Amanda Carpenter: A Life or Death Bet

Speaker 1 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovny, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny, infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 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 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

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Speaker 3 Hello, and welcome to the Boulder Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, and thank God I've got Amanda Carpenter here today.
I'm going to need her.

Speaker 3 She's a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, a cross-partisan group dedicated to defeating the authoritarian threat. She used to be my colleague here at the bulwark.

Speaker 3 She's also the co-author of Protect Democracy's report, the authoritarian playbook for 2025 that looks at Project 2025. So we're going to talk about that quite a bit.

Speaker 3 But, you know, I think we got to talk about the press conference first. How are you doing, Amanda? I'm doing pretty well.

Speaker 4 I think it's more important to see. how you're doing this morning after watching the press conference.

Speaker 3 Not great. I have to say, I know that this is supposed to be the place where we kind of remind each other that we're not the crazy ones to borrow a phrase, but I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind.

Speaker 3 Just with the response to that press conference last night, I feel like I'm losing my mind. And, you know, so maybe you can be my bulwark, my anchor that brings me back to sanity today.

Speaker 3 So let's just start first with

Speaker 3 what were your big picture impressions?

Speaker 4 Well, you know, listening to it without getting into all the questions about his.

Speaker 4 no need to do the figure skating judging side of things just fundamentally how do you think his message was i really felt appreciative for this position that he has taken on ukraine and he's saying all the right things like it's hard to listen to but like he is saying all the right things and so what i wish were happening is that other Democrats would show the appreciation for how he's steered the ship thus far when it comes to standing up for democracy.

Speaker 4 Like Like he's saying all the things that we talk about constantly about how Trump represents an authoritarian threat and he's bringing together their allies.

Speaker 4 And so without thinking too much about the big question, I had a lot of appreciation.

Speaker 3 Well, that's good. So I'm happy.
And so I want you to keep trying. I want you to help me feel appreciation.

Speaker 3 I know that this is supposed to be a situation where I interview you, but since we're old pals, I feel like I'm going to be talking about

Speaker 4 this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I want to hear what you're

Speaker 3 going to figure out where we are going from here. Yeah, and this topic, I got to vent a little bit because maybe some of the listeners didn't punish themselves for the press conference last night.

Speaker 3 I just want to pull one clip from it. Are you thinking that way about how the next two weeks go? Will that affect your decision?

Speaker 3 Or are you fully determined on running in November as the party's nominee?

Speaker 5 I'm determined on running, but I think it's important that

Speaker 5 I allay fears by

Speaker 5 let them see me out there. Let me see them out.
You know, for the longest time it was, you know, Biden's not prepared to sit with us on scripted. Biden's not prepared to, you know, anyway.

Speaker 5 And so, what I'm doing is, and I've been doing, I think we've done over 20 major events from Wisconsin to North Carolina to anyway, to demonstrate that I'm going out in the areas where we think we can win, where we can persuade people to move our way, or people are already there.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 I just need you to sit there and just

Speaker 3 smile at me for a second. Try to send me calming energy

Speaker 3 while I give my views on this. Because

Speaker 3 there are other clips, though I think that's pretty representative of the kind of pacing and tone that he had and messaging and thought fragments and the anyways.

Speaker 3 And we had Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC last night saying you've never seen a more masterful televised presidential press conference on foreign policy than President Biden gave tonight.

Speaker 3 I'm like, what are we grading this on? The stakes here are that we need somebody that can beat Trump. So if you're going to grade this on, did Joe Biden seem like he had dementia last night?

Speaker 3 I would say, oh, no. Like it was true that he answered foreign policy questions with some depth.

Speaker 3 He demonstrated that he knew the players, that, you know, that he understood, you know, kind of how the map works together and like the how China and Russia play off each other. It was pretty good.

Speaker 3 It was fine.

Speaker 3 I I don't think it was the most masterful thing I've ever heard about foreign policy.

Speaker 3 I don't know that it was more masterful than what you hear on Shield of the Republic here on the bulwark every weekend.

Speaker 3 It was fine, or what George H.W. Bush or others would say about foreign policy, it was okay.
So that's what we're grading him on. Like, does he seem like he has dementia?

Speaker 3 It seems like no, right? And I think that, I mean, that's good. There's some people out there that think were worried that he couldn't do the job of president right now.

Speaker 3 That, you know, there were some rumors, some, you know, gossip mongering out there about him, that he's, you know, that they're at the weekend at Bernie's thing. Like, it's not weekend of Bernie's.

Speaker 3 So that's good. But is that really what we're grading him on right now? Like, what we need is somebody that can beat Trump.
And that audio that I just played, it's not coherent.

Speaker 3 Like, it is, he doesn't have a message.

Speaker 3 He can't speak clearly and enunciate the stakes and the contrast and why he would be better and why Donald Trump would be worse. You know, we've done some media training in our days, right, Amanda?

Speaker 3 People, you know, some

Speaker 3 normals might say to me, well, tell him what they were. He wasn't asked about that.
It's like, that's the first thing you train the candidate to do, right?

Speaker 3 Like, you get asked by a reporter, your campaign sucks, the polls suck.

Speaker 3 You satisfy that question and then you steer it to why, actually, what's more important here is that Donald Trump fucking sucks and he wants to be an autocrat.

Speaker 3 And I'm the one standing in his way and I'm going to take it to him. And the American people deserve somebody better than Donald Trump.
But like, he doesn't do that. Yeah.
Right.

Speaker 4 Here's the problem about the situation that we are all in. It's not just that Joe Biden finds himself in.

Speaker 4 The fact that we are judging his potential candidacy on one press conference is kind of bananas. Additionally, we are being told that that was a masterful performance.

Speaker 4 Like even if it was, accept that idea. That doesn't make the bad performance go away.
And so if people want to go forward with this, you have to be willing to accept his worst, right?

Speaker 4 Because that will probably happen again. And what was weird this morning is that I heard Ron Clain on Morning Joe promise, use the word, I promise, he will be better at the next debate.

Speaker 4 There won't be a repeat performance of the first one. Factually, that is not a promise that anyone can make for Biden.

Speaker 4 That is not a promise that Biden can make for Biden, because if he was going to show up better, he would have the first time.

Speaker 4 And so, like, if you're going to go forward, don't have this fanciful idea that everything will be perfect from now on, right? Like, that's the first problem.

Speaker 4 The second problem is that the damage is done. The polling is the polling.
A press conference isn't going to change the polling that came about from the first bad debate.

Speaker 4 And so this kind of waffling and promising things will get better, I think, isn't being realistic with people.

Speaker 3 And I love Ron Clain, and I love his passion and he's fighting for his guy.

Speaker 3 And I think that he actually was a good influence on Biden in the first administration in a lot of ways, you know, based on my understanding of getting him to focus more on inflation and on pocketbook issues, in addition to the democracy questions.

Speaker 3 I love Ron Clinton. This is not like a personal attack on him, but it's like, not only can he not make that promise that Joe Biden will be better in September, but it's like unfair to all of us.

Speaker 3 It's unfair to the American people, given the stakes, to like pretend you can make that promise, right? Because

Speaker 3 that's where we're going. We're making a life or death bet on 81-year-old Joe Biden doing better next time?

Speaker 3 When the pressure is going to be higher than the pressure that any politician has ever had in any debate, really, honestly, in American history?

Speaker 3 I mean, maybe the 1960 debate, but going back to the televised debates, going back to Kennedy Nixon,

Speaker 3 there will not be a higher stakes debate than that, than the one in September. And it's like, you promised that he's going to be better? Okay.

Speaker 3 But like, I didn't see last night somebody that was demonstrating that they can go toe-to-toe to trump and make strong arguments he had one good moment i thought during the press conference one the very end an hour in by the way he he you know said that his vice president is trump and that zelensky is putin i don't even really care about those two gaffes but it's worth mentioning that you know on tick tock those have millions of views right now and his like long answer to david sanger about the you know russo sino relationship is not going to have the same amount of reach so it's just worth being honest with ourselves about that actually let's just listen to what I thought was Joe Biden's best moment from the press conference last night.

Speaker 5 Control guns, not girls. I mean, the idea we're sitting around, this is where combo is so good as well.
We're sitting around. More children

Speaker 5 are killed by a bullet than any other cause of death. The United States of America.
What the hell are we doing?

Speaker 5 What are we doing?

Speaker 5 We've got a candidate saying, promise the NRA, don't worry, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to do anything.

Speaker 5 We've got a Supreme Court that is what you might call the most conservative court in American history.

Speaker 5 This is ridiculous. There's so much we can do still.
And I'm determined to get it done.

Speaker 3 Okay. I was angry Joe Biden saying they want to control girls, not guns, right?

Speaker 3 Like, and that's a good message.

Speaker 3 Is it his core message of this campaign? I probably wouldn't be the one that I would pick, but at least you saw vigor and energy. And it's like, these fuckers want to let

Speaker 3 schools get shot up. And meanwhile, they want to control the choices of young women that were raped by their uncle.
All right, that's a good contrast. And he delivered it okay.

Speaker 3 You know, there needs to be so much more of that if you're going to try to win people back. I just didn't see somebody that was up for that.
So anyway, do you have any other final thoughts on that?

Speaker 4 Not final thoughts, but more questions for you. Like, I understand

Speaker 4 that do you don't think Joe Biden is fit, but procedurally, like, how do you want this to be unwound?

Speaker 4 Because there's going to be many more discussions about this over the weekend. You know, this is essentially a make or break time for him.

Speaker 4 So, if you are advocating that Biden be replaced, what is your ideal process for doing so? There's a competitive thing.

Speaker 4 There's like maybe, you know, ahead of this virtual roll call they're going to have that the delegates all get on board behind someone else. Like, what is your ideal scenario?

Speaker 4 And I think we need to walk through those in order to make like an informed decision to take a position to promote.

Speaker 3 That's all. Yeah.
All right. Just to be clear, I think that he's fit to be the president right now.

Speaker 3 There is a category of people. I think even a Democrat, Marie Gluzen-Kam-Perez, who I like.
I had her on the podcast a while back, said that she thinks he should step down as president.

Speaker 3 I think that was going overkill.

Speaker 3 I think that's kind of based on these. anonymous source stories.
I don't know. The man did not look like somebody last night that couldn't be the president right now.

Speaker 3 I mean, he managed the NATO meeting. You know, the other leaders clearly have some worries about Trump and worries about whether he's fit for this campaign.

Speaker 4 Okay, so in your world, like, what does he say to say, okay, I am withdrawing my candidacy for president, but I intend to fulfill my term because X, Y.

Speaker 4 Like, what is the story that he tells people to make this okay? And so it's not some big cover-up conspiracy.

Speaker 3 I know it's tough.

Speaker 3 And I think it's particularly tough because of the messaging that they've put on this right now, that like the people want him and and the elites are trying to push him out, which is just not true.

Speaker 3 Right. Like there was a poll that came out.
I don't have it in front of me. So I forget if it was Pew or YouGov.

Speaker 3 They're asking people, you know, do you want both candidates to drop out one or the other? And,

Speaker 3 you know, all the Democrats want Trump to drop out, same. But there were more Republicans that wanted Biden to stay in than Democrats.

Speaker 3 So like this notion that like grassroots Democrats really want Biden to stay in is just belied by the data. So anyway,

Speaker 3 what I would like to see in my imaginary world is Joe Biden to say, hey, look, I said I was going to pass the torch. I've heard from the Democratic base.
I've heard from the American people.

Speaker 3 You know, there are concerns that I'm going to be able to do this job in four years. I'm confident that I can do this job right now.
You saw it with NATO. You've seen me act.

Speaker 3 But I think it is time for the Democratic Party to go another direction.

Speaker 3 And then the question is: does he then endorse the vice president or leave it open for a short process where the delegates decide? I'm open to either of those.

Speaker 3 I think we've seen the vice president in the last week, and she was on fire last night. And Kamala Harris was

Speaker 3 really good in driving the negative contrast messages and prosecuting the case against Project 2025 in Greensboro yesterday.

Speaker 3 Joe Biden, I don't think, mentioned Project 2025 during the press conference.

Speaker 3 I don't know that he ever, he mentioned it once in a video they put out on social media, but I don't think he ever has mentioned it extemporaneously. I think that she would be better.

Speaker 3 I don't think any of these options are a slam dunk. I think that there are worries about Kamala in the blue wall.

Speaker 3 If the Democrats need to win these older white voters, is putting in a black woman the best option? Maybe not.

Speaker 3 I get that concern. That sucks, that that is a consideration.
But then I think that there should be a process and the delegates would decide. We did this for all of our history.
Up until 1968.

Speaker 3 This is how parties

Speaker 3 chose their nominee. So I got, anyway, I don't know.
What's your take on what a process would look like if you did decide to step?

Speaker 4 Yeah, there's essentially three different options, right? So the first option is sort of what what you outlined in that Biden withdraws his candidacy and everyone coalesces behind Harris

Speaker 4 without sort of a question. And they go into the convention intending to nominate her.
And it's a very smooth, controlled process. That is the first option.

Speaker 4 The second option is sort of the open convention where 4,000 delegates vote and it goes back and forth. Who knows who's going to run for it? There's lots of potential for chaos.

Speaker 4 And then the third option, which is not the best one at all, is that Biden is nominated.

Speaker 4 He does lock this up, does have some kind of event, and he has to be withdrawn from the ballot after the convention, which gets very complicated for ballot access reasons.

Speaker 4 But we can go through the mechanics of all these options. But the most important thing to know is that this thing has to be locked.
by the end of August.

Speaker 4 After the end of August, there's essentially no going back because once the nomination is made, the states start printing ballots, that becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to unwind and would most certainly be open to some kind of legal challenge.

Speaker 4 The Heritage Foundation has already said they intend to challenge it. So you're just opening up Pandora's box of options.

Speaker 4 So what that means practically is that the party has to get behind a strategy like in the next few weeks.

Speaker 3 And there's been some discussion of a virtual roll call even before.

Speaker 4 Yeah. So there's this idea, there is a virtual roll call vote that has been set up to address a ballot issue that no longer exists in Ohio anymore.
And so they're going to get on a call.

Speaker 4 And so if you were looking for this smooth, controlled option, theoretically, there could be a vote by the delegates to nominate someone else ahead of the actual convention.

Speaker 4 And that can be all smooth, controlled, easy if that switch was going to be made.

Speaker 4 But just one thing that I learned looking into this is that if there is a switch that has to be made after the convention, or let's say they do this virtual roll call vote and Biden locks it up and then they actually nominate him earlier.

Speaker 4 Let's say he has a medical event sometime after he is formally nominated. At that point,

Speaker 3 there is hyperventilating here over here. Keep going.

Speaker 4 At that point, there's no potential for any kind of new primary. There's not even potential for delegates to vote.

Speaker 4 At that point, the DNC chair consults Democratic leadership and they select a nominee.

Speaker 3 And his name is still on the ballot. That is the weirdest thing.
There are these folks that want to tamp down this discussion of what an open convention would look like online.

Speaker 3 And there are all these viral posts going around about how

Speaker 3 if they removed Biden now, there would be all these ballot access issues, which is totally wrong, which is like the opposite of what is true, right?

Speaker 3 Like the ballot access doesn't become an issue until after the convention.

Speaker 4 Or the roll call vote and he's formally nominated. It gets a little tricky, but yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So to me, it's like if you're worried about ballot access issues, you shouldn't be because there isn't really anything to be concerned about as things stand.

Speaker 3 Like the only potential risk if you're just doing a risk assessment is that Biden has a health event between August and November. Correct.
I don't think that that's what's happening.

Speaker 3 And look, any of us can have a health event at any time. He's 81.
He's a higher risk for it.

Speaker 3 If Democrats that are deciding what to do about this, leading Democrats, you know, your Chucks and Nancy's, are basing this on whether they think he has dementia, then he's going going to be the nominee because, like, he, he seems perfectly, he seems like an elderly man that, you know, still has control of his faculties.

Speaker 3 But the question is, is that the best path given the fact that 70, 80% of the country thinks that he's too old to be president? It seems like no to me.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just as a side note, I wish Nancy Pelosi would speak a little bit more about her decision to step down from the speakership in light of this.

Speaker 4 I mean, like, she made a very responsible, good decision to step down, no longer be speecher, pass the torch down. It was very effective.
Everybody got on board. It was a smooth transition.

Speaker 4 It seems to be working really well. Maybe that strategy, method, her decision-making behind that should be discussed a little bit more.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we're in your hands, Nancy. And I think that she could make a compelling case to him for it, having just done it.

Speaker 3 I just, I had to get that off my chest. I'm sorry, Amanda.

Speaker 4 No, no, it's okay.

Speaker 4 No, but here's my thing is if we're going to be talking about this, as many Democrats are, just want people to be very informed about how this looks and how it goes down and how time really is of the essence.

Speaker 4 And you almost have a gift that the RNC will be happening next week and all the attention will be on Donald Trump and who he selects as VP.

Speaker 4 That buys the Democrats some time to really think about the options and make the most responsible decision they can and really get on board with it.

Speaker 4 Because again, this thing is locked in August and there's no going back.

Speaker 3 I think it should be a sign that that it's not the best path of every interview. Everyone has to watch with bated breath.
Like, maybe we could find a nominee that that wasn't the case for.

Speaker 4 And you know, the thing that really sucks for Joe Biden, though, is that he has always had verbal flubs throughout his career. And I'm not talking about the stutter.
Like, he misspeaks, he's goofy.

Speaker 4 It's you guys and corn pop and all this stuff. And now, every time, you know, he mentions corn pop, people are going to think he's hallucinating.
So it's just, it's bad.

Speaker 3 Corn pop story, I think, was true.

Speaker 3 I love corn pop. I love folksy Joe Biden.
I want to see folksy Joe Biden. He feels defensive and angry, not folksy.
Like, I don't mind the verbal flubs. As I said, the,

Speaker 3 yeah, you know, we all cringed when he said vice president Trump, but I do that. Like on this podcast, sometimes I say Trump when I mean Biden.

Speaker 3 I think whoever was on the podcast yesterday, I can remember who was on the podcast yesterday. So, you know, you see how these things go.

Speaker 3 David French or Ezra, one of them said Trump when they meant Biden in the last couple of days. Like that just happens, right? So that's not my problem.

Speaker 3 Like my problem is that he has to be able to win people back that have decided that he's too old.

Speaker 3 He has to be able to make a case against Donald Trump and remind people what they don't like about Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 Because right now, all the polls show that voters remember Trump more fondly than Biden. So he's got to change the dynamic.
And so just like

Speaker 3 not having dementia is not enough to change the dynamic. I need more.
I need a message. I would like to see a proactive message.

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Speaker 1 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carrise Van Houten.

Speaker 1 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 1 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 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family? What lengths will he go to? One thing's for sure: the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

Speaker 1 Watch Malice, all episodes now streaming exclusively on Prime Video.

Speaker 3 Okay, some of the people that are mad, some of the Democrats that are mad about the media and us and everybody that is talking too much about joe biden is like why don't you talk more about about the donald trump's flaws in this and and some of that is kind of eye-rolly because you know this podcast was literally talking about donald trump's flaws every day for like like literally a decade all i've done is talk about

Speaker 3 okay but there is one element of that criticism that i agree with and that is this

Speaker 3 donald trump has not done a press conference

Speaker 3 I literally can't remember. I think it was January was the last one that he did.

Speaker 3 He doesn't gaggle. He doesn't take hard questions from people.
You know, so we're all watching Joe Biden go through all that last night.

Speaker 3 And I do think that the media, who I'm talking about when I'm talking about the media right now, is not the commentariat and the pundits that everybody likes to make fun of.

Speaker 3 It is like the actual reporters that are on this campaign beat. I think that there should be a bigger drumbeat going after Trump.
about this.

Speaker 3 What's your take on how Trump has kind of avoided scrutiny during this?

Speaker 4 I mean, I have a different gripe. It's not that I want him to be doing like press conferences and sit-down interviews with people.
It's the idea that he gives rallies all the time.

Speaker 4 He talks about specific positions. He's crazy, makes crazy promises.
And it's like, people just like, we don't cover those anymore. We don't listen to them anymore.

Speaker 4 And the big thing, you know, Axios this week, it's new tone season, right? Everybody's like, oh, he'll present a new tone at the RNC convention. They're going to have this sanitized version.

Speaker 4 It's like, what are you talking about? He says crazy stuff at his rallies every week.

Speaker 4 He was in Dorrell, Florida, I think on Tuesday, talking about how he's going to investigate this and that and, you know, promising to do the biggest deportation rate in history, you know, all the greatest hits.

Speaker 4 He's saying it all the time. And then when it comes to like all this Project 2025 stuff, which I've been looking into for a long time, it's radical, it's crazy, it's off the chain, yes to all that.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 You don't want to have to play connect the dots between the Trump campaign and Project 2025 and make like this map of like Kerry Matheson, like staking it out and see what how Heritage is going to program him is because he has told us over and over specifically.

Speaker 4 Like, you don't have to go through every plank of their 900-page document to see what he's going to do because he has it on his own campaign website. It's called Agenda 47.
It's right there.

Speaker 4 And so I don't understand why people haven't given his own words the scrutiny that everyone now wants to give Project 2025 and say, you know, Russ votes doing this plank or that and who's running the Republican platform.

Speaker 4 It doesn't matter. The Republican platform does not matter.
They don't even, they didn't even have one the last election. What he has said he is going to do, that's the plan.
That's the mandate.

Speaker 4 That's the promise for the second term. And so that's my rant about that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it does drive me crazy. I did a YouTube video on this week about if you watch the Dural speech, there are these kind of two Trumps, right?

Speaker 3 Like there is a Trump that has kind of a savvy anti-Biden message

Speaker 3 over the course of the 90 minutes that is what I think that the Biden team could use. But then there's like all of the, you know, insane stuff that he's doing.

Speaker 3 Like he shouted out Laura Loomer from the stage. Laura Loomer.
Like somebody that is an unapologetic Islamophobe, somebody that has said that she wants a white ethnostate.

Speaker 3 She got a shout out from the guy leading.

Speaker 3 to be the next president. I mean, could you just, it's just, that is my immediate, that is the mediatorism I think is fair coming from left.

Speaker 4 That's sort of the problem, though, right?

Speaker 3 Like, he, his speeches are long.

Speaker 4 Like, I've listened to a lot of them. I've transcribed them.

Speaker 3 I've clip-noted.

Speaker 4 They are a beast to go through. And I think he just wears people down.
They're like, oh, there he goes again.

Speaker 4 And they kind of tune in, see what's new at the top of the speech, and then just kind of give a pass to the Laurel Loomer stuff, which is just, it's just bad. Which is insane.

Speaker 3 And I'm not, I'm not worn down. I'm not worn down.
I might feel like I'm the crazy one today, but I'm not worn down.

Speaker 3 Cause it's just like if Jeb, you know, if one of your candidates had shouted out an unapologetic white nationalist who advances conspiracy theories about how school shootings are false flags from stage, like that would have derailed our campaign for weeks.

Speaker 3 It's all any reporter would have asked us about. And like Trump is getting away with that stuff and he shouldn't.
And the fact I do think that a lot of the media is worn down and they shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 He also, like his social media feed, I just pulled it up. Crazy Nancy Pelosi is more of a cognitive mess than sleepy crooked Joe.
She also suffers from Trump derangement syndrome.

Speaker 3 she's a total nut job i like it just it goes on and on i mean it's just like this is not a new tone there's no new tone he hasn't calmed down you guys just you guys are just like frogs boiling in water okay please stop is it the reason that he's not on twitter like we've all done this but is the reason they don't pay attention to it now is because it's just not in their phone 24 7 like does it not exist because it's not on twitter like is that really the mechanism for driving hard to download truth social yeah if you're a reporter or a pundit it's not hard to download it and just i know it's not pleasant to have it on your phone.

Speaker 3 I don't like having it on my phone, but you just scroll once a day. See what he says.
It's crazy. It's not like you have to do investigative reporting to do it.

Speaker 3 One more thing about Trump, because it just sunk in. Somebody posted this.
That he's about to get intelligence briefings.

Speaker 3 Like starting next week, maybe, maybe in two weeks.

Speaker 4 Oh, so weird that he just met with Orban, who just met with Putin. That's weird.

Speaker 3 Okay, yeah. How are we here that the man that attempted a coup and is under federal investigation is going to get top secret intelligence briefings? How are we here, Amanda?

Speaker 4 That's the question. Does that coincide with his intelligence briefing coming up?

Speaker 3 The Russian stooge in Hungary is doing a thumbs up picture with Trump. Like, there should be a five-alarm fire around this.
And there also should be a Democratic candidate.

Speaker 3 I'm doing Joe Biden's whisper now. And there also should be a Democratic candidate that can carry that message.

Speaker 4 Yes to that, but that doesn't impede other Democrats from doing it. There's nothing stopping other people from booking themselves on Fox News and going to town.

Speaker 3 I do hope that the RNC convention next week will focus people's minds a little bit on some of this stuff. You can do both.
We can do two things.

Speaker 3 We can be worried about Joe Biden and talk about how fucking insane it is that an insurrectionist is going to start getting top secret classified briefings again.

Speaker 3 All right, on the Project 2025 part, I agree with you about using things out of Trump's own mouth.

Speaker 3 And that's why I thought that Von Hilliard, who is doing a good job actually on the Trump beat, unlike some of the others,

Speaker 3 he went back and re-watched a Trump speech from 2022. And I want to play a little bit from it.

Speaker 11 Our country is going to hell. The critical job of institutions such as Heritage is to lay the groundwork.
And Heritage does such an incredible job at that.

Speaker 11 This is a great group, and they're going to lay the groundwork and detailed plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America.

Speaker 11 And that's coming. That's coming.

Speaker 3 They're going to lay the groundwork in the detailed plans.

Speaker 3 Pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward.

Speaker 4 And then, like I was saying before, and then if you look at his speeches, there was a time through the, I believe the fall of 2022, right when he launched, when he was really trying to win over

Speaker 4 people and show that he could be like disciplined on policy. Right.
Like, this is how a lot of this came together. There was a lot of things happening that led to Project 2025.

Speaker 4 Number one, you had a lot of former Trump staffers who are out of work at Heritage at all these conservative think tank type groups trying to figure out,

Speaker 4 given the fact, they all know, they all admit to themselves that the first days of the first Trump term were pretty much a disaster. They didn't expect to win.
They came in.

Speaker 4 They didn't have a game plan. And so given how things ended, they needed a way to get everyone back on the same page to say, okay, if he's going to be the nominee again, let's get a plan together.

Speaker 4 And Trump was willing to adopt it because he was still trying to campaign for to get the Republican nomination again. And so this is why he's doing events like this.

Speaker 4 This is why there's so much overlap between, again, what he has specifically promised and the planks in that plan, like the specific ways he has pledged to,

Speaker 4 like when it comes to the Department of Education, investigate schools and teachers who use DEI, that is straight out of the Heritage Playbook. But credit it to Trump.
Like, he's the one who said it.

Speaker 4 He's the one who's promising to do it.

Speaker 3 No, I think using his own word is an important part of this. The other thing, since we last spoke on the podcast, we're talking about Project 2025, was before the SCOTUS ruling.

Speaker 3 And so to me, I really thought that, you know, obviously everybody was focused on the immunity ruling's impact on his trials and his current trials. And that's serious.

Speaker 3 And of course, I hope he's held accountable and I'm concerned about that. But we talked about this a little bit with David French yesterday, and I want to get your view on it.

Speaker 3 To me, like the most ominous part about the immunity ruling is how it ties in to all of this stuff that you've been talking about and that we've been talking about about Agenda 47 and Project 2025, which is that we don't know exactly which one of these terrible planks, terrible, like authoritarian, you know, executive power planks the new Schedule F staffers will try to implement.

Speaker 3 But if they try to do extra legal stuff, if they try to do stuff that is outside the bounds of the federal government, targeting local schools, targeting migrants, you know, going outside the letter of the law, now

Speaker 3 I think that they will all feel even more empowered to do so because Trump has immunity for official acts. So, you know, even if somebody came after them, he could pardon them.
Right.

Speaker 4 So when you talk to people about Project 2025 and Trump's promises, people accept that these plans exist. They accept that Trump wants to do it.

Speaker 4 But I've seen polling that shows they don't believe he is capable of doing it, right? Like that's

Speaker 4 the check. They think, oh, yeah, he wants to do that.
He didn't do it the first time around, so he won't do it the second time around.

Speaker 4 Like you saw this essentially like represented by the op-ed that Jared Golden wrote. He essentially democracy would be fine if Trump wins because the institutions will hold.

Speaker 4 Well, you have to walk through this. And what people should think about Trump's second-term promises as is a systematic plan to gut checks and balances.
That is what Project 2025 is really all about.

Speaker 4 That is his philosophy. That is what everything coalesces behind.

Speaker 4 And so the fact that he won the immunity ruling should really wake people up to that strategy because they didn't just invent it out of thin air.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump went to the Supreme Court, asked for complete immunity to shield himself from criminal accountability for January 6th, and they granted it to him.

Speaker 4 That That is a major guardrail that has been blown. The courts, you cannot expect that to hold in a second term.

Speaker 4 And so then people say, like, okay, well, Republicans in Congress, you and I know that is not going to be a check on his executive power. That is a joke.
That is a joke.

Speaker 4 They've purged anyone who voiced any kind of challenge to his authority. So any checks coming from Congress are not going to happen.

Speaker 3 And just to put a finer point on that, why I think another layer of why some of the Democratic senators are still concerned and were not assuaged by that press conference last night is that, to your point on this check, the Senate map this year potentially, you know, the Republicans could pick up like five, six seats if they have a landslide this year.

Speaker 3 And there are a lot of potential seats in play. And so, yeah, like the idea that the Congress will check him is like absurd and laughable on its face.

Speaker 3 It's particularly absurd if you think about a worst case scenario where the Republicans have 56 senators. Correct.

Speaker 4 Yeah. And so the idea that the system held in his first term isn't exactly true.

Speaker 4 Our institutions are much weaker as a result of the damage that he's already done as represented to his victory for immunity at the Supreme Court and the way he has purged any Republican dissenters from the Republican Party.

Speaker 4 And I think that needs to be a core part of explaining the message about the danger of Donald Trump's second term.

Speaker 3 Yeah. I think that in addition to that, I want to talk about one other kind of element that shows you just like how far through the looking glass we are.

Speaker 3 You referenced this a little bit earlier with regards to kind of how heritage, is that they're saying that they're going to sue or whatever if the Democrats try to take Biden off the ticket.

Speaker 3 But Biden's not off the ticket, so it's like a title.

Speaker 4 There's probably going to be ridiculous legal challenges to the fact that it's even being discussed. Like this is going, this is going to happen.
The idea that...

Speaker 4 The idea that they have to have a real valid claim to bring something to court is not true. It's going to be reckless and frivolous litigation.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 So to that point, our friends at the Heritage Foundation that are behind Project 2025, here is a quote from Mike Howell, who's the executive director of their ominously titled Oversight Project in today's Washington Post.

Speaker 3 As things stand right now, there's a 0% chance of a free and fair election.

Speaker 3 I'm formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election.

Speaker 3 That's what they're saying right now. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Anyway, I think that there are two parts to this.

Speaker 3 Like, hey, I would like to just talk about like what is coming, especially, by the way, if the whole Biden case is that they're going to squeak out this blue wall thing, especially if he wins 270 to 267.

Speaker 3 What is coming during that interregnum from these guys? But also,

Speaker 3 All right, if that is the mindset they have now, that they're not accepting our existing laws and norms.

Speaker 3 What does that tell us about the kinds of Mike Howells that are going to be in the Trump administration? So take either of those, but we should go over the.

Speaker 4 Yeah, let's call this what it is. What they are is formalizing Donald Trump's January 6th strategy ahead of the 2024 election.

Speaker 4 Because that's what January 6th was about, stopping the certification of Joe Biden as president. So what they're saying is that they intend to do that again.

Speaker 4 Somehow, somewhere, there probably needs to be a lot of education about the obligation that election officials have to certify election results i mean this is the mike pence question once again what do you do once you have the results do you certify mike pence said yes is every election official in swing states prepared to say yes like mike pence did that's the option they're exploring they're preemptively testing that yeah i just want to put a finer point on something you said that the january 6th strategy is ongoing because you do hear this from some,

Speaker 3 you know, from Trump apologists, of course, but even from regular people sometimes, it's like, okay, I mean, January 6th, 6th, all right, like I think it's one day, things got out of hand.

Speaker 3 You know, is that really the thing to vote on this November? Is that really, you know, the one main thing? And I think that it's important to point out that like January 6th is ongoing, right?

Speaker 3 Like it is not just, it was not just one day. It was not just one riot.
Like the entire Trump campaign right now is premised on making permanent their January 6th posture.

Speaker 3 He wants to let out of jail everybody that assaulted the Capitol Police that day.

Speaker 3 You know, his henchmen at the Heritage Foundation are planning, you know, a how to prevent elections from being certified if they don't go their way going forward in 2024 and beyond.

Speaker 3 Like that's their plan to continue doing January 6th until they work.

Speaker 4 Can we just talk about how remarkable this is? I mean, I wake up brave days still probably thinking about the fact that

Speaker 4 all the movie people around Trump who have been charged with criminality. I mean, Steve Bannon's in jail.
Like, can we, Steve Bannon is in jail?

Speaker 3 About that for a second. What do you think he's doing right now? Eating some gruel.

Speaker 4 But yet, the Heritage Foundation, all these supposedly smarty tardies are adopting the strategy that landed Steve Bannon in jail.

Speaker 3 Right?

Speaker 4 Like, that is remarkable. They are unchastened by it.
Is that going to be part of the coverage of the RNC next week?

Speaker 4 Or is everybody going to accept these nice scripted speeches about how Joe Biden is old and pretend like none of this is happening?

Speaker 3 They're unchastened by it for good reason because now they think they have cover to do it, right? Like they try.

Speaker 3 It didn't work. They do.
It didn't work. But it didn't work.

Speaker 3 But instead of what any normal fucking country would have done, any normal party, any normal responsible people, they would have said, whoa, this went too far enough.

Speaker 3 We are going to impeach and convict Donald Trump. We are going to hold accountable the people that organized this.
We're going to hold accountable the people that attacked police officers.

Speaker 3 And we're going to move on to a new, you know, to find new leadership in the party. Like that's what a normal freaking party would have done.
But instead,

Speaker 3 they've re-nominated the guy that instigated it and they've instituted a legal regime that gives carte blanche to him to pardon and protect anybody that tries future January 6th. Yep.

Speaker 4 Because they know if it works, they'll get off scot-free. The pardon power will be there for them.

Speaker 3 Well, there's, that's a little uplifting. Note for everybody.
We have had the surge in interest in Project 2025. You've been on it.

Speaker 3 Is there anything else you think people are missing when they're talking about it or any kind of stronger arguments that could be made?

Speaker 4 I mean, just the main idea behind it all, again, there's something in it for everybody if you want to get wound up.

Speaker 4 But again, I just, people need to pay attention to what Donald Trump is saying because this game about people are playing

Speaker 4 about how Trump is trying to diss himself and whether they're a mesh. Quit, just stop that.
Listen to what he says. Take it seriously.
Look at all the people that are going to enable his agenda.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump has his plans. All Project 2025 is, is the instructions to make his rhetoric a reality for everyone else.
That is all it is.

Speaker 4 And so going into the convention next week, I think reporters should be more focused on these are all the people who are going to enable the most extreme parts of Trump's second term agenda.

Speaker 4 These are the people who will make it come true because it will happen the second time.

Speaker 4 The second time will be worse if he comes to power because look at all the people that are on board with his plans and his ongoing January 6th strategy.

Speaker 3 Among those people might be his right-hand man. J.D.
Vance is, you know, the favorite. All the chattering class, the buzz thinks it's JD.
He is Donald Trump Jr.'s choice. I forget who reported it.

Speaker 3 Somebody noticed in the schedule for next week's convention,

Speaker 3 Don Jr. has the speaking slot right in front of the vice presidential nominee, which itself is creepy and weird and like third world, okay? But whatever, we'll put that aside.

Speaker 3 You know, I was scrolling around for some J.D. Vance stuff because I, you know, the Vance people were pushing back on some of these old clips of his saying they were taken out of context.

Speaker 3 And I went back and found some of them and they were not taken out of context and played some of the clips. And while I was doing that, I found this ad from a group that is trying to derail J.D.

Speaker 3 Vance's Veep thing. I'm not going to shout them out because they are far-right weirdos, but I do think it's a compelling compendium.
So let's listen to this ad first because I want to,

Speaker 3 can we just cleanse a little bit? Can we like clean, you know, just do a little mouthwash from that last segment and just make fun of J.D. Vance for a second before we get to the seriousness of it?

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, he's pretty gross, too.

Speaker 3 He is disgusting. So let's listen to this ad that they had put out.

Speaker 3 In 2016, J.D. Vance tweeted, quote, What percentage of the American population has at real Donald Trump sexually assaulted?

Speaker 3 He even said on live television that he believes Jessica leads fake rape allegations and that Trump is a liar. Well, this is sort of a he said, she said, right.

Speaker 3 And at the end of the day, do you believe Donald Trump, who always tells the truth? Just kidding, or do you believe that woman on that team? I think the elites were right about Donald Trump, right?

Speaker 3 I'm a never-Trump guy. I never liked him.
Is this who we want for vice president?

Speaker 12 I think what Trump is not just doing, I mean, certainly he's exploiting some of the racism that's there, but he's also also exploiting people's fears and pointing it in a direction that maybe they wouldn't go on their own.

Speaker 12 So I think it's, it's both that Trump is drawing on something, but more importantly, I think that he's leading people in a very dark direction. And that's ultimately what worries me the most.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 That was the last one was a separate interview with Madias-San back in 2016.

Speaker 3 So this guy is begging and bootlicking to be the VP for somebody that he thinks is a lying rapist that is taking America to a dark place.

Speaker 4 He changed his mind.

Speaker 3 I mean, he's already done all the work.

Speaker 4 I mean, Donald Trump loves a convert. I mean, does he believe it? It doesn't matter who J.D.
Vance was or what he really thinks in his heart. We know what he wants to be.
He wants to be Trump's beefy.

Speaker 4 He wants to enable the worst parts of his agenda. He's on board for all of it.
And so this idea, you know, we're going to get another round of interviews.

Speaker 4 Like, can he get swing voters in Pennsylvania? And can he moderate Trump's agenda? No, no, no, and no.

Speaker 4 The only reason he's being talked about, the only reason he's he's getting the job is because he's on board with the worst elements of it.

Speaker 4 And he wants to be his top loyalist in chief, his right-hand man. So like, I don't know.
I don't know how it's going to be anybody but JD Vance.

Speaker 4 I don't, I never thought anyone else was really in contention, to be honest.

Speaker 3 I hear you and like how many times we've gone round and around on all these people and how they've, you know, embarrassed and shamed themselves and changing their mind.

Speaker 3 But it is, it is kind of funny that people just accept that. They're like, that is his answer.
It's like, well, I just changed my mind about him. I I saw him in 2017 and it seemed better.

Speaker 3 And it was like,

Speaker 3 I changed my mind on things. I honor people who change their mind on things.
I think that's a sign of a grown adult. But like.

Speaker 3 It's one thing to be like, well, I used to not like mushrooms and now I do. Or one thing like, oh, I used to think this policy was.
I'm not saying I don't like mushrooms. I like to eat dirt, right?

Speaker 3 I used to think this policy was bad. And then I spoke to experts or saw how it worked in the real world and I realized, oh, that is actually good.

Speaker 3 You know, it's like, no, I used to think this guy was a fucking rapist and possibly Hitler and that he was the heroine of the masses leading people to a dark place.

Speaker 3 And now I think he's actually wonderful. Like that, that's just hard.
That's hard to square.

Speaker 4 I know, I guess when I see J.D. Vance, I just see somebody who grew a beard and decided I'm going to cave to everything to stay in power.

Speaker 4 And it's just so totally, completely emblematic of how people gain standing in today's Republican Party.

Speaker 4 That's all it is to me.

Speaker 3 Maybe the evil energy is in the beard follicles. I don't exactly know how that would work.

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Speaker 3 All right, I want to move to our mailbag. Take people to the mailbag through the weekend.
I have a related question for the mailbag, which so I wanted to end with JD.

Speaker 3 Oh, by the way, for normies, you send in mailbag questions at bulwarkpodcast at thebulwark.com. Christina's been an Instagram OG of mine.
So, you know, she submitted this on Instagram.

Speaker 3 So we'll allow allow it. We'll make an exception in this case.

Speaker 3 She wrote this, is there an heir apparent to Trump's grip on the party who possesses his same unique charisma and can command the same loyalty and wield the same fear among elected representatives?

Speaker 3 Or will his core disengage once he's no longer president? I know we aren't going back to the old Republican Party, but will the post-Trump MAGA party splinter without his leadership?

Speaker 3 I think that's an interesting question, particularly in the context of Vance.

Speaker 3 Do you see Vance as a credible heir apparent? I mean, maybe. maybe.

Speaker 4 I mean, we don't know how he performs on the national stage until he's there. Does he grow into a louder voice for Trump or does he adopt a softer, just guy in the room tone like Mike Pence did?

Speaker 4 I actually don't know how he would grow into that role. It'll be interesting to watch, but I think he's going to be, he's going to want to be an attack dog.
Will he be successful at it? I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm of two minds. One, there is no era apparent to Trump from a cult of personality thing, right?

Speaker 3 I've said this before, but there's not going to be people storming the Capitol waving flags with JD Fantas's bearded face on it, you know, like that.

Speaker 3 So at some level, getting rid of Trump and replacing him with anybody will be better because

Speaker 3 just like the weirdest cult elements will be gone, will be cleaved off. Now, there's a lot of bad stuff can still happen outside of the weirdest cult elements.

Speaker 3 So the question is, can JD

Speaker 3 consolidate the rest of that? And I think maybe. I don't know.
I think he's decently talented.

Speaker 3 You know, he obviously has been talented enough to apparently be on the cusp of having somebody that he thought was Hitler choose him to be his number two in command.

Speaker 3 So, you know, he can be convincing.

Speaker 3 I thought it was interesting.

Speaker 3 And this ties into that ad that I played. I want to get back to your question.

Speaker 3 I noticed. that several people in like the MAGA est of MAGA world that you would think would be for JD

Speaker 3 are trying to undermine him. And I was like wondering why that was.

Speaker 4 And they think he's like Nikki Haley because he's a convert.

Speaker 3 Well, there's that. That's a little bit.
There's a little bit of mistrust. But I think the more important thing is they're not ready to anoint an error parent.

Speaker 3 You know, and they're worried that it's kind of like the Kamala thing a little bit with Biden, where you see in the situation where it's like, it's tough to get around a VP that seems like the error parent, right?

Speaker 3 And to repeat, because some people on the internet want to act like I'm not coconut curious. I'm coconut curious.
I think it'd be fine for it to be Kamala.

Speaker 4 But, um, whoa, whoa, whoa, what? What is coconut curious?

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. That's what the Kamala, the new emoji for the K-Hive is the coconut because Kamala has the line that she likes to say about how

Speaker 3 you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. You exist in the context of everything that came before you.

Speaker 4 Okay, I've literally not encountered this whatsoever.

Speaker 3 You haven't encountered the coconut tree clip? Google the coconut tree clip after this. It will be the one thing to bring you joy today.
Google Kamala falling out of the coconut tree.

Speaker 3 Anyway, circling back, my point in that was: if you pick somebody that seems like they're probably their apparent, then it's hard to make them not be it, right?

Speaker 3 If you pick, you know, Dick Cheney, right, like then it's, it's going to be easier to get around. I like Dick Cheney was never going to be president.
So anyway, I think that's interesting.

Speaker 3 There's some MAGA world that are worried about him as their apparent. All right.
Rest of the mailbag.

Speaker 3 Morgan asks about my tough questioning on why Dean Phillips and whether I look back on that interview and disagree with that. And I do, I do, I do.

Speaker 3 I apologize to dean phillips you wish there was a no labels ticket now i do not wish there was no labels ticket that was still a stupid idea i do apologize to dean phillips i said this on the john levitt podcast um which morgan must not have listened to that closely hey morgan uh but i've had several people send this to me and i want to reiterate it but that said and but Dean did it all wrong.

Speaker 3 So there was a part of that interview where I'm like basically coaching him. It felt like a hard interview, but it was more like, Dean, why don't you do it more like this?

Speaker 3 And why don't you do it more like that? And he kept being like, oh, yeah, that's a good point, Tim.

Speaker 3 It got a a little uncomfortable at one point so anyway i don't regret criticizing him about his strategy but i do regret not taking more seriously his warnings okay amanda jonathan asks if trump wins what's next everything i've seen is well we're going into the camps but if it really is a toss-up shouldn't we be planning for the bad outcome to prevent the camps good question from jonathan what do you what that's a protect democracy question i think yeah yeah i mean a part of the work at protect democracy is looking at all scenarios of course course.

Speaker 4 And we have a series of recommendations in the end of the authoritarian playbook. But essentially, what it comes down to is that you have to keep,

Speaker 4 no matter what happens, you have to keep the pro-democracy coalition together. And that will deal a lot with in the early days of trying to keep all the good gays, good guys on the playing,

Speaker 3 so to speak.

Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 Sorry, I'm just like off the street. That's good.

Speaker 3 We do need the good gays. We need the good guys and the good guys on the playing field.

Speaker 4 Keep the good gays on the field.

Speaker 4 But But having infrastructure and support for people wherever they are, election officials, people inside the government, other nonprofits, colleges, wherever the threats are, we have to be ready to stand together and support them.

Speaker 4 That will require a lot of money. That will require possible legal support.
There's a lot of things, security support. There's a lot of coordination that...

Speaker 4 honestly needs to be is happening needs to be happening now to prepare for that and so everyone should just get to know their neighbors.

Speaker 3 Yes, I would add to that. There have been some disappointing, obviously, rulings at the top court, but Biden has appointed a lot of judges, you know, and

Speaker 3 while the institutions were weakened during Trump's first term, the courts held in a lot of ways. And so lawyers, this is another Protect Democracy project.

Speaker 3 We're going to be bringing the lawyers in, all right? We're going to have an army of lawyers. If Trump can stall, you know, we can stall and run out the clock on various things as well.

Speaker 3 And I think that there are going to be some big fights, and there are a lot of good judges that have been appointed over the past three and a half years.

Speaker 4 One important thing is outreach to military members and the importance of individuals keeping their oath, people who may be faced with carrying out unconstitutional, unlawful orders.

Speaker 4 There's a lot of... thought leadership that needs to go into that, looking at National Guard deployment issues, possibly, what could happen in regards to immigration.

Speaker 4 So things like that. I mean,

Speaker 4 there's complicated situations that will come up, but it does not mean that we will not have options and people can't make good decisions for themselves in their own capacity.

Speaker 3 Indeed. Support protect democracy.
Okay, this is for me. Emily asks, how do I signal I'm no longer riding with Biden? I feel like I have no power.
There are no more primaries.

Speaker 3 I'm ready to join the chorus of voices ordering Biden to step aside, but I don't know how to do that. Jim asks the same question.
Is there anything voters can do to pressure Joe Biden to drop out?

Speaker 3 Obviously, not all listeners are going to agree with us, but if you are of that view, talk to your congressman, right? They're out of session now next week.

Speaker 3 It's insane that congress people work like this, but it's true.

Speaker 3 Like it was a congresswoman, I forget who it was, who said that, like, someone in a grocery store came up to her and said that they're sticking with Biden and they want the congress, and they use that anecdote as evidence for why they should, why they're sticking with Biden.

Speaker 3 So, uh, look at their schedule. They're out of session now.
They're coming back to the district. Find where they're going to be.
Go see them. Tell them in person.

Speaker 3 If you can't do that, call their office, write them an email, write them a note.

Speaker 4 No, I just want to emphasize how true that actually is because Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are constantly polling their own caucuses, and they will be important, influential decision makers if a change needs to be made.

Speaker 4 So that is absolutely true. And it does have sway and influence right now.

Speaker 3 Final mailbag question is from me to Atlanta to Amanda.

Speaker 3 I learned yesterday on text message that if things went astray for you, I said that I was thinking about becoming a high school social studies teacher because I'm so sick.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and I said you'd be a great one, but you should not be doing that. You should be doing this.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Well, I'm going to keep doing this, but I'm just, I'm eyeing high schools for possible high schools for a

Speaker 3 social studies teacher job if this goes south. But you mentioned on that text that you would want to be a school bus driver because that's what the cool mobs did when you were growing up.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I just would like to hear more about that.

Speaker 4 I don't, I just had a lot of cool moms that were bus drivers growing up. Like it was always a lot of fun.
Like the pretty moms who wore cute lipstick.

Speaker 4 I don't know. Like they just, I always enjoyed talking to them.
They always made the bus ride fun. I knew who they were.
It just, I don't know. They just were like the cool ladies to me.

Speaker 3 This feels like a John Hughes movie to me. I've never, I've never heard of hot moms driving buses, school buses and being cool.
I don't know.

Speaker 4 I just always kind of looked up to them. They seemed like they were the sports moms too, generally.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I just liked them. It seemed fun.
And like, just to go pick up kids and talk to them when they're getting their day started and listen. I like to listen to kid talk too.

Speaker 4 Like my son plays Fortnite sometimes. He has a headset on and so he chatters and I love to like eavesdrop on it.
So it would just be a lot of fun to listen to the kid chatter.

Speaker 3 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Any child would be lucky to have you as your bus, as their bus driver, but I think you should also stay with what you're doing to protect democracy, even though you're always welcome back here if you change your mind.

Speaker 3 All right. I wanted to say Ezra Ezra Klein at the end of that podcast on Wednesday gave a book wreck.
He said the name of the book wreck wrong, so now everybody's questioning Ezra's mental acuity.

Speaker 3 The actual book is called Health and Safety, A Breakdown by Emily Witt. But here's the bad news: it's not published till September 17th.

Speaker 3 And Ezra is just showing off his coastal elite access to the publishers, you know, that he pre-read a book before it's even out in the public.

Speaker 3 I asked him for a suggestion of a book that could distract me from the horribles over the weekend. So I don't have one of those for you, but Ezra recommended Health and Safety.

Speaker 3 I guess I'll give you one. I really liked Home Going recently, I read by, I'm going to butcher her name probably, but Yagyasi, I believe is how you pronounce her name.

Speaker 3 So you can read that one this weekend. On September 17th, you can read Health and Safety, a Breakdown, as recommended by Ezra Klein.
Amanda, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Any final words of wisdom or a cheer or uplift?

Speaker 4 No, I'm eager to see what song you pick for the end of the show today.

Speaker 3 We'll take you out with something something peppy. Everybody, we'll be back here on Monday.
It probably won't be that peppy because we'll have Bill Crystal. Bill Crystal, we all love Bill Crystal.

Speaker 3 Bill Crystal will be back on Monday. And then for the Republican Convention all week, I'm bringing all your favorite never Trumpers in.

Speaker 3 We are going to be dialed in on what these freaks are saying in Milwaukee on this podcast and on YouTube. Check us all out then.
Amanda Carpenter, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Owe you a debt of gratitude for letting me rant at the beginning of this podcast. And we'll be seeing you again soon.
Thanks. Peace.

Speaker 3 Take it easy.

Speaker 3 Blame it on me or blame it on you.

Speaker 3 It's as if I'm scared.

Speaker 3 It's as if I'm terrified. It's if I'm scared.

Speaker 3 It's as if I'm playing with fire. I'm

Speaker 4 Having MG can make cooking difficult, but over the years, I've found some really helpful tools and tips that I'm excited to share. Hi, I'm Alicia.

Speaker 4 I think cooking should always be fun, creative, and of course, delicious. These black bean burgers are hearty, full of flavor, and MG-friendly.
You're gonna love them.

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Speaker 4 Ready?

Speaker 1 Let's cook.

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