Bill Kristol: He's Not Hiding the Authoritarianism Anymore

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
Today, some Americans take a holiday to honor the worst episode of The Sopranos, but not us. No sleep till inauguration.
I'm here with editor-at-large Bill Kristol, as always, on Monday. Hey, Bill.
Hey, Tim. Great to be with you.
And your voice sounds pretty good for someone who spent, what, three and a half, four hours at the LSU game Saturday night? Well, many more than that if you count the tailgate. At least four hours.
An overtime victory for the Tigers. A beautiful Saturday night in Louisiana.
And my voice is actually a little bit sore also from the way out of the game because, you know, I'm sure a very well-intentioned young fella from Ole Miss did call me the F slur on the way out of the game and it was kind of a mistake for him I think because I don't think he realized that he was attacking a professional podcaster so I was able to turn back around and make him reflect a little bit on on some of the thinking that led to that worldview following very devastating loss in Baton Rouge so it was altogether just a joyous day. I hung out with Mondo Duplantis, another LSU man, best pole vaulter in history.
Just a beautiful evening in Louisiana. Not as beautiful for the Mets, I've heard.
Okay, now we've got the good news over with. Now we can get to the real news.
Yeah. Before we get to the real bit news and the darkness that was your morning newsletter, I feel like we need a little bit of frivolity.
And there was a social media kerfuffle over the weekend that I feel like you might have a unique insight into. And I'll explain why in a second.
But let's first just listen to the offending audio. This is Kamala Harris talking about John McCain at a country over party event over the weekend.
I was in the United States Senate for about four years and and I worked with John McCain and so I'll tell you so there was this we were on a committee together and you know these committee rooms in the United States Senate they're very grand and and very impressive and John McCain was on one side of the dais I was on the other horses, horseshoe, and he's going after me. He's going after me.
We're having some conversation, I think it was about one of the nominees, this is during President Trump's years. He's going after me.
And I'm going back after him. I'm going back after him.
And that was it, and this is what the public saw. And then I step onto the floor of the well of the Senate.

Later that day, we had votes.

And I pass by John McCain.

And he looks at me and he says, kid, come over here.

You're going to make a great senator.

True story.

True story.

Cute story.

Cute story, right, Bill?

Yeah, I think so. Cute story, just nice, friendly, not really any sort of ideological valence.
John McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, didn't find it as cute. She sent this.
Now, I know Democrats want to reinvent history and turn my dad into any illusion you guys need him to be, depending on the political moment you need to bastardize his memory for. But please don't make me start sharing what I remember him actually saying about Kamala Harris.
She sent a series of additional threats after that. And that made me wonder, I guess I don't have this experience, but you do.
You have a famous father. And so I do wonder, I don't know, if J.D.
Vance.D. Vance, like, told a story about how he met Irving Kristol after a, I don't know, after a lecture at Yale one time and how he was a very nice man.
And he said, you're going to be an upstanding young man. Do you think that would turn you to an anger machine that lashes out about how you dare sully your father's memory by telling a cute story about how he was nice? I don't think so.
I hope not. I hope I'd be happy to accept the compliments of my father and let it go at that, even if the person hadn't turned out quite the way I would have liked, or maybe you would have liked, you know, met it years later.
That sounds like a very John McCain, true to life John McCain story. I will add, I mean, that John McCain is perfectly capable of saying to someone, you know, to a younger senator, hey, you'll be a great senator,

and then sort of half-meaning it, you know?

It doesn't quite prove that John McCain 100% thought Kamala,

to be fair, Kamala Harris would be a great senator

and proved that he was a gracious opponent in senatorial jousting.

And I think there's no reason he wouldn't have had a reasonably high opinion.

I suppose one could go back and look in 2017. That must be when that because didn't mccain died in 2018 right and he was not there the last few months and see what you know where they went back and forth a little bit in some senate armed services committee hearing i kind of thought that's what you were going to set up maybe they found that there is no such exchange or something you know terrible fact checking but no no it seemed fine it's a nice story and uh yes john mckin is a human i can also vouch for this that he would occasionally say something nice and gracious in public and then make fun of somebody in private uh including his own staff including people that he's very good friends with he's sort of famous for this so i don't think it's quite the gotcha that megan thought it was even uh even if it were true that uh that he did that at times.
So I don't know. It's a weird place that we're in, though.
The Harris team also has an ad out from John Giles, a mayor of Mesa in Arizona, a Republican endorsing her today. And you really just do have this affability imbalance where the Democrats aren't even really saying that John McCain was great, that they liked his ideology, ideology they're coming around like all they're doing is saying like these guys are nice they want to put country over party i appreciate them i had a good relationship and that is that is causing a lot of magas to really really lash out and be upset and some don't you think some lefties on twitter lash out because how could you say something nice about liz cheney? What about Dick Cheney and Barack and Guantanamo and stuff? It's probably a good place to be if you're getting attacked by MAGA crazies and a few left-wing diehards.
I hope it's a good place to be. We're going to get to that.
We're going to get to our assessment of the race here three weeks out in a second. Beforehand, we've got to take people down you wrote uh this morning for the morning shots newsletter about trump going full bore on authoritarianism trump's midnight in america is the uh is the title i was just at the beginning it's funny you reference the two minutes hate which was from 1984 i guess which you know i read when i was i don't know 15 or something or something.
And this is like one of those cultural references that just gets implanted in your brain that I use, but I kind of didn't even remember where it was from. So I was glad to get a little learning done this morning.
But the two minutes hate is, as you write now, the notable feature of Donald Trump's campaign. and I want to play the most sickening, jarring, disquieting piece of audio from the Two Minutes Hate this weekend.
Here he is with Maria Bargaroma. I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within, not even the people that have come in and destroying our country, or by the way, totally destroying our country, the towns, the villages, they're being inundated.
But i don't think they're the problem in terms of election day i think the bigger problem are the people from within we have some very bad people we have some sick people radical left lunatics and i think they're the and and it should be very easily handled by if necessary by national guard or if really necessary by the military uh because they can't let that happen. Bill? Yeah, I mean, threatening to call out the military against your domestic political opponents.
He doesn't even use the word doing something illegal. I mean, even that would be problematic to use the military, obviously, but it's just his apparently people he considers lunatics he gets to use the military against.
It is almost just a classic definition of authoritarianism. I mean, it's one of many cases where he's told us what he wants to do, and he's not hiding the authoritarianism anymore.
I guess that's what struck me about the last, really everything since the debate. Maybe the last couple of months, it's been going on forever, obviously, to some degree.
But I feel, don't you think that the authoritarianism has intensified, the hatred, the real vicious demonizing of immigrants, the threat to just call out the military against people he doesn't like, the threat to take away broadcast licenses from news programs he doesn't like. I mean, it's just unabashed hatred at this point.
And that's probably worth noticing. It is worth noticing.
I also like the towns and the villages. His mind is cinematic.
He doesn't exist in the exist in the real world really and so like the whole thing it's like kind of what he imagines a strong man would say it's like people don't even really use that word about america anymore like the villages like it's it is european right it's kind of like it is except for the villages in florida but i don't think except for the villages probably not what thinking about. Yeah, no, it is a knockoff of what a European authoritarian fascist would say.

And he's imitating it.

And he's doing it on the stump.

I think the noticeable element of it is the difference, I think, from 2016, which we're about in the period in 2016, the final three weeks, where he really kind of toned it down. Now, he was still Trump, you know, so it was toning down on the Trump scale, like his rhetoric still would have been appalling for any other politician of our lifetime.
But, you know, like they got him on the teleprompter, you know, he was focusing more on, you the forgotten man, that sort of stuff at the end of 2016. And they're not even really doing that this time.
He essentially has, if you just listen to his stated message, it's like a three-pronged message of, we're going to deport all the immigrants. We're not really going to care about what the laws are.
We're going to tariff all these foreign countries to pay for everything we want. And we're going to go after our foes.
Like none of the other, you know, kind of cutting red tape, you know, like more anodyne Republican stuff isn't even in there anymore. And I do think that that's noteworthy.
And yet it's hard for people to deal with. I mean, I heard from a Democratic operative over the weekend who was pretty, like, I hate doing media criticism on here, but it's like, it's pretty astonished at like the lack of focus on that clip, you know, just because it sort of has all become part of like the background noise of his campaign.
Yeah, no, I agree with that point. I also am not a big media critic guy, but it's kind of unbelievable this morning.
Now, to be fair, the Harris campaign could put up an ad with it, right? So, and other outside groups could, and they're not doing what they could be doing, in my opinion, but other people could step forward. I mean, if ever, John Kelly and Jim Mattis, former four-star generals, whose last job, however, were civilian jobs working for Donald Trump.

So they're not, there's no reason they shouldn't speak up about Trump.

And who've made it clear they don't think Trump should be president again. This is the moment, this appeal to the military to intervene in American politics directly is the moment for them to say enough, no way, you can't vote for Trump.
And indeed you need to vote for Harris. We'll see if they arrange to have a little press conference or do a video statement to the next in the next day or two but uh they've certainly passed on other opportunities before but this

would be this would be an even better one the reason i wrote the little piece this morning i

mean there's no big insight in saying it's getting worse and worse and more authoritarian

political had a good piece on the it's getting darker all the anti-immigration stuff but also

i also i was having a conversation with the democratic operative and separately he was

saying i did think trump had probably gained a point in the last couple of weeks and it was

Thank you. all the anti-immigration stuff.
But also, I was having a conversation with the Democratic operative. And separately, he was saying,

I did think Trump had probably gained a point

in the last couple of weeks.

And it was very, very, now it's just dead even.

And Harris's momentum had stalled out.

And we were talking about all various reasons,

things she might have done and other things,

you know, locally happening in different states

and so forth.

And I sort of stepped back after the conversation,

my own mind, and thought,

I mean, Trump is getting worse and worse. And he's not paying a price in the polls.
In fact, he seems to be ticking up in the polls. I mean, in the very weeks in which he has said the most outrageous things, I could go back to the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, and J.D.
Vance, and the refusal to walk away from the big lie in 2020 and the extension of it almost by Vance. This is justified because he didn't like the way the Hunter Biden laptop was dealt with and so forth.
Everything getting worse and paying no price in the polls and maybe gaining a little bit. That's worrisome about the country.
It is worrisome. I appreciated the segment from the Orwell essay, looking back on the Spanish war that you sent.
If you don't mind, I'm going to read some of it back to you because I think it was just very appropriate for the moment, like almost two on the nose, frankly. He wrote, we in England underrate the danger of this kind of thing because our traditions and our past security have given us a sentimental belief that it all comes right in the end and that the thing you most fear never really happens.
Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which right invariably triumphs in the

last chapter, we believe half instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long

run.

That is just extremely on the nose for the mindset of some of the, call them former establishment

Republican types who are, who, you know, I speak to privately about like why there's

not more people doing what Liz is doing.

Let's go. them former establishment Republican types who are who, you know, I speak to privately about like, why there's not more people doing what Liz is doing.
Like that mindset, I think is endemic right now among the elite, but I think also among the voters, I think among a lot of voters, it explains why Trump isn't paying a price, don't you? Yes, very much so. And I think among some Democrats, including maybe senior people in the Harris campaign, who have run a good campaign and I think are mostly doing a good job and certainly are doing, I think, are trying to be responsible and serious.
There's a little bit of an assumption, well, if we just introduce her properly to the American public and take care of some of the problems that she created in 2019 and explain her health care proposals a little better and so forth, you know, that she'll win. And that's kind of how the system has to work because at the end of the day, you know, evil can't, maybe evil can triumph in 2016 because of James Comey and because Hillary Clinton was a particularly bad candidate, but we're not going to have Comey presumably this time.
And Kamala Harris is a better candidate, so we'll be okay. I think in a certain way, the pick of Tim Walz, I mean, we think about it for a second, is in a way emblematic of that too.
You know, we just need to be normal and we'll be, and the world will be okay. And I guess, I do think that's too widespread, that view among elites and certainly among voters who just assume that everything will be fine and they don't have to take anything seriously.
And I think it comes together in the sense, I was talking with someone the other day who said, well, the voters, that's all, there's no point in emphasizing any of this stuff. I was complaining a little that the Harris people aren't making clear how high the stakes are and how serious.
Voters know all that stuff. They're not going to learn anything new.
Hey, I'm not quite so sure how true that is. Do they know that, how would they know that he said what he said yesterday about the military? I mean, it's not, you know, it's not getting huge coverage, as you said.
So, and same, if you go back, they have short memories and all this. So there's a lot that they could be reminded of.
And I do think there's a way in which elites are telling themselves they don't have to talk about this stuff because the voters don't care about it. And voters don't care about it because they're not being forced to sort of remember things they do kind of prefer to forget.

Yeah, this does take us to the Kelly and Madison because I think that Milley is a bit of a different category. I put him in a different category because he never accepted a political role like they did.
That said, the Woodward book now has this section from Millie where I guess it seems like Millie chased him down at a DC party apparently to talk to him about how concerned he is about the Trump authoritarian threat and that he's a fascist he's the biggest danger in the country and that's all well and good talking to Woodward but again to your point like on my little note sheet here before the podcast you know when I have a topic I have a little bold that says audio if we want to play a clip on that topic we don't have that from millie right you know because like he isn't doing that like he just talked to woodward and so maybe it's not it shouldn't be on him maybe it should be on mattis and kelly but even still i do think that like if this stuff is going to penetrate you know it needs to penetrate needs to penetrate beyond people that are reading think pieces about this campaign because those people already know who they're voting for. Yeah, absolutely.
And I do think we are wearing a different hat for Republican voters against Trump. I guess I'll just say Sarah Longwell, and I help out a little.
They're spending $50 million trying to make the Republican case against Trump, which is great. But there are bigger super PACs out there spending much more.
And I don't think they've really – I mean, they could publicize some of this, right? Even if Milley isn't going to say this to the camera, they could put the quote up on screen in a pretty good 30-second ad. I don't get the impression much of that's happening.
Now, look, on the other hand, voters say they want to know more about Harris, and they care about health care care. They care about abortion rights and they're entitled to care about those things.
And if those work, those work. I'm not dogmatic about this at all.
I mean, I was joking with someone over the weekend that if in 1932 advertising against Hitler and the National Socialist Party because of their bad tax ideas or tariffs or, you know, some other failure of I don't know, whatever, you know, some issue like that. If that had worked to keep them out of power, that would have been fine.
You can't be, this isn't a matter of intellectual, like, I like this issue, so everyone should talk about this issue. I do worry, on the other hand, that they're a little too much invested in the, not just Harris, but in a way, all the super PACs, as you say, all the elites in not raising the stakes.
Maybe they will over these last three weeks. Not raising the stakes, just accurately capturing the stakes.
Yeah. And I think that the stakes, Bill, answers another big question that is out there right now among a lot of people.
My friend John Heilman from the circus, who's now at Puck, has basically a to panic or not to panic newsletter out of puck this morning and in that you know he he quotes bob carey uh for center bob carey saying a certain amount of anxiety it turns out is actually good for you fear is a way of keeping you on your toes that's kind of my mindset about this last three weeks i i don't share the view that there is some value in like pretending as if like the polls are all biased against kamala and she's and she's about to win handily. I think that a little bit of anxiety is probably helpful in nudging people either to vote or away from Trump.
That said, I'm curious about your assessment of the state of affairs. You look at the numbers, and the Times had a big takeout this weekend about how she's lagging among black and Hispanic voters.
And then CBS has a poll showing her right at where Biden was among black and Hispanic voters. I feel like about the least suited to judge whether she's losing ground with non-college black and Hispanic voters as I am with any demographic.
It's just like I can just look at the data and it seems like that maybe she's lost a little altitude, but there, again, the CBS poll shows that she's not, and maybe, and I think that's probably a pretty tough demo to get at. So I just wonder what your kind of assessment is on, you know, the panic meter.
So two points on the, I like that Bob Carey line about being anxious doesn't hurt you much. In fact, it helps sometimes.
The little alarm is a good thing. And, you know, as someone who was accused, as someone who was in the bedwetting brigade, when we thought, gee, maybe Biden shouldn't run again for a second term and, you know, Carville and I and others.
And that was the term that I guess Messina or someone used. Yeah, no, it was Plouffe in 08, I think.
Okay. But you know what? Bedwet, I mean, bad wedding isn't a good idea, probably, but being alarmed is not a bad idea.
Yeah, the last thing, I mean, the kind of, let's just reassure everyone that everything's fine. What's the point of that? I mean, it's not going to, and there is an argument that people have used, Rove was a big believer in this, that if it looks like, if you look like you're ahead, your people will be more motivated and will vote, and it's sort of a stampede or bandwagon effect.
I guess there's some truth about that in psychology in general, but I'm not a big believer in that in elections. In 2000, Roe took Bush to California in the last week to really build in that bandwagon effect.
And Gore promptly gained like five points on Bush in the last week, you know, and ended up winning the popular vote. So anyway, so I'm on the alarmed side in terms of how they should portray portray things and i am on the i'm sort of on the neutral to alarm side and analytically i mean i think i talked to a bunch of people over the weekend to try to find out what people were seeing in private polls at the state level and it's pretty much like that leaked republican senatorial committee poll i mean i think people didn't see what the leaked republican senatorial committee poll show essentially it was the one that like had her tied in in Arizona and went...
Yeah, it was dead even, pretty much. It had pretty good news for Democrats in the Senate races, though Republicans closing in a couple of states, and therefore with the possibility of picking up three or four seats.
And some clearly little Republican momentum, I think that's... Anyway, everyone I talk to thinks that.
Especially, it's a little state-by-state. Pennsylvania, actually, Harris seems a little stronger than people expected.
Wisconsin seems to have gone from maybe the strongest of the three blue wall states to the weakest. It was the closest in 2020.
I never understood necessarily why it would be the strongest this time. But anyway, that's such a little level of difference.
You know, we're talking now about one percentage point, two percentage point, margin of error stuff. But clearly, I think Harris went up to about a three-point national lead and maybe is down to more like a two-point national lead now.
And so it's right on the coin flip, the margin of error space. And I don't know who's undecided anymore and how to get to them exactly.
There's so much microanalysis of groups at this point, I would say, especially, honestly, if Black and Hispanics, they're just, there's not that big a part of the electorate. And they are overwhelmingly for Harris.
Now, if they're less overwhelmingly for Harris, of course, that hurts her some. And if blacks go from 90-10 to 80-20, you're losing 10%, 12% of the electorate.
So that's not nothing. On the other hand, there are a lot more white voters than there are of either of those.
And I think there's a little bit of, I argued this Friday, a slightly quirky, I guess. Yeah, the woke Bill Kristol newsletter from Friday.
I received a lot of texts about woke Bill Kristol's finger wagging at whites. Did you? Well, I mean, it's white Americans who are going to elect Trump if anyone does.
But more importantly, this is sort of leaving aside my exasperation of my fellow white Americans, especially white male Americans. Analytically, if you're winning a group 60-40 and you thought you might win at 70-30, that's disappointing.
Still, it's the case that having more of those voters vote is good for you, right? Because you're adding six for every four. You're not losing.
Now, unless the marginal one is worse than 60-40, it gets a little complicated, but it's unlikely to be the case. And therefore, I do think, I hope the Harris team has the turnout operation they sort of have said they have had, and that they have enough money to have in the key states for younger and minority voters.
I do think that ends up being extremely, but I don't think they should overthink this, that we're not going to turn them out because they won't quite be as high a margin as we hoped they would be. I mean, as long as they're above 52, 48, it's worth turning them out.
And I think there's plenty of evidence they're way above that, and very much the case of young voters. But alarming the younger voters, I mean, I guess I come back to that.
Young voters, if they think it's a complicated choice of tax policies and healthcare policies, they'll stay in their college dorm that morning, Tuesday, November 5th, or not vote ahead of time. If they think it's really about the future of the country that they're going to be living in, and that can be made concrete with abortion rights and some other issues, but also more broadly about a liberal democracy, a tolerant country, a decent country, a country in which their friends who are dreamers, who don't get deported and so forth, I think more alarm would help with those marginal voters.
Yeah. And this is where I kind of land on this is my final thought on the panic or not to panic topic.
Like, I mean, the campaign, I think, has been right to pivot to the issues that they pivoted to, you know, focusing on freedom, focusing on abortion, focusing on introducing Harris, like it moved her from down to up. That's just a fundamental fact that happened okay but now we're here and and i think that it's not it's not kamala harris's job to be hair on fire but i do think there's some value in the people around her having hair on fire and like the surrogates doing this and and this was always a harry reed job back in the day for democrats he did this maybe unfairly to mit Romney, you know, in 2012.
But like, people should be fucking scared, because it's scary, like the option. And I think that if you're thinking about the types of people you're trying to get to, if you're nudging people, either to vote who aren't, you know, who don't pay attention to all this stuff, or if you're trying to nudge people away from Trump that don't like him really but are like on the fence about whether to vote for him focusing on the worst case scenario the downside dangers of a trump term and whether they want to risk having four years of him and all the chaos that goes around with it and all the potential downsides from the as you mentioned in the article today like bringing back internment camps and we have mass deportation forces and he's gonna go after his foes with the military and like this is it's madness to even consider this it's madness that we're here talking about this frankly in a 50 50 race and and i think that rattling people's cage a little bit from the outside effort outside the campaign is is probably a useful use of time over the last three weeks.
Because also, it has the benefit of being true. It's not like it's a push granny over the cliff.
No, I think it's really, it does have the benefit of being true. And that's well said.
And my only footnote to that would be, I do think you're absolutely right to give them credit for what they had to do first, which was get her, remove the Biden problem, as it were, or begin again and get it to be a Harris-Trump race with her being, getting her favorables up and the candidate of change. And that's a pretty big accomplishment.
So I take nothing away from the campaign. But as you say, what worked to get her from minus three to plus three may not work to hold her at plus three or get her to plus four or five.
And the way I think about it, I was thinking about it this weekend, talking to someone else about it, too many phone conversations this weekend probably got me too depressed. And it's sort of like now they're focused on, the voters are giving her a B minus, you know, on policy proposals and they're going to work really hard, or C plus, and they're going to work really hard to get her up to a B minus.
It's like, no one is voting on that anymore. You know, I mean, she's gotten above the she's gotten to the level she had to get to.

She's not going to probably change it much in the next three weeks. Maybe she deserves to be a little better thought of, but she's decently well thought of for a candidate who's never been on the ballot before and a ticket that's never been on the ballot before.
They've gotten to where they had to get. Now they need to really remind people what's so disqualifying about Trump.
I concur. If you're not reading between the lines here, if you're looking for a calm harbor in the storm

over the next three weeks, there's some other podcasts in the sea. Let's just put it that way.
Okay. Speaking of reasons not to have calm harbor in the storm, one more piece of audio from Donald Trump in my hometown.
That's not exactly my hometown, but Aurora, Colorado, where I went to high school.

He broke out a new policy proposal in the final three weeks, something that he wants to do in the next term. Let's take a listen to what that is going to be.
I'm announcing today that upon taking office, we will have an Operation Aurora at the federal level. To expedite the removals of these savage gangs.
And I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. Think of that.
1798. This was put there.
1798. That's a long time ago, right? To target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.
I mean, I guess this shows why the Harris not going back message does help when your opponent is going back to 1798 with the Alien Enemies Act, part of the Alien and Sedition Act. You might have learned that in social studies class.
Bill, what do you think about invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798? I guess, I mean, Steve Miller must be a big fan of those acts. I would think he is.
And he must have told Trump about it. It would be funny to ask, who was president when that act was signed? I mean, it's like Trump obviously's from so obvious he has no idea, but it's such a cartoonish thing,

right?

They were tough back then.

And my staff tells me there was something called with alien in the title.

So that was aliens are bad.

And so these acts, which are really viewed as discreditable and a real stain on the historical reputation of John Adams, which have never been enforced, actually, Jefferson became

president and said he wouldn't.

Now he's reviving that. Some con law type told me it's not even relevant to what he wants to do

with deportation, which unfortunately he can do without invoking the Alien and Sedition Acts.

But Trump is like, he's in favor of everything in American history that we were taught to think was

a black mark on America, something we had finally gotten beyond, right? I mean,

whether it's the Alien and Sedition Acts, the betrayal of Black Americans after Reconstruction, nativism, Japanese internment, America First, McCarthyism, conspiracism, there are, I'm sure, other things I haven't thought of, you know? I mean, just all these things that we think of as, look, we're a country like any other. have flaws and and are susceptible to to weaknesses and prejudice and demagoguery but mostly we've overcome these or move towards overcoming these and trump just kind of that's what making making america great again turns out to be let's sort of embrace every part of the authoritarian heritage we have which luckily we've mostly rejected either at the time or later and have overcome, but that's kind of what he admires.
I mean, America First, I guess, is the most stunning example of that, I think, just because he literally embraces this phrase that was justly so discredited. Yeah.
And it almost certainly was Stephen Miller, because in that same rally, Miller was the opening act, which is just like, I mean, you have brown shirt Stephen Miller out there, like screaming about immigrants, migrants, and they like pictures of migrants. He's like, you want these guys to be your neighbor? And like that is like a little nasally Nazi voice.
Again, I think this ties back to your to your newsletter this morning. It's like they aren hiding it it isn't subtle and it's like if you're trying to put a softer face on maga or trumpism like steven miller's not the face you know but he was out there as trump's opening act with the big pictures of hispanics with you know face tattoos on the screen that's the closing message from that it is is.
And again, as I say, it would be nicer if

one had some impression that voters were

seeing that and thinking, oh no, that's

a bridge too far.

That was used to keep our ancestors out

or that was used for Japanese internments or that

was used for

massive discrimination against minority

groups in the past. That's not what we

want to go back to. I agree.

We're not going back. It was a good message from the start.
It had a lot of energy and ride it through. We're not going back to 1798.
I do think also that the TikTok influencers out there listening, I think that videos of Stephen Miller are good. I know it's probably not, you know, you're like, oh, well, who cares? Nobody cares who the advisor is.
And he's just such a uniquely unappealing figure, like just in his visage and

the way that he talks and his message and everything about him. And I just, I don't know,

there's something about having him there that you look at Trump and Trump's like such a fool

and affable in his own way, you know, with the jokes and the attempts at comedy. And it's like,

no, this freak show is going to be the person in charge of the immigration regime in this country.

I think that might be an effective message to the aforementioned college kids that are trying to decide whether or not to get off the couch in Madison. Like, do you really want the worst person in your high school class to be in charge of the immigration regime? I think that's probably a pretty decently effective message.
Last thing on the thing Kamala was pushing over the weekend was something Carville and I talked about last week. Just want to bring it up again.
I kind of like the pressuring Trump to release his medical records. Trump lashed back out saying that she should take an IQ test, which is, I don't know, I think this is an okay exchange to get into.
Yeah, or a little frivolous for you. Carville wanted to bring it up because he thinks that Trump has syphilis.
Several doctors messaged me afterwards to say that, well, they appreciate Carville's theory. Whatever the thing we said about the skin was not exactly evidence of syphilis, but who knows? It's something worth throwing out there.
So on health records, look, that could move some voters. It's not crazy.
He's 78 years old. Here's another issue, and Carville is also a fan of this one.
Carville has good political judgment. So the debates issue, you know, Harris has accepted the debate.
Trump's not debating. I think she should taunt him on that.
It'll get under his skin. And again, I think a certain type of voter, not an unreasonable voter, can say, look, I'm not sure what I think of these two, but one of them seems willing to debate.
The other one isn't. So again, if you can pick up a few votes that way, that's fine too.
Concur. All right.
Final topic. You had Jason Furman on the Crystal Conversations.
If people don't listen to Crystal Conversations, you can go check them out on your podcast or YouTube feed of choice. And a little bit more stately than the conversations we have over here.
But I love Jason Furman as a guest. And so I just wanted to kind of give you the floor to any big takeaways on state of economy and kind of how people are experiencing the economy as we head into voting time.
I mean, he was Obama's head of Council of Economic Advisors, but a very moderate Democrat, actually. And he teaches the huge introductory economics course at Harvard, which, unlike most undergraduate classes at Harvard, they actually put a lot of thought and investment into making it a good course.
I think they care. I think it may be the largest.
In my day, it was the largest course at Harvard, and probably second now to computer sciences. He's a very good teacher.
And he lays out very clearly, and I think pretty unpolemically, what Harris's economic plan might produce and what Trump's might produce and harris as he puts it

as well less of the same it's sort of biden biden without the dramatic stuff he did at the beginning because of the pandemic and actually jason thinks a little more business friendly perhaps than biden harris doesn't have that kind of labor background that that biden has but basically a similar mainstream her brother-in-law is a is an uber executive this is why i'm always like right Really? She's a Marxist?

Yeah.

She came out of silicon valley yeah she came out of san francisco but she also came out of silicon valley like she knows all these guys anyway right her husband is a you know corporate lawyer and stuff so yeah anyway so she she's mainstream democratic for you know for better or worse some people don't like that it's too mainstream but i think it. Trump is risky for all kinds of reasons.
Some of it is the budget busting tax cuts and just promising everything to everyone. That you can probably survive.
It's not great policy. But I think the best part of the conversation is on tariffs, which people's eyes glaze over.
And the polling shows tariffs are mildly popular, actually. So I think the Harris campaign has been a little shy of really attacking Trump on it.
And again, maybe they're right, you can't educate people about economics in two or three weeks of a campaign. And so maybe just leave that alone.
But honestly, he really seems to be committed to the tariff policies, and they would really be bad. I mean, that's just a flat out increase in prices on imported goods, which makes up a decent chunk of what people are buying in stores.
And so people would just lose that amount of money. They would spend more on things they're buying.
And you could have reciprocal trade wars, obviously. And Smoot-Hawley, the last big across the board tariff hike in 1930, did contribute appreciably, people think, to the depression.
People think, but real serious economists have studied this. And so that's really risky.
And he didn't do a lot of what he said he would do in the first term. The Gary Cohns of the world were there checking him.
But that gets to the issue of the second term not being like the first term, which ties back to the earlier point about the alarm. That's one reason I think Americans aren't so alarmed as they could be, because they've seen it for four years, and it was kind of crazy, but it wasn't, didn't destroy the country.
Second term will be, you know, Steve Miller, all Steve Miller, and no Gary Cohn, no H.R. McMaster, no Jim Mattis, and people need to take the, so I think tariffs could do real damage, and I think at least, I don't know, I kind of feel like that could be more of an issue for business types, and maybe for the Harris campaign itself to push against Trump.
How risky Trump's economic policies are. He benefits from being viewed as a business guy.
He won't do anything to endanger the economy. But the single core proposal that he's talked about the most is the riskiest proposal that he has.
And it really would endanger our economic well-being. Yeah.
And I do think that's worthwhile. I mean, I understand the point of view that says, okay, tariffs are hard to explain.
You don't need to educate people. If Harris is running ads during the Michigan-Ohio state game or whatever, if you're mass communicating, arguing about tariffs is probably not a winner.
But this is a useful, I think, endeavor for surrogates and getting people into the high income former republican class and that it would be a would be an issue for mit romney if he decided to do the right thing and put out a statement right like trying to just get into the water at the wall street journal on neil cabuto show people go on the neil cabuto show on fox you know and just like you know, maybe trying to talk some of these like remaining high income, high education, you know, business oriented Republican guys, just getting them off Trump, right? It's like, you guys do not like, this is the thing that he is serious about. I think that is an important message, like playing that clip of I don't need Congress, I'm going to do it, it's going to be 1000% tariff.
That audience, you're not educating them. They understand what tariffs are.
And can you move them on the margin? I think that's a worthwhile message for the last three weeks, getting that to sink in, that he's serious about this and he's going to do it. All right, Bill.
Well, that's been wonderful. I'm glad.
It sounds like I gave you a little bit of joy over the weekend while you were calling people and listening to polls and worrying about authoritarianism and reading old Orwell essays. You also took a break to watch a couple episodes of Hacks and get a few laughs.
So I'm glad that I gave you that little bit of joy. You did.
We had this conversation. It was a couple of weeks ago where I was pro slow horses and you were pro Hacks.
And so Susan and I started watching Hacks. And it's funny.
Yeah, it's very funny. Not that I don't want to sound surprised that your taste would be good in such things but no i mean you know maybe it would have been a little bit offbeat for you you know are you getting are you getting all of the drag puns like probably not like there might be a couple jokes moving over your head yeah yeah next time i watch i'll i'll text you in real time as you know i need explanations if i didn't quite get that line there what's that what's that really what is poppers what's that really about and then there's the Mets in the in the in the championship and they they of course the huge victory last week and that was exciting and they they've they've lulled the Dodgers to complacency by losing 9-0 last night but they'll be fine and uh and so we'll get them at Mets in the World Series that'll be great God.
God willing. You need it.
You need some Mets joy in your life.

I got the Tigers.

You need a little Mets joy in your life.

All right.

Thanks to Bill Crystal.

We'll be back tomorrow.

We got a favorite of the pod and then a little bonus segment with somebody I got into a Twitter feud with.

People love when Twitter feuds come to audio.

So you'll get a double dip tomorrow.

Hope you all enjoy it.

Enjoy your holiday if you're taking a holiday today.

And we'll see you back here on Tuesday.

Peace. Coke nose and a pretty sound Alright, make it quick Good songs make you rich Bad feeling, it'll pass Good boys coming last bet Go by my side Popping pills on the fly Go grave when I die I came by to see I just had to know Don't put the body in the bayou Who left the tracks on the road Told me, act your age That's why she's underage Said her papa hates the federal age And when he drinks too much he smacks her face Alright, make it quick Good songs make you rich Bad feeling in the past Good boys coming last back Girl by my side Popping pills on the fly, go great when I die.

I came by to sleep.

I just had to go. Who put the body in the body? Who left the tracks on the road? The Borg Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.