday. You said Israel will not accept a, quote, civilian authority there that educates its children to hate Israel. So I just wanna be clear, are you saying that Israel would not accept giving control of Gaza over to the Palestinian authority after the war?

First, the first thing we have to do destroy Hamas because otherwise they’ll do it again and again and again, and they’ve said so. So we’ll destroy Hamas. The second thing we have to understand is that there has to be and overriding and overreaching Israeli military envelope because we’ve seen any place that we leave, we just, you know, exit Give it to some other force very soon terrorism resurges so we must achieve nothing. The third thing we have to understand is that a civilian authority has to cooperate in two goals. One is to demilitarize Gaza, and the second is to de radicalize Gaza.

And I have to say that the Palestinian authority has, unfortunately, failed on both counts. They don’t demilitarize, the West Bank, Jidien Samaria. We have to do it. We have to go in and fight the terrorists. They don’t deradicalize.

They teach our children the hatred of Israel. They do pay for slave. They pay for terrorist murderers and their families. The more Jews they killed, the more they pay, they they, refused to this day, thirty six days after this salvary to, condemn.

So if not the PA, then

who did on November seventh. Sorry?

If not the PA Well,

there has to be a there has to be a reconstructed civilian authority. There has to be something else. Otherwise, we’re just falling into that same rabbit hole.

Yeah. And

we’re gonna have the same result. Remember, the PA was already in Gaza. When Israel left Gaza, it handed the Ts over to the PA. And what happened within a very short time, Hamas took over, kicked them out. They weren’t willing to fight Hamas.

They’re still not willing to fight Khamas. So you have to have some kind of authority, civilian, Palestinian authority that is willing to fight the terrorists and educating and importantly, must educate their children for a future of peace, peace, cooperation, prosperity, cooperation with Israel, not the annihilation of Israel. And so far, that hasn’t happened. The burden of proof is on the PA, and they failed every single

Okay. So who, you know, go down the rabbit hole. I’m listening to that going, okay, he’s not wrong, but I don’t hear an answer. I don’t know what that happens the day after. It doesn’t sound like this cycle is gonna end anytime soon.

Will, what did you hear there?

Yeah. The same thing. And and Charlie, the problem is both are true. Exactly what you said. He’s not wrong.

He’s not wrong about what’s failed. And yet this the upshot is there is no exit from this. Right? He says first of all, he talks about the military envelope. Now that alone in any negotiation with a palace.

Yeah.

What is it?

Right. That’s Israel. And this this has happened before in peace talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis. The Israeli say, we don’t trust you. We wanna have our military in charge of security, and the Palestinian said, no.

No. We want our own security forces. Right? Nedanyahoo is talking about history and the failure of, you know, Hamas has obviously betrayed and attacked Israel and just murdered a bunch of people. The PA has failed to control Hamas.

They’ve failed before, and they’re, you know, they to this day will not condemn the October seventh attack as they should. But what he’s talked himself into is he’s just eliminated everybody. Right? Hamas can’t run Gaza. The PA can’t run Gaza according to him, who something else.

And the problem here is that it’s not just that Netanyahu has described a future where there is no solution. It’s that we and he’s in the middle of a war right now. And public support for the war around the world, to the extent there is any depends on some kind of exit strategy and some kind of statehood something positive in Gaza and Palestine. And he’s not offering that. The United States is trying to bridge that.

He’s trying to sell the Palestinians. There’s a way out of here. But you’re not gonna have the world tolerating what’s going on the next the ground stage of the war. And there’s just no way out without some kind of positive offer at the end of it.

You know, I’m just trying to think what a solution would even look like, and it would have to be, you know, some sort of a two state solution with a real commitment to somehow deradicalizing the situation. And it’s like, okay, That’s where you’re kinda reaching for the unicorn. How you do that, it would take the arab world coming together and saying, okay, we’re gonna put our support behind this solution. But in return, we have to dial down the kill all the Jews rhetoric. Right?

You know, in the other interview that Netanyahu did on meet the press, Kristen Welker asked him, what about an international force? Right? People are reaching people are trying to offer Netanyahu now who’s something other than Israel, right, occupying Gaza. And he’s rejecting all of that. He’s saying none of that will Bulwark, but they’re gonna need some things.

What is your read?

I mean, does he survive after this? Because, I mean, he screwed this up so badly. He has divided the country. He’s weakened the country. He has embraced the most extreme destabilizing elements.

Normally, there’s a rallying around flag effect. I don’t sense that’s happening in Israel because October seventh was such a complete failure because he survived a lot in the past. Do you think he’s gonna survive? Will he netanyahu? Will he be his government that will decide what happens in the future?

At the minute that Israel can get past this retribution, deterrence, go into Gaza phase. Right? Yeah. This guy had one job, which was security. He spectacularly failed.

Right. He will absolutely be gone out of there. There were other reasons to get rid of him besides that. Israel will be able to get rid of Netanyahu. The problem is the Palestinians because nobody’s been able they’ve gotta replace Hamas.

They’ve gotta put but they have in in Mahuda Bas a, like, very old guy who, like, there’s a lot of corruption in the PA. Netanyahu is not wrong about that. And there’s gotta be a Palestinian government that’s better than the one that they have now. And, Charlie, I have no idea how the Palestinians are gonna get there.

None. No. So this story is not likely to have a pretty ending Will Saletan. It is always great to start the week with you. Looking forward to seeing you in person.

This Thursday night when we have our live show in Washington, DC, and, we’ll be back next Monday, and we’ll do this all over again.

Thanks, Charlie Sykes

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