Stuart Stevens: I think Joe Biden Has Been A Great President

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Speaker 2 Hello, and welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Speaker 2 I'm just delighted to be here with my old pal, Stuart Stevens, former Republican strategist, advisor at the Lincoln Project, author of numerous books, including his latest, The Conspiracy to End America, and my favorite, The Last Season, A Father-Son, and a Lifetime of College Football.

Speaker 2 We're going to end with college football.

Speaker 1 but But, stu we have a tendency the two of us when we get together we get a little a little dour a little bleak so can we can we start with a happy a happy news item we have this morning well to me the happy news item is i'm glad that latimer won that race we have a couple happy news items but yeah go ahead i work for sharon against netiyahu and sharon beat netiahu i'm not a netiyahu guy but i am very much pro-Israeli and I'm glad to see that happen So that's good news for me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that is good news. And I want to talk a little bit more about that race and some of the primaries here.
I'm still in my parents' basement for people watching on YouTube.

Speaker 2 So we had some interesting primaries here in Colorado as well. I want to get to those.
But first, our buddy, Bulwark contributor, Adam Kinzinger.

Speaker 2 We had an awesome little town hall last night with him for Bulwark founders. So if you want to be a founder, you can go to thebulwark.com and click on the thing at the top of the screen there.

Speaker 2 And me and Kinzinger kind of got a little teary-eyed talking about John McCain and Jesus and stuff. It was personal.
But anyway, he made some news this morning, and I want us to listen to it together.

Speaker 4 I'm Adam Kinzinger, and I'm a proud conservative.

Speaker 5 I always have been.

Speaker 4 As a proud conservative, I've always put democracy and our constitution above all else.

Speaker 4 And it's because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I'm endorsing Joe Biden for re-election.

Speaker 4 My entire life has been guided by the conviction that America is a beacon of freedom, liberty, and democracy.

Speaker 4 So, while I certainly don't agree with President Biden on everything, and I never thought I'd be endorsing a Democrat for president, I know that he will always protect the very thing that makes America the best country in the world, our democracy.

Speaker 4 Donald Trump poses a direct threat to every fundamental American value. He doesn't care about our country.
He doesn't care about you. He only cares about himself.

Speaker 4 And he'll hurt anyone or anything in pursuit of power. We saw that when he tried to overturn an election that he knew he lost in 2020.

Speaker 4 He attacked the foundation of this nation, encouraging a violent mob of his supporters to march on the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transition of power. Now he's become even more dangerous.

Speaker 4 He's called for termination of the Constitution. He wants to be a dictator on day one.
He actually said that. And he's continuing to stoke the flames of political violence.

Speaker 4 There's too much at stake to sit on the sidelines.

Speaker 4 So to every American of every political party and those of none, I say now is not the time to watch quietly as Donald Trump threatens the future of America.

Speaker 4 Now is the time to unite behind Joe Biden and show Donald Trump off the stage once and for all.

Speaker 2 Thoughts, Stuart?

Speaker 1 Listen, I think that's what everybody who has said all this stuff about Donald Trump has to do. They have to endorse Joe Biden.
Chris Christie has to endorse Joe Biden.

Speaker 1 I hope that Mitt Romney endorses Joe Biden. It's just a logical choice.

Speaker 1 This doesn't really have anything to do about Biden, except that he is an alternative to Donald Trump and is in the American political mainstream.

Speaker 2 Why do you think there's been so few? I mean, I guess for people who don't know, you were Romney's top advisor, so on 2012, that's when we met. And so I guess I should at least note that.

Speaker 2 But like all these guys, I mean, you just named two of them, but there's a long list of people, all the Trump cabinet officials we could start naming, Esper and Mattis and McMaster and Kelly.

Speaker 2 Why do you think Kinzinger and

Speaker 2 Jeff Duncan in Georgia down there are so lonely on this pretty obvious endorsement?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Jeff Duncan, give a shout out to the former lieutenant governor of Georgia. I worked for Johnny Isaacson, the senator there, who sadly died a few years ago.

Speaker 1 And Jeff was always one of these guys coming up who's clearly going to be a superstar. And he's someone who really has put his career on the line.

Speaker 1 I mean, this guy could have been future, may still be governor of Georgia. But, I mean, it was a real sacrifice for this guy.
His young family put it out there.

Speaker 2 I'm just glad you mentioned the young thing, right? That's why Jeff Duncan does deserves some credit. He is on the come up.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of these old farts that are just their next step is retirement that don't have the courage that Jeff Duncan did. What's the holdup here?

Speaker 1 I have no idea. I think that the problem with the unimaginable is it's hard to imagine.
So maybe that's part of it, that we can't really believe that Trump is going to do these things.

Speaker 1 But that seems foolish given the fact that he did do what he said he was going to do before or tried to do. I don't understand it.

Speaker 1 You know, I just keep going back to my standard line that I'll never ask myself why 1930s Germany happened again.

Speaker 2 You're still talking to some folks in that world, though. I mean, what do you actually hear?

Speaker 1 An argument is the future of the Republican Party is important because we need a center-right party in America.

Speaker 1 If you go out and endorse Joe Biden, you have negated any future impact you may have within the party. So the day after,

Speaker 1 you will not have any chance of being an effective persuader of where the party should go.

Speaker 1 I'd feel a lot better about that if you knew that Trump was going to lose.

Speaker 2 If there was a day after, if we were sure there was a day after.

Speaker 1 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 If there was.

Speaker 2 We were certain there was a day after. I like that you make that point because it is a good argument.

Speaker 2 My pushback to people that make that argument is always, well, are you 100% sure there's a day after? Because if you're only 98% sure, then like... Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, in 2016,

Speaker 1 I went out about this time, actually, to some prominent Republican conservatives in key states and tried to get them to run as favored sons just to peel off the vote from Trump.

Speaker 1 And I can say I had a 100% failure rate. And it was like this.

Speaker 1 Look, Stuart, if we, the establishment, put our thumbs on the scale, when Trump loses, it's not going to be because he had terrible ideas, not because he's a racist, not because of the alt-right.

Speaker 1 It'll be because we rigged the elections. And we just have to let him lose and then rebuild.
And I'm like, okay, great, but what if he doesn't lose?

Speaker 1 I probably wasn't very good at arguing the other because I didn't think he would win, but I'm not going to do that again.

Speaker 2 It's funny you brought this up because it was where I was going next eight years ago. I don't know if you're going to remember this, but Brian Lizza wrote a story about this very question.

Speaker 2 And it was, I went and found the date. It was June 13th, 2016 in the New Yorker.

Speaker 2 And the story was about kind of what these people that spoke out against Trump during the Republican primary that year are going to do.

Speaker 2 And he went and talked to all of the Republican elected officials and strategists who had spoken out and was trying to figure out, are you going to be for Hillary?

Speaker 2 Are you going to be for somebody else? Are you going to suck it up and vote for Trump? You know, the story ends up writing, it's kind of quaint in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 In some ways, it's very similar to now in that everyone ends up getting in line, but there's a lot of gnashing of teeth. There's a lot of concerns about policy.

Speaker 2 There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, I hope Trump will come around. All that sort of stuff you don't get now from the candidates he interviews.

Speaker 2 But my memory from it was off the record when I was talking to Liz.

Speaker 2 He was like, man, my interview with you about whether or not people are going to fight this guy was the second most bleak of any of the interviews I did. And I was like, oh, really? Who is the first?

Speaker 2 And he goes, Stuart Stevens.

Speaker 1 It wasn't even close.

Speaker 2 And he's like, Stuart, it just, he's like, he won't go on the record in the story because he's right now still trying to recruit all these guys to do what you just called for.

Speaker 2 But he's like, none of them are going to do it. And here we are, fucking Groundhog Day, eight years later.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's worse. I mean, it's a complete collapse of the party.
I mean, I just go back to it.

Speaker 1 We haven't seen anything like this in certain modern American political history, and I don't think we've seen anything like it in American history.

Speaker 1 And if Trump got hit by a bus tomorrow, it would only get marginally better. You have to beat these people.
You have to beat them, beat them, beat them. And then finally, my best hope is that in 32,

Speaker 1 you could could have a sane republican nominee 32 that's your last best hope that's my last best hope

Speaker 2 is mitt still around at 32 he can outlive us all man yeah there's some things that are unique about trump i do think that if trump went away tomorrow we got the hamburger from heaven we would probably be safe on the conspiracy to end america that like there'd be a lot of really cruel, bigoted, nationalist, hateful, un-American ideologies still in the party.

Speaker 2 But like the compulsion to end elections probably goes away with Trump. Do you agree with that or do you think it's deeper than that?

Speaker 1 I think it's deeper than that. I mean, I think, what is the intellectual framework of the Republican Party now? I mean, is it not still the Heritage Foundation?

Speaker 1 And what does the Heritage Foundation want to do? You know, they basically want to end democracy. Who are the superstars? You know, who are the merchants? And who would be a positive voice for that?

Speaker 1 J.D. Vance? I don't think so.
That's what gets me. Like, who's out there in a party that doesn't have a room for Cheney? I think it's an extremist movement, not a political party anymore.

Speaker 1 And the history of extremist movements is they only get more extreme until they burn themselves out. There wasn't like a moderate element of the Red Guard that emerged that reformed it.

Speaker 1 It just burned itself out. There wasn't like, you know, well, the same people in the Khmer Rouge are going to get together and stop this.
And I think that's where it is.

Speaker 1 And I don't see see any forces within the party that would stop it.

Speaker 2 It feels like the flame is starting to burn out a little bit. I do feel like the intensity of MAGA is down this year.
I go to these rallies and we drive around rural America and the signs.

Speaker 2 And it feels a little bit like their intensity is down. And I do think that Trump losing again, part of the reason why this was able to persist was the big lie, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, the main reason why this was able to persist was a big lie, right? Because Trump didn't become a loser because he didn't lose, right? He got cheated. He really won.

Speaker 2 How many times can you play that game? I mean, some of these people go along forever, but isn't there some percentage of the MAGA crowd that starts to be like, all right, buddy, that's enough?

Speaker 1 I think the decline in enthusiasm is just because Trump's act is getting old.

Speaker 2 We're in season nine of the TV show.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the most powerful word in advertising is new. So Trump is old.
I think that only sets the stage for someone new, like a J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance, who would come out and be like a, you know, pass the torch to a new

Speaker 1 generation of it. I think you have to defeat the Senate candidates who go out there and try to have it both ways, like McCormick in Pennsylvania.
He needs to lose. I think Payne is the only teacher.

Speaker 1 I just don't see any

Speaker 1 center of gravity in the party

Speaker 1 that could emerge and assert itself. I mean, all these people I helped elect just collapsed.
I never thought I'd see it happen, but they did. Not Mitt.

Speaker 2 Everybody except one that you elected.

Speaker 1 Not Mitt. No, Mitt, Mitt State.
I worked with Liz very closely in debate prep for her dad.

Speaker 1 You know, I wrote a book about the Bush campaign, the Big Enchilada, and I actually predicted in that book that Liz would run for president. She was that impressive.

Speaker 1 I was kind of joking, but not really.

Speaker 2 This is 04 VP debate prep?

Speaker 1 2000 debate prep.

Speaker 2 2000 VP debate prep.

Speaker 1 Which she ran. And let me tell you, she did an amazing job.
Shockingly, there were a lot of people around Dick Cheney in 2000 who really thought a lot of themselves.

Speaker 1 And she had this deft way of dealing with them, like explaining to Paul Wolfer, it's, you know, Paul, there's really not a foreign policy angle to welfare reform. There's really not.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 Do you look back on that debate prep and think that maybe there were some hubristic signs that might have foretold some of the mistakes that might come in

Speaker 2 that foreign policy regime?

Speaker 1 You know, it's amazing when you go back and look look at those debates.

Speaker 1 The number one topic was what to do with the surplus.

Speaker 2 Is that right? Yep. The 2000 debate? Yes.

Speaker 1 You go back. That was the first question in the Bush-Gore debate.
And

Speaker 1 the word terrorism was never mentioned in four debates. Three presidentials and the one vice president.
It never came up. You go back and look at it, it's like artifacts from a lost civilization.

Speaker 1 The same if you go back and you read Michael Gerson's beautiful speech that he wrote for Bush acceptance in the 2000 convention.

Speaker 1 You read that and you go, like, oh man, this guy couldn't get 5% of the party right now. You know, this is a loser.

Speaker 1 All this optimism, humility, charity, oh, man, that guy is just, he's going to get killed.

Speaker 2 Do you think Dick Cheney will support Joe Biden? Does Joe Biden want Dick Cheney's support? Sure, sure.

Speaker 1 I'd be shocked if he hadn't already done it. You know, in my fantasy world, I'd like to put together a roadshow of Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie,

Speaker 1 and have them go around. I don't understand why Christie wouldn't do it.
I mean, look, I worked for Christie and all his races. I love the guy.

Speaker 1 I literally was standing in Atlanta airport when he endorsed Trump in 16 and tears came to my eyes. It was like watching your friend overdose.

Speaker 1 And couldn't believe he continued to support him, even though Trump tried to kill him in debate prep with COVID. The guy you see now in the primary is the guy who he always was.

Speaker 1 And it's just like, why do we have to go do this other stuff? But I guess in life you have to meet people where they are. It's better that he's there now.

Speaker 1 I don't think there's any chance he's going to support Trump, but he should actively be out there for Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 Unlike you, not only did I not work for Chris Christie, but I savaged him mercilessly and several times being on the opposite side of him.

Speaker 2 So I don't think Chris Christie gives a fuck about my opinion. But I also just think that, A, it's the right thing to do for the country.
Everything Kinzinger said in his endorsement is correct.

Speaker 2 But even if you were just looking at it from a pure ambition standpoint, like even if you did not have a moral core core and you're like, what is the right thing to do for my ambition?

Speaker 2 If Chris Christie came out and used the skills that we know that he has at the convention and then on the campaign trail all fall to savage Donald Trump and to make a moral case against Donald Trump and to acknowledge that he has policy differences with Joe Biden, you know, he might come out of that.

Speaker 2 He's much more likely to be in Joe Biden's cabinet in the second term than he is in Donald Trump or J.D. Vance or Vivet.
You know what I mean? Some Republicans.

Speaker 2 So like, even from a career standpoint, it would make sense. I agree.

Speaker 1 He's more likely to get on boards. He's more likely to have

Speaker 1 a regular gig on television. He's more likely, if he writes a book, this might actually sell, unlike his last book.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I mean, I think if he looks in his heart and asks, what's best for me, that would coincide with what's best for the country. I hope he does.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, I haven't talked to Chris in a long time, but

Speaker 1 I think he should. Hope he does.

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Speaker 2 All right, I want to talk a little bit about debate stuff, but also the VP. I mean, since you got there, I mean, you, with Mitt and 12, went through the VP vetting process in a normal process.

Speaker 2 So maybe share what that was like, and then let's talk about what Donald Trump has out of him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, Beth Myers ran the VP vetting, and it was extraordinarily discreet, extraordinarily buttoned down. It was just unspoken that you didn't ask about it.

Speaker 1 You know, my one experience in this in 2000, when Bush was looking for a running mate, he and I and Mark McKinnon, we were out in Crawford in the summer.

Speaker 1 So it was like 120 degrees, and we were running, and we were there for a debate prep. And I wanted to push Tom Ridge

Speaker 1 as his running mate. Yes.
So I said to him, as we're jogging along there, you know, dying, I said, so governor, would it be appropriate if I talk to you about who's going to be vice president?

Speaker 1 And he looks at me and says, why the fuck would I care what you think?

Speaker 1 To which Mark McKinnon fell down laughing. And later he said to me, he goes, look, Stevens, let me give you some advice, man.

Speaker 1 You know, when a guy's getting married, wait until he asks you what you think of the chick before you tell him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's not bad advice, man. That's not bad advice.

Speaker 2 That's only good advice, though, if the spouse is not toxic or you know some secrets about the spouse.

Speaker 1 I don't know. But

Speaker 1 so in the Romney case, he never came to me and said, who do you think I should select as vice president?

Speaker 1 I think he looked at it very much as who he would like to serve as president with and have a vice president. I think he looked at it in a very non-political way.

Speaker 1 And there's a lot of data to back that up, that it doesn't matter who's vice president. So you might as well do that.
You know, he picked Paul Ryan. It's who he wanted, and that was it.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was all done

Speaker 1 in a dignified way. He didn't have this roadshow of dragging people in and out.

Speaker 1 You know, I was in the room when he called the people who had been named, who weren't going to be, and he was incredibly thankful and respectful. So, I mean, those were same times.

Speaker 2 What's your handicapping of what, and God forbid we have to get inside this guy's brain, but what do you think?

Speaker 1 Well, my track record of being right on Trump is pretty pretty short but I would not be surprised if of these three names that are being floated out there that his choice isn't going to be among those three

Speaker 1 the one I think

Speaker 1 god forbid you know give advice to help Trump but I mean I think J.D.

Speaker 2 Vance would help him the most really why do you think why do you say that because I would have thought Marco I think J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance is a bigger figure than Marco Marco is just such a shattered human being and there wasn't much there to shatter to begin with so Vance is smarter he is more articulate, he will say anything,

Speaker 1 and is more desperate. There's some weird internal dynamic inside J.D.
Vance that makes him such a desperate, despicable figure, and that's all very useful to Trump. And Ohio doesn't hurt.

Speaker 1 I doubt he'll pick Vance because he's a lot smarter than him.

Speaker 1 The one test here is someone going to write an article that the ticket should have been reversed.

Speaker 1 And whoever would qualify to be written about like that will never be Donald Trump's running mate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there's a related thing to that. And, you know, again, who knows what possibly gets inside his lizard brain at the last second to make a decision.
So maybe he does this anyway.

Speaker 2 But to me, the question is, who will go along with my attempt to stay in power if necessary in 2028 is number one? And who can I be sure will not try to kick me off the stage at the last minute?

Speaker 2 And I worry a little bit about Vance and Rubio on both those points, which is kind of why I'm like, you don't cook either of them, because it's like

Speaker 2 you get into 2027, you get into winter of 202, it's Christmas, 2020, you know, and it's like, all right, it's me, I'm next, right?

Speaker 2 And, you know, then you start to not give Trump the cover that he needs. He needs somebody to give him cover no matter what.

Speaker 1 Maybe he'll pick Vivek Kwanasoni.

Speaker 2 Vivek would do that. Vivek would do whatever.
I think Vivek got a little too weird with the 9-11 conspiracy theory.

Speaker 2 Trump is like one of these guys who has a drinking problem that's like, if you have one more drink a night than me, then you got a problem.

Speaker 2 Trump's like, I'm the outer edge of crazy that is acceptable. Like if you go a little bit over the line from me, that's too crazy.
And I think Vivek might have stepped over the line.

Speaker 2 What about the debate side of things? I guess you never debate prepped against Trump, but you've done several debate preps.

Speaker 2 So what would be your advice if Ron Clain called you after listening to this podcast, which I'm sure he's doing because they're not busy at all at Camp David right now?

Speaker 1 My theory of debate prep is that you have to go in with a very specific strategy and you have to go through a process and outline what your goals are.

Speaker 1 And there should be two to four goals that you're going to try to accomplish in that debate and devise a strategy to get those points out.

Speaker 1 And if you do that, it greatly reduces chances of debate will be a disaster. The other rule is the most aggressive candidate usually wins a debate.
There's a couple of exceptions, but mostly.

Speaker 1 If I was advising the president, I would have him attack from the get-go. For whatever the first question was, I would say, I'll answer that question.
First, I got something to say to Donald Trump.

Speaker 1 Donald Trump, you're a disgrace. You're a convicted felon.
You should not be in the Oval Office, much less elected to the Oval Office. This is not what America is about.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'll answer the question. Hit him upside the head from the very beginning.
And I wouldn't go into this with, like, I need to appear presidential.

Speaker 1 I would try to get him to walk onto the stage that one of us is going to walk off the stage alive

Speaker 1 and that's how it's going to be this is a cage map

Speaker 2 and don't worry about alienating trump voters they hate you you're right he's wrong go after him so that's the mindset that that i would go at so in 2012 famously you know mitt bested obama in the very first debate and there's a long tradition of this of sitting presidents doing poorly in the first debate in part I think because you get to well you're a little bit in the White House bubble and so you're not kind of used to sparring one and two you're very defensive of yourself of your record and you spend too much time like caring about that than about like winning the debate what was your experience there and whether there's any lessons from that I think that you know if you spend three years you walk in a room they play hails of the chief and people are nice to you And then you get out on stage and somebody's out there ripping your face off, saying you're wrong.

Speaker 1 No, you're wrong. You're wrong.
You're wrong. I think that's a shocking experience.
So I think that's an easy trap to fall into. Bush fell into it in his first debate with Kerry.

Speaker 1 It's not a great debate for him. Obama had a lousy debate.
Now, look, I'm of the opinion that the Biden campaign is smart. They're seasoned.

Speaker 1 They have this quality I think that's very rare in politics, which is very important, which is patience. So I think they will prep him well, and I think that they'll prepare him for that.

Speaker 1 You know, I think Biden, if you look at his performance against Paul Ryan, he went in against Paul Ryan after the not great Obama debate to dominate Paul Ryan. That was his thing.

Speaker 1 Just be all over the guy. And it was particularly effective with Paul Ryan because Paul is very much a policy person and wanted to make these very sophisticated points about policy.

Speaker 1 And Biden just like crushed him. It was like a pancake block.
And I think he needs to try to go into that same mentality that he had then with Trump.

Speaker 1 That was probably the most effusive praise of Joe Biden's campaign team that we've heard on this podcast or anywhere so talk a little bit more about that and i think that there's a lot of a lot of consternation that they're too patient that it's too patient to the point of like you know we want people with a bloody shirt in their teeth and they're not giving it to us first let's go back to trady they defeated incumbent president so just a little you know nerd moment here so after watergate we instigate federal funding for nominees so both nominees got the same amount of money for the general election literally when you gave your acceptance speech you walked upstairs there was somebody there from the treasury department they'd have a check it's around 81 82 million dollars we were all literally not literally there was literally yes like there was literally a treasury department person at the at the convention yes yes and we're always like can you wire this and they go no we do we do checks and then you know you charter a plane to fly to have it deposited the next morning so that did among other things level the playing field so Carter lost under that system and Bush lost under that system.

Speaker 1 So for the first time in 2012, you had two candidates who weren't in the federal funding system and the incumbent president won, or on the lost. Second time you've had since was 20 and Trump lost.

Speaker 1 So it's a fair question to ask. When is the last time an incumbent president lost who was not in the federal funding system?

Speaker 1 The answer to that is Herbert Hoover. And he had a bad year.
He did. So I think, you know, the Biden campaign, I think, ran a brilliant campaign in 20.
They reinvented the convention,

Speaker 1 which having sat in those rooms planning conventions a lot, it's really hard to have like all good nights and they had all good nights.

Speaker 1 If I was inside the Biden campaign now, my biggest concern would be peaking too early because I think that there is a comeback story to be written about Joe Biden.

Speaker 1 But if he goes up and then he comes back down,

Speaker 1 That's a harder second comeback. It's a harder story to write.
So I would have this on a glide path so that you don't think you're going to be ahead until the convention.

Speaker 1 And then after the convention, you just pour it on.

Speaker 2 The June 27th debate makes that a little tougher.

Speaker 1 It does. It does.

Speaker 1 It's a very interesting choice. I wasn't in the room when they decided it as to why they went for it.
I mean, on one hand, you could say, okay, if it's a disaster, it gives you time to recover.

Speaker 1 On the other, it's sort of a wake-up call for your candidate to get in a campaign mode, which is always a question.

Speaker 1 If you go back to Bush versus Clinton, it was always he was going to be, he wanted to be president. And these guys do have day jobs.

Speaker 2 Poppy Bush, you know, like just cared too much about governing.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 2 that was the problem in those days.

Speaker 1 And couldn't imagine losing to Bill Clinton. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2 Maybe a little hubris.

Speaker 1 I think the Biden campaign is doing a good job. You have to be inside these campaigns to know what they're really like.
And I'm not inside a campaign. I don't know what it's really like.

Speaker 1 But I think that they

Speaker 1 know how to run a campaign. I think there is a logic to their campaign.
And I don't see how Trump is adding voters.

Speaker 1 So if you just go back to the base level, right, Trump lost by, what, 7 million voters. He needs new customers.
What is he doing to get new customers? How many Biden 20, Trump 24 voters are there?

Speaker 1 I don't think a lot.

Speaker 2 I'm worried about working class men being that voter.

Speaker 1 Look, I mean, Trump's best group are non-college educated white men.

Speaker 1 So that used to be 60% of the electorate. Now it's 39% and declining.
So here's a stat that always blows my mind. 1980, Ronald Reagan wins a sweeping landslide with 55% of the white vote.

Speaker 1 2008, John McCain loses a not particularly close race with 58%. of the white vote.
And that, to me, is sort of says it all.

Speaker 1 This is what we're about in the Lincoln Project, trying to get those voters that came over to Biden in 20 after either not voting or being for Clinton, just enough of them in 16, to stick with Biden.

Speaker 1 One of my frustrations of the Democratic Party is I don't understand why they're not out there calling Joe Biden a great president. I wrote a piece about this.

Speaker 2 I was going to ask you about this. Here it is.
I'm just going to read it because I have the quote right here. A plea to my Democratic friends.

Speaker 2 It's time to start calling Joe Biden a great president, not a good one, not a better choice than Trump. Biden's historically great president.

Speaker 2 Say it with passion, backed by the conviction that it's true. I may have a different take, but explain that.
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, what is it that's bothering people the most about Biden? Is it the record stock market or the record low unemployment?

Speaker 1 He saved the world by putting together this coalition to oppose Russia. You have record achievements like the Infrastructure Act.

Speaker 1 If you had been a baby born the first week that Republicans had an infrastructure week, you'd be almost entering the first grade before Democrats passed it. Logic Public Works Project in history.

Speaker 1 You have real achievements that affect people's lives, like insulin now, inhalers. This is like real stuff.
Student loan stuff is important to people who have student loans.

Speaker 1 There's like tangible, good stuff. And what always gets me, Tim, say, imagine working in the Biden White House in congressional liaison.

Speaker 1 And we've all had friends that did it. So you go over in the hill and you walk into a Republican's office.
Now you're used to like, okay, I hate your guy. I think he's wrong.
You go, I get it.

Speaker 1 I get it. But look, let's try to work something out.
You walk into that office now, and they don't think you're working for a legal president.

Speaker 1 How do you begin a conversation? You say, okay, I know, look, I know you think my guy stole the White House, but what about that Infrastructure Act, baby?

Speaker 1 With polling, if I was doing polling, which I kind of am,

Speaker 1 I would have a screener, do you think Joe Biden's illegally elected president? If you say no, I would just continue the poll. What possible good is there in polling these people?

Speaker 2 And that also does mess with like the numbers on everything else, right? You know, the same people also say the economy is terrible. We're in a recession.
It's the worst economy since 1950.

Speaker 2 These are all the same. So that spikes those numbers.
So it's hard to figure out what normal, if only normal people think that. But this is my counter.
Maybe it's a chicken and egg thing.

Speaker 2 Maybe if Democrats said Biden was great, more people would think he was great. Not very many people think he's been great.
And to me,

Speaker 2 isn't it more compelling to say, Joe Biden's been pretty good. And the other guy is an existential risk.
You don't know what's going to happen. The downside risk could be anything.

Speaker 2 Last time this Capitol was stormed when he left and a million people died of COVID.

Speaker 1 and isn't that good enough isn't that a pitch that's maybe more what's wrong with that i don't know i mean when cars are introduced they don't ever say good enough have it have it really changed anything from last year

Speaker 1 it's always

Speaker 1 camry does i think toyota camry 2024 it'll get to screw this up trust me i think if campaigns have to

Speaker 1 If they want voters to care about something, they have to prove that they care about it. And I think that there is this Obama hangover, and you see it with a lot of the Obama people, which I get.

Speaker 1 Obama will forever be their one true love. There will never be anything as pure, as good, as special as that moment.
And so Joe Biden is always going to be like the third or fourth wife.

Speaker 1 And I think that the party shouldn't negotiate from he's a pretty good. I think they ought to negotiate from he's great.

Speaker 1 And it's important to go out and say this stuff. It is a problem that Biden has that he doesn't get enough credit.
And I think that the party should be about trying to change that.

Speaker 1 And is everybody going to agree? No, but I think

Speaker 1 you have to begin somewhere. And if nobody's saying it, then Lord, I mean, where does that put you?

Speaker 2 We can continue to hash it out. And things are probably different for different people, right? And

Speaker 2 different groups have different obligations.

Speaker 2 And the DNC probably should be listening to Stuart Stevens and Adam Kinzinger and God God willing, Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney and Chris Christie Everett maybe should be listening to me because it gives them a little bit more credibility.

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Speaker 2 Here's why I think this is really important to talk about two primaries that happened last night. And I wrote about it for morning shots if this wets your whistle.

Speaker 2 Jamal Bowman, who is a member of the squad and really one of the worst members of the squad. Yes, he's been pretty responsible, frankly.

Speaker 2 I just want to say, like, pretty darn good on the Israel issue and just across the board working with Joe Biden. Jamal Bowman didn't vote for infrastructure.

Speaker 2 Jamal Bowman denied that Hamas committed rapes on 10-7. He dabbled in 9-11 conspiracies.
I mean, he pulled the fire alarm and pretended like he thought it was the door handle. He's an idiot.

Speaker 2 He gets primaried by a center-left, probably too conservative for the district, frankly, county executive George Latimer in New York.

Speaker 2 Across the country, in Colorado, where I am right now, Lauren Bobert, after, you know, trying to tug on somebody's hog inside Beetlejuice the musical, changes districts to run in

Speaker 2 Congressional district 4. And the Republicans cannot field a candidate to come within 30 points of her.
They have a broad field, some of them normal, some of them crazy, all of them get crushed.

Speaker 2 And similarly, I should mention in South Carolina, the three Republican women who showed a little bit of courage, rare Republican courage, to speak out against their draconian abortion bill, and they're not pro-choice.

Speaker 2 They were just like, we need reasonable restrictions. All three of them were defeated in primaries by crazy amount of people.
What does this tell you about the parties, right?

Speaker 2 It's that the voters in the Democratic side are holding their crazy people accountable and the voters on the Republican side are not and are doing the opposite.

Speaker 2 And I think that's like a really important contrast that a lot of centrists and a lot of contrarian centrist guys and stuff, like when they're like, I'm really worried about the squad, I feel like they miss that.

Speaker 2 And I think it's an important contrast last night.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that's a really good point. Parties in our system should have a circuit breaker function.

Speaker 1 And the Republican Party never pulled a circuit breaker on trunk.

Speaker 1 And, you know, for those of us that spent decades pointing out flaws in the Democratic Party, there's a little bit of hubris to come out in sadness to say they are the only pro-democracy political party in America.

Speaker 1 So the rest of the stuff doesn't matter. I go back, you know, Joe Trippi's involved in the Lincoln Project too.
Joe and I used to go against each other.

Speaker 1 If you go back and look at what we used to make ads about, it was like, said the capital gains, it has to be 34 or 28%. I mean, it's like arguing about your cholesterol count in the night.

Speaker 1 night medicare prices prescription drug too expensive it's just you know i mean that's the way politics should be but now none of that matters and i i think there is a much saner center element to the democratic party than there is to the republican party which goes to my point the republican party is an extremist movement an extremist twin i mean there's only one example i think because it gets in the mindsets of the actual normal congresspeople and not to give any any excuses to the Brian Fitzpatricks or the, you know, all of your old friends that you elected or in the Senate.

Speaker 2 But like these guys get in their head that they can't compromise with the Democrats. They can't break from Trump or else they'll get primaried.
Right. And so it impacts their behavior.

Speaker 2 Now, it shouldn't. They should have a spine, but it does.
And on the Democratic side, like, that's not the case.

Speaker 2 Like, there's no examples of Democrats getting primaried and losing because they cut a deal with Republicans on immigration. It's the opposite.

Speaker 2 Those members are like, okay, well, if I dabble too much in this pro-Hamas stuff, maybe I'll get challenged. Like, that's how this shit should work.
That's how this shit should work.

Speaker 1 I couldn't agree more. I would have been out there making ads with APEC.

Speaker 1 It would have been a good client, too. They spent like $14 million.

Speaker 2 Are you still doing ads? I thought you were retired. I mean, Lincoln Project.

Speaker 1 I'll end the Lincoln Project.

Speaker 2 Oh, you're not taking on clients? All right. You never know.
We got people listening.

Speaker 1 No, but if you run, Tim, I'm open to it. I'm not running for any.

Speaker 2 Theorists. Okay.
I appreciate that you listen to the podcast sometimes because I hear from you, but if you listened every day, you'd know that my career is over.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 2 I'm with you, though. I say that to my friends who are more responsible.
I'll do favors for friends, but I'm retired. Let's do a little football.
The book that you wrote was just so beautiful, man.

Speaker 2 I've given it to a couple of my old miss friends as gifts. It was about you and your dad going to every football game for Ole Miss in one year.

Speaker 2 This might be the best Ole Miss season in memory, potentially. Am I jinxing you right now?

Speaker 1 It's either going to be the best or the worst because they have assembled arguably the most talented team in football. Ole Mist really got the whole NIL thing right.

Speaker 1 They went out and they brought a guy to run it who's an Ole Mist football player graduate who was a top CAA sports agent and he's done an amazing job putting this together and they didn't try to pretend that this wasn't the free market.

Speaker 1 They embraced that it was the free market, that this is free agency. And they went out and they bought a great team.

Speaker 1 incredible depth you know i think it must be very weird to be in a locker room now where you know you've been there three years waiting your time to start and then they bring in somebody else and you know first day of practice they show up in a lamborghini that's literally happening look at the parking lots now they're extraordinary but deserved right deserved they're make they're the ones you're paying for the tickets shouldn't they be getting the money not the boost i am all for it i'm all for it though i think charlie baker my old friend and client is going to bring some order to that.

Speaker 1 The thing about sports is it will always break our hearts, but at least it reminds us that we have one.

Speaker 1 And I would

Speaker 1 love nothing more than Ole Miss to have this perfect magic season. It's possible, but I stand ready to have my heart broken.

Speaker 2 Are you still able to have the joy and the pain? Or is the politics of it and the fucking Ole Miss people being MAGA and your dad being gone? Like, is there any melancholy?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 I have zero melancholy about this. You know, I think Omiss is actually sort of a moving story when you think about it.

Speaker 1 So the last time Ole Miss won the national championships in 1962, the year that Meredith integrated O Miss, in which they had arguably the last battle of the Civil War on the O Miss campus right there at the Grove.

Speaker 2 As I said, beautiful Wright Thompson article about this. I'll put it in the show notes.
I'm trying to have writing. Yeah, beautiful Wright Thompson.
He's got a new book coming out.

Speaker 2 I'll have him on the pod soon. He's so good.

Speaker 1 Beautiful writer. He had 30,000 troops in a little town of Oxford.

Speaker 1 And now, when you go to home games, they have this tradition where the bus pulls up in front of the grove and the team walks through the grove to the stadium.

Speaker 1 And now that team looks a lot like Mississippi. And I find that really moving.
You walk past the Confederate Memorial, which is still there.

Speaker 1 And I think it really shows that

Speaker 1 the impact of college sports and civil rights and civil rights on college sports is a fascinating subject to me.

Speaker 1 I mean, it was really the first time that blacks and whites in the South cheered for each other. And they say rugby in South Africa played a similar role.
And, you know, it's a fascinating story.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 when I worked for Lynn Swan, when he ran for governor of Pennsylvania, and he said, you know, I was like the second generation.

Speaker 1 of black athletes to be recruited. And for me, look, I grew up around Oakland.
I took ballet lessons. It was not a big deal.
I was famous when I was 14.

Speaker 1 But these other guys, he says, I'm really interested in these other guys.

Speaker 1 So if you go back to like the first black players that Alabama recruited, somebody realized pretty soon, like, you know, we should get some black females

Speaker 1 because otherwise

Speaker 1 they're going to be going out with like, you know, white sorority girls. So, you know, you start out wanting like a running back, you end up with, you know, a black sorority.

Speaker 1 It's sort of the law of unintended consequences. And I think that

Speaker 1 It's been an extraordinarily positive force in the South.

Speaker 2 Oh, God, Stuart, that was way darker than I thought it was. It took me a second for that to sink in why they needed black girls, but okay, anyway.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, can you imagine walking around the University of Alabama campus with a white girlfriend if you're a black player in 1968?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, it would have been a long walk. There's a fascinating book called Rising Tide.
There's a lot of books called Rising Tide. There's called Rising Tide.

Speaker 1 It analyzes the impact of Joe Namath on the University of Alabama's racial segregation history. And its premise makes a lot of sense to me.
Joe Namath came from this small integrated steel mill town.

Speaker 1 He was the coolest guy on campus by far. It was not cool to be racist around Joe Namath.

Speaker 1 And that had a ripple effect throughout the campus. He had a picture of his high school prom up on his wall, and there was a black student, female student in there.

Speaker 1 And he got out, well, like, Joe had a black girlfriend. Actually, it wasn't his girlfriend.
She just happened to be in the picture. But I think this makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1 And you look at the difference between that and old Miss.

Speaker 1 To me, it's really fascinating and very hopeful.

Speaker 2 I like a little bit of hope, and I just like picking your brain. I could just come to Baton Rouge for the game this year.
Come to Baton Rouge. I want to hang out with you.

Speaker 1 The Ole Miss LSU game is probably going to be the game of the year. You're going to probably have both those teams undefeated.

Speaker 2 Okay, well, now you're Jenks in LSU, but go ahead. Let's go.

Speaker 1 There's a history of Ole Miss. The last two times that Ole Miss went down to LSU undefeated, they left defeated.
It's at night and Tiger Stadium at night.

Speaker 1 Some of the formative experiences of my youth. I was there the night that Billy Cannon ran back to pun on Halloween.

Speaker 2 No way.

Speaker 1 Yes? Yes.

Speaker 1 It was terrifying. So it should be an extraordinary game.
And if I was going to go to one Ole Miss game, I wouldn't go at Ole Miss. The Ole Miss Georgia game is going to be something, hopefully.

Speaker 1 I would go to Tiger Stadium.

Speaker 2 Well, I hope you do. If not, we'll figure out a way to have a whiskey somewhere else.
Stuart Stevens, if everybody had acted like you the last eight years, we'd be in a lot better place.

Speaker 2 I appreciate you so much. I'm grateful to you, and let's talk again soon.

Speaker 1 Thanks for having me, bud.

Speaker 2 All right, we'll see you all back here tomorrow. It is debate day.

Speaker 2 We'll have uh, somebody knows Joe Biden pretty well chatting about what his plans are. We'll see y'all then.
Peace.

Speaker 1 Every step of the way,

Speaker 1 we walk the line.

Speaker 1 Your D is the number,

Speaker 1 so I'm murdered.

Speaker 1 Time is piling up,

Speaker 1 we struggle in the straight.

Speaker 1 We're all boxed in,

Speaker 1 Nowhere to escape

Speaker 1 City's just a jungle

Speaker 1 Book it's the play

Speaker 1 Trapped in the hood of it Trying to get away

Speaker 1 I was raised in the country I've been working in the town

Speaker 1 I've been in trouble ever since I set my suitcases down

Speaker 1 Got nothing for you you

Speaker 1 I had nothing before

Speaker 1 Don't even have anything for myself anymore

Speaker 1 Sky full of fire

Speaker 1 Pain born down

Speaker 1 Nothing you can sell me I see you around

Speaker 1 All my powers of expression

Speaker 1 I thought a source of love

Speaker 1 Could never do do you justice and reason around

Speaker 1 Only one thing

Speaker 1 I did wrong

Speaker 1 Stayed in Mississippi a day

Speaker 1 too long

Speaker 2 The Board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown

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