BONUS EPISODE with James Carville: We Are the Opposition

So, what do you want to do today?

Hmm, I'm up for something new.

What if we could explore the bottom of the ocean?

Ooh, what if we could travel back in time and snap a pic with a dinosaur?

Or pilot a submersible to see glowing plankton.

Imagine meeting a T-Rex.

What if we did both?

See Dino Days and Unseen Oceans.

Two new exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences. Tickets at calacademy.org.
We should see dinos first. Or maybe oceans first.
Hello and welcome to a bonus edition of the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm here with the raging Cajun, James Carville. He's got a documentary that one of our last podcasts was featured in, and it is live on Max, November 14th.
Winning is everything stupid. James, the last time you were here, we were talking about a Kamala Harris parade.
I guess they reigned on our parade, brother. Yeah, well, they did.
So let let's just say let's review the bidding. So you have not been in politics for a long time.
All right. And if the country wants something different, you try to give the country something different.
And I think that this election really boiled down to two massive mistakes. First, Biden gets out July 21st.

Understand that there's this massive amount of talent in the Democratic Party. As I say,

playing this 350 hitters all over AAA ball. We just don't know him.
And no, she gets out. He

gets out of the 21st. I told Adam to Gurney, we didn't even get a chance to kick the tires.
We just said, you're buying the car and you have no choice. And, of course, we bought the car.
But I think all people like a campaign that is reducible to one moment. And I think if this campaign is reducible to one moment, we're in a 65% wrong track country.
The country wants something different. And she's asked, it's so often the case in a friendly audience on The View, how would you be different than Biden? That's the one question that you exist to answer.
All right? That is it. That's the money question.
That's the one you want. That's the one that everybody wants to know to answer to.
And you freeze. You literally freeze and say, well, I can't think of anything.
So we said, 65% want something different. We are just not going to give in to them.
But maybe the odiousness of Trump combined with the Dobbs decision, we can overcome it. Well, we didn't overcome it.
But when we go back and history unearthed this, it's going to be right there on the view. And I think her name was Sonny Houston or whatever.
Ask the question. And that's the most devastating answer you could imagine.
I think that there are some limits to the value of various particular recriminations, given the broad scope of the movement towards Trump. So I want to talk about that a little bit in a second.
But on this minor point of Biden, I think she was also worried about him. I think that he got out, but he got out late.
And it also, to me, felt like that there was still an air of sensitivity around all of it. that people were walking around eggshells.
They didn't want to hurt his feelings rather than what should have happened,

which is him saying, I'm passing the torch. You do what you need to do to win.
I didn't feel like there was a sense of you do what you need to do to win. And I think she was torn a little bit by kind of loyalty and worrying about that.
And I bet you what the answer is going to be and a true answer is going to be

the president people like him okay he has a lot of friends a lot of people really like him right all right she being one and look he gave me my big shot in politics and i'm a loyal person and i just i just couldn't i just couldn't do it i was told to do it and i think she was and I just couldn't bring myself.

And, you know, that's why winning is everything.

Winning, when you have to win, it's more important than loyalty. It is everything.
If you don't win, you have done nothing. Unfortunately, we're finding that out the hard way, but I am sure that when we're told what happened on The View, it's going to be, well, they had given me the answer, but I just couldn't get the words out of my mouth.

That's a very human thing.

But when you're running for president, you're not allowed to have human reactions to the most fundamental question in the election. And is how are you going to be different than what you got and we flubbed it the hardest thing about this for me james is that like i don't know maybe there's some elections where winning is not everything maybe there are times in life where you know doing the moral thing is important or maintaining your integrity or saving yourself for down the line.
But if there was ever a time when winning was everything, it was this time. You're right.
And, you know, we've been in elections and you work for Mitt Romney, if it's Obama, if it's Bob Dole or Clinton. You know, you want to win.
You know, you think you have better ideas. Here is just fundamentally the director of national intelligence says it's his view and people in the whole intelligence that he's being blackmailed by Putin.
Jesus, how bad can you get? But I don't like the price of eggs. Okay.
But we're going to pay dearly for this. I mean, we're really going to pay.
I do want to get into the price of eggs element of this and the inflation. But I had one other thing just kind of about the campaign itself, looking back, that I wanted to talk to you about.
Because the last time we were on, I said to you that one of my worries was I just watched the documentary for the first time. And, you know, it's showing the old clip of the whiteboard.
You know, it's the economy, stupid. What about health care? You know, you're three points on the whiteboard.
First thing was change versus more of the same. We were the more of the same candidate.
Right. We staked out a position to be the more of the same candidate.
And I said to you in that podcast, I was like, what are her three things? Right. If yours is change, it's more of the same.
It's the economy, stupid. And don't forget health care.
What were her three? And I just the big moments were good. The set pieces were good.
The speeches were good. The debates were good.
So I don't want to come off as like overly nitpicky, but like at the narrative level. What were the three things that was something that was sticking in my brain the whole time as a worry that i don't know that regular people knew we doubled down on more to say yeah all right and then the second thing was it actually said the economy's stupid but if i say it's an economy stupid that's fine and we tried to convince people that it was, and it probably was better than it was given credit for, but that's not a case you're going to be able to make in a month.
So we, and healthcare didn't figure into it, but on the two basic fundamentals, we flubbed it. Yeah.
And go to all in by the way she had every advantage with a united party from dick cheney to aoc everybody was whatever you want to do is fine we had more people on the ground we had more volunteers we had more money all right we had more surrogates

but we didn't have a reason in since the dawn of time since the first greek stood in the middle of athens and said this election is a choice all right and we have had every piece of technology and you can imagine print and presses, you know, radio, TV, computer, AI, algorithms. It's still a reason is the most powerful, motivating thing in all of politics.
And you cannot not have a reason and beat it with technology or beat it with volunteers or do that. And that's the overall message here, Tim.
Yeah. A reason.
And she didn't give us a reason. I mean, I guess, in fairness, the reason I think what they would say is, you know, freedom, right? Like we're turning the but it was it was a little surface level it was yes i mean i'm sure they're gonna say well we had a we had a housing plan and that you did yeah great okay the housing plan is number one and if we would have had this process would have had gone through it and we'd have had this this mega level of talent that exists and all of these people would have been different they would have been energetic it would have created a sense of real excitement biden he just blocked all that from happening i'm sorry then he goes on to after the election he says you know we're going we're going to be fine.
I mean, this is Kevin Bacon, like all is well. Calm down.
All is well. Just stay in place.
OK, don't worry. It's all under control.
Don't you love that scene? I do. Animal House.
Yeah. And that's what that's right.
And that's what we're going. We have the Animal Lighthouse coming.
And yeah, I know.

I didn't like it either.

I mean, I know you feel like you want to be the president

and you want to follow the rules,

but there are legitimate things to be worried about.

And I just think sanding down the danger is not really helpful.

The other thing I really wanted to talk to you about,

I mean, thinking about both the movie and your life you know you come from regular folk you know and the democrats the main takeaway from the election if you get out of the political strategist stuff with nitpicking messaging and speeches and whatever tactics like the thematic thing is like the Democrats just did worse across every demographic group.

It is a working class. There's non-college, black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, white, everybody.
Like if you did not have a college degree and are upper middle class, the Democrats lost ground with you that is that seems to me like a like just a massive problem and i just i kind of open-ended question like is it fixable what do you do to fix it like what do you what do you how did how did the party get here so one thing i'm no longer criticized for and people have said wait you know what i did today you're right, James, when I used the term, quote, preachy females, unquote.

Oh, boy. That meant coastal, overeducated lecturing.
But the other thing that happened in my new name for it, I call it identitarianism, but most people refer to it as wokeness we couldn't wash the stench off of us we i mean she didn't embrace it to be fair to her she never used any of that language waltz didn't use it but people were still remembering that in on election day there was a prosecutor in alameda county which you you're a resident of, I think, or used to be for sure. Yeah, used to be.
Which is they recalled her by 30 points because she was an advocate of identitarianism, which is not even popular in Berkeley. Yeah, right.
Okay. I mean, that's how unpopular.
No, San francisco got rid of their mayor got rid of the most obnoxious city council member Oakland got rid of their mayor and still dealing although she didn't no one talks like that anymore the stench of it it's like i tell people you know you clothes you get get fireplace and your clothes smell smoky. Somebody smoking a cigar in the room.
You smoke a cigar. And then you put your shirt on the next morning.
God damn, it stinks. You got to wash it twice.
That's what they did to us. They were cigar smoking our clothes and we couldn't get the smell off.
It was bad. People keep telling me today, well,, I don't like the Republicans, I don't like the Democratic Party.
I don't like all that, you know, bullshit. Well, no one, we did.
It was a mistake. And, you know, I go back and I did that box interview in the spring of 2021.
It was just evident that this was a really dumb, backwards looking NPR idiotic move. And of course, we all came to realize that, but it was too late.
What do they do? I mean, how do you get working people back? So this is what we do. So Crystal piece is is the rallying point all right we're all in an opposition party understand that understand what an opposition party is opposition party by nature has no power so hakim or shimba you know maybe they can get a couple of things that they need, but they're not going to get anything.
So we have to start acting like an opposition party. This is the most radical.
And don't laugh when I tell you this idea. OK, you know how private equity looks to some existing place that has a distribution network, but is a kind of failed company they're going to buy, we ought to take over the DNC.
They have a charter. They have a building.
They have tax-exempt status. They can put people in and put communicators in there and put people there that know how to be part of the opposition and have a research side and crank out the distribution tables on what and settle on a narrative about Trump.
And the narrative that I think should be about Trump is betrayal. That he betrayed you.
Look, you want to offer change. He said he was for the middle class.
He said he was for the working people. He said, and as soon as they do this, you know what they're going to do.
You already know they're going to write the tax code for Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. All right? Get ready for it.
You know it's coming. It's just, you know it.
It's not coming, James. It's not coming, James.
It's already here. I'm just pulling this up here.
Axios this morning we're taping this on friday axios this morning big winners to watch oil and gas crypto and tech firms musk's companies and banks are all poised to benefit from trump's agenda are those the forgotten men yeah i would like to ask the kind of the latino male voted for Trump, was this what you were voting for? Do you think that the banks and all companies and Musk, do you think they lack power? Well, yeah, I didn't like, you know, I liked him. Okay, fine.
And we have to tell him that. and you know people say I'm going my kid is going to I don't know

UCLA

and they want to

be Okay, fine. And we have to tell them that.
And, you know, people say, I'm going to, my kid is going to, I don't know, UCLA and they want to be in the politics. What should they study? They should study the history of the Bible.
Because every message in politics comes right out of the Bible. And the whole Trump people, he's King Cyrus.
He's the strong guy. No, he betrays you.
And betrayal is a big part of the Bible. And as opposed to telling people that they were wrong, which is a hard thing to do, well, you thought he was going to do this and look what he did.
Now you know. And that's the only way, that's the way we come back.
Do the Democrats have, I know that you said they got a bunch of 350 hitters across.

And I think that that's true, especially for the midterm electorate, which is much more college educated.

You know, the type of electorate of people that show up in off-year elections are much more Democratic friendly.

And so I think that they've got a lot of strong bench for midterms.

Do they have a good, do they have a strong bench for talking to the working class people that the parties have? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
I mean, you never see Bashir or Spiro or Westmore or Warnock. I hate just giving names.
Yeah, sure. But do that and you say somebody.
So what they should do, and this is kind of weird, we should have, we did it back in the 80s, we should have a mini convention in the summer of 2026. And we should invite top-tier candidates to speak to the convention and maybe have like a straw poll.
You have to create, you have to show people you have all

of this talent. Okay.
We've got to play an exhibition game or we have to have home run

derby and let these guys come up and just crush, you know, batting practice pitches and hit them

400 feet and let people see that. I mean, let people see that there's help out there.
There's

hope out there. We kept all of these people, Mitch, you know, they would never do this.
He probably wouldn't take it because it's thought to be a dead end job, although in the right set of circumstances, it doesn't have to be. I would make Mitch the chairman of the DNC.
I would have him, you know, going on TV and putting Paul Begala out there on Sunday morning shows as a communications director or something. I mean, somebody that knows how to deliver a message, knows how to frame an argument, knows how to do all the stuff that we weren't able to do in this cycle.
But there's talent out there, dude. We got to have a home run derby.
Let them all speak to a many of fake mini convention and the sum of 2026.

There's just so much Mary in the film.

I have to ask what she think about all this.

Well, you know, she's coming up tomorrow, but I expect she's pretty happy.

But the really interesting backstory of the movie is, is the said, there's two people I have to have, James. I have to have Bill Clinton and I have to have Mary to make this work.
And I said, I can get you, Bill Clinton, but I can't get you, Mary. So he takes her to dinner at Cafe Milano.
And he says he's like, and he's trying to persuade her. And she's, and the actual, the hero of the whole movie is Gore Vidal.
Because Matt, the director, used to work with Gore Vidal at Vanity Fair. And Mary had read all of Goreford Dahl's books and Gordon

Dahl read a really good review of Mary and I wrote a good review of Mary and I's book in uh the New York Review of Books which kind of set the top you know like Goreford Dahl's New York Review of Books that who's gonna so that was the common thing so he gets her to say yes and set out in the Shenandoah Valley.

And he gets to talk for six hours.

But the cameraman didn't have a tripod.

And the guy is sitting there dying, you know, holding the camera up.

And he's like, you know, we got all of this.

And she was spectacular in it.

I mean, just spectacular. She looked great.
I mean, she was very honest sometimes to my detriment. But, you know, and I think it was good for her to get, you know, some of the stuff out.
But the movie would not be the movie without her. Without her, it would have been a pretty good movie.
With her, it's way better than a very good movie. And, I mean know it's a good movie and that being arrogant about it's just it's just it's a good director it's well put together it's well lit it's well edited it's carries a narrative i mean the whole thing but but without mary it doesn't it doesn't work like this at all i agree all right what are your fears what are you? What are you worried about? What are your feelings? Everything.
I don't know about you. I mean, just start with Ukraine.
And I start with like, I don't know, right? Somebody, I'm going to have to sit down with a person to explain to me, the Palestinian mind, that in effect turned over U.S. Middle East policy to Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu.
I don't know how they could possibly think this was a good idea, but they do. That would be the beginning.
So the three, this is November the 8th, I guess, today, the 8th. There are three systems in the Atlantic Basin right now.

There's a Category 3 in the Gulf of Mexico. Fortunately, it's going to go west.
It'll be by the time it gets to Mexico, it will not. But you have a Category 3 on November.
Maybe this is real, but that's just one thing to think about. Climate change, you mean.
Right. And, of course, the corruption that we're getting ready to go through and the consequences of it are going to be just draconian for the country.
And I know this. And the only thing that we can do is we have to be all part of the opposition.
And we have to oppose, oppose, oppose. They got all the power power in the world and they're going to run right over all of the people that voted for them they're going to run right over all of the other people and all we can do is like rally the opposition hold them off get to 2028 so yeah james uh well i didn't want to be in the opposition with you but i'm happy to be in the opposition with you and um we have no choice we have no choice you know it was like the guy that won the bellabonna and he said if there was some way for me to run i would have run i didn't but i didn't know where to go so i just had to shoot everybody well we're gonna do the best we can and we'll keep the combo flowing thanks for uh thanks for always hanging with us and i appreciate your efforts.
Thank you. Go Tigers, man.
Go Tigers. Thanks to James Carville.
Go check out on Max November 14th. His movie, Winning is Everything Stupid.
We'll see you all soon. Peace.
Thank you. All of my tears are in vain I've just lost, lost, lost my mind But in spite of all the wrong things done I just cry all night I just cry I just cry But I still love him With all my heart Never, never, never, baby Did I want to fall But in spite of all

The wrong things done

I just cry

I just cry

But maybe

One day

Before long

You're welcome. But maybe one day Before long

You might decide

To come back home

But until then

I have no relief

You've got me living on

Thank you. I have no relief You've got me living on lonely streets All of my fears are in vain I've just lost, lost, lost my mind But in spite of all the wrong he's done I just cry, I just cry, I cry, cry, cry, cry, cry Cry, cry, cry, cry

The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.