Bill Kristol and Joe Perticone: The Quitters

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Speaker 4 Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.
We have a monster show today. There's just so much happening.

Speaker 4 There's so much actually happening that we are saving the discussion of Rona Romney Romney until tomorrow. We have a banger planned for tomorrow, too.

Speaker 4 So don't worry, you'll get your Ronna Romney fix in then. And also, if you haven't read Morning Shots this morning, Andrew Egger has a nice little riff on that.
What else is in the news?

Speaker 4 Well, New York Times has a headline. Trump will face his greatest fears as two legal threats coincide today.
He's going to be in a Manhattan courtroom on the Stormy Daniels case.

Speaker 4 And this morning, we had an announcement that he has to post a $175 million bond in the next 10 days to get an appeal on the Trump business fraud case. Trump does have some good news today.

Speaker 4 He won his country club golf tournament. I don't know if you guys saw that.
He won both the senior and the regular division. Unclear, you know, how much ball kicking was happening there.

Speaker 4 And then we've got Lisa Murkowski maybe leaving the GOP, little Marco auditioning for Veep. Candice committed her 57th strike for anti-Semitic blood libel.
And 57 strikes, you're out with Ben Shapiro.

Speaker 4 So she's been canceled by the Daily Wire.

Speaker 4 But before we get to any of that, the Republican House of Representatives is a shit show once again, which is why I've asked Hill correspondent Joe Perticone to join me and Bill. Hey, gentlemen.

Speaker 4 How's it going?

Speaker 5 Good, Tim.

Speaker 4 Nothing to talk about today.

Speaker 4 You know, not much in the news.

Speaker 6 We're speechless. We're speechless.

Speaker 6 Joe's going to explain the entire Hill, the House Republicans, and everything within about 52 minutes, and then that'll be good.

Speaker 4 Okay, we need that. If you haven't signed up for Joe's newsletter, by the way, press pass, go to thebullwork.com.
This is the way to get real talk and what's happening in the Hill.

Speaker 4 Joe does not give you spin from House leadership. He does not blow smoke up your ass about things that might happen.

Speaker 4 In fact, Joe messaged me the other day saying that he is, quote, bearish on anything being accomplished in the 118th Congress. So that's a note of optimism for you.

Speaker 4 And so this is the man to bring in Marjorie Taylor Greene has on Friday, after we taped, filed a motion to vacate. And so Mike Johnson, the clock is ticking.
Mike Johnson versus Head of Cabbage.

Speaker 4 Why don't you explain to us what is happening among the House crazies, Joe Pertico.

Speaker 5 So that rule still exists that allows a single member to file a motion where the whole chamber will vote to kick out the speaker. That still exists from when McCarthy was kicked out as speaker.

Speaker 5 Marjorie Taylor Greene Friday filed a resolution to motion to vacate. However, she didn't actually because she didn't file it privileged.

Speaker 5 If it was privileged, it would have triggered a vote within two legislative days. They're taking two weeks off, so it'd be two weeks plus two days.

Speaker 5 That's not happening because she didn't file it privileged.

Speaker 4 What are they doing over the next two weeks? I'm sorry to interrupt, but just a quick aside. I mean, not much is happening right now, and we have multiple wars happening.

Speaker 4 They keep claiming we're being invaded on the border. You'd think that if we were actually being invaded, they probably wouldn't want to take a two-week vacation.

Speaker 5 They do some fundraisers.

Speaker 5 They hit the trail.

Speaker 4 Is it August? No, it's March. We're just taking two weeks off in March.
Spring break.

Speaker 5 Yeah. Some of them stick around D.C.

Speaker 5 For example, a couple Easters ago, former Congresswoman Diane Black, I saw her at Mass on Easter, and then I saw her get up and leave halfway through. And then she posted a photo from the Trump Hotel.

Speaker 5 You know, so everyone's kind of doing their own thing for two weeks. Got it.

Speaker 4 Okay. All right.
Okay. So we're on a two-week break.
She's filed the motion to vacate, but it's not privileged. So what does that mean?

Speaker 5 So it's not privileged, which means it's just kind of sitting there. There's no requirement to vote on it.
If it's privilege, it has to be voted on whether leadership likes it or not.

Speaker 5 And if it's not privileged, it's up to leadership to bring it to the floor. So they're not going to do that.

Speaker 5 She does this, though, as a kind of veiled threat of, I will make it privileged and we'll have this vote, and you'll have to defend yourself either with support from Democrats or with

Speaker 5 everybody in attendance. And she keeps saying, we want these things to, from what I can see, no one is with her.

Speaker 5 No one's like the eight Republicans that kicked out McCarthy, like, don't want to do that with her.

Speaker 5 So she probably just wants some kind of concession, which is most likely to not allow a vote on any Ukraine funding, which has been slowly getting momentum, but I still don't think like she'll probably get her wish.

Speaker 4 So it's kind of like a Jewish space laser of Damocles hanging over Mike Johnson's head. Yeah.
That's what she's trying to do. Do you like that, Bill?

Speaker 5 It's less of a threat, though, because she doesn't have anyone with her on this.

Speaker 5 She's not even fully doing it by making it privileged. And I don't think there's an appetite to kick out Johnson the way there was with McCarthy.

Speaker 4 From either side, right? And this is the other thing, is that the Democrats were chomping at the bit to get rid of McCarthy and to be helpful, right?

Speaker 4 Because they're like, the way what he did was so gross.

Speaker 4 And I heard from multiple Democrats in Congress that they just felt so mad at him for the way he rehabbed Trump after January 6th that they were like, we're not going to lift a finger to help you.

Speaker 4 But like now, because of Ukraine, because of these some of the issues, and you already saw Tom Swazi, for example, and some others speak out and say, okay, like if Mike comes to the table, we'll deal.

Speaker 4 The question is, is there enough pressure on him to actually deal?

Speaker 4 So that is where you're more embarrassed. I want to get Bill after this, but you're actually on the hill.
But so, like, is Mike Johnson, does he want to deal with the Democrats in Ukraine?

Speaker 5 I am of the belief that Ukraine funding is this cycle's scalia seat in that it won't be decided until after there's an election, one way or another, because if they were going to strike some kind of deal, they would have done it already.

Speaker 5 There's already a standalone aid package that's passed the Senate that also like knifes progressives because it has so much Israel funding in it. But they don't want to do that.
I don't think anyone

Speaker 5 other than Democrats and like a few hawks maybe in the Republican side want to do it, but they're not taking any action to do it.

Speaker 5 There's the two discharge petitions, one of which includes border funding and it has like a dozen and a half signatures right now.

Speaker 4 This is actually important. I want to get to Bill's thought on this in a second, but let's just explain for people.

Speaker 4 So the two discharge positions, the discharge petition allows members to bring something to the floor that is not brought by the leadership the speaker right okay so there are two out there one is kind of a quasi mirror of the senate deal that had that had border funding in it but it also includes like less monetary aid to ukraine it's just more military aid and then the other one is just a straight aid discharge petition right the other one is just like a copy of what passed the senate which is just straight up israel taiwan ukraine funding 88 billion, I think.

Speaker 4 And so who is for which? Why are there two?

Speaker 5 So there's like 180-ish Democrats on the straight up foreign aid funding. And then Ken Buck signed it on his way out the door.

Speaker 5 So that signature still holds, even though he's resigned, because a discharge petition requires of all of the seats. So it has to be 218 no matter what, even if 218 isn't technically the majority.

Speaker 5 in the House right now. So that signature still holds.
He's the only Republican on it.

Speaker 5 But then you have this Fitzpatrick one, where all of the moderate Republicans have signed on to it, like Mike Lawler and there's some air quotes there for people that are just doing this on audio.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like the so-called moderate members, they have signed on to this.

Speaker 5 And I think that the existence of the Fitzpatrick one, which has far less chance of passing because it has a border component, because it hasn't even gone through the Senate yet, it gives these so-called moderate Republicans an out because they can sign that one without

Speaker 5 having to sign the existing one that most Democrats and Ken Buck have signed. That's why I think neither goes anywhere.

Speaker 4 Happy warrior, Bill Crystal. Do you have any more positive thoughts?

Speaker 4 And you are talking to people in this space that are, I think, maybe a little more hopeful that some deal could be reached on the Ukraine funding. Where are you on that?

Speaker 6 Yeah, well, the people who follow Ukraine closely are very hopeful and very exercised that some deal will be reached, which is so important to get the funding.

Speaker 6 But every time I I talk to Joe, he brings me back to earth and explains that it's, as you say, it's probably less likely to happen than I hope it would, and sometimes talk myself into thinking it would.

Speaker 6 It is so unbelievably, if I could just editorialize for 20 seconds, so unbelievably irresponsible not to pass it. I mean, if you believe in it, and it's unbelievably irresponsible.

Speaker 6 And there are some Republicans who believe in it, and some senior Republicans, chairman of the House for Foreign Relations and so forth, and also younger ones who

Speaker 6 genuinely care about defending freedom and defeating Putin. And the idea that they're sort of paralyzed and they can't sign the Democratic discharge petition.

Speaker 6 A few of them will sign Fitzpatrick's, but then

Speaker 6 that's not going to get to 218, that they can't actually sit down and work it out. Marjorie Taylor Greene gets to threaten Mike Johnson.

Speaker 6 They don't seem to be able to exercise any leverage, the Republicans who do care about Ukraine, on Speaker Johnson. Maybe they will.
Maybe this gives them a chance.

Speaker 6 Maybe they go to the Democrats and say, look, we will.

Speaker 6 And the Democrats go to Johnson and say, we're not going to save you if there are two or three votes, which is all it would take, right, to vacate the chair, unless you bring Ukraine to the floor.

Speaker 4 Isn't that two now?

Speaker 5 This is going to be one when Gallagher's gone.

Speaker 4 Yeah, okay. We're going to get to Gallagher in a second.
I'm with you. It is extremely irresponsible.
It's insane, frankly.

Speaker 4 And not only are there supposedly some Republicans that believe in it, but we had a guest last week that was sharing with me that there were some Republicans who want to go even further than Joe Biden and wanted to fund Ukraine more.

Speaker 4 And so why aren't those people doing anything? Where are they if they exist? Okay, Joe, one more on just the fundamentals here.

Speaker 4 So, we also have the shutdown hanging over all of this, which is a separate budget thing from Ukraine. And MTG's stated complaints were more about that, right?

Speaker 4 We're more about the budget deal than about Ukraine.

Speaker 5 So, is it possible that the budget deal will also I think that's that's well on its way actually to finally being resolved, you know, six months out from the end of the fiscal year.

Speaker 5 But, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene had all these kind of random complaints about the budget deal.

Speaker 6 You know, it

Speaker 5 has gender studies, it has woke components, things that, you know, no one actually cares about. But then I think her big issue is

Speaker 6 doing something going forward.

Speaker 5 Because once the budget's done, like Johnson has said, we have to get our budget done. And once we do that, we can address other issues.
The next hot issue coming up has to be Ukraine funding.

Speaker 5 And if she can get that secure that they're not going to do it, then

Speaker 5 that's her win.

Speaker 4 All right. So now we have to talk about the other thing hanging over all this.

Speaker 4 If anybody's been monitoring my ex, I've had a lot of thoughts over the weekend about

Speaker 4 Mike Gallagher. It was my friend's 40th birthday.
I bumped into a couple Bulwark fans in Palm Springs, and I may have had a cocktail or two. I was getting a little loose.

Speaker 4 I have a lot of thoughts about Mike Gallagher, but I want to start first with Joe and Bill. So, Joe,

Speaker 4 so Gallagher and Buck are gone. Explain to me how their colleagues are just not consumed with contempt for this choice to just quit.

Speaker 4 And it's like it's one thing if you're taking, if you get promoted, you become the commerce secretary or something, or even the Ben Sasse thing was a little eye-rolly, but it's like you get to be the head of a university.

Speaker 4 Like, these guys are quitting for no reason. But Ken Buck doesn't have a job, ostensibly.
And Mike Gallagher is going to take a job for a lobbyist, a government contractor.

Speaker 5 Gallagher, too, is like typifies the whole great resignation situation because he is entering his prime.

Speaker 5 He was just handed a chairmanship of a committee that he wanted to create, that it was his pet project. And then halfway through is like, I hate my life so much.
I need to get out of here.

Speaker 5 And so I don't think there's contempt, there's jealousy. A lot of members wish they could do this, but a lot of members can't envision a life outside of Congress.

Speaker 5 And, you know, being a member of Congress is central to their identity. And it became clear for Gallagher that, you know,

Speaker 5 there's better things in life. And that might be taking a job at a large software company.

Speaker 4 I mean, a large software company is one way to put it. And it's like, literally, they were trying to do the wall.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's Peter Thiel's gross government contracting company that was working on the wall. So like, not exactly, you know, just like some neutral software company.

Speaker 4 But like, Bill, this is not normal, right? I mean, you've been around the block a little bit more. There are at least three that I can think of with McCarthy,

Speaker 4 McCarthy, Gallagher, and Buck. And then who is the guy, Joe, that left to head up Youngstown State?

Speaker 5 Bill Johnson.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Bill Johnson,

Speaker 4 at least that's a job. At least he took a job.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't have a job. He's doing nothing.

Speaker 6 This is not normal, right?

Speaker 4 To just leave Congress to do nothing?

Speaker 6 I mean, I'd say to the Palantir, to be fair, does a lot of things in addition to the wall, a lot of it defense and intelligence community related, which I suppose Gallagher cares about or knows about.

Speaker 6 But having said that, I don't mean to defend him at all. It used to be that you didn't really quit in the middle of a term because you thought it was wrong to quit in the middle of a term.

Speaker 6 You know, you told the voters you wanted a two-year term, and unless you had an illness or really, as you say, a cabinet secretary-type appointment or something kind of extraordinary, you served out your term.

Speaker 6 Now, you would announce now that you, as Gallagher did, that he wouldn't run for re-election. You'd let it open up the field so people could run to succeed him.
You'd do it in an orderly way.

Speaker 6 You'd let your colleagues plan for succession in terms of committees. But you would announce that you were retiring at the end of the term.

Speaker 6 This notion that you just walk away from something where it used to be considered kind of an honor if your fellow citizens selected you to be one of 435 representatives in the House, and your flip side of that honor was to hopefully be a good representative and behave decently.

Speaker 6 Not avoided that, but at least serve out your term. And now that's just gone.
So it's just part of the general, if I could just sound like a cratchetty person who has been around the block.

Speaker 6 It's just part of a total decline of any sense of public service. I really can't, I find it kind of extraordinary, actually.

Speaker 4 And Joe, several, there were some liberals that were messaging me saying that

Speaker 4 actually what Mike Gallagher is doing is a five-dimensional chess effort to hurt Mike Johnson, that he's leaving because he knows that it's going to be painful and that he's actually, he's a secret, he's doing us a secret service by leaving.

Speaker 4 You can tell by the tone in my voice that I reject this, but maybe you have some sources. Is Mike Gallagher a secret resistance hero for his resignation? No.
No.

Speaker 5 Whenever there's like the idea of some scheme or some like, if it would work in an Aaron Sorkin script, it's not real.

Speaker 6 It's not real at all.

Speaker 5 And it's like, Mike Gallagher probably just hated his day-to-day. Sucks.
This is the worst majority ever. They don't do anything.
They just pass CRs and fight.

Speaker 5 And he was just like, this is not worth it.

Speaker 6 Get out of there. You know what's amazing? If I could just say, he was head, as you said, Joe, of this one committee that was set up for him.

Speaker 6 He was made chairman at a young age of this China China committee. It did actual serious work.
It had hearings that actually people thought were reputable, serious hearings about foreign policy.

Speaker 6 It got the TikTok bill passed with a huge bipartisan majority, which is probably a good thing. And in any case, it's a real thing.

Speaker 6 It's a serious beginning of getting serious about, you know, Chinese information operations in the U.S.

Speaker 6 I would have thought there would be more they could he could do over the next six months just on that committee alone.

Speaker 6 So all this talk about how horrible it is to serve in the House, what does that mean incidentally?

Speaker 6 This is also got, this is where I'm now like Tim, and I'm following his lead, and he'll now go into much greater detail.

Speaker 6 All this, oh, it's such a terrible life. You know, what is so terrible? It's frustrating a little bit.

Speaker 6 You go vote a few times, you work three days a week, you have a two-week vacation now, you have to do a couple of fundraisers, which you don't have to do if you're retiring anyway.

Speaker 6 It's like the hardest thing in the world to serve out your whole term. It's really pathetic.

Speaker 5 I think that when you're in the majority, it's supposed to be really fun because you're supposed to be rifling off pet projects, but the majority is so slim. And

Speaker 5 they've been so busy with trying to fund the government, just passing CRs every like few weeks, just like one more CR, bro. Like, please, we'll get it done this time.
And like, that's not enjoyable.

Speaker 5 Like, they're not actually legislating.

Speaker 4 I don't know. Matt Gates seems like he's having fun.
Yeah. I don't understand why there isn't, why nobody's like, well, hey, maybe I could be a normie Matt Gates.
Maybe I could have fun.

Speaker 4 Maybe I could go out there and just be a little troublemaker on behalf of Ukraine funding and on behalf of this TikTok bill.

Speaker 4 And I can go do interviews and I can go poke people and maybe I'll make a deal with the Democrats. Like, why doesn't anybody try that? That sounds okay.

Speaker 6 Is it that horrible? Or I'll ask Joe too, or you could go the upscale version, which is what people used to do when they were in the minority or in a majority way.

Speaker 6 They didn't have much to do at times. Go give five serious speeches on U.S.

Speaker 6 foreign policy in the 21st century to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Chicago Council and do all that kind of high-toned stuff that people used to like to do if they got elected to Congress and were somewhat serious people, and tell yourself, maybe with some truth even, that I'm helping shape the debate in America here, no matter who the next president is, about what American foreign policy needs to look like in this new era.

Speaker 6 But no, and you get much more attention if you're still a member of Congress when you do that, I think.

Speaker 6 But no, that's, I guess it's just so unpleasant for him to have to stay late on the House floor once every two weeks and deal with his colleagues who we dislike so much.

Speaker 4 Well, I have a final round on this, but any final takes on this, Joe? I mean, it basically is a sign that MAGA has taken over. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 5 The hallmark dysfunction of like how MAGA operates has, that's the norm in the House. I saw an article this morning, and it was about how

Speaker 5 when Trump becomes president again, there's Republicans in Congress who are already planning to take action. No, they're not.
They can't tie their own shoes. They're not,

Speaker 5 they can't plan a day in advance of anything. So I can't envision a scenario where

Speaker 5 they're going to get their act together. If All of the things that will happen in a potential Trump second term will come from the executive.

Speaker 4 It is just so unbelievably pathetic. Here's the thing for the Tim Rant segment.
When he resigned, you know what he did?

Speaker 4 He sent a book about life after public service to his colleagues that included like stories from seven presidents and what they did after they left the presidency. And he signed it Semper Phi.

Speaker 6 I'm just like,

Speaker 4 are we fucking serious right now? Like, you're sending this letter, like, lecturing people about how there is life after public service with an ending note that he will always be faithful.

Speaker 4 Are you always faithful? You're quitting your job. You're quitting your job in the middle of the year.

Speaker 4 Like, there are so many people in Wisconsin who have actual hard jobs that voted for him, that put him in there, ostensibly that liked Mike Gallagher, that wanted him to vote for their interests.

Speaker 4 Maybe some of those people don't have the same interests as I do, but they asked for him to be a public servant.

Speaker 4 And like, there was a while, at least not really that long ago, Bill, like even in my day, where there was a sense that there was this obligation to the job, that there was honor and service conservatism.

Speaker 4 That was basically the thesis of the 2008 campaign that John McCain ran.

Speaker 4 And it's pretty hard to imagine John McCain, just think about John McCain, quitting Congress, quitting the Senate to be like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go become a contractor for Boeing.

Speaker 4 I want to go be a Boeing analyst because I'm annoyed that Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell won't bring up my campaign finance reform bill. And it's preposterous.

Speaker 4 It would be a preposterous thing to think. And there was a reason why it would be preposterous because it would be considered shameful.

Speaker 4 And the thing that bugs me about the Mike Gallagher thing is that everybody wants to excuse Mick Forum. Everybody wants to be like, oh, you know, it is miserable to be, even the media, even the left,

Speaker 4 like, it is miserable to be in the Republican conference. Like, it's hard to blame these guys that are running for the exits.
It's like, it doesn't have to be that miserable. I don't know.

Speaker 4 And I guess Mitt's running for the exits, but Mitt sat for a long time. He's serving out his term.
He did the right thing.

Speaker 4 He voted more conservative probably than I would on certain things, but then he spoke out at times when, you know, George Santos or Donald Trump did horrible things. That's an option.

Speaker 4 That is an option to just do your job, do the right thing, and whatever, take some tomatoes, have to sit alone at the lunch table. Like, is this really that onerous of a call?

Speaker 4 And you mentioned the Palantir thing. We should also probably mention that, by the way, Palantir was lobbying for the TikTok ban beforehand.

Speaker 4 So he gets through a bill that's probably the right bill, by the way. Like he immediately quits and goes to work for a lobbyist.
And he does so in a way, and now is quitting.

Speaker 4 He does so in a way so that they can't replace his seat.

Speaker 4 And again, some of the liberals, some of the left, some people are like, this is great news that he's resigning when somebody can't replace his seat.

Speaker 4 And I don't know, it's kind of, to me, it's kind of like, really? Can we just, for a bigger picture, is that really good?

Speaker 4 Like, he's just going to leave the people of his district high and dry and everything's going to be okay. He's going to get invited to the Council on Foreign Relations.

Speaker 4 He's going to get invited to the Trump White House or the Biden White House. He's going to get invited on Meet the Press.
He got invited on this podcast. He hasn't taken me up on it yet.

Speaker 4 And like, there's no shame associated with this. I don't know.
I feel like a man that like just, by every account, knows better.

Speaker 4 says that he knows better and just walks away when the other option is still available, that he could stay in Congress.

Speaker 4 He could work with Hakeem Hakeem Jeffries, he could work with Brian Fitzpatrick, he could try to get this stuff done, he could do the hard work. Like that option was still available.

Speaker 4 And instead, he just quits to go take a cushy job for a fucking defense contractor. I think it is extremely, extremely gross.
And just as a final reminder, I want to take us to break.

Speaker 4 Me and Bill come back on the other side, but I want to just play a little audio from our friend Mike Gallagher on January 6th.

Speaker 7 This is the cost of countenancing an effort by Congress to overturn the election and telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election today,

Speaker 7 even though you know that is not true.

Speaker 7 We have got to stop this. Mr.
President, you have got to stop this. You are the only person who can call this off.

Speaker 4 Actually, Donald Trump wasn't the only person that could do the right thing.

Speaker 4 Mike Gallagher could have done the right thing too, but he decided not to after after he was sheltered in place, scared in his Capitol office. So thanks for nothing, Mike Gallagher.

Speaker 4 Thanks for everything, Joe Perticone. Sign up for the Press Pass Newsletter.
We're back on the other side of Belgium.

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Speaker 4 All right, I'm back with Bill Crystal. Mike Gellger, not man enough.
I wanted to move on, but you reminded me in the break that I forgot something.

Speaker 6 A week after that eloquent statement, imploring Trump, you're the person who can call this off, he voted not to impeach Trump in the House with some ridiculous both sides

Speaker 6 statement about how, well, what Trump did was wrong. But, you know, frankly, for four years, everyone's been doing everything wrong, and both sides have been wrong.
And I can't vote to impeach.

Speaker 6 Mitt Romney, whom you mentioned, voted to convict Trump twice. And he's serving out his term.
Whatever once quarrels with some of what Mitt might have done, he has behaved honorably. Liz Cheney

Speaker 6 followed out the logic of her actions and did unpopular things and got crushed in a primary. And she didn't quit early.
You know what?

Speaker 6 Liz Cheney actually served out her term, God forbid, you know, and tried to be a good representative till the end and tried to educate the American public about January 6th to leave.

Speaker 4 And people were mean to her during that time, too.

Speaker 6 Yeah, but her life probably wasn't very pleasant sitting around with the House Republican conference, right? But yeah, so I'm totally with you.

Speaker 4 All right. Well, if Mike Gallagher wants to defend himself, Semper Fy, he's always welcome on the Bullard podcast.
All right. Where do we go from here, Bill? My blood pressure is high.

Speaker 4 Let's just keep it up. Let's keep it up.
We had a vice presidential audition on the Sunday shows this weekend. Let's take a listen to little Markup.

Speaker 6 But you said it would be an honor to be offered a spot on his ticket, really?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I think anyone who's offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored by the opportunity to do it if you're in public service.

Speaker 9 I'm in the Senate because I want to serve the country. Being vice president is an important way to serve the country.
But I've also been clear. I've never talked to Donald Trump.

Speaker 9 I've never talked to anybody on his team or family or inner circle about vice president. That's a decision he's going to make.
He has plenty of really good people to pick from.

Speaker 6 I mean, the reason why I asked you, I mean, look what happened to the last guy.

Speaker 8 I mean,

Speaker 8 a mob stormed the Capitol, literally calling to hang Mike Pence. And Trump defended those chance of hanging Mike Pence.

Speaker 9 I will tell you this, that when Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer. It was more.

Speaker 4 Okay, I can't. I'm not going to listen to fucking Marquez bullshit.
I can't. Let's turn it off.
It'd be an honor.

Speaker 4 That was John Carl, by the way, interviewing him, reminding him the last vice presidential, there was a threatened hanging.

Speaker 4 What do you think, Bill? That was your man.

Speaker 6 I think I did vote for him here in Virginia in 2016. You're your man.
You're your man. Jeff was out of the race by then.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 Hearing it really is. I hadn't heard it.
I just was skimming the transcript or whatever. It's really horrible.
I mean, a normal person, if I could say, would say what Mike Pence has mentioned.

Speaker 6 Incidentally, I respect what Mike Pence did on January 6th, right? Doesn't Marco agree that Mike Pence should not have overturned the election?

Speaker 6 But no, he wants to be VP, and that's what public service means, sucking up to Donald Trump. Yeah, it's unbelievable.

Speaker 4 There was the audio of Marco that Carl played in a different clip back when he was like, Marco, you called him a con man. You called him a con man.
And Marco's like, oh, that's just campaign rhetoric.

Speaker 4 It's like, is that just campaign rhetoric to say that you're to go from being like, hey, everyone that is voting for this man, you're being conned, to just going on to TV now and saying, I am volunteering to be conned.

Speaker 4 I'm raising my hand to be part of the con, actually.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they're really bad. I mean, in Morning Shots this morning, you know, Andrew Egger and I wrote our little parts separately, and they're slightly different from each other.

Speaker 6 And I'm curious what you think on this. I mean, I think they're flip sides of a similar point, but Andrew's on Romney McDaniel, which I think you'll discuss tomorrow.

Speaker 6 And he sort of says she rationalized her action. She was able to sleep at night because she was taking one for the team, right?

Speaker 6 He makes fun of that some, but he also seems to assume that she really did have trouble sleeping at night.

Speaker 6 And I I guess my little piece sort of goes in the other direction and says we're sort of beyond that.

Speaker 6 And I'm unwilling to give any of them the benefit of the doubt now that they're having difficulty sleeping at night or anything. Maybe Mitch McConnell is.
I don't know.

Speaker 6 He seems like he's a little more serious, but all the rest of them. So that's just my question for you.

Speaker 6 Does Marco go back and say, oh, God, I hated having to do that, but I guess, you know, I still think I'm there as VP. I could do some good.
Or he just goes back and just, that's okay.

Speaker 6 I did what I had to do. And now what's the next step I could do to get this job, right?

Speaker 4 Oh, yes. I'm

Speaker 4 adamant about this now because it's been nine years right and this was related to what i wrote about in the book in my interviews and much of what people told me in the interviews was like exactly what you'd expect right the one thing that actually surprised me when and it was only in the off the record ones was when and i wasn't talking to actual politicians but i was talking to their advisors when they would say to me

Speaker 4 You know, we just feel like that we've been given no choice but to do this because the media is so mean to us, because the never trumpers because my wife's friend calls me a racist now because i supported him and like like they all are so put upon they all are so victimized they all feel like such victims they've they've donned the cap of victimization and that builds over time and they surround themselves in a little net of people that also feel the same way that feel like victims and they only consume information that points out all the ways that their critics are disingenuous and it grows, and it grows, and the resentment grows.

Speaker 4 And I just, I think every sign I see of Marco Rubio is a man that has decided that the real bad people out there are the media that are asking him hard questions about his moral failings.

Speaker 4 Like, I think that that's what Marco has, I think, genuinely decided, that the bad people are those that are out to get him, and that he's on the side of the righteous, and that Trump might have some failings and some flaws.

Speaker 4 But, like, net net, you know, there'll be tax cuts, and Trump will do what he wants on Venezuela, and like, that's what matters. I think that's Marco's genuine view.

Speaker 4 Even if you got him just rip shit wasted, I'm pretty sure that's what he would say.

Speaker 6 Yeah, and he's allegedly a Ukraine hawk and was always, of course, very strong on

Speaker 6 that kind of Bush-McCain foreign policy and still sort of says he is sometimes, except it's no problem at all to serve Donald Trump, who's totally on the opposite side of that on the most important foreign policy issue of our day.

Speaker 4 And that's the one that I really can't decide whether they've rationalized it.

Speaker 4 I can't decide if they believe the talking point because their talking point on this is like, well, when Trump was actually, and if you look at the actual policy, right?

Speaker 4 Like, Trump was kind of tough on Russia, his words and Helsinki and the tweets.

Speaker 4 But like, obviously, we all know that, well, that's because there was a lot of the old bipartisan establishment was still doing his foreign policy, right? Like the actual nuts and bolts of it.

Speaker 4 And that's not going to be true the next time. So, like, does Marco know that? Or has he convinced himself of it?

Speaker 4 That's the one I don't know, whether he's bullshitting, whether he's convinced himself that like the Trump policies were really what mattered, not the bleats.

Speaker 6 the sophisticated sort of outside types who want jobs in the next Trump administration to be you know assistant secretary of state and so forth there's a new book out the Trump Reagan synthesis in foreign policy maybe you saw that and Peter Berkowitz had a problem about it yeah no I believe me yeah we had a good we had a good piece I tried to listen to a podcast with these two jokers and I could I only made it like eight minutes I was like I can't do it well Gabe Schenfeld had a good piece of the Vulwork Friday thing ripping it apart but I mean that's sort of how they if you're on the on the more on the you know council on foreign relations side of things or maybe not council on foreign relations but some think tank where you want to get a job, you rationalize it by inventing this mythical Trump-Reagan synthesis, which does seem to ignore the fact that Trump is hard over against helping Ukraine, which would be the single most Reagan-ite thing you could do.

Speaker 6 So I don't quite know how they, but I don't have the patience to read that stuff, so I don't even know how they try to rationalize that.

Speaker 6 But the psychological question, which you and JVL, we've all talked about a lot, is to say Andrea has this excellent piece on Rana.

Speaker 6 From my point of view, a tad too nice to her, but maybe she's right to do that for now in the sense of assuming that she's taking her a little more, a little literally when she says that now she can say what she meant before she sort of had to suck it up and not say what she meant.

Speaker 6 Whereas, does she even think about that? I don't know.

Speaker 4 I think Andrew is right. And I had a segment in the book about the people that rationalize based on team players.

Speaker 4 I think that it's true that Rana, like if Rana could have said whatever she wanted on January 6th, she would have said this is bad. And she did say that for one day.

Speaker 4 And so I think probably if she could have kept saying that, she would have. But the second it became politically untenable, obviously she flipped and she said exactly the opposite thing.

Speaker 4 And so, you know, I'm sure that there's some things that they think that Trump doesn't think that they're hedging on. But in the grand scheme, the point is: like, do they feel bad about it?

Speaker 4 Do they recognize the risk? Do they recognize the moral failings? Do they recognize the ethical? I don't think so. Okay, one person does.

Speaker 4 Lisa Murkowski. Let's just kind of take a deep breath and get some, not perfect, but a little bit of reality injected into the podcast.
Lisa Murkowski.

Speaker 10 I wish that

Speaker 10 as Republicans

Speaker 10 we had a nominee that

Speaker 10 I could get behind. I certainly can't get behind Donald Trump.

Speaker 11 Are you considering being an independent at this point?

Speaker 10 Oh, I think I'm very independent-minded.

Speaker 4 Officially, though, officially though.

Speaker 10 I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.

Speaker 11 You becoming an independent caucus with Republicans. Is that something you're open to?

Speaker 10 I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times.

Speaker 6 Let's just leave it at that.

Speaker 4 Okay, not as forceful as you would have wanted, but all right. Signs of life there.
Actually, before I take us to the dark place, Bill,

Speaker 4 do you have any thoughts on Lisa Murkowski?

Speaker 6 Yeah, no, I've so annoyed them all that I probably am slightly not, you know, it's much better what she said than obviously what 95% of her colleagues have said, which is she's saying she won't support Trump, which is not a little thing, and it allows probably some number of voters out there to sort of who know of her, not just in Alaska, and say, okay, you know, it's okay to be a traditional Republican and not support Trump.

Speaker 6 So just like with Mike Pence and with others, Romney, I think it's very good for each one, any Republican who's an elected official.

Speaker 4 And gathering them all together, I do think, you know, packaging it in an ads in the fall, et cetera, that will be good.

Speaker 6 I mean, I would be happier if she also internally had really moved beyond a little bit this, I'm sort of an independent-minded Republican stuff.

Speaker 6 If Trump wins, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins should caucus with the Democrats to prevent the Republicans from controlling the Senate.

Speaker 6 That for me would be a serious thing to prevent genuine damage to this country. Have they crossed? I mean, this is a question for you, Tim.
I mean, do you think they've even thought about that?

Speaker 6 Is that like, am I so far out there that this is like beyond?

Speaker 4 We are so deluded together, though.

Speaker 4 Like, we're just so on the same wavelength because that was literally going to be my question to you, but I decided I was like, let's talk in reality first before I get to the fantasy West Wing, you know, dark world where Donald Trump is president again.

Speaker 4 I don't know that it has crossed their mind, but I do think, and I've got some Lisa Murkowski people in my life, and for people that have Susan Collins people in their lives, I think starting to plant that seed is maybe not a bad thing.

Speaker 4 Because I think that if you look at reality, if the election in the fall just like kind of held to form, right?

Speaker 4 And like Trump wins a narrow, with Trump winning narrowly wouldn't held to form, but if the Senate held to form, right?

Speaker 4 Trump wins narrowly and Republicans only pick up Senate seats in the red states, West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana, where the Democrats have incumbents, they would have 52,

Speaker 4 right? Senators. And so I guess actually two flipping wouldn't solve it, right?

Speaker 6 Because it would still tester would have to hang on in Montana.

Speaker 6 Or Sheridan Van, Ohio. But I think that's possible.
You could go to 51.

Speaker 4 I think we're into pretty fantasy territory here, but they should the lady should start thinking. I don't think that they've started thinking about it, but they should.

Speaker 4 One day, I'm not losing with the football here. I don't have hope, but you know, maybe one day Susan Collins will prove me wrong.

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Speaker 4 All right, on the news of the day. So, Trump is in the courtroom.
I don't know if we've actually talked about this. I have kind of convinced myself that the Stormy Daniels case can harm Trump some.

Speaker 4 Sarah is on the opposite side of that. Where do you fall down?

Speaker 4 They're in court today on Monday. They're trying to delay the trial.
It was set for April. It was set for March, actually, but they delayed it till April, and now they're trying to delay it again.

Speaker 4 Where do you stand on kind of the existence of this trial and its political implications, if any?

Speaker 6 I've been very dubious that it could hurt Trump, but I also think, you know what, we don't know. Things are very unpredictable in this kind of era.

Speaker 6 Who knows what someone will say on the stand that Trump will react to and will get huge national coverage, and suddenly some number of people will have to face up to things that they didn't before.

Speaker 6 I used to be a little more like, I wish this weren't happening, and now I'm sort of, look, if it's going to happen, let's have it happen effectively and in a way that would damage Trump.

Speaker 6 But I'll just, maybe I'll just say one more thing. I was talking with someone on Friday, a smart guy who said, you know, I wonder if, does anyone know about the Eugene Carroll case?

Speaker 6 And my impression is is many people do not know about it. And his question was, what if people knew about that?

Speaker 6 I mean, he really was found liable for sexual assault in a civil case, granted, but still, the judge said it was the equivalent of rape.

Speaker 6 Would some number of voters kind of go, my God, I didn't really think it was that bad?

Speaker 6 I knew he boasted on that, you know, Access Hollywood tape, but he actually did what he boasted about, and then some. And it was a good point.

Speaker 6 I hadn't really thought about it, and I've sort of been a skeptic that any of this stuff would matter. And, you know, the kind of more personal stuff that's been litigated so many times, obviously.

Speaker 6 But I guess it made me think, I don't know, we don't know what affects different voters, right? I don't feel I know.

Speaker 6 Sarah probably knows much more than I do, but I don't feel I know what affects different voters. So I'm sort of neutral on the Bragg case.

Speaker 4 I guess this is kind of like a known unknown to do our rummy, but I've always been of the view that like it should be publicized more.

Speaker 4 I think that essentially what happened was the Access Hollywood tape comes out in fall of 2016, and then the Comey letter happens, right? And then Trump wins.

Speaker 4 And like this kind of conventional wisdom just congealed among the media, among Democrats, among Republicans, that voters did not care about Trump's comments on the Access Hollywood tape.

Speaker 4 And like, maybe that's true, but maybe it's not, right? Like Trump's numbers did go down right after that, and they went back up.

Speaker 4 And so the kind of result of that conventional wisdom congealing is that as new things popped up, even in the early Trump administration, this was, I would, I would call and rant at White House reporters or friends of mine that I was like, you know, there were new developments.

Speaker 4 There was a, because Trump had like 20-something accusers. Some reservos is one example.
I remember the Summer Zervos story.

Speaker 4 There were some developments early in 2017, and he wouldn't get asked about it.

Speaker 4 Like, they wouldn't ask about it, you know, because everybody had just kind of decided, well, whatever, people don't care about this. So we're going to move on.
It's old news.

Speaker 4 It's like, I don't know that it's old news necessarily.

Speaker 4 I mean, I think that people know he was a CAD, but if the details of these 20-some odd cases, and this Gene Carroll one, obviously being prime, you know, given recent developments, if there was a real concerted effort to remind and publicize people about that over the summer and the fall, might there not be some people that get turned?

Speaker 4 I just think that to say we know for sure that people don't care about that because of Access Hollywood is a fallacy.

Speaker 4 Like, I think that we actually saw after Access Hollywood, his numbers move, but they just move back the other way as the news environment changed.

Speaker 4 And there were a lot of other, I mean, there was certainly sexism involved in Hillary, and there are a lot of factors at play here. It wasn't like that was the only factor in the fall of 2016.

Speaker 4 So, anyway, the other Trump news item: he needs to come up with some cash. He's got to pay his bond.

Speaker 4 Meanwhile, JVL had a triad last week that everybody should listen to if you care about like the Trump social media company and the SPAC that funded it and the merger with the SPAC.

Speaker 4 It's pretty technical, but it's also just a wild story and totally worth your time. But the interesting element I want to pull up from that is this guy, Jeff Yass,

Speaker 4 who who is an investor in ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok.

Speaker 4 He was the guy that met with Trump and has put money into a pro-Trump super PAC and by all accounts got Trump to change his mind on the TikTok ban.

Speaker 4 Now the report is that his, out of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal this morning is that he also has invested in this merger, this merged company that has now taken control of Truth Social and Trump's various social media properties.

Speaker 4 So this is all as swampy as it gets, right? Like Trump needs an injection of cash, both personally and for his campaign.

Speaker 4 There's this billionaire guy that is in cahoots with the Chinese spyware app that is giving him money.

Speaker 4 Like there is so much more evidence here than anything that people have put forth in the Hunter Biden case, for example.

Speaker 4 I guess to ask you, is there hope that this will matter is kind of silly, but like this is something worth hitting him on, right? I mean,

Speaker 4 the Drain the Swamp thing is a central part of his case here.

Speaker 6 Yeah, that whole spec thing, if that's how you say it, is so corrupt. I I don't know if it's literally corrupt, but it's so corrupt in spirit.

Speaker 6 People are basically buying out, you know, saving Trump from the judgment that he owed. And God knows what they expect in return in a Trump second term, right? I mean, one can only imagine.

Speaker 6 And I guess this is my point. This is what drove me a little crazy over the weekend anyway, about my little thing this morning.
I mean, it's all happening in broad daylight.

Speaker 6 This isn't like SEC records and stuff. You know, the swamp metaphor, in a way, is a little misleading because now we're out of the swamp.

Speaker 6 I used to say, you know, it's going to take us a while to go down the path of war bonds, Hungary because because we're a very different country, courts, rule of law, and institutions and blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 6 I don't know. We're getting there pretty fast.
You know, it is all happening in broad daylight. And the corruption is beyond anything that one could have imagined, honestly, I would say personally.

Speaker 6 I think it is. I guess there's always some corruption, LBJ, Nixon, B.B.
Robozo. But I mean, we're at a level now.

Speaker 4 Magno was taking some cash, you know, some paper bag cash, but it wasn't like millions.

Speaker 6 10,000 bucks, if I'm not mistaken. Was it that or something? And he was forced to resign as vice president after they won a landslide victory.
That was a little bit more the rule of law. So, I mean,

Speaker 6 Trump is a real threat to the rule of law just as a candidate, let alone even as a second-term president. And he's getting away with a ton of stuff.

Speaker 6 And I don't know that he could be prosecuted for all of it. You'd go a little crazy, I guess, trying to call him out all of this.
And he has been prosecuted for a few things.

Speaker 6 But the degree to which we're further down the road than I would have hoped, God knows, in terms of undercutting and undermining the rule of law is is really what's striking to me.

Speaker 6 And incidentally, I don't know if you talked about this Friday, that piece in the New York Times on the Justice Department and Merrick Garland and the slowness with which they got the investigation going.

Speaker 6 That's another case where I also thought at the time, oh, look, it's good to have someone cautious in there and we have to reestablish normalcy. But I think I was just wrong.

Speaker 6 That gave him a year where they didn't investigate anything. They had this silly theory that they had to get the little fish to turn on the big fish, which was ludicrous in this case, right?

Speaker 4 It was all out in the open.

Speaker 6 It was all in the open. That's the thing.
It was all in the open. And it's all in broad daylight.
And now he's still 50-50 to be the next president.

Speaker 4 All right. We should end with that because it's a good final ramp up.
Anytime David Balsacks does something really stupid, I want to bring it up.

Speaker 4 This was the Ron DeSantis supporter who does the all-in podcast. He's a reactionary right-wing tech guy.
So there was a terror attack in Moscow. 137 people died.
ISIS takes credit for it.

Speaker 4 There's video of it. We have the four ISIS guys.

Speaker 4 Four of them have been apprehended we don't have them the Russians have them but they've been apprehended in Russia and here's uh here's David Balsacks' tweet about this if the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack as looks increasingly likely the U.S.

Speaker 4 must renounce it else we become complicit it's got 2.3 million views on Elon's site The seriousness of all this stuff seems to be really lost on these people, right?

Speaker 4 You know, like this is like my big takeaway from all of this is it's just like, now we just get to say whatever the hell we want and support Donald Trump.

Speaker 4 We have an idiot reality reality TV host that is going to be the president of the United States.

Speaker 4 And anything that we can do to troll the people that are actually serious and actually trying to solve problems is a win. And

Speaker 4 I can just go out there and throw out stuff like this and hope that there's going to be no repercussions when, like, there could be real repercussions for that, this kind of loose talk.

Speaker 6 Yeah. And I think of it this way, maybe in 2016, Paul Manaford had to conceal the fact that he was colluding with Putin and with the Russians and helping Trump.

Speaker 6 Now it's all, again, just as, you know, this guy is perfectly happy tweeting away his pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine lie defamation of, you know, the Ukraine was somewhat behind this.

Speaker 6 And he tweets it and 2.3 million people follow it. And no one on the right feels like, oh, I better condemn that.
Mike Gallagher isn't really worried about how, how could he say that?

Speaker 4 You know, has Ron DeSantis said anything about that? You know, again, it's like, oh, well, does Ron DeSantis condemn every supporter? I don't know.

Speaker 4 He announced his campaign on a Twitter space with this guy and Elon Musk.

Speaker 4 And Elon Musk is out there, you know, tweeting right replacement theory stuff, and this guy's tweeting conspiracies.

Speaker 4 Like, you, at some point, Ron DeSantis might want to say, hey, just for the record, like, I appreciated some of these guys' support, but some of these things are saying is really crazy, and we need to be more responsible.

Speaker 4 Like, that's what some of the governor of a major state might say in these situations, but no, okay.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 4 real men of courage, David Sachs, Mike Gallagher. We'll be back next week with more from Phil Crystal.
We are both aghast today.

Speaker 4 We have a banger coming for you tomorrow, so please make sure to check back on the podcast. We appreciate you all very much.
Bill, thanks for doing it. Thanks, Tim.

Speaker 4 We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullwork Podcast.

Speaker 6 Peace.

Speaker 6 Don't you forget I had the first such a thing.

Speaker 6 Stop blaming me.

Speaker 6 He wasn't made enough of me.

Speaker 6 You don't know, now here's your chance.

Speaker 6 I've already met your man. Do you wonder

Speaker 6 just where he's been?

Speaker 6 And I'll be worried about him then. And this time you know the truth.

Speaker 6 I think he's just meant for you.

Speaker 6 Do you know about us back then?

Speaker 6 Do you know I love your husband?

Speaker 6 Girlfriend.

Speaker 4 The Bullworth podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

Speaker 13 This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culturalists with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

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