Bob Woodward: The Threat Is High

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Speaker 7 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 9 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 5 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 8 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 10 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 4 One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 8 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 1 Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
I'm just honored to be here today with investigative journalist and author of the latest book, War, which was released this week.

Speaker 1 He shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for his work at the Washington Post, one for coverage of the Watergate scandal, of course, and the other for the 9-11 attacks. It's Bob Woodward.

Speaker 1 Bob, welcome to the Bulwark Podcast.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 1 I want to spend most of this discussion talking about your reporting about Donald Trump. We are the Never Trumper podcast, of course.

Speaker 1 But first, I want to get into a couple of the items of the Ukraine, because you really have some astonishing new revelations about the Biden administration's work there.

Speaker 1 One in particular, there have been critics of the Biden administration from the right, including some on this podcast, who argued that they let the Putin nuclear threat deter them from pushing for more aggressive action from Ukraine.

Speaker 1 And your reporting sheds some light on why that may have been and just how serious the nuclear threat actually was. So I'd love to hear you talk about about that.

Speaker 11 I think if you look at what is really important that's going on, it is what I call the silent shadow of nuclear weapons. And

Speaker 11 it gets to

Speaker 11 the point where there are threats. Ah, we're going to use tactical nuclear weapons.
And so, that's something that the Biden administration needs to deal with as a way of deterring it and stopping it.

Speaker 11 Big deal. If in the White House, they very much know that if

Speaker 11 any kind of tactical or any nuclear weapon is used while Biden's president, that

Speaker 11 not only stains the presidency, but it will define it. So they do everything they can to stop it.

Speaker 1 You know, the book shows on multiple parts just how good the intelligence actually was about the coming Putin invasion.

Speaker 1 And I think that also weighs on their judgment, right, on the nuclear weapon question, because they consider it to be about a 50-50 proposition, you report at one point that Putin's thinking about using it.

Speaker 11 Yes, at one point, it went through kind of a five,

Speaker 11 these are intelligence assessments, which are the best they have. It started with a 5%

Speaker 11 likelihood and finally became a 50%.

Speaker 11 And in the White House, in the National Security Council, they realized that 50%

Speaker 11 reduces it to a coin flip. The idea that tactical nuclear weapons could be used in this war was quite frankly frightening and the deputy national security advisor John Feiner

Speaker 11 in kind of assessing the emotional level of what they were dealing with and the strategic level, realized that this is what it must have been like in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, there was discussion and scuttlebut about this, obviously, in the news and in the daily kind of coverage of events.

Speaker 1 How close they felt like it was, I think, was not really appreciated broadly.

Speaker 1 And you tell one story in particular about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's conversation with his counterpart on this question. Why don't you talk about that?

Speaker 11 Yes, I mean, what Lloyd Austin does is

Speaker 11 calls, I think this is in 2022, when the worries were greatest, and calls his counterpart, the defense minister in Russia, Shogu, and says, we know you are contemplating the use of a tactical nuclear weapon.

Speaker 11 Don't do it. And in the book, I have the verbatim, and you see

Speaker 11 the intensity and actually the sophistication of the argument of why not to do this

Speaker 11 and that it will change the world. And the risk is much greater than was publicly known.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 People should go check it out. The transcript you have have of the Austin Exchange is really could have been out of the movie Air Force One or something.

Speaker 1 It was very theatrical.

Speaker 11 I think I have it here. Because what's important about this, it was confrontational.
So, Austin, Secretary of Defense, who kind of in the book, we learn much more about him.

Speaker 11 And Austin says to Shogu, we know you're contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine and goes through the information and consequences.

Speaker 11 Shogu says, because he looks at this as it is a threat, I don't take kindly to being threatened. Austin says, Mr.
Minister, I am the leader of the most powerful military. in the history of the world.

Speaker 11 I don't make threats. That's about as steamy as it can get in terms of these high-level communications and the stakes and risks.

Speaker 1 No doubt. There's one other

Speaker 1 critique of the Biden administration that you get from the hawkish part of the right, not the Trumpish part of the right, that may have seemed to have a little bit more salience, I think, than the nuclear critique.

Speaker 1 And that was that the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal did impact Putin's thinking about invading Ukraine. And it seems like your reporting indicates that that was probably true.

Speaker 11 Yes, and it's very obvious because it shows a weakness, a lack of coordination, and just a national embarrassment for the country and for the Biden administration.

Speaker 1 Yeah. One other issue from this Ukraine period I wanted to talk to you about a little bit before we get to Donald was the vice president's role in warning Zelensky before the invasion.

Speaker 1 And again, this has been reported on, and you know, always in these situations, it's kind of of hard to tell, is the PR team puffing up the principal? How much really happened?

Speaker 1 How intimately was she involved? And the color that you provide, I think, shows, it's quite striking, frankly, about how, about the vice president's role in warning Zelensky about the coming invasion.

Speaker 11 I'd like to hear you talk about that. What I get had have first-hand witnesses or notes or documents, because you're right, things can be puffed up.
I think this was a case where it was not puffed up.

Speaker 11 Do I have the transcript of that or some of it? Where she goes and sees Zelensky and tells him, you know,

Speaker 11 you may not survive. Prepare.
I mean, this is

Speaker 11 the leader. of Ukraine, Zelensky, a Churchillian figure now.

Speaker 11 And the vice president says, you know, it is really pushing it.

Speaker 11 And you can see this is not just a pro forma, paint-by-numbers exchange because Zelinsky finally looked at Harris directly and said, what do you want me to do?

Speaker 11 He's acknowledging maybe I'm going to have to act.

Speaker 1 Right. We have it.
We have it. I just wanted to acknowledge the Harris exchange.

Speaker 1 I want to move on. Obviously, we've gotten the most attention on the Trump section of the book.
And I want to start with the Trump-Putin relationship, which you write about a lot.

Speaker 1 And the thing that's gotten the most attention, I think, is the potential that they have still been talking in the post-presidency.

Speaker 1 And you report that there's a staffer who says that they've talked up to seven times. That staffer was outside the room at one point or shushed out of the room, shooed out of the room, rather.

Speaker 1 I guess I wonder, you've dealt with these guys so much. What is your sense of that? Like, is your sense of that that it's really happening, or could they be lying about it? What do you think?

Speaker 11 Well, of course, they could be lying. They are willing to lie about it.

Speaker 1 They're liars, so we have that problem.

Speaker 11 But Trump asked about it, said, Oh, I don't comment on things like that, which is kind of strange.

Speaker 11 He comments on anything he wants to comment on, and then goes further and says, If I did it, that would be a good thing, which is a kind of acknowledgement.

Speaker 11 I feel and conclude from my reporting that there obviously is some sort of relationship between Trump and Putin. It's easy to lose sight of this.

Speaker 11 What Putin's done in his invasion of Ukraine, this is what Hitler did in the 30s with Poland. I mean, it really is raw effort.
at territorial conquest, of taking over this country.

Speaker 11 And it's done in a very savage way. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.
And if you dig into this, what's the rationale? As far as Putin's concerned, Ukraine does not exist.

Speaker 11 It belongs to him. It belongs to Russia.
And there is no ambiguity about that.

Speaker 11 I think one of the important points, and I'm sorry to keep going to the documentation, but the documentation is what this is about.

Speaker 11 And for Trump to say, as he did yesterday, if I did it, it's a smart thing.

Speaker 11 Now, I have in the book a direct quote from CIA Director Bill Burns telling what the CIA assessment is

Speaker 11 of what Putin does. Quote, Putin manipulates.
He's professionally trained to do do that. Putin's got a plan, as he did when Trump was in office, at playing Trump.

Speaker 11 This is all orchestrated by Putin in Putin and Russian interest.

Speaker 11 What is really important to understand, Trump's willingness to be manipulated and controlled by Putin is staggering. Again, Putin is the Hitler of our century.

Speaker 11 He is the one who has invaded another country, tried to take it over. Currently is not going as well as it should because it turns out that Ukraine occupies, I think, latest 93 villages in Russia.
So

Speaker 11 Putin's ambition is overextended here or at great risk.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the other person you quote on this topic of their relationship, Trump and Putin, in the book is Dan Coates, Trump's own director of national intelligence, who called the relationship an enigma.

Speaker 1 And he said, is it blackmail? He wondered if it was blackmail. I don't understand how his own director of national intelligence would not know what was happening in the relationship.

Speaker 11 Well, Coates, who for two and a half years was Trump's director of national intelligence, all the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, sees this.

Speaker 11 They don't have all the information, but he sees it, you know, this is so strange. It is so subservient on Trump's part.

Speaker 11 He actually asks, when I discussed this with Coates several months ago, he said, is this blackmail?

Speaker 11 Other words, is Trump being blackmailed?

Speaker 1 I mean, that is wild. I don't think that has really sunk in for the public yet, that his own director of national intelligence suspects he might be getting blackmailed.
It's not a Democrat.

Speaker 1 This is not some crazy liberal commentator. It's his own director of national intelligence that suspects that.

Speaker 11 And one of the very important elements in all of this is to understand

Speaker 11 how good our intelligence is.

Speaker 11 As I report in the book, at one point, the United States has a human source in the Kremlin, that the electronic and technical intelligence is never perfect, but it's much greater.

Speaker 11 So when they get into seeing

Speaker 11 war plans, it's not something that's just partial. It's a complete laydown.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It also sheds into a different light the question about the classified documents. I know you're reporting, not speculating, but again, he's maybe having these calls.

Speaker 1 He has these classified documents, and his own director of national intelligence is worried that there might be a blackmail situation. At minimum, I think it raises additional questions about that.

Speaker 11 Yes, everything Trump does, he swims in questions and doubt. So, if you pull back and try to think who is he, he was president.

Speaker 11 I spent the year 2020, his last year of his presidency, talking to, I think I interviewed him 19 times for nine hours. This is the year of COVID.

Speaker 11 And when it's all laid out, it's frightening. Trump was warned when there was one COVID case in the United States.

Speaker 11 by his own national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, coming in saying this

Speaker 11 is from our intelligence. This is coming to the United States and it is going to overwhelm the country and 650,000 people will likely die.
And Trump had this kind of extraordinary warning.

Speaker 11 And this goes to a characteristic of Trump, which is really important, I think sometimes not fully understood. He does not even understand

Speaker 11 his own interest as president, carrying out the responsibility. You get this kind of warning and you, it's not hard.
Just go to the public and you say, I've got this warning.

Speaker 11 It comes from very good sources. We're going to take it seriously.
We are going to plan. I once asked him what's the job of the president.
He said to protect the public.

Speaker 11 I'm going to protect the public. Instead, that whole year, he waffled and dodged.
One of the most remarkable interviews I had with him that year was July 20th, 2020.

Speaker 11 Turned out to be the last interview. And all year, I'm learning from the doctors how bad the coronavirus is.
The numbers in the country are piling up. And on July 20th, I said, Mr.

Speaker 11 President, 140,000 people have died from this virus already. All he had to do was warn the public.
And he keeps saying, no, no, it's going to go away. It's going to be fine.

Speaker 11 As I had asked before, but I ask again, what's the plan? What are you going to do?

Speaker 11 And this is one of those interviews with the sitting president where your head kind of spins.

Speaker 11 And he said, oh, don't worry. I'll have a plan in 106 days.
What?

Speaker 11 106 days. I realize

Speaker 11 that's election day.

Speaker 11 He's worried about the election in 106 days.

Speaker 11 Psychiatrists will be able to have a field day with this. Why would somebody with his extraordinary authority as president not act,

Speaker 11 not plan? Somehow got this idea that this is going to go away and that he can have a plan in 106 days.

Speaker 11 This is like somebody sitting in their house and there's a fire and somebody suggests, well, we better call 9-11, but let's wait 106 days.

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 11 inconceivable, irresponsible. Yeah.

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Speaker 7 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 9 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 5 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 8 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 10 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 4 One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 8 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 1 And he has this combination of just recklessness, irresponsibility, and malice. And that takes us to the other kind of reveal from the book about Millie.

Speaker 1 You paint this picture of being at a reception at the Willard. Been to many of those, kind of formal receptions.

Speaker 1 And he comes up to you and talks about how Trump is fascist.

Speaker 11 General Millie, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, number one military man.

Speaker 1 So this is in 2023.

Speaker 1 That has to be jarring for you. On the one hand, it is clearly a very dramatic scene in the book.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, I guess my question is, if he believes what he's saying to you about the danger and how big of a fascist he is to the core,

Speaker 1 why is he saying this at the Willard, at a reception? Doesn't it require more from people like that? Mattis was also at this reception, apparently.

Speaker 11 Yes, but obviously there are levels of alarm and this was

Speaker 11 much higher. And he literally said, we got to talk.
He says, I had talked, reminded me, didn't need to, that we had talked about Trump's mental decline.

Speaker 11 But here, General Milley says, no, Trump is the most dangerous person in the world. He is an absolute fascist.
For a military general to make this assessment of the commander-in-chief is

Speaker 11 all the alarm bells going off.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And you say that Mattis is also at this same reception.
Mattis, in a separate part in the book, talks about his fear of Trump's recklessness.

Speaker 1 Again, we're back to the nuclear question with nuclear issues with North Korea and kind of his brinksmanship before the love letters started with him and Kim Jong-un.

Speaker 1 So I just wonder: have you had additional conversations with Mattis about it beyond what is in the book, or do you have anything to share about your conversations that are in the book with the former Defense Secretary?

Speaker 11 Well, I a couple of days ago got an email from General Mattis

Speaker 11 saying he thinks the book is important.

Speaker 11 He believes it's true. It was the strongest endorsement.
Maybe I'll put it on the back of the paperback.

Speaker 11 Because General Mattis is somebody, a general, became defense secretary, somebody as respected in the military, national security world as anyone.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Did you take that as an endorsement of kind of the warnings about Trump in the book?

Speaker 11 Yes. Oh, certainly.

Speaker 11 And an endorsement of this process of trying to explicitly say, Let's make sure

Speaker 11 we don't try to downplay the threat

Speaker 11 because the threat is high. And of course, now Trump has the Republican nomination.

Speaker 1 Yeah, more than that. We were talking about the nuclear coin flip earlier.
We have an electoral coin flip here.

Speaker 1 Before I let you go, we have to put this in the context of Nixon, of course, given your background. So I just had two questions for you about that.
One about the Trump and Nixon comparison.

Speaker 1 You write that Trump is far worse than Nixon. He's the most reckless and impulsive president of American history.

Speaker 1 I just would be interested in your sense about the similarities or differences between the two men.

Speaker 11 Nixon, of course, got caught and eventually resigned when all of his crimes were exposed. And Nixon has disappeared into history by history and by the public

Speaker 11 that he disgraced the presidency, he disgraced himself, he broke the law.

Speaker 11 The reason Trump is worse, Nixon resigned, didn't run again, went around the country in the world giving speeches, but was never a political possibility.

Speaker 11 Now Trump is more than a political possibility. He is running again.

Speaker 11 He is seeking the same office and trying to summarize what's the problem with Trump other than these details. He lacks two things, which we see time and time again.
He doesn't have a plan.

Speaker 11 It is very, well, I think I'll say this today, I'll say that tomorrow. There's no kind of, I'm trying to talk about what I would do, what the plan would be.
He does not have a team.

Speaker 11 I know from having editors and people I work with, you do all of these things as a team. Trump has no team.

Speaker 11 You certainly can't do national security alone.

Speaker 11 And that's what he does. He just look at the things he says each day.
There's no real kind of goal. It's just this came into my mind.
And you cannot run. I've written about 10 presidents.

Speaker 11 over the last 52 years.

Speaker 11 The presidency is an office with extraordinary power, but you can't do it alone. Look at Joe Biden's, you know, who's done some, I think, important things, made some mistakes indeed.

Speaker 11 But Biden has a national security team. You see this in the book operating.

Speaker 11 Jake Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, Bill Burns, the CIA director, Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, the top cabinet officer, Lloyd Austin, the Defense Secretary.

Speaker 11 You see these people working together as a team with a common purpose. And tell me who's in Trump's team.
He does not have one. People might appear, but then disappear.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's a good insight. All right, my final question.
Since this is, we're the home of the Never Trumpers, the few who resisted and left left the party over him.

Speaker 1 The parallels, it's just so astonishing.

Speaker 1 And it was before my time, but like if you look back at the number of Republicans that spoke out against Nixon, I just would like to hear you kind of reflect on that and how different it was kind of following your revelations.

Speaker 1 There was maybe a little bit of a lag, but eventually many Republicans did the right thing, really, following the Nixon revelations. We didn't see that this time.
So I'd just love to hear you.

Speaker 11 Exemplify

Speaker 11 in the case of Nixon by Barry Goldwater.

Speaker 11 Nixon met with the Republican leaders and Barry Goldwater, the conscience of the conservatives, the Republican senator, his colleagues in the meeting with Nixon said, we asked Barry to speak for us.

Speaker 11 And Barry in the Oval Office with Nixon.

Speaker 11 said, because Nixon asked, what support do I have? And Goldwater says, Mr. President, I've counted.
You have five votes if there is an impeachment trial. And that's not enough.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 that means

Speaker 11 you're going. And Nixon did resign.
Now we see in the Republican Party this avalanche of support. and backing for Trump.

Speaker 1 If only we'd had Barry Goldwater instead of Mitch McConnell, we might not be in a coin-flip situation.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much to Bob Woodward. Everybody, go buy the book.
It is war. It was a real honor to have you on the Bullwork podcast.
And for everybody else, stick around.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give a little analysis of Kamala's interview on Fox last night. Thanks so much, Bob.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 12 Noticed unwanted facial volume loss after GLP-1 weight loss? The weight came off, but volume loss and dull, sagging skin are making you look older.

Speaker 12 Now you can reclaim your youthful-looking appearance. Learn more at faceafterweightloss.com.
That's faceafterweightloss.com.

Speaker 7 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 9 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 5 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal. Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 8 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 10 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 4 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 8 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 1 All right, what a great conversation with Bob Woodward. It was a real honor and treat for me to be able to have that exchange with him.

Speaker 1 But also wanted to talk to you guys about a couple of high-profile interviews last night.

Speaker 1 Kamala Harris talking to Brett Baer on Fox and Donald Trump's town hall on Univision and a few things that really jumped out at me that I felt like we needed to go over.

Speaker 1 Starting with Fox, what was so strong about this interview for Kamala Harris was her ability to parry back at Brett Baer.

Speaker 1 I felt like when she was in a fighting stance during this interview, it led to her best moments. And I wanted to pull out one in particular.

Speaker 1 It's going to be a long clip, but it's worth watching this whole exchange and the way that Brett tries this gross gotcha on Kamala Harris about how

Speaker 1 that she's down-talking Trump voters or something, but based on no evidence. Like he tries to bait her into a deplorables moment.

Speaker 1 And rather than getting baited into the deplorables moment, Kamala Harris just totally turns the tables on him

Speaker 1 and finishes with a righteous, righteous screed about how Fox has treated Donald Trump and and how the American people should really be looking at this campaign so I want to play the full clip of a multi-part back and forth between Brett Baer and Kamala Harris

Speaker 14 if he's as bad as you say that half of this country is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States why is that happening this is an election for president of the United States it's not supposed to be easy.

Speaker 14 I know, but it's not easy to eat.

Speaker 15 It's not supposed to be.

Speaker 15 It is not supposed to be a case of the people.

Speaker 14 Are they misguided, the 50%?

Speaker 14 Are they stupid?

Speaker 15 I would never say that about the American people.

Speaker 15 And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He's the one who talks about an enemy

Speaker 15 within, an enemy within, talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.

Speaker 14 We asked that question to the former president today, Harris Faulkner, at a town hall, and this is how he responded.

Speaker 16 I heard about that. They were saying I was like threatening.
I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening.
They do phony investigations.

Speaker 16 I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. He was the greatest yank.
No, it's true.

Speaker 16 But think of it. It's called weaponization of government.
It's a terrible thing.

Speaker 15 Brett, I'm sorry, and with all due respect, that clip was not what he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated when he's speaking about the American people.

Speaker 15 That's not what you just showed.

Speaker 11 He was asked to say that.

Speaker 15 No, no, no, that's not what you just showed.

Speaker 11 In all fairness and respect to you.

Speaker 15 He didn't show that. And here's the bottom line.
He has repeated it many times. And you and I both know that.

Speaker 15 And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest.

Speaker 15 He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy.

Speaker 15 And in a democracy, the President of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it.

Speaker 15 And this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a threat to the United States of America.

Speaker 14 He's quoted in the Bob Woodward book that way, yes.

Speaker 1 This is really where she shines because

Speaker 1 what you had there was Brett trying to make this about one thing. This is classic media training.
Kamalair is saying, no.

Speaker 1 We're going to make this about the real thing, not what you want to talk about. We are going to talk about how how Donald Trump wants to turn the military against the American people.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk about how you're saying that I'm down talking the Trump voters.

Speaker 1 No, it's my opponent that is talking about the enemy within using despicable language about our fellow Americans that would have been unimaginable from any major party nominee.

Speaker 1 during my lifetime or my parents' lifetime. I guess maybe not going back to Nixon at least, having just talked to Woodward, but in the post-Nixon era, unimaginable.

Speaker 1 And even Nixon wouldn't have done this in public, right? Nixon, this was more of his private behavior.

Speaker 1 Like to publicly talk about the enemy within and say that the American people are worse than Putin, who's kidnapping children in Ukraine, worse than she, who's running a Uyghur genocide.

Speaker 1 I mean, it is just appalling language by Donald Trump. And Kamala Harris gets right into that.
Then she expands on the point. The attack is not just about language, right?

Speaker 1 The attack is about what he plans to do and what Mark Billy, as we just talked about with Woodward, has said he's worried about.

Speaker 1 Trump's own chairman of the Joint Chiefs is worried about his fascistic tendencies, his willingness to target the American people using the military.

Speaker 1 So she gets into the substance of the threat as well, and then most deliciously, just totally exposes Fox.

Speaker 1 You know, while Brett has this clip ready of Donald Trump doing this typical toss salad nonsense talk, like trying to, you you know, wiggle out of his own rhetoric.

Speaker 1 And, you know, even Brett has to smirk. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see even Brett has to smirk when she calls him on this because he like he kind of knows he got got.

Speaker 1 Because it's like, you can't do this and say, oh, come on, harris, you're saying he uses the enemy within, but here's what he said on this softball interview we gave him six hours ago that was much less salacious.

Speaker 1 It's like, no, no, he said it over and over again. Several times he's made explicitly clear.
He's talking about the American people, not about migrants, not about foreign threats.

Speaker 1 He's talking about American citizens that he disagrees with politically. His rhetoric and his plans on that are unacceptable.
So that was the highlight for me of the Fox interview.

Speaker 1 On balance, on net, some of the K-Hive people got a little mad at me on Twitter for saying this. I thought it was like net net neutral.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, hopefully there were some Brett Baer viewing Nikki Haley voters that she reassured.

Speaker 1 There are other parts of that interview, I think, particularly, obviously, we knew this was going to happen. Fox spends like the first almost half of the interview about immigration.

Speaker 1 Her answers to immigration are fine. They're totally acceptable.
She had no gaffes, no, like, oh my gosh, this is terrible moments.

Speaker 1 But, you know, if you're sitting there watching it and immigration is your top issue, you know, I mean, she's not telling you what you want to hear.

Speaker 1 And there are times, you know, her, you know, kind of she gets into talking point mode, which is good. You're in Fox, you got to get into talking point mode.

Speaker 1 But again, if you're looking for, you know, some kind of reassurance, if you're a Nikki Haley voter, there are a few topics where maybe she didn't give you what you were looking for.

Speaker 1 She's got a big coalition she's trying to hold together. So that's understandable.
So, you know, on balance, hopefully there was some reassurance of some Nikki Haley voters.

Speaker 1 Maybe I think a slight positive, maybe it was a little unfair to say on net net it was neutral, but you know, this was not a game changer.

Speaker 1 You know, my colleague Mark Caputo tweeted earlier, do you remember that big story from politics last week? And even I was like, what's he talking about?

Speaker 1 And he was like making a point about how a lot of this stuff just kind of washes away. You know, if you look at the polls, things have been very static in this race for six weeks now.

Speaker 1 And so I don't expect that this Fox interview is going to change the static nature of this race. That's kind of what I meant about it being net net neutral.

Speaker 1 But that said, Unbound's good for her to go in there. I think it puts more pressure on Trump also, which is useful in the last three weeks.

Speaker 1 Trump's been staying cocooned in his safe spaces, canceling all challenging interviews.

Speaker 1 I think if you're making this case that he's too risky, that he's sundowning, that he's losing his marbles, that he wants to turn the military on people, do you really want, you know, a dementia-riddled old man with an itchy trigger finger in this job for four years?

Speaker 1 You know, it helps to, I think, make the contrast that she's capable of doing this. He's not.
So I was happy that she did it.

Speaker 1 And I guess my only other comment is, I do wish they'd be a little bit more aggressive about calling Trump's bluff about a Fox debate.

Speaker 1 I know there are competing views on this, but my view is kind of like, I'd rather debate Trump than Brett Baer. I think Trump's an easier opponent than Brett Baer.

Speaker 1 So I think that's at least worth considering here for the final stretch. Lastly, I did a short on this over on YouTube, and I'll be talking about it today, I think, later with Nicole Wallace as well.

Speaker 1 But Trump once did something he did at the debate that I feel like I have an ear for,

Speaker 1 and I want to keep pointing out, which is he was talking in this Univision town hall about, he gets questioned by a former Republican, great question, by the way, about January 6th and Mike Pence and

Speaker 1 his lack of support for Trump and how that makes this former Republican uneasy.

Speaker 1 And so he asked Trump then about January 6th, and Trump then gets into his shtick about January 6th and starts talking about Ashley Babbitt.

Speaker 1 And then he says, they say all these things about the people that were there peacefully and patriotic that day, but like, we didn't have any guns. They had guns.
And then he says, we again.

Speaker 1 Actually, I'll just play a little clip from it.

Speaker 13 Nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong.
And action was taken, strong action. Ashley Babbitt was killed.
Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there.
We didn't have guns.

Speaker 13 The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down.

Speaker 1 All right, so there it is. We,

Speaker 1 we. He did this as a debate.
He did it again in this Univision Town Hall. And I think it's important to just drill down on this.
This is how Trump thinks about January 6th.

Speaker 1 The we is the people attacking the cops. The they that had the guns are the Capitol police defending the Capitol.

Speaker 1 And I just think that should be very chilling for anybody that knows Trump is bad, but is on the fence about voting for him because of their vestigial status as a Republican or policies or whatever.

Speaker 1 It's like, do you really want to put a man in the White House who considers the we the people charging the Capitol and the they the people defending the Capitol? It's something to really sit with.

Speaker 1 Anyway, thank you to Bob Woodward. Tomorrow's pod.
We are live in Philly tonight. I've got George Conway.
I've got Sarah Matthews. We've got the Bulwark team.

Speaker 1 We'll have the best of it for you tomorrow. And come on out and see us if you're near Philly on Thursday night, Pittsburgh, Friday night, Detroit on Saturday night.

Speaker 1 We'll be live streaming Philly on YouTube this evening, Thursday night. So make sure to check that out as well.
We'll see you all back here soon.

Speaker 11 Peace.

Speaker 11 that goal

Speaker 11 I hardly slept the night you well

Speaker 11 our secrets safe and still well care

Speaker 11 where even Richard Nixon has got soul

Speaker 11 even Richard Nixon has got it

Speaker 11 so

Speaker 11 Hospitals have made him cry, but there's always a freeway in his eye.

Speaker 11 This beach just got too crowded for a stroll.

Speaker 11 Roads stretch out like healthy veins,

Speaker 11 and wild-gift horses strain the reins

Speaker 11 where even Richard Nixon has got sold.

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